The Elsingham Portrait

The Elsingham Portrait - By Elizabeth Chater

One

Kathryn Hendrix entered the fashionable restaurant at exactly noon. Donald had said “about twelve,” but she had a horror of being late for a treat which had been drilled into her during her lonely childhood at boarding school. She went directly to the Ladies’ Lounge, aware of the eyes of the cloakroom attendant and the maître d’ staring after her, assessing the value of her four-year-old tweed suit and the matching coat from which she had removed the matted fur collar.

In the scented warmth of the lounge Kathryn checked her general appearance and her make-up. She looked neat but not striking, she decided; both her training and her own preference made her conservative.

“This is what he will see across the table in a few minutes,” she thought anxiously. A tall girl, thin, with good bones; the face narrow—well-bred but not beautiful. She frowned. The new hat she had recklessly purchased yesterday, to be worn for this luncheon, suddenly seemed wrong with the tweed coat—too bright, too frivolous. It had been an extravagance, but she had been sure that Don was going to make a formal proposal today, and Kathryn felt she could not bear to be proposed to in a brown felt hat that was two years old. So what if she had to do without desserts for a while? How often does a girl get an offer of marriage? She rallied her courage as she pulled the silly hat further to one side of her heavy knot of hair. Don was always telling her to get it cut, but she had a secret image of it covered by a soft white veil, and, later, of its shining dark length falling richly over a satin negligee. . . . No, she really didn’t want to cut it. It was her one beauty.

She felt a thrill at the thought of marrying Don. She’d met him at a large party given by one of her old school friends. When he heard her name, he had seemed interested. That evening, he had asked her to go to an art show with him. In the next few weeks they had several dates, usually for concerts or opening nights of Broadway shows where they’d be sure to see “the right people.” Don often explained to Kathryn how important it was for him to meet the right people.

He’d talked about marriage several times, but never definitely asked her. Kathryn understood that many young men didn’t make formal declarations—just took it for granted that the woman of their choice would be willing. Donald had mentioned how valuable a prudent marriage to a woman of good connections could be for a man. Kathryn, incurably honest, warned him that her father’s cousins had never paid much attention to her. In fact, since the death of both her parents in a car accident, she had hardly seen the wealthy, socially prominent branch of the Hendrix family. Don laughed and told her that what she really needed was someone with finesse to teach her how to get on in the world. He was always talking about ways to get on in the world. It made her a little embarrassed sometimes. Still, perhaps he was right. He had certainly made an unusual success of his own work. Kathryn knew nothing about the brokerage business, but Don’s salary was many times what she herself earned in her secure, if unexciting, job in the library.

She glanced at her watch, then, startled, looked again. She’d been in the lounge fifteen minutes! She hurried out into the lobby, hastily checking the people who were standing waiting for a table. Only a few people had braved the cold, blustery November day. Don wasn’t among them.

At twelve-thirty, Kathryn was the only person left standing in the lobby. The maîtré d’ approached her. “You are waiting for someone, madame?”

“Mr. Donald Madson,” Kathryn tried to put confidence in her voice. “Obviously he’s been delayed. Has he reserved a table?”

He hadn’t. “Perhaps madame would care to be seated until her escort arrives?”

“Oh, yes,” said Kathryn thankfully.

He led her to a small table near the wall. It occurred to Kathryn that perhaps he just wanted her shabby coat out of his elegant lobby. She tried to concentrate on the menu, but her eyes kept straying to the entrance in the hope of seeing Don’s trim figure. Twice a waiter came to take her order. The second time there was something in his manner which Kathryn found offensive. She had noticed a phone jack on the wall.

“Please bring me a telephone,” she asked. The waiter did so and, to her discomfort, lingered nearby. She called Don’s office.

The familiar voice of the receptionist sounded. “Barweed and Stone, Investments. May I help you?”

“Let me speak to Mr. Madson, please,” Kathryn said.

“I’m sorr-ee, Mr. Madson is in conference.”

“I must speak to—” Kathryn began.

The line went dead.

With the waiter’s eyes upon her she dialed again, her fingers clumsy with nervousness and anger.

“Barweed and Stone, Investments. May I help you?”

“This is Miss Hendrix. Mr. Madson arranged to meet me for lunch at the Rive Gauche. I’ve been waiting an hour. Has something happened to delay him?”

Now it would be all right. The silly girl would remember that Donald had asked her to phone and tell Miss Hendrix he’d be delayed.

“I’m sorr-ee. Mr. Madson left an hour ago with a client. He didn’t say where he was going. May I take a message?”

Kathryn replaced the receiver on its cradle slowly. Get out of here quickly, her mind urged. How could Don do this to me! her heart protested. Humiliation and anger churned like opposing tides, confusing her thinking.

“M’sieu has been delayed?” smirked the waiter.

Somehow Kathryn managed to gather up her gloves and handbag, push back the chair and walk to the door. She knew that everyone in the small, glittering room was staring at her, commenting, amused or perhaps pitying.

