The Painter Read online

  ~~~~~

  Felicia woke, as she always did, to the sound of the chamber maid remaking the fire. The girl went about the business as quietly as she could, but there was no hiding the metallic chink of the fire irons, or the rattle of coal, and such sounds were so unfamiliar that Felicia could not sleep through them. On previous days, she had been so tired from the journey that she had rolled over and returned to sleep, only waking again when her hot water arrived. Oh, such pampered luxury! She would miss it excessively when she had to leave. Today, however, further sleep eluded her, and when the maid had crept out of the room, Felicia slipped out of bed and wrapped herself in her old woollen shawl.

  The clock on the mantel — a clock in her room! Heavens! — showed that it was not yet six, although the morning light filtered through the shutters. Throwing them open, she was struck by the low angle of the sunlight at this hour, and was driven to seek out some of the principal rooms and admire them in a new light. She had seen the drawing room at noon and by candlelight, but she was sure it would look quite different this morning. Silently, she crept out onto the corridor and down the stairs.

  The drawing room was full of housemaids straightening and dusting and tidying, so she slipped away unseen to the library, her bare feet making no sound as she trod lightly from polished wood to carpet then wood again. The shutters had been opened, and the fire lay ready for lighting, but the room sat in watchful quietness, shafts of sunlight catching the dust motes and making them dance. From there, she went through the open door to the next apartment, all elegant curves and cool silver and gold — was it the White Room? Then to the South Saloon with its big French doors to a terrace where steps curved down to the lawn, an immaculate sea of plush green. Beyond that, another open door to the earl’s sitting room. A quick peek told her it was empty, so she ventured in to admire the paintings on the walls, Lady Juliana’s all greenery and lush, peaceful gardens, while the earl’s were men in full robes in heroic poses, while cherubim flew above them.

  After a while, she noticed another door to a room she had not yet seen, a door which had been firmly closed on her previous visits but which now lay temptingly ajar, light pouring through the crack. Silently she tiptoed nearer and peeked inside.

  The earl was there, his back to her. Despite the morning light, he was surrounded by candelabra, some still burning, the wax melted into great mounds as if he had been there all night. He was dressed almost as informally as the first time she had seen him, wearing only shirt, breeches and paint-spattered slippers. In his hands he carried a palette and an array of brushes, and he stood before a huge paint-covered canvas, dabbing at it in a frenzy of concentration, adding small dots of colour here and there. It looked random, but she could guess from the quick way he changed brushes from time to time and then continued without pause that he was placing those spots of colour with great precision.

  Mesmerised, she drew nearer, her silent feet bringing her pace by careful pace to within a few feet of the canvas. It was filled with stormy swirls of colour, with trees lashed by wind and lightning exploding from the sky. In the centre of it, serenely untouched by the turmoil and backlit by a brighter patch of sky, was the temple on the hill.

  From the painting it was a small step to perusal of the painter. She had never seen him like this, so enthralled in his outpouring of creativity that he noticed nothing around him. If the storm of his imagination were to break against the windows at that moment, it would not disturb his absorption. His focus was absolute. She moved nearer, fascinated by the confidence in his quick movements with the brush, by the intensity in his face. His hair, unbrushed and tangled, as if he had repeatedly run his fingers through it, curled about his forehead. His throat, revealed by the open shirt, was long and slender, his skin as pale as a girl’s except for a hint of shadow on his unshaven chin. A small dot of blue paint had caught one cheek. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to reveal strong forearms. She had never seen a man so exposed before, so masculine and yet so vulnerable, and she could not take her eyes off him.

  Gradually his movements stilled. He gazed at the painting with a slight frown on his face, assessing it. Was it finished? She could not see any scope for improvement, and perhaps he thought so too, for after many minutes of such contemplation, he let out a soft sigh, and took a step back.

  Without turning his head to look at her, he said, “What do you think of it?” His tone was gentler than any she had heard from him before.

  “It is magnificent,” she said without hesitation.

  “I think so too,” he said, turning intense blue eyes to her with a sudden smile. “It is the best thing I have ever done, I believe.”

  That smile! Such warmth, such genuine warmth as she had never seen in him before. Her heart jolted in response with a violence that shocked her to the core. The very air between them seemed charged. She gasped, and took a step back.

  He noticed nothing, for he turned back to the painting at once. “It is so rare, to capture precisely what I wished to accomplish. Do you not find it so? How often does one begin with high hopes and the clearest imagery in mind, but the result falls short. Yet not tonight… But I perceive that it is morning already. I must go and clean the paint out of my hair.” He laughed, and tossed his palette and brushes onto a table. “And you had best get dressed, too, Miss Oakes.” Another quick laugh, he kicked off his painting slippers and then he was gone.

  Felicia stood rooted to the spot, too shaken to move. What had just happened? One moment she had been watching a painter engaged in his art, and the next… he had smiled at her, and then…

  Such madness. She could not, would not fall in love with Lord Finlassan. That way led only to heartbreak.

  She spun on her heel and ran swiftly back to her room.

  5: Settling In (May)

  It was fortunate for Felicia’s peace of mind that she saw nothing of Lord Finlassan for several days. She quickly re-established the schoolroom routine for Juliana and Margarita, which consisted of a great many long walks through the manicured grounds of the Hall, together with hours of art work each day, with very little of other subjects. They read a page or two of Shakespeare every day, and, finding a child’s history book on the nursery shelves, read a chapter on wet days. It was rather out of date, ending with the Union with Scotland, but Felicia could not see that much of importance could have happened in the hundred years since, apart from the wars with France, and why should anyone want to know more about that?

