The Wedding Portrait

by Fiona Hill

  “In consequence whereof, he decides instead to paint the portrait of another lady in the house,” said Clio, looking shyly from beneath her lashes at the handsome Mr. Lowland.

  “Who is the bride’s cousin,” Jacob added promptly.

  “Oh, Jacob, how can you?” Elizabeth exclaimed. “So he paints this other lady’s portrait,” she said sulkily.

  “Which is excessively beautiful, but creates a grave problem,” Ashley continued dryly. “The bride’s picture is not of the bride!”

  “In consequence whereof, the bride obligingly allows the other lady to marry her betrothed,” Laura went on gaily.

  “So that their children will not be confused by a bridal portrait of some lady other than their mother,” Thaddeus finished, somewhat unnecessarily.

  “Oh dear,” said Clio, whose turn was next. “That one became rather odd! Shall I start another?”

  “I beg you will not,” said Miss Elizabeth Shaw. “I am sure we are all weary of the game.”

  “I’m not,” Jacob contradicted. His sister glared at him. “Oh, very well,” he conceded. “Let us join my aunt and uncle. Perhaps we may contrive some dancing.”

  The party adjourned to the drawing room, where Mrs. Simpson announced to Clio that the snow having got so thick, it would be necessary for the Simpsons to quit the Abbey immediately if they did not wish to remain there all night. She directed her daughter to collect the rest of the family, and soon had all the Simpson muses, and Meldon, of course, bundled up warmly for the journey home.

  Thaddeus suggested, as they quitted the house, that he too ought to be on his way, but Lady Eleanor would not hear of it.

  “I allowed the Simpsons to go only because they live so nearby,” she explained. “But you, Thaddeus! Lindley Park is five miles from here if it is one. I think Lady Louisa would never forgive me if I permitted you to venture out in this weather. You must stay the night with us.”

  “But surely my parents will be worried?” Thaddeus protested.

  “Nonsense,” Lady Eleanor answered firmly. “Sir Philip is a sensible man; he will guess what has happened.”

  And so it was decided that Thad would pass the night at the Abbey. Jacob winked at Mr. Lowland, for it seemed very likely that he would win their wager: Harkness Abbey would surely be snowbound by morning. Jacob agreed, however, that it was only fair to wait until the sun rose to be sure of the outcome.

  The remainder of the evening passed pleasantly enough, though the idea of dancing was forgotten. The company partook of a light supper, to solemnise which the rector insisted upon saying a very long prayer in Latin, not a word of it understood by any of the others. Miss Webb, however, it might have been noticed, listened with rapt attention. Supper was followed by tea, and some drowsy discourse, until Sir Kenneth suggested that they all retire—a motion that was heartily seconded by most of the party and yielded to by all.

  Two members of the company, however, were unable to sleep. Ashley Lowland, though fatigued by a morning of hard travel, found it impossible to silence the turmoil of his mind, caused no doubt by new acquaintances, and strange surroundings. After an uneasy half-hour spent tossing restlessly in the darkness of his spacious chamber, he rose, lit a candle, donned an elegant dressing gown and quietly descended the stairs. Feeling his way slowly through the unfamiliar Abbey, he arrived at last at the library, where he poured himself a glass of wine for cheerfulness and began to search the shelves for company. He settled at last upon a volume of Petrarch translated by Wyatt, and began to read a poem called “The Soote Season.” It was a happy choice, for the poem was full of sound and warmth, whereas the Abbey was silent as a tomb and the library, where only the embers of the evening’s fire remained, rather chilly. A log, half-charred and half-untouched by the flames, slipped suddenly from its precarious position and fell to the floor of the fireplace with a resounding thud. Ashley started. More startling still was a noise that came immediately afterwards from the corridor—a noise that sounded very like a female “Oh!” Mr. Lowland rose to investigate, and found Miss Laura Fieldon standing in the hall, her hand on her heart, as though catching her breath. She did not see him, though the candle she held illuminated her handsome profile to admiration.

  “Don’t be frightened, Miss Fieldon,” said Ashley in a low tone, fearing to startle her again. She whirled round.

  “Who is it? I cannot—”

  “Ashley Lowland, ma’am. No cause to be disturbed.”

