Death On Blackheath (Thomas Pitt 29) by Perry Anne

Author:Perry, Anne [Perry, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2013-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

They met on the steps of the gallery, Rosalind arriving only moments after Emily. They greeted each other warmly and went inside. It was a very pleasant day, but the wind still had a March bite to it.

‘I apologise for such inconsiderate haste,’ Emily said as they reached the entrance hall. ‘I just had a sudden urge to go somewhere simply for the sake of it, not to be correct and have to make conversation.’

‘I was delighted,’ Rosalind said with feeling. She glanced at Emily very directly. ‘We shall play truant from obligation for a whole afternoon.’ She did not add anything about her sister-in-law, but somehow it hung in the air between them. The very absence of her name was an observance in itself.

Emily knew she must not be too direct too soon. She smiled as they walked towards the first gallery.

‘I have always liked Impressionist paintings. They seem to have a freedom of the mind. Even if you don’t like the work itself, it offers you a dozen different ways to see it and interpret it. Something that is strictly representational forces on you its reality straight away.’

‘I never thought of that,’ Rosalind said with very evident pleasure. ‘Perhaps we could stay here all afternoon?’ She did not add how much the idea appealed to her; it was clear in her face.

The first room was taken up almost entirely with paintings of trees, light on leaves, shadows on grass, and impressions of movement in the wind. Emily was happy to gaze at them for their own beauty for quite some time, and allow Rosalind to do the same, although she did glance several times at her face and study the expression in it. Rosalind was clearly troubled. Emily had been right in her observation that the subtle nature of the art allowed a great deal of one’s own interpretation, the dark as well as the light. It has been an emotionally dangerous place to come. So much feeling could be laid bare. And yet with time brief, and perhaps the stark reality of betrayal waiting, still the best one. But one mistake of too much candour too soon could destroy it all, like smashing a mirror, so that you would never know what it had reflected.

She moved up to join Rosalind in front of a pencil drawing of windblown trees.

‘Doesn’t it make you wonder what was going on in the mind of the artist?’ she said quietly. ‘There is so much strain in those branches. Some of them look close to breaking.’

‘I suppose everyone has their own wind, and their own darkness,’ Rosalind said quietly. ‘Perhaps that is what real art is. Any good journeyman can capture the individual and reproduce what the eye sees. A genius can capture the universal in what everyone feels … or perhaps not everyone, but people of a thousand different sorts.’

There would never be a clearer opportunity. It was almost as if Rosalind were seeking an opening to speak.

‘You are right,’ Emily agreed quietly so that anyone else entering the room would not chance to overhear her.

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