The Fraud (13 page)

I watched and I copied and I learned - Philip outlined what he wanted to do with a lead pencil or with charcoal and then when he started actually painting I saw that to obtain the effect he wanted he used layer after layer of paint, sometimes using different brushes, sometimes putting paint on the board or the canvas with his palette knife, sometimes placing different colours one on top of the other (and I saw again that although he sometimes painted more than just the face, part of the body too - they were called
half-lengths
and
full-lengths
, which cost more - he very often covered an arm or a hand in drapes, for his skill was for faces, not so much, as I had observed before, for other parts of the Anatomy) -And I felt the firmness of a wooden board for painting on, or the way a stretched canvas still had some movement, like a little bounce; and he talked all the time about
light
, about the importance of the Studio getting as much natural light as possible, how he must rise early to catch the most light in the day, how in winter Painters had to stop painting when clouds and fog loured down, like the day he took me to the Covent Garden
piazza
and the black man ran away.—And I learned that when a painting was finished it must be varnished over, to complete it.

And the
colours
.—I looked longingly at his beautiful palette of many colours like - like, I suppose, my Father looked at a bottle of rum - more than anything I wanted my own palette of colours - and the most beautiful blue colour of all that the Artists used was also the most expensive, it was called ultramarine and it came from the pounding of a precious stone called
lapis lazuli
that only came from a country called Afghanistan, Philip kept a little of it, quite separately, on his palette, his beautiful palette that he held with his thumb, all the beautiful enchanting colours - there was lead white, there were yellows and yellows - cheap ones and more expensive ones like Naples yellow that lasted longer, that shone; there were different reds - lakes, vermillions, I learned the different names - some of the colours were vegetable, some of the colours were mineral, some of the colours were synthetic, some of the colours lasted, some of the colours faded and I saw also how he had learned so carefully to
mix
colours in his own way - they all did it, all the painters, and most of all I began to learn that they hold their Secrets one from the other.

My beloved brother had come back for me, I was working with him in his Studio.—It was a grand, grand time and words are not my skill but the old inebriated Vicar in Bristol said Shakespeare painted word-pictures and these are my word-pictures, as best I can.

 

My Sixteenth Birthday came and I remembered my Ninth Birthday in the Bristol garden, when my father gave me Colours, those days that were gone, and the day of my Sixteenth Birthday I gently, carefully, unwrapped my Drawings that had been waiting so patiently for my beloved brother to see them, and validate my Future and my Destiny (I know I know, but I
did
think like that): my Portraits of our Family.

And that day I brought my precious, precious parcel to him in his Studio, the Portraits all drawn from my memory and my loneliness in the attic on Christmas Steps (for some reason I left Mr Hogarth’s picture in my room, I thought he might despise it I suppose), and although I was shy I was also proud, and there in his Artist’s Studio, just like the one I was determined soon to have, I unwrapped our Life, I unwrapped my own Work at last.

‘Look Philip,’ I said to my brother, and I looked up at his dear face.

He was totally, totally shocked.

It was as if he had completely forgotten that
I had drawn too
, that summer stinking afternoon in our garden in Bristol but how could he forget? because it was that day, with my chalks, that set him off on his own Future.

I saw his face.

He stared unbelieving, I had to look away for a moment, so naked was the expression there: it was as if he
burned
me with the expression on his face: I heard the paper as he lifted one Portrait after another - I knew he saw Juno and Venus thinking of husbands , and Ezekiel and Tobias fighting and our dissatisfied Mother and our dissolute Father and my drawing of Philip himself, all his gaiety and charm and beauty, for he was beautiful, my brother Philip and I had caught his beauty.

I made myself look back at his face now.

I knew he saw his Past. I knew he saw himself.

But it was not that at all
.

I stared at his face, he tried to compose what showed there - and then suddenly, violently - even as I threw myself at him and flailed wildly with my arms to stop him - he began to tear the papers that I had treasured so carefully: in half, then again - even as he violently pushed me away, still ripping at the paper and he kept shouting, ‘That time is over!’ tearing and ripping - and then again: ‘That time is
completely
over!’

