Loretta Proctor Page 8

  ‘How can you?’ was the impatient reply. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t understand it myself. All I can tell you is that before I met you here, I knew you. It was when I saw Henry’s first sketch of you. Did you know that? I knew you then. Like Dante meeting Beatrice on the Florentine bridge and falling in love at once and never forgetting her. I wanted to know you and be a part of you and your life.’

  He was still staring at her, his eyes trying to bore through into her soul, pull her towards him. However, she would not be willed towards anyone.

  ‘What a declaration, sir! No wonder my father was worried about my coming along to an artist’s studio. I’ve not even met you socially and here you are, yes, a virtual stranger – please, do not quibble about it – declaring your interest in me. I don’t know you. I’m not even sure I want to know you. I find this whole conversation very strange.’

  Having moved himself this far, Fred was now unstoppable. He would break down this solid barrier of convention, the very barriers with which he had surrounded himself all his life. He knew she belonged to him. He just knew it. He had to fight his way through those damned thorns somehow to wake his Sleeping Beauty.

  He knelt beside her again and took her hand in his. This time she let him hold it without protest.

  ‘Please, please don’t be offended. Have you any idea how I have felt sitting here, longing to speak to you? It was as if something was holding my heart in a tight grip. I was ready to burst. I know you must think me mad, and mad I am. I assure you, I have never been so bold with a lady in my life before. Will you at least let me come to see you?’ he pleaded.

  ‘No! – No… well, perhaps,’ she said with as much decorum as she could and hearing steps and voices in the other room hastily withdrew her hand. Reluctantly he felt her fingers slide away from his and could not bear the anguish it made him feel. If this was what they called falling in love, then it was unbearable agony. She said in haste, ‘Now be good and go and sit over there. Someone’s coming. Come on Tuesday afternoon that is my day in for callers. Come with your mother, sister, or whoever. My father will never countenance it otherwise.’

  ‘I will be there, I promise it.’

  Fred went back to his seat and when Henry walked in, his eyes quizzing and laughing at the pair, they seemed to be as grave as statues. Ellie was resting her head against the back of the sofa, Fred staring at the floor, but the flush in both their cheeks spoke volumes.

  Henry smiled and felt satisfied.

  As luck would have it, it appeared that Fred’s father, James Thorpe, was quite well acquainted with Eleanor’s father. Joshua Farnham was, he said, a very good barrister, much admired and respected in the City. For Fred this revelation was very good news. A few days after this conversation and while they were all seated at dinner one evening, Fred asked his mother if she would like to pay Miss Farnham a call on Tuesday next.

  ‘I’ll take you there and bring you back, Mama. The young lady asked if you would call and take tea with her. Weren’t you a friend of her mother’s?’

  This was a crafty shot in the dark but to his amazement Beatrice replied, ‘Oh, yes, Maria Farnham. Not a friend exactly, but I did meet her a few times while she was alive. She seemed a pleasant, clever sort of woman but Lord, always of a sickly disposition and such people are wearisome, don’t you know. They talk about nothing but their ailments all the time. There is nothing I dislike more, I assure you.’

  ‘Well, she had reason, it seems. The poor woman is dead now,’ said her husband dryly.

  ‘Indeed she is! Moreover, she ignored my advice to her and that was not to be so anxious about everything all the time. On the surface, she appeared calm enough. However, I can always tell, you know. She struck me as a highly-strung woman, full of nerves and starts and alarms. I never felt her to be at peace.’

  ‘Well, no one can say that about you, my dear.’

  ‘No, indeed, they cannot, sir. I believe in taking life as it comes. What is the point of getting upset over everything?’

  ‘So will you call?’ Fred persisted.

  His mother looked put out. ‘What is the necessity, my dear? I ain’t acquainted with the gel and have no wish to be so. Why should she want to see me?’

  ‘I think… I think…’ the young man cast about for a good reason, ‘I suppose she wants to talk about her mama with someone who knew her. She was very distressed by her mother’s death.’

