they had a grand house in Belgrave Square-it was one of the first in the square to be equipped with electric light- and entertained very elaborately, but she hardly mentioned any of that. Or her husband. I wrote, of course, to let her know I was back, and she replied that she would love to bring Arthur to see us, and how sorry she was to hear about my mother.
'That was the last I heard from her, until I got her wire…'
He turned back to the portrait, wincing at some painful memory.
'Why on earth did she marry him in the first place?' cried Cordelia angrily.
'Because she was in love with him, I presume. He was handsome, and cultivated, and charming, as even Una-who attended the wedding only at my insistence-was forced to concede. And a most attentive husband- everybody agreed about that-'
'Uncle, will you
'My dear, you misunderstand me. I'm not defending him, I assure you, not in the least; only trying to show you how the marriage must have appeared in the eyes of the world. Even at the end.'
'I don't care what the world thought, I want to know what really happened. Why he never saw Papa again. Why Papa never once mentioned him. Uncle, have you all been hiding something you think is too horrible for me to hear? I'm twenty-one now, I'm a grown woman. Besides, it couldn't be worse than some of the things I've imagined.'
'Are you quite sure of that?' he asked quietly, his eyes still fixed upon the portrait. Something in his tone set her skin crawling again, though she tried not to show it, and for a little while neither of them spoke.
STRUGGLING TO RECONCILE HER ANGER AT THE WOMAN who had betrayed a true and faithful lover to marry for money (for surely she wouldn't have accepted de Vere if he'd been poor?) with the familiar face before her, Cordelia found that she simply could not do it. This woman-the Imogen the painter had seen and rendered with such compelling subtlety-was surely incapable of
'I see why you could not be angry with her,' she said at last.
'I am glad you see that, my dear. It is a true likeness. His name was Henry St Clair-the painter, I mean.'
'But you've always told me, uncle, that you didn't know who painted it.'
'I said it was by an unknown artist, which was, and remains, true. But yes, I equivocated. When your dear father died, I resolved not to burden you with anything of-of which we must now speak-until it became necessary to do so. But now you are indeed twenty-one, and a grown woman, the necessity is upon us.'
Once more he took counsel from the portrait.
'She met him-Henry St Clair-in a gallery in Bloomsbury. At a small exhibition of landscapes, including one of his, which she happened to be admiring while he was there. This is what she told me, you understand, on the one day we spoke of it. She described him very vividly: freckled and wind-burnt from a recent sketching tour-on foot, sleeping under trees; he couldn't afford so much as a bed in a village inn-slender, with one of those fresh, boyish faces that makes a man look years younger than he really is, brown eyes, curly brown hair which he wore quite long-a sort of animated brown study, she said, because he was wearing a brown velveteen jacket, somewhat paint-stained, and brown corduroy trousers.
'She bought the picture; they left the gallery together, and walked all the way up to the Heath, where they sat and talked for hours. That first afternoon, she said, was like emerging from a dark cavern into sunlight; there was a radiance about his personality… you needn't frown for my sake, my dear; I encouraged her to speak freely. He warned her that he was constitutionally vulnerable to melancholia, but throughout the time she knew him, he remained in this sunny, upland mood. And if it hadn't ended so appallingly, I would have been simply glad, I assure you… but I must not run ahead of myself.
'He had his studio above a restaurant in one of the back streets of Soho; I believe the family who ran it spoke almost no English. He told her he liked being surrounded by people talking in languages he couldn't understand; he found the noise of the kitchen cheering, and could eat downstairs for practically nothing. And after years of living hand to mouth, a modest legacy from a remote relative had-or so he assured her-lately freed him from the daily struggle for survival.
'The picture she bought-for two guineas; he would accept no more than the gallery's asking-price-was the first he had ever sold. He had been in London for several years, working relentlessly at his painting whenever he was not out earning his living (work, he said, had always been the best anodyne for his melancholia), never satisfied with what he produced, always striving to surpass himself. He had exhibited canvases before, during fits of enthusiasm, but had always removed them when the inevitable darkening of his mood followed, and his tendency towards merciless self-criticism regained the upper hand. But their-friendship was the word she insisted upon-their friendship, and the reprieve it brought from his despondency, gave him the impetus to work towards an exhibition of his own, and to begin the portrait you see before you.
'He had worked at portraiture as hard as he had worked at his landscapes, using various members of the restaurant-keeper's family for models, but every attempt before this had been painted over or scraped out. At first she worried about his devoting so much time to the picture, which obviously couldn't be shown. She came to his studio as often as she could, whenever her husband was-as she thought-safely occupied in the City. But as the weeks passed, she watched him becoming calmer, more confident, more assured, until, she said, the subtle transformation taking place in him became as absorbing as the progress of the portrait itself. Whilst he was working, they hardly exchanged a word, but those days of silent communion were, she said, amongst the happiest of her life-'
'It was not fair of her to say such things, to you of all people!' said Cordelia.
'Very little in life is fair. What Imogen Ward was to me, Henry St Clair was to her. We don't choose such attachments, my dear; they choose us. She came to me at the worst moment of her life; that was reward enough. I wanted, above all, to understand. And as you will shortly realise, there were things it was necessary for me to know.
'As to her relations with her husband; there was much that she withheld, but the truth was plain enough. Ruthven de Vere was not-or had not been-a cruel or negligent husband; on the contrary, he took enormous pride in her appearance; but there was an essential coldness at the heart of his regard; he valued her as a collector would value a rare and precious stone.
'It was clear that she had ceased to love him, and that matters between them had come to a crisis, long before she met Henry St Clair. De Vere, you see, had been her fathers protege in the City. Horace Ward trusted him entirely, and so the terms of the marriage settlement allowed him to do more or less what he liked with Imogen's fortune, and, a few years later, with everything that came to her under the terms of her fathers will. De Vere had always allowed her whatever she asked, but in such a way that almost everything she had ever bought was, at law, his property, even her clothes and jewels, as she discovered when she first asked him for a separation. If she left him, he assured her, she would leave with neither her money nor her son-in whom de Vere took very little interest; he seemed, she said, quite devoid of fatherly feeling, which made the threat even worse. And so she stayed.
'Until the day she met Henry St Clair, she had gone on playing her part with a sort of compliant indifference, waiting until Arthur would be old enough for her to leave. But from that day forward, she was playing for her life. When she was with St Clair, she never thought beyond the moment; away from him, her mind swarmed uncontrollably with plans, imaginings, hopes, longings, fears. Yet outwardly, as she knew from the compliments of her acquaintances, she had never looked more serene.
'Her husband, as she thought, suspected nothing. It was, she said, like tiptoeing around a sleeping gaoler, day after day, always managing to creep back into her cell before he stirred. Everything, she felt, must wait upon the completion of the portrait. Throughout that spring and summer, she was sustained by the conviction that if only St Clair could finish the picture before they were discovered, all would be well.
'In September, she was obliged to go away with her husband for a fortnight at some great country house. The day after their return to town-it was a Sunday, but she could wait no longer-she slipped away to the studio, where she found Henry St Clair contemplating the finished portrait. She was standing before the picture, with his arm
