Chapter 17
Alas that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
When Beadle Cottage received a visitor on the first Saturday of December, Violet was elated to discover Cristabel had come. As soon as she beheld the woman’s face, however, her joy dissipated.
“But what is the matter?” Violet asked, ferrying the painter inside the cottage where it was warm. Outside, the air was biting, the moss and grass stiff with a frosty crunch.
Cristabel, ever looking with her artist’s eye, paused near the sofa in the drawing room beside the front hall and sucked in every detail.
She rubbed her hands together and waved Violet away when she tried to guide her toward the fireplace.
Just the prior week, Violet had stayed at Pressmore for several days to paint under Cristabel’s stern watch, yet between then and now, a brief span, she had grown grayer in the hair, hollower in the cheeks.
“I want you to know that it’s been pleasant to teach you,” said Cristabel, fixing her gaze out the windows that looked onto the cobbled path and yard.
A pair of jays pecked at the dirt and, finding nothing, startled off into the branches hanging over the path.
“I can’t say that about many or even most of my novices.
You listen. Your pride is managed. You do not consider yourself above improvement.
You do react to criticism with your face, but less and less. ”
Violet frowned and watched Winny and Maggie peering in at them from the hall. Shooing them away with a gesture did nothing, and they continued their wide-eyed eavesdropping, stacked like owls atop each other.
“Where is this going?”
“You are going nowhere,” said Cristabel firmly and with a long, pained exhale. “I, however, will be returning to London. No doubt you have heard the rumors circulating in the village?”
Violet went to take her hand, shaking her head. “It shouldn’t matter what that horrid vicar said about you! I’ve had a letter from Mr. Kerr. Mr. Danforth is responsible for the fires; nobody should believe a word he says about anything.”
“What should be and what is are rarely the same, my dear. The whispers have become shouts, and the noise has reached Pressmore. Your aunt no longer believes I’m fit company for her family and can no longer offer me a place to stay and teach.”
“But there must be something we can do!” Violet turned to stare at her sisters, who shared her look of despairing outrage. “I won’t let you be chased off like this.”
Cristabel smiled down at her, calm, and patted the top of her hand.
“What sort of artist would I be if I maintained a spotless reputation, mm? You should see what my detractors put in the papers! They were vocal after my most recent withdrawal from the Royal Society. No, no. Your aunt has been generous, and I can embarrass her no longer. This will pass, as all things eventually do, and one day I will return to this place. I fear I have grown fond of it.” Cristabel cleared her throat, pulling away from Violet and trundling toward the door.
Winny and Maggie scattered, but not before they had been seen.
Pausing in the front hall, she quarter-swiveled toward Violet.
“If you remember one thing from our acquaintance, let it be this: never turn away from art, Violet. Your expression is more vital than you know. Ah. I hope you don’t mind that I packed some of your studies to take with me…
” She trailed off, and Violet did not protest, for she would have no paintings of any merit if Cristabel had not guided her. “For I have grown fond of you, too.”
Here was a woman who could not be persuaded. Violet knew her mind was made up. She smirked and helped Cristabel to the door. “As much as it pains you to say so.”
“Indeed. You know how I loathe self-indulgent sentiment.” Cristabel took one last look around the small cottage, seeing it, as she did everything, with assessing, fresh eyes.
Sweeping up Violet’s hands in hers, she squeezed.
“Ah, and now that I can no longer offer my commission as a prize at Miss Richmond’s benefit, I suggested you as my replacement. Farewell.”
“I…”
Violet gawked at the door, her jaw to the floor.
“How awful!” Winny and Maggie reappeared, Winny wringing her hands. “I knew Mr. Danforth was a blight on his profession, but to cost Miss Bilbury her position at Pressmore? Oh, but I truly do not like him at all.”
“You can hate him,” Maggie told her with a snort. “We all do.”
“That is such a frightful word. I try not to hate anybody.”
“But if anybody deserves it, it’s him,” Violet muttered. “Poor Cristabel. All those ghastly rumors in the village, I thought it would come to nothing.”
“Cristabel has chosen an unusual life for herself. It makes her an easy target,” said Maggie, rubbing Winny’s shoulder. “I should know.”
Violet puffed out her cheeks. “And Aunt Mildred should know better. If one is to be rich and respected, then one should have a backbone stronger than an earthworm and learn to…I don’t know, stand up for what is right.”
Maggie detached from them and went to sit near the fire, her mouth a firm line of frustration. “The way she stood up for Ann when she was accused of misbehavior? The way she stood up for me? Come now, Violet, acts of courage have never been Aunt Mildred’s forte, and worms do not have bones.”
“And now I shall have to fulfill the commission auctioned at Ann’s benefit, which is a disaster waiting to happen!
Who will want to pay anything for my work?
Cristabel’s paintings fetch a lofty price in reputable circles, and I am…
” Violet clamped her eyes shut and rubbed her face. “Chalk and cheese, that’s what it is.”
“Chin up, Violet! Ann will make the punch so strong nobody will remember what they bid on anything. Besides, it is all to help the Florizel, so nobody can be cross with you if your painting is an utter failure.” Maggie laughed at her from the sofa.
“Which it won’t be!” Winny assured them both, offering Maggie her sternest pout. “Cristabel clearly believes in your skill, dear, and so do I.”
“Ugh!” Violet tossed up her hands and stormed away, nowhere in particular at first, and then toward her and Winny’s shared bedroom. “That is easy for you to say, Maggie!” she shouted as she went. “You’re brilliant!”
There was hardly any time to prepare; Christmas was nearly upon them!
How could she be expected to take on this responsibility with so little warning?
Violet hurled herself onto her bed and shrieked into a pillow, which summoned their mother.
Mrs. Arden was a once-soft woman hardened by life’s unfairness.
Losing Mr. Arden had changed all their lives, but hers the most, for theirs had been a strong, abiding love, and after he was gone, Mrs. Arden almost didn’t seem to know how to continue living.
She was gaining strength again now that they were all together at Beadle, but Violet wasn’t na?ve enough to think they would ever really get her back.
Her mother rubbed her back. It didn’t help.
“There now, my darling, what will make it better?”
Violet kept her face stuffed into the pillow. What would make it better? She huffed out a wretched sound.
“It isn’t the benefit, is it?”
Stifled, Violet shook her head. Tears were gathering, pressurized behind her tightly closed eyes.
Cristabel was gone. Emilia had grown sullen and distant.
Maggie had her novels and her husband. And what did Violet have of her own?
So little. So little. Just her mind, she decided, and the gifted paints, brushes, and easel, which more and more she suspected had come from Mr. Kerr.
Mr. Kerr.
Damn him. Damn him! How could he touch her hand and gesture at courtship and then leave?
Heaