by Jane Ashford
“But why has he stopped?” Katharine spoke as if to herself, and she seemed startled when Elinor answered.
“Kitty says he is always doing such things. He will flirt with a woman prodigiously one evening, then pretend not to know her the next. He is never sincere. They call him Stoneheart, you know.”
“I…think I did.”
“Oh, yes, the matchmaking mamas have given him up. He never shows the least interest in debs, only older women. And even then, he sometimes treats them shamefully. Kitty says he is very bad.”
“Kitty seems remarkably full of opinions,” replied Katharine dryly.
“Well, she knows a great many people. And she is engaged to Lord Tremont.”
“Ah, that explains it.”
Elinor turned to look at her cousin. “Are you bamming me? It is just that Kitty is the first particular friend I have made in London. I suppose I do talk of her too much.”
For some reason, Katharine laughed aloud. “It is all right, Elinor. I was roasting you a little, but I didn’t mean anything. And I am very glad you have made some friends.”
“Well, it is much more comfortable. Parties are not very amusing when one knows no one.”
“No, indeed. Quite the opposite.”
“Did you feel that, too?” Elinor seemed astonished by this idea.
“Of course, goose. How should I not? I remember the first ton party I attended, when I was coming out. I hated it. I couldn’t remember the names of half the people introduced to me, and I didn’t know what to say to anyone, so I went and hid in a window embrasure, behind the draperies, for an hour.”
Elinor burst out laughing. “Katharine, you did not!”
“Oh, yes. But then Eliza Burnham found me and dragged me out again. She was so annoyed.”
“I can’t imagine you not knowing what to say. Do you think everyone feels that way at first?”
“Everyone. And I cannot imagine why you think me never at a loss. I am, often.”
“Well, you never seem so. And that is the important thing, I suppose. Here we are already.” The footman handed Elinor down at her front door. “Good night. Shall I see you tomorrow at the duchess’s masked ball?”
“I think not.”
“But, Katharine, you must come! It is the most exclusive event of the season.”
“Is it? I wouldn’t want to miss that, would I?”
Elinor cocked her head, then laughed. “You are an original, Cousin Katharine. Everyone says so. Good night.”
She ran up the steps and into her house, and the Daltrys’ coach started again. “Am I an original, Mary?” asked Katharine, half-amused, half-nonplussed.
“Yes,” responded Mary placidly. And when the other turned sharply to look at her, added, “You know very well that you are. In society’s terms. You enjoy it.”
Katharine laughed. “Merciless Mary. And do I indeed seem never at a loss?”
“Oh, no. Elinor is simply too young to see beyond your surface manner. Few do, I believe.”
“You?”
“I think I do, more and more. But we have spent a great deal of time together.”
Katharine was smiling wryly. “You are always so quiet, Cousin Mary, that sometimes one forgets how very wise you are.”
“I? Oh, no. And I do wish I could talk more. That was the one thing dear Father always lectured me about. But I never could get the knack of light conversation. It is one of my failings.”
“On the contrary. You do not know how refreshing it is to have a companion who speaks only when there is something important to say. I call it a rare gift.”
“Thank you, dear. But you wouldn’t say so if you were seated beside me at dinner like poor Admiral Cushing last week. I fear the poor man was dreadfully bored.”
Katharine laughed aloud. “Bother Admiral Cushing. He is an awful old bore himself. Here we are. You climb down first.”
“It is pleasant to be home again. I feel quite tired out.”
“Yes, the concert was tedious. You go straight up, and I will bring you a glass of hot milk.”
“I will get it,” protested Mary.
But Katharine shook her head. “I insist. You should encourage my benevolent impulses, Mary. They are so rare!”
Mary smiled and started up the hall stairs, pleased to see her charge in such spirits again.
“Get into bed,” called Katharine after her. “I will send Phyllis to you.”
“You needn’t—”
“Mary!”
