A painting rests in the corner of the framer’s front window. The rough, thick-red background strikes her with a masculine force, bold and dramatic. Then the halos: delicate, flowing with spirit and searching, moving through the piece, radiant in yellow, clench her heart.
‘It’s his. Isn’t it, sister?’ Verity asks.
‘Yes, yes. Of course it is. It bloody well is his.’
‘Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you have ever beheld?’ Verity asks.
‘Perfect, absolutely perfect.’
‘You must speak with the owner. Don’t weep!’ She pushes Constance forward. ‘It was a gift from his daughter, he says it’s not for sale. Go on, you try.’
They learned it was purchased from the South London Gallery. Oddly, there is no signature, and when the framer’s daughter questioned the gallery’s director she was surprised to learn that the artist wished to remain anonymous. And no, the framer would never sell it; though she didn’t pay a fortune for it, it was the first gift his daughter had ever given him.
Later that night the sisters plot with a new focus on museums, galleries, and bohemian enclaves. It’s not that they had failed to haunt the creative spaces of London; rather, they failed to seek the obvious. They will hurl a new, studious eye to his nine years of paintings, which embellish every room of Lawless House.
The sisters are still awake when the moon disappears and gives way to dawn.
‘I will never let you down again,’ Constance says.
‘Nor I you, sister.’
The creatures that crawl through their garden slink back into the overgrowth and hide from the weak, winter sun. The blackbirds warble warnings that things are shifting at Lawless House.
LONDON
1978
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
The breath of stall workers rises in the five o’clock dark of a Saturday morning at Camden Lock. They orchestrate their pitches and the covers won’t come down until midnight. The hour reminds Willa of her life before the advent of electricity, when she rose before dawn to light the fires and draw water. She luxuriates in electricity, it is her favourite invention.
Standing apart from her stall, she worries over the grubby hands that handle her garments, for she’s not allowed to interfere. The workers have no clue that the fine treasures they handle are hers. An underground man through and through, Finn keeps Willa out of the public eye.
Since Jonesy’s death Willa suffers dark spells that come in ferocious waves. Two years ago Rafe and Finn devised a plan to get her out of the house, to give her some relief from Clovis. They encouraged her to go through the trunks of clothing she had collected over the years and select enough for a stall at an emerging north London market.
‘Every other table is full of junk, Willa. They’re selling rags compared to your collection,’ Finn told her. ‘Trust me on this.’
Finn was right. Willa had begun by selecting a box full of decades-old clothing. She had then rummaged around until she found the frock she wanted to sell more than any other, Clovis’s white, satin dress with the pretty black doves, the same one that had lit up the dreary orphaned girls’ asylum on that fateful day. Still pristine, the costumiers for film and television who scour the market fought over that dress. Two hundred pounds it brought – an outrageous amount. Willa perked up.
Scattered amongst the originals, Willa includes her one-offs. A Georgian petticoat, to which she added patches of Victorian lace, a bustier made of denim and old silk trimmed with buttons made of carved bone. Odd combinations, wholly unique and hand-sewn in the hours when she cannot sleep. Everyone wants to know the face behind these creations.
That she receives no recognition, no acclaim, no acknowledgement of her talent worried Finn. So he gave her the same ‘anonymous lecture’ he gave Rafe when his current tutor itched to publicly thrust Rafe into the art scene. But Willa put him at ease right away. ‘Finn,’ she said, ‘I’ve been anonymous since 1832. I’m not likely to catch the fame bug now.’
When the market opens, people queue to view her stall. By noon, the goats are roasting, and a steady flow of cash changes hands at Willa’s stall. Everyone is in a jolly mood today, except Willa, who is concerned with other matters. Something she overheard on the bus yesterday; two words that won’t leave her. Stockholm Syndrome. A woman in the seat in front of her said to her friend, ‘It’s a psychological phenomenon.’ The woman went on about ‘captives’ and ‘captors’, about how the captive sometimes has positive feelings towards their captor. A famous American heiress was mentioned.
When Willa feels particularly low, words become confusing and she shuts herself in her room and reads A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson, which oddly pacifies her. But last night she didn’t find the disturbing words she’d heard in the old dictionary, so today she slips away from the market to the high street towards Mornington Crescent and the library.
Willa settles into a chair with her lap full of psychology books. The case histories she reads make her light-headed when she recognizes herself in them. She feels so nauseous that for a moment she fears she may be getting the long sleep, though it is not her time. A realization sends her staggering to the lavatory where she throws up her anxieties. She splashes cold water on her face, then wipes her mouth and drinks from the tap with her head in the sink.
Clarity comes. She knew. Clovis knew that I was particularly susceptible. And I let her take me. She plucked me from that place like a ripe piece of fruit. I willingly became her captive. I am like one of Jonesy’s puppets.
The revelation that long ago she had been targeted for her weaknesses fills her throat until she fears another bilious attack. In the cracked sliver of a mirror above the sink she forces