  “Oh, Mr. Lowland!” cried Laura, relieved to find that the tall, shadowy figure was not a ghost, for the servants maintained that the Abbey was haunted. “I—I suppose that was only a log falling, but I did not expect it, and—”

  “I know. It rather surprised me, too,” he answered. “Well, once we both stop trembling, I expect we shall be quite jolly. Do come in, pray,” he continued, holding the library door for her. “I was just reading—Petrarch, in fact—for I could not sleep.”

  “No more could I,” said Laura. “I suppose it is the wedding—the excitement, you know. Oh dear, it is rather dreary in here. Shall I ring to have the fire built up?”

  “I beg you will not; this is an ungodly hour to demand attendance of the servants. Besides, it is comfortable enough.”

  Laura had sat down, but now she looked round a bit nervously and sprang up again. “I was just on my way to the breakfast room to get my work basket. I thought perhaps some monotonous embroidery would put me to sleep. It generally does, you know,” she continued with an uneasy laugh; “even during the day! I shall not disturb you longer.”

  “You are thinking,” Ashley said softly, “that you should not be here. Very right. ‘A gentleman and a lady meet at midnight in a library, both en déshabillé.’ What could be the consequences?” he exclaimed in mock honor. “I commend you upon your propriety, Miss Fieldon, but you will admit the Abbey is rather lonesome at this hour. Will you not consent to do your sewing in here, while I read? I am sure we will both be much calmer, and fall asleep the sooner.”

  Laura hesitated for a moment, then consented. It really was silly to think that any ill could come of their passing a quiet hour together, and she distinctly felt that she did not want to be alone. Besides, she was betrothed, and Mr. Lowland was her godfather’s son—almost a brother, she reasoned speciously. Surely she should not stick at a little propriety on such a dark and forbidding night as this. “I shall go and fetch my basket.”

  “Allow me to escort you,” said Mr. Lowland, offering his arm.

  She took it, permitting him to hold the candle that lighted their way through the shadowy corridors. They accomplished their errand safely and returned to the comfort of the library. Ashley lit and adjusted a lamp behind her and then resumed his chair. They sat in silence for some minutes.

  “Perhaps you will like me to read to you?” said Ashley at last. “It is beautiful poetry, and I think we might both be the better for some noise.”

  “If it is not an imposition,” replied Laura, who had indeed, listening to the house creaking beneath the hushed falling of the snow, begun to imagine that she heard footsteps.

  “It will be a pleasure,” said Mr. Lowland. He read in his low, clear, musical voice:

  The long love that in my thought doth harbour,

  And in my heart doth keep his residence,

  Into my face presseth with bold pretense

  And therein campeth, spreading his banner…

  “It is beautiful,” sighed Laura, after he had read a number of sonnets. “Imagine being so in love that it was actually painful! Have you ever had such a feeling?” she inquired cautiously.

  “No,” Ashley answered, “though reading these, I feel as if I had.”

  “So do I,” Laura agreed dreamily, “and yet I cannot say why.”

  “And Thaddeus?…” said Ashley, leaving the rest of the question unspoken.

  “Oh my!” she exclaimed. “What have I been saying? Yes, indeed, Thaddeus is all that is agreeable!”

  “But you do n
ot love him,” whispered Ashley, peering intently at her across the dim room.

  She was unable to meet his gaze. “Of course, I love him,” she said stiffly, to the floor. “I think I had best go off to bed. I shall be able to sleep now. Good night,” she added, from the doorway. “Thank you for the poems.”

  “Good night, Laura,” he answered softly, knowing that she could not hear him. “Laura,” he mused to himself, and turned again to the volume of Petrarch he held in his lap.

  Chapter III

  Mr. Jacob Shaw won his wager easily. The sun rose to reveal a world entirely glazed and bleached by the previous day’s storm. Laura was in raptures; even before breakfast, she forced open the great front door and waded through the snow on the Abbey’s wide stone porch. She reentered some moments later, her boots soaked, her pelisse bedraggled, to find the Reverend Mr. Chance holding forth to Miss Webb on the virtues of winter.

