Chapter 7
Seven
“The problem with Lord Orton or”—Miss Sedgewick smiled knowingly at Lucy—“ Jack, as I think we both call him in the privacy of our heads, at least. The problem is, that for all his undoubtedly fine attributes, he is not very clever.”
“No,” agreed Lucy quietly, betrayed into this disloyal honesty by the confusion of her blush.
“And that is yet another reason why I beg you to stay here with me.”
Here was the rented house Miss Sedgewick shared with her brother and an elderly female relative, who, Miss Sedgewick had already informed Lucy with her incorrigible smile, was extremely fond of lengthy naps and extremely unfond of venturing from the house.
“In short, the perfect companion! Not that I need one, being nine-and-twenty and quite an old maid, but impoverished women have the most need of diamond reputations.”
That was another thing Lucy had agreed with, albeit silently.
The proof of it had just been laid so awfully at her door.
She was poor, young, and female, therefore she must be angling for a husband.
But what a husband to accuse her of dangling after!
Jack! As if she would ever dare consider it; as if it had ever once entered her mind that he might…
that they might… She could die of shame.
“Do your hands still pain you?” Miss Sedgewick asked, noting the way Lucy was fiddling with her gloves.
“Oh. No. Or not much. I’m sorry. It’s a nervous habit.”
“The liniment soothed them?”
“Yes. I thank you.”
She didn’t like the greasy feel of it under the gloves she wore to protect her clothes from its oily marks, but it did smell divine. A strange and tiny beacon to cling to, but the lavender and bergamot scent was about the only point of comfort she’d had in this, one of the worst days of her life.
Miss Sedgewick had met her on the street only a moment after Lucy had erupted from Lady Ashburton’s house, fleeing tearfully, a hastily packed bandbox in one hand, and her similarly laden maid at her heels.
“But whatever is the matter? My dear Miss Fanshaw, you are quite overcome! Let me take that for you—” And the efficient Miss Sedgewick had taken possession of the bandbox with one hand and Lucy’s elbow with her other, then steered her down the street, talking cheerfully of how she’d just been coming to make a morning call in the hopes of pursuing the acquaintance made last night.
Talking cheerfully enough to allay the curious suspicions of passing strangers—just two ladies out for a morning walk with their maid!
Nothing to see here!—until they reached the safety of Miss Sedgewick’s house and this clean but small and rather worn parlour.
After irrepressible offers of tea, cake, handkerchiefs, and various ointments and balms, Miss Sedgewick had finally teased Lucy’s story from her, although she seemed hardly to need Lucy’s mortified explanation at all, able to easily intuit the whole from a few brief, mumbled clues.
“But the solution is obvious,” she’d said. “You have no need to fly back to Northumberland. You can stay here with me.”
“Stay? But I do not want to stay in London.” Or rather, she didn’t want to face Jack. Or his sisters. Or anyone else who might know what Nora had accused her of.
“Of course you want to stay! You’re here for the art, are you not?
You told me all about it last night while we drank our lemonade.
I remember the conversation, even if you don’t.
The novelty of conversing intelligently at Almack’s will stay with me for as long as I live.
And you’ve spoilt me now, Miss Fanshaw. How will I survive discussing Lady Dynsford’s antique lace when I know I could be discussing the competing merits of Neoclassicism and Romanticism!
You must stay. You’ll improve my mind, or certainly the appearance of it, which is all that matters in polite society. ”
“You…you are too kind,” Lucy had stammered, unable to tell if the lady was joking.
“Kind? Not at all. All the benefit is to me. Didn’t I tell you last night that London is bored?
It’s both bored and boring, and you could be the perfect cure.
A little project for me. A social experiment of sorts, if my suspicions are correct.
And more than that, my very own protégé!
I’ll never have children, but I confess to having the very motherly urge to manage everyone and make them do exactly as I like.
I could dress you, and style you… But no…
” She’d paused, tilting her head and giving Lucy a studying look.
“Perhaps you’re perfect exactly as you are.
Not in brown like last night, never brown—”
“It was the shade of umber,” Lucy had mumbled, her curiosity about what Miss Sedgewick meant by social experiment buried under the rest of the lady’s speech.
“I beg your pardon?”
“In the modiste’s, when she showed me the fabric samples, I picked it because it was the exact shade of umber I was wanting to find for my current painting. That sort of dusky, earthy, chestnut—no, not chestnut, not reddish tones, but a sort of rich…erm…dark.”
