The Adept (4 page)

Encouraged by Adam’s attentive silence, Lady Laura continued. Alasdair had been her youngest and favorite son.

“Peregrine was away painting in Vienna when it happened,” she went on a bit more strongly, “but he came home for the funeral. That was the last I saw of him for quite some time, though he wrote regularly to let me know where he was and how he was doing. At times, I almost felt I had a replacement son.

“So you can imagine my delight when I learned he’d rented a studio in Edinburgh,” she went on brightly. “I immediately invited him to come up and paint the children. He drove up the following week to do the preliminary sketches. If I—hadn’t arranged the meeting in the first place, I hardly would have recognized him.” She made a show of studying one of the tassels on the front edge of her plaid. “He was always rather a quiet boy,” she went on more slowly, “with more reserve, perhaps, than was strictly good for him. But he had quite a charming smile when he forgot to be serious. And now—now he hardly seems to have any life in him at all. It’s almost as if he—wants to cut himself off from the rest of the world. And if someone doesn’t come to his rescue soon,” she finished bleakly, “I’m afraid he might very well succeed.”

As she raised her eyes to meet Adam’s at last, her expression was one of mute appeal. Adam gave her frail hand a comforting squeeze.

“Whatever else may be said about this young man of yours,” he said with a gentle smile, “he is fortunate in his friends. Why don’t you come and help us make one another’s acquaintance?”

Peregrine Lovat was standing behind the easel as they approached, nervously dabbing at a palette with a brush whose end was well chewed. Every line of his body suggested tension. Seen at close range, he was a classically attractive young man of middling height, apparently in his late twenties or early thirties, with fine bones and shapely, strong-fingered hands. Fair-skinned and fair-haired, he was meticulously attired in light-weight wool trousers and a vee-neck cashmere sweater, both in muted shades of grey. The sleeves of the sweater had been pushed up, the cuffs of the ivory shirt turned back neatly. The silk tie knotted precisely at his throat proclaimed his Oxford connection, and permitted no allowance for relaxation, even when he was working. His oval face and symmetrical features might have provided a study for da Vinci, except for the gold wire-framed spectacles riding on the bridge of his nose. The large lenses made it difficult to read the color of his eyes.

As Lady Laura embarked on the necessary introductions, Adam set himself to refining his initial impression, going beyond mere physical appearance. What he saw at a second, more searching glance lent substance to the fears the countess had expressed on Lovat’s behalf. Everything about the younger man suggested a state of acute emotional repression. The thick, bronze-pale hair had been barbered to the point of ruthlessness at sides and back, and the chilly monochrome of his attire only served to leach any remaining color from a face already pale and drawn, thinner than it should have been. The line of the tight-lipped mouth was strained and unsmiling.

Lady Laura’s voice recalled Adam from his impromptu assessment. She was speaking, he realized, to the artist.

“Adam’s a psychiatrist, Peregrine, but don’t let that put you off,” she was saying. “He’s also an old and dear friend—and an admirer of your work.”

“I am, indeed, Mr. Lovat,” Adam said, smoothly picking up his cue. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

He smiled and offered a handshake, but he was not surprised when Peregrine found a way to avoid it.

“Forgive me, Sir Adam,” the younger man murmured, nervously displaying a set of paint-smudged fingers. “I’m afraid I’m in no fit state to return your courtesy.”

With this tight-lipped apology, lie retreated to the worktable next to the easel and began wiping his hands on a linen paint-rag. His fingers were not entirely steady. When Adam moved a step closer, as though to view the work in progress on the easel, Peregrine reached out and hastily flicked a flap of cream-colored hessian over the partly-finished canvas.

“No matter, Mr. Lovat,” Adam said, affecting not to notice. “I apologize if I’ve interrupted your work. Judging by what I’ve been privileged to see in the past, you have a rare talent for portraiture. I was particularly taken by your study of Lady Douglas-McKay and her two children. In my opinion, it was one of the finest pieces in this year’s RSA exhibition.”

Peregrine shot Adam a fleeting, almost furtive glance from under lowered lids, then pointedly returned his attention to the brush he had started cleaning.

“I’m obliged to you for the compliment, sir,” he mumbled stiffly.

“Your handling of children as subjects is particularly masterful,” Adam continued calmly. “I was visiting the Gordon-Scotts only last week, and couldn’t help but notice your recent portrait of their son and daughter. I knew it for your work even without seeing the signature. Your gift for capturing the spirit behind each face you paint is really quite distinctive.”

