The Painter Read online

  “What age are your daughters, sir?”

  “Juliana is six and Margarita is four. Their mother had already begun teaching them to draw before her tragic death, and now that the Lord Chancellor has confirmed my guardianship, I wish them to continue that training as soon as possible. Miss Latimer tells me you have some considerable talent with pen and brush yourself.”

  “I make no claim to any superior accomplishment,” Felicia said. “I have a degree of competence, which I strive constantly to improve, but that is all I would say of myself. I have some little experience of imparting my modest knowledge of the skills required, but if your daughters have truly inherited their mother’s talents, they will surely require the aid of a master to reach their greatest potential.”

  “Such instruction as they require will be given them when they are old enough, but for now they need only the essentials, and Miss Latimer believes you eminently suited to such teaching. May I see some of your work, such as you deem fit for public scrutiny?”

  With Miss Gertrude following them closely with her usual glower, Felicia led him to the studio on the upper floor. Three moon-faced girls whispering over their easels turned curious eyes on them, before being chased out by a glare from Miss Gertrude. Felicia showed Mr Kearney her sketchbooks and the several completed works awaiting framing, but his gaze soon fell on her half-completed cottage.

  “Pastels? An interesting choice. Do you prefer such a medium to watercolours or oils?”

  “I do. Watercolours are my bread and butter, naturally, since that is what the parents mostly want their daughters to learn, but for my own pieces I often choose pastels.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “The intensity of the colours, the ease of blending and over-layering, the many ways a stick may be used to create different effects. On its side, I can cover the paper rapidly to build a base, then use the ends in different ways to add detail. And I love using my fingers to soften and merge the colours.”

  “There is nothing in oils here.”

  “I rarely paint in oils. I find it… complicated.”

  He laughed. “True enough! You have some talent, that is clear, but there is something amiss with the cottage in this picture.”

  “I am incapable of drawing straight lines,” she said.

  “It is fortunate, then, that you are not an architect,” he said, his face softening into a wry amusement. “Buildings are my bread and butter, Miss Oakes, and with those I can achieve a likeness. Trees, too, although not with such panache as you. But people? No, that is beyond my limited talents. I like you, Miss Oakes. The position is yours, if you are so minded. One hundred pounds a year, plus board and whatever equipment you need for your teaching.”

  “That is generous. To reside in Itchen, I take it. And will you be in residence also, Mr Kearney?”

  “Occasionally, as my work permits, but the household comprises a housekeeper, cook, housemaid, two nursemaids and a manservant, so you need not fear for your reputation.”

  His smile was so full of charming good-humour that she found it impossible to take offence. Besides, she preferred such plain speaking. It was best to get everything laid out in clear sight, with no room for misunderstandings.

  “I have no reputation to fear for, being only the abandoned bastard of nobody knows whom.”

  He laughed, but said, “Everyone has a reputation, Miss Oakes, even abandoned bastards, and your father may yet be found. Why, you might even be the daughter of the Prince of Wales.”

  “Heaven forfend! More likely a coal merchant’s get, I should say.”

  “Whoever he is, he should not have left you unprotected. The world is unforgiving towards those born out of wedlock, and those responsible have a duty to provide for all their children, whether legitimate or not,” he said in severe tones.

  “I honour you for such sentiments,” Felicia said. “However, I must correct one misapprehension. My father, whomsoever he may be, did indeed make provision for me. It was not his fault that the protector he chose died when I was ten.”

  “Would your protector have known who your father was?”

  “Very likely, but she never dropped so much as a hint to me, and never will now. All is not lost, however, for when I am one and twenty I shall inherit the small cottage she owned, and my trustees will permit me to see all her personal papers. Then perhaps I shall find the answer, and will know whether I am the daughter of a coal merchant or the Prince of Wales.”

  1: Summer Cottage (March)

  FOUR YEARS LATER

  MARCH

  “Oh, great Heavens! The new duke is dead!” Felicia cried, laying down the newspaper on the breakfast table in shock.

