L'Aimant – Chapter 37
Summary:
A group outing to the flickers proves to be a revelation—in more than one sense.
Set after "Broken Souls". November 1944 onwards.
Chapter 37: Dinner with the Knights. Foyle leaves London.
Disclaimer:
The creative rights to the characters and plotlines in "Foyle's War" belong to Anthony Horowitz. This story is a not-for-profit homage to the television series, to the talented actors who bring its characters to life, and to a fascinating era.
Author's Notes:
George Formby, an unlikely singing star if ever there was one, was huge in Thirties and Forties Britain with his toothy grin, his ukulele, and cheeky songs such as 'Chinese Laundry Blues', 1932, which features the Chinese laundryman character, Mr Wu.
Wu later made a comeback in the equally suggestive 'Mr Wu's a Window Cleaner Now' 1939, and the just-as-cheesy (and casually racist) 'Mr Wu's an Air Raid Warden Now' 1942.
Off to YouTube with you, and find out what you're missing. No letters, please.
...
Monetary values: twenty-five pounds in 1945 equates to about six-hundred-and-fifty pounds today. Of course, purchasing power was also different in those days. The average house in Britain sold for five-hundred pounds then.
...
dancesabove polished this chapter with her usual aplomb.
Previously, in "L'Aimant"
"I'm never going to be Marguerite Patten," Sam complained, "but I do want to make things, well, smooth for all of us at home." She paused, then added only half-jokingly, "Mainly so that you'll think I'm a woman wonder, and be glad you married me."
Foyle frowned at that. So the little discussion they'd had under the stairs at Charles's house over New Year was back to haunt them from a different angle.
"Married you," he told her firmly. "Not Marguerite Patten. Not your cooking, remember?"
"Just as well. The cooking's not worth tuppence," supplied Sam, darkly.
"Mmarriage is priceless though," he grinned invisibly down the phone. "You're a natural in other ways."
If only he'd seen Samantha duck her head delightedly with a broad and beautiful smile. But he could hear how her voice brightened as she said, "Flatterer. Where are we going to eat?"
Soon afterwards, Foyle's own dinner plans saw him board a northbound train at Embankment. He alighted at St John's Wood, and ten minutes later, walked up the driveway of a large pale-stuccoed mansion, and rang the bell of 16, Langford Place.
Chapter 37
Thursday evening, 25th January, 1945
Admitted via the tall arch of the Knights' front door, Christopher stepped over the Edwardian glass-paned threshold and into a decidedly bohemian domain.
He glanced around the entrance hall in mute astonishment as Laura greeted him through a haze of Cuban cheroot smoke, still clad in her dark linen artist's smock. "Christopher! I sincerely hope you found us without too much difficulty, denied the aid of streetlamps as you surely were?"
Foyle waved the objects in his left hand. "One trusty torch, in combination with an A to Z—the 1936 edition. St John's Wood station wasn't shown, unfortunately, but..."—he flashed his hostess a sunny grin—"I asked a policeman."
"God bless the London bobby!" Cheroot brandished level with her ear, Laura ushered him with businesslike precision down the hallway. Half way along, she paused and shouted up the sweeping wooden stairwell, in a voice made to command.
"HaROLD?! Grace us with your presence, beloved. Our guest is here!" She turned to Foyle confidingly. "I haven't seen the sahib since breakfast. Let's see if he's still breathing, shall we? HAROLD?!" Her tone this time verged on imperious.
"Come through," she urged her guest (who slid a hand across his mouth to cover his amusement), "and help yourself to a large glass of whatever-the-devil's hiding in the cupboard, while there's still some of it left."
Foyle lingered in the hallway in uncertainty, aware that he still stood there in his overcoat, hat in one hand and his navigation aids clutched in the other.
Laura turned and saw the nature of his problem.
"Oh," she waved a hand dismissively. "Hang them on Alphonse. He's not one to complain."
"I beg your pardon?" Foyle's face betrayed bewilderment, which quickly vanished when Dame Laura gestured towards a fearsome-looking stuffed and mounted black bear, lurking in full growl beneath the stairs.
"Prodigiously bad taste, I know," boomed Laura. "But he's Harold's little joke."
Foyle took a moment to assess the unusual coat stand. To place his trilby on the bear's head would have entailed standing on tiptoe. Instead, he opted to hook his overcoat on Alphonse's lower right canine, and balance his hat upon one upturned paw.
