O' Artful Death Part 13

He turned around. "She's very small and dark and Sylvie keeps her hair cut in a pageboy. Like this," he said, drawing a line across his forehead and down the sides of his face. "And she can be very serious and sort of melancholy. For a while I was terrified it was the divorce, but then I realized it's just the way she is. Sometimes she looks at me and I think she feels sorry for me.

"But she can be silly, too. She has a stuffed cat called Pierre and she likes to go for walks in the park and as much as I would like to think she does, I don't think she really likes museums. She doesn't find them useful useful somehow. I think she will probably grow up to be a successful businesswoman. I adore her." somehow. I think she will probably grow up to be a successful businesswoman. I adore her."

Sweeney smiled at him.

"Did you like England?" he asked then, taking off his gla.s.ses and polis.h.i.+ng them on the hem of his sweater. "A lot of Americans can't take it. Too rainy. People take so long to know you."

"I loved it. But then I'm sort of a gloomy, rainy person to begin with."

"Isn't it funny how we still talk about national character, even in our very global world?"

"Yes. I do think of the English as a type, though it isn't strictly true. You, for example, are both the quintessential Englishmen and not a very typical one at all."

He studied her again in a way that was becoming familiar, with serious eyes and a slight smile. "And you, I think, possess the best of the American type without the more unattractive bits. You're industrious, but you aren't simple. I suppose that's not a very nice thing to say."

"No. Lots of us are simple. And smug. But isn't that the point about Americans? We aren't a type."

They went on like this for some time before he stopped and looked at her.

"Why don't you see your mother anymore?" he asked after a minute.

"My mother? Oh, that's very complicated." Sweeney felt her stomach muscles clamp together. "My mother is ... sick," she said stiffly. "We just don't ... We've lost touch is all."

She could tell that he wished he hadn't asked from the way he fidgeted and quickly changed the subject. "So why did you leave? If you liked England so much."

She looked down at the gla.s.s in her hands. "You really want to know?"

"Yes."

"I was dating this man. He was Irish, from the west, near Galway, though he'd been born in the north. He told me once that his father had asked his mother to marry him by saying, 'Would you like to be buried with my people?' I always loved that.

"Anyway, he was at Oxford. Reading history, and we met in the library. We wanted the same book, but he got there first and he said that I could have it if I let him take me out for a pint."

"What was the book?"

"Oh, a Yeats bio. I was writing something about epitaphs. He was writing something about the Irish Revival."

"That's right, Yeats's epitaph. Horseman, pa.s.s by Horseman, pa.s.s by. Isn't that right?" Sweeney nodded. "So what happened with your Irishman? Did you have a fight? Did you run away?" He made two fingers of his right hand, like little feet running. On his face was a strange mixture of concern and interest.

"No." For some reason she smiled.

"What?"

"He died," she said. "In a bombing on the London tube. His name was Colm."

"I'm sorry. I had no idea." He got up and took his shot gla.s.s over to the bar. "Of all the moronic ... Can you forgive me?"

But she couldn't stop herself.

"This was a year ago, the one where they never figured out who it was. He had some things to do in London and I went up with him for the day. It was January and I remember it was really cold. We had this drafty little flat and I remember that when we woke up that morning, we could see our breath in the bedroom." As she talked, Sweeney realized that she hadn't told anyone the story since she'd told it to the police. No one had ever asked her. Even Toby had never asked her to tell him about that day.

"Anyway, I went to the Tate and then I had lunch in a pub while he did an interview with someone for his thesis. The cream they gave me for my coffee was sour. I remember that. I was supposed to meet him on the platform at Piccadilly Circus and then we were going to have dinner with some friends. He was late, but it didn't matter. I had a book and I sat on the platform and read. Then the train came and it was the strangest thing, when I think about it now, it's as though it came rolling in, kind of in slow motion. I can remember seeing the lights down the tunnel and feeling the wind, you know the way you do? The train came slowly, and I was searching the windows for Colm, to see if I could see him, and for some reason I have this memory of seeing him, standing at one of the windows, but I don't think I did, because the train wasn't even all the way in before there was this sound sound. I can't even describe it, it was just this sucking, breathing sound and then a hollow boom, and fire burst out of the tunnel and we all ran.

"That was the only reason that those of us on the platform weren't killed too, that the train, the compartment where the bomb was, wasn't all the way in before it went off. I was burned. My ... my arm. You can't see it anymore. I didn't know for a while if he was even on the train, I ... but they found his wallet and then, well later they knew. But it's weird, I still have that memory of seeing him in the window. It's made me mistrust my own mind."