  “Ah!” he was exclaiming. “Spring is fine, and summer is finer, but surely Nature holds no greater gift than a day in February! What can inspire us with rigour, and Christian righteousness, better than the austerity of winter?”

  “Indeed, I do not know,” Miss Webb answered, entirely unnecessarily.

  “Nothing, Miss Webb, nothing. No other season teaches us that greatest of all lessons, the solitude of man as he stands before his God.” The rector’s voice rose sternly. “Do you dare to draw comfort from companions in sin? Do you dare to cheat your conscience, seek to assuage your guilt, by whining, ‘It was not I alone who erred; he erred too’?”

  “No,” whispered Miss Webb in a tiny voice.

  “NO!” roared the reverend. “No! Let the man who strives to excuse his sin by sharing it with others stand one moment ‘mid a world made white and bleak with snow, and he shall see the error of his ways.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Miss Webb agreed earnestly. “Let him.”

  “He shall learn it is folly to suppose that we meet our Maker otherwise than naked and alone,” the rector raged on, ignoring her. “He shall tremble before the wrath of God, which blights the face of earth in a single breath! And he shall learn humility, Miss Webb—humility—and bare his blackened soul to God, and plead for mercy.”

  Mr. Chance stood silent, his rhetoric exhausted.

  Miss Webb stared at her shoes.

  Their interesting, if silent, colloquy was interrupted at length by Garson, who entered the room to invite them in to breakfast.

  “Do you care to break bread?” Mr. Chance inquired solicitously, offering Miss Webb his arm.

  “Please, if you do not mind,” she answered, accepting his escort.

  “How did you sleep the night?” he asked as they strolled to the breakfast parlour.

  Laura followed them down the corridor, marvelling at this man who could leap from a tone of thundering doom to one of polite inquiry in seconds. Miss Webb wondered too, and admired.

  They found the remainder of the house party assembled round the breakfast table. Mr. Lowland had already given Jacob the five-and-twenty pounds he owed him, and Thaddeus and Sir Kenneth were conferring upon how a message might possibly be sent to the boy’s parents at Lindley Park. All were of the opinion that the Greys would be anxious by now for some word of their son, but how to convey it puzzled them, for the roads would almost surely be impassable. Thaddeus suggested doubtfully that he might be able to ride some distance along them, and resolved at least to make a shift to go home after breakfast. In truth, he was not very eager to remove himself from Harkness Abbey. As a rule, he was fond of the abbey and its inhabitants, so it did not strike him as greatly remarkable that he should be reluctant to depart; still, some part of him was aware that he was finding this particular visit to his betrothed substantially more agreeable than any previous one. He set down this pleasant circumstance to the festive presence of so many guests in the house, but this was careless thinking. Had he wished to consider the question more closely, he would very likely have been able to trace his increased enjoyment of the place to the presence of one very specific guest, rather than company in general. He was not at all, however, inclined to accord such consideration to his feelings.

  Miss Elizabeth Shaw was looking rather pale this morning. She had, indeed, passed rather a restless night in her uncle’s house, but it was her conscience, and not her mattress, that was uncomfortable. She had never before felt envious of anyone; she had assumed that hers was not a jealous nature. She was not at all afraid that her wish to know Thaddeus better might be translated into action, for she knew her principles would never allow her to hurt her cousin. It was rather the existence of the wish itself that chafed her. It seemed unfair that her emotions should take arms against her ethics; she was not accustomed to battles within herself.

  “Lizzy,” Emily was saying to her, “I wish you will not keep the jam all to yourself like that. There are others at the table, you know.”

  Elizabeth started, and realised that she had indeed left the jam pot on the corner of the table nearest her plate, where no one else could reach it. She handed it to her sister, observing silently that the night’s rest had done nothing to relieve Emily’s ill humour.

  “I wonder what you are thinking,” Emily continued peevishly. “You stare as though you could hear no one round you, and I believe your eyes are fixed upon nothing.”

  “I suppose I am not yet quite awake,” Elizabeth excused herself, trying desperately not to loathe her sister. Emily did seem to have a talent for asking the wrong thing at the wrong time.