  Lady Drusilla came once or twice, tutted over the lack of music, needlework and languages, and went away again, promising to write to all her society acquaintances for recommendations for a proficient governess. Felicia was now rather torn about the prospect of leaving Hawkewood Hall. Its beauties lifted her spirits and its luxury brought her satisfaction of a more basic kind, but its owner preyed on her mind rather. When she walked about the house now and created her romantic little stories in her head, the broodingly handsome earl featured more often than she would like. Try as she might to relegate him to some dusty corner of her mind, he would keep intruding on her imagination, his shirt unfastened and his blue eyes alight as he smiled at her…

  Such madness. There was nothing to hope for there.

  On one point, Lady Drusilla moved with great swiftness. Within a few days of their arrival, she had visited a warehouse in Derby to procure lengths of suitable fabrics for the wards of an earl, and arranged with the Miss Trimms in Church Compton for the making up of the items. Felicia was given instructions on when and how to present herself and her charges for measuring and fitting. In their walks about the grounds they had not yet ventured to the village, so there was some excitement at the outing. Since it was little more than a mile away by the most direct path, they eschewed the use of the carriage and walked along an avenue of rough-barked elms to a small gate.

  The Miss Trimms lived on the far side of the village, where the church, rectory, coaching inn and smithy sprawled around three sides of a large square.
On the fourth side stood a pair of massive stone gateposts, but the gates hung askew and beyond them the drive was choked with weeds. The fine avenue of oaks showed gaps here and there, and what might once have been lawn was as high-grown and brown as a cornfield. Felicia stopped, fascinated by so much extravagant decay.

  The girls stared in open curiosity. “Who lives there?” Juliana said.

  Her high voice was overheard by two passing women. “That’s Shotterbourne, miss, where the Marquess of Arnwell lives,” one of them said, stopping to smile at the girls.

  “Why is it all ruined? Is the marquess very poor?”

  The women laughed. “Not he! But he lost his whole family in a fire years back and went mad from the grief. Now he don’t care about nothing. Turned off the gardeners and gamekeepers and most of the indoor servants, too. He lives in a couple of rooms and never goes nowhere, not even to church.”

  “Maybe he has a chapel of his own, like our guardian does,” Juliana said brightly.

  The women looked at her with renewed interest. “Ah, so you are Lord Finlassan’s wards. We heard there were two young ladies staying at the hall… with their governess.” Their eyes fell on Felicia, and they executed little curtsies. “Beg pardon for not realising who you were, madam.”

  “Why, how should you, indeed?” she said, laughing. “But you will get used to us coming and going, I dare say. We are on our way to the Miss Trimms, but I am not sure which cottage it might be. We were told to look for the black and white cottage with the brown door, but that seems to describe half the houses within sight.”

  The women laughed, too. “Oh, it’s just across the square — that one with the low hedge all round it, next to the inn.”

  Felicia thanked them, which brought another outbreak of curtsies, and they walked on round the square, past the fine Norman church, the rectory next door and then the smithy, where they stopped for some time to watch a horse being shod. A smith may not be a man of education, but there was much to admire in the strength and deftness of his arms as he pursued his trade, Felicia found, storing images in her mind to be set to paper at a later date.

  They had just, with some reluctance, turned away from this interesting spectacle and were passing the arch of the coaching inn when a fashionably dressed gentleman came striding out from the inn yard, almost barrelling into them. He jumped back, sweeping off his hat in apology, but then he caught sight of Felicia and started.

  “Lady Olivia? This is a surprise!”

  Felicia smiled at his error. “You are mistaken, sir. To my regret, I am not Lady Olivia… or Lady anything.”

  He bowed with an elegance that Felicia could not but admire. He had the sort of features that would be called handsome by most observers, having a pleasing regularity combined with an open, genial countenance. His manners, too, were beyond reproach, as his first words proved.

  “I do beg your pardon, madam! Forgive my ineptitude. Just at first I thought I saw a likeness… but now it is clear to me that I was quite wrong. If you are inclined to be censorious for my foolishness, however, please be assured that the Lady Olivia Dulnain is regarded as a diamond of the first water, a great beauty and much admired by society. I can only beg you to take that into account before you condemn me utterly.”

  Dulnain… was she then some relation to Lady Juliana? Margarita was still distracted by the smith and had not heard the name, but Juliana jumped and seemed about to speak. Cautiously, Felicia laid a restraining hand on her shoulder.

  “Such mistakes are easily made and therefore easily forgiven, sir,” she said to the stranger, whereupon he repeated his apology in the fairest terms, and bowed again. Felicia curtsied and they moved on. As soon as they were out of earshot, she said to Juliana in a low voice, “It is better not to mention your mother’s family to strangers. It is for Lord Finlassan to explain you to the world in whatever manner he deems fit.”

  “But Lady Olivia must be related to us!”

  “If so, it would be for the family to acknowledge the relationship, should they wish to do so. You must make no claim yourself.”

  They had reached the seamstresses’ cottage by this point, so the conversation ended, and for two hours their heads were filled with gowns and pelisses and spencers and chemises and all manner of other excitements. Felicia was enchanted by the muslins and cambrics and printed cottons and merino wools supplied to make up her own garments, and although the colours were drably suitable for her station as a governess, still the finished items would be finer than anything she had previously worn. With such pleasant thoughts to beguile the walk home, nothing more was said on the subject of Lady Olivia Dulnain, but Felicia made up her mind to write to Agnes, who would be sure to know all about the Dulnain family.