  ‘Well, that may be so. Oh, I shall be pleased to speak as kindly as I can about her mother if that is what she wants. I have no anecdotes, I scarcely knew the woman. I know some gossip, mind you, but I certainly don’t intend to repeat that.’

  Her husband frowned at her, ‘No, Beatrice, we do not need to repeat gossip. You will say nothing detrimental to the young lady. By the way, I hear she is a very charming and attractive young woman. Frankly, my dear, I suspect that the motive for this call is more likely to be connected with your son, don’t you?’

  Walter, Fred’s younger brother, sniggered at this remark.

  ‘I guessed that long ago,’ he said.

  ‘Shut up, will you!’ muttered Fred, giving his brother a hearty kick under the table which was returned with interest.

  ‘Would you two behave more like gentlemen!’ their father snapped.

  Beatrice Thorpe looked up from her well-filled plate and ceased munching for a moment as the idea sank in.

  ‘Oh, good heavens!’ she said. ‘It ain’t to do with me, at all, you sly young dog! Are you interested in this young woman then, Fred? So that’s what’s behind all this dragging your poor mother out for calls that are always so boring, so exceeding boring. You know I would sooner sit and read a book.’

  ‘Yes, mother, I do know, but please do come.’

  ‘Make this call, Beatrice,’ said her husband sternly, ‘give your son a helping hand if this young lady pleases him. I doubt you’ll need to converse that much. Let the young people do all the talking and sip your tea.’

  ‘Very well then, ‘said Beatrice but not with good grace.

  Fred was relieved and the rest of the meal passed in an uncomfortable silence. He excused himself as quickly as he could. Walter dropped his napkin hastily and followed him out.

  ‘Have you really got a girl?’

  ‘It’s none of your business. And if you breathe a word of this conversation, or mention Miss Farnham’s name in connection with me to anyone, I’ll strangle you with your own choker.’

  ‘No need, no need! Mum’s the word, beloved brother. Not a whisper will pass my lips.’

  Fred glowered at him. ‘I wouldn’t trust you for a minute. You’re as bad a gossip as Ma.’

  Walter looked hurt. ‘Hardly. Takes something to be worse than Ma. She knows what’s happening on the moon.’

  Fred stared at his brother for a moment. There was little love lost between them, too far apart in age to have ever truly bonded. A sister inbetween the two of them had died of measles at a tender age. He felt regret for the lost sister and would far rather have preferred a girl nearer his own age than the loud, uncouth creature, five years his junior, that was his brother. Sometimes he wondered if Walter knew about his own horrible hidden secret. Surely, he had been too young? But Walter had always been troublesome, all eyes and ears, the image of his mother.

  ‘The governor’s on your side anyway,’ said Walter as the two brothers parted in the hallway. ‘Frankly, I think he wants to be rid of you.’

  ‘Don’t call Father “the governor” – show some respect!’ Fred scolded. But his brother had bounded half way up the stairs and cocked a snook from this safe distance.

  James Thorpe, looking thoughtful, remained at the table with his glass of port after the two young men had excused themselves and left the room. Later on, when he joined his wife in the drawing room, he remarked, ‘It’s about time Freddie married and time he found himself a sensible occupation too, rather than hanging about the studios of that crowd of penniless, foolish
young men he associates with so often. It would be a very good match.’

  ‘You really think so?’

  ‘I do. Her father is a wealthy man and very respectable. Fred couldn’t do better. We must encourage this as much as possible, it would be the making of the fellow. As it is, he does nothing but drifts around, plays at painting, writes poems and suchlike nonsense and shirks any sort of responsibility. A wife and children would wake him up nicely. Yes, you shall make that call, Mrs Thorpe; you shall make that call next Tuesday.’

  Chapter 8

  Beatrice Thorpe had been a beauty once but her looks had long gone. She was now fat and overblown like a rose whose petals quivered on the stem, ready to fall ignominiously to the ground. Her eyes were half-hooded by fallen flesh, her lips now thinner and lost in the mounds of fat that were her reddened cheeks, the onetime elegant slenderness beyond the hope of any corset. She no longer wore the restricting garments, for they were acutely uncomfortable these days, and thus she spilled out in all directions.

