‘I suppose I must go.’ Cressie got to her feet. Her legs felt like lead. ‘I think after all it would be best if I left straight away. The days are getting longer. We may get as much as halfway there before nightfall.’
Bella got to her feet looking remarkably recovered, Cressie thought uncharitably. ‘You will take two of the stable boys as outriders as well as the groom. And your maid, of course. Myers will arrange it all. I will call for him forthwith.’
Less than an hour later, Cressie was seated in the Armstrong travelling carriage on her way to the capital. She had not seen or spoken to Giovanni, not even to explain her sudden departure. There had been no time, and it was probably for the best. When she returned, when time and distance had placed some perspective on today’s revelations and she had perhaps made a start on the dismantling of her love for him, then she could finish sitting for him, for she was determined that he would complete the portrait. Else all would indeed have been lost.
Giovanni stood in front of the two portraits of Cressie. Thesis and antithesis. The public Cressie and the private. A representative painting and an interpretive one. The former was classically beautiful and highly polished. Lady Cressida, totally lacking in any of Cressie’s real character. Mr Brown, Cressie’s alter ego, on the other hand, was a rougher piece of work all together. This version of Cressie had her fierce intelligence, her impish sense of humour and a hint of her sensuality. This version was subversive, an image intended to unsettle the viewer, but looking at it now, it still did not seem to be exactly the Cressie that Giovanni had wished to depict.
There was something missing. Or lacking. An authority, a certainty. Art as truth, that’s what he wanted to paint, but this did not represent the whole truth. This was a painting which spoke as he had—in half-truths, to disguise the reality. Truth was not one but two-sided. It showed not just the truth of the sitter but the truth of the painter. The emotion which was missing was not Cressie’s but his. There was no avoiding it. Giovanni dropped on to the bare boards in front of the portraits and groaned, slumping back against the wall and banging his head heavily in the process. If he could bang it a little harder and achieve blessed oblivion, then he would be happy.
He cursed inwardly. Who was he trying to fool! He would never be happy. Not with his work, not with his life. Something was missing. Lacking. And the source of that void was the same as the missing element in the portrait. Cressie.
Giovanni swore again, this time in the guttural dialect of the fishermen among whom he had been raised. He was in love with Cressie. That was the truth lacking in the Mr Brown portrait. He had not acknowledged his love for her and it showed in the work. The empty space in his heart which he had become accustomed to think would never be filled was now overflowing. He was in love with her. Cressie had taken up residence there.
Giovanni pulled his drawing board towards him and began to sketch quickly. The forms took shape almost unbidden. Cressie laughing. Cressie furiously biting back the tears. Cressie beaming with pride at some minor accomplishment of her brothers. Cressie frowning over one of her mathematical tomes. Cressie, eyes closed, head thrown back, back arched in ecstasy as she climaxed under his touch. He wanted to paint all of those Cressies, a portrait of a woman with every one of the elements which made her so essentially her, the woman he loved and whom he had lost irretrievably, thanks to the many he had not loved who had gone before her.
If he could only reclaim his innocence. If he could only undo the past. As his hand raced over another blank sheet of paper, he remembered something she had said to him. Something about the past being the thing which made her herself. All of it, she’d said, describing some trivial incident which she’d only just remembered—if I undid any of it I would be a different person.
Would he undo his past if he could? Giovanni’s hand stilled. He remembered a summer morning, a sea the colour of Cressie’s eyes. He was four, perhaps five years old. He remembered the fish, a large coral-pink snapper, far too heavy for his line. He remembered being determined to haul it into the boat without his papa’s help. He stood up to heft the line and fell head first into the sea. He remembered the water closing over his head, and then a pair of arms around him, the feeling of safety, of sanctuary. Papa. The swimming lessons began the next day. He remembered Mama smiling with pride the day she watched him swim from the boat to the shore for the first time, with Papa by his side, under solemn oath not to help him.