Then he followed Laura along the cavernous hallway, which also doubled as a staging post for stacks of blank (or perhaps discarded) canvases, before trotting behind her down a winding flight of stairs into the kitchen.
"We eat in here." With a sweep of her hand, his hostess indicated the kitchen, a high-ceilinged but warmly illuminated room with a sturdy, scrubbed pine table as its centrepiece, and round its walls, an array of floor-to-ceiling cupboards, shelves and sturdy cast-iron appliances.
"Cassandra made a casserole this afternoon, after she sat for Harold," Laura informed him, "but she's gone for the day, so we shall serve ourselves... HARRROOOLLLDDD!?"
"No need to shout, minette." Harold's quieter voice filled the ensuing silence with a soft and patient calm that spoke of habit in such situations. He was the gentle giant of a man that Foyle recalled from their New Year encounter: tall, broad-shouldered, with a high-domed forehead framed with short, swept-back greying hair, and steel-rimmed spectacles perched on a Roman nose above a strong, deeply cleft chin. His features were aristocratic without being effete, and his eyes, deep-set and kind, were trained upon his wife and Foyle.
"Very good to see you again, Christopher." Laura's husband spoke in tones of quiet authority. "Shall we eat? The sooner that we do, the sooner Laura can regale you with her latest oeuvre." A glint of mischief crept into his eyes. "Though whether it will ever see the light of day is still at issue," he turned to Laura, "given that my wife is still finessing with her client the details of her final fee, n'est-ce pas, my dear?"
Laura bristled visibly. "The fee that I was offered," she protested with a stubborn lift of the chin, "was niggardly, considering the displacement involved to reach the subject; not to mention the difficulties of working in a strange place, and the trouble of staying away to complete the assignment. Arranging one's materials in such circumstances can be onerous."
Mirth animated Harold's placid face as he addressed his guest. "Forgive us, Christopher. Laura's imaginative artistry steps off the canvas when she deals with fee negotiations, my dear fellow. The Ministry of Information will hardly know she tore the portrait off in cursory manner, whilst attending a New Year's celebration at the home of a friend." He leant forward in a confidential manner. "And Laura is not above exploiting their ignorance."
Dame Laura stood her ground. "The Committee," she continued—presumably for my benefit, thought Christopher, since Harold had clearly heard it all before—"can easily afford 100 guineas and expenses. And that, I might add, amounts to infinitely lower than I should ask for any other work than one connected with the war. At all events, the sketching and the colour palette, though completed at the Howards', were only the beginning. The finished work required much supplementary effort. The watercolour and the oil on canvas were finished here, in my atelier. So I shall not be shamed."
She turned from them, and thereby closed the subject, intent now on the beige enamel-finished door of the Aga's roasting oven, whence rose a rich, seductive smell of slow-cooked meat.
"Take your seats for venison casserole, gentlemen." Laura deposited her cheroot in an overflowing ashtray and released the catch on the oven door with a padded cloth. "It comes courtesy of Harold's life model: the fair Cassandra, a sloe-eyed beauty with a shady brother in employment at the Smithfield market. For all we know, we may be eating the King's deer." She cast a teasing glance at Foyle. "Perhaps I should be more discreet, considering your profession."
Foyle hadn't had a lot for lunch, and by now didn't care immensely whose game he was tucking into. "No reason I should take you at all seriously, Dame Laura, is there?"
"We ask no questions, Christopher," chuckled Harold. "Last Wednesday it was rabbit stew, ostensibly. But my suspicion leant towards a brace of Hampstead squirrel."
"A certain nutty flavour," added Laura. "Strange, but not unpleasant. And meat, I always think, is a reliable barometer of the times. Indeed, if the legend of Sweeney Todd has any lessons for us," she plonked the sturdy casserole dish down on a cast-iron trivet in the middle of the kitchen table, lifting off the lid with a flourish, "Londoners have always been inventive with their viands. Do help yourselves, my dears."
...
Standing in Dame Laura's airy attic studio after they had eaten, Foyle felt almost shy to meet 'Samantha Stewart Galvanised to Floor a Felon'—an imposing four-by-three-foot oil on canvas. In view of what their encounter on Victoria Embankment had taught him about Laura's occasional mischief with her subjects, he experienced a certain wariness of confronting the artist's vision of Sam. But this was instantly replaced by pride-tinged pleasure, for the painting was the very image of Samantha, poised, feet apart in solid and unflinching stance, behind a fluted steel bin lid. And it conveyed with perfect accuracy the look of nonchalant and unperturbed determination he recalled now from that earliest 'in-the-field' experience of his wife-to-be. Sam's memory of that day had obviously stuck with her, enabling her to pose with the same narrow-eyed and calm expression that would have been Keegan's last conscious memory before he hit the shingle on Hastings beach.
Foyle's eyes misted for an instant. Here, immortalised in oils, was the very moment that had turned his head, transforming one young girl from a troublesome noise in his ear into an unexpected force to reckon with, not only in his work, but in his life. It showed the very point in time when, like a piece of grit that finds its way into in an oyster, Sam had come to rest inside his heart and had begun to form a pearl.
"You have Samantha to a 'T'," Foyle offered his congratulations with a quiet smile of barely restrained delight. "Where will it be exhibited? Sam will be eager to see it some time, naturally."
"I'll be sure to let you know," Laura assured him, "when the details..."—here, she sent a look of challenge Harold's way, and he paid her with a patient smile—"are agreed. But Sam shall have a copy of her own. I'm making you a present of the watercolour draft."
With that she drew a smaller canvas from a covered easel, and presented it to Christopher.
He held it carefully—reverently—by the edges between splayed hands, and looked down on essentially the same composition, but with softer lines. Comparing the two versions now, Foyle found he actually preferred the watercolour. The bloom on Sam's cheek was more subtle, the haze around her up-do filtering the sunlight in soft focus. And, with a skilfully-placed dot of white within each iris, Laura had conveyed the merest hint of steel in the young woman's gaze. Foyle had a question for the artist.
"Laura, one thing puzzles me," he began. "You sketched this in the Howards' stable yard, on... cobblestones?"
The smile on Laura's lips betrayed she had predicted the question soon to follow. "I did."
"Well, here, the scene's been rendered—entirely, um, correctly—on a pebble beach...?"
The Knights exchanged a smile. "Dear boy, in younger years, we lived among a group of artists in a Cornish fishing village. Newlyn's seashore is entirely pebble beach; in consequence of which I paint such beachscapes in my sleep. So tell me, will Samantha like my picture?"
Foyle's lip twitched. "Never more proud, I'll wager. Thank you," he raised the canvas in his hands, "and for this."
His natural reticence prevented him from saying just how much it meant, and why, but there was no disguising what he felt. His lips pulled down on both sides and his hooded eyes betrayed his deep affection for the artist and the piece.
Harold's hand came down to rest on his shoulder. "Christopher, I'd like to show you what I'm working on, if you can spare the time before you go."
Laura took charge of the watercolour. "I'll wrap this up while Harold gives you the grand tour."
As he entered the atelier of Harold Knight—a far more neatly kept space than Laura's—the first work to arrest Foyle's eye was a detailed crayon sketch pinned carefully to a board adjacent to one of several covered easels. It was the portrait of a young woman. At first glance, the curve of the subject's neck had a certain familiarity; on closer examination, the profile even more so. Foyle squinted at the heavy cartridge paper, unable to be certain before Harold had properly illuminated the room.
An overhead light sprang to life, and sure enough, there were the ebony curls, upswept in glossy waves, the dark eyes and the button nose—and then, the final telltale trait: a dimpled cheek. The subject of the sketch, without a doubt, was Georgie.
Foyle turned a questioning gaze on his host. "This is a lovely study. Completed over New Year?"
"Ah, Miss Rose," smiled Harold. "A picture to be sure, and long before my crayon touched the paper. I must confess, she has no inkling she has sat for that. I helped myself while she was otherwise engaged observing Sam and Laura. Do you find it a good likeness?"
"Unmistakeable." Foyle's hand crept thoughtfully to his chin. "In point of fact... fffairly sure my son would be anxious to own it." He pivoted slightly, glancing at his companion from the corner of his eye. "Would you consider letting me buy it from you, Harold?"
The artist stroked his nose inquiringly. "Andrew is... taken with her? One couldn't blame him."
Foyle pulled an apologetic face. "MmBit more than that. They're engaged. Since beginning of the month."
Harold moved swiftly to unpin the portrait from its board. "Ah well, in that case, dear chap, you must take her to him." He rolled the sketch with practised ease and slid it deftly inside a cardboard cylinder. "Reluctant though I am to part with such a beauty, she belongs with her fiancé."
Looking a shade wistful as he did so, the older man presented the cylinder to his guest, so that Foyle felt obliged to ask, "You're sure, Harold? Nnnot my intention to muscle in."
"Nonsense, man. The only small favour I'd ask you in return is that perhaps you'll put a good word in for me? I should be privileged if she would sit for me properly one day."
Christopher raised one brow, a little wary of the kind of portrait Harold had in mind to produce from his sitter. A cursory glance around the attic revealed a number of unstinting nudes of both persuasions, but also composition sketches showing dignitaries in full regalia, as well as one of a young woman, fully clothed, bent over what looked like an embroidery frame, before a day-lit window. He decided therefore, not to prejudice the subject.
"I'll certainly ask her," he agreed, with a tilt of the head, and followed up with an apologetic, "Ssseem to be leaving this house with more than my fair share of your joint artistic output, though."
...
Laura raised a hand in farewell as she watched Christopher's dark outline disappear around the hedge into Langford Place, torch directed down onto the pavement, a string-tied composite of parcels underneath his arm. She turned toward her husband and squinted up at him, in the manner of a person who had come to a decision.
"When the baby is born, I shall send Samantha twenty-five pounds."
Harold tucked back his considerable chin and blinked at his wife in mild surprise. "I'm sure they're very well-heeled, Laura. And Christopher is not the type to keep his wife and child short." There was a hint of admonition in his tone.
Laura pursed her lips, as if considering her husband's words. Then she underlined her earlier decision with a determined nod.
"No. I shall send it, none the less. She will miss her independence when she can no longer work."
Her husband's brows rose in mild mockery. "The Committee would not recognise you, Laura! Is this generous woman the same one whose intractable head for business mercilessly squeezes them for the last drop of funding?" He slid a hand around her shoulders and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
Laura smiled a soft acknowledgement before her gaze grew vacant, and a trifle cold.
"It is hard for me to forget your harsh treatment during the last conflict, mon chéri. This is the only means I have to make the blind officials pay. This is my way to secure our future. So don't deny me this. Since they deny you worthy commissions, the very least that I can do is milk the most from mine."
Harold looked down on his wife with a warmly tolerant gaze. "There is no need on my account, minette. You know me well enough to know I bear no grudges."
Laura drew herself up to her full height. "Indeed I do, dear heart. Precisely why I take it on myself to bear them for you. Moreover, when my business is concluded here, I hope we can return to Malvern on the proceeds. Your health has not been good. You need the cleaner air."
Friday, 26th January 1945
Foyle had to shield his eyes from the low-angled sunlight as the sleek, dark bonnet of the Lanchester swept across Westminster Bridge en route for Kennington. It was not the most direct route out of London, but a detour via the Kennington Road would take them to collect Georgina from her digs before they left for Sedlescombe, and final destination: Hastings.
Anselm turned into a terraced side street and drew the staff car to a halt beside the small figure planted on the pavement amidst a stack of suitcases.
In that moment it became apparent to Foyle that one mere limousine might struggle to contain them all. Quite ample under normal circumstances, the Lanchester's roomy boot was going to heave under the strain of Georgie's so-called "church-mouse" existence, which, as it turned out, entailed considerably more luggage than her description had led him to expect.
Recovering from the initial shock that one small girl could own and cart around so much in wartime, Foyle sucked his teeth for several tense seconds under Anselm's steady, rear-view-mirror scrutiny, before exhaling, pasting on a smile, and climbing from the car to greet his future daughter-in-law.
Georgie was fetchingly turned out in a dark blue topcoat with a fox fur collar, her uniform nowhere in sight, and so it seemed appropriate for Foyle to tip his hat and lean to plant a light kiss on her cheek. "How are you, Georgie?" he asked kindly, cursorily noting, then affecting to ignore, the less-than-subtle curtain twitches that denoted interest in the Lanchester and himself among the housewives of the neighbourhood.
"Just lovely, thank you, Mr Foyle. Oh, Lord! That sounds so formal, doesn't it? I don't know what to call you, now..." Georgie brought a hand up to her mouth and treated him to her most winsome smile.
"That's all right, Georgie," Foyle reassured her, settling his hat back on his head. "When we're off-duty, call me Christopher."
Across the road, observing this, a largish woman in a flowered wrap-over apron leant up against the threshold of her open front door. Out of the corner of his eye, Foyle saw her disappear indoors before reappearing a few short seconds later with a lighted cigarette between her fingers. Taking her position for the show, he told himself, and cast a swift glance her way. Nor was he mistaken: the woman crossed her ankles, took a long drag on her coffin-nail, and reached practised fingers up absently to pick tobacco off her lower lip. The same hand dropped to settle on her hip. She grinned across at him, apparently impervious to the cold.
Yes, Mavis Bellis lodged herself against the door-jamb to enjoy the entertainment starting just across the street. A right lark it was turning out to be and all: that pretty little piece from Mrs Jessop's opposite, done up in her Sunday best, with all her cases round her feet; then comes the nobby limousine, and spews a fancy-looking gent onto the path. He's fancy 'cos his collar and his cuffs are Limehouse-laundered (Mr Wu's been at 'em with his iron, Mavis chuckles to herself), and he's a gent all right, because he tips his hat and pecks her on the cheek, all good behaviour, hands down by his sides as if the girl is made of glass, and says his piece and smiles at her, and Lord's sakes if the perky little madam doesn't stand on tippy-toe and plant a full-on smacker fit to stop a tube train on his lips. And don't that send his eyes as wide as saucers and his hand, all nervous, groping for his tie, poor sod.
He hadn't been expecting that, thinks Mavis.
"Why don't you put 'im down, Lav? Ain't you 'ad no breakfast?" Mavis called across to Georgie with a smirk. She liked to play things broadly for the local crowd, did Mavis. And brays of raucous laughter echoed down the quiet side-street from the other girls, all outside on their doorsteps now to rubberneck the how-d'you-do.
And that was just the B-flick. For the main show, mind you, out the limo steps a well-built character, six-foot eight if he's an inch (well, if you count his hat). And all the cat-calls up and down the street fall silent, 'cos this bloke is quite a piece of work. He's like a star what's fallen off the silver screen, all square-jawed, steely-eyed. The women round here haven't seen his like since all the lads went off to war.
"Allo, gorgeous!" Mavis called out hopefully. "Comin' to arrest me?"
Anselm squinted flatly at the plume of smoke that issued from the woman's mouth, then gave her an old-fashioned look and strolled around the bonnet to his boss, who stood with Georgie on the pavement. They shared a moment's consultation on the vast amounts of luggage, then Anselm moved to stow the larger bags inside the boot while Foyle put out an arm to squire their passenger into the back seat with her smaller items.
Ready for the off, Foyle took a seat up front with Anselm.
"'Ave a nice trip, Duchess!" Mavis called out wistfully, and bent to give a wiggle-fingered wave as Cinderella's carriage pulled out from the kerb and disappeared off round the corner.
Anselm swung the car onto the Peckham road and headed east for Lewisham, which was the quickest conduit out of London.
"Gosh, I feel like royalty sitting in the back seat for a change," gushed Georgie, leaning forwards so her mouth was next to Foyle's ear. "Thanks a million for the lift. Shall we be driving straight to Hastings, Christopher?"
Foyle winced. Though Georgie was off duty, he wasn't. He swivelled in his seat so fast it startled the young woman backwards into hers.
"Nup. Got one stop to make. These are the ground rules for today: no questions when we get there or before; no social chatter, other than a short, polite how do you do to anyone you meet the other end. That clear?"
"Oh. Right you are, then. Crystal. Hmm." Georgie settled back and peered out of the window. "Good Lord! This area took a bad hit, didn't it? So who d'you say we're off to see, then?"
This was almost déjà vu. A replay of a certain scene ingrained in memory. "Georgie..." he began, employing the restraint good manners still demanded.
"Hmm?"
"What part of 'no questions' didn't you understand?"
"Oh. Right. But you might as well tell me the person's name. Because if I'm allowed to ask 'how do you do?' it hardly matters if you tell me now whom I'll be asking..."
Foyle considered that. She had a point. "All right. Her name is Lady Messinger."
Georgie's eyes stretched and she sat forwards again, her lips once more at Foyle's right ear. "You mean, Sir Giles's wife?"
Foyle did a fair impression of a man with grit in his left eye. "I mean, we're off to see the woman. Not her husband."
"He won't be there, then?"
"Nup."
"Oh. Right you are. What a relief. I've driven him, you know. In the Commander's car. We took him up to Liverpool and back. He spent the whole trip spitting tacks about one thing or another. Commander Howard had to ask me for two aspirin when we stopped at Crewe. I felt quite sorry for him, really. Commander Howard, I mean. His wife must be a patient soul. Sir Giles, I mean. Do they have any children that you know of?"
"Georgie..." Foyle's voice sounded a warning note.
"Hmm? Oh sorry. I suppose I'm off again. I'll be as quiet as a church-mouse from now on. You're going to forget I'm here."
Foyle's eyes closed, then reopened the merest crack, his mouth set in a neutral line that hid the tension in his jaw. If Georgie's church-mouse luggage was an indicator, Georgie's church-mouse quietness would surely give a tribe of monkeys competition.
He glanced towards his driver—for a fleeting moment he fancied that he caught a twitch on Anselm's lips, but it was gone as quickly as it came. The car sailed on past Eltham on the Sidcup road with exaggerated concentration from the man behind the wheel.
Foyle got the message. He was on his own with this. The left side of his mouth spasmed in resignation.
And sure enough, the silence lasted two full minutes.
"All right. I'm not allowed to ask you questions." Georgie's voice was small but steady. "But you could ask me some. Such as how your son is?"
A pang of shame struck in a prickle of heat around the back of Foyle's ears, and crept forwards to his cheeks. In his preoccupation with the business of the day, it had entirely slipped his mind that Georgie had only just come back from visiting Andrew. To his chagrin, the joint distractions of this final assignment and the urge to instil behavioural rules in his new driver had chased Georgina's trip to Epping from his mind.
In annoyance at himself, Foyle clenched his jaw and ran a finger self-consciously across his eyebrow. "Um, pull over, John?"
Anselm slowed and drew the car up to the kerb as soon as he could safely do so, visibly detaching himself from proceedings by fixing his eyes straight ahead and moving his hands from the wheel to rest in his lap.
Foyle climbed out and opened the rear door. "Absolutely right," he told Georgie as he leaned inside. "Forgive me. May I?" The seat next to hers was piled with bags, but she nodded and began to collect them towards her to make room.
"Nunno," said Foyle, "allow me." And he gathered up her smaller luggage from the back seat before transferring it piece by piece into the passenger-side footwell next to Anselm.
"There," he slid into the back beside her. "Now we can talk," he offered quietly, then raised his voice for Anselm's benefit. "All right, John. When you're ready, then."
"Sir."
The Lanchester swung out once again into the stream of London traffic, and Foyle twisted in his seat to face Georgina. He could see she was upset.
"What sort of state's he in then, Georgie?"
"Well," she began tentatively, "not half bad in himself. I got back awfully late last night, but I was so relieved to see him, you can't imagine."
Foyle supposed he could.
"Andrew sends his love, of course," she went on. "He doesn't think they'll let him fly again, because he's suffering from nasty headaches all the time, which would apparently get worse at altitude. So now he's fretting to be useful in some other way. I'm hoping he can get some leave and visit home."
Foyle frowned, then tamping down his better judgement, felt for her hand and squeezed it. "As am I. And, selfishly, immensely glad he's grounded."
Georgie smiled in satisfaction. "He said you'd say that. I am, too. Immensely glad, I mean. I wish you'd heard him over New Year. It was quite clear that he'd had his fill. And now he's agitating to get back up in the air again. Can you understand him, Christopher?" She gazed at her gloved hand in his.
Foyle latched onto his inside cheek, considering the question. "MmmWell, in fact... um. Yes, I do. He gets a bit of that from me. We're stubborn types when we decide we won't do certain things. But tell us that we can't, and it becomes a different matter."
****** TBC ******
More Author's Notes:
"There is no need on my account, minette. You know me well enough to know I bear no grudges."
Sources tell us that, of the Knights, Harold was the mild one, and Laura more spirited. I have read one no-nonsense letter of Dame Laura's in which she flatly demands more money for a commission than she has been offered, so that trait of hers is supported by tangible evidence.
There is nothing, however, to support my contention that she negotiated higher fees out of a desire for revenge for the treatment of her husband—a conscientious objector during The Great War—and the artistic rejection he suffered afterwards as a result.
…
More soon. But after Christmas now! Compliments of the season to you all.
GiuC