Ian was watching her and in the strange light from the lamp near the couch, he looked very pale.

"We were going to get married," she continued.

"That was when Toby and I got ... what did I say? Locked up together? He came to Oxford. Took a semester off school. Gave up his tuition money and everything. He propped me up for months."

"Sweeney ..." He was pleading with her.

Suddenly she found that she was irritated at herself, for telling him about Colm, for letting herself relax around him, for whatever it was he wanted from her.

"People involved with me always seem to end up dying," she said, putting her drink down and getting to her feet. "You should be careful."

TWENTY-ONE.

DECEMBER 18.

"BUT IT'S SUCH A long drive to Cambridge, Sweeney. You won't get down there until almost eleven," Britta said. "And the Christmas party's on Sat.u.r.day. We wanted you to be here for the party." long drive to Cambridge, Sweeney. You won't get down there until almost eleven," Britta said. "And the Christmas party's on Sat.u.r.day. We wanted you to be here for the party."

"Oh, I'll be back tomorrow," Sweeney said nervously. "It's just that if I don't have this meeting, I don't know when I'll be able to do it again. And there are a couple of errands I need to do while I'm down there. I suddenly realized I don't have anything to wear to the party." She gulped her coffee and tried to smile. Everyone else was still in their pajamas around the kitchen table, but thinking it would make it harder for them to argue with her announcement that she was going home for a day, she'd come down dressed and ready to go.

"If it's just the dress, you'd be welcome to borrow something," Britta said looking confused.

"Oh no, it's really this meeting. I know I'll be able to enjoy Christmas more if I can get it out of the way."

"Who is it you're meeting with?" Toby asked slyly. He knew her too well not to be suspicious.

"Oh, um, John Philips." John Philips taught Modern Art and though she couldn't think of a single good reason she'd have to meet with him seven days before Christmas, his was the first name that came to mind.

Toby looked skeptical.

"Well as long as you promise you'll be back for the party," Patch said. "You haven't lived until you've been to a Byzantium Christmas party."

"I promise." She took her coffee cup to the sink and rinsed it out. "See you all tomorrow."

Ian nodded at her as she went out the door and she nodded back, embarra.s.sed.

The day was a good one for driving, the sun bright and clean on the white snow and as she headed south, past rest stops and gas stations and fast food restaurants, Vermont and the events of the past few days began to recede. The colony seemed suddenly a distant, rich dream from another time, hardly relevant.

Murder! Detection! It sounded silly now that she was speeding along, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong on the tape player doing Can't We Be Friends Can't We Be Friends. Ruth Kimball had killed herself. In the bright light of day, the act seemed commonplace, like the ones you read about on the inside pages of the newspaper.

But yet ... But yet, she felt she had to follow the string that had been offered to her when the librarian at the Historical Society had told her Myra Benton's journal was in Boston. Maybe it was the academic researcher inside her that was driving her on, but she felt compelled to follow the trail and it was just possible that there was something in the journal that might lead her to the truth. Something about Herrick Gilmartin, something about the unnamed J.L.B. She had called Bennett Dammers the night before, while everyone was getting ready for dinner and asked him if he had ever heard of a student with those initials.

"No, I don't think so," he had said in his quavering voice. "He's not in my book, you said? No. If you knew the name ..."

But, of course, that was the whole problem. She didn't know the name.

She reached Medford by eleven and, after getting on 28, made it through Somerville and into Cambridge in good time since there wasn't much traffic.

The yard and the rest of the campus were peaceful with most of the students gone and Sweeney parked just off Quincy Street and found Marlise, her favorite Fine Arts Library librarian, sitting at the front desk looking bored.

"Hi, Marlise," she whispered. "How are you?" Marlise had dred-locks and a tiny pink gemstone in the side of her nose.

"Hey, Sweeney, I thought you were gone for Christmas."

"Yeah, I am. Sort of. It's a long story. Anyway, I'm trying to get hold of a collection of family papers donated to the library by Piers Benton. It would have been in 1960, somewhere around there. His mother was the sculptor Myra Benton. It's mostly her stuff."

"Hang on." Marlise tapped at the keys of her computer, and peered at the screen. "Oh yeah. Here it is-456778. Why don't you go sit down and I'll bring it over to you. It's a big box."

Sweeney sat down in her regular spot, a table tucked into an alcove under a big skylight, and spread out her notebook and a few new pens, ready for the ritual of research.

"Okay, this is it," Marlise said a few minutes later, leaving a large box on the table. "You've got ..." She checked her watch. "An hour-and-a-half. Vacation hours."

"Oh, that's right. Thanks, Marlise. This shouldn't take too long."