  Fred found it hard to admire his mother now. He had thought her wonderful when she had been young and lovely and he often looked at the early portraits of her in the hallway and in the dining room. Hard to believe that it was the same person. How did people alter so much? Youth seemed such a fleeting evanescence. Beauty, too; so fragile and easy to corrupt and destroy by lack of measure and care. Yet in those rolls of flesh, he sometimes still saw a flash of the sweetness that had once been his mother’s great charm. A flash like a tiny light on the side of a mountain; a glimmer of a candle in the dark. Would Ellie one day look like this, her beauty lost?

  Beatrice Thorpe was by no means the model wife either. Obedience had never been one of her virtues and she seldom did anything that did not appeal to her. So when Tuesday came and Fred, looking smart enough to charm the Queen, came to fetch her for the proposed call, he found her not properly dressed, lounging on her sofa in the parlour, reading Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.

  A sense of deep exasperation overcame him and he felt a real

  longing to shake her and make her rise and get ready. He restrained himself, however, and sitting down beside her, stared at her in silence. At last, she looked up, distracted by the irritated tapping of his cane on the floor.

  ‘Why, Fred… what on earth are you doing? What are you looking so cross about?’

  ‘You promised that you would come with me and call on Miss Farnham this afternoon, Mama. Why are you not even remotely ready?’

  ‘Did I say so?’ she replied comfortably, ‘Well, I forgot, that’s all. I’m not used to making calls. It tires me so much. Tell the young lady to call on me as befits my age and station. Why should I go running about London after young ladies who are too lazy to make a call themselves?’

  Fred got up and left the room before he lost his temper. Beatrice watched him go, shrugged her shoulders, and picked up her book again.

  Fred felt desperate at his mother’s lack of co-operation. He took a cab to Upper Thames Street, yearning to confide in Henry and ask his advice. To his surprise, he found Henry alone at his chambers – no Rosie, no other hangers-on.

  A young housemaid opened the door to him, curtseyed and returned to her dusting in the bedroom. Fred stared after the girl. What an odd time to be still at the housework! He knew Henry hated to get up early in the morning and was often not abroad till almost noon. The poor girl had to bring up the hot water and do the cleaning work sometime. He smiled to himself, indulgent for his friend’s sake, yet critical too of his sloppy habits.

  He went through to the studio. It was a dull day and somehow the room had lost its usual glamour. It looked oddly dingy and dusty. Rather than having an air of romantic clutter, everything looked a mess. Henry always vowed he would tidy it some day and refuted any sarcastic comments from his friends that the maid was never allowed in there to clean.

  ‘I’d be after her if she didn’t!’ was his indignant reply, ‘And I make her life hard if she doesn’t put everything back exactly where she found it.’

  How could the poor girl even begin to restore order to this chaos? Unfinished canvases were stacked against the walls, pieces of crumpled paper, drawings, and half-finished watercolours lay littered on the floor amongst fallen paintbrushes. Books were piled in heaps, having been used for propping up a model’s pose, then left where they were. On a small table were sheets of drawings, all of Rosie in various standing or kneeling poses; beautiful, delicate drawings full of love and yearning.

  There was a sense that the artist was striving in desperation to capture something more than the mere flesh and bones of his beloved. It was as if through this constant effort to pin down her essence, he could in some way absorb the woman into his own being. Fred had seen these studies before but had never given them more than a passing glance. Now he stopped and lifted them one by one and felt a sudden understanding of Henry’s feelings, felt a keen companionship in love. He might not see Rosie’s qualities but Henry did and he loved the girl.

  There in the centre of the room was the picture of Eleanor Farnham, now finished, varnished and haloed in a carved, giltpainted frame, ready for the carrier to take it away. Fred paused before the picture and gazed at it in deep contemplation as if before an icon in a church. His lady looked so beautiful, so delicate and lovely. Surely, it was unlike anything Henry had done before; there was more colour and depth in its composition.