“Very well. But please, Katharine, do not send up a hot brick. It is quite warm this evening.”
The younger girl burst out laughing again. “I promise. Now, go.”
***
Katharine’s high spirits persisted the following morning. At breakfast, she kept Mary smiling with a stream of amusing nonsense, and when Lord Stonenden arrived, she hurried him upstairs almost before he had time to take off his hat, she was so eager to get to work.
The portrait was nearly finished. It had gone very fast, but Katharine’s best work always did so. Either she painted surely and quickly, or the picture did not succeed at all. Today she took up a very small brush and prepared to put the last touches on the face. She had been saving this difficult task for a day when she felt confident. The background was completed, and the rest of the figure nearly so.
The detail went smoothly, and after a time, Katharine began to talk to the others in the room. Usually she was silent when she worked, but at rare intervals she felt an irresistible urge to chatter. She had once told her Indian maid all about her London come-out as she painted her portrait.
Now, her amber eyes sparkling, she began without thinking, “When I first began to work with oils, in India, it was very exciting. I knew nothing about it, of course. I had done only watercolors, and that unsystematically. But I was determined to learn. I sent to England for the materials; they couldn’t be gotten where we were. And it seemed a weary time before they arrived. I was ready to begin, but could not. I made sheaves of sketches and nearly drove poor Father mad teasing him about the mail.” As she talked, Katharine continued to paint with great concentration, so that she did not see Lord Stonenden look at her with surprise, then interest, or Mary let her sewing fall into her lap.
“When the paints finally came,” she went on, “I was so eager to try them that I hardly waited to learn how. I simply began to daub. I did some dreadful botched canvases and used a vast amount of pigment before I settled down enough to study properly. It was wonderful to watch Father try to find some praise for them. They were terrible, of course, but he so wanted me to be happy that he didn’t dare say so.”
“What did you paint at first?” asked Stonenden when she paused.
“Oh, the things I had seen painted—bowls of flowers, the English countryside, that sort of thing. I worked from my memory, you see.” She laughed a little. “How ridiculous I was.”
“But then you began to do native things?”
Katharine hardly seemed to notice the questions, though she answered them readily. “Yes. One morning I was struggling with a landscape that was all wrong. I didn’t know what to do; I couldn’t remember just how it had looked, but I knew that what I had was not it. As I was puzzling over it, one of the maids came in with a cup of tea for me. She made some sound, I suppose, because I looked up just as she was walking through a shaft of sunlight. There was a beautiful rug on the wall behind her, and the picture she made was dazzling. I knew at once that I must paint it, and when I began, I saw my mistake.”
“Mistake?”
“Yes. In trying to paint when I could not look at my subject. I cannot understand now how I could have been so foolish. But I was rediscovering the simplest rules for myself. After that, I got on better.”
Lord Stonenden opened his mouth to ask another question, but just then Katharine said, “Hold very still for a moment, please. I am at a difficult place.”
He did so, and there was a prolonged silence. Katharine lost all awarenes
s of her surroundings. The others watched her, fascinated.
Finally she straightened, drew a deep breath, and put down her brush. “There,” she breathed. She looked at what she had done, smiled a little, then looked up and said, “Do you want to see it?”
“Is it finished?” replied Stonenden, surprised.
“I think so. I must look again tomorrow. Perhaps I shall add a bit here and there. But it is generally finished, yes.”
He came forward, and Katharine stepped back. “You too, Mary,” the girl added when her cousin made no move, and Mary Daltry joined Lord Stonenden before the easel. Katharine turned away from them. There was silence.
“It’s good,” said the man in an odd voice. “It’s very good indeed.”
“I think it’s the best thing you have ever done, Katharine,” said Mary.
Turning back, the girl scanned their faces carefully. “What is it?” she said to Stonenden.
“What do you mean?”
“You look…well, disconcerted. Is there something wrong with the painting? I should much rather you told me if you see a flaw.”
