Friday's Girl Page 18

  ‘Painting is so difficult, is it not?’

  ‘Of course painting is difficult, but then so is everything interesting – cooking and marriage, having babies and riding horses – everything interesting is impossibly difficult if you are trying to do it well. Painting is no different.’ Celandine breathed in and out just a little dramatically. ‘And it is certainly not a reason, never should be a reason, to neglect your wife.’ She stopped suddenly. ‘Except that it could be.’ She looked serious, then excited, before she widened her eyes. ‘My goodness, of course! I see exactly. I see precisely. Indeed, I am sure I might be right.’

  Edith waited, silent, not wanting to distract her hostess from what might be an inspired notion.

  ‘Napier is trying to make a great painting of you not because he is repelled by you, but because he worships you. I am sure that he must have fallen in love with your beauty, but as yet, because the painting is not yet complete, you have not become a human being to him. You have remained as he first saw you – as his inspiration – which means that in a fervour of silly artistic activity he has neglected you for some reason – perhaps artistic superstition, who knows? Perhaps not even he does? But the truth is that he has neglected you and his marriage.’

  Celandine sighed, and clicked her tongue in such a way as to suggest that it was nothing new.

  ‘It is too sickening, but quite typical of someone like Napier, a painter first and foremost, in his own mind at least. Believe me, Edith, there is no such thing as an unselfish artist – I know because I am one of them! Selfish to the core, that is what we are – we artists who decide to call ourselves painters. Driven by some need to paint first and live second we fully expect the rest of the world to fall in step with us, while failing singularly to explain any of our motives for wanting such things. Happily Sheridan and I are both as selfish as each other.’

  She put a hand on Edith’s arm.

  ‘My dear Edith, all this must have been too horrible for you, but down here, in Cornwall, you will see, everything will very soon change. Believe me, before we came to this place I was in despair at being cast out by my mother, at all the harm my love for Sheridan seemed to have brought upon everyone I loved. I was – ashamed; there is no other word for it. But since coming here that way of thinking has quite disappeared. I think you will find that Napier too will change. His reticence towards you can be nothing to do with his love for you, but everything to do with selfish egoism, with not thinking, with becoming caught up in his work, which is to say, becoming caught up in himself.’

  ‘Yes, but when the painting is finished, what then? He might still not want me, he might still find himself – repelled.’

  ‘We won’t use that word,’ said Celandine, severely. ‘Of course I can only imagine how you must feel, most especially as you are so young, and innocent, not travelled as I am both in America and in Europe. You have only known first your father’s and then your husband’s house. Besides which you have no one whom you can have been able to ask about such things either, I don’t suppose.’ She shook her head, half speaking to herself rather than Edith. ‘We must make a plan, Edith, a plan that will jolt your silly husband into realising your worth, and not just as a model for his painting. We will change the way you behave towards him, and force him therefore to change towards you.’

  ‘In what sort of way should I change?’

  Celandine put her head on one side and stared at the picture of heartbreaking innocence opposite her. ‘You will become more assertive, but that is only to start with. You will state your feelings, instead of hiding them for fear Napier will despise you for them. You will start to make sure that he knows that you have a right to your feelings and opinions – although I dare say you haven’t had time to form many of those quite yet, but time and more experience of the world will help you in that.’

  It was as if dark curtains had parted in Edith’s imagination and she could suddenly see blue skies and hear birds singing as she realised just how afraid she had been of ever saying what she felt, of ever even holding an opinion which she could dare to express.

  ‘Do you think Napier chose to marry me, as I was, because I was so – young and he could make me sit to him for as long as he wished? And so stupid that I would not question him?’

  ‘You are, or were, innocent, not stupid. You are, or have been, due to your upbringing, all too innocent,’ Celandine told her firmly. ‘It is Napier who is stupid, not you. But as I say, we will help you in that. Or rather, I will help you. I will make your husband see how selfish he is being, selfish, selfish, selfish. Oh, but here they are. The men are coming out intent on interrupting us – alas.’ Despite her words, Celandine looked round with a feeling of relief at the sound of male voices, before turning quickly back to Edith. ‘Remember, now, not a word to either of them about our conversation. My mother always said that the male of the species does not confide in each other except on the subject of politics or cigars, so they do not understand the necessity for women to confide in each other about their emotions, which is probably just as well!’

  She waved up to Sheridan, who was once more standing on his balcony, promising to come down and join them as soon as he and Napier had washed their hands and made themselves respectable.

  Celandine too excused herself to go to see Mrs Molesworth about the lunch, but as she did so she found herself wondering at the cruelty of life. Whatever her encouraging words to Edith, she knew that her new friend could be proved to be right. Napier might well have married Edith in some flurry of artistic fascination, worshipping at the shrine of her beauty, only to find himself repelled by her naïve personality. Edith, although stunning, was after all an innocent, unsophisticated to a degree, and Napier quite evidently the opposite.

  Aunt Biddy’s crinoline was swaying in the strong sea breeze and her voice was being drowned out by the crying of the seagulls as they swooped and flew, darted and cried, and posed on decking and rigging before flying off to chase incoming boats.

  ‘Russo, Russo!’ she finally screamed, trying to get through to the old servant as he slid about the beach in his slippers. ‘Russo!’

  Her hoop flew up, first in front and then behind, causing passers-by and people on the beach to stop and stare and finally to laugh and point. Happily oblivious of the spectacle she was making of herself, she caught Russo by the arm and tugged at it.

  ‘We have quite enough shells to decorate the cloths, really we have, quite enough.’ She swayed and staggered up the beach again, closely followed by the old man, who was carrying a bucket in each hand. ‘Really,’ she said, her voice sounding abnormally loud once they were back in the house and the front door shut behind them. ‘Really it is too bad that you never hear what I say out there, Russo. And my crinoline! It is too bad of it to behave as it does. It’s as if it has a life of its own, but there we are.’

  She called up to Gabrielle, who came hurrying down from the first floor, a feather duster in one hand and a cloth in the other. Her mistress pointed at the shells.

  ‘Russo has been collecting these all morning. Now we must wash them and make a centre-piece round the flowers and fruit in the middle of the dining table. You see, Gabrielle dear, with so many from Newbourne coming to the party we must be at pains to make everything look as artistic as possible, you understand, for all those people from the new artistic colony there, why, they will look at everything very closely, and we want to astonish them with our beautiful effects, really we do.’

  Gabrielle nodded, picking up the buckets and wishing quite heartily that they were filled only with water, as they normally were, and that the celebrations to honour the marriage of Mr Sheridan and his young wife were over, for her mistress had been in a state of such extreme anxiety over the past weeks that she and Russo had become certain that she would soon take off for outer spheres, her crinoline dress acting as some sort of balloon-like conveyance and wafting her into the blue beyond.

  ‘When Miss Biddy has the wind up ’tis worse than a s
torm at sea, ’tis really,’ she had kept insisting to Russo some weeks before, but seeing that he was as deaf as he was slow, she had finally realised that there really was very little point in trying to warn her old suitor of the dramas that might be in store for them. ‘The place will doubtless go up in smoke from the heat of all the candles she’s planning, and guests die of food poisoning if the cook she has retained is the one I think ’tis.’

  Despite Gabrielle’s worst apprehensions, those rooms in the old house that had been set aside for the celebrations were now looking gloriously festive, to the point of being positively arresting in the intricacy of the details set about the tables, the flowers and the wax fruit centrepieces, and the large, yellowed candles in their sconces, as still as guardsmen on duty, waiting to be lit and thereby throw the rooms and themselves into party mood.

  The vast flower arrangement in the hall had arrived that morning from the florist and very soon the cooks in the kitchen would be setting out the many courses around the scullery tables, carefully covering the jellies and the meats with lace covers and the wedding cake with a vast cage. All would be deliciously ready, only the guests needing to complete what was intended to be a most joyous occasion.