  Agnes set down the pot of tea she was in the process of pouring. “The new duke? Not the Duke of Falconbury!”

  “The very same. ‘DUKE OF FALCONBURY LOST AT SEA’, it says here. ‘It is with the utmost sorrow, a sentiment which the entire nation must share, that we report on the tragic loss of the Brig Minerva, on a voyage—”

  Agnes snatched the newspaper from Felicia’s hands, scanning it avidly. Felicia made no protest, recognising Agnes’ superior claim to it at such a moment. The housekeeper was a sober and hard-working woman who ordinarily eschewed all gossip and speculation, but her one weakness was the nobility. Her favoured reading material was found in the society pages of any newspaper and journal she could find, and when those had been read the requisite three times, she found solace in a well-thumbed copy of the Peerage.

  “How dreadful! Listen to this! ‘The tragic loss of the Brig Minerva, on a voyage from Dublin bound for Southampton, which has foundered on the rocks of the treacherous southern Cornish Coast some miles to the west of Trehowick. The cause of this disaster…’ Well, we do not much care about the cause. Hmm… hmm… Ah, here we are. ‘One of those believed to be counted amongst the dead is His Grace the Most Noble the Seventh Duke of Falconbury, a young man returning from foreign parts to assume the heavy mantle of his responsibilities after the great sorrow of his father’s death only six months ago. His Grace was sojourning in the New World, in the country that now calls itself the United States of America, when news of his father’s demise reached him. Immediately His Grace set aside his own sorrow to travel by any means possible back to his native land to comfort his family and take his place amongst the highest in the land. This journey, it seems, has now been cut short. His Grace having never married and therefore leaving no heir, the great responsibility of the ducal coronet now falls to his noble brother. Our hearts and prayers go out to His Grace in this dark hour, and all the Litherholm family.’ Dear me. Deary, deary me.”

  “Is he our duke?” Juliana said.

  “Our local duke? Yes, indeed,” Agnes said. “The very same who lives at Valmont. His poor brother! To lose the Sixth Duke so short a time ago, and now this. They were twins, you know. Not alike in looks, or in character either, by all accounts, but as close as ever brothers could be. Such a tragedy for the family!”

  “And especially the ladies,” Felicia said. “They would have been barely out of mourning for the old duke, and now they are straight back into blacks again. Such a dispiriting colour, black. A lady always looks ill in it.”

  “Tush, Felicia!” Agnes said. “You’re too frivolous sometimes. The mourning period is no time for any lady to care about her appearance.”

  “A lady always cares about her appearance,” Felicia said. “Why else spend such vast sums on it? Forty guineas for that bonnet in Miss Tucker’s window. Wicked! All these grand folk you revere so much feel more affection for their bonnets than their children. They never see their own offspring, and would be hard put to recognise them if they bumped into them in the garden.”

  “Felicia! Whatever your own feelings regarding our great nobles, you should instil the proper level of deference in the girls. Take no notice, either of you. Felicia does not mean it.”

  The two gazed at her, round-eyed, Margarita solemn, Juliana with a slight twinkle that recogn
ised Felicia’s teasing tone. Yet it was true that she had no great respect for the nobility, since most of them were of a dissolute and idle disposition, and served no useful function that she could discern.

  Not being inclined to argue the point, however, she said only, “It hardly matters, since they will never meet anyone of rank. They are not nearly rich enough, and thank goodness for it. We are all better off escaping the notice of those far above us. Here we are in our little corner of Hampshire, with nothing at all to trouble us beyond a headline in a newspaper. Come, girls, if you have eaten your fill, shall we leave Mrs Markham to savour the sinking of the Brig Minerva in peace and begin our lessons?”