Slowly he shook his head. “I do not. If I am taken aback, it is probably because it is a strange experience, seeing oneself in a portrait.” He gazed at it again. “Is that really how I look to you?”
“You think I have distorted your features?” replied Katharine anxiously. She was frowning at the painting now.
“No, no. You are misunderstanding me. It is a wonderful likeness and a thoroughly professional job. But like any portrait worthy of the name, it is revealing. And I feel…somehow exposed. A novel emotion.”
Katharine gazed at him, then smiled. “If that is all—”
“All!”
She laughed. “Then it is all right.” She took a deep breath, threw back her head, and executed a sudden pirouette. “It is good, isn’t it? Oh, I feel as if I could fly!”
The other two smiled at her.
“Come, this calls for some sort of celebration,” continued Katharine. “Let us all go downstairs and have…”
“Champagne,” suggested Stonenden.
She laughed. “I am not quite so extravagant at eleven o’clock in the morning, but we might bring out Father’s good Madeira. You go on, and I will come as soon as I wash my hands.”
Mary obeyed, and Stonenden, after a lingering look at the portrait, followed her. Katharine let them go, then walked over to look at her handiwork once more. It was good. She thought she had caught her subject perfectly, leaning carelessly against the mantelshelf, a slight smile on his lips. As she turned away to go downstairs, Katharine gave a little skip of joy, and she shut the door of the studio as if some living person remained behind.
When she entered the drawing room a quarter hour later, she found Mary and Lord Stonenden sitting on either side of a tray containing the Madeira, stemmed glasses, and a plate of festive cakes. “Cook made them for tea,” said Mary in answer to her glance, “but I thought we should have some now.” She poured out the wine and handed it around.
“I propose a toast,” said Stonenden, holding up his glass. “To an artist.” His dark eyes met Katharine’s as he spoke, and she felt a thrill.
“An artist,” echoed Mary. “Oh, my dear, it is a good portrait.”
The man nodded. “We must decide how it is to be shown.”
“Shown?” Katharine turned quickly back to him.
“Of course. I shall hang it at my house in Kent with the other family pictures, but we must show it in London first. The odious Winstead must be confounded.”
“Oh.” Katharine sat back a little, wondering at herself. In the pleasure of doing the painting, she had almost forgotten Winstead. And now she was no longer certain she cared what he thought. “I don’t know that I want to exhibit it,” she said.
“Indeed?”
“I began it to prove something, of course. And I have, to myself. It seems unnecessary to go any further.”
Stonenden gazed at her with mingled surprise and admiration. “Does it?”
Katharine nodded, but at the same time, she remembered some of her other reasons for undertaking this project. “Still, I suppose I must show it. I wanted to prove to Winstead that a woman could paint, and if I do not produce a painting publicly, he will always say that I couldn’t.”
“Yes.”
Katharine sighed. “Very well. But how shall it be managed? I will not exhibit it here.”
“No,” agreed the man. “I believe I should do so.”
“You? You mean, hang it in your house?”
He nodded.
“And allow crowds of people to troop through to look at it? Not that I am so vain as to think there would be crowds if it were not for this stupid controversy.”
“No, that would be insupportable,” replied Lord Stonenden. “I think the best plan would be for me to give a party to show the portrait. I shall hang it in the ballroom where everyone may see it, and they can all come at once.”
Katharine considered this. “Well, I suppose that will do. It’s very kind of you. I shan’t come, you understand.”
“Not come?”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t bear it.”
“You don’t want to share the admiration?” The man seemed amazed.
“If there is admiration, it should be for the painting, not for me.” Katharine dimpled. “And there may be none, you know. In which case I shall be very glad to be absent.”
Stonenden was still gazing at her. “You are an extraordinary woman, you know. I never get your limits.”
She flushed a little. “I don’t see that it is so extraordinary to avoid being gawked at and gossiped about.” He continued to watch her, and Katharine shifted uneasily. “Would you, in my place, attend such a party?” she asked finally.