  In order to prevent Aunt Biddy from feeling out on a limb, Celandine and Sheridan had decided to tell their friends to dress in costume, which meant that attics and trunks could be raided, rather than much needed money wasted on new clothes. The result was that as the sun started to set over the sea, painting its warm colour over the horizon in welcoming effect, the guests, stepping out of their carriages and pony traps, or arriving on foot from some local hotel or lodging house, might have been arriving for a delightful reception some twenty or thirty years before, when the Queen was young, and Albert her consort still alive.

  And of course, because of the trouble to which Aunt Biddy and her team from the town had gone, the general effect was of such glamour that the moment everyone entered her house they gasped at the vast floral arrangements, the array of food, and the gorgeous table displays – every setting decorated with flowers and linen, with Russo’s shells placed in such a charming way that even he could see that the time spent collecting them had been worthwhile.

  Aunt Biddy, clothed from head to toe in ruched blue satin, stationed herself on the first step that led into the main room to greet her guests, while Russo, in starched white dicky front and starched white tie with black cutaway, knee breeches and stockings, yelled the names of each arrival from the front door.

  ‘Mr and Mrs MONTAGUE ROBERTSON!’

  ‘I do so wish that Russo was not quite so deaf,’ Aunt Biddy murmured as Sheridan and Celandine, followed by Alfred Talisman, turned into the reception room.

  ‘Now you are clean-shaven shall we expect to see you cut quite a caper at the celebration, Alfred?’ Sheridan demanded of him, straight-faced.

  Alfred smiled shyly before helping himself to the proffered wine cup. ‘I hope you think it is an improvement, Celandine?’ he asked tentatively.

  Celandine nodded. ‘I am afraid I am more than a little conventional when it comes to beards and moustaches,’ she admitted, smiling.

  ‘If I have done the correct thing by you, I am more than happy,’ Alfred murmured, and bending over her gloved hand he kissed it briefly in the continental manner.

  ‘Enough of those Frenchy habits, Talisman,’ Sheridan commanded.

  ‘It is most fascinating, do you know, Sherry, to study your Aunt Biddy’s face, which I am sure you have. You have no doubt noticed that it has been left completely unlined, untrammelled by the misfortunes of marriage, the worries of a life spent in trying to placate a husband, in the dread of childbirth. In my opinion all women who wish to remain beautiful should remain unmarried.’

  ‘Not quite the right thing to say to us, Alfred, since this is meant to be a celebration of our marriage; we are here to celebrate my great good fortune in being able to persuade the former Miss Celandine Benyon to become my wife.’

  But his words were lost on Alfred, for shortly after Russo yelled, ‘Mr and Mrs NAPIER TODD!’ the named guests made their appearance at the door of the room in which the other three were standing, as yet alone, drinking their fruit cup.

  ‘Ah,’ Alfred murmured, glancing towards the door. ‘I have not yet met Mrs Napier Todd. It seems that her husband keeps her locked up. It made me suspect that she was either very plain or very – beautiful.’ He stopped, staring.

  Edith was wearing a dress found for her in Newbourne by Mrs Harvey, whose mother, also now the proud owner of a lodging house, had, it seemed, before her marriage and motherhood, worked for a lady of some consequence. The dress, carefully stored in immaculate cloths well away from moth and sunshine, dated from twenty or thirty years before and was astonishing in its complexity and allure.

  The underskirt was blue silk overlaid with large flounces of muslin caught up at intervals with flowers – flounces being so very fashionable in those days. Celandine, who in common with most American girls understood dressmaking, and could estimate the yardage of a dress at a few paces, not to mention the blessing of a good dressmaker, knew immediately that the stunning gown must have been made for a very grand lady indeed, probably for the opera or a ball. The cut of the neck was low, and the spread across the shoulders of the whole décolletage inset with the finest lace, as were the under sleeves. Wisely, considering the grandeur of the dress, Edith had chosen to dress her hair into a simple chignon at the nape of her elegant, white neck. But of course if she had hoped that by affecting a simple style she would draw attention away from the lustrous auburn mass, she was mistaken. Indeed the vast chignon of Titian hair, with all its classical simplicity, was immediately arresting, so that it vied with the dress, the whiteness of her skin, and her large eyes, more than any jewellery could possibly have done.