Sweeney opened the box, conscious that she'd have to hurry. The first item was a copy of a letter from Piers Benton to the trustees of the University libraries dated April sixth, 1963. It stated that he was donating his mother's personal papers to the University and went on to say that she would have been happy to know that future students had access to them.

Next was a stack of photographs. Sweeney leafed through them quickly, noting familiar faces: Morgan, Gilmartin and some of the others. She would get to them later. Right now, she was impatient to see what the journals offered up, so she put the pictures aside and took the first leather book from the pile of ten or twelve similar volumes.

It appeared that Myra Benton had begun keeping her journal in 1886 as an art student in Philadelphia. Sweeney read carefully, enjoying the developing writing style of the obviously intelligent young woman, but growing impatient with her verbosity.

Finally.

June 10, 1888. We arrived into the Suffolk train station at about 9 o'clock, having slept well overnight despite the incessant ramblings of a fellow pa.s.senger who I suspected had been at the sherry most of the evening. I awakened at 7, when the sun shone through the sleeper car window and on to my berth and when I raised the shade, I saw outside the great form of the Green River and looking into its seafoam depths, I could see from whence the name had come. Beyond were hills as green as England and little farms where cattle dotted the fields. Mrs. Morgan rapped on my door before I was done dressing and when I told her I would be there in a moment, she snapped that she had been up for two hours already and that if I was going to learn to be useful in Byzantium, I would learn to rise earlier, the way the country people did. She is a terrible woman and no one at the Academy thinks she is the equal of her husband.As to her dear husband, he was there when we pulled into the station and kissed me once on each cheek in the European style when I got off the train. When he tried to kiss her, his own wife his own wife, she told him it had been a long journey and that it was his fault for insisting she travel with me.There is so much to tell, I hardly know where to begin! We drove in a smart carriage through Suffolk, a bustling little town where there are a great many factories and shops that turn out all manner of engines and machines. Dearest Bryn told me that I ought to come with him some day and see the women at work in the factories. He said it is quite amazing and that they work very hard and make their own money. We followed the river out of Suffolk and started for Byzantium. All along the way, field turned to forest and then to field again, the green pastures dotted with wildflowers and lilacs. A very sad-eyed creature, standing in the road, forced us to stop so as not to hit it and I recognized it as a milk cow, which Bryn said I would see lots of in Vermont and I had an idea for a piece featuring a milk maid, sitting by her cow. Bryn said there were lots of local girls who were willing to pose for the artists.The house is heavenly, a white palace covered with climbing vines and Mrs. Morgan's famous gardens all around. They really are beautiful, sculpted out of the land, the pink and blue and red and yellow spots of color like a French painting. Bryn took me to the studio and showed me what I am to do. He said he was glad to see me and that he thinks I will enjoy Byzantium, then took me back to the house to meet Mr. Gilmartin, the painter, who is only just out of the Academy and very handsome and looks at one as though he could see right through your skin and bones and clothes. He and his wife have only recently built a house over on The Island. I also met the Morgan girls, Gwenda and Martha, who are cunning and bright, with mischievous spirits. I think we will be great friends.My room is on the third floor, next to the servants, which doesn't bother me, though Bryn said he felt awfully about it, but the house is so full there were no other rooms. It is very quiet, compared to the city, and at night I lie in bed and listen to the sounds of insects through the open window and smell the lilacs on the air.

Sweeney read on for a few pages, as Myra Benton described her work in the studio-mixing clay and sweeping seemed to be her main responsibilities-and a party at Upper Pastures that she described with gusto. But it wasn't until July third that something really interesting happened.

... Bryn took me into Suffolk to buy drink for the Independence Day party at Upper Pastures and on the way back we came upon Miss Mary Denholm walking along the Suffolk Road. She is the daughter of Louis Denholm, who lives next-door to Gilmartin's home Birch Lane, on The Island, and she is quite an interesting-looking girl, not exactly beautiful, but she contains beauty if such a thing can be said of someone. And she chooses when to let it out, I think.She is quite thin and pale, though womanly, with remarkable, coiling dark hair like an Irish princess and haunted eyes the color of coal.She had the sleeves of her dress turned up and was perspiring and covered with dust from the road and when we stopped and offered her a ride, she smiled broadly and said she'd be glad of one since it was so hot. I judged her to be about 16 years of age and immediately thought of her for my Juliet piece, with her fine dark hair tumbling down around her face. When I mentioned it to Bryn later, he said that Gilmartin had also seen the potential in her and asked her parents if she might pose sometime.

