Keeping Faith

by Beverley Oakley

  And then, as his fragmented vision for what could be coalesced into what was, he saw that she’d closed her eyes and raised her face to his.

  She was anticipating a kiss? A plethora of emotions slammed through him. First and foremost was the desire to respond, but fast on its heels was the realisation that succumbing to such desire would doom them both. He swallowed, and she opened her eyes in time to catch his confusion.

  Quickly, he said, “I want to paint you exactly as you are and in just that position…that alignment with your chaperone just behind, still sleeping, is perfect. Please indulge me a few minutes longer, Miss Montague?”

  “Of course.” She pressed her lips together, and as the hot blush spread from her bosom upwards, he cursed himself for putting either of them in such a position.

  Channelling his frustrated desire into artistic energy he worked quickly, teasing out the expressions with a few accurate strokes, throwing the entire mood he’d wanted to create right onto the canvas.

  It was done in a flash of time, a blur of colour, and he was breathing quickly when he put down his paintbrush and was ready to…

  Dismiss her?

  Yes, that’s what he had to do if he was to get through this unscathed.

  “You’ve been marvellous, Miss Montague,” he declared with false bonhomie. “I’ve never had a better model. So still, so...”

  “So obedient?” She was smiling that artless smile of hers, and he wondered if she had any inkling of the trauma he’d just been through.

  But of course she would have no idea. She was very young but, yes, very obedient. Well trained would perhaps be apt, for once she’d recovered from the moment of awkwardness over the nearly kiss, she was as perfectly composed and well behaved as any demure debutante needed to be in order to prosper in society.

  “Very obedient!” he said on a laugh which broke the ice and woke Lady Vernon, who now called out peevishly for her charge to fetch her sticks and help her to her feet.

  “Will you require another sitting, Mr Westaway?” Lady Vernon asked as they prepared to leave. “I trust she was everything for which you’d hoped. She’s not very experienced, but she was hoping very much to please, weren’t you, Faith?”

  “With nine brothers and sisters, that’s my primary duty, Lady Vernon. To please.” She speared him with a look of amusement that insinuated itself more than it should. Was she sharing a secret joke with him? If she were older, more experienced in the ways of the world, he’d have known that’s what she was doing.

  “A great trial you obviously bear very well, Miss Montague,” he managed as the safest response he could come up with. “And I’m delighted with today’s progress. Thank you for your consummate professionalism for I have managed to get down everything I need and can work on the rest at my leisure. No, I won’t require another sitting.”

  She nodded and gave a half curtsey. “Glad to have obliged, Mr Westaway. In that case, I daresay we shall return to London in the morning.” She glanced at Lady Vernon for corroboration, but the old woman shook her head.

  “We’ve booked the room for a few more days, and these weary old bones of mine aren’t up to a return trip to the hustle and bustle of the city just yet. Where would you suggest we go for a short sightseeing trip, Mr Westaway? You know the area.”

  Faith had grown up a country girl. Until the age of twelve, the cramped cottage she shared with her nine siblings and parents in the Welsh Borderlands had epitomised all she wanted to escape. At thirteen, she’d gone into service and learned the ways of the gentry. She’d learned how they spoke and watched how they behaved.

  Now, the rolling countryside of the West-Midland Vales with its elm-fringed water meadows of the Severn and Avon, and orchards laden with damson, cherry, apple, and pear, represented freedom.

  Even if just for a day or two.

  That morning, they’d traipsed through the town of Stratford-Upon-Avon, imbibing the history of the Great Bard, William Shakespeare and, later, learned of efforts expended by the actor David Garrick whose Shakespeare Jubilee the previous century had contributed to turning it into a tourist town.

  This was the kind of safe, prescribed sightseeing Lady Vernon preferred. Faith would have preferred to delay their journey amidst the lush green fields and go for a meandering walk in the woods. This, of course, was out of the question due to Lady Vernon’s infirmity, though she’d proved nimble enough in town until clearly worn out in the Guild Chapel where she now sank into a pew to gaze at the medieval paintings in the nave.

