A Connoisseur of Beauty

by Coleridge, Daphne

Hunter turned to look at her as they entered the Great Hall, “But would it surprise you to know that I respect that right to a sense of ownership. Any real object of beauty; a painting, a sculpture, a building, belongs not just to the person who pays the price and puts it on display as his possession, but also to all those who can look and truly appreciate that beauty. Not that I don’t enjoy being the proprietor of such a place. Most of my life has been given over to the acquisition of beautiful artefacts. Some I keep for my enjoyment, some I let go.”

  Amy was listening to him intently. She was recalling an article she had read about him about eighteen months before. Connoisseur of Beauty, it had been entitled, and it charted the opening of his galleries, and acknowledged his exquisite taste and expertise in the world of art. She also recalled his life as portrayed in the gossip columns. He also liked to acquire beautiful women. Some he kept for his enjoyment, some he let go. She remained wary of him, following him into the room. Almost involuntarily she let out a small gasp. Hunter smiled,

  “I was interested in your reaction. Do you approve of the change?”

  Above the fireplace was her own painting that he had bought the previous day. The strong colours and the large canvas were quite in keeping with the grand setting and seeing it in this new context it was almost like seeing the painting anew. It looked magnificent.

  “Well since I remember that James had that vast oil painting of his Golden Retriever, Sassy, there before, I can only approve the change. James was a good man, but not perfect.”

  Hunter laughed, “Yes, I acknowledged the technical merits of the picture and then rapidly removed it.” Their eyes met in mutual understanding.

  Amy turned to take in the rest of the room, “Any other minor changes in mind?”

  “Maybe. I may commission some new paintings. Some of these are excellent but some of more historical or sentimental interest, as I’m sure you’ll acknowledge. But one interests me in particular for a number of reasons, both because I’m curious about its origin and because... but let’s go and look at it.”

  Amy wasn’t in much doubt as to where she was going to be led. The controversy surrounding the painting of Elizabeth Montford had been disputed over a couple of centuries. Sure enough she was led up the stairs to the small gallery of paintings with which she was so familiar. Most, after all, were her ancestors.

  “Is it? “ Hunter asked simply. He was looking at her intently again and she was ready to feel uncomfortable under his penetrating stare. However, there were two questions which he could be asking, and she decided to assume that it was the more technical one.

  “Well, no one can prove it, but for my money, yes. Certainly it is eighteenth century, because it is of Elizabeth Montford. Unfortunately a small house fire fifty years ago damaged the bottom of the canvas and obliterated any signature. After that it was effectively trimmed up and reframed. You can tell by the composition that there should be more in the foreground.”

  Hunter acknowledged this with an authoritative nod. “It is certainly in the style of Gainsborough. He had his imitators, but the sheer quality of the work... of course he was really a landscape artist, but portrait painting was more lucrative. Was it him who observed that a man may do great things and starve in a garret?”

  Amy smiled and nodded, although this was a little close to home. Her work may not be great but she was perilously close to the starving in a garret part. Her father had almost literally left her with the money tucked in the tea caddy and nothing else but the cottage in which they had lived.

  “And my other question...” Hunter turned the full force of his gaze onto Amy. He surveyed her face and body almost hungrily, a look mingled of curiosity, eagerness and desire. “Is this you? I was bewitched by the beauty of the image the moment I saw it. Then I walked into your exhibition and saw you...?”

  Amy struggled to compose herself under the ferocity of his scrutiny, adopting lightness in her tone of voice which was very different to what she was feeling.

  “No, it’s an eighteenth century work but the...likeness is, well, unsurprising.” Amy deliberately looked at the painting so as to disengage herself from Hunter, who was still holding her with his eyes. “She is my ancestor and it was always said that there were two kinds of Montford women, the Elizabeths and the Harriets. Harriet Montford is over here, in a seventeenth century painting. She was, well, you can see, handsome enough, but stocky and anything but delicate. She was renowned for breeding dogs and horses. Elizabeth was renowned for a string of aristocratic and, it was rumoured, royal lovers. In fact her third son was not thought to be his father’s son, so to speak, but as there was no chance of him inheriting, this fact was discretely glossed over.”

  “So beautiful, yet cold and faithless,” mused Hunter. “It’s often the way.”

  Amy bridled a bit at this criticism, feeling it somehow reflected on her. “Well, we don’t know she was cold, she may have been very warm in her relationships, however adulterous.”

  Hunter laughed, “A novel way of looking at it, and perhaps a man would be prepared to accept an element of duplicity just for the pleasure of being with such a woman.”

  Amy’s cheeks felt pink again, but she allowed him to lead her down the gallery as he asked pertinent and intelligent questions about the other works that hung there. Then he offered her more wine, which she accepted, the warm glow imparted by the wine mingling with the warm glow that was imparted by his mere presence. A few more questions about the history of the house and then,

  “Now, down to business. I think I want at least one more painting by you for the Great Hall. Something of the gardens, I’ll leave it to your artistic judgement. I hope you’ll accept the commission. I’ll pay twice the price I did for the one of Wolfston in autumn. I hope that is acceptable.”

  Amy nodded, “Yes, of course.” She could hardly complain, it would be a delight to paint and it wasn’t as if she didn’t need the money. Yet somehow this sudden businesslike approach cut across the rosy glow that had flooded her. And yet she had been the one determined to be anything but romantic. By the time she left her head was spinning with impressions, questions and thoughts, but she shook them off. It was all very intriguing, but the only salient point was that she had a painting to do. She would concentrate on that and not wonder about what possibilities further meetings with the new owner of Wolfston Hall might produce.

  ***

  Chapter Two

  Amy heard no more from Hunter for the rest of the week, most of which she spent attending her exhibition. She observed various comings and goings from Wolfston Hall that suggested he was establishing himself there at least for the immediate future. She herself had sold six paintings, including the one that Hunter had bought. With the money from her commission she could roll along for a month or two longer although she knew that it was time to start deciding what to do with her life now she was no longer looking after her father. Should she return to college? Was it possible to make a living as an artist? Somehow she felt a strong inclination not to make any decisions yet. After all, she had the painting to do at Wolfston Hall and that was her top priority. The fact that this might mean further contact with Hunter did nothing to detract from the proposition.

  Saturday morning she was woken by a knock at the door. She padded down sleepily in her silky white pyjamas, trying to straighten her ruffled hair, to be confronted by the delivery of a bouquet of beautiful cream-coloured roses. Not just any roses, she discovered, as she carefully placed them in vases. Never before had she seen roses so perfect, so lustrous of petal, so satin to the touch, so fragrant. They were also abundant, enough to fill three big vases; one for the little room at the front of her cottage, one for the kitchen behind and one for her to take up to her bedroom so that too could be filled with the delicious perfume. She also took up the small white envelope that had come with them. Somehow she knew that they were from Hunter Lewis. Who else could provide flowers that looked like they had been plucked in the Garden of Eden? And she though
t she knew why he had chosen that particular pearly-hued shade of cream. For it was flowers exactly like these that lay tumbled in the lap of Elizabeth Montford, contrasting with the silver grey of her dress, in the portrait they had looked at together. Yet, in the painting, there had been a single red flower in the bouquet. If she had been asked to comment on the symbolism in the painting, she would have said the white flowers represent the cold beauty of the sitter, the single red bloom her adultery. Happily Hunter had left out the red flower.

  Placing the vase by the window which overlooked her little courtyard garden, Amy, with a slight tremble of eagerness in her fingers, opened the envelope. Her eyes instantly picked out the signature, Hunter Lewis, before she set to reading the message. “Please come and start your painting this morning at ten-thirty.” Amy was perplexed and, to be honest, a little disappointed. There is nothing more romantic than to be sent roses by a dashingly handsome man, but the message quickly negated any impression of romance with its brisk, businesslike message. Also, despite the “please” it was more a demand than a request. He simply assumed she had no prior commitment and was at his beck and call. She might have had something important to do that morning. OK, she hadn’t, but she wasn’t sure she liked the assumption that her life was empty and she was just waiting about to be summoned by the likes of Hunter Lewis. Perhaps he was accustomed to sending artists who were working on a commission for him instructions accompanied by bunches of flowers. And yet, as she brushed her hand across the petals of those delicious flowers, she felt again a little of the warm glow she had felt when she had met Hunter that second time. But even if there was a hint of romance in the gift, was she really ready for any sort of relationship? She had always assiduously avoided any liaisons, feeling her emotions had been knocked about enough in the last few years without any complication of that sort. And if his roses were the opening move in a seduction, was she just lined up to be another conquest? She knew she could not cope with the prospect of being romanced and discarded, just another beautiful object to be dispassionately used. Well, she would certainly go along and start the painting, but she would keep Hunter Lewis carefully at arm’s length until she knew not only what it was that he wanted, but what it was she wanted too.

  As soon as Amy stood at the door of Wolfston Hall she knew that any aloof poise would be hard to sustain. She had been obliged to dress down in tight jeans, a tee shirt and a very old but still soft and lovely cashmere sweater as nobody with any sense would paint with oils in a pale summer frock, even though this May morning promised to turn into a fine and sunny afternoon. She could only clutch her easel and her blank canvas for reassurance. It was Hunter who opened the door, giving her a dazzling smile of genuine pleasure at seeing her.

  “Thank you for being kind enough to come as requested. You’ll see we are all in uproar here as I have people arriving and we are planning what I hope will be traditional May Ball in the grounds if the weather holds. All at short notice, although I hope you will consent to being a guest? Next Saturday?”

  “Yes, of course. Thank you,” replied Amy, rather breathlessly. She could see people moving about the place which was looking cleaner and more ordered than of late and yielded a pleasant smell of cooking from within. “It’s nice to see the old place brought back to life. It has been too forlorn for too long.”

  “I’m glad you feel that,” replied Hunter, leading her through the house and across a very spring-cleaned morning room which was still being briskly dusted by a stout lady whom Amy vaguely recognised. “And I hope you don’t mind if we go straight out to look at views you might paint, partly because all this dust will make me sneeze and partly because I have a conference call arranged for later. Lewis Eames Enterprises,” he added by way of explanation. Amy must have looked blank because he continued, “Family business, so I’m still on the board of directors. My grandfather founded it and my father is still running it. Both my brother Cole and I are on the board as well as our cousins and I know my father would wish me to be more involved than I am. My foray into the art world is regarded as a bit of frivolous escapism by the rest of the family.”

  Amy mused to herself that if his highly successful and prestigious galleries were regarded as frivolous the family business must be of gargantuan proportions. “The black sheep of the family?” she asked without much seriousness.

  “Goodness, no! Cole is chief profligate. He may be nominally on the board but my father has carefully kept any real power away from him. I can’t hope to compete with him. My misdemeanours have proved very lucrative, his ... the opposite. But our cousins Ryan and George are good solid fellows.” Hunter was striding out through the French windows onto the still damp and recently clipped lawn. Amy, trailing somewhat in his wake, couldn’t help admiring the sheer athleticism or his movements as, sleek in fine grey wool trousers and white linen shirt, he moved out across the garden. She also, irrelevantly, noted how soft his clipped dark hair looked and how the back of his neck seemed to invite a delicate kiss. She had to shake her head to dismiss this image.

  “And was the opening of your galleries a form of escapism?” They were walking across the lawns, through the formal gardens, vibrant already with rhododendrons, into the apple orchard, rich with bloom, and on through the wilderness area where clumps of bluebells still clung beneath the shady trees.