Throughout the rest of that summer of 1888, there were hardly any mentions of Mary, except for a reference to a picnic upon the mountain which she came along on and which included Gilmartin, Morgan and some of the children.

Thankfully, Sweeney was able to skim quickly over the parts of the diary which were not about Byzantium and after a somewhat exhaustive description of the end of the school year and what appeared to have been a brief love affair and a broken engagement, the account picked up again in a new volume dated June third, 1889.

It is good to be back in Byzantium after a year away and all the trouble of these past months. I have vowed not to think of Arthur and when Bryn saw me on the stairs this morning and said "Will Mr. Pettengill be coming for a visit this summer, Myra," in that twinkly, insinuating way of his, I looked him right in the eyes and told him that there was no possibility of it. He looked sad for me, but did not say anything.I must work harder than ever before now. My work must be my life and my life my work, and I must throw myself into the discipline and application of my skill. Bryn knows this and he will understand it without my telling him.Though I am not the same woman I was last summer, dear Byzantium is as ever she was. There is a new flowerbed at Upper Pastures and Mrs. Morgan has planted it with foxglove and lilies and delphiniums. We are to have dinner at Birch Lane on The Island tonight, and Bryn tells me that Gilmartin has changed the house extensively extensively over the spring and made it quite modern. As I was unpacking my clothes, I saw a lovely portrait hanging on the wall and recognized the subject at once as Miss Mary Denholm and the painter as Mr. Gilmartin. When I asked Bryn about it later, he said that she had been doing quite a bit of modeling for them all and revealed herself as a willing and untiring subject. He said I should let her know if I required her services. over the spring and made it quite modern. As I was unpacking my clothes, I saw a lovely portrait hanging on the wall and recognized the subject at once as Miss Mary Denholm and the painter as Mr. Gilmartin. When I asked Bryn about it later, he said that she had been doing quite a bit of modeling for them all and revealed herself as a willing and untiring subject. He said I should let her know if I required her services.

June 4, 1889-I am quite myself again, dear diary. The fresh country air and beauty all around me have convinced me to live again and Bryn said he can hardly tell the difference between me and the local girls who help in the kitchen.

June 15, 1889-It is a rainy, despairing morning and I and the girls and Mrs. Morgan have settled into the drawing room with a fire until it clears. After lunch, I will help with casting in the studio, for Bryn is finis.h.i.+ng his Proserpine and has dedicated himself to its completion.I must take this opportunity to recount our delightful evening at Birch Lane. Mr. Gilmartin was in good spirits as always and drank too much and leaned too close when he spoke, but I forgave him it because of his great kindness and warmth. I hadn't met Charis Gilmartin, and found her a lovely and bright woman, with a great interest in flowers and gardens, and a palpable disdain for her husband. When I remarked on it, Bryn said that it was just the way they were and that I was too much an innocent about men and women and how they got along.But the most interesting thing that came out of our evening was the appearance, around six, of Miss Mary Denholm. We were sitting out on the terrace when she came over with a basket of eggs. She was about to go around to the back door when Gilmartin called her over to speak to us. He introduced me to her and said that he thought we might be good friends and that he had heard anyway, through the grapevine, that I might be interested in having her sit for me.I told him that we had met last summer and wondered if she remembered.Miss Denholm smiled and said she did remember and that she would be happy to sit, and that I should let her know when. She is truly a lovely girl-all tumbling hair and pale skin and a willowy figure and I imagined that she seemed somehow older this summer than last. Of course, she is now seventeen, only five years younger than myself.She has a younger sister, a plain girl who seems much duller than Mary. I have not yet met Mrs. Denholm, but was introduced to her husband once at the train station. He was a very large man, with little spectacles and when I told him that I was working for Morgan, he said, "Ah, a sculptress" and gestured at my hair. I thought him odd until M. explained that he was a great one for puns.In any case, I am newly interested in my work and will commit myself to the completion of a piece as soon as possible.

But Marlise, carrying a stack of books to put back on the shelves, intruded upon Myra Benton's resolutions.

"Hey, Sweeney. I'm afraid I'm closing up in a few minutes."

"Oh, s.h.i.+t. I didn't even ..." Sweeney looked through the pile of diaries. She still had a few to go. "Marlise ...?"

"You're going to ask me if you can take that box home with you, aren't you?" Marlise adopted the famously stern look that Sweeney knew terrified less intrepid researchers.

"Well, if I could just look at it for another hour ..."

Marlise looked around the empty library. "Okay. Take the box. n.o.body but you and some guy from the University of Wisconsin have ever wanted to see it anyway. But if something happens to it, I'm going to tell the powers that be that I never saw it before and you must have stolen it. Right?"

