Until the Colours Fade (5 page)

‘A taste evidently shared by Mr Braithwaite.’ Helen could not help smiling. ‘Perhaps you are painting him in a toga?’

Because of his previous seriousness, Helen was surprised when Strickland laughed.

‘He has enough draperies in his library. I painted three panels for him there: Truth, Temperance and Humility all in billowing folds.’

‘Is Mr Braithwaite’s portrait to be part of this sequence of
virtues
? Representing Thrift perhaps?’ She had said this with no trace of amusement and was impressed when the artist replied in the same manner.

‘These are female figures, my lady. Mr Braithwaite would feel out of place. His will be a plain portrait.’

She could guess from the movements of his hands as he held his hat on his knee that Strickland was nervous, but his answers had surprised her as much as his appearance had done. Nervous and yet assured: a strange combination. It occurred to her that unless she could lead him into making the gauche and boorish
remarks she had expected, she would find it hard to send him away empty handed.

‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘painting a manufacturer must pose
certain
problems. Admirals can study their charts, statesmen
flourish
scrolls, but what can the mill-owner exhibit? A hank of cotton? Or should he be resting his hands on an operative’s head in the manner of prints of Wilberforce blessing a kneeling slave?’

‘Mr Braithwaite wishes to be painted in his park with his house behind him, just as many gentlemen of recent prosperity liked to have it done a century ago.’

Although his tone had been pleasant, Helen felt reproved by it. She had attempted to ridicule Braithwaite and now she was placed in the wrong. There were plenty of pictures of Harry’s ancestors displaying their wealth, usually through their clothes. Ostentation had only recently become vulgar. Before the
manufacturers
had been able to be spend as much as the aristocracy, it had been quite respectable. The very room they sat in proved that point. Lady Goodchild decided on another approach.

‘I have heard it said that daguerreotypes will soon make
portrait
-painting a dead art. What is your opinion, Mr Strickland?’

‘If the rich decide to hang such things on their staircases and in their passages, your ladyship’s prophecy will come true.’

She raised her eyebrows with feigned surprise.

‘Is custom all that keeps the art alive?’

‘If it is dying, what else could save it?’

His calmness disconcerted her. She had supposed that he would fly to the defence of portraiture but he had merely returned her questions to her.

‘Is it dying?’ she insisted.

‘Compare daguerreotypes and painted portraits and your ladyship can judge as well as I.’

She rose and looked at him imperiously.

‘I asked for
your
opinion, Mr Strickland, I need not inquire of you for my own.’

She walked to the nearest window and gazed across the lawn to where a gardener was sweeping leaves. She felt dissatisfied and annoyed; she had intended to be courteous and now she had been rude. She had attacked his livelihood and he had cleverly avoided arguing with her; behaviour she had rewarded with bullying. She thought he would not answer, but a moment later heard him say:

‘The camera records each detail just the same, each one with perfect accuracy. The value of an artist’s work is its
imperfections
.
He stresses some things and ignores others.’

She turned and smiled.

‘You mean if my nose is large, you will enhance my eyes if they are nicely shaped?’

She detected confusion and surprise in his face, as though he could not understand why she seemed determined to
misinterpret
him. She told herself that it was ridiculous to bother about what he felt or thought, but could not help herself.
Perhaps
the commission would be important to him. It was not his fault that she disliked Braithwaite; before his arrival she had not thought of him as anything other than a means of annoying the mill-owner. Now the recollection troubled her. She had not been Lady Goodchild long enough to have forgotten a poor childhood. Her mother, a naval officer’s widow, had only received a small pension and Helen well remembered the condescension of
children
in the larger houses in the neighbourhood, and mothers who used their position to give them immunity from plain-speaking. She also recalled with embarrassment how her own mother had considered the worst offenders to be those women who had
married
above them. Revenge for past affronts, when not so happily situated, had been her explanation; that and a feeling that it was necessary to prove themselves equal to their exalted role. Helen realised with embarrassment that Strickland had been speaking. She caught something about the eye selecting and not taking in everything like a lens.

