Chapter 5 #2
By the time Mr Northville at last put down his charcoal and suggested that the sitting might end, Caroline had grown a little stiff, and Jane had embroidered fully half of the snowdrops on the handkerchief she intended to give to her aunt for Christmas.
“Would you like to see the sketches?” Mr Northville inquired, wiping the charcoal from his hands with a handkerchief from his pockets.
“Very much so,” Caroline replied at once. “Only I had not thought you would permit it. You had said you would not wish me to see the painting, if there is to be one, until it was complete.”
“Ah, but this is quite different,” he replied. “It is not yet agreed that I may paint you. Surely you must see what I have done today to know whether you wish to allow it.”
Jane was obviously as curious as herself, for her embroidery was laid to the side almost before he had finished speaking. Mr Northville laid the sketches on the table. There were several pages worth, not including those that he had crumpled up and placed in the wastepaper basket.
The resemblance he had captured was all but perfect, but after seeing his completed painting, Caroline had rather expected as much.
Even in light charcoal, it was obvious that a completed painting must be a highly flattering work.
He had captured all the best of her features, and whatever of real elegance she might possess.
Her imperfections, while not erased, were somehow rendered into graces in his hands.
Caroline knew perfectly well that her nose was a little long for true beauty, and that her face was a trifle thin for the present fashion, but in his hands, these imperfections seemed to only add to her appeal.
Yes, it would do excellently to recommend her to the right sort of husband, with money enough to afford art, and style enough to understand it.
Caroline was glad she could justify wanting to sit for him, for she had not a doubt that she did, and that her reasons had nothing to do with vanity, or the advantage such a work might convey on the marriage mart.
Better than all the beauty he had given the charcoal Caroline was the expressiveness of her face.
He had shown her a little smiling in some images, and quite serious in others.
Yet even smiling, there was something rather serious about the eyes, and even when quite solemn, he had captured a certain private amusement.
“How wonderful, Mr Northville,” Jane murmured.
“You have captured her exactly.” Then, seeming to remember herself, she turned to Caroline.
“What do you think, Caroline? Do you wish for Mr Northville to paint you? Charles has agreed that, provided I think it wise, the decision would be entirely your own.”
“Then you have no objection?” Caroline asked. From Jane’s bearing, the answer seemed clear, and yet she felt she badly needed another moment to know her own mind. She wanted to say yes, and yet, did he not see her rather too clearly?
“No, you must decide as you think best,” Jane replied. How like her, not to urge her own opinion on her sister-in-law! It had taken Caroline some time to fully appreciate Jane’s delicate courtesy, but once understood, she had never ceased appreciating it.
Mr Northville, too, did not urge her, though the tension in his expression made it obvious that his interest was anything but casual. He looked away, as though fearful that even a direct gaze might too greatly importune her.
Caroline took the opportunity to study him closely.
Mr Northville’s astonishing personal beauty did not fade on closer acquaintance.
She had yet to discover even a single imperfection in his features or his form, if one did not consider the paint stains on his hands and the over-simplicity of his attire to be imperfections.
It added even another motive to wishing him to paint her, for in the process of observing her and painting each detail of her face and her expression, she must also have the opportunity to admire him.
That would be enjoyable indeed, for Mr Northville was no less a work of art than the paintings he produced.
She would only have to remember that nothing could come of it.
Even a friendship would have to be limited by the demands of his work, her need to find a proper husband, and the social gap between them.
She would have liked to know him better, to truly understand what might drive such a man, but that could never be.
These few meetings were all they could ever have.
That being so, her answer was clear. “Yes, I should certainly like to have you paint me, Mr Northville,” Caroline declared. “I would consider it a great compliment.”
She had expected him to be pleased, but his response was far beyond anything she could have anticipated.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Mr Northville exclaimed, and stepping toward her, he caught up her hands, pressing them with undeniable warmth.
Though she ought to have been offended by his making so free, Caroline could not help smiling up at him.
His joy was so palpable, so entirely open, and all dedicated to her.
How could she help but find it a delight?
Seeming to remember the demands of propriety, Mr Northville soon released her and gave an apologetic little bow. “I am so glad you have agreed, Miss Bingley. This painting will be the making of me. Truly, I cannot thank you enough.”
“I do not believe I am deserving of such fervent thanks,” Caroline told him. “It is your talent that will be the making of you, not any model who might have the privilege of sitting for you.”
“You are too good,” he said, but did not press further thanks on her. He turned instead to Jane and made quick work of securing her permission to leave an easel in the music room.
“I shall bring a large drop cloth to put under it,” he told her earnestly. “No paint shall be permitted to mar the floors.”
“It is good of you to think of it, Mr Northville. I am sure it would not have occurred to me.”
“Perhaps other inconveniences may come with the arrangement we have been considering,” he remarked.
“You must tell me if the easel takes up too much space, for example, or if the smell of paints is too great. I consider this permission to be conditional only, and if I make a nuisance of myself, it shall be revoked at once. I would understand entirely.”
“No, Mr Northville, that must not be,” Jane told him, “for I am prodigiously excited to see the painting you will make of my sister-in-law. No little thing must turn you aside.”
He agreed gallantly, and only then turned to Caroline. “I have already demanded a great deal of you,” he said, “but I should like to demand one thing more. Promise me you will not look at the painting until it is finished.”
“You said before that you would not wish me to,” Caroline returned, with her best attempt at an arch tone. She did not feel that it quite came off.
“All the same,” he said, his voice soft, but insistent.
“Very well, then. I promise I shall not.”
“Thank you, Miss Bingley,” he replied. And all too soon, they had arranged the time of the next visit, and he was gone.
“I shall sit in the drawing room for a change of scene, Caroline. Will you join me?” Jane asked her, gathering up her embroidery.
“In just a moment. I must look at something,” Caroline replied. She hurried to the piano and began looking through the music she kept there.
Strictly speaking, it was not a lie, for it was not her fault if Jane chose to interpret that as meaning that the music was what she wished to look at.
As soon as her sister-in-law had left the room, Caroline put the music down and hurried over to the wastepaper basket at the far side of the room, where Mr Northville had thrown away his crumpled papers.
Delicately, she fished them out of the basket and spread them open on the table.
Though Caroline reproached herself for her excessive curiosity, she had no thought of resisting it.
Some of the sketches were of little interest, thrown away self-evidently because the proportions were too badly flawed to fix, or because she had moved while the sketch was in progress.
One was not. It was as fully realised as any of the sketches Mr Northville had shown to them, even down to the illustration of light glinting from the amethyst around her neck.
And yet it was quite different. The other sketches were drawn with a kind of artistic dispassion, as though intended to be at once as accurate and flattering as they might be, with little other agenda.
This drawing seemed to bear the personal feelings of the hand that had drawn it.
Surely there was curiosity in it, but was there not something of fondness as well?
She was certain it was there, even if she could not have said quite how.
Mr Northville had thrown the little sketch away not because it showed too little, but because it showed too much.
Taking some letter-paper from the desk at one side of the room, Caroline placed the little drawing between two sheets to preserve it. The others would be crumpled up and returned to the wastepaper basket, but this could not be thrown away.
Suddenly she was glad, glad even as she reproached herself for being so, that she had agreed Mr Northville might come again.