“I’m sure it’s the perfect colour for whatever you’re painting, a ploughed field, perhaps.
But you are not a plant, Miss Fanshaw, and it is not the right substrate.
This pale pink”—her eyes ran over Lucy’s day dress—“with the little coral sprigs. It’s much better.
But I would like to see you in cream. Your dark curls against palest cream!
You’re an artist, Miss Fanshaw, surely you can imagine the effect. ”
“Oh… I… I hardly ever think about what I look like.”
“No, I see! I really do see—and that will have to be my job. Mine and… Well, I believe I know an ally for that task.” She’d smiled significantly, though all the significance was for herself because Lucy was entirely lost. “The seeing of Miss Lucy Fanshaw. An excellent project.”
Then Miss Sedgewick had laughed and said, seemingly entirely unconnected, “The problem with Jack is, for all his undoubtedly fine attributes, he is not very clever.”
So. Miss Sedgewick called him Jack. And she’d heard the hastily corrected Caroline last night. She’d seen the way Jack looked at her.
Heat prickled her palms, uncomfortable and annoying under the thick liniment. If he was engaged to Miss Sedgewick then Nora wouldn’t have made her ridiculous claims. If he wasn’t engaged…he oughtn’t be calling her Caroline.
“I’m glad the ointment works,” Miss Sedgewick said. “Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to one of my good artist friends, Mr Thornton.”
Lucy forgot Jack for a moment. “Mr Thornton the portrait painter? I… I have heard of him.”
“Yes! He’s as marvellous a man as he is an artist, and a great friend to art and all who love it. You’ll like him, Miss Fanshaw, and he’ll surely know an alternative to turpentine that will not injure your hands. They say we must suffer for our art, but not needlessly one hopes.”
“Thank you. Again, you are kinder than I deserve. But I really mustn’t trespass on your kindness. If you could direct me to where I might find—”
“You’ve had a fright, Miss Fanshaw. A horrible morning after a horrible evening, and you’re not thinking clearly.
You cannot let this trifling misunderstanding run you out of town.
You know you don’t want to return to your aunt’s, and I’ll not let you, for I can well imagine the dreary life you must have lived up there.
It’s similar to what mine surely would have been if I’d stayed respectably at home in Derbyshire.
But I refuse to do it. I force myself into society, however much society doesn’t like us determinedly unmarried women.
Must I kidnap you, Miss Fanshaw? How else can I persuade you to stay? ”
“I hate to impose…”
“Yes. I can see that. You hate it so much you barely speak. But I strongly suspect that when you do so, it’s to say something worth saying, as it was last night at Almack’s.
Make that the case now, Miss Fanshaw. Say something sensible instead of this nervous politeness. Do you really want to leave London?”
What could she say to such a speech?
“N-no,” admitted Lucy. “Or not yet. Not before I’ve had a chance to…” She trailed off, hot and stupid.
“To what?” Miss Sedgewick prompted.
“To…to be among artists. To talk with them and learn…learn what I need to know to complete the painting I’m working on.
I can see it so clearly in my mind. But without access to…
to certain, um, resources, it is impossible.
But I would—” She blushed, but Miss Sedgewick’s tilted head made her continue.
“I would submit it to the Academy. When it’s done.
I know I’m no member, nor ever will be—”
“Being a woman,” Miss Sedgewick said with an understanding smile.
“Yes, and also being a no one, with no connections, no sponsor, and no formal training. But I can still submit a painting. And though it’s never likely to be accepted, I know the subject to be fashionable, and so there’s a small chance it might be. I’d like at least to try.”
“Ah, ambition,” breathed Miss Sedgewick. “I’m delighted to see it. I knew my instincts weren’t wrong about you. Yes, I’d like you to try too. We women must always try and be trying. Will you tell me what your painting is of?”
“It is, um, an allegory. Of sorts.” She’d started to feel a little bolder, talking of her reason for being here, remembering it.
Jack and his family had nothing to do with it.
But Miss Sedgewick’s avid curiosity seemed endless, and she was already conscious of having revealed more than she ever had to another living creature.
Also…of the exact nature of her painting, she was at a loss to know where to begin because she hardly understood it herself.
Just that she wanted to express a feeling, something very real, in a medium which preferred its realism to be kept to flowers and fruit and animals, not people. “It is…in the historical style.”