The Fraud (41 page)

‘Where is Claudio?’ Signore Filipo di Vecellio always insisted his two children be present at dinner: he saw the conversation around the table as part of their education.

‘Isabella,’ said her aunt quickly, ‘will you please go to Claudio’s room and tell him that we are eating.’ Isabella left the room rather sulkily, then remembered she had promised her aunt
not
to sulk and caught her eye across the table as she disappeared.

‘You could have sent the maid, my dear,’ said Lady Dorothea, smiling.

‘I know Claudio was particularly anxious to speak with his Father,’ she answered, smiling also.

Isabella was soon back. ‘He is not there,’ she said.

‘Perhaps he has got caught up in his painting,’ said her father, but he frowned as he passed the wine decanter.

Miss Ffoulks said something, as she often did, about her late relation, Captain James Cook: a memorial was to be erected in his home town of Whitby. ‘I do hope it does the dear Captain justice,’ said Miss Ffoulks. ‘We miss him horribly. Such a terrible end for such a great and brave Adventurer.’

Lady Dorothea Bray suddenly leaned across the table. ‘What was your exact relationship to the dear Captain, Miss Ffoulks?’ she enquired sharply.

Miss Ffoulks looked taken aback. ‘There was - there was some intercourse between his family and mine when we were much younger,’ she said. ‘I met him several times when I was a young girl; a cousin of mine married a cousin of his Wife, we are therefore - distantly, of course - related.’

‘My dear Miss Ffoulks I believe you are getting old and fanciful.’ Lady Dorothea laughed her special, tinkling laugh. ‘I myself spoke this very week to Captain Cook’s own cousin, and I mentioned your connection and do you know, he looked quite blank for he had never heard your name!’

Miss Ffoulks gave a small sound of distress. There was an embarrassing silence at the table. The Signorina Francesca said, ‘I am sure Miss Ffoulks knows her own Family stories, Lady Dorothea,’ and she looked to her brother to add his support to his old friend. Perhaps Filipo di Vecellio was worried about his son, perhaps he was entranced with the Lady Dorothea: he shrugged and said nothing. In the silence the young actress at the table began to speak of the time she met the late Mr Garrick and how he had praised her; Mr John Palmer leaned and put his hand briefly on Miss Ffoulks’ arm.

In a moment or two Miss Ffoulks stood and excused herself from the table; half-heartedly Filipo demurred but Lady Dorothea put her hand upon his and left it there and laughed her tinkling laugh as the actress recounted her story. Signorina Francesca di Vecellio rose from the table and hurried into the hall and as she left Mr Hartley Pond murmured, ‘Let us roll her in a barrel down Notting Hill.’ Meaning perhaps Miss Ffoulks or perhaps the housekeeper, who could say?

The sound of the door closing on to Pall Mall echoed back into the dining-room.

All through that particularly distressing dinner, as her head spun and her legs ached from weariness, the housekeeper promised herself she would soon be alone: she needed so much to be alone to think about the face she had drawn. The guests enjoyed the fish and the rabbit and the roast beef and the fruit pies and the many bottles of wine: the unpleasant moment with Miss Ffoulks was forgotten, they all knew she would be back of course, Miss Ffoulks was always there. Today the conversation went on and on, regarding the amorous activities of the naughty Prince of Wales. Francesca listened with only part of her mind: she must begin now, tonight, she must capture the grave face of the girl, the girl Eliza as she sat so still in Frith Street with her father’s book: she was ready now: she must do it tonight while everything was clear in her memory. No matter that she was tired, there would be time to be tired when she had finished the painting. The afternoon drew down, she lit the candles, as usual, pulled the heavy curtains and drew the shutters, to keep the grey winter afternoon outside so that the dining-room was contained to itself. She again drank more wine than usual, but who would notice that? The conversation finally wended out into the large hallway as everybody considered the evening ahead: Lady Dorothea swept to her carriage to prepare for the opera; the young actress who once met the dead Mr Garrick was already at the door, escorted by two of the young men, vying for her attention as they left.

Isabella was to be with society tonight; she was to go to the opera in a special box with Lady Dorothea Bray and perhaps even a member of the Royal family. Lady Dorothea and her sister would come for Isabella in their carriage, all was arranged, and Isabella almost bounced out of the room as she called the maid and ran upstairs to put on her best gown, asking imperiously for her aunt to follow also.