  The picture glowed with a marvellous shimmering look. This effect, which Henry had learnt from his PreRaphaelite friends, was gained by painting the canvas in several coats of lead white and copal varnish till it became really solid and dry, adding another layer of fresh white before painting and then applying the colours thinly and swiftly over the top of the wet ground with a light sable brush. Immense care had to be taken not to stir up the wet ground beneath and only a portion of the picture could be done at any time and in fact, was mainly used for the flesh parts of the picture. The idea was to allow the white beneath to shine through just enough to add that luminosity which made it all look slightly unearthly and unreal. It had all given Henry some trouble but at last, his work was varnished, framed and finished to his satisfaction.

  The man himself was sitting by the window. He had his feet up on a wrought-iron chair, his hands behind his head, gazing out over the river. He turned when he heard Fred come in and watched him pause before the finished canvas, a rapt look on his face.

  ‘Come over here, Fred, and watch the lovely light on the river at this time of year.’

  Fred fetched another chair, straddled it and looked out over the Thames. It was less foul today as the wind was not blowing as heartily as usual and there was a soft haze in the air that muted and transformed the river, reminiscent of a Turner painting. A slight mist was rolling in, cloaking things with a magical light, hiding the worst excrescences of the scene.

  ‘Coffee?’ asked Henry.

  ‘No, thanks. I just needed to get out of the house before I exploded. Henry, my mother is not helping me one bit. How I envy you your good, sensible mother and her kindly intelligent ways.’

  ‘My darling Ma is a great being, of that there’s no doubt,’ smiled Henry, ‘I don’t appreciate her half enough. Why, what’s your old dragon been up to this time?’

  ‘It’s what she isn’t up to that’s the trouble,’ said Fred, still indignant. ‘She promised me faithfully… why, Father asked her specifically. She promised… that’s the point, damn her.’

  ‘Fred, pull yourself together and tell me what the devil you’re rambling on about?’

  ‘She promised to make a call on Miss Farnham today and I was to accompany her and thus gain a proper introduction to the young lady. How the dickens else am I going to get anywhere near her and try to persuade her that I’m the only man in the world for her? My wretched, lazy mother has totally forgotten the whole thing and wouldn’t rouse herself from her sofa if there was a fire raging round her. What am I to do, Henry?’

  ‘Do? Do what you must do, of
course. Go and call on La Farnham yourself. Why the hell do you need the old lady with you?’

  ‘What, just like that?’

  ‘Just like that. My dear boy, we are men of action! Well, at least some of us are. We are not your pedantic fools who stifle themselves with convention, rules and pointless etiquette. There’s a world of difference between natural good manners, which is true courtesy and chivalry, and idiotic etiquette. The first comes from an understanding and love of one’s fellows and the latter from mere usage and meaningless tradition. Ignore the conventions. You love the girl. Go and woo her and hang the rules!’

  Splendid words – but the cold light of day had hit Fred by now. He was amazed at the way he had behaved when alone with Ellie and felt ashamed and afraid that she might never speak to him again with his mother or without. How could he have spoken and acted so madly? What would she think of him?

  ‘It’s all very well for you,’ he replied, ‘you’re the sort who does that and gets away with it. I find it hard not to do as I’m expected to do.’

  ‘Indeed. Convention is your middle name. And it’s true– we English are a reserved bunch. Well, for once be a devil, be daring. You seized your opportunity the other day, didn’t you? How did the girl respond?’

  ‘I think she was afraid of me. I don’t know whether she liked it or thought me mad. I think I’ve really made a mess of things. Damn it, Henry, I’ve never felt like this before! I feel I want to burst when I’m with her. I want to make love to her on the spot. I can’t be bothered with the conventions and yet I can’t ignore them. She’s a well brought up young lady, not some whore we picked up from the Haymarket.’

  Henry clapped Fred on the shoulder.

  ‘You should have taken her in your arms while you had the

  chance! Faint heart never won fair lady, Fred. You know that for sure. Of course, she’s interested. Frankly, I wouldn’t be too sure about our young Miss Farnham. She has a way about her, a very knowing way with men. I see it in her eyes. It shows a mile off to anyone observant. But when was a lover ever aware? Grab the girl and carry her off to Gretna Green.’