Out on the busy street she looked again at her watch. Even if she walked back to the library, she’d be in plenty of time for work . . . . Then her whole body rebelled. She’d hinted about the purpose of this date to her superior in arranging for an extra hour off; she’d been coy and mysterious with her fellow-workers, answering their interested inquiries about the new—and unsuitable!—hat. She could not face their curiosity. Physically sick with disappointment, Kathryn boarded a bus that went in the opposite direction to the library.

The bus wasn’t crowded. Kathryn took a seat beside a window on the left-hand side of the bus. The vehicle jerked and swayed its way along beside the curb. Kathryn stared, unseeing, at the passing traffic, her mind drearily shuffling through the possible explanations for Don’s conduct.

Suddenly her eye was caught by the scarlet flare of a small elegant foreign car. A red light was momentarily holding the open car beside the bus. Driving it, dressed in matching scarlet, was a laughing, dark-haired girl, an exotic little creature whose gloved hands were competent on the wheel. She was turned in Kathryn’s direction as she made some laughing comment to the man seated beside her. The man—

It was Don!

Kathryn could not mistake the small, compact body, the dark hair sleekly waved, the small ears set so neatly against the head. She had been seeing that face in her romantic visions for months. Involuntarily Kathryn beat her fist against the window of the bus in a gesture part greeting, part challenge.

“Don!” she called, and rapped sharply on the windowpane to get his attention. “Don! It’s me, Kathryn!”

The girl driving the car glanced up, caught perhaps by the flash of movement of Kathryn’s hand. Her eyes, big and dark, rested for a moment on Kathryn’s face, then returned to the street. The red light had changed to green. As Kathryn watched, the girl made some remark and gestured toward the bus. Don flashed one quick glance over his shoulder, turned back, and shrugged. The red car shot away. The bus lumbered after it like a wallowing sea cow.

Kathryn fell back against the seat. At her shoulder, a fat woman breathing chili and garlic made a comment. “Somebody you knew? Prob’ly couldn’t hear you, what with all the traffic.”

Unable to find words to answer, Kathryn got up and pushed blindly past the well-intentioned woman. She had to get out now. She felt that everyone in the bus was speculating on her behavior, perhaps laughing at her. She reached the front entrance and waited for the bus to stop at the next light. The driver didn’t open the door.

“Out!” Kathryn said sharply.

The driver grunted and swung the door open. Kathryn stumbled to the curb and began to walk along the street. Boisterous gusts of wind whipped at her, battered and jostled her, caught the tears that were flowing down her cheeks. Don’s client, the person who had been even more important than a date made with Kathryn, was a beautiful girl—young, poised, obviously wealthy. She has everything, Kathryn thought miserably, while I had only—Don . . .

To escape the buffeting wind, Kathryn turned almost blindly into a side street. The district was unfamiliar to her—but the more unfamiliar, the better. Here in this rather dingy neighborhood she would not be likely to meet anyone she knew—anyone who would wonder why Kathryn Hendrix was crying on the street in broad daylight. She walked rapidly, head bent against the icy cold. In a few moments she noticed the first drops of rain. Before she could more than register the fact, the downpour was on her. The wind whipped sharp needles of sleet into her face, down her neck, against her legs. Kathryn raised her head to look around her. Was there a bookstore, a coffee shop—anywhere to take shelter?

The street was lined with old houses, neatly kept up but far from stylish. A few small stores, intruding on the houses, revealed that this was a neighborhood in transition. The rain came down harder.

“My new hat will be ruined,” Kathryn thought. But what did it matter? Who was to see it, who to care? Still, she would be more than foolish to risk a bad cold. She had her job to think of—the job she would have to keep for the rest of her life. She looked around for some temporary refuge from the storm. A flash of brilliant color caught her eye. A small store had a painting on display in its single window. Stretched above both door and window, a sign proclaimed that this was the Moderan Gallery.

The picture which had caught her attention represented a sun-drenched Italian fishing village, with little pastel houses spilling crazily down the steep hillside to a smiling blue bay. And flowers everywhere—on roofs, hanging from outside stairways and windows, flourishing along the edge of the sand near the cliff. Without another thought, Kathryn turned into the gallery.

The interior was at first disappointing. Rows of cheap plywood screens held canvases of different sizes: seascapes, landscapes, portraits. The wooden floor was scarred and rather dirty. The light was poor. Kathryn was wondering whether she wanted to wait in this depressing place until the rain stopped, when a lighted portrait on the back wall caught her eye. She moved toward it, as much from reluctance to go back into the storm as from any desire to examine the picture.

It was a full-length portrait of a woman in elaborate eighteenth century costume. The first impression was of warmth and brilliant light. The dress was golden satin, the skirt extravagantly wide with ruffles of heavy gold lace on the overdress, and more lace and jeweled flowers embroidered on the bodice and underskirt. The bodice was cut revealingly low, exposing rounded flesh whose tones of apricot and cream had been stroked onto the canvas with obvious admiration by the artist. The woman’s hair, built to a ridiculous height in the fashion of the late seventeen hundreds, was a blaze of titian red, so crimped and puffed and bejeweled that it seemed an artificial headdress rather than a woman’s hair.

