The Loving Seasons

by Laura Matthews

  “Hush, Will,” Anne urged, but her brother paid no heed.

  “Poor Langham took himself off in one devil of a hurry. Now Brackenbury! You won’t credit this, Miss Berryman, but the man actually took a tumble from his horse when he was merely galloping across a field. Imagine! Not that it did him the least harm… Practically made it to the house before his horse got to the stable. And do you know why?”

  Intrigued by his obvious annoyance with the dismounted earl, Emma encouraged him to continue. “Why?”

  “He followed his nose! There never was a man who could tell so precisely when Cook had baked a batch of lemon tarts. Not one left by the time I got home.”

  “Ah, I see,” Emma said as she took the chair Anne indicated.

  “I can’t stay,” Will declared, heading for the door. “Must go round to White’s. Promise me you’ll save me a dance at the Alderley ball.”

  “With pleasure.” Emma watched Anne shake her head ruefully as the young man disappeared. “Anne, may I ask you something?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Have you decided to accept one of your suitors?”

  Anne flushed. “Lord, Emma, you would think I had a whole army of them!”

  “Your brother makes it sound as though there have been several. And yet you didn’t write anything about them. I won’t believe none of them has come up to scratch!”

  “Unfortunately,” Anne retorted, her eyes demurely downcast, “it has become fashionable to offer for me.”

  “Yes, that is indeed unfortunate,” Emma agreed, sighing. “Can’t you like any of these gallants?”

  Anne cocked her head and played with the lace at her wrists. “Oh, I like some of them well enough as friends, Emma, but hardly for a husband. It’s the very devil having a large dowry. You can’t be sure when they look at you whether they’re seeing your face or a bag of gold sovereigns. And some of them are half in love with Mama and simply see me as an available substitute.”

  Convinced that Anne was avoiding the issue with her light banter, Emma was disappointed but strove to conceal it. After all, Anne had a right to confide in whom she chose. Was it only a year ago they had been so close, sharing every girlish secret? Their secrets were not so girlish now, Emma realized, and there were some she would not choose to confess, either.

  As though reading her mind, Anne regarded her seriously. “One is often silent in matters of the heart, isn’t one? Sometimes, I suppose, it’s pride, but I like to think it’s the delicious treasuring of a delicate bud, which one is afraid a strong wind will blow away, or the glare of daylight will wither. You don’t want all the world to know, for fear they will spoil it; you don’t want even your closest friends to guess for fear you are mistaken.”

  Yes,” Emma agreed quietly, “I know.”

  “Have you brought your pictures in the carriage? I could have had Mr. Rogers come to Bruton Street.”

  “I preferred to take them there. Then I shall have the opportunity to see Miss Rogers’s work as well.”

  Anne nodded, a small frown creasing her brow. “Emma, Mr. Rogers is very honest in his opinions and I have asked that he be quite frank with you. Perhaps I should not have done so, but…”

  “Ah, my love, don’t fear for my feelings. It was only after Greenwood’s criticisms, ramshackle as they were, that I was able to do Maggie’s portrait to my satisfaction. I’m sure Mr. Rogers’s help will be vastly appreciated. I don’t really need to show them, you know. Shall we go?”

  Emma was charmed by the house in Argyll Street and encouraged by the welcome she received from Helena and Harold Rogers, though she had met them only once before, at Anne’s ball. The friendship that had grown up between the two women had not included her as yet, which was not to be wondered at when she had been out of London the greater part of the time since then. A footman carried in her wrapped paintings and set them carefully in the hall. Emma knew a moment of panic, almost wishing she had never decided on this course, but Helena caught her eye, smiling with understanding.

  “We should get the moment of truth over with immediately”—she laughed—”and then we can all sit down and be cozy over a cup of tea. I’ll have Phillips add a jot of brandy to yours, Miss Berryman, should you need it!”

