Girl Reading (16 page)

But they do have supper together by the drawing room fire, leftovers with port, Coward snoozing on the carpet, Maria being cordial—

And did you look around, Miss Kauffman?

Yes, Your Ladyship. I particularly admire your library. I should like to spend some time in there, if I may. For research.

By all means. I do not expect you to work during your entire stay, indeed I hope you shall not.

Your Ladyship . . . ?

I mean, I want to hear all about the ton and their exploits! I have had no gossip for simply ages. You must tell me everything.

Angelica, having access to the fashionable ladies and gentlemen of London, is able to answer many of the questions Maria has about their mutual acquaintances, and shares some stories about the absurd height of ostrich feathers and the ridiculous width of panniers currently seen around town.

Suddenly the countess interrupts the artist: Actually there is no need for that.

For what, Your Ladyship?

That . . .
or “My Lady.” Just plain Maria will do, if you do not mind the familiarity?

It would be my pleasure.

And I prefer to call you Angelica, if you will indulge me?

Of course.

Or I can call you Miss Angel, like Sir Joshua Reynolds does.

The artist smiles at the mention of her friend, at the affectionate joke.

Angelica . . . You are more accommodating than our Mrs. Plett. I have known her my whole life, and still she will not call me by my first name, unless she is across with me.

I should be afraid if your housekeeper were angry at me.

With good reason! And Maria smiles, yes, this is the way it was supposed to be, the way it had been. She goes on, Anyway, it is a convention that I do not see the need for in intimate company, and were we not on intimate terms once?

We were. We are. That is why I came here.

The ladies find this concession to each other makes a pause in their dialogue, the chink of cutlery on china, the gleam of candles in crystal, until Maria continues: I was thinking that you should use the orangery. It is warm and has the best light, very conducive to creativity. No one will disturb you.

For research?

For your work.

No. The orangery will not be necessary.

It was only a suggestion; you must work where you feel most at ease, wherever you like.

Maria, I think there has been a misunderstanding. I am not here to finish the painting.

You are not?

No. I am sorry if I gave you that impression.

But you turned up without sending a message. What else was I to think?

Angelica feels the sting of their previous encounter renewed, testing her compassion. You said it did not matter anymore. You said other things were more important.

It most certainly matters. Besides, it is polite to state your intentions in advance, to say if and when and why you are paying a visit to someone. You do not just appear one day and expect to be accommodated and entertained.

With respect, you wrote me sheets of letters imploring me to come.

Yes, to finish the painting.

You did not always say so. You would say one thing, and then something else. Some of your letters did not even sound like you. You seemed muddled.

I was upset. I was angry, and then . . .

Yes, I understand, but by the end I did not know exactly what you wanted from me, whether you would even see me. I came here expecting to be turned away.

Well, Miss Kauffman, I am telling you now, plainly: I want you to finish the painting of Frances.

That is not going to be possible.

Why not?

And the artist says it as gently as she can: Because you cannot afford to pay me, Maria.

The countess is thrown. Of course I can.

The whole world knows you cannot. If your creditors called in all your debts, you would not own even the gown you are wearing. It is only through the intervention of your husband that you have your home, your servants, your pin money.

The countess stands and turns away. I am sure we can come to an arrangement. I could pay in installments. You can name your own terms for as much and for as long as you like.

You confuse me with someone else.

All right. You have refined sensibilities, I acknowledge that. You admire some of the artwork here? We have many interesting pieces. Why not choose a couple as payment in kind? That is a fair exchange, more than fair.

I have no desire to pillage your property, and I live in a tiny town house with barely enough room for the possessions I have.

Then what do you want? You are negotiating hard; you must have a price in mind.

No, I have not. I want nothing from you.

Miss Kauffman, my circumstances notwithstanding—though, by the way, I am appalled you presume to know about my private affairs, much less taunt me about them—I am still a person of influence. I have the ear of some of the richest and most powerful men and women in the country. I can help you. I can do wonderful things for your career.