‘You are going to the Opera, Francesca?’ asked her brother, as he too stood from the table.

‘No, Filipo, that is not necessary.’

‘But who is to chaperone Isabella? You must go surely?’

‘Lady Dorothea Bray is Chaperone enough I believe,’ and she smiled, for who more suitable to chaperone his own daughter than his own new friend? But she saw he was in some way uneasy.

‘I would prefer that you went also. Isabella is too young to be anywhere without a member of her Family.’

‘Perhaps we should have arranged for you to go, Filipo.’

‘I do not have the time,’ he said, ‘you know that. I am required at my Club.’ She looked at his face - florid, still-handsome, and pleasant - some of the guests were still in the room.

Caution. Patience. Not long.
The words floated at the front of her head.

‘There is not a ticket for me this evening, Filipo,’ she said. ‘This is a very special Occasion. But of course if you would prefer Isabella not to go, I will advise her of your Decision.’

‘I would prefer, for her future social Engagements, that you always attend.’

‘Very well,’ said Signorina di Vecellio, and then her brother had gone, all the guests had gone, the servants waited to clear. Deliberately Francesca walked to the table and poured herself yet another large glass of wine and drank it quickly, then she hurried upstairs. In Isabella’s room curling tongs, powder puffs, pomade, orange-flower water lay upon a chest of drawers and across the bed, as if Angelica had never died for beauty’s sake - but no chloride of lime, at least. Her mother’s elaborate and powdered hair and face-paint were no longer so in the fashion, especially for younger women: Isabella’s dark hair curled prettily around her face with a little help from Euphemia. Flurried little tantrums ensued concerning the gown and the hair and whether a little rouge was appropriate; she wore the latest gown, gentle bustles at the back so that the material floated so flatteringly behind her small waist. To Isabella her aunt assured her that she looked so very beautiful that rouge was unnecessary. Her aunt also told Isabella that her simple hairstyle, with the flowers entwined, was very fine. Isabella wore the pendant from Amsterdam, of course. The carriage arrived and there was another little flurry of voices as the aunt saw her niece to the carriage of Lady Dorothea Bray, and no doubt Mr Bounds the frames-maker’s son all but forgot.

Again the front door closed and Francesca actually lay her head upon it for a moment, and then jerked up, remembering:
but I did not tell him about Claudio
. She heard the sounds from Pall Mall, the voices and the carriage-wheels and the shouts of footmen and porters.
That face, I must paint the face, I will tell him tomorrow about Claudio.
Once more she drank deeply from the decanter, she must keep going
I must keep going.

Finally, breathless almost with relief and exhaustion, carrying a candle-lamp, she reached her own room.

 

—it was as if I was ill, perhaps I was, or inebriated (perhaps I was) or mad again . . . as if in a fever I pinned the drawings of Eliza that I had done in Frith Street by my easel - the first real model I had had other than myself, in my life - there was something, something in her expression that I wanted to capture - it was not her mouth or her nose but, as she said herself, what she was thinking perhaps, or what I thought she was thinking as I had looked at her, some essence of what she felt - or was it what I felt? I could not be sure and it did not matter: I
knew
: at once now I understood that the bend in the neck in the painting was not right, not right exactly for what I saw in my head; I scraped at the oils, I very gently used some Turpentine, a tiny drop on an old cloth.

I bent over the face trying to pull it out of my head and from the hasty sketches beside my easel - the rich, warm gown glowed, the beautiful sleeve, I could see that. But nothing was any use if I could not . . . if I could not . . .

. . . almost it was there, and yet not - fifteen-year-old Eliza, about whom I knew almost nothing, except that hers was the face for this painting: but there was something wrong, something missing . . . fifteen years old - when I was fifteen I was Grace Marshall and when I first arrived in London I looked with such delight at everything my brother showed me, such pleasure, I wanted to get that feeling in the girl: something bright, something . . . something warm . . . Rembrandt’s paintings were warm . . . On and on now I worked and I worked and occasionally heard a clock.

I could not find it. I could not do it.

I stared at this painting.

Somewhere I heard a door bang, my brother, or one of the children but I could not think about them; the candles started to splutter and stutter, they had burned down and I had not noticed, perhaps that was why I could not do it, perhaps the light was wrong, I quickly replaced them; was Mr Gainsborough, too, working in candlelight along the street? the thought seemed companionable almost.