  The paintings were unwrapped right there in the hall, and Mr. Rogers directed they be placed on the mantel one at a time. By chance, the portraits of Mr. Hill and Mr. Bampton came first, and having no familiarity with the sitters, Mr. Rogers could judge them solely on their artistic and technical merit. He made few comments, and those of a slightly critical but constructive nature. Next came Sir Nicholas, at which Helena exclaimed, “Gracious, how absolutely perfect! Look, Anne, how she has conveyed so much by the devilish gleam in his eyes. I swear I’ve seen him look just so.”

  “You should have seen how he looked when he saw it,” Anne laughed. “He said Emma had made him look like the original sinner.”

  Mr. Rogers had been standing, hand on hip, surveying the painting, but he turned now to smile at Anne. “Who can blame him? Miss Berryman has indeed invested him with a most uncanny roguish quality. What I find remarkable, though, is that she has suggested, in addition, his good humor and his air of fashion. There is nothing depraved about him despite the suggestion of rakishness. A difficult resolution to accomplish, I promise you.”

  As Emma murmured her thanks for his kind words, she watched nervously while the footman lifted the last canvas from its protective covering. No one had seen this portrait as yet, but she had been unable to leave it in the obscurity of her closet. By way of explanation, she hastened to say, “Both the painting of Sir Nicholas and this, of Lord Dunn, were done from sketches I made of them before I left town. Mr. Hill and Mr. Bampton sat for me, so it was easier to portray them more exactly. I… I don’t know Lord Dunn so well as Sir Nicholas but I thought… Well, he does have rather interesting features and…” She stumbled off into silence, trying to observe her audience’s reaction.

  There was a stunned silence. Shock at her audacity? she wondered. Certainly none of them would believe that Dunn had given her permission to paint him. To suppress the flush that threatened to rise to her cheeks she reminded herself that she didn’t have to have his permission. She could paint whomever she wished! It occurred to her that she might tell them that she was currently painting her aunt and working on the portrait of Greenwood, but she found she could not say anything at all.

  As though they were one, her three companions stepped closer to the portrait, leaving her to stand alone by the canvases that had already been exhibited. Her heart sank as she heard one of them say, “Fascinating,” the way one would when one couldn’t think of any more appropriate comment. Anne slowly turned to face her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’d done this one?”

  Emma shrugged. “Oh, I’d put it away. I haven’t seen Lord Dunn since I’ve been back and had nothing to compare it against, as I did with Sir Nicholas. I just thought you might be interested in it because you know Lord Dunn.”

  “But, Emma, it’s incredible! You don’t seem to realize what you’ve accomplished.” She laid a hand gently on Mr. Rogers’s arm to gain his absorbed attention. “Don’t you think so? The portrait absolutely breathes. I’ve seen one done of him a few years ago that he commissioned for his family portrait gallery and it can’t hold a candle to this!”

  Mr. Rogers grinned at Anne and placed a hand over her fingers. “Now don’t be too hard on Carlson’s painting, my dear Lady Anne. I suggested him to Dunn and he did very well. True, he hasn’t caught quite the same essence as Miss Berryman has, but it was a perfectly adequate painting. You say his lordship didn’t sit for you?”

  “No,” Emma admitted, “he didn’t even know that I sketched him. The thing was that I had just sketched Sir Nicholas when he called, and the pad and pencil were there, and…”

  “I see.”

  Emma had the odd sensation that Mr. Rogers did indeed see and lowered her eyes as she mumbled, “There w
eren’t all that many subjects for me to work with, being out of London.”

  “No, of course not,” Anne readily agreed. “And I should think he would like it, don’t you, Helena?”

  Her friend had been studying the portrait, a strand of her pure white hair twined round her finger. “Hmm, yes,” she said absently, not shifting her eyes. “Harold, he looks quite a bit like my fencer, doesn’t he?”

  Surprised, her brother turned his skeptical attention once again to Lord Dunn’s likeness and his brows lifted slightly. “Why, he does rather.”

  Emma’s confusion was evident to Anne, who explained, “Helena has done a painting of a man who takes fencing lessons across the street. I’m sure I’ve seen him but I can’t for the life of me place who he is. And he does rather look like Lord Dunn at that.”

  “Not Captain Midford?" Emma asked.

  “Oh, no. Actually he looks more like Lord Dunn than Captain Midford does.”