But it was not that at all
.

And then:

‘You are the
housekeeper
, that is why you are here, that is why I came back for you! You are the
housekeeper
!’

He ripped our Family into tiny pieces and pushed me away from him again so wildly as I tried to stop him that I fell hard against the bench where all the brushes lay drying and an open bottle of Turpentine was knocked and the liquid fell downwards into my hair and onto my clothes where I fell and at the last all the Drawings lay like scraps, upon the floor beside me.

The draught as he opened the door caught the paper, drifted the torn pieces all over the room, I heard his footsteps running down the stairs then I heard the loud bang of the front door echoing in the hallway as he went out into St Martin’s Lane and then the echo faded away and the house was silent.

I knew faces so well and I had seen at once: it was not Memory, not the Past that undid him.

It was my Drawings.

I understood in an instant, so naked was his expression, a child would have understood and I sat myself up slowly and then still on the floor I picked up the remains of my treasured, precious work: a scrap of Juno’s curls; an eye; a torn smile.

That is what happened, that day.

 

Late that night as I sat, still so shaken, in my room with the smell of Turpentine everywhere, remembering Philip’s occasional violence in Bristol, remembering it always passed and he became himself again, I heard the downstairs door again, the servants’ voices: Philip returning - then I heard his footsteps - they were coming upwards towards my room, and I stood up and my heart beat with anxiety but with anticipation too, it would be resolved, my beloved brother had returned to say that I was an Artist too, how could he not? - again I explained it to myself, it was with
my
chalks, which had been given to me for
my
enthusiasm, that he had found his own calling - and most important of all I
knew: I knew my Drawings were true
.

He swayed in the dark doorway to my room with his candle, his shadow swayed and the candleflame flickered and I saw he was not recovered, I caught that look in his eyes that I had seen in the coach to London, that I saw just sometimes in the house in St Martin’s Lane before he flicked it away: that hard, cold expression of a completely different man and he talked to me and his voice was thick with drink.

‘Listen, little sister. I will only tell you this once more and then we will never speak of it again.
I am an Artist.
I have fought for this - for everything I have achieved - with all my energy and determination and I will become the most famous Painter in London, because I am a
Foreigner.
And I brought you here as my housekeeper because I promised I would come back for you. I need not have come back for you but I did. But never, in a thousand years, imagine that you too could ever be an Artist! I cannot believe that is what you have been thinking! You are an ignorant, ignorant girl and of Art you know nothing at all.’ And I thought
it is true - but it is not true
and I felt wild, hysterical laughter welling up inside me and I could not control it: my brother had torn my Drawings and now told me in a dramatic voice that he was a Foreigner - but I was the one person in the world who knew perfectly well that he was Philip Marshall and I was Grace Marshall and we came from Bristol - I pushed the laughter down as it tried to get out of my mouth and then my voice came bursting out instead, not full of laughter but full of rage.

‘You destroyed my Portraits, my precious, precious Work, they were good Drawings - you know that! I want to paint like you! - you always knew I wanted to paint!’ And out of the depths of me the words erupted: ‘
I have to paint!
’

His voice was so much quieter than mine had become, and the words so slurred and indistinct, and now - for he moved the candle - the face so shadowed. ‘Listen to me, Grace. I do not intend, ever, to have two Painters in this house. You are an uneducated girl, not a Painter, you know nothing. You are not trained. You have no Knowledge. Women do not paint Portraits.
I am the Painter.
I have studied and trained for years and years and your Pretensions anger me immensely - how could they not? You stupid, stupid, ignorant girl.’ He spat the words at me and his voice rose and rose again, ‘You know nothing in the world about Art - I lived in Rome and studied the greatest Masters in the World, what have you done? You have sewn strawberries on to hats! And you have the temerity to compare yourself to me and to speak of
being a Painter
! Do you not understand how ludicrous you sound? I have suffered for months and months your careless way of talking across the table, to real Artists, to men of infinite Education and Knowledge like Mr Hartley Pond, men who have studied Art for many, many years. You are
not
my equal or their equal. Women do not paint Portraits. You are an embarrassment, and if you stay that must stop. You are no longer nine years old, saying the first thing that comes into your head, you are a Woman and I see you have not yet matured as women should.

