by Rosie Thomas
Blanche answered with a touch of irritation, ‘If one wants the best, then of course one must pay for it. John agrees with me, we must have a portrait marking the girls’ year that is as fine as our Sargent. It should be a picture worthy to be hung next to ours at Stretton. Don’t you think so, Eleanor?’
‘Of course, if that is what you both want. And if you say that Pilgrim is the finest portrait painter of his generation, then I can only accept that too.’
‘He is very modern,’ Blanche added, as if that clinched the matter.
‘That will make the girls happy,’ Eleanor said, taking up the newspaper again.
The painter was almost an hour late when the maid finally showed him into the drawing room. He had refused to part with his big black hat, and from the doorway he flourished it and swept a theatrical bow.
‘Ladies, I can but apologize. May I be forgiven?’
‘Come and sit down, Mr Prynne. Or is it Mr Pilgrim?’
He bent over each of their hands in turn. Eyeing his clothes, Eleanor and Blanche felt that they were at least being repaid for their long wait with a full measure of artistic eccentricity.
‘For all my professional affairs, my name is Pilgrim. Just that, neither Mister nor anything else.’
‘I very much admired your designs for the ballet, Mr, ah, Pilgrim.’
‘La Nuit et la Rose? Thank you, Lady Leominster. Now, won’t you tell me exactly what sort of commission you have in mind?’
While Blanche told the story of The Misses Holborough and explained her wish to have another double portrait, this time of Clio and Grace, to hang alongside it, Pilgrim sat comfortably in his red silk-upholstered chair and looked around him. Eleanor saw that he examined the pictures on the walls, his expressionless stare shifting from the English watercolours to the dark oils of long-dead Stretton dogs, horses and ancestors.
When Eleanor finished, Pilgrim sighed.
‘I see. You had not thought of discussing this second portrait with Mr Sargent himself?’ Pilgrim needed the fee that Lord Leominster had mentioned, but even the size of the fee failed to persuade him that it would be interesting to paint the débutante daughters of these ladies. This room had already told him more than he wanted to know about their opinions and attitudes.
There had been some discussion between Blanche and John about the possibility of Sargent painting the new portrait, and John had very quickly concluded that he would be too expensive. ‘Get the best of the young fellows, the next Sargent,’ he had advised Blanche, and Blanche had done her best.
‘We would prefer a more modern approach,’ Blanche told Pilgrim.
A glint of amusement appeared in the painter’s reddened eyes. ‘You are interested in the modern movements? In Fauvism? The Cubists, perhaps?’
Blanche and Eleanor looked at each other. For a moment, it seemed that they might laugh. But then Blanche met Pilgrim’s eyes and answered valiantly, ‘Of course.’
Malice took hold of Pilgrim, a sensation he always enjoyed. ‘I commend your interest, Lady Leominster, Mrs Hirsh. I think, then, that I should meet the two young ladies?’
Blanche rang for the maid, and a moment later Grace and Clio came in together. They looked faintly sulky for having been kept waiting upstairs. Pilgrim stood up. He shook each hand in turn, and then walked slowly in a circle around the two girls. He rubbed his stubbled jaw, as if thinking.
He had seen, of course, that the mothers were twins, but that had not interested him particularly. What was more intriguing was the physical similarity between these daughters, spiced with the differences in expression and manner. They looked far less dull than he had feared, less conventional than their mothers had led him to expect. One of them in particular, the Lady Grace, appealed to him strongly. There was a challenge in her eyes when she looked at him. Her face was plumper than her cousin’s, and her mouth made a more sensual curve. The other one, Miss Hirsh, was more defensive. She didn’t pout, but held her chin up, turning her face a little aside.
Pilgrim held out one finger to her jaw and turned her to look full at him. He put his head on one side, as if appraising what he saw. He enjoyed the suppressed whisper of protest from the mothers.
Pilgrim decided that the girls were pretty enough, and that it would be amusing to launch a leisurely, elaborate tease on the parents. He was also, he reminded himself, in serious need of their money. They would get their portrait, but it would be the picture that he chose to paint.
‘Very well,’ he snapped. ‘I accept the commission. For the first sitting, my studio at number twenty-two Charlotte Street, next Wednesday at three o’clock sharp, if you please.’
