Elsa said:
‘He won’t come up to lunch.’
Privately I thought he was wise. I said:
‘So long, then.’
He moved his eyes from the picture until they rested on me. There was a queer-how shall I describe it-it looked like malevolence. A kind of malevolent glare.
Naturally I didn’t understand it then-if his picture wasn’t going as he liked he often looked quite murderous. I thoughtthat was what it was. He made a sort of grunting sound.
Neither Elsa nor I saw anything unusual in him-just artistic temperament.
So we left him there and she and I went up to the house laughing and talking. If she’d known, poor child, that she’d never see him alive again…Oh, well, thank God she didn’t. She was able to be happy a little longer.
Caroline was quite normal at lunch-a little preoccupied; nothing more. And doesn’t that show that she had nothing to do with it? She couldn’t have been such an actress.
She and the governess went down afterwards and found him. I met Miss Williams as she came up. She told me to telephone a doctor and went back to Caroline.
That poor child-Elsa, I mean! She had that frantic unrestrained grief that a child has. They can’t believe that life can do these things to them. Caroline was quite calm. Yes, she was quite calm. She was able, of course, to control herself better than Elsa. She didn’t seem remorseful-then. Just said he must have done it himself. And we couldn’t believe that. Elsa burst out and accused her to her face.
Of course she may have realized, already, that she herself would be suspected. Yes, that probably explains her manner.
Philip was quite convinced that shehad done it.
The governess was a great help and standby. She made Elsa lie down and gave her a sedative, and she kept Angela out of the way when the police came. Yes, she was a tower of strength, that woman.
The whole thing became a nightmare. The police searching the house and asking questions, and then the reporters, swarming about the place like flies and clicking cameras and wanting interviews with members of the family.
A nightmare, the whole thing…
It’s a nightmare, after all these years. Please God, once you’ve convinced little Carla what really happened, we can forget it all and never remember it again.
Amyas must have committed suicide-however unlikely it seems.
Narrative of Lady Dittisham
I have set down here the full story of my meeting with Amyas Crale, up to the time of his tragic death.
I saw him first at a studio party. He was standing, I remember, by a window, and I saw him as I came in at the door. I asked who he was. Someone said: ‘That’s Crale, the painter.’ I said at once that I’d like to meet him.
We talked on that occasion for perhaps ten minutes. When any one makes the impression on you that Amyas Crale made on me, it’s hopeless to attempt to describe them. If I say that when I saw Amyas Crale, everybody else seemed to grow very small and fade away, that expresses it as well as anything can.
Immediately after that meeting I went to look at as many of his pictures as I could. He had a show on in Bond Street at the moment, and there was one of his pictures in Manchester and one in Leeds and two in public galleries in London. I went to see them all. Then I met him again. I said: ‘I’ve been to see all your pictures. I think they’re wonderful.’
He just looked amused. He said:
‘Who said you were any judge of painting? I don’t believe you know anything about it.’
I said: ‘Perhaps not. But they are marvellous, all the same.’
He grinned at me and said: ‘Don’t be a gushing little fool.’
I said: ‘I’m not. I want you to paint me.’
Crale said: ‘If you’ve any sense at all, you’ll realize that I don’t paint portraits of pretty women.’
I said: ‘It needn’t be a portrait and I’m not a pretty woman.’
He looked at me then as though he’d begun to see me. He said: ‘No, perhaps you’re not.’
I said: ‘Will you paint me then?’
He studied me for some time with his head on one side. Then he said: ‘You’re a strnage child, aren’t you?’
I said: ‘I’m quite rich, you know. I can afford to pay well for it.’
He said: ‘Why are you so anxious for me to paint you?’
I said: ‘Because I want it!’
He said: ‘Is that a reason?’
And I said: ‘Yes, I always get what I want.’
He said then: ‘Oh, my poor child, how young you are!’
I said: ‘Will you paint me?’
He took me by the shoulders and turned me towards the light and looked me over. Then he stood away from me a little. I stood quite still, waiting.
He said: ‘I’ve sometimes wanted to paint a flight of impossibly-coloured Australian Maccaws alighting on St Paul’s Cathedral. If I painted you against a nice traditional bit of outdoor landscape, I believe I’d get exactly the same result.’
I said: ‘Then you will paint me?’
He said: ‘You’re one of the loveliest, crudest, most flamboyant bits of exotic colouring I’ve ever seen. I’ll paint you!’
I said: ‘Then that’s settled.’
He went on: ‘But I’ll warn you, Elsa Greer. If I do paint you, I shall probably make love to you.’
I said: ‘I hope you will…’
I said it quite steadily and quietly. I heard him catch his breath, and I saw the look that came into his eyes.
You see, it was as sudden as all that.
A day or two later we met again. He told me that he wanted me to come down to Devonshire-he’d got the very place there that he wanted for a background. He said:
‘I’m married, you know. And I’m very fond of my wife.’
I said if he was fond of her she must be very nice.
He said she was extremely nice. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘she’s quite adorable-and I adore her. So put that in your pipe, young Elsa, and smoke it.’
I told him that I quite understood.
He began the picture a week later. Caroline Crale welcomed me very pleasantly. She didn’t like me much-but, after all, why should she? Amyas was very circumspect. He never said a word to me that his wife couldn’t have overheard, and I was quite polite and formal to him. Underneath, though, we both knew.
After ten days he told me I was to go back to London.