  Celandine turned to say something to Alfred and Sheridan, but they were both so busy staring at the vision in front of them that she shrugged her shoulders and turned back to do the same, knowing that although she herself was dressed in her wedding dress and looking as pretty as she had ever done, she was now far outclassed.

  ‘Edith, dearest Edith, where did you find such a beautiful dress?’ she asked, hurrying up to her.

  Edith shyly kissed the air either side of Celandine’s face. ‘It was far too big for me,’ she confessed, staring up at Celandine who was some inches taller, her expression as usual as touchingly frank and innocent as Celandine’s was amused. ‘Far too big, but Mrs Harvey’s mother, Mrs Topsham, took it in for me on her sewing machine. I do hope no one will notice the tucks, for she could not, as she said, cut into the material. It is far too beautiful, and anyway she might want to lend it to someone else who is not quite so – thin.’

  She half turned as if to try to see if Mrs Topsham’s tucks were all that they should be, and, failing, looked up at Celandine with an expression of quite evident doubt.

  ‘Of course no one will notice anything. You cannot see any of the tucks; all anyone will notice is how beautiful you look,’ Celandine reassured her in a lowered voice.

  ‘I hope you are right.’ Edith looked anxiously round, and seeing Napier already busy talking to Sheridan she felt it safe to confide to Celandine: ‘Napier laughed so much when he saw me. He said I looked like his spinster Aunt Desiree. His taste, as you know, is not for anything old-fashioned. He likes only the very modern.’

  Celandine looked across at Napier. ‘What a husband you have to be sure, Mrs Todd. So certain in his tastes, so frank in his attitudes – but not, we hope, going to stay that way.’

  She did not add, as she could have done, that if Sheridan had laughed at her gown she would have pushed him into Mrs Molesworth’s ornamental pond. Instead she summoned Alfred, who was standing a little apart from them, unable to keep his eyes off Edith in her beautiful if old-fashioned evening gown.

  ‘Alfred! Alfred Talisman.’ Celandine beckoned to him impatiently, because he seemed reluctant to move. ‘Alfred – come and m
eet Mrs Napier Todd, do, please.’ To Edith she said, ‘I believe Napier made sure you avoided meeting Alfred when he came to Helmscote, which is just as well, because at that time he would have still had a beard. Now at least he is clean-shaven, which is not to say much, but you can at least have the dubious pleasure of making his acquaintance. Although I have to warn you that judging from his petrified pose when he saw you coming into the room, I would say that he is already mesmerised by you. May I present yours and my husband’s friend, Mr Alfred Talisman? Alfred, this is the object of your fascination, Mrs Napier Todd.’

  Edith’s large eyes stared up into Alfred’s, and it was her turn to catch her breath, because Alfred Talisman was staring at her with an intensity which made her drop her eyes and wonder if Mrs Harvey’s mother should have left the décolletage quite so low.

  ‘I was just remarking to dear Celandine that I hoped the alterations to my ball gown did not show,’ she said, and then, raising her eyes to Alfred’s, she added, ‘but since so many people are staring at me, I am beginning to appreciate that the décolletage might be cut a little too low? I asked my husband, but he was too busy laughing at the absurdity of my old-fashioned dress.’

  Alfred’s own quite brilliant eyes stared into Edith’s but he did not smile. ‘I see now, all too clearly, why Napier would not let you join us at dinner when I came by for the night at Helmscote,’ he said at last, his painter’s eyes taking in Edith’s perfect girlish form, how her small rounded breasts, showing demurely above the cut of her dress, were still a long way from maturity, and how her long neck set off the proud carriage of her head, as if she had long ago made up her mind to brave the world and its slights, to never let anyone know the secrets of her heart. ‘To make up for what I missed, I am not going to leave your side all evening, Mrs Todd.’

  ‘That will please Napier,’ came the disarming reply. ‘But I am not sure that it will please you. I cannot discourse on Mr Ruskin’s essays, or the principles of the modern movement.’