‘The daguerreotype freezes the sitter in a momentary attitude. The painter hopes to find an expression that conveys several moods. When I see a face, I see many faces … just as I have while watching your ladyship. I have to try to convey as much of this as I can on a single canvas. I select details not to flatter but to be truthful. The eye is no camera.’

As he finished she lowered her eyes unable to think of any argument to use against what he had said, and not wishing to contradict him any more. His manner was so unassuming and his voice so gentle, that she wondered why she had not abandoned her earlier hostility at the outset. The argument with Harry, she supposed, still feeling anger when she thought of it. She moved closer to Strickland and said briskly:

‘You have brought work for me to see?’

‘Yes, in the hall. I didn’t like to bring it up in case….’ He fell silent, evidently uncertain how to frame what he had been going to say.

‘In case I sent you about your business after a few words? I can
see that an artist would prefer his person to be rejected, rather than his work.’ She was pleased by his smile of gratitude. Her guess had obviously been a good one. He got up, but did not move towards the door. She had not rung for a servant to collect his portfolio and wondered whether he felt insulted. Her motive had been the simple fear that a footman would take far longer to find it. He was still holding his hat.

‘You may put it down, you know,’ she murmured.

He did so absently.

‘I was wondering,’ he said hesitantly, ‘whether it might be better for me to sketch your ladyship this-morning? You could tell more from that.’

‘It will not take long?’ He shook his head. ‘Very well. If you have not hidden your things, I will ring for them.’

His relief and happiness were so obvious that she felt a tremor of alarm. She had no intention of employing him unless she liked his work.

‘I have not made up my mind, you understand,’ she said
abruptly
.

‘Oh no, I didn’t think that. I was afraid you weren’t going to see what I can do. Now I’m to have a proper chance I feel quite satisfied. It was just having a chance, you see, your ladyship.’

His eagerness to avoid seeming presumptuous amused her, but she kept this to herself, and after a footman had been despatched for the artist’s things, resumed her position at the window with her back to the room. In two hours she would be entertaining a dozen or so members of the hunt and their wives. Already she imagined the clash of their boots and their laughter echoing in the tall marble-paved hall, as they tossed aside their whips and jocularly threw their hats onto the heads of the row of classical busts at the foot of the stairs. And at their centre would be Harry’s bright smile and good-natured voice. Whether talking to women, playing cards, shooting with a keeper, or sipping madeira with a friend, he was always cheerful and self-assured; always when there was company and yet, alone with her, his buoyancy deserted him. If he could only confess his fears, she thought, perhaps then … She closed her eyes, imagining herself politely inquiring about the chase. Who had been first at the kill, who had fallen at Dinsley Water, who had not fallen at Dinsley Water, who had taken the brush? How had Colonel Yates’s new mare run, had those in carriages been able to see much? Then they would eat and later she would dispense tea and then they would play cards and some dine, and all the time her face would
ache with smiling and her mind be numbed by the triviality of everything she was saying. She heard Strickland come up.

‘Now where should I sit, Mr Strickland? Wherever the light is best, tell me. Anything can be moved.’

*

Although the sun was quite warm, there were still long white streamers of mist lying along the banks of the distant river. Poised at the top of a gently sloping ploughed field, the ragged line of scarlet, green and mulberry coated riders held their horses in check, while grooms tightened girths, attended to stirrup
leathers
and examined saddles and reins. Flasks were handed round and several gentlemen lit cigars. Below them, several hundred yards across the field, was Swaleham Gorse, a nine-acre covert of gorse, blackberry bushes and stunted blackthorns,
overshadowed
by a few tall and spiky Scotch firs. Except for the
occasional
snort of a horse or a spur clinking against a stirrup iron, all was quiet.

