The men were dull in comparison: countryman’s clothes mainly, corduroy jackets and badly tailored linen suits, with one or two stained smocks in evidence, proclaiming that the wearer was terminally forgetful, contemptuous of good manners or invoking the licence of artistic preoccupation. Stares directed at him were challenging, curious or welcoming. None was uninterested.
‘Now, what shall we do with you? Where would you like to sit?’ Orlando asked.
‘The far side seems to be less densely packed,’ said Joe. ‘And it suits me to have my back against a solid wall with my sword-hand free to swish,’ he added with an apologetic smile and a nod towards the left side.
‘Coo er! Who’s your swashbuckling friend, Orlando?
D’Artagnan arrived, has he?’ called a sarcastic voice. ‘Pity he’s come too late!’
‘We’ll make a place over here, next to me,’ said Orlando quickly, ushering Joe to a seat at the end of the bench he’d picked out. ‘Hey! Shove up a bit, all of you! Thanks! Far too many people to introduce all at once,’ he announced bluntly. ‘You’ll not remember their names … never sure I can myself … Anyway, they know who you are now and if they want to get acquainted, they’ll make overtures in their own good time.’
‘Certainly will!’ The voice was low, female and flirtatious. ‘And now’s as good as any. Bags I first in the queue for an audience!’ it added, saucily.
A slim young woman got to her feet and extricated herself from the bench. She picked up her bowl and swayed around the table to squeeze herself between Joe and Orlando. ‘Estelle,’ she said and took his hand in hers. ‘When I’m in France. Stella when I’m at home, which is—or used to be—London.’
Joe had already identified her accent as educated southern counties. ‘My home too, these days,’ he said.
‘Joseph Sandilands,’ delicately emphasizing his surname. ‘Miss … er?’
‘Ah, yes! Name, rank and number. One of the old school!’ She managed to make the comment teasing rather than offensive. ‘We all call each other by our first names here … It’s Smeeth.’
‘Excuse me—I didn’t quite catch that …’
‘Estelle Smeeth. That’s S—M—double E—T—H.’
Joe’s puzzlement turned into a hiccup of laughter. ‘I see! When in France! And to which branch of the Smith family do you belong? Or is it—let me guess—an alias?’
‘That’s a secret between me and my passport. But your identity is no secret. Orlando’s been trumpeting your arrival for a week now. We’re all dying to meet the star of the Met! I’ve actually read about you in the papers—you came down on the guilty like Nemesis! The Garrotting at the Opera House, the Regent’s Park Rapist … the Tory MP who was pushed in front of the 6.15 at Waterloo … Now, there’s one I’d like to own up to myself.’ She crashed through the flimsy hedge of Joe’s mumbled disclaimer and cantered on: ‘Orlando thought he’d better warn us that his daughter’s chaperone was on The Force.’ She flicked a glance towards Dorcas. ‘Just in case any of us needed to search our conscience and prepare an alibi. Perhaps even make an excuse and leave in a hurry.’
‘What? You’re trying to tell me there are usually fifty of you here?’ Joe asked lightly. ‘Glad you felt brave—or innocent—enough not to flee before the Law, Estelle!’
He was teasing but he was sincere. The girl was charming and flattering. Too effusive for his comfort, perhaps. There was something in the warmth of her welcome that disturbed him. Un peu surexcitée? Yes. She was talking too fast, too loudly and with too many hand gestures. He reminded himself soberly that he was rubbing shoulders with young people of an artistic temperament, not nodding over a book in the London Library. And Estelle was exceptionally pretty. Her long fair hair was outrageously unfashionable and would have raised eyebrows in London but it flowed over her bare shoulders in waves a Pre-Raphaelite painter of the last century—or any red-blooded man of this—would have swooned at the sight of. Joe realized he was staring and tore his gaze away. Light brown eyes were emphasized by straight brows, her nose was neat and her mouth rouged and generous. There was a highly strung, theatrical air about her and Joe decided she would have been convincing as one of the daughters of Boadicea in any village pageant. But instead of a Celtic cloak, she was wearing some kind of strapless sun dress in white linen, the better to indulge in the new craze of sun-bathing, Joe guessed, noting peeling red patches on the creamy flesh.
‘Here, let me help you to some daube de lapin aux herbes de Provence,’ Estelle offered. ‘It will be good. We have the services of a wonderful local cook. A woman. From the village. Poor lady! I don’t think we’re much of a challenge for her skills. In fact, I’m pretty certain she’s had orders from on high to back-pedal on the menus. Keep it simple for the ignorant Anglo-Saxons. Stew one day, roast the next. At least we’ve never been offered boiled mutton and jam which is what they’re all convinced we eat all the time back home. Though, occasionally, the cook forgets herself and does something seriously dreamy with asparagus. In England, it would get her a job at the Savoy!’
Estelle, he noticed, was saying appreciative things about the food but scarcely tasting her own portion, merely rearranging the pieces on her plate. Too eager to chatter and make an impression, he thought.
‘The staff would, indeed, appear to be impeccable. They are in the employ of …?’
‘The owner of the château. The Lord of Silmont … can’t remember all his titles. Count or Marquis? Something like that. We just call him “the lord”. His name’s Bertrand but no one would dream of using it. Even the seneschal calls him “sir” and he’s a blood relative.’
‘He has a seneschal, did you say?’
‘Yes. That’s his maître d’hôtel, you know. And I’m using the word “hôtel” in the original sense, of course—’
Smart town house?’ interrupted Joe, piqued by the girl’s condescending tone. ‘And I shall think of the gentleman as “the steward”. How very feudal! Tell me—are they here among us, this medieval pair? Do point them out so that I may direct a courtly bow in the right quarter or tug a forelock.’
She looked at him uncertainly. ‘You have a very nice forelock. But don’t tug it just yet. The lord isn’t here at the moment. That’s his place at the head of the table, the empty one, and no one ever sits there but him. He pops in occasionally, he says to practise his English with us, but as he speaks more elegant English than any one of us, I have to think he’s actually checking on progress with the canvases.’
‘Checking progress? What? Like some sort of overseer?’
‘Yes. Exactly that. Keeping us all up to the mark. If you were imagining yourself joining some carefree house party—forget it! In fact it’s a sort of assembly line. I can’t call it a treadmill exactly—that would be too, too ungracious for words—but our host is a bit of a whip-cracker, Commander.’ She waved a hand at the far end of the hall. ‘Do you see the wall down there is doing service as a gallery?’
Joe noted that the tapestries and wall sconces had given way to three ranks of canvases, taking up the whole surface. Several more had been stacked against it.
‘That’s the week’s output. Our patron has an eye to the main chance as well as an eye for a good painting. He’s a collector and a connoisseur. And very well regarded in art circles. He has the critics in his pocket.’
‘And his pockets are deep ones?’
‘You bet! Nothing known for sure but I’d expect he knows exactly how to oil the wheels and grease the palms. The art-smart journalists and opinion-makers echo his views, kowtow to his prejudices, support his enthusiasms. He sets the fashion, having bought extensively into it, then he sells at vast profit to New York or London. He’s made a fortune from his dealings.’