Chapter 13 #2
There were paintings everywhere. Canvases were stacked together, leaning against walls and beside easels.
Some were roughed-out drawings, barely touched by pigments, but others were half-painted or even seemingly finished.
Matilda’s eyes fluttered from one to the next, not quite able to take them in.
They were heady, violent, extraordinary paintings.
She left Bea still standing at the center of the room so she could prowl the edges to get a closer look at the work.
She stopped in front of one painting that looked to have been freshly varnished.
The blues were bold and saturated, the yellow of the beach a deep pigmented ochre.
Five men pulled at the wreckage of a ship, drawing it half out of the water.
A woman in a red-black dress huddled on the sand.
Matilda felt gooseflesh rise on her arms as she stared at the figure, undone by grief.
She had never seen anything quite like Bea’s art, not in all the galleries and studios in London. She wanted to breathe the colors in, stroke the texture of the layers of paint, lie down on the floor and stare.
“Do you…” Bea’s voice at her side trailed off.
Matilda pried her gaze from the canvases. “Do I what?”
“You … Do you like them? The paintings?” The girl looked like she’d rather be tortured than continue to produce audible conversation.
Matilda let her fingers float inches above the canvas, not quite touching. “They are extraordinary. Incredible. You have a rare genius, Bea. I am trained, accomplished, even professional—but you are something altogether different.”
“Oh,” Bea whispered.
Matilda left the painting and went to the girl instead.
“I do not know if there is anything I can teach you, Bea, but perhaps we can learn from each other. I’d love to watch you blend your oil and pigments—I need to know how you’ve produced some of what you’ve done.
I’ve brought a trunk full of brushes you might like to try too, I—”
Bea was looking down at her, face pale, hands locked in her skirts. “You mean to stay?”
Matilda blinked. “Of course. Truly, I will be the one receiving all the benefit of our work together. But I will stay the winter here.”
Even as she said it, she thought of Christian. Could she stand to live here, dining alongside him night after night, knowing that what had kindled between them had been extinguished?
She would have to stand it. She had promised, and moreover, she liked this shy, half-wild girl.
“I’d like that,” Bea said in a low voice. “People don’t—usually stay.”
Matilda pressed her lips together, feeling the impact of Bea’s quiet words somewhere around her heart. “I will stay. And then in March, we will go to London together.”
Bea’s dark lashes flew up. “I beg your pardon?”
“For your Season. Your debut.”
Bea took a step backward, away from Matilda. “No. I won’t go to London.”
“Oh,” Matilda said awkwardly. “I’d thought—that is, your brother—”
“I won’t do it!” For the first time since she’d seen Matilda the day before, Bea’s voice rose above a whisper. “He can’t make me go!”
“I don’t think he wants to force you, Bea. But you—”
“I know what it’s like.” Bea shook her head, and more of her curls slid free from their pins, fluttering down against her long neck. “All those people—talking, whispering—always something cruel to say.”
Matilda bit her lip. Was Bea so worried about her brother’s reputation?
The fact that Matilda herself had had a hand in blackening Christian’s name further made her feel sick.
“Well—yes, sometimes there is gossip. But you must not pay attention to it. There is so much more there—Bea, have you never been to the Royal Academy?”
Matilda saw the girl’s jaw clench and then release. “No.”
“Oh, Bea, you won’t leave for days. Weeks. I cannot wait to take you there—I have a friend who can sneak us in after hours—the light isn’t as good, of course, but once I went at dawn, and that was the best time—”
“I can’t,” Bea said, but this time she sounded miserable, rather than angry. “I can’t go.”
“Why on Earth can you not? You will learn so much—it’s more than worth a few ugly whispers. You’ll be so enraptured you won’t hear them anyway.”
“I can’t.”
Matilda’s heart wrenched in her chest. “They’re only words, Bea. They only have power over you if you let them.”
Bea’s lips twisted down, her mouth a mirror of Christian’s. She shrugged and looked at the ground. “Then I suppose I am letting them.”
Matilda took a careful breath and then let it out. “All right,” she said. “There’s no sense in worrying about March now. We have a whole winter to paint together. You have a great deal to teach me about pigments.”
And I have five months to change your mind.
She supposed that if anyone was well-positioned to teach Bea to ignore the opinions of the self-righteous half of the beau monde, it was one of the Halifax Hellions.
And for the first time in a long time, the absurd nickname didn’t send a shiver of irritation through her. In fact, she thought, she felt almost proud.