The Painter

by Mary Kingswood

  “No,” he said, with such violence that she involuntarily took a step back. More moderately, he went on, “Let the place rot, for all I care. There is no feeling better, not for me. But you are right in what you say of friendship and good company. I have enjoyed your company today, and Hercules’ also. Will you come to see me again? I am here most afternoons.”

  She hesitated. Making a friend of a marquess was not something that a person in her position would normally contemplate, but he seemed lonely and unhappy, and the dog brought him some pleasure.

  “I should be happy to,” she said. “At least… if I can. My time is not my own.”

  He chuckled. “You are still assuming the rôle of governess, then.”

  That made her laugh. “Farewell, my lord Count.”

  “Bis wir uns wieder treffen, Prinzessin.”

  ~~~~~

  ‘To Miss J. Pollard, Charles Street, Mayfair. My dear Jane, So glad you have arrived safely in London, but disappointed to hear that your mama is not pleased with the house she has taken. I am sure the smoking chimneys are not so bad as she thinks, for is not smoke a preservative, as with kippers? Besides, you will not need fires for much longer. As for the cook, if she is so temperamental, it is better to be rid of her at once and get a steadier person. Just think if she had taken umbrage in the middle of the season — the inconvenience! If the mould will not come out of your gowns (have you tried boiled fig leaves? Most efficacious), you will just have to buy new ones. You see, there is always a benefit to such disasters. I am still at Hawkewood Hall and cannot see the possibility of an early release from my so-pleasant servitude, for every prospective governess falls short of Lady D’s requirements. On another matter, you could not be more wrong! I do not know what I have said to give rise to your most unwarranted conjectures, but be assured that you are far out, for Lord F barely knows I exist. I have not mentioned him because I so rarely see him. He secludes himself in his studio and rarely emerges, and we do not even see him in the chapel on Sundays, since we have formed the habit of walking to Church Compton for Morning Service, where at least we get a few psalms and a sermon. But if I see little of the earl, I have formed an even nobler acquaintance in the Marquess of Arnwell, our even more reclusive neighbour. He is a sad and lonely old man, to make friends of a governess and a half-trained puppy, but he seems to enjoy my company as I enjoy his. We pretend that we are exiles, he an Italian Count and I a German Princess, and in such disguise we may speak of all manner of things. I have hopes of drawing him out of his self-imposed cage and back into the world before too long. Yours in affection, Felicia Oakes.’

  ~~~~~

  Fin was restless. After the burst of creativity which had produced, for once, a painting he could be proud of, he had fallen back into his usual lethargy. He had prepared a new canvas, but no subject occurred to him. Remembering the governess’s representation of the Pillared Saloon, and the way she had brought the fire to life, he had filled several sheets with sketches of flames. Two days had been spent in blending a certain shade of red that he thought might do, only to be discarded as unsatisfactory. The new canvas remained reproachfully blank.

  One morning, as he was making his way to his studio to begin another day of fretful inactivity, he heard excited voices emerging from the South Saloon. He discovered his two wards and the governess standing by the big windows, all frantically engaged with sketchbooks and charcoal, drawing hastily in broad sweeps across the paper, only to discard the sheet and almost immediately begin another. The floor was littered with their attempts.

  “What the devil are you doing?”

  “We are drawing the clouds!” Margarita cried, her little face alight with enthusiasm. “They go by so quickly that we must draw as fast as we can to capture each fleeting configuration.”

  Outside the windows, the wind bent the trees into dancing life and the clouds scudded overhead like great waves breaking and reforming almost instantly. A quick glance at the many sheets on the floor showed him some half-decent attempts to capture the movement. His fingers itched to improve on them.

  “May I try?”

  The two sisters laughed merrily, and the governess said, “Of course, my lord. Spare sketchbooks are on that table there. Charcoals in the box here. But you must draw as quick as you can — no stopping to perfect each line.”

