Chapter Twenty-One
Andrew did finally accept a commission. It was the one to paint Genevieve, the daughter of Lord and Lady Bushnell. Her ladyship had said she was a difficult subject and she hoped he could do something with her, which intrigued him. They arranged to send the carriage for him.
When he met Genvieve, he saw what they meant. She kept her eyes fixed on the ground and only at her mother’s insistence, gave him her hand. But when she looked up, for a brief moment he saw real unhappiness under the disobliging scowl.
“Come on, Genny, put a smile on your face for once,” said her father. “Mr. Fielding is going to paint your picture and make you look something like. You want a pretty portrait to hang in the gallery with all the rest of us, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t,” said the girl uncompromisingly.
“Don’t start that nonsense again!” Her father, normally of a placid disposition, was impatient with his younger daughter.
Here he was proposing to drop a not insignificant amount of blunt on her, and she couldn’t even say thank you.
“We all know you ain’t interested in making anything of yourself, but you are going to be painted and hang alongside your brother and sister with every other Bushnell for five generations.
Now, be a good girl and do what Mr. Fielding tells you. ”
Genevieve’s scowl deepened. “Yes, father. If I must.”
“If you don’t mind, sir,” said Mr. Fielding, “I should like to be shown the room where the portrait is to be done. Then I shall need to see how and where Miss Genevieve will look best. It may take a little time, I’m afraid, but it is an essential part of the process.”
“What were we thinking, my dear?” His lordship turned to his wife. “The small parlor? She’ll be out of the way there,” and he added under his breath, “we won’t have to listen to her complain.”
“Yes, that would probably be best,” replied his wife. “Genevieve, show Mr. Fielding the way to the small parlor.”
The young woman went silently to the door, and held it open. Mr. Fielding stood up. “Thank you. My lady, … sir,” he said, bowing to them each in turn, and followed her out into the hall.
“He certainly has very good manners. One would almost think he’s one of us,” said her ladyship. “But according to the vicar’s wife, he just appeared one day at the door of a woman in the village, and collapsed in a heap.”
“I don’t care where he came from, so long as he can do something with your daughter,” replied her spouse.
“My daughter? As far as I remember, you had something to do with it. Anyway, I’ve always said she follows your side of the family.
Your aunt Gertrude was a hatchet-faced woman.
We have always been very well-favored on our side.
In fact, no one would believe she is my daughter.
I was an accredited beauty in my day, don’t forget. ”
“You had to be, or I wouldn’t have married you,” returned his lordship, tempering his words with a smile.
Then he sighed. “God knows how we’re going to find anyone to take her on.
All she wants to do is hang around in the stables in the company of that girl who looks more like a boy.
Squire Jewett’s girl. Wears breeches and a waistcoat. Most peculiar.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Fielding was trying to find a good background to the young lady. “Just sit in front of the window for a minute, if you please,” he said to the scowling girl. “I want to get a feel for the light.”
The room faced south and was filled with light from tall windows.
It was furnished in the French style. The open-armed chairs had white gilded wood frames and pale pink upholstery.
Genevieve plumped herself down inelegantly on one of them.
She was a sandy-colored individual with rather coarse reddish hair pulled into an unbecoming knot on the top of her head.
Frizzy strands stuck out over her ears. She had light brown eyebrows and lashes over pale green eyes.
These were her best feature. Her rather freckled skin was pale, and her thin, flat-chested figure was not at all enhanced by the gown she was wearing.
It was of white muslin, but the bodice was embellished with vertical rows of scarlet ribbon.
Andrew Fielding thought one could hardly have chosen anything worse.
“Do you have a gown in green, or perhaps in lilac?” he asked.
“I might,” she said shortly. “I don’t know. I don’t care what color they put me in.”
“May I ask you to bring down anything you have in either of those colors?” asked Mr. Fielding. “Please?”
Genevieve hesitated as if she was going to object, but the artist smiled at her, so she got to her feet with a sigh and left the room. He could hear her stamping upstairs. She was gone about fifteen minutes.
He spent the time looking at the artwork on the walls.
Most of the frames contained watercolor views of the canals of Venice and the mountains of Switzerland.
They were typical of a gentleman’s country house where the heirs had done the Grand Tour before settling down to run the family estates.
Visiting the capitals of Europe was supposed to give them an opportunity to sow their wild oats and have a brush with classic art and architecture before returning to the solidity of the English upper classes.
They rarely had any taste, and all returned with the same sort of thing: inoffensive, pretty works painted by local artists who churned them out for the visitors.
They would forever decorate the walls of their homes, a testimony to their supposedly expanded horizons. Andrew Fielding dismissed them.
The daughter of the house came in finally, with two or three gowns over her arm. She dumped them unceremoniously on a chair.
“There,” she said. “Use them for paint rags, for all I care.”
“Hmm…” The artist wasn’t listening to her. He was holding up the gowns one by one, looking from them to her, his eyes narrowed. Then he turned slowly in a circle, holding the gowns up at arm’s length against different backgrounds.
Finally, he pulled a footstool at an angle in front of the empty fireplace and said, “Miss Genevieve, be so kind as to sit on this.”
The girl came unwillingly and plumped herself down. Because it was so low, she had to sit sideways with her knees bent down towards the floor, mermaid-style. Mr. Fielding took a pale green gown from the pile and said, “Hold this against yourself, please, and turn towards me from the waist up.”
The result was astonishing. Genevieve’s thin body was twisted below her bosom, which immediately gave her a more womanly shape. The green of the dress caught the color of her eyes, and her head, with its pale face and reddish hair, stood out against the dark, empty fireplace.
“That will do very nicely,” said Mr. Fielding. “Please don’t move, while I sketch the outline of the composition. But while I work, tell something about yourself, Miss Genevieve. Tell me what you like.”