I stared at this painting.

Both doors were closed, my sewing-room and my main room, so the voice was almost upon me before I heard it:

‘
Zia Francesca! Zia Francesca!
’

It was Isabella.
Why are the children choosing this time of all times to suddenly come to me and call the name of their childhood? what is the matter with them both suddenly?
I had time only to throw off my paint-coat - my hands were covered with paint, I had the sense to pull on some white gloves as I opened the door, if it looked bizarre in the middle of the night it could not be helped, the sight of my paint-covered hands would have been more bizarre still.

My niece was flushed and dishevelled and not in any way interested in the state of my hands.

‘What has happened?’ I ushered her quickly away to the stairs, we began walking downwards at once, towards her own room.

‘I believe I am to be married!’

‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘I mean that I am going to be married!’

‘To whom, Isabella? Is it Mr Bounds? Has he spoken to your Father?’

‘To Lord Pawltry.’

‘Lord
Pawltry
?’ I stopped there upon the stairs to look at her. Lord Pawltry was three times her age and a rackety, raddled friend of the Prince of Wales, even I knew that. He had already had wives, several of them, although they were never to be seen.

‘He loves me.’

Wherever had my niece been that she had received the attentions of Lord Pawltry? ‘I thought you were to go to the Opera, Isabella. Did Lord Pawltry attend Lady Dorothea?’

‘This was after the Opera. Lady Dorothea and her sister took me to a
soiree
.’

My mind, so full of the face of Eliza, looked at the flushed face of my niece,
I have to get back
,
I have to get back to my Picture
. ‘They had no business to take you anywhere but the Opera, that was the arrangement.’

‘I wanted to go. I had thought Mr Bounds would be there. He has been avoiding me since - since Lady Dorothea has been very kindly organising my new Social Activities.’

I heard my own sigh. ‘Isabella you must go to bed, it is very late. We will talk of this in the morning.’

‘If a Gentleman kisses a Lady, it means they are to be married, does it not?’

I looked at my niece and my heart sank.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘Do you mean Lord Pawltry - kissed you?’

She nodded. ‘In the carriage. He called me his lovely girl, and said he would introduce me to the Prince of Wales.’

‘You were
alone
with him in the carriage?’ Filipo would be furious , and say that I should have been there and indeed I should have been perhaps, for that was the role of unmarried aunts: to deflect the attentions of such as Lord Pawltry, and indeed the Prince of Wales. And then Isabella gave me a strange look from under her eyes.

‘It was my first Kiss. Does it - does it mean I will have a child?’

Any moment I would scream or I would laugh. ‘Isabella, we will talk of this in the morning. But - when people kiss it does not necessarily mean they are to be married and it certainly does not mean they are to have a child. Go now.’ And I almost pushed her into her room and as I did so I caught sight of the gloves upon my hands, they looked exceeding odd.

Then quickly I made my way back up the staircase to my room.

The Painting had not, in the interim, changed itself but as I stared at it, as I peeled off the absurd gloves and picked up my brush, I felt as if I did not know it. And suddenly, standing there with gloves in one hand and a hog-hair brush in the other, I understood the
ludicrousness
of the Charade: Grace Marshall trying to be the Great Master, Rembrandt von Rijn of Amsterdam, in between cock-fighting and the raddled Lord Pawltry!

I threw down the gloves and the brush to the floor - not I think in despair, truly, but in some other, wilder humour:
I am ridiculous! -
I was an aging spinster who was trying to copy the work of an Old Master and in my head suddenly I saw Rembrandt’s own travailed face, and I was hingeing everything -
the rest of my life
- on one unlikely throw of the dice as my Father had so often done before me, my dear old hapless, gambling Father, and Claudio gambled and Tobias gambled - and Grace Marshall gambled too - and suddenly, extraordinarily, I began - not to weep as you might have expected at such exhaustion and frustration - but to
laugh
: at my rackety family, at my ludicrous Dreams and Pretensions, at Isabella and her first kiss with a raffish old Lord, and Claudio with the cock-fighting men, and it might seem that I was laughing cynically but I swear I was not. I was laughing in the old way because I understood: by agreeing to such a Charade I had made myself
utterly preposterous
!