Chapter 2
Even in the smoky shadows of the club, Thom could see her lovely face as though it were still before him.
The woman’s expression had been so fascinating, it had almost made him forget his manners entirely.
Even yet, Thom could not regard it dispassionately.
She had been entirely lost in thought. That much had been obvious even at a glance.
He had been equally abstracted when they had bumped into each other, looking over his shoulder to speak to Edwards.
But distracted as he had been, his thoughts could not have been half so fascinating as hers.
Thom was sure of it. She was a complicated woman — a beautiful woman, to be sure, but it was not this that made him so greatly wish to paint her.
Most artist’s models were beautiful, after all.
There was nothing to make a painting in that.
But her expression — that, if captured, would be the making of his work.
The Mona Lisa was not celebrated for the subject’s personal charms, after all, but for what it revealed of her mind.
To do the same for the mystery woman would be a fascinating challenge, and a particularly valuable one.
His exhibition, beginning in just under a month’s time, still lacked the essential piece that would make it shine, would allow him to show fashionable London what he could really do.
Then, perhaps, he would at last sell enough of his paintings to live decently — and to quiet the constant, scornful voice in his head, which sounded distinctly like his father, and which said that painting was no fit occupation for a man.
“You are distracted tonight,” Edwards remarked, raising a glass to him.
Their table was rather shadowed, like the club itself, but Thom could not get a better one.
Penniless younger sons were not particularly desirable members.
Edwards, a friend ever since boyhood, was good enough to join him in the club he could attend, despite having the money and fashion to be a member in two better and more fashionable clubs himself.
“Forgive me,” Thom said, offering him a wry smile. “I suppose I could not deny it very convincingly.”
Edwards chuckled. “No, certainly not. You have not said a word these ten minutes together. Still mooning over Caroline Bingley?”
Thom’s pulse jumped. “You know who she is?”
Edwards nodded. “Well enough to warn you off, in any case. I am a nodding acquaintance of her brother. Bingley is a good fellow — goes to the club rarely now that he is married, and I cannot blame him. Mrs Bingley is the most beautiful creature I ever saw. I should not go to the club either, if I had a woman like that waiting for me at home.”
“Enough of that,” Thom interrupted his friend’s reverie. “What did you mean, you know her well enough to warn me off? That is hardly a fit thing to say of a lady.”
“Excuse me, I mean no harm by it. She is a lady, with rather good connections — the Bingleys were merchants two generations back, but Bingley is best friends with Darcy, and you know what everybody thinks of Darcy.”
Thom chuckled. “Says least, does most, owns half of Derbyshire.”
“Precisely — that’s Darcy for you. Though I think he has unbent a little, since his own marriage.
His wife is Mrs Bingley’s younger sister, making another link between the families.
And Miss Bingley’s dowry is nothing to sneeze at.
She is known to be an ambitious woman who likes society, and if she does not end by marrying a minor nobleman with a pile of sovereigns as high as my hat, I shall eat it.
So you see you have not the slightest chance with her. You had better forget it.”
“Of course I should have no chance of courting such a woman,” Thom said impatiently. “Who could think it? I do not want to court her, Edwards, I want to paint her.”
Edwards raised an eyebrow. “Why? She is pretty, of course, but there are many women just as lovely. The artist’s model you used in that last piece of the forest scene, for example. She is every bit as pretty as Miss Bingley.”
“Certainly, but beauty is easy,” Thom told him earnestly.
“Likely you did not have the opportunity of seeing her expression as I did, but it was incredible. She was lost in thought — that was why we collided, of course — but she was not merely abstracted. Her thoughts must have been complicated to produce such an expression, with something of pain, and some hope, and not a little amusement, too. She is not only a woman of intelligence, but a woman of complications. And if I could capture such an expression, if I could bring such complication to my canvas, it would be the making of me and my art, I swear it. I should like —”
“Wait a moment there,” Edwards interrupted him, raising his hand. “You know I can hardly follow your flights of artistic fancy. Am I to understand that you wish above all things to paint Caroline Bingley?”
“Yes. Above all things.”
“It might be possible,” Edwards said thoughtfully. “I should not be surprised if she were rather vain. So many young ladies are.”
“And so many young gentlemen,” Thom cut in, raising an eyebrow at his friend, who took a degree of care and pride in his personal appearance that rivalled that of an excited young lady about to attend the first event of her first London Season.