  “Five minutes, and no longer, and then we must have lunch at the teahouse at the end of the road,” she announced between wheezes. The sunlight that streamed through the stained-glass windows was not kind to her, highlighting the sagging bags of wrinkles under her eyes and the energetic spouting of hairs from the fleshy mole on her chin.

  “We can rest longer if you like,” Faith said, determined to be amenable and charitable. She knew Lady Vernon would be reporting back to Mrs Gedge on Faith’s success which, to date, had been negligible. Staring at the old woman, she wondered if Lady Vernon had ever had a modicum of good looks before her mouth had caved in and age had stuck its claws into her.

  The reflection sent fear like a frisson of electricity up her spine, reminding her that she only had a handful of years, herself, in which to cement her own future. A future which, she’d assumed, would be assured by the conclusion of her visit to the Cotswolds. Mr Westaway should have been eating out of her hands by now.

  “We need to be at Mrs Bromley’s Corner Teahouse by one o’ clock,” Lady Vernon announced, consulting her watch, and the way she said it made it clear there was a very good reason for this. Something to do with Mr Westaway, Faith presumed.

  Correctly, it transpired, when Lady Vernon fixed a pair of beetling eyes upon her and said, “You could at least pretend interest in the young man. I thought you were as anxious as your benefactress to expedite this little matter and claim your reward.”

  She made it sound so sordid.

  Which, Faith supposed, it was.

  “I like him very much, and I’ve hinted so, obliquely, which is all a well-brought-up girl like myself can do. With all due respect, you’ve been asleep most of the time, Lady Vernon.”

  “Well-brought-up…” Lady Vernon repeated on a decidedly ill-bred snort, thought Faith as she resisted the urge to offer a tart rejoinder. Too much hinged on Lady Vernon’s good offices and while, before she’d sat for Mr Westaway, she could afford to talk back, her current failure could only be laid at her door. What was Mrs Gedge going to say?

  Her earlier frisson of fear for her future paid a return visit and settled about her like a cloak ‘which old men huddle about their love, as if to keep it warm.’ Since they were in the town of the old bard, it seemed appropriate to borrow his quote for personal use. Faith had read much of Shakespeare and King Lear was her favourite.

  “Yes, this old church is as cold as the grave and it’s time we settled ourselves for lunch,” Lady Vernon announced, mistaking Faith’s shiver of fearful foreboding.

  “So, Mr Westaway knows we’ll be at Mrs Bromley’s Teahouse then?”

  Lady Vernon sent her an arch look over her shoulder as they trod the thin red carpet down the nave towards the open double doors. “Of course he does. Someone has to keep you on the right path if you’re to succeed in this venture. I’d have hoped Mr Westaway would be eating out of your hands by now.”

  “There’s not been much time.” Faith gritted her teeth as she obediently followed Lady Vernon’s wraith-like shadow down the nave. “I can’t let him think I’m fast.”

  “No, a girl brought up in a brothel could hardly let a gentleman think that, could she?”

  Faith wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly for the muffled words were indistinct and partly swallowed up by the ringing of their shoes upon the stone steps.

  Furious, she hurried to keep up. “I might wish my circumstances were different, and believe me, there’s no love lost b
etween Mrs Gedge and me, but I am better educated than any of the debutantes who have no doubt been paraded in front of Mr Westaway’s nose and more beautiful, and regardless of where I rest my head at night, my virtue is unblemished. And will remain so!” Faith descended the steps beside her chaperone into the street. “So don’t you make false aspersions about my good character.” If ever there was proof that Lady Vernon cared little for Faith and had taken her on purely for the money, this was it.

  “Ah, now, my dear, only a short walk and then we can rest our weary bones and see if Mr Westaway has taken the bait.” Lady Vernon spoke as if she hadn’t heard Faith, her smile cloying, her tone dripping with false pleasure at the journey ahead.

  “You make me feel like a…dog or a…rat caught in a trap,” Faith muttered. The more she spent time with this abominable woman the less able she was to hold her tongue. She and Lady Vernon were partners in a grubby intrigue of which no one else must be the wiser. Sadly, it meant Lady Vernon was the only person she could speak honestly to.