  Smiling, he agreed to it. This was more fun than agonising over exact shades of carmine! For a while, caught up in their enthusiasm, he sketched, discarded, sketched again. It was liberating, he found, to draw without a critical eye, to simply sweep a few bold lines across the paper, and then begin again. As he worked, his outlines became even simpler and yet he felt he was capturing something of the essence of each cloud, not just the shape but the movement, the swiftness of the change and the tempestuous wind that drove them.

  The room was silent. Only the governess remained, quietly scooping up the many drawings on the floor.

  “Where did they go?” he said, surprised.

  “It was time for their riding lesson,” she said, looking up at him with an impish smile. Such a pretty face, with its wide eyes and generous mouth, a few stray curls escaping from their confinement. As she turned back to gathering the drawings, one long curl lay on the nape of her neck, mesmerising him. She had nothing of Juliana’s serene beauty, but there was a liveliness to her that he rather liked, now that he had grown accustomed to it.

  “I had not noticed them go,” he said.

  She laughed. “So I observed. I envy you that, my lord.”

  “What do you envy?”

  “Your ability to concentrate so fiercely that the world disappears, if only for a few minutes. It is an admirable trait.”

  “Is it? All I know is that it has kept me sane these past years. If I had not been able to lose myself in my painting I should have had no reason to live.” For a moment, all the bleakness of his loss swept over him once more. No Juliana, no close family life such as he had once dreamt of, no happiness.

  “There is always a reason to live,” she said, sharply. “However desperate a situation, there is always good to be found in it, and the hope of better days.” Then, in softer tones, she said, “It was thirteen years ago, my lord.”

  For a moment her effrontery took his breath away. What right had she to criticise him? But something in her eyes — sympathy, perhaps — touched him. She was right. It was self-indulgent of him to talk so, when he was, in many ways, so fortunate. He had lost Juliana, but he had his health and the comfort of wealth, and his life could be so much worse.

  “Do you hope for better days, Miss Oakes?”

  Instantly her face was alive with merriment. “These are my better days, my lord! When I go home, as I soon must, I shall miss this place abominably.”

  “The food?” he said, smiling at her.

  “Oh yes! The sugarplums! The syllabub! The partridge and pheasant and woodcock! And I shall not be sketching clouds so extensively when I must pay for all my own paper, you may be sure.”

  “When you leave, you may take a box of paper with you. Several boxes. But you will not be poor, I think. You have a house, and some money of your own, I understand.”

  “True, but who knows how well I shall manage on it? I have never lived alone.” Her expressive face was bleak and his heart was unexpectedly touched.

  “I do not think your fate is to live out your days alone, Miss Oakes.”

  For some unaccountable reason, she blushed a fiery red, muttered something unintelligible and fled the room.

  7: The Heir

  ‘It is not your fate to live alone.’

  Felicia paced up and down the schoolroom until her emotions were under better control. He meant nothing by it, she knew that. It was no more than pity from an employer towards his employee, a kindly piece of encouragement to lift her spirits. He did not mean that she would ever share her life with him, how could he? It would be too insulting for words if he were to offer her carte blanche, and anything more formal was utterly
out of the question. No, he was merely paying her a casual compliment — ‘I am sure you will marry one day’. And perhaps she would. It may be that in time she would grow sick of loneliness and the misery of unrequited love, and find herself a gentle young farmer to wed. Or, more optimistically, she might forget the enigmatic but enticing earl altogether and fall in love with someone more suitable. Someone of her own rank, whatever that might be.

  A tap on the door made her jump. When it opened, and the earl’s apologetic face appeared, she almost wept. Why oh why could he not leave her alone?

  He coughed. “So sorry to disturb you once more, but… um… you left these behind.” He held out a sheaf of cloud drawings, then quickly pushed them onto the nearest table.

  “Oh… thank you.” If only she could stop blushing! She was not a green girl of seventeen any longer, and it was humiliating. Clearly it embarrassed him, for he rubbed one hand on his breeches and chewed his lip worriedly. Could she tell him to go away? Would it be insufferably rude?