“Guilty as charged,” Edwards chuckled. “If I had your looks, North, I should spend two hours of every day looking in a mirror. But in any case, if Caroline Bingley is as vain as I am myself, it will be all to the good for your purposes. You may be able to flatter her into modelling for you.”
“You are a better judge of the fashionable world than I am,” Thom said. “Do you think it could even offer some social cachet for her? Perhaps having the painting shown in my exhibition would be helpful to her, if she is as ambitious on the marriage mart as you say.”
“Perhaps, but you shall have to be careful, and think of a way to prevent any threat to her reputation,” Edwards warned her. “Artist’s models are not usually proper ladies.” And indeed, his satisfied grin offered evidence of how much he had enjoyed meeting some of his friend’s models.
“I might present myself more in the model of a court painter, perhaps,” Thom thought aloud. “Immortalising her, rather than creating a work of art for myself.”
Edwards looked at him dubiously. “You would not object to that?”
“No, not at all. It is entirely true. She is beautiful, and I should like to immortalise that. It is only that her expression interests me more.”
“Well, then, I shall get you an introduction,” Edwards declared. “Give me a few days to find Bingley and ask him, but he is such a good-natured fellow, I am sure he will agree. Then we shall visit at the house. You do still have visiting cards, do you not?”
“I am not yet that lost to society,” Thom told him, provoking a chuckle from his friend. “And I promise I shall dress properly for the visit, too. To the best of my poor ability, at least.”
“I’m relieved to hear it,” Edwards replied drily, and led the conversation on into other channels.
Thom rather suspected he had been dull company at dinner, for his mind had remained full of other things.
The prospect of meeting Miss Caroline Bingley again, of perhaps having the privilege of painting her in truth, could not be otherwise than distracting.
It had seemed nothing more than a dream, for Thom had not imagined his friend might know her.
There, perhaps, he had been a little foolish, for, fashionable man-about-town as he was, Edwards sometimes seemed to know everyone in London so much as tangentially connected to the ton.
Everything about the mysterious Miss Bingley had pronounced her to be one of the fashionable set; no wonder, then, that Edwards knew of her.
Upon saying goodbye to Edwards and returning home to his quarters, Thom had hastened up all three flights of stairs to his narrow attic rooms and gone through the bedroom almost without a pause, to end in the studio.
Never mind that the rooms were cold and cheerless.
During the daylight hours, the room had light, and he wanted nothing else.
His easel was placed in the centre of the room, presently empty, but he did not move to put a canvas on it.
Instead, taking a candle in one hand, he turned to the row of completed works lined up along one wall.
If he knew Edwards, his friend would not fail to get him the invitation.
He must therefore be ready for it, and for the problems he would be likely to face.
The request was somewhat unusual. He was confident enough in his own work to think it had the potential to benefit Miss Bingley, but that was entirely dependent on the quality of the art to be produced.
Given his present lack of reputation, the Bingley family could hardly be expected to take that on credit.
No, he would bring a small painting with him as evidence that, if he were a madman to be making such a request of a fashionable young lady, he was at least a madman who could paint.
Fully half of the paintings were too large for consideration.
It would not help his chances of being accepted within a polite social call if he were to drag a yard of canvas with him.
Thom discarded a few more from consideration as falling short of what he had wished for them.
Each had something he had liked enough to keep.
Either there was yet something of skill in it, a lesson he wished to study and better integrate into himself, or he simply liked them.
All the same, they were not suitable for the present purpose.
Nothing less than his best work would do if he were to have a chance of convincing Caroline Bingley to sit for him.
Three of the remaining paintings were portraits, and two were of pretty women.
One of these ought to have been the natural choice, and yet, looking at them, Thom could not feel them to be right.
They did not tell the story he wished to tell in painting a picture of Caroline Bingley — they had not that complexity.
Oddly, his eye was drawn to a small painting, a particular favourite of his.
It showed a woodland glade, inspired by his father’s lands in the north.
The light was uneven, showing that clouds were passing overhead and interrupting what there was of sunshine, and, all but hidden behind a venerable old tree, there was a woman, looking out with a curious expression.
So much of her was hidden that she could be easily overlooked.
Nor could the viewer readily tell her age, how much she might have of beauty, or even whether she was a human woman or a wood nymph.
Yet, once seen, her expression of mischief and wisdom mingled formed the living heart of the piece.
Thom took it up in his hands. Though a portrait would have been the logical choice, he knew this to be the right one. It had in it the spirit he wished to capture, and which he believed Caroline Bingley could show him. If this piece could not convince her, nothing could.