The younger man murmured an incoherent phrase that might have been self-deprecation and put aside his paint rag. He glanced at Adam again, then abruptly took off his
glasses and scowled at them as though dissatisfied. Out from behind the glasses, his eyes were a dull shade of hazel, with dark hollows underscoring them.

“Now, Adam,” Lady Laura said abruptly, from behind them, “if you and Peregrine are going to debate the relative merits of artistic technique, I’m sure we can do it far more comfortably somewhere other than this draughty hall. If the pair of you will excuse me, I’ll go tell Anna to have coffee sent up to the morning room.”

She was gone before Peregrine could raise an objection—and Adam was not about to lose the opportunity she had created. The artist hastily put his glasses back on and followed the countess’ departure with eyes that held an expression akin to numb desperation. Adam wondered why.

“Well, as ever, Lady Laura is a very perceptive and practical woman,” Adam said amiably, affecting to rub his hands together against the chill, “Coffee would be most welcome, just about now. I’m surprised your fingers aren’t too stiff to paint. May I?”

Before Peregrine could prevent him, Adam crossed to the easel in two easy strides and was reaching for the hessian drop-curtain. The smoothness of the sudden movement caught Peregrine completely off guard, and he instinctively reached out a hand as if to grasp at Adam’s sleeve, only recollecting himself at the last moment.

“No—please!” he protested, his hand fluttering helplessly to his side as Adam started to lift an edge of the cloth. “I’d—really rather that you didn’t—I mean, I don’t like anyone to see my work before it’s properly finished—”

Adam gave the younger man a sudden, piercing look. It stopped Peregrine in his tracks, his voice subsiding abruptly into silence. Adam returned his gaze to the canvas. With studied deliberation, he lifted aside the hessian drop so that the painting beneath was exposed to full view.

The canvas was an almost surreal fusion of scenes that might have been taken from two totally different pictures. Adam knew the three Kintoul grandchildren. In the fore ground, Walter, Marjory, and Peter Michael gazed happily out at the world with bright, laughing eyes. Their portion of the canvas was vividly aglow with warmth, life, and color.
The expression of mischievous innocence in young Peter’s round face elicited an involuntary smile from Adam. The smile died as his eyes traveled upward to take in the other half of the portrait.

The graceful figure presiding in the background was that of Lady Laura. The likeness was faultless, but where the children’s forms were bright and solid, Lady Laura’s was pale and insubstantial, like an image printed on water. The expression in the eyes was sweet and sad, the mouth wistful as a word of farewell. The scene glimpsed through the window behind her was of a white winter garden sleeping under a blanket of fallen snow.

Adam stared at the painting for a long moment in unbroken silence. Then he released the curtain so that it settled gently back over the canvas.

“Now I understand,” he said softly, still facing the painting. “You see it. Don’t you?”

Behind him, Peregrine gave a small, strangled gasp. Surprised, Adam turned to look him squarely in the face. Behind the wired lenses, the younger man’s eyes were full of pain and bewilderment. Quite clearly, Peregrine Lovat had no idea what had prompted him to paint what he had painted.

“I
am
sorry,” Adam said softly, his own dark eyes softening with compassion. “I see now that you didn’t actually know. But yes, she
is
dying, Mr. Lovat. I doubt if half a dozen people in this world know—and she doesn’t want them to—but you can see it. Or rather,” he finished quietly, “you can’t help but see it.”

Peregrine’s gaze widened. He took two steps backward, then halted, visibly shivering. His mouth worked, but no sound came out.

“My dear boy, it’s all right,” Adam murmured. “There are many ways of seeing; some of them are tantamount to knowing. This faculty of yours is a gift, not a curse. You
can
learn to use it, rather than letting it use you.”

Peregrine made a small, defensive gesture with trembling hands and swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said hoarsely.

“No, it’s clear that you don’t—at least not now,” Adam
agreed. “But for your own sake, I hope you’ll at least consider what I’ve just said.”

A small stir at the eastern end of the gallery prevented either of them from saying more. Lady Laura’s maid soon joined them to announce that coffee was now ready, up in the morning room, where the countess was waiting to receive them. Peregrine excused himself from accompanying Adam, claiming that he would follow as soon as he had a chance to wash his hands. Adam made no demur, but went on to the morning room alone, leaving the younger man to regain at least some semblance of composure.