  “Well, I am awake,” said Emily, “and I am wondering what we are to do with ourselves all day. I do not see why we were made to come up here so long before the wedding; I am sure I had rather be in London. There, at least, one can not be snowed in for long, and we should have friends to pass the time with.”

  “Lower your voice,” said Elizabeth sharply, though it was unlikely that their hosts could hear Emily’s words, for they sat at the other end of the table. “I am sure we shall contrive to pass the day well enough. If you are bored, you may ask Miss Webb to give you some lessons.”

  “Odious!” exclaimed Emily. “Missing my lessons is the only thing I enjoy about this visit.”

  “Then be content with it,” Elizabeth advised. She nibbled thoughtfully at a piece of toast. “Now I come to think of it,” she went on after a moment, “Mamma said you were to practise upon the pianoforte this week. Did she not pack some of your music in your valise?”

  “Yes,” Emily admitted unwillingly.

  “Then I think you ought to,” Elizabeth concluded. “There is an instrument in the Blue Saloon, you know.”

  “Why do not you practise as well?” Emily inquired. “Your playing is hardly better than mine.”

  “Very well, if it makes you happy, I shall play too,” Elizabeth agreed, weary of the argument.

  The other end of the table, meanwhile, was embroiled in a different sort of dispute. Ashley Lowland had expressed a desire to begin Laura’s portrait that very morning, and what she was to wear, whether to sit or stand, and in which room, were topics under discussion. Lady Eleanor envisioned her standing in the drawing room in the white satin-and-lace bridal gown that had been made for her wedding. Laura expressed a preference for a rather more informal picture. She would like, she said, to wear a certain day-dress of embroidered Indian muslin, and to be sitting before a window, reading perhaps. Lady Eleanor protested that the pose was too casual, and the dress to which Laura referred too unremarkable. A compromise was reached at last: Laura would wear her high-necked cerulean gown—the one with the sleeves gathered at the wrists—under her puff-sleeved cream spencer. She would be allowed to sit, but would hold no book. The idea of a window in the picture was ruled out by Mr. Lowland, who insisted that no attention must be drawn from his subject. Laura went off to change, and to have her hair dressed with blue ribbons to match her gown.

  Thaddeus excused himself and went out to investigate the stables, but he returned soon after with discouraging news.
The drifts against the stable doors were so high that he had barely been able to squeeze in through them. It was impossible to open them wide enough to allow a horse to pass. Further, such a feat would be anyway useless, for even the most determined beast would be able to plod no more than a few yards in the knee-deep snow. With the ground covered so completely, it would be almost certain to misstep, and to sprain a leg at the least; an excursion under these circumstances was a risk Thaddeus did not care in the least to take. It was decided that he might wait until late afternoon, to see if the sun would melt the snow at all. Until then, nothing could be done. Thaddeus resigned himself cheerfully to a day at the Abbey.

  Laura descended the stairs. She looked lovely. Her hair had been dressed in a looser style than usual; the velvet ribbons that flowed among her curls were wide, soft, and long. The effect was very romantic. Ashley lost no time in placing her in a small, red velvet chair opposite a window in the drawing room. She sat gracefully, her hands folded loosely upon her lap, her rich blond hair glinting in the winter sunlight.

  “You must direct your eyes at me,” said Ashley, when he had set up his easel and colours. She had, indeed, been avoiding his gaze all morning; the intimacy into which they had stumbled the night before seemed to her to hang heavily between them. She wished to forget it.

  “I thought perhaps the portrait would be better if I were to appear to regard some point beyond you—something in the distance.”

  “If you look at me, it will seem to the viewer that you look at him. It is a very effective illusion, I assure you.”

  Laura was about to speak again, but she stopped herself and bent her gaze upon him without further comment. It was not, after all, so uncomfortable a task as she had feared, for although Ashley looked at her, of course, a great deal, he was plainly absorbed in his work. In fact, it seemed to Laura that he now looked upon her merely as so much of this tint and so much of that—an object to be painted, not a person. He worked intensely, glancing at his palette, choosing his brushes, mixing his colours. She watched, for a while, fascinated, but after a quarter of an hour her interest in his activity faded, and she yearned for some other diversion. It was difficult for her to remain still for so long, particularly when under scrutiny.