“I cannot imagine being in your place. I have no such abilities.”
Now Katharine stared at him. She had never heard him admit any inferiority, and his tone had been both sincere and distinctly respectful. Their eyes held for a long moment. She tried to speak, but could think of nothing to say.
Finally he added, “You leave it to me, then, to arrange the event?”
“I…yes.”
“And when should it be? You said you might wish to work on the portrait a bit more.”
“Yes. I don’t know that I will, but if so, it would be the merest touches. It must dry, of course, but I think it could be shown in, say, a week’s time.”
He nodded. “I shall set it for the week after this, then.”
“Very well.” Katharine looked down. “How strange it will be.”
“I shall also think of some means for you to attend without being gawked at,” he added with a smile. Katharine started to protest, but he held up a hand. “If you could observe without being seen, would you not like to hear what was said about your work?”
She smiled. “Who would not?”
“Well, I shall try to arrange it.”
“But how?”
“Leave that to me.” He put down his empty wineglass. “And now I should go, I fear.”
“I will walk down with you,” replied Katharine, rising.
They went down the stairs together and stood waiting while a footman fetched Lord Stonenden’s hat. “Will you ask Winstead to your party?” inquired Katharine.
“I must.”
“Well, I should like to see his face when he sees the painting.”
“I shall ensure that you do.”
She smiled. “You are very kind.”
“Do you think so indeed? Your opinion was very different not so long ago.” He looked intently down at her.
Katharine flushed. “I said too much that day. I apologize.”
“You needn’t. You spoke your mind, and I prefer that. But if you could alter your view…” He paused, seemed as if he might take her hand, then added, “I was overhasty myself that day.” She met his eyes, still more astonished. Their gaze held as he said, “I often am, and I often regret it. But I promise
you now that I mean to perform the service I tried to do you.”
Katharine frowned. “The portrait, you mean? But you have.”
“No, the other matter.”
Mystified, Katharine stared up at him. He said nothing, but he moved a step closer and again reached for her hand. Taking it, he held it to his lips. Then the footman brought his hat, and after a brief hesitation, he took his leave. She remained in the hall for some time puzzling over his remark and recalling, more pleasurably, the look in his eyes when he had made it.
Fourteen
The following afternoon, just after luncheon, Lord Stonenden unexpectedly called at the Daltrys’ again. Mary had gone upstairs to lie down, so Katharine received him alone in the drawing room. She was both puzzled and intrigued when the visitor was announced, for Stonenden had never called upon them except to sit for his portrait.
When he came in, he was smiling, and Katharine smiled in answer. “What is it?” she asked. “You look very pleased with yourself.”
“I am. I can stay only a moment, but I had to come to tell you that I have discovered a way you may observe the exhibition of your painting without being seen.”
“You are roasting me. I didn’t take that suggestion seriously.”
“Why not? It is extremely logical. You do not wish to face a gaping crowd; I understand that only too well. But you would not mind seeing how your work is received. Well, I have found a solution.” His smile broadened, and his dark blue eyes twinkled mischievously.
Katharine laughed. “Out with it, then.”
He drew a sheet of paper from an inner pocket. “I have laid it out so that you can see what I mean.” He put the paper on a small table and gestured for her to sit down beside him. “The ballroom in my house has three doorways,” he went on. “The large double entrance doors, the passage to the supper room, and this small one.” He pointed to a diagram on the sheet. “It leads to a corridor that runs to the kitchen, and it is a recessed door. I propose to move one of the large tapestries a few feet to the left, covering this small doorway. That will leave a niche behind the cloth where you can put a chair. You can peek around the tapestry and see and hear everything. I will hang your painting nearby. And if you get tired, you can simply go out the door and leave the house through the back premises.” He looked up, still smiling. “Is that not a first-rate plan?”