  Lady Vernon swung around, and as her eyes met Faith’s, her slack jaw snapped shut, giving her the look of a lazy bloodhound at rest transforming instantly into a pointer, alert and on the hunt.

  “We are both rats caught in a trap, and you’d do well to remember that, young lady,” she said, taking Faith’s arm to lean on as if the pair were grandmother and granddaughter enjoying a gentle stroll. “That’s what poverty does to a woman!” She sniffed. “At least I have good breeding as my insurance.”

  “And I have beauty as mine,” Faith snapped back, tipping up her chin and wishing her searing gaze could reduce Lady Vernon to a pile of cinders.

  Unscathed, and unconcerned, apparently, Lady Vernon cast Faith a dismissive look before her eyes settled for a second too long, lower down the girl’s body. “Yes, it’s all you have to trade on, girl, so don’t make a mess out of this one opportunity to secure your future, and make mine more comfortable until my next call-out to chaperone some horsey-looking blue blood whose mama can’t summon the energy.” A look of triumph wiped away her peevishness, and the fingers of her left hand dug more deeply into Faith’s arm as she raised her right to hail a gentleman hovering by the front entrance of Mrs Bromley’s Corner Teahouse.

  “Goodness, Mr Westaway! What a surprise to see you here!”

  Suddenly, Lady Vernon looked like a sweet old lady with not a venomous thought in her age-ravaged, ugly old head, Faith thought as she was borne along upon a tide of hopefulness; the tide of hopefulness being on Lady Vernon’s account that she would be paid for notching up a triumphant success.

  As for Faith, she didn’t know what she felt. There was so much riding on this next meeting with Mr Westaway. She didn’t want to trade on her beauty and have to do things with a line-up of men that didn’t involve her heart.

  Yet, as Faith intercepted, then analysed, the look he sent in her direction, the foundation of the three women’s collective plan suddenly seemed as rackety and shoddy as the multiple theatres they’d visited to honour the town’s great bard that had either been swept away or dismantled to be utilised for something newer and better.

  “Miss Montague.” He rose from a gallant bow and there was genuine pleasure in his smile. Faith’s earlier doubts dissipated. She had managed to conquer. Enough to get things underway, at any rate. Why else had he come in search of her after dismissing her the previous afternoon? “I hoped I’d find you in town.”

  “You did?” Faith tried to look coy, when in fact she was overcome by an unexpected wave of desperation. Please, make him amenable and easy to manage from hereon in.

  “Yes, I did want to see you again because I…I can’t do justice to your eyes, Miss Montague.” He looked anxious as he tried to express himself. Right now, he was the artist, tortured by his creativity, not the diplomat. He tried again, using his hands as if that might make his meaning clearer. “The painting is so close to being finished. I’m nearly happy with it but—” He broke off and sent her a beseeching look. “Would you come back and sit for me one last time?”

  Faith glanced at Lady Vernon then back at Mr Montague. He did look very appealing, hanging upon her acceptance.

  With a slight shrug, she deferred to her chaperone. “I’m afraid that only Lady Vernon can make that decision. I know she’s set on the idea of returning to London on tomorrow’s early train, but if she can be persuaded, I don’t mind.”

  I don’t mind.

  Was that the right thing to say? Would her lack of enthusiasm strike the right note with both Lady Vernon and Mr Westaway? She had to appear pliable; a girl who knew her place. Not too eager yet also hint at a flicker of interest. To bolster this last, she fluttered her eyelashes and looked demurely at her hands as if suddenly shy. That should be a nice finish to the whole charade before Lady Vernon fixed the time for tomorrow.

  Yet her intake of satisfaction was expelled on resignation. She didn’t feel true to herself to be taking manipulation to such extremes.

  Still, she thought, the moment she had her cheque for five hundred pounds from Mrs Gedge she could do as she pleased. She’d never again have to worry about pretending or about what anyone else thought. How pleasing that would be.