  Agnes smiled, and lifted the newspaper a little closer, the better to enjoy the tragic news.

  ~~~~~

  ‘To Miss J. Pollard, Laura Place, Bath. My dear Jane, Have you seen the latest word? The poor new Duke of Falconbury is now residing at the bottom of the English Channel. How strange to think that if you had married him four years ago, as your mama intended, you would now be a dowager duchess at the extraordinary age of one and twenty. I should not like to be a duchess, I think, but a dowager duchess — now that is something that would appeal to my odd sense of humour. One could have a great deal of amusement floating through society, receiving the deference of all and causing a great deal of trouble for all the servants yet without any of the bother of a husband. Yes, that appeals to me very much, so if ever you hear of a very elderly duke in need of a wife for his few remaining years on earth, be sure to send for me at once. Is Bath very dull now that Mr T. and Captain R. have left? I have always believed that Bath is very dull at all times, but there, you are such an open-hearted soul that you find enjoyment everywhere, even in Bath. When do you remove to Dorsetshire? Do let me know how you go on. Yours in affection, Felicia Oakes.’

  ~~~~~

  Later that day, Felicia, Juliana and Margarita were returning from their daily walk, cheeks aglow in the frosty winter air. They had been down to the shores of the River Itchen. In the summer they would have taken their sketch books, but even at this lifeless season there was much pleasure to be had in watching the sturdy little ferry ploughing back and forth, and the distant sails of the Southampton ships. Margarita, who had a morbid interest in dead things, had collected a bundle of desiccated stems, their brown leaves rattling, to draw later, and Juliana triumphantly carried an intact bottle, washed ashore from some passing boat.

  “Look, there is Mr Pierce,” Juliana cried, pointing at the arriving ferry.

  “Is it?” Felicia said, startled, for the attorney seldom ventured far from his office on French Street.

  “See how he leans upon his cane,” Juliana said. “And that limp — no other has such a limp.”

  “It certainly does look like Mr Pierce,” Felicia conceded. “He must have business on this side of the river, but nothing to do with us, I am sure. Come along, now. If we hurry, there will be time to arrange those twigs ready to be immortalised in paint tomorrow.”

  But Mr Pierce walked steadily, if lopsidedly, towards them and they met at the gate of Summer Cottage.

  “Ah, Miss Oakes,” he said, but his eyes were on Juliana and Margarita. He stopped, his face working as if wrestling with some inner emotion. “Miss Kearney. Miss Margarita. Good day to you all.”

  Felicia watched the two girls make their curtsies, even as she made her own. Yes, there was an increasing gracefulness in their deportment that must please their father. They were growing up very well, and would be elegant young women in a few years time.

  “Are you come to see us?” Felicia said.

  “Indeed, or rather — I must talk to you, Miss Oakes.”

  That was a surprise. A frisson of alarm shivered through her. “Then pray come inside, sir.”

  Handing the children into the care of Ellen and Mary, the nursemaids, she led Mr Pierce into Mr Kearney’s study. With the shutters closed and no fire lit, it was a dark, unwelcoming room, with just a hint of dust and neglect in the air. Hastily she threw back the shutters to let in low, slanting beams from the winter sun, and lit the fire.

  “Shall we sit here?” she said, indicating the comfortable chairs set either side of the hearth. “This will be the warmest place. May I offer you some refreshment, sir?”

  “That would be most welcome. Most welcome indeed. It is still cold out, and not the least hint of spring in the air.”

  He agreed to some Canary, but would accept nothing to eat, which was just as well, for all the morning’s cakes had been consumed at breakfast. She unlocked the tantalus and poured a glass for him, which he sipped from nervously and then placed carefully on a low table. Felicia perched on the edge of her chair and waited for Mr Pierce to impart his bad news. She had formed no clear idea of what he might say, but that it would be bad was certain. His very agitation proclaimed it so, yet his first words took her by surprise.

  “Have you seen this in the newspapers?”

  He drew forth a small cutting from a Southampton newspaper, and she recognised the substance of it at once. “The Duke of Falconbury is drowned off Cornwall. I am very sorry for it, I am sure, but what is it to us?”

  He ran a finger inside his cravat, as if it were too tight. Then, slowly, as if reluctantly, he pulled from his pocket a folded paper. “I received this two… no, three weeks since,” he said, handing it to her.

  A letter. She recognised Mr Kearney’s handwriting from the direction. “You wish me to read this?”