It was a cliché, but it was also true. Like a floodgate opening, the memories tumbled their way into his mind, bright with primary colours, warm as the heat of the Tuscan sun, silly things long forgotten. He had been happy. He had been loved. It was because it had been so that it had hurt so much, the forced separation. Might it have been because it would have been too painful for them that they had severed contact with him so brutally, his adopted parents? Too late now to discover that truth. That memory was in sepia, of his return to the village by the sea, the year he left Italy for good. They were both dead. Papa’s boat lost in a storm. Mama lost to a cancer left too long untreated.
He had run out of drawing paper. The light was fading when there was a cautious tap at the door. Giovanni jumped to his feet, trying to smooth down his hair with his hand. Cressie. He reminded himself that it was hopeless, but still he hoped. Foolish, foolish, foolish, he told himself as he turned the drawing board with its revealing sketches to the wall. She must not see those. They said something she must never hear. She had most likely come to tell him she would not sit for him again. It would be like her, not to leave things unfinished between them. Cressie liked her facts straight and ordered. But still, as he hurried over to the door and turned the key in the lock, Giovanni’s heart gave a strange little leap.
‘Harry told me I’d find you up here.’ Bella’s face was flushed with effort. ‘I need to talk to you, Signor di Matteo.’
Bella swept past him and into the room, stopping dead in her tracks in front of the two portraits. Her face, as she stared at first one and then the other in a bizarre reflection of the stance Giovanni himself had taken a few hours before, was comical in its variety of expressions. ‘Does my husband know about this? I cannot believe that he actually commissioned these—these images of his daughter.’
‘No commission. I have been painting them for my own pleasure and entertainment.’
Bella nodded. ‘I am sure you have derived much pleasure from painting them, Signor di Matteo. What is the meaning of this one, if you please?’ she asked, pointing to the unfinished portrait.
She knew nothing of Mr Brown, of course, and Giovanni was not about to enlighten her. He shrugged. ‘I thought it would be amusing, to depict Cressie—Lady Cressida—dressed as a man. Given her interest in mathematics,’ he added disingenuously.
‘A semi-naked man, in point of fact. I would like to hope that at least some elements of this portrait stem from your vivid imagination and are not representative of reality, signor.’
‘As you say, Lady Armstrong. I have taken some artistic liberties.’ One of those half-truths at which Cressie said he was too adept, but in this case he could see no alternative.
It seemed to have the desired effect. Bella pursed her mouth but did not challenge him. ‘What do you intend to do with these canvases? The first, I will grant you, is a very pretty piece. I am sure Lord Armstrong would be happy to find a space for it with the family collection, were you to present it to him. But the other—there is something lascivious about it. Real or imagined, I cannot permit you to expose my stepdaughter to public ridicule.’
He had never intended to exhibit it, had never intended to show it to anyone, no matter what Cressie said, but Giovanni was not inclined to have Lady Armstrong dictate to him. ‘That is Lady Cressida’s decision,’ he said stiffly. ‘I painted it for her. The painting is hers to do with as she wishes. I will let her decide.’
‘That may be problematic.’
‘Indeed. Why so?’
‘Because she has gone.’
‘Gone?’ Giovanni repeated stupidly.
‘To London. She was summoned there on urgent family business.’
Cressie was gone. She had left without telling him. She could not have made her feelings clearer. ‘By family business you mean Lady Cordelia, I assume,’ Giovanni said dully.
Lady Armstrong narrowed her eyes. ‘What, may I ask, do you know of it?’
‘What? Nothing, save that Cressie—Lady Cressida was concerned her sister would act rashly.’
‘It is a pity, then, that Cressida did not choose to act more pre-emptively herself, and thus spare us a very embarrassing situation. Your discretion, signor, I assume I can count on it?’
‘In every respect, my lady.’
‘Which brings me to the point of my expedition all the way up here, Signor di Matteo. Cressida will be detained in London for at least a week. It looks to my untutored eye as if my sons’ portrait is nearing completion. You will oblige me by making every effort to finish it before she returns.’