The morning room, in contrast with the more formal gallery, was cheerfully done up in sunny shades of gold and leafy green. Adam arrived to find Lady Laura comfortably ensconced on a chintz-covered sofa before the fireplace, where a log fire crackled cheerily. A matching chair faced the sofa across a small table holding the coffee service.

“A most interesting young man,” he said in response to her inquiring look, as he sat down beside her. “You were right to bring him to my attention.”

“Will he be all right?” she asked, clearly still worried. “Adam, what’s wrong with him? Do you know?”

Adam patted her hand and smiled reassuringly. “On such a short contact, I can only make an educated guess, but I believe I’ve given him something to think about. Let’s just wait and see, shall we?”

Peregrine seemed uneasy and rigidly self-contained when he joined them a few minutes later, though the monochromatic grey now was broken by a smart navy blazer with shiny gold buttons. He accepted a cup of coffee from Lady Laura and sat down across from her, but he declined anything to eat. Reassured by a look from Adam, Lady Laura smoothly took command of further conversation, embarking on a series of comic anecdotes revolving around some of the more eccentric characters represented in the family portrait gallery. Presently Adam set aside his cup and saucer and consulted a handsome silver pocket watch.

“Ah, do forgive me, Laura, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to run,” he said, slipping the watch back into a vest pocket. “I’m expected on rounds in half an hour, and
goodness knows what new flights of speculation will lure our fine student-doctors off in all directions, if I’m not there to supervise. Sometimes I wish that psychiatry was a more exact science.”

“You’re forgiven, my dear,” Laura said, smiling. “Far be it from me to monopolize your time at the expense of your duty.”

Adam stood up smoothly. “The temptation to linger,” he said with a laugh, “is by no means inconsiderable. Thank you very much for the coffee. If I may, I’ll try to call round again on Wednesday.”

“You know you’re welcome any time,” she replied, turning her cheek for his kiss. “Thank you for coming, Adam.”

“The pleasure was all mine, dear lady.”

He turned to Peregrine, sitting withdrawn and silent on the other side of the little table.

“And Mr. Lovat,” he continued, “I’m very happy to have made your acquaintance.” Then he reached into the inside breast pocket of his coat for a monogrammed card case.

“Here’s my card,” he told Peregrine, handing one across,

“Please feel free to call upon me in the near future. After what I’ve seen today, I should like very much to discuss the possibility of your painting my portrait.”

Chapter Three

THE NEXT
t
wo days passed without hearing anything from Peregrine Lovat. On Wednesday afternoon, Adam returned to Kintoul House for his promised visit. To his surprise, Peregrine Lovat was not there. After satisfying himself that Lady Laura was in good spirits and reasonably comfortable, Adam inquired after the young man.

“I can’t really say, Adam,” she said, sipping tea with him in the morning room. “He didn’t show up yesterday; and then he rang me this morning to say that something had come up with an agent from some gallery in London. If I didn’t know better, I would accuse you of having frightened him away.”

“Well, he’s certainly frightened,” Adam agreed soberly. “Unfortunately, there isn’t a great deal I can do to help him until he becomes more afraid of himself than he is of me.”

He turned the conversation to other subjects after that, for he did not want to reveal the reasons for his interest in Peregrine Lovat—not to Lady Laura Kintoul, whose impending death Peregrine had seen. After chatting for nearly an hour, and exacting her promise to call if she should feel the need of him either as a physician or a friend, he took affectionate leave of her.

In the normal course of things, Adam would have called in to Lady Laura again on Friday, but on Thursday a bleak autumnal tempest swept in_ off the North Sea, bringing blustery gales, torrential rains, and a spectacular thunder storm. Within the space of twenty-four hours, the trees on the northeast flanks of the hills had been stripped bare of their leaves, the furrows in the fields turned into long ribbons of standing water. The storm left the air charged, sending several of Adam’s patients at Jordanburn into suicidal depressions. He was kept busy far beyond his usual clinic hours, helping the staff cope, and consequently Peregrine Lovat was even farther from his thoughts than Laura Kintoul.

Professional crises were under control by Saturday morning, however, in time to embark upon his weekend social obligations as planned. The weather was still unsettled, but by ten, as Humphrey drove him out of the car park at Jordanburn and headed west, the sky to the north hinted of a possible clearing later on. The elegant old Bentley that was Adam’s favorite vehicle, even above the Jaguar, lived up to its reputation as the “silent sports car” as they bowled along the M8 toward Glasgow and Ferniegair, to the south.

