Friday's Girl Page 25

  ‘Bit like a church, innit?’ she asked after staring at the stained-glass window of Queen Philippa and her Plantagenet king. ‘Bit like St Peter’s down the way from the Stag, wouldn’t you say?’

  Edith smiled. ‘It’s not just churches that use coloured glass for decoration, Becky, but I know what you mean. Come in here, and I will have some tea fetched for you. Come into what we call the “ladies’ sulking room”, and we can have a cosy conversation while the men go back to the studio.’

  Edith was determined on locking Becky out of sight before Napier and Alfred emerged from the dining room, but Becky was equally determined on examining the spacious hall, the staircase, and the paintings, some of which were by Napier, naturally.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to dust that every day, thank you very much,’ she said, staring at an overlarge statue in one corner. ‘What do you do it with to keep it that glossy?’ she demanded of her former companion in domestic arms at the old inn. ‘You couldn’t use a honeybee wax nor nothing like that, so what do you use? Soda and damp knitted cotton, I dare say?’

  Edith who, since her marriage to Napier, had never yet raised so much as a duster to help the maids at Helmscote, nevertheless, while asking God’s forgiveness for her lie, found herself muttering, ‘Yes, that’s right,’ rather than explain that the Carrara marble had its own natural sheen and only needed a flick of a feather duster to keep it gleaming.

  Hearing the door of the dining room open she found herself almost shooing Becky into the small sitting room where she liked to sit and read in front of the fire when Napier was out visiting potential patrons.

  ‘Ah, the visitor! Introduce us, do.’

  Alfred strode across the hall and Becky, seeing how tall and handsome he was, how beautifully, if artistically, dressed, instantly preened.

  ‘Quite well, I’m sure,’ she said, curtsying.

  To Napier she said as she curtsied to him, ‘You, I know, Mr Todd. On account of you marrying Edith here. That was a great day in the history of the Stag and Crown, and none of us what was there that day will ever forget what a beautiful bride Edith made, nor what a handsome groom you were, despite having a beard!’

  Both the men laughed as they bowed in turn over Becky’s hand.

  ‘You surely did not walk across from Stowe dressed as you are, Miss . . . ?’

  ‘Snape. And, no, of course I didn’t, but I knows the ways of servants, I do, same as what Edith here does. I knows how to get them to go into the dining room, by saying you won’t take nothing for an answer.’ She smiled, showing surprisingly pretty teeth. ‘So I says to the ’ousekeeper, you tell Mrs Todd I walked all the way from Stowe, knowing that neither she nor the ’ousekeeper could send me away then, see? But no, ’course I don’t have to walk nowhere. I got me own carriage now, but I left it at the gate and walked up. No, I has me own carriage, same as what you have.’ This last was directed to Edith. ‘And having me own carriage I have to tell you makes all the difference to this particular lady of consequence. Yes, I have me own carriage, and me own horses, and me own ideas about how to go on, as well, you may be sure. And since I was in the neighbourhood, and that, I decided to call on my old friend Edith, because apart from anything else, I promised Edith I would, and all.’

  ‘Shall we let the gentlemen go about their work now, Becky? While we go to my little sitting room? I think we should.’ Edith put a gentle hand under Becky’s elbow, because, knowing her of old, she was aware that once you started Becky talking you could be all day listening to her.

  ‘I don’t mind if I do, but I will say this before I goes along with you.’ She turned to Napier. ‘You ’as a lovely ’ouse, you do, even if it is too modern for my taste.’

  The door closed behind the two young women. Alfred stared at it for a second before turning to Napier.

  ‘Very well, we must do as we are told, must we not, Napier, my dear chap? We must go and work, it seems, and by order of the lady of the house no less.’

  The two men strolled in companionable silence across to the studio buildings, enjoying the feel of the autumn air, the smell of smoke on the breeze, and the sound of the maids laughing and singing in the kitchens.

  ‘Ah yes, of course! I knew I knew that face, as soon as I saw it,’ Alfred announced suddenly to Napier as they set up his easel together in the studio adjoining Napier’s. ‘It was only a few weeks ago I saw it, only a few weeks ago, but not in this part of the country, to be sure, no.’

  ‘You were in the Stag and Crown near Richmond?’

  Alfred shook his head. ‘By no means. No, I was in Leicestershire finishing a commission for Lord Belton. His hunting wife, you know!’

  They both laughed. Leicestershire was famous for the upkeep of so-called ‘hunting boxes’: small houses which were kept for the use of those gentlemen who followed the hunt; and of course their mistresses. The rules of hunting if not written into the legislature were nevertheless firm. Mistresses were allowed to mix with whomever they chose in the hunting field, just as they were allowed to follow the chase provided they rode fast and well, but because they would never be invited to any of the grand houses by the wives, the husbands were forced to find them alternative accommodation. Husbands might hunt with their mistresses, they might dally with them after the chase, but they would never, ever, be allowed to bring them home.

  ‘Yes, it was in Leicestershire that I glimpsed Becky Snape. She is the new young stunner being kept by Belton’s uncle, the Earl of Brinsmore. She doesn’t hunt yet, but she will soon. I dare say that is why she is in this neighbourhood: to take lessons from Captain Joshua Plume. Her patron will have seen to that. Stunning she may be, but if she don’t learn to ride like the devil, she will be yesterday’s bread as soon as you like.’

  Napier, who, unlike Alfred, had no interest in horses, looked questioning.

  ‘Captain Plume,’ Alfred explained, ‘is the newest fad in riding. He can teach a lady to jump and hunt in a matter of weeks, and thanks to the new safety buckle on the sidesaddle he is, at this moment, having the success of his life. The ladies of the night are queuing up to learn from him, and the hunting field is fuller than ever of their kind. So much so that I have even trifled with the thought of following the chase myself. But funds being what they are, and having no time to go to Ireland where it is more exciting and less costly, I have put aside the notion, at any rate for the moment.’

  He stared at the blank canvas he had just put up on his easel, and so did Napier. The blank canvas was always an exciting moment for both of them. They had often discussed the terror of it – the fascination of it – the challenge of it. The pull to put the first mark on it, the dread of putting the first mark, the holding back even as you were drawn forward.

  ‘Well, my dear fellow, I know what I am going to put on this inviting canvas, with your permission, of course.’

  Napier looked at Alfred, feeling almost before the two words were uttered that he knew exactly what they were going to be.

  ‘Your wife.’

  ‘Of course. What could be more natural than that you should want to paint my wife?’

  ‘And you?’ Alfred nodded in the vague direction of Napier’s studio.

  ‘Me? Well, my dear Alfred, I am hoping that Captain Plume will take some time to instruct Miss Snape in the equestrian arts, time during which, during just such an afternoon as this, I can paint her into “Temptation”.’

  Alfred smiled, yet again thinking of the appropriate nature of the painting. ‘It must be difficult to paint one’s wife, once one has married her?’ he suggested.

  ‘Impossible,’ Napier told him, with some feeling. ‘But not for you. How do you see her?’

  ‘As herself.’

  Alfred turned away, ostensibly to start unpacking his paints, but in fact to hide the depths of his feeling. How could he tell Napier what he felt for his wife? More than that, why should he tell him? After all, if Napier did not want her, he should not be surprised if Alfred Talisman did.

  Cel
andine stared at all the sketches that Sheridan had made of the old sea dog, Captain Black. They were brilliant, and yet somehow defiant, as if he knew that he could paint the man in a flattering light, but hated having to do it with such a ferocity that he had determined to paint him as he saw him, which was as a bloated old bore.

  ‘This will not please the subject,’ she murmured to herself. ‘In fact this will please the subject about as much as the artist has been pleased with the commission.’

  She started to copy from Sherry’s sketches on to her canvas, making sure to soften the lines and make the old gentleman look both younger and less conceited. She remembered how he had looked when he danced with her, so pleased with the fact that she had at last consented to step out on to the dance floor with him that the buttons on his waistcoat jacket threatened to fly off.

  ‘Well, now here you are, Captain Black, in all your potential glory.’

  She stepped back, her head on one side, feeling a strange excitement, for this was after all her first commission. Sheridan might despise the bourgeoisie and only want to paint the working population, to convey the harshness of their lives, but she was happy to paint Captain Black not just as he saw himself, but as she saw him – a man who had been to sea all his life and was now looking back on his adventures with a sense of wonder, and perhaps even of relief that he, unlike so many, had at least returned. His house, she knew from Sheridan, was very much a retired sea captain’s place, full of the mementoes that such men treasure on their retirement, and, naturally, facing the sea. He could stand on his balcony with his telescope and pretend that he could see pirates, or the invading French, or – worse – Jesuits.

  ‘What have you there?’

  Sheridan was standing behind her, so close that she was forced to give way to him, and step aside so that he could examine her work.

  ‘Mmm.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘If you continue in this way the old boy will like it, that much is certain.’ He looked at Celandine. ‘Don’t forget he wants the skull and crossbones.’

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  ‘If you continue as you are, he will be pleased. I told him that I had no need of any more sittings, for the moment, and he did not seem to mind. Knows nothing of art, thank God, just wants to stare at a painting of himself the way he has never looked.’

  ‘He’s a goodly type, Sherry – at least, that is how I see him – even if he is not a fisherman.’

  Sheridan nodded, already uninterested because it was after luncheon and he did not want to lose the light.

  ‘Have it how you will. He will probably like it better for what you are doing.’

  Celandine realised at once, and only too well, that the inference was that Captain Black might like it, but Sherry certainly did not, but she did not mind. She smiled at the closed door before turning back to the portrait.

  ‘Never mind, Captain Black, dear,’ she told her canvas. ‘We will make a good painting, no matter what Sherry thinks of it!’

  In the event Sheridan was so caught up in his own work that he did not bother to examine the portrait very closely until it was finished.

  ‘Do you know, you are really making a quite fine job of it,’ he told Celandine when she showed him how she was progressing.

  It was nearly Christmastime, but the weather having continued fine, if colder, Celandine was able to work with the windows open and the sound of the sea in her ears. It made her think of the lives of people like Captain Black, the history of places such as the one in which she now lived. Mrs Molesworth had told her that the Blacks had been a naval family in previous centuries, eventually turning to piracy and preying on shipwrecks, as so many Cornish families did.

  ‘The whole of this coastline was nothing but piracy,’ the landlady often explained, waving one of her many heavy irons towards the open window. ‘And even now, if there should be a shipwreck, the beaches will be swarming with scavengers. It’s a sight to see, believe me. But the Blacks were like most of the families round here: they turned from waging war for His Majesty to waging war for themselves. The lighthouse was not popular when she went up, as you can imagine. The locals didn’t want ships getting safely to port and no wrecks to pick to the bone!’

  Perhaps it was Mrs Molesworth’s stories, or perhaps it was her own recollection of the gentleman in question, but the portrait was finally finished – with Sherry going backwards and forwards to Captain Black to show him its progress – far more quickly than if Sheridan had undertaken the commission.

  ‘You work fast, Mrs Montague Roberton, I’ll say that for you.’

  ‘Has he told you the kind of frame he wants?’

  ‘Nothing too extravagant, nothing too poor, something gold, but not too costly, I dare say.’

  Sheridan was mimicking the rich tones of the old salt, which was very funny in a way because Sherry was an accomplished mimic, but Celandine, for no reason that she could think, felt hurt, possibly because she had put so much into painting Captain Black that she now felt that in some way, through the painting, he belonged to her, just as a person who has painted a view might afterwards feel that in some way its beauty has become a part of them, something that has changed them.

  Hardly had they finally settled for choosing Captain Black a handsome frame in gold leaf, when a letter arrived for Celandine from France.

  ‘Oh, not France . . .’

  Sheridan handed Celandine the letter with a worried look. He knew nothing of Mrs Benyon’s dying in childbirth, nothing of his wife’s agonising situation; he only knew that he dreaded a letter from France out of habit, because it might presage Celandine’s having to return to Paris for one reason or another.