‘You wish me gone?’
Lady Armstrong tittered. ‘You Italians, why must you be so dramatic. I have no wish to cast you from my door, I merely desire you to complete your commission as quickly as possible.’
‘Before Cressie returns.’
Her ladyship smiled at this slip. ‘Indeed,’ she said, ‘before Cressie returns.’ Her smile faded as she made her way across the attic to the doorway. ‘Let us call a spade a spade, signor. Despite what she may claim, Cressida is no woman of the world. I, on the other hand, am precisely that. I strongly suspect you have been taking liberties. Indeed, anyone would, who saw these paintings. And one merely has to see the way that Cressida looks at you, hear the way she speaks your name, to know that she is setting herself up for a fall. I am not her mother, but nor am I the wicked stepmother she and her sisters labelled me. I would not like to see Cressida hurt any more than she has been already, Signor di Matteo, and if you remain here then that is almost certainly what will happen. Do we understand each other?’
‘Well enough, Lady Armstrong.’ The whole truth this time. Giovanni nodded curtly. ‘If it is any consolation, hurting Cressie is the last thing in the world I would wish to do.’
‘It is no consolation, signor, for the deed is already partly done.’
Without giving him time to respond, Bella swept from the room as suddenly as she had entered it. Sick at heart, overwhelmed by the cascade of harsh truths which had flowed his way today, Giovanni lit two oil lamps and arranged them on the table by his easels. Removing the completed canvas from one, he replaced it with his drawing board and studied his sketches of Cressie. Later, he would stretch a new canvas. Tomorrow he would begin the third painting. If he worked at it day and night, he could complete it and be gone before she returned. A triptych—Lady Cressida, Mr Brown and Cressie. ‘Three Aspects of Lady Cressida,’ he would title it. An arc that encapsulated her. He was so inspired by the concept he had to force himself not to start painting straight away.
In the days which followed, night blurred into morning and into night again. Giovanni worked furiously. The portrait of the Armstrong boys required only the final touches and the glaze. The boys were subdued in Cressie’s absence. He took them out each afternoon, to fish and to climb trees and to fly their kites—for they had each one of their own now.
There were moments, usually in the smallest hours, when he stood before the third part of his triptych, his eyes gritty with the oil light and lack of sleep, when he asked himself if it would not be possible for them to forge a future together. As the painting took shape, all the arguments against this possibility solidified. He took to reciting them in an effort to dispel the most foolish of hopes before it could take a grip of him and torture him.
Though he had from the first been at pains to help her free herself from her father’s tyranny, Giovanni was not so cruel as to wish Cressie to become estranged from her family. Despite all, she loved her father, and though it was a love that would likely grow stronger the more distance she put between herself and Lord Armstrong, he had no doubt that the diplomat would make every effort to ensure that she suffered if she went so spectacularly against his wishes by taking up with Giovanni. He would be apoplectic, and would undoubtedly extract revenge. He could probably not tear the sisters asunder, but he could make sure that Cressie never saw her brothers again, nor her home, nor indeed the mysterious Aunt Sophia whom Cressie seemed so fond of.
Giovanni’s past lovers and his abuse of his own body, he saw as such an obvious barrier as to be barely worth mentioning. The look of disgust on Cressie’s face when she called him a gigolo was something he would never forget. He would not inflict such a man upon her.
As if this was not enough, there was the simple fact that she was not actually in love with him. She was not the type to become infatuated, but she did not talk like a woman in love. She talked, on the contrary, like a woman with very clear ideas about deciding her own fate. I’ve finally found my calling, she had said to him. She was excited about the future—she must be, for she talked about it all the time. Her future lay in a far-off land where she could be with her two dearest sisters. She had no thought of making a place for him. She didn’t love him. How could she?