Sweeney grinned. "Thank you so much. And you don't have to worry. I'll have it back first thing in the morning and I'll guard it with my life."

"You better. We open at eight. Just bring it in and put it behind the desk. I'll make sure it goes back where it's supposed to go."

Sweeney carefully tucked the box into her bookbag and patted it. "Thank you so much. I owe you one."

"All right. Have a good Christmas."

"You, too."

She walked down to Ma.s.sachusetts Avenue and got a beer and a Reuben sandwich at a little pub she'd never been to. She desperately wanted to take the box out and keep reading Myra Benton's diary, but Marlise would never forgive her if she got Russian dressing on the old doc.u.ments, so she found a Boston Globe Boston Globe and read happily in a cozy corner booth. It was heavenly warm inside and she ate slowly, listening to other diners' conversations and watching shoppers pa.s.sing by on the sidewalk outside. and read happily in a cozy corner booth. It was heavenly warm inside and she ate slowly, listening to other diners' conversations and watching shoppers pa.s.sing by on the sidewalk outside.

Then, with the box of Myra Benton's journals safely locked in the trunk of her car, Sweeney decided to stop by the office to check her e-mail and see if she had any interesting mail. There wasn't much of interest, but she spent a happy hour reading the proofs of her European Art Criticism European Art Criticism piece and returning a couple of e-mails from colleagues interested in her book on gravestone iconography. piece and returning a couple of e-mails from colleagues interested in her book on gravestone iconography.

The air had warmed up a little by the time she got back outside, and in the dusky late afternoon light, Sweeney could smell the familiar odors of the city, cooking oil and fried onions emanating from a Chinese restaurant, cigarette smoke as a teenage girl walked by, scowling into the winter night.

The traffic was getting heavier as it got to be the rush hour and it took her nearly twenty minutes to get back to Somerville and circle her block twice, looking for parking. She finally found a s.p.a.ce a couple of streets away and squeezed into it narrowly, then got all of her bags and the precious box out of the car.

It was as she crossed Davis Square that she saw the red car.

Sweeney jumped back and looked behind her for a place to hide and watch. It was Ian's car. She was sure of it. It had the same Vermont plates-her good memory called up the sequence, BUI 178, and the s.h.i.+ny red finish and American make gave it away as a rental.

Luckily, there was a large oak tree along the street and on the other side, a small bench offered a comfortable post. She put her bags on the bench and sat down, pulling a hat and scarf out of the bag and wrapping her face so she wouldn't be recognized. She hugged the box to her chest and waited.

It was ten minutes before she saw his tall, lanky figure coming out of a small convenience store on the corner. He looked to the right and then to the left and rooted in his pocket for a few seconds, presumably looking for his keys. Sweeney watched as he opened the car and dropped something that looked like a small paper bag on the front seat. Then he re-locked the car and started walking across the square, looking down frequently at what appeared to be a map.

After a couple of seconds, Sweeney got up, gathered her things, and followed at a safe distance. In movies, following someone looked so simple but, in fact, it was b.l.o.o.d.y difficult. He didn't walk quickly, looking straight ahead, the way bad guys were supposed to. Instead, he turned around frequently, looking up at street signs and checking them against his map. Each time he stopped, Sweeney jumped back against a building, turning away to pretend to fumble in her bag.

They went on like that for a couple of blocks before she realized where they were going. Ian looked up at the street sign and turned right onto Russell Street, walking slowly along until he came to the big pumpkin-colored Victorian triple-decker where she lived.

All of a sudden, she wasn't sure what to do. A cold web of fear had spread itself across her chest and she stood, rooted there on the sidewalk. She could confront him, of course, but the street was empty. No, she decided, it was better to wait and see what he was going to do. She ducked into an alleyway on the corner and kneeled down behind a pair of trash cans, still hugging the box.

From her post, she watched him stand on the sidewalk looking up at the house. His expression was inscrutable; he merely stood. And after a minute or two, he turned and pa.s.sed by the alley, going back the way he had come.

She counted to one hundred and then stood up, her legs cramped from kneeling on the cold concrete. After looking up and down the street, she let herself in and climbed up the stairs to her third floor apartment, her heart beating and the back of her sweater damp with perspiration.

She stood in the hall for a moment, listening to the silence, then pressed the b.u.t.ton that played the new messages on the answering machine. There wasn't much, a reminder from the video store about Divorce Italian Style Divorce Italian Style and a message from a student explaining why he wouldn't be handing in his final paper for Introduction to Art History. and a message from a student explaining why he wouldn't be handing in his final paper for Introduction to Art History.