Even an indifferent judge of a horse would have admired the solitary hunter several paces in front of the other mounts. His accurate and easy step, dark brown muzzle, gleaming coat and silky mane, marked him out as a horse worthy of his rider: the Master of the Hunt. From his back, Lord Goodchild watched one of his whips canter over to the right of the covert and rein in
behind
a thick blackthorn screen. From inside the thicket came the faint crack of twigs and branches as the other two whips wound their way through the tangled undergrowth. Although there were eighteen couple of hounds in there with them and a fox had been scented, they had not managed to force him from his stronghold. For minutes at a time no dog was visible; then one or two would come into view, noses down and sterns up, as they crossed a thinner part of the evergreen.

As Goodchild gazed out across his land towards the twisting river and the distant hills, his anticipation of the coming chase was marred by other thoughts. If Helen really did refuse to accept the loss of Audley House, what then? Would she prove mad enough to try to force a separation? Even if she could
establish
his adultery with Dolly Carstairs, she would not have grounds for a divorce; the law might be an ass, but at least it
protected
husbands from spiteful and jealous wives. Not that Helen was jealous, but she would still use any weapon she could to
retain
Audley House, possibly blackmail. While Goodchild could face a scandal, he knew that Joseph Braithewaite could not with
the election growing closer. His noncomformist voters would not take it kindly if his proposer were to be exposed as a philanderer. The upshot of the matter might be the withdrawal of Joseph’s loan and that would place more than Audley House in jeopardy. As it was, Dolly’s husband was extracting five hundred a year in exchange for his complicity. Then there was the horror of polling day itself. Goodchild shuddered as he thought of the web of
difficulties
which hemmed him in. Seconds later he heard a single note of the huntsman’s horn from the covert, followed by several sharp shrill blasts as the fox broke and ran.

He watched fascinated as the animal hesitated for a moment in the clear light of the open field; a second and he might have darted back to safety, but then he saw the first of the hounds streaking out of the thicket cutting off his retreat. For the first time in his life, Goodchild felt that he knew what it was like to be a fox. His whip was raised and his heels poised as he saw, at the far end of the line of riders, a bolting horse careering towards the hounds.

‘Hold hard, God dammit, hold hard!’ he roared.

Another moment and the fox would be headed, and either get back into the covert or run straight into the mouths of the hounds. He was shouting again when he recognised the rider: Humphrey, his own son. The boy’s teeth were clenched together with rage and terror as he pulled at the reins twisted round his whitened knuckles; he was trying with all his might to turn the animal, but in vain; no cuts of the whip or use of his spurs made the horse obey the reins. A loud groan rose from all the riders as the fox bolted into the midst of the pack where he was torn apart. Goodchild cantered across to the huntsman and shouted:

‘Send back the hounds, there will be no run today.’

Humphrey’s face was wet with tears and anger as his father rode past him with averted eyes. Never had Goodchild so much wanted to see a fox have a fair run. He had never asked the boy to excel with his tutor, never sworn at him if he knew no Cicero and less Virgil, never asked that he should do anything except ride
decently
to hounds. A year ago, shortly after Humphrey’s twelfth birthday, Goodchild had pressed Helen hard to consent to her only child going away to Eton or Rugby, but she had refused out of hand. No blacking other boys’ boots or cleaning their
candlesticks
for her boy, her Humphrey. No wonder the fool was good for nothing. For a few moments Goodchild’s fury made him forget everything else, but then he saw George Braithwaite riding towards him; he turned his horse at once, seeing several of
his tenant farmers doff their hats as he passed. To have to endure George’s cheerfulness on such a morning would be beyond
endurance
. He could imagine what Helen would say when he got in. ‘I see that the world is quite over when a morning’s sport is lost; perhaps you would like to flog your son like one of your
troopers
.’ He was thinking of Dolly Carstairs, when George’s voice sounded in his ear.

‘I say, my lord, you’re in a deuced hurry to be off. Why not draw the covert again? Devilish shame if we don’t get a run, wouldn’t you say?’

Goodchild’s eye passed from the black silk facings of George’s scarlet coat to his waistcoat, which was not only embroidered with foxes’ masks, but also sported fox teeth buttons. Longing to scream at him, Goodchild forced a smile.