And then Kathryn raised her eyes to the face.

The woman had the most arrogantly beautiful countenance she had ever seen. Sensuality pouted in the full lips, pride flared in the exquisite curl of the nostrils, and the eyes—Kathryn felt a shiver of emotion ripple along her flesh as she met the challenge of those strange, light green eyes framed in long black lashes. The eyes caught hers, held them . . .

Deliberately Kathryn forced herself to look away, telling herself she wished to know who had painted this very life-like portrait—refusing to admit that the bold, pale green stare had frightened her. Near the foot of the portrait, where the painted pattern of a rich Turkish carpet served as a background, the artist had scrawled his signature: Adrian Bart. Kathryn had never heard of him, yet she thought that if he had painted many pictures as disturbingly alive as this one, the world should surely have been aware of his name. All the time she was bending to decipher the signature, Kathryn felt the pull of those arrogant eyes above her. Adrian Bart had employed a technique which Kathryn had heard of, painting the eyes of his subject so they seemed to follow the viewer wherever he went. Reluctantly Kathryn looked up and met the green eyes a second time.

Now she was sure of it. That hard, mocking stare was evil. It was putting some kind of spell on her—drawing her . . . Kathryn moved back a few steps involuntarily, putting distance between herself and the portrait. It was then she noticed a card tacked to the wall beside the picture frame.

LADY NADINE ELSINGHAM

by Adrian Bart

1774

And in smaller letters: “On loan from the Merlin Galleries, London.”

Irresistibly the shallow green eyes drew Kathryn’s glance. So alive, so insolent they were! What kind of female had she been, this titled Englishwoman in the absurd costume? Kathryn tried to overcome the effect of the eyes by laughing at the archaic dress and absurd hair style of the subject. She found she could not keep her eyes from the other woman’s face. She gave in and fastened her own gaze on the green eyes that seemed to be drawing her, drawing . . . There was a moment when she felt dizzy, faint—when the dirty floor seemed to shift beneath her feet—the very world turned—

“It can’t be an earthquake!” she heard herself say, and then . . .

*****



She was standing on a deep-piled Turkish carpet. Instead of the bleak gray half-light of the Moderan Gallery, a warm yellow glow filled the air around her. She lifted her eyes to the portrait—Yes, thank goodness, it was still there in front of her, the green eyes seeming brighter in the exquisite, evil face. And then she glanced down—and the world whirled around her again. Incredibly, insanely, she was dressed in a copy of that extravagant golden satin costume. Gasping in the heated air, Kathryn stared wildly around her.

She was standing on a square platform—a landing half-way up a staircase. On either side of her, wide, richly-carpeted stairs swept up to a railed gallery. Everywhere candles burned in lustered holders and sconces, providing the mellow light she had noticed. Gold-framed paintings hung on the silk-paneled walls. A huge bowl of flowers graced a table in front of the portrait. This was not the picture galley! How had she come to this place? Who had put this costume on her?

Kathryn caught a flash of movement at the edge of her vision. She glanced up at the railed gallery. A woman, tall, gaunt, dressed all in black even to the cap closely framing her face, was staring down from the shadows of a pillar above. There was a rigidity—almost an agony of purpose—in her posture. At her shoulder stood a slender man whose dark hair fell across his forehead in casual disarray. Kathryn glimpsed the whiteness of his hand on the woman’s dark sleeve. Then they moved back out of sight. There was a furtive air to their behavior.

But—this was madness! Kathryn turned and looked down the broad central stairway that led into a spacious, beautifully furnished hall. At the front door, a footman in a powdered wig was ushering in a tall man, taking his hat and cape obsequiously. The man turned his head, his hair shining gold in the candlelight, and saw Kathryn.

He came forward politely a few steps, and sketched a bow, but there was no smile of welcome on his face. He said coolly, “Admiring your portrait, milady?” and made to enter one of the rooms which had opened off the hallway.

“Wait!” Kathryn stretched out a hand to him. Her mind was in wild confusion, striving to understand the situation in which she found herself, to make some kind of rational pattern out of the unbelievable reports of her senses. Somehow she had the conviction that this man, with his hard level gaze now meeting hers directly, would be a rock and a refuge for anyone lucky enough to be his friend. Was there something familiar about his face? The mouth, strong yet sensitive; the forehead, broad; the chin, decisive; the eyes arrogant beneath level brows—a strong man, not easily deceived. If he would help her . . .

“Where am I?” she faltered. “What am I doing here?”

The man frowned suddenly and began to turn away.

“Please! You must help me!” Kathryn took a step forward, catching the look of surprise and, yes, dislike on the man’s face. Abruptly the surprise changed to alarm. For Kathryn was falling . . . falling down the strange, beautiful stairway . . . into blessed darkness.