The Black Charade. John Burke
has an admirer?’
‘There would be no need for her to conceal any such. She’s of age, it’s high time she was married. But she puts men off with that self-sufficiency of hers. Her mother encouraged her to be a bluestocking, and if I become too much the disciplinarian now, I fear I’d further estrange her. Since my wife died—’
‘Yes,’ said Caspian: ‘your wife. Couldn’t it be that the loss of her mother may have temporarily unsettled the girl?’
‘It’s more than a year now. And in. fact, at first Laura was a great comfort to me. But now she has taken to brooding. Her uncle’s influence on her—the way he talks, the meetings he addresses—none of it has been to her good. I wouldn’t put it past her’—the words were wrenched from him—‘to attend those infernal séances which are all the fashion, trying to contact the dead. She denies it: but so evasively!’
‘You haven’t considered following her? Or questioning the servants about her absences?’
‘She is of age,’ Hinde repeated, ‘and she is my daughter. I would neither humiliate her nor demean myself by chattering with servants.’
‘But you’re prepared to seek my intervention.’
Across the coffee room came a jubilant guffaw from Sir Andrew Thornhill. His voice rose in boisterous argument. With one accord Hinde and Caspian moved into the shelter of the pillared alcove at the end of the room.
‘You’re acquiring something of a reputation for dealing tactfully with—ah—odd cases,’ said Hinde. ‘Some way of reading people’s thoughts, they say.’
‘Do they, indeed?’
‘Only metaphorically, of course.’
‘Yes,’ said Caspian, ‘of course.’
‘Something you doubtless perfected in your career as a stage illusionist. “Count Caspar,” wasn’t it?’
‘And still is, from time to time. But domesticity has given me a taste for keeping my evenings free nowadays.’
‘I envy you. I wish that for me, too....’ Hinde broke off. For the first time Caspian caught a glimpse of a vulnerable human being behind that bleak façade.
He said: ‘Your daughter may simply be suffering from some extended fit of the vapours. That will either cure itself, or be more appropriately dealt with by a physician than by someone like me.’
‘Our family physician finds nothing wrong with her. Such disorders are outside his field. Nor will she confide in him.’
‘If we’re to meet, it must be done without arousing her suspicion.’ Caspian thought for a moment. ‘When is your birthday?’
‘In October. What has that to do with it?’
‘I was hoping Miss Hinde could be persuaded to have her photograph taken as a birthday present to you. But seven months away...no, that’s rather unconvincing.’
‘Her own birthday’s next week—the 24th of March.’
‘Capital. You shall ask her to sit for her portrait as a birthday present from you. Not quite as plausible as the other possibility, but she can hardly refuse.’
Hinde allowed himself a wry smile. ‘In her present mood she’s capable of saying she wants no such present. In any case, I fail to see what you’re hoping to achieve.’
‘My wife runs a photographic studio in South Audley Street. I shall be glad to make an appointment on your daughter’s behalf. People are very much off their guard when their picture is being taken, and in the most unobtrusive way we shall find what she has to tell us.’
He had only to think of Bronwen and he was already with her: she was at once so close that here in this male stronghold he felt it would be the easiest thing in the world just to put out his hand and touch her. Across the streets that separated them he seemed to detect the tremor of a response, the loving turn of a head and mind.
‘I’m in your hands, Dr. Caspian,’ Hinde was saying. ‘When shall I bring her?’
‘Monday at ten, say?’
‘She shall be there. And you’ll want me to remain?’
‘I should prefer you to occupy yourself elsewhere for at least an hour, and then call back for her.’
‘And you’ll report to me afterwards?’
‘Here or at your home, as you choose.’
Hinde took his arm. ‘Now, Doctor, for that glass of wine.’
As they emerged from the alcove and crossed the room, Thornhill flapped an affable hand. Only when they were out of earshot did Hinde quietly confirm: ‘Monday morning, then.’
* * * *
Laura Hinde stood by the lectern and listlessly turned over the pages of a portrait album, which Bronwen Caspian had opened for her inspection. It was bound in morocco, with gilt lettering on the cover to identify it as the property of The Powys Photographing and Enlarging Studio. Each page of heavy card had a gilt border, framing cartes-de-visite of sitters viewed from different angles and with different backgrounds. Some sat stiffly upright and stared vacantly ahead; others stood with one fist gripping the back of a chair, their gaze on some distant star. Clients usually arrived with little idea of the pose in which they wished to see themselves immortalized, and it helped to present them with a few samples.
Bronwen edged the mahogany tripod of her camera into position, and through the glass screen established a rough focus on the dais with its lyre-backed chair and potted palm.
‘If you care to try sitting beside the small table,’ she suggested, ‘or standing behind the chair, perhaps leaning forward—whichever you find most comfortable....’
Miss Hinde turned another page. She gave the impression of expecting no comfort.
‘I promise it’ll be painless.’ It was one of Bronwen’s stock remarks, usually arousing at least a wan smile.
The girl shrugged and turned towards the low dais. She sat down and folded her hands in her lap. Bronwen smiled encouragingly and rolled a tall cheval-glass on casters round so that the sitter could study herself. For a moment their two heads were caught in the mirror: Bronwen’s in the foreground, Laura’s remote and elusive, her eyes downcast. Not until some form of registering natural colours was perfected could such a contrast ever be satisfactorily captured. Hand tinting would blur and falsify their two contrasting heads: Bronwen’s auburn hair and wide, gently slanting green eyes; Laura Hinde’s flaxen tresses bound up too severely for her long, melancholy, beautifully moulded features, but still glowing with life in each fine silken strand.
‘We’ll have to see you more cheerful than that,’ Bronwen persevered. ‘I understand this is a present from your father. I’m sure he’d prefer it to be a happy one.’
Laura made an effort. ‘You and your husband work together, Mrs. Powys?’
‘Mrs. Caspian.’
‘I’m sorry. Of course my father told me the name was Caspian, but seeing Powys on that album, and over the studio door....’
‘It perpetuates my father’s name, and my own earlier work with him. My husband indulges me—allows me to carry on the work, and to keep the Powys name alive.’
The girl looked a trifle more animated. ‘What a fine thought.’ She raised her head, and the touch of a smile showed how ravishingly her features would be transformed if she smiled more readily, more often.
Bronwen stepped forward to indicate how the line of her arm across the pale blue dress would give balance to the picture, A tilt of the head to the left—‘And if you will just let yourself relax, just go slightly back against the chair’—and if only, she thought, she could be sure of catching the essence of that yearning, half-tranced expression. But even