The Darkest Hour. Barbara Erskine

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ The walls were curtained with wisteria and roses.

      Groping in his pocket Michael Marston produced a key-ring and inserted one of the keys into the door. He moved aside and waved her in ahead of him. She stepped over the threshold with bated breath instantly forgetting him as she took in the large high-ceilinged room in which she found herself. Though Evelyn had been dead for many years it was as if she had just walked out for a few minutes. Her brushes and palette knives were lying on the table near her easel with a selection of squeezed tubes of oil paint. As Lucy took a step or two closer she saw that they were dried up and split, but she could still smell the linseed oil, the turpentine. She squinted at the painting on the easel and realised with sudden disappointment that it was a print of one of Evelyn’s best-known works, the one which currently hung in Tate Britain. Slowly she began to walk round the room. On the large paint-stained wooden table several sketchbooks lay open. She went closer to look. Two of the walls were lined with shelves still laden with tins and boxes and rolls of paper. Several canvasses were stacked against one wall and more paintings hung on the other walls.

      ‘None of them are originals, I’m afraid.’ Michael Marston’s voice came from the doorway. She had actually forgotten he was there.

      She turned towards him. ‘It is wonderful. It still retains so much atmosphere. As if she had just this minute left.’

      He gave a faint smile. He had loosened his tie, she noticed, and undone the top button of his shirt. It made him look marginally more relaxed. ‘She was like that. She had a powerful personality.’

      ‘Do you remember her?’

      He nodded. ‘Very well!’

      ‘You must miss her.’

      ‘It would be strange if I didn’t. She was my grandmother.’ He folded his arms. ‘If you’ve seen enough –’ He was clearly impatient for her to go.

      She felt a pang of dismay. Not already. She hadn’t seen nearly enough. She gave him a faint smile. ‘Of course, I’m sorry. I’ll leave now.’ She paused for a moment, wondering if she dare ask if she could take some photos or even if she could come again. ‘I don’t suppose,’ she hesitated again. ‘I don’t suppose I could come back some other time when it is more convenient?’

      He was heading for the door. She had a fraction of a second to make up her mind, to tell him now honestly why she was there. She had to tell him something if she wanted his co-operation but was now, when he was tired and impatient, the time to speak to him? He had turned back and was watching her, she realised, a spark of interest in his gaze for the first time.

      ‘Could I explain why I’m here?’ she said at last. ‘There is a specific reason for my interest. I know you want me out of your hair. It will only take a minute, I promise.’ She hoped she didn’t sound as though she was wheedling.

      He leaned against the doorframe, his arms still folded. ‘Go on.’

      ‘I am an art historian by training. I am particularly interested in women war artists. People like Dame Laura Knight, Dorothy Coke, Mary Kessell and, of course, Evelyn Lucas. She was special because she came from Sussex and she was here during the Battle of Britain, and of course most if not all of the artists who painted the action were men; I’m compiling a catalogue of her work and I would love to find out more about her. I want to write a book about her.’ She fell silent, watching his face.

      ‘You’re working on your PhD?’

      He sounded faintly patronising.

      She smiled. ‘I have my PhD.’

      She felt an altogether unworthy flicker of triumph as he acknowledged his mistake with a slight nod of the head.

      ‘This is a project for a full-length biography,’ she added.

      He said nothing for a while, frowning, then, ‘My grandmother was a very private person. She didn’t want people poking into her personal affairs.’

      ‘I can understand that.’ Lucy dropped her bag at her feet and perched on the edge of the table. She leaned forward slightly, unaware that the open-necked shirt with its rolled-up sleeves was alluring in its own understated way, as was the eagerness in her expression. ‘But would she mind now? After all, your father opened this place to the public. He can’t have thought she would object all that much or he wouldn’t have done that, would he?’

      ‘True.’ He shifted slightly. ‘I took the decision to close it because I valued my privacy. I’m more like her than my father was. Besides, he never lived here full time. That was why she left it to me. He kept an eye on it, and, yes, allowed people here, but after he died I decided to use it as a weekend cottage. I didn’t want strangers here any more.’

      ‘I wouldn’t get in your way.’

      He was watching her. He looked distinctly uncomfortable. ‘Are you a painter yourself?’ he asked eventually.

      She shook her head. ‘I’m a writer. A historian. My husband and I run, ran, an art gallery in Chichester.’

      ‘Ran?’ He had noticed the change of tense.

      ‘I suppose I still do. He was killed in a car crash three months ago.’

      She was surprised to find she could say it without faltering.

      ‘I’m sorry.’ He pushed himself away from the door and seizing his tie, pulled it off. ‘So you haven’t come a long way after all.’

      ‘I didn’t actually say I had,’ she remonstrated gently.

      He gave a wry smile. ‘No, you didn’t. Sorry. You had better come inside the house.’ He was coiling the tie round his fist. Turning, he led the way out into the garden.

      Picking up her bag she followed him and waited while he locked the door behind them. As they retraced their steps into the cottage and through the living room Lucy smiled at him uncomfortably.

      ‘I am really sorry to have intruded on your afternoon off. I was going to write to you once I had spoken to Mrs Davis and seen the studio.’

      He dumped the tie on the bookshelf. The room had a homely, old-fashioned feel; at a guess, there was no woman in his life apart from the doubty Mrs Davis.

      ‘And you were hoping, presumably, that I will have lots of information about Evie to fill out your project for you.’

      She pulled a face. ‘I’m not asking you to write it for me, but obviously I would be very grateful for any pointers. As I said, apart from old exhibition catalogues there doesn’t seem to be much out there. Even the Tate doesn’t appear to know anything beyond her dates.’

      ‘Perhaps it is a pointless exercise. Perhaps there is nothing.’

      ‘There has to be something.’ She heard a hint of desperation in her own voice. Its intensity surprised her. ‘Her paintings must have a history behind them. The Battle of Britain series is iconic. The pictures of the airfield at Westhampnett, the Spitfires. Not really a woman’s subject.’

      ‘Ah well, that’s easily explained. Her brother, Ralph,’ he pronounced it Rafe, ‘my great-uncle, was a fighter pilot in a Spitfire squadron.’

      ‘I see. I didn’t know even that.’ СКАЧАТЬ