His lunchtime engagement was at Chatelherault, a magnificent hunting lodge built in the early eighteenth century for the Duke of Hamilton, where Adam had promised to deliver a birthday tribute in honor of the present duke. As the old man had been a close personal friend of Adam’s father, Adam regarded his own contribution to the festivities as a pleasure rather than a duty. Bringing the Bentley today was another way of demonstrating his affection, for his father and the duke had been old car buffs together.

He would have preferred to take the wheel himself, but delegating that task to Humphrey allowed time to read over the text of the speech he had prepared. During the drive he also reviewed his notes for a second address he was to make later that evening in Edinburgh, at a charity performance of
Die Zauberflote—
which was another good reason to have Humphrey drive. Adam hated having to park in the city. In addition, since the day’s tight scheduling precluded any return to Strathmourne between engagements, he’d had Humphrey bring along a complete set of dinner clothes, so he could change before setting out for the concert hall. It was a fairly typical Saturday for Sir Adam Sinclair, Baronet.

The Hamilton affair went off without a hitch, despite the persistence of poor weather. During a lull in the rain, Adam
took the old duke out to the car park to kick the Bentley’s tires and reminisce about the old days, when he and Adam’s father used to drive far older cars far faster than Adam or Humphrey drove the stately Mark VI. Afterward, Adam was persuaded to stay for drinks after most of the other guests had left, so that he had just enough time to change before leaving Chatelherault to pick up his companion for the evening.

She was ready on schedule, and they arrived at the concert hall in good time. Janet, Lady Fraser, was the wife of one of Adam’s medical colleagues who had been called away on a consultation in Paris. The Erasers lived just north of Edinburgh, on the other side of the Firth, and like Adam, were generous patrons of the opera. Both Frasers had been friends since Adam’s childhood.

Janet Fraser also was an incurable romantic, who teased Adam unmercifully about his bachelor eligibility and was forever trying to arrange matches with young ladies of suitable lineage. Once Adam had made his speech and returned to their box, she confined her good-natured badgering to the intervals, letting him lose himself in the magic of the music, but she could not resist further sly digs once they were safely ensconced in the privacy of the Bentley and on their way home.

“You really are impossible, Adam,” Janet was saying, as Humphrey drove them north across the Forth Road Bridge. “I’m always delighted to have you as an escort when Matthew has to be away on one of his trips, but you need a lady of your own. You could have had any of a number of bright young things on your arm tonight.”

Adam sighed and sat back in the Bentley’s deeply cushioned leather, beginning to tire of the game. He had not yet abandoned the hope of eventually sharing his life with a wife and family, but the lady of his admittedly exacting dreams seemed to be maddeningly elusive.

That was not Janet’s fault, of course. Still, he was glad she could not see how her persistent harping on the subject was beginning to annoy him. Though the white of his scarf and wing-collared shirt would be starkly visible above the black of his dinner jacket, he knew that his face was only a
vague blur. She was wearing ubiquitous black as well, and blended almost invisibly into the darkness of the backseat, except where a choker of diamonds glittered against a vee of white throat opening upward toward the whiter patch that was her face.

“Must I keep reminding you that I’m saving myself for the right woman?” he quipped, giving her the light-hearted rejoinder that he knew she expected. “You’re already married, after all.”

“Oh, Adam! You are
so
incorrigible. It isn’t that you don’t have normal appetites—I know that from long ago. Lately, though, you seem to
enjoy
living like a monk!”

Adam considered the accusation. In that part of his life that he shared with only a few close intimates, some aspects of their common work did recall the discipline and dedication required of monks; but that was hardly anything he was prepared to discuss with Janet, dear a friend as she might be.

“Will you think me less monkish if we stop at Strathmourne for a drink, before I take you home?” he asked lightly. “I hasten to remind you that this is
only
an invitation for a drink. Lovely married ladies are always welcome at Strathmourne Abbey’s refectory table, but my monkish cell remains sacrosanct.”

“Oh, Adam,” she giggled. “I don’t know why I put up with you. I don’t know why I ever did.”

But she allowed him to change the subject, once he had told Humphrey to make the necessary diversion, settling into drowsy companionship with her head against his shoulder by the time Humphrey turned up the avenue to Strathmourne.

The Bentley prowled up the winding track toward the gate-arch in a hiss of wet gravel. As they rounded the last bend below the house, Humphrey reached for the remote control box to unlock the gate. Then he uttered a startled exclamation and applied the brakes.