Please stop this.

I can do terrible things too, if I want.

Angelica takes a moment to weigh these words, to be sure she has understood. She sighs. Maria, I am a woman of immense wealth in my own right. I am a founding Royal Academician. I have among my friends and colleagues Benjamin West, Francesco Bartolozzi, Thomas Gainsborough, and Joshua Reynolds. My patrons include Johann Joachim Winckelmann, David Garrick, the king’s sister, and Queen Charlotte herself. Paintings, engravings, lady’s fans,
teapots
for goodness’ sake. They say I am one of the most famous artists alive; they say the whole world has gone
Angelicamad.
I do not need your patronage, Your Ladyship. I do not need your endorsement. A smear campaign would not hurt me. In reality, it would probably exclude you from society forever.

An ugly silence follows. The fire spits and cracks. The countess’s shallow breathing is audible, and then she speaks again: That was awful of me to attempt to threaten you, Miss Kauffman. I never used to be like this. If you did not come here to finish the portrait, then pray tell me, why did you come?

Out of friendship.

Then, out of friendship, go home in the morning. Good-bye, Miss Kauffman.

The countess picks up a candlestick to light her way.

* * *

She turns over, sits up; it is the morning, and last night is vivid in her memory. Coward, alert as a hunter, barks, wags the knot of his tail. Maria is wide awake and putting a robe on over her shift, hair unbrushed and uncovered, running down the great staircase to stop the carriage, but there is no sign of it. She checks the drawing room, the dining room.

We are too late, Coward (as though this were for his benefit).

She feels the nip of despair, loneliness digging into her ribs. She wishes she could escape her own company, if only temporarily; respite from this wickedness and sorrow. Damnable. Idiotic. Perverse. The frustration is a compressed spring inside her. The pressure chokes her.

Though it is unseemly and the morning is chill, she goes for a walk in the grounds in her nightgown and slippers with the pug, for the sake of movement, for the expenditure of the fidgets, for Angelica, who was perfectly correct: Maria is a countess in name only. Because she might as well, as not.

This is Maria. This body, this mind, these emotions. This is what there is to Maria, and the sum of what she will ever be. She has had the best of her life: her youth, her marriage, her wealth, her children, her great love. The fabric has unraveled, only the filaments are left.

She breathes in the cool air—it is replenishing—thinks how they used to love being outside. Picnics and walks and sunrises and swims and snowmen and drinking under the stars. It is a whole other person who was loved by Frances.

If you could see me now. If you saw me.

Maria’s toes are wet from the dew. She moves fast, walks through the herb garden to smell the lavender and the rosemary, and then to the rose arch to sit on their stone bench, tapping the
energy away. In the midst of her anguish it occurs to her how well Duncan, the gardener, has maintained the grounds practically single-handed.

It is on her way back that Maria is jolted into the present, like the glimpse of a fox between the trees.

In the orangery, Angelica is at work on the portrait.

She pauses when Maria enters.

My apologies. I do not mean to disturb you.

You are not. There is still some tea.

The artist points to the tray with the end of the brush.

Maria rests on the chaise longue, lifts the little dog (arthritic from the damp), enfolds herself in a blanket, speaks not another word.

Angelica Kauffman paints seated at her easel and has a talent for not spilling liquids or marking surfaces, putting the colors only where she wishes them to go. She is disciplined, methodical, with a strong work ethic. True, she was dissatisfied with her past efforts, but it is the way of creative temperaments that they find energy to turn around weak work, to view it as a stage in the development of better work—an optimism that is just short of delusion, persistence that is just short of obsession, self-belief that is just short of vanity. If this were a love affair, Art would be a brute, offering hope, making false promises; Artist would be a wronged and resilient victim, making excuses and accepting blame, always prepared to reconcile and try again.