Afterwards, Clio said to Grace, ‘Well. What did you make of that?’
Grace yawned, pretending lazy indifference. ‘Of those clothes, and that hat? And was it my imagination, or did he smell, rather?’
‘He smelt.’
‘But he did have quite wonderful eyes,’ Grace added. They were coal-black, under thick black brows that met over the bridge of his nose.
‘He did, didn’t he? Do you suppose anyone has ever before appeared in Aunt Blanche’s drawing room looking so unshaven, so disreputable?’
‘Never. Wasn’t it delicious? They took it like lambs. He must be very clever or sought-after, or something.’
‘What do you think it will be like having our portrait painted?’
‘Less boring than I had feared,’ Grace answered.
The first sitting took place as Pilgrim had commanded. Grace and Clio presented themselves at his studio in their white dresses, with Blanche as chaperone. Pilgrim found her a hard chair in a corner, and then turned his back on her. Blanche noted that the high room under its glass skylight was clean, if bare, and that Pilgrim himself was clean-shaven and tidily dressed in a blue painter’s smock over flannel trousers.
He spent a long time positioning the girls, prowling around them and lifting an arm or turning a shoulder. At length, he had them sitting side by side, but so close together that Clio’s shoulder was in front of Grace’s. They looked as if they were leaning together for support, but their heads were turned in opposite directions, away from each other. Pilgrim was satisfied. He retreated behind his easel and began to work, making quick flicks with his wrist. The only sounds in the studio were his cuff brushing over the canvas, and the dim popping of the gas fire. Blanche was only too aware that she had been sitting still for an hour and a half without so much as a cup of tea. The painter took regular draughts from a cup at his elbow, but he didn’t offer anything to the sitters or their chaperone.
At last, he stood back from his work.
‘That is enough for today,’ he announced.
Blanche stood up with relief and strolled over to look at what he had done. She was surprised to see that there was a sheet of coarse paper pinned over the canvas, and the only marks on it were a series of rectangles, thick charcoal lines, boxes within boxes, receding within themselves like a Chinese puzzle.
Pilgrim removed the paper. ‘I prefer not to have my work in progress inspected in ignorance,’ he said.
‘I’m very sorry,’ Blanche said humbly. Grace and Clio looked at each other with awed expressions.
At dinner that evening, Blanche told John that she had found the portrait sitting very boring and uncomfortable, and that she did not intend to stay for the next. ‘There are two of them, after all,’ she reasoned. ‘I would not leave one of them alone with him, but they can look after each other. I’m sure Eleanor would agree, if she were here.’ Eleanor had gone back to Nathaniel and her younger children in Oxford. ‘Don’t you think so, John?’
‘If you say so, my dear,’ John Leominster answered, without much interest.
For their next sitting, Blanche’s chauffeur drove the girls to Charlotte Street, and was instructed to call back for them in two hours’ time. Pilgrim met them at the door.
‘No Mama today?’ he enquired.
‘I’m afraid that Mama found your studio draughty and dull,’ Grace answered.
‘Is that so?’ Pilgrim was all innocent surprise.
This time they found that the room under the skylights was much warmer, almost cosy, that tea had been assembled on a little table near the fire, and that the bench on which he had originally posed them had metamorphosed into a divan covered with shawls.
‘Shall we have some tea first?’ the painter invited. ‘Tea and conversation?’ He handed cups and plates as decorously as if he were in a Belgravia drawing room. Clio and Grace drew their chairs up, lulled by the normality.
‘I can’t paint you in those terrible clothes,’ Pilgrim announced after a few minutes.
‘Why not?’ Grace was indignant. She was pleased with her Reville & Rossiter silk.
‘They make you look like virgin sacrifices.’
‘Isn’t that the idea of débutante dresses?’ Clio retaliated.
Pilgrim was delighted. ‘Oh yes, of course. But I still can’t paint you in them. What have you got on underneath?’
The teacups and iced cake were suddenly incongruous. Grace rose to the challenge, determined not to reveal that she was not constantly answering such questions.
She recited, ‘Underskirt, with panniers stitched into it to give extra fullness to the skirt. Two petticoats beneath that, one stiffened, one not. Silk stockings. Silk chemise and knickers.’