  ‘Well?’ He moved restlessly about the room, trying not to look at either her or the letter.

  ‘It’s from Marie, my mother’s maid. I must go at once.’

  ‘I don’t see why, when a letter is from France, it is always so urgent that you return,’ Sheridan complained, but he spoke to an empty room because Celandine had already hurried off to pack.

  ‘Mrs Molesworth will look after you better than anyone else can, most of all your wife,’ Celandine told him when she finally reappeared, already in travelling clothes and preparing to leave.

  Sheridan looked sulky and irritated, but when Celandine touched him on the cheek to reassure him, he smiled.

  ‘If you let me catch the boat this morning, I will promise to be back as soon as you can possibly imagine.’

  Sheridan nodded. He had no idea why she should be needed by her mother’s maid, but since she had also muttered about wanting some of her father’s paintings to be returned to her, he imagined, in his vague artistic way, that there must be family business to do with wills and suchlike. Since their finances were as always precarious, he knew that it would be best to let her go without too much fuss.

  On the boat, and then the train to Paris, Celandine thought over what she knew she would soon have to face. Should she adopt her mother’s child? As a daughter was it her duty to adopt and bring up her own half-brother? And if she did what would Sheridan say? He would be understandably furious that she had not mentioned the situation before. And that would be only the beginning . . .

  ‘Mademoiselle Celandine?’

  Marie was as ever perfectly turned out, sharp of eye, and pretty.

  ‘Madame?’ Seeing how pale and worried Celandine looked the older woman’s tone became conciliatory. ‘You have had a long journey, n’est-ce pas? You must bath and rest yourself. Marie has made you your favourite dinner, salade de tomates, filet mignon avec sauce béarnaise, une tarte normande . . .’ She murmured the names of various dishes soothingly as a nurse might sing a lullaby to a baby.

  ‘Where is the baby, Marie?’

  Marie’s face lit up. ‘Ah, bébé is in with Madame Montellier opposite. You must come and see him. He is so handsome. He love her milk, he take more than her own baby!’ She laughed gaily, seeming to find this funny, as if it made the baby cleverer than his rival. ‘He put on kilos.
’

  Celandine smiled at the pride in Marie’s eyes. ‘That is good.’

  There was a small silence.

  ‘I’m longing to see him,’ Celandine confided. ‘Does he look like anyone in particular, do you think?’

  ‘He look just like a baby always does: some time he look like one person, some time another. That is babies!’ Marie smiled the smile of a woman who was obviously feeling, since his mother had died, that this particular baby owed his life to her. ‘We have called him Dominique, for the moment. But if you take him to England, he will maybe be called something else, perhaps? Come, we must go and see him at Madame Montellier.’

  Since the look in Marie’s eyes told Celandine that to call the child anything except Dominique would be to court the most terrible danger, she followed the maid across the courtyard to Madame Montellier in a suitably humbled state. She was, however, allowed to pick up the handsome little bundle that her half-brother had already become.

  ‘Isn’t he beautiful?’

  Both women, watching her with careful eyes, nodded. Yes, he is beautiful, their eyes seemed to be saying, thanks to us!

  Celandine rocked him in her arms, feeling the stirrings of maternal emotion for the first time, and only reluctantly finally handing him back. ‘You have done so well,’ she told Madame Montellier, who smiled and stroked her ample front with pride.

  ‘He is a fine child,’ she said simply, her eyes not leaving the cot.

  Celandine turned away reluctantly, wishing to goodness that she had plucked up the courage to tell Sheridan.

  ‘He looks really rather like Madame Montellier, doesn’t he?’

  Marie shrugged her shoulders, but she nodded as they crossed the courtyard to go back to their own apartment.

  ‘It ’appen with babies when they take the milk from the other mothers,’ she said, her tone philosophical. ‘Sometimes, if the milk is from a Chinese, or an Algerian, then the baby will soon have the look. Or if from a singer then he will have the voice of an angel. It has always been said that mothers’ milk is very strong, huh?’