  “Escapism?” Hunter’s eyes took on the curious intense, eager look Amy had seen before. “Yes I suppose it was. Sit here with me.” He indicated a decayed wood bench that was just about holding its own under a wild cherry tree. “We grew up with stern expectations from my father. Not just running Lewis Eames, he was elected Senator at thirty and dreamed, I think, of our family starting something of a political dynasty. Cole and I were sent to boarding school in England and Cole had the good sense to get himself expelled pretty quickly. I, on the other hand, did rather well. I enjoyed learning. Suddenly I found I was favoured son, son with a future. All mapped out for me, of course. I love my father very much, respect him. But I didn’t want a political career.” Something clouded in Hunter’s bright, grey eyes, “How do you break away from a father and establish your independence without defying and disappointing him? I guess I’ve succeeded as far as possible. I’ve always loved beauty, art, music – beauty like that of Elizabeth Montford, beauty like yours. Somehow I turned this love into a commercial success, which I guess made it acceptable to my father. But he still expects me to take over Lewis Eames.”

  Hunter sat in thought for a moment. Amy didn’t make any comment because she didn’t want to break the spell that had made him start to open up to her, nor bring an end to the moment in which he had, admittedly in an aside, told her that he thought she was beautiful.

  “It has given me a lot, my pursuit of beauty, but I don’t quite trust it. The art world is as cruel and competitive as the business world. More so; objects of beauty become objects of value and those who own them, those around them, become possessive, greedy, unscrupulous. As a form of escape it has disappointed me. Where I was looking for something gentle, lovely and pure, I found only hardness.” He suddenly turned to Amy, a strange fire in his eyes. “I wonder if I will find what I am looking for here, amongst these ancient woods, in a house where history, old loves and stories of the past remain even when the money has gone.”

  Amy hardly knew how to reply in the face of such intense personal feeling, but she did know a little about the house. “I’m afraid the house also holds disappointment, suffering and loss of faith. I too love the beauty of the place, but I can’t promise that it provides an answer for anyone. Sometimes it’s just best to let things go, live in the moment and enjoy what’s in front of you.”

  “What’s in front of me?” Hunter’s eyes turned on her, the fire blazing to greater heights. Suddenly his arms were around her and his lips on hers in a passionate, bruising kiss. His lips sought hers as he explored her mouth almost as if he could reach her soul through that soft portal. For a moment Amy held back, but then she succumbed
, partly because there was no resisting the insistence of his embrace but more because her body was lit by the same fire that seemed to engulf him and she wanted to explore him as voraciously as he seemed to want her. And then a voice awoke at the back of her brain. This is what you said you weren’t ready for. Whatever do you think you are doing? This is the road to pain. And somehow the chill of that voice was enough to douse some of the flames. Having to muster almost all the strength in her body, Amy fought against him until he abruptly released her and she was able to spring to her feet, dazed, blushing, confused.

  “I’m sorry,” she muttered instinctively. For a moment she thought she saw hurt and confusion in Hunter’s eyes, but then the grey became steely.

  “No need to be sorry. It is always a pleasure to kiss a maiden of a May morning. The stuff of poetry.” There was a facetious edge to his voice that made Amy suddenly harden towards him. He seemed to catch the sudden hard glint in her eyes. “Don’t worry about it, I was just checking to see if you lived up to your reputation as the ice queen! Not quite the whole story judging by that kiss!”

  Hurt, confused, tears beginning to prick at her eyes, Amy started to run away.

  “And don’t go stalking away from me, all proud and aloof. We were here on business, remember?”

  Amy stopped and tried to regain control. All right, if he wanted business, she would show him that she was as detached and emotionless as he seemed to think she was.

  “As you wish. Did you want to show me what you want painted, or do you want me to find my own subject?” Despite the fact that her hands, indeed her whole body, seemed to be shaking from their encounter and the aftermath, Amy tried to clear her mind and start looking with an artist’s eye at the scene before her.

  “I’ve seen enough of your painting to trust your judgement in this matter. I just wanted to show you the general view I was interested in. This part of the garden, with or without the house.”