  Emma turned to Helena. “May I see the painting?”

  After a brief protest that she was new to this type of work, Helena allowed the painting to be brought to the hall and placed on the mantel, explaining her “absurd” habit of watching the fencers through opera glasses. Never having been privileged to see anyone fence, Emma was fascinated by the stance and the foils, but even more so by Helena’s obvious skill… and by the face of the man.

  “I’ve seen him,” she declared, after offering fulsome praise for the work. "Give me a moment and I shall recall his name. Aunt Amelia introduced me to him once or twice last season. Now where…Oh, I remember. At the Hardwood ball, it was. He came very late and had time for only one dance, and he chose Aunt Amelia. Something to do with a hat, I believe. Ah, yes, Hatton. Mr. Hatton.”

  Anne shook her head in mock exasperation. “Something to do with a hat indeed. Is that how you remember names? My dear Emma, you never cease to amaze me.”

  “Mr. Hatton.” Helena, who had observed her fencer off and on for better than two years, tried out his name for the first time. Then she laughed. “It suits him, you know. Each time when he leaves he sets his hat at a jaunty angle before striding off down the street. Come, the hall is drafty. Let’s have tea in the drawing room and Harold can tell you whether he thinks your paintings should be exhibited.” She linked her arm with Emma’s and whispered, “I do.”

  Mr. Rogers, following with Anne, easily overheard this remark and smiled. “Not for the world would I have any other sister than Helena, but you must admit, Lady Anne, that she’s an impish baggage. Opinionated, too. And to top it off she knows very well that I think the paintings are excellent. She just wants to get her oar in first.”

  Their progress up the stairs was halted when Emma swung around to stare at him. “You really do? You think they’re good?”

  “More than good, Miss Berryman. You have a real talent. I would caution you, though, that they are not perfect. You have a tendency to disregard the background, which can be distracting. Of course, I must remember that two of the gentlemen didn’t sit for you and a setting was left to your imagination. However, …”

  Though Emma listened carefully to his strictures, and felt a vast relief that she was not deluding herself, another worry was beginning to nag at her. When they were settled over cups of tea, she asked hesitantly, “Do you think, if I wish to exhibit them, that I should…well, tell Lord Dunn first? I mean, he might be just the tiniest bit annoyed to have his portrait on display. Sir Nicholas didn’t like the idea but he agreed.”

  “Just the tiniest bit annoyed!” exclaimed Anne, almost spilling her tea. “For God’s sake, Emma, he would be livid! Of course you must tell him! And get his permission. I feel sure he would grant it, if you were to but ask. Dunn is…well, he’s a proud man, but I’m sure he wouldn’t stand in the way of your . . . your art.”

  “It does sound extravagant, doesn’t it?” Emma asked cheerfully. “MY ART in capital letters, as though there were something sacred about it. I don’t really feel the way I did before I started, you know. That was just whistling in the wind. Now that I’ve found what hard work it is, and what pleasure it gives me, it’s enough to simply have done them, and to go on doing them. I suppose I wanted Mr. Rogers’s opinion not because it might allow me to exhibit them but simply so that I would know whether I was living in a dream world. I have a very special feeling when I’m working, as though I were having a conversation with the subject, learning what sort of person he or she is. I’ll take the paintings home and… and perhaps give them to the subjects.”

  “No,” Mr. Rogers insisted. His three companions stared at the firmness of his tone. “I realize that Helena’s modesty prevents her from exhibiting her watercolors, but I do not think Miss Berryman suffers from the same problem, and I would like very much to have her work exhibited at a gallery I am associated with in Bond Street. I refuse to have the myth perpetuated that half of our race has no observable creativity in the field of art. If Madame D’Arblay and Miss Edgeworth and Mrs. Radcliffe are willing to expose their writings to the public eye, there is no reason why Miss Berryman should not expose her paintings as well, with no apologies for her gender.”

  With a rueful grin he cocked his head at Emma. “Am I wrong? Would you mind being the object of a little curiosity and perhaps even censure? My fellow art admirers may be a trifle critical just because you are a woman, but I would gladly stand behind you. We have the precedent of Angelica Kauffmann, of course, and one hopes more enlightened times. What do you say, Miss Berryman?”