Clio said, when Pilgrim looked at her in turn. ‘The same, in less luxurious versions.’
‘Good. We’ll try the chemises, then. You can go behind the screen, if you wish.’
They didn’t dare look at one another. A moment ago they had been sipping tea. Evidently Pilgrim thought nothing of leaping straight from conventional to alarming behaviour. They felt embarrassed by their own inexperience, and unwilling to reveal that they were shocked.
Pilgrim read every scruple in their faces. He was lazily excited by their similarity, and by the small shades of difference. He saw their rivalry, too, and counted it out for himself like currency. He would use it later, to make his purchases.
‘I am a painter,’ he told them patiently. ‘I am used to working with female models, clothed and unclothed. I am also a designer of theatre sets and costumes and I have dressed ballerinas and actresses. I have seen women’s legs before this afternoon.’
They went behind the screen and emerged again with their heads up, daring him and each other. Pilgrim’s interest quickened.
He studied them, sitting side by side on the divan. ‘Good skin,’ he said at last. ‘I like the light and the dark.’ He touched Clio’s white shoulder and stroked Grace’s hair. They shivered, although it was warm in the studio.
‘The hair is too formal.’
As deftly as a ladies’ maid, he took out the pins and combs. Hair fell down in thick, dark waves over the pale skin.
‘Good. Much better.’
He twisted Clio’s hair loosely again to reveal her neck and jaw and secured it with a single comb. He left Grace’s luxuriantly loose, blurring the family likeness. A pleasing series of opposites and contrasts was beginning to present itself. He found that he was surprisingly eager to begin work on the portrait.
‘Lean against each other,’ he commanded. Their shoulders touched. He put his finger to each cheek and turned their heads away. He liked the dynamic contradiction of the pose. With a casual gesture, almost an afterthought, he pulled the strap of Grace’s camisole off her shoulder to reveal the top of one of her breasts. At once the memory of her mother’s innocent portrait came back to her, and her nervous apprehension forced its way out of her as a choked giggle.
Pilgrim ignored her. He went to his easel and began.
Clio felt the warmth of Grace’s body behind hers. It was odd, the smoothness of skin against skin, the touch without seeing. As she grew accustomed to it they seemed to flow together, almost as if the two of them became part of the same, larger frame. And yet she felt the sharpness of their differentiation. When she moved, Grace did not. There was a little sound, almost a kiss, as they peeled apart. Clio’s fingers curled into her palms. She tried to concentrate on keeping still, on holding the pose.
Pilgrim was frowning, working quickly.
The minutes passed. The girls had no idea how long they had been sitting, there was no clock visible in the studio.
Pilgrim looked up when he heard someone coming up the stairs. He waited, with his hand poised, and then a woman appeared. It was raining outside; they had heard the sharp rattle of rain on the glass roof. The woman was swathed in a voluminous olive-green waterproof. She discarded the coat in a shower of drops and pulled off her hat. Her hair was dark red, wound up anyhow and piled on top of her head. Underneath the waterproof she was wearing frowsy layers of shawls and torn ruffles, almost a gypsy fancy dress.
She grinned at the painter, ignoring the two half-naked girls. ‘I’m sorry, Quint, didn’t know you’d still be busy.’
‘Make some tea, will you?’ was his only response. He worked for a few minutes longer. The woman clattered to and fro with the kettle, glancing at the sitters now and again without much curiosity. Once she went behind the easel to see what he had done. They heard her sniff. At last Pilgrim put down his brush.
‘That will do. You can rest now.’ Clio and Grace stretched gratefully, turning to look at each other, and then at the redheaded woman. Pilgrim introduced her.
‘This is Jeannie. She’s a regular model of mine, a very good model. Jeannie, this is Lady Grace Stretton and Miss Clio Hirsh. I’m painting a society portrait.’
Jeannie sniggered, but she held her hand out. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ Then she looked more interested. ‘Hirsh? Any relation to Julius Hirsh?’
Clio was startled. ‘He’s my brother.’
The model chuckled. ‘It’s a small world, isn’t it? We live in the same digs, just across the landing. You remember, Quint, I told you about the musician? Such a lovely friendly boy. Has he ever talked about me?’
This was an entirely new perspective on Julius. Clio managed to say, ‘I can’t remember if he has or not.’