  Wordlessly he nodded. She unfolded it and read, ‘Sir, My business here is concluded for the moment, so I return to S. in a few days. I am being greatly entertained at Kilrannan House, where the earl is attempting to impress the Duke of Falconbury, to no avail, for His Grace remains steadfastly unimpressed by minor Irish nobility. I plan to stay as long as His Grace, so will take passage with him on the Brig Minerva, which will—’

  Felicia cried out in distress. “Mr Kearney was aboard the Brig Minerva?”

  He had pulled out a handkerchief, and was polishing his spectacles vigorously. “So it would appear. In which case—”

  For a moment, Felicia felt as if she could not breathe. “He is dead, then.”

  “I am awaiting confirmation of it, but it is believed so, yes. He was not amongst the few survivors so we must prepare for the worst. Indeed we must. The bodies are… forgive me for speaking so bluntly, Miss Oakes, but it is necessary. Most necessary that you know all.”

  She had made some little sound of distress, but she nodded and gestured to him to continue.

  “The… the mortal remains of the poor unfortunates are presently being recovered, and once Mr Kearney’s… um… um… have been identified, he will be transported to his last resting place.”

  “Liverpool,” she said. “To his wife. Widow, I suppose.”

  “Correct,” he said, with a little more briskness. “And then his will may be read formally, but on that head I may reassure you at once. I have written to Mr Kearney’s solicitor in Liverpool and he has been most helpful. He tells me that Mr Kearney made ample provision for his daughters. Indeed, they will have excellent fortunes.”

  “Poor things,” she said softly. “Excellent fortunes are no substitute for a mama and papa. They are orphans now. Whatever will happen to them? Will they be able to stay on here? The cottage is leased, so—”

  “There is a guardian appointed,” Mr Pierce said hastily. “It will be for him to say where they live, naturally, but I expect he will want to have them a little nearer to his home. More conveniently situated, you understand, for their better instruction and guidance. Yes, I am sure he will want them to live with him in Derbyshire.”

  “Derbyshire!” Felicia exclaimed. “Such a great distance from all that they know. Surely—”

  “They will be better off there,” he said firmly. “A vast deal better off, Miss Oakes. Indeed, they could not have wished for better protection. They will never be able to move in the highest society, given their um… unfortunate origins
, but on the fringes… Yes, indeed. They will be very well placed to make splendid matches, I make no doubt. Not the least doubt in the world. What a fine thing! A most fortuitous circumstance. Such a fine opportunity for them.”

  “I imagine they would rather have their father than any number of opportunities,” she said acidly. “Nor can I imagine that Derbyshire is any more likely to provide them than Hampshire.”

  “Now there you are quite wrong,” he said smugly. “Their guardian moves in the most superior society.”

  “Who is this paragon?”

  “Why, none other than the Earl of Finlassan.”

  “The Earl of Finlassan! I never heard Mr Kearney mention such a person. He mingled with noblemen all the time, but only in the course of his work. I am surprised that he knew one well enough to appoint him as guardian to his daughters.”

  “Indeed, indeed. There is just as much surprise in Liverpool, I assure you. Neither the widow nor the solicitor were aware that Mr Kearney was even acquainted with the earl. But so it is. I have written to his lordship to apprise him of the duty laid upon him by his friend, but have not yet been honoured with a reply.”

  “So what must we do?” Felicia said.

  “We wait,” Mr Pierce said, polishing his spectacles again. Then he noticed his glass of Canary with a start of surprise, and reached for it with a pleased smile. After a sip or two, he went on, “We must await official word of the Miss Kearneys’ inheritance to arrive from Liverpool, and we must also await instructions from Lord Finlassan. That will give you a little time to prepare the young ladies for this very great change in their lives.” He gazed at Felicia over the top of his spectacles. “You will perhaps take this opportunity to relinquish your employment? After all, Miss Oakes, you are of age now, your inheritance is in your own hands. That is a very snug little house you own. Very snug indeed. You will be very cosy there, I make no doubt.”