  Never able to resist a challenge, Emma nodded. “Put so forcefully, I could hardly decline. I promise you I am flattered, Mr. Rogers, and I would try not to be dejected by any untoward comments on my work or my person. But I have not the slightest idea how to go about anything, and frankly, I’m not very interested in making arrangements.”

  “I will see to everything. Just leave the paintings with me."

  Emma caught Anne’s eyes. “Very well, except that of Lord Dunn. I will take it home with me and speak with him before I make a decision on whether to exhibit it.”

  “I’m sure he’ll agree,” Anne told her confidently. She found Mr. Rogers’s gaze on her warm and approving. There had been no change in her affections, despite her continuous association with half a dozen eligible gentlemen. Her pulse still quickened when he permitted the full force of his intense eyes to rest on her. Her senses, which seemed only half awake when she was not near him, came alert in his presence. With her heightened awareness, she could see more clearly the faces around her, understand more thoroughly the philosophical discussions, even taste more precisely the subtle flavors of the unusual cakes Helena served for tea. Only her original awkwardness had disappeared.

  Acknowledging that this euphoria she felt was similar to that of which her mother had spoken the previous year, Anne nevertheless recognized that her feelings for Mr. Rogers were not merely an infatuation. She did not disregard the difference in their social positions: though his was a perfectly acceptable place in society, he had no title and only a modest fortune by the standards of the ton. These drawbacks did not in the least deter Anne: she felt quite certain now that she knew her own heart. Her admiration of Mr. Rogers’s finer qualities left no room for doubts about the disparity in their fortunes. Her love was not blind, but radiantly clear. He was a gentleman, above all: a fine, distinguished gentleman. But Anne did realize that Mr. Rogers’s financial and social deficiencies might influence others, and especially Mr. Rogers himself.

  As she and Emma left, Mr. Rogers took her hand, smiling, and carried it to his lips. He rarely did this, and when he did there was a quality about it that suggested he was doing it against his will, unable to refrain. But he pressed her hand before letting it go, saying calmly, “Thank you for bringing Miss Berryman, Lady Anne. Do come again soon and help me convince my sister to show at least one of her works at the same time.”

  Anne nodded, and suppressed a sigh.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “If you wou
ld just turn your head a slight bit toward the right.” Lady Bradwell did as she was instructed, beaming on her niece, who stood across from her in an old sprigged muslin gown liberally spattered with paint. Two wisps of blond hair had escaped the knot at the back of her head and hung unnoticed on either side of her intent face. Emma delicately touched brush to canvas, remarking after a moment, “Yes, I think that will do for the present, Aunt Amelia. Are you frozen? The sun seems to have disappeared.”

  “Not at all, my love,” Amelia assured her, rising to stretch her legs and shake out the skirt of her pearl-gray kerseymere gown. “May I have a look at it?”

  “Certainly. You’ve been wonderfully patient, Aunt Amelia.”

  Emma could see the footman through the glass doors that led into be house and motioned him to enter. When he informed them that Viscount Dunn had been directed to the front drawing room, Emma took a deep breath, as though she had just been called to Mrs. Childswick’s office at school. “You run along and join him, Aunt Amelia. I must speak with him, but I shall have to change first.”

  “Of course, dear.”

  It was ridiculous to feel so nervous, Emma scolded herself when her aunt had left her alone in the studio. What could he say but that he did not wish for her to exhibit the painting? When she had seen him the previous evening at a rout party, he had been gratifyingly attentive, had even grinned when she asked if he would come to call soon, as she had a matter she particularly wished to discuss with him.

  "Ah, your driving lessons,” he had teased. “I see you are not to be put off now you are back in town. Your absence was a great deal longer than you led me to expect, Miss Berryman.”

  And she had found herself, instead of correcting his misunderstanding, explaining how she had come to be away so long. She had not even told her aunt about his portrait. Returning with it from Argyll Street the previous day, she had had the footman stand it against the wall in the studio, still covered.