  “Miss Oakes…” A long pause, then, in a great rush, he went on, “Pray forgive me for distressing you. It was unintentional. May I… may I mention your cloud sketches? I hope you do not mind, but I looked through them and you have a great facility with charcoal. Your drawings have a simplicity to them which yet is more effective than any of mine. You see here… and this one here… and this one is mine…”

  He laid them out in a line, and then hurriedly stood back so that she could draw near to examine them.

  She hardly knew how to respond. What did he want of her? Was this merely a discussion of art or was there more to his words and manner than she could divine? So she stood uncertainly, willing her rosy cheeks to subdue and torn between wishing he would go and hoping he would stay.

  “You need not fear me,” he said gently.

  “Oh no! I do not… not at all!”

  “I would never do anything you would dislike, but I should very much like us to be friends, Miss Oakes. In my whole life, I have never met anyone else to whom I might talk about my art, except Juliana and now you. That is all I ask of you, nothing more… to be able to share ideas with someone who understands. Even when the new governess arrives, I should like you to stay on here and eat as many sugarplums as you wish and… and paint alongside me. My studio is at your disposal. Will you consider the idea? Please?”

  How could she possibly refuse him? Her head told her that this was a terrible idea that would lead her in very short order to desolation and years of misery. Her heart answered without hesitation.

  “I should be very honoured, my lord.”

  “Fin… all my friends call me Fin.”