  “Tomorrow then. At ten o’ clock?” He smiled, and Faith thought what pleasant grey eyes he had. “In the garden where the light is good. It’ll be a fine day, I believe.”

  He shouldn’t have asked her to come back. With sparkling morning light streaming from an azure blue sky imbuing the scene with a magical sense of hope and promise, it hadn’t taken more than ten minutes with brush and paints and the girl lying amidst the daisy-strewn grass before Crispin knew this.

  Still, what was the harm in the simple pleasure of transferring her exceptional beauty onto the canvas in front of him? He hadn’t painted in two years, and there was fever in his fingers to create and do justice to his subject.

  He felt alive.

  That was all this feeling was. A desire to do his best work knowing that the girl in front of him offered him the means to do that.

  “Would you put aside what you’re holding please, Miss Montague?” She’d broken the ennui of her dull, wearying task to make a daisy chain. Now he needed her to be still. “Sorry to sound like the grim voice of authority.” He tried to inject levity into his tone, though he was tense with the need to get his painting right. What was required to get the light in her eyes just so? He’d nearly had it yesterday. Now it eluded him. A pinprick of white, perhaps? “You’ll be comparing me to your pater in his grumpiest frame of mind,” he muttered, half attending to the need to put her at ease while he loaded his paintbrush.

  “Oh, that tone is very mild compared with my father’s temper.” Obediently, she put down the daisy chain and stared up at the sky, and as he studied his work, pleased with the effect, he wondered for the first time about her large family.

  “I’m sure he’s only concerned for the happiness of you all. That’s how my pater excuses his lapses of good humour.” Crispin smiled across at her, but instead of meeting happy collusion or agreement, her expression was closed. And dark.

  Of course, it was no business of his to pry, but he suddenly wanted to get a sense of Miss Montague’s position in the world. Not that it would matter to him after today from a personal sense, but if he could aid her in any way in what he supposed was her primary duty, to succeed in the marital market, it would be helpful to know a little about her father.

  “You have sisters, don’t you, Miss Montague?”

  “Six, Mr Westaway, and only one married. We are a great trial to our father.”

  “I’m sure if they’re all as lovely as you, it won’t be long before your father can bask in the collective success of his seven daughters who’ll have made his family so well connected. I presume your married sister is older?”

  “Twelve months older than me and married to a man who is to turn sixty in a few months. Not a love match.”

  That stopped him in his tracks. Crispin wasn�
�t easily shocked, but this didn’t reflect well on Mr Montague. He racked his brains to come up with what he knew of Miss Montague’s family and realised he knew nothing.

  “So, Mr Westaway, are you pleased with your painting?” She was turning the topic to lighten the mood, for now she was all smiles as she raised herself onto her elbows. “I hope I’ve been a good subject. Despite what Lady Vernon told you, I do find it hard to stay still unless there is a great deal at stake.”

  “My painting?” He felt ill at ease. Not only was there the self-imposed pressure of painting his best work, but that of producing a painting that promised this young woman a better future.

  “Yes, I want you to recommend me to your artist friends as a model. My father knows nothing of what I’m doing here and would be shocked, but this is better than a great deal of other ways to save himself the expense of keeping me than the ones he has in mind.” She rose and came over to stand at his shoulder, her admiring gasp sending desire washing over him like a hot wave. He stepped back quickly, masking his awkwardness with a smile as he said, “I could never do justice to your beauty, Miss Montague, but I believe it is a fair likeness.”

  Her surprise and admiration seemed genuine. “It’s…it’s truly brilliant! Oh, Mr Westaway, you’ll win the competition; indeed, you will! And you’ll show your father what talent you have, and he’ll let you do what you want to be happy. I’m so proud of you.”

  “I only wish it were so simple.” He thought of his father’s fury should he learn that Crispin had been wasting his time on artistic pursuits, when he should be attending to the delicate strategic relations between England and her allies and potential enemies.

  “But your talent is prodigious. It mustn’t be wasted. You must tell him it’s what you want.” She took his hand and squeezed it, her eyes shining. “I knew you were good, but I didn’t realise how good. You truly have made me the happiest girl.”