The third painting was almost complete. It was like nothing he had created before, the brush strokes wild and instinctive. In places he had resorted to using a palette knife to apply the pigment directly to the canvas. The lines of the figure blurred and seeped into each other as did the colours. The background was almost organic, a part of the subject rather than an accessory. Nothing about it was clearly defined. Yet as Giovanni looked at it in the grey light of dawn, he knew finally he had created something true, something from the heart. This was how he would paint in future, and damn what anyone else thought of it. Cressie, his muse, his heart’s desire, had given him back his calling. That was her parting gift to him. This painting would be his to her.
Giovanni lined up the three portraits to form the triptych, Cressie in the middle, flanked by Lady Cressida and Mr Brown on either side. Who knew, he might in time become a true artist and not a mere painter. Here was the map of his progress. Here, in the centre, was the pinnacle of his art to date, the foundation for his future.
You are letting him win. Giovanni caught himself looking over his shoulder at the door, then gave himself a shake. Too many sleepless nights. Cressie was not here, only her words whispering like ghosts in his head. He had spent the last ten years painting the kind of work whose success he thought his father would admire to prove him wrong. But as Cressie had so rightly pointed out, by doing so he was allowing his father to control his actions even now. Ever since he had been lifted from his life with Papa and Mama, he had been fighting Count Fancini in one way or another. He had not seen his father for fourteen years, but still he knew the count was waiting, patiently—or more likely impatiently—waiting. Giovanni’s failure to confront the man had prolonged that game, allowed the illusion that he might return to be maintained. Perhaps even given his father hope.
To make a fresh start, he must lay his demons to rest. It seemed so obvious. He would cancel all his commissions and return to Italy pronto. Giovanni put down his palette and pulled a large cloth over all three paintings: Lady Cressida, the last of a kind; Cressie, the first of a kind; and Mr Brown, the pivot. Making his way down to the scullery to clean his tools, he could not pretend that leaving without seeing her again filled him with anything other than misery. He loved her, would always love her, and would never love another woman. But she had given him the gift of his art. He would not repay her generosity by abusing it again. And that required an audience with Count Fancini.
‘I fear there is nothing more to be done, Aunt Sophia.’ Cressie sat carefully down on the chair beside her aunt’s day bed, for the skirts of her new gown were much fuller than she was accustomed to wearing. It had been delivered by the modiste this morning, and she had been unable to resist trying it on. Cream silk striped with the shade of d
usky pink Giovanni most admired her in, the dress had puff sleeves with long under-sleeves in soft pink wool. The neckline was trimmed with pink velvet, as were the three flounces which formed the hemline, and though the dress hung straight at the front from her waist, at the back it was pleated and swung out behind her when she walked. She was pretty certain that Giovanni would like this effect, for it emphasised the curve of her bottom—something she had ascertained after much squinting over her shoulder and contorting in front of the mirror.
‘Henry will have to be informed.’ Aunt Sophia spoke in a pale imitation of her usual stentorian voice. Cressie had been dismayed to discover her so frail-looking. If they ever did recover Cordelia, along with her reputation, it was inconceivable that Aunt Sophia could continue to act the chaperon. Like it or not, Cordelia would have to cut short her Season and return to Killellan until next year, when Bella would be well enough to bring her out herself.
Cressie pressed her aunt’s hand, the skin dry and papery. ‘I shall write to my father myself, Aunt, do not fret.’
‘If we could but find a clue. It is the not knowing that is the worst. For all we are aware, Cordelia may be dead.’
Cressie chuckled. ‘Now I know that you must be much more seriously ill than you appear, Aunt Sophia, for that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard you say. If Cordelia were dead, her body would have been discovered.’
‘Not if she were at the bottom of a cliff. Or tied up in an attic. Or …’
‘What about bricked in behind a fireplace? You sound just like Cassie.’
‘I most certainly do not.’ Lady Sophia struggled upright. ‘Did I tell you that I saw that poet of hers recently? Augustus St John Marne, that was his name. Didn’t speak to the man, of course. Quite down in the mouth he looked too, wandering in the wake of that carrot-haired wife of his and a clutch of brawling brats.’
The Beauty Within Page 20