‘Well, make your Decision, and make it quickly. I came back for you: I kept my part of the bargain and I have offered you my home. But you may leave it at any time and make your own way - I will, of course, not stop you, you are not a prisoner, this is not some tedious Melodrama from the Theatre.’ The candle flickered in his hand, for his hand shook.

‘But, if you do not live with me here in this house as my housekeeper , you will be on the streets, little sister. Have a look at the women on the streets, you cannot miss them! I have spent time with one of them in St James’s Park this very night and they are disgusting,’ (he could not see the look - was it shock? - on my face in the shadows). ‘Remember there is nobody -
nobody
in this ferocious city who will help you - and
then
understand the magnitude of my Triumph! In Bristol, we had the veneer at least of Nobility still, we were still related to the Wiltshire Marshalls, we knew people, they liked my Paintings, they helped us, they found you a position as a milliner because whatever disgrace our Father had brought they knew of the Wiltshire Marshalls, and I was of use to them, and portrayed their pretensions as nobody else could. But here in this big city nobody has heard of the Wiltshire Marshalls! There is no-one to find you a safe position somewhere, you do not even have references from Mrs Falls the milliner. You have nothing of your own at all!’

‘
But I only want to paint!
All I want to do in the whole world is paint - why can you not help me and teach me? Why will you not?’ (I knew why he would not: why did I not say it?)

His voice shouted out at me (as if indeed we were part of some Theatrical Performance), ‘Do not presume too much because I am your brother! I tell you one final time: you are here as my housekeeper , and painting has
nothing
to do with you. You are welcome to stay, or leave, for I no longer care. But make your Decision quickly. If you leave I will not, I assure you -
I promise you
- lift a finger to help you when you fall - as you most surely will, alone in a city like London.’ He turned away, and then he turned back. ‘I will however - for after all I am not some Villain! - arrange a coachfare back to Bristol, if you so desire.’ And then he left with his shaking, flickering candle and I heard his footsteps as he stumbled to his own room below.

 

—I did not sleep, of course I did not, I could only grieve for my Dreams and my torn, destroyed pictures of the people of my Memory and it felt as if I could not see them now, that he had destroyed them all; all I could see in my head were colours, the colours on the beautiful palette in Philip’s Studio, at dawn I went downstairs because I did not understand what else I should do: I had no plan as I went out of the door of my brother’s house, still the smell of Turpentine in my hair with my straw bonnet that I had made myself and my basket over my arm as the housekeeper sister was supposed; further up St Martin’s Lane, the old lady with the grape-vines, the Colourman’s mother, was there - although the sun had not yet properly risen she was out there, looking carefully at her city grapes in the dawn light - I nodded to her somehow as usual, hurrying past in case I would have to speak - but this morning she stopped me.

‘I know you’re a Foreigner, dear,’ she said to me, ‘but you’ve got a lonely look in your eye, I can see it from here. I’ve got some of my St Martin’s Lane wine ready, come in and try it dear, you look as if you could do with a cheery glass.’—Candles were still lit in her kitchen this early morning and there were flagstones on her kitchen floor, I remember, grey and soothing against the anger and the colours that seemed to dance in my head, and if the Colourman’s mother was perhaps a little mad and if it was strange to have wine at dawn, nothing was strange to me that day and she poured the wine and then she blew out the candles so we sat in half-darkness still, for the windows of her kitchen were small - the wine was a little sour, but I drank it quickly in the strange dawn light to blur the rage inside of me and I literally could not speak.