Painting the face of a sitter from memory is tricky. At least she did the basics from life, has her preliminary sketches as a prompt. When a receptive mind observes and considers the minutiae of a face in order to draw it, the outlines and proportions stick. Angelica can remember what Frances looked like; that is not the problem. It
is the soul that is absent, because that would have come later. The soul is the true likeness. The motion, the quickening, the particular expression of an individual caught off guard. That is what Angelica paints, that is her specialty. That is why she gets to know her subjects, uses her placid nature, her charm, puts them at their ease. Making people be themselves long enough for it to show through and yes, she gets it, holds it, and, incredibly, records it (or something rather like it)—this is Angelica’s gift. And she did not manage to capture Frances’s essence before they parted.

Angelica has not mentioned this to Maria. The outcome will be inferior, is unlikely to meet Maria’s fragile expectations.

Angelica Kauffman has decided not to accept payment. She makes this gesture out of friendship. And as she is a friend giving a gift, the picture has taken on more significance than a regular commission.

So she sets aside her worries, for now, and works on the parts she can do: the table with lion’s legs, the Greco-Roman pillar, the chiton the figure is wearing. It takes time to give cloth a sheen and make it drape convincingly (Angelica has decided to make it the cerulean of the room where she sleeps). Even a lady’s hands joined at rest, one elbow on the back of the chair, can be done generically. But this is not yet a portrait of Frances; it is a portrait of someone who resembles Frances. How to finish it without resorting to a map of features?

Coward likes Angelica. She gives him tidbits, tickles his tummy, and the orangery is a warm place to lie. Switching his affection to another is not beneath him. When Angelica looks into his enormous eyes she can see a reflection of herself.

Angelica Kauffman is here, Frances, and I still make concessions to you. After what you have done! We made peace, so you have got
what you wanted; she is finishing the painting, so I have got what I wanted.

I pace up and down for an entire morning, pace pace pace, deliberating over my apology, for now it must be done. One difficulty (I am ashamed of it) is recalling accurately what I actually said and did, and what was merely in my imagination. I remember distinctly coming into the room during the sittings—you posing, she daubing—and being possessed by the notion that you had ceased speaking that very instant, as if you were keeping secrets from me. This happened once, and I let it go. This happened again . . . and I felt a terrible heat in my chest.

We fought a lot around that time, did we not? Rather, I fought. You would wait for the torrent to subside, keeping your power dry in order to wound me with a single shot. I could only make you cry by crying myself.

I caught Angelica holding your face, and you allowing it to be held. It looked just like a seduction. It looked like you were giving to her something of yourself that you held back from me.

You defended her, saying that she is an artist and artists must look closely at the faces of their subjects.

You would say that!

Then you accused me of drinking gin, as if it made any difference.

This much is clear, but emotion blurs the rest.

Did I call her names, or accuse her of attempting to steal you? Did I, in fact, threaten to strike her, or did I daydream it? Did I shout and pick up a pitcher and hurl it against the wall? (Is that how it broke, in the end? Is that where the stain came from?) Or was my rage contained in the simple instruction for her to leave immediately, uncompensated?

I remember being ill afterward, and you still furious. I remember you saying it was not the jealousy that was intolerable but that
Angelica was one of the few real friends we had together, who knew us both as we really are, who accepted us. And I chased her away.

My skin puckers with shame, even now.

I do apologize to her. I try to.

The lady brooks not a word, soothes me, promises it was forgiven long ago. And, without my asking, assures me you were always loyal, and that doubting you was my worst offense. Confesses (if it be a confession) I caused you both to worry, and this was the only subject of your private conversations, the only concealment.

I am glad it is Angelica. I cannot think of anyone else, apart from Muriel, whom I could tolerate just now.

She works for as long as the light is good. I need not see her unless I wish to. We eat together, pass the evenings. These are surprisingly bearable. For all her elaborate tastes, she is understated as a companion, content to sit in quietude. I embroider, she sketches or reads. She asks bluntly if I will always be this way, and what will become of me? She senses no one can go on like this.
I will fade and die
—I do not say it but I think it. Then she says, And what would Frances want?