Jeannie was unperturbed. ‘Well, I suppose he wouldn’t. Listen here, Quintus, why are we messing about with tea? Why don’t you take your friends and me across to the Eiffel for a drink and a bite of supper? I see there’s no cake left, even though it was me that bought it.’
Pilgrim hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. ‘Would you like to do that?’ he asked the girls.
Without consulting one another, without looking, Clio and Grace both knew that they would like it very much. They wanted to know more about Jeannie and Julius and about Pilgrim himself. They were ready to take on the Eiffel, whatever that might be.
‘But the car is coming for us at seven,’ Grace said with regret.
‘Tell the driver he can wait. That’s the point of having a chaffeur, isn’t it?’
‘Can we go like this?’ Clio asked.
‘Well, perhaps better to put your dresses on again. Even for the Eiffel.’ Pilgrim and Jeannie were laughing noisily.
‘That’s what I meant …’
‘I am not proposing some louche dive, madam. Your evening gowns will be quite acceptable.’
When they emerged from behind the screen again Jeannie said, ‘Shown you any of his pictures of me, has he?’
There were canvases stacked all round the studio, but every one of them was turned face to the wall. Pilgrim shrugged, and she went over to the deepest stack and began to turn the pictures outwards, one by one.
They were all of Jeannie, some clothed, some naked. Pilgrim had painted her body as blocks of solid flesh, geometric shapes outlined in heavy black lines, as massive and immobile as slabs of rock. Her russet hair provided the only movement, painted in intricate and regular waves, like water pouring over the rocks. When she was clothed the fabrics were strong greens and violets and ochres, and she lay against plain sheets of thick earth colours. Her face, full on or in profile, was calm, brooding. Her eyelids were rounded like pebbles.
Pilgrim had made her
an odalisque, carved out of stone.
The girls looked, impressed by the power of the Jeannie portraits, trying to imagine how Pilgrim was painting them. They had not dared to glance at the canvas on the easel.
‘Struck dumb, eh?’ Jeannie scoffed.
‘They’re wonderful,’ Clio said at last, meaning it. The pictures made her feel insipid, milky and insubstantial, when she wanted to be strong and elemental as they were. Pilgrim bowed to her. He had already put on his black hat, and a long black cape.
‘Shall we go, now?’
As they descended to the street Grace whispered to Clio, ‘God knows what Blanche and John will make of it all.’
‘Who cares?’ Clio answered, with sudden fervour.
They found the chauffeur waiting with the car. Pilgrim waved him away. ‘I will see the young ladies home myself, thank you.’ He offered an arm to each of the girls and swept them off. Jeannie marched in front of them, her gypsy drapes blowing like flags.
The Eiffel turned out to be the Eiffel Tower, a restaurant a few yards away on the corner of Percy Street. Grace and Clio saw with faint relief that Pilgrim was right, this was no low dive.
There were wide, well-lit windows half curtained in warm crimson. Inside was a big room with tables set against the walls, each with a red-shaded lamp. In the centre was a brass construction sprouting parlour palms and ferns, flowers and newspapers, with a small table beside it laden with exotic fruit and shellfish, plovers’ eggs, caviare and asparagus. There was a feeling of cosiness, but also of comfortable space and order.
The girls had time for only the briefest first impression. Pilgrim and Jeannie were flinging off their hats and coats as if they had come home. A portly man with a moustache came surging forward to greet them.
‘Stulik, Stulik,’ Pilgrim cried, patting him on the back. The man kissed Jeannie on both cheeks and bowed to Clio and Grace. Pilgrim introduced him. Rudolf Stulik was the Eiffel Tower’s proprietor.
‘Welcome, welcome guests, and friends,’ the man crooned. His accent was foreign, fractured. ‘See, I have a table for you here.’ He led them to it.
Grace and Clio saw that the tables were crowded with people, a diverse collection of people in street clothes and theatre clothes and half fancy dress like Jeannie’s. There were thin-faced women with cigarettes and eccentric jewellery, and there was even a sprinkling of young men and women in evening dress. They were all busy eating and talking and gesticulating and laughing, but they looked up when Pilgrim’s party swept by. Clio felt exhilaratingly certain that they were looking not to see what she was wearing, but who she was.
