‘Thank you for your concern.’
‘Perhaps I could take you somewhere for some refreshment. I have rooms nearby and a very understanding landlady.’
I could see at once the sort of refreshment he desired. ‘No, thank you. I don’t wish to detain you from your evening.’
He came closer then and laid one hand upon my waist, sliding it around my back and pulling me towards him. With his other hand, he took two gold coins from his pocket, holding them up between his fingers. ‘I promise to make it worth your while.’
I met his eyes and did not look away. ‘As I said, Mr Holmes, I would prefer to get some air.’
‘As you wish.’ He took off his top hat and gave a quick nod. ‘Goodnight, Miss Millington. Until we meet again.’
The interaction was unpleasant, and yet I had matters of more importance on my mind. I had no wish to return yet to Mrs Mack, and so, with care not to attract Martin’s attention, I went instead to the only place that I could think to go.
If Pale Joe was surprised to see me, his reaction was mild: he set the bookmark on his page and closed the cover. We had spoken with much anticipation about the unveiling of the painting and he turned now to receive my triumphant story. Instead, as soon as I opened my mouth to speak, I began to cry – I who had not cried since the first morning that I woke up at Mrs Mack’s house without my father.
‘What is it?’ he said with some alarm. ‘What has happened? Has somebody hurt you?’
I told him no, that it was nothing like that. That I was not even certain myself why I was crying.
‘Then you must start at the beginning and describe everything. That way, maybe I will be able to tell you why you are crying.’
So I did. I told him first about the painting: the way I had stood before it and felt shy of myself. The way the image that Edward had created in that glass-roofed studio of his was so much more than I was. That it was radiant; that it swept away all of the petty concerns of daily life; that it captured vulnerability and hope and the woman beneath the artifice.
‘Then you are crying because the beauty of the artwork overwhelmed you.’
To which I shook my head, because I knew that was not it.
I told him then about the tall handsome man who had come to stand beside me, and the pretty woman, with her honey-coloured hair and neat mouth, and the things that they had said and the way that they had laughed.
Pale Joe sighed then and nodded. ‘You are crying because the woman said unkind things about you.’
To which I shook my head again, because I had never cared for the good opinion of those I did not know.
I told him then that as I had listened to them I had become vividly conscious of the gaudy dress that Mrs Mack had procured for me. That I had at first thought it extraordinary – the crushed velvet fabric, the delicate trim of lace around the décolletage – but that I had realised suddenly that it was garish and over-bright.
Pale Joe frowned. ‘I know you are not crying because you wished for a different dress.’
I agreed with him that the dress was not the matter; rather, that in that particular room, I had realised myself to be garish and over-bright, and I had become overwhelmed with sudden anger at Edward. I had trusted him, but he had betrayed me, had he not? He had made me feel at home in his company, in his world, flattered me with his absolute attention – those deep, dark watchful eyes, the clench of his jawline when he concentrated, the hint of need – for surely, I had not imagined it? – only to embarrass me in a room filled with people who were not like me at all; who could see at once that I was not like them. When he invited me to attend as his guest I had thought – well, I had misunderstood. And of course there was a fiancée, that pretty woman with neat features and fine clothing. He should have told me, allowed me to prepare, to arrive on proper terms. He had tricked me and I never wanted to see him again.
Pale Joe was looking at me with a fond, sad expression, and I knew what he was going to say. That the charge was unfair. That I had been a fool and the mistake was all mine, for Edward owed me nothing. I had been engaged and paid to perform a task: to pose as his model for a painting he wished to exhibit at the Royal Academy.
But Pale Joe said none of those things. Instead he put his arms around me and said, ‘My poor Birdie. You are crying because you are in love.’
After leaving Pale Joe, I hurried through the dark streets of Covent Garden, thick with ruddy-cheeked men spilling out of supper clubs and drunken songs drifting upstairs from basement rooms, cigar smoke mingling with the leftover smells of animals and rotting fruit.
My long skirts shushed along the cobblestones and as I turned into Little White Lion Street, I glanced skyward and glimpsed the hazy moon between buildings; not the stars, though, for the grey smog of London sat too heavy. I let myself in the front door of the shop selling birds and cages, careful not to wake the winged creatures asleep beneath their shrouds, and then tiptoed up the stairs. As I passed the doorway to the kitchen a voice from the dark said, ‘Well, well, look what the cat dragged in.’
I saw then that Martin was sitting at the table, a gin bottle open in front of him. A dull wedge of moonlight fell through the crooked window, and one side of his face disappeared into shadow.
‘Think you’re clever, don’t you, giving me the run-around? I lost a night waiting for you. I couldn’t work the theatre alone so I wasted my time under Nelson’s bloody Column watching the toffs come and go. What am I going to tell Ma and the Captain when they want to know why I haven’t brought home the coin what they was promised, eh?’
‘I have never asked you to wait for me, Martin, and I would be very pleased if you would promise not to do so any more.’
‘Oh, you’d be pleased, would you?’ He laughed, but the sound was parched. ‘You’d be pleased indeed. Aren’t you the proper little lady now.’ He pushed his chair back suddenly and came to where I was standing in the doorway. He took my face by the chin and I felt his breath, warm on my neck, as he said, ‘You know the very first thing my ma said to me when you came to live with us? She sent me upstairs where you was sleeping and she said, “Go and have a look at your pretty new sister, Martin. She’s going to need a close eye kept on her. You mark my words, we’re going to have to watch her close.” And my ma was right. I see the way they look at you, those men. I know what they’re thinking.’
I was too tired for a petty argument and one that we’d already had a number of times before. I was eager to get upstairs where I could be alone in my bedroom to reflect on the things that Pale Joe had said. Martin was leering at me and I felt repulsed, but I was sorry for him, too, for he was a man whose palette was empty of colour. The boundaries of his life had been drawn narrow when he was a boy and they had never been extended. As his grip continued firm on my face, I said softly, ‘You need not worry, Martin. The painting is finished now. I am home. The world has been set to rights.’
Perhaps he had been expecting me to argue, for he swallowed whatever it was that he had been preparing to say next. He blinked slowly and then nodded. ‘Well, don’t you forget it,’ he said, ‘don’t you forget that you belong here with us. You’re not one of them, no matter what my ma might tell you when she’s sniffing after artists’ gold. That’s just for show, right? You’ll get hurt if you forget it, and you’ll only have yourself to blame.’