  ~~~~~

  The Lady Drusilla found some excuse to visit the nursery almost every day. She had not, as yet, found a governess to replace Felicia, for her requirements were many and the very best candidates, she explained, were already employed. However, as a temporary measure she had engaged a French tutor, a dancing master, an instructor on the pianoforte and a singing master, and had herself engaged to instruct Juliana and Margarita in the arts of embroidery, the netting of purses and tapestry. Ponies had been obtained, and the head groom was to teach them to ride.

  “You may continue to teach them painting and drawing,” she said to Felicia, “but I do not care for all these bowls of fruit and shrivelled-up leaves. Watercolours of the finest prospects about the estate, suitable for framing, and the painting of fire screens, that is what they must produce. A young lady must be able to display her accomplishments, and these horrid collections of dead objects are not of the least use.”

  Felicia curtsied and said that yes, of course she would direct her charges’ efforts in the required directions, although she wondered just what difference it would make in the end. Would the girls ever be able to take their place in their guardian’s level of society, where a facility in French was expected? It seemed likely that they would be looking for husbands from amongst the outer circles of society — the cits and nabobs and half-pay officers who would be happy to take them for their fortunes and the tenuous connection to Lord Finlassan. Would such people care about painted screens or the singing of Italian airs? She could not say, but it was not for her to question her orders.

  The influx of tutors meant that Felicia had more time to herself, whole hours when the girls were otherwise engaged and she could pursue her own interests. As often as not, this meant taking her easel to some interesting point about the house and attempting to capture the exquisite beauties which so enchanted her. She was in the Pillared Saloon one day when she became aware that she was not alone. Someone was standing behind her, watching her work, and she knew, although she could not say how, that it was the earl.

  For a long time he watched in silence, but then he said, “You spoke the truth when you declared straight lines to be the bane of your existence. Yet here you are painting a room encircled with pillars.”

  That made her laugh out loud. “Indeed! Yet I know not how to remedy the deficiency.”

  “You have captured the marble magnificently,” he said, drawing nearer. “The statue of Vesta is perfect. But those pillars…! Yet I believe the problem is that you define the edges too precisely. I think the effect you desire could be achieved a different way. It would be enough merely to suggest the edges by applying light and shade. May I show you?”

  His hand hovered over her box of colours, then he selected two sticks and began to draw with quick, decisive strokes. At once the pillar was transformed, the wavering outline replaced by subtle shading that merely insinuated the shape.

  “Oh, that is clever!” she cried.

  He fished in the box again, and applied some stippling to the new colour, to match the rest of the pillar. Then he stood back to admire his efforts. “It is a long time since I tried pastels, but the effects are interesting. May I attempt something with the fireplace?”

  When she assented,
he chose several more sticks and began dotting colour with quick, firm movements. As with his own painting, his concentration was absolute. Felicia was mesmerised by his face, the way his brows lowered as he focused, the slightly open mouth, his lips warmly blood-red in his pale face, the way his hair curled over his shirt points. She felt oddly disconnected, light-headed, like a dandelion seed floating free from its mooring, drifting into the sky and driven here and there by the wind. What was the matter with her?

  He turned his blue eyes on her, and it was as if she were drowning, swirling away from her safe world into uncharted waters.

  “This is good,” he said, and then, when she was already clinging to sanity by a thread, he smiled.

  He smiled, and her heart melted.

  Felicia hardly knew how she got through the rest of the day. Somehow, inexplicably, the hours passed and no one commented on her air of distraction. But when she was able to retreat to her own room at last, she found herself shedding hot tears of frustration. All her tranquillity was shattered by a pair of blue eyes and a smile! How foolish — how unutterably stupid to fall in love with such a man, who was as far above her as the moon. Even if he loved her in return, there could be no question of marriage, not between an earl and the natural child of no one knows whom. Even if she were, as she had joked, the daughter of the Prince of Wales, there could be no question of it.