  “Thank you, Fin.” And she could not stop an absurdly wide smile from spreading across her foolish, lovesick face.

  ~~~~~

  Felicia had her own space in the earl’s studio, which was a glorious room with a high, painted ceiling, a huge bow window at one end and more windows on two sides, with blinds which could be raised or lowered to adjust the light to suit. A silent footman came at regular intervals to wipe up spilt paint, clean brushes, pestles and mortars, and replace paint-spattered aprons and cloths with immaculate fresh ones. A cabinet was filled with every kind of paper imaginable. Another contained pencils, brushes, knives and trowels, and more bottles of pigment and oil than she had ever seen outside of a shop. When she set up her own modest easel, the earl immediately offered her a much larger one. Even without the thrill of the earl’s company, she could scarcely believe her good fortune.

  With so many tutors and instructors to attend to Juliana and Margarita, her duties as governess were now reduced to no more than two or three hours of each day. By handing Hercules over to a willing footman each morning, she was able to devote several hours before breakfast to her own experiments in oil painting, under the expert eye of Lord Finlassan. Or Fin, as she must learn to call him.

  If she had harboured the slightest illusion of an attachment on his part, his method of instruction would have instantly disabused her of the notion. His teaching consisted of showing her how to mix the oils, telling her blithely to ‘have a go, and you will soon get into the way of it’ and then criticising every single aspect of her efforts in the most uncompromising fashion. Her oils were too thick, too thin, too oily or not oily enough. Her brush strokes were too hesitant or too bold, her colours were all wrong and her palette management was execrable. Had she been more sensitive, he would have reduced her to tears several times a day. It was fortunate indeed that she had the kind of spirits which were amused by such scoldings, and many a time she would laugh in his face, and say that, yes, it was a dreadful execution and should she burn it at once? Whereupon he would contrive to find some small degree of merit in the curl of a leaf or the colour of the sky.

  At church, she finally met the legendary Miss Claypole, former governess and terrifier of the young Fin, finding her to be, as she had suspected, a formidable person, her hair iron-grey beneath a stern cap, but whose eyes twinkled appreciatively when told of the earl’s horror of her return to Hawkewood Hall.

  “He always wanted to be painting or drawing or mooning about over twigs and rosebuds and other such nonsense,” she said, “whereas I was duty bound to inflict upon him poetry and arithmetic and history and an awareness of the world. Naturally we fell out a dozen times a day. But I always won, Miss Oakes. That is what rankles with him now, I’ll wager.”

  Felicia laughed and thought very likely she was right.

  One day, after a visit to the small shop in the village, she fell in with Lady Drusilla who was leaving the rectory.

  “Come back with me for tea, Miss Oakes,” she said, in the exact tone that was so effective with servants and her brother, so that Felicia instantly agreed to it. Not that she objected to the idea, for she was curious as to where Lady Drusilla lived. That it was somewhere in the village she was aware, and yet she already knew the occupants of all the houses of substance. Somehow she could not imagine her ladyship living in one of the many small cottages that lined the road.

  To Felicia’s surprise, they passed right through the village and turned in at the main gates of Hawkewood Hall. Almost at once, however, they turned aside onto one of the lesser roads leading through the woodlands that covered this part of the grounds. Before long the trees opened up, and there was the prettiest house Felicia had ever seen. It was a very modern building of substantial size, and the modest growth of the formal gardens with which it was surrounded suggested that it was no more than a few years old. On the southern side, lawns sloped away to a delightful pair of lakes where swans floated serenely, and a heron sat on the margins.

  “How lovely!” Felicia cried.

  “Do you think so? The style is a little too plain for my taste, but it has been much admired. Do come in.”

  A footman admitted them, and after depositing bonnets and gloves, they went through to a charming sitting room overlooking the lake, where Felicia was introduced to Lady Mabel Warborough, a very elderly lady who presumably acted as chaperon and companion to Lady Drusilla. Since she was asleep when they arrived and fell back into a doze as soon as the introductions had been completed, it was not to be supposed that she exerted much constraint on Lady Drusilla’s activities.

  “I had no idea this house was here,” Felicia said, turning round and round to admire the clean lines and delicate embellishments. “It is the dower house, I presume?”

  Lady Drusilla gave a bark of laughter. “I suppose it will fulfil that rôle admirably in the future, but… do you truly not know what this is?”

  “I have not the least idea.”

  “This is the house that was built for Fin and Juliana, before their marriage. There was a very old house here where the gamekeeper used to live, but Papa knocked it down before it fell down. Then, when Fin’s marriage was arranged, he engaged an architect to build a suitable home for the heir.”

  She paused, head tilted to one side, as Felicia worked it out.

  “Oh… an arch
itect! Mr Kearney designed this.”

  “And built it, too, and when it was done, he took his fee and the prospective bride as well. Poor Fin! He could never bear to look at the place, so it sat here, unwanted and unloved, hidden in its trees, until I was banished from the Hall.” She chortled merrily. “The arrangement suits us both very well, I can tell you. I keep out of Fin’s way… well, most of the time. Sunday chapel and dinner, that is all, and the occasional family emergency. And when there are visitors who would otherwise stay at the Hall, I can accommodate them here, you see, and Fin is not bothered with them in the slightest.”

  “Do you not think he should be bothered with them?” Felicia said cautiously. “That is to say, is it not his duty as head of the family—”

  She laughed even more at that. “Do not talk to him of duty, I beg you! The only time he quarrels with me — proper raging quarrels — is when I dare to mention his duty. Of course it is his duty! His duty to take his seat in the Lords, his duty to keep a watchful eye on the rest of the family, his duty to marry… but he will have none of it.”

  “He is as bad as the Marquess of Arnwell,” Felicia said crossly. “I have no patience with them, these men who wallow in misery.”

  Lady Drusilla raised an elegant eyebrow. “You speak your opinion forcefully, but since you know Fin only a little and the marquess not at all, it would be best to keep silent on the subject. Ah, here is one of my guests now. Do come in, Godfrey, for Miss Oakes is just leaving, I am sure.”

  Felicia rose obediently to her feet, even though the promised tea, which she had hoped would be accompanied by cake, had not yet appeared. When she turned to the door, she received a surprise, for the man who stood there, immaculately clad in fashionable attire, was none other than the man who had mistaken her for Lady Olivia Dulnain.

  He started as he recognised her. “Why, it is the mysterious stranger of the Shotter Arms! What a delightful surprise. Drusilla, pray introduce me at once, for I must know who it is that I so carelessly accosted that day.”