The Bentley skidded to a halt in a back-sheet of rainwater. Adam sat up sharply and peered ahead through the forward windscreen, Janet stirring sleepily beside him. Drawn up at the closed wrought-iron gate and blocking it
was a dark green Morris Minor, with timber sides. To the left of the car, a slight, rain-drenched figure spun around in the full glare of the Bentley’s headlamps.

“Good God, is that Peregrine Lovat?” Adam exclaimed, already reaching for the door handle.

The artist was wearing neither hat nor scarf. The rain had soaked through his trenchcoat, and his fair hair was plastered flat to his skull. He evidently had been pacing beside his car for some time, for his feet had worn a path through the wet carpet of fallen leaves. For an instant he stood arrested, as though mesmerized by the headlights; then he lurched forward, staggering toward the Bentley like a sleepwalker. He was not wearing his glasses.

“Is he drunk?” Janet asked.

“I don’t think so.”

Throwing his topcoat around his shoulders, Adam stepped out of the car just in time to catch the younger man before he fell to his knees. Seen at close range, in the merciless revelation of the headlights, Peregrine looked even worse than Adam had imagined. His eyes were bloodshot and deeply hollowed from lack of sleep, and an ugly bruise stained his right temple.

“Peregrine, what on earth has happened to you?” Adam demanded. “You look dreadful!”

Peregrine made a sound between a sob and a moan and clutched at Adam’s sleeve with rain-chilled fingers.

“Help me,” he mumbled brokenly. “Please—you have to help me.”

“Of course I’ll help,” Adam assured him. “But let’s get you in out of the weather first.”

Humphrey had left the driver’s seat of the Bentley, and was coming around the front of the bonnet to join them. Janet’s face was a pale blur in the opening of the left rear door. With sudden decision, Adam headed Peregrine toward the Morris Minor, putting his own coat around the younger man’s shoulders before bundling him into the passenger seat with Humphrey’s help.

“I’ll deal with this,” he told the butler, as he closed the door on Peregrine and headed around to the driver’s door. “You drive Lady Fraser home. Tell her I’ll ring her tomorrow and explain,”

As Humphrey retreated to the Bentley, bending to speak to Janet as he closed the door, Adam glanced at Peregrine. Huddled deep in Adam’s coat, the artist was shakily pulling his spectacles from an inner pocket, sliding them onto his face with trembling hands. Adam reached for the ignition, for he wanted to get Peregrine back to the house, but the keys were not there.

“I’ll need the car keys, Peregrine,” he said quietly, holding out his hand.

Peregrine dragged them clumsily from his coat pocket. When he unclenched his fingers to drop the keys into Adam’s waiting hand, Adam caught sight of a row of raw, half-moon gouges across his palm where he evidently had driven his own fingernails deep into the skin, Adam said nothing for a moment, merely locating the correct key by the light of the Bentley’s headlamps and then starting the car.

Humphrey activated the gate from inside the Bentley, and Adam put the Morris into gear and eased it through, glancing sidelong at his silent passenger as he negotiated the few dozen yards to the garage. Floodlights came on as he pulled into the stableyard, triggered by an electric eye, and Adam parked the Morris under one of them.

“I’m—sorry to be such a bother,” Peregrine murmured huskily, when Adam had pulled on the hand brake and switched off the ignition. “I wouldn’t have come here, but I had nowhere else to turn. I—think I must be going mad.” Adam’s dark gaze was steady. “Why do you say that?” Peregrine made a small gesture of miserable helplessness, not daring to meet Adam’s eyes.

“I wanted to kill myself earlier,” he muttered. “If I’d had a gun in the studio, I probably would have done it. Then I thought of gouging out my eyes with a palette knife. I only just managed to stop myself, by clenching my fists as hard as I could and slamming my head against a wall.” He gave a bitter, half-hysterical laugh. “If that’s not mad, I don’t know what is.”

“Why don’t you let
me
be the judge of that?” Adam said
quietly. “Can you tell me what made you suddenly decide on this course of self-destruction?”

A long shudder wracked the younger man from head to foot. “Lady Laura,” he said hoarsely. “She’s dead. She died this afternoon.”

This bald announcement kindled a gleam of enlightenment as well as grief in Adam’s steady gaze.

“You were right to come to me tonight,” he said, after a heartbeat’s silence. “I’m only sorry, for your sake, that you didn’t come sooner.”

“Then you think you can help me?” Peregrine asked disbelievingly.

“I think you can be helped,” Adam corrected carefully, still taking it all in. “For my part, I shall do whatever lies within my power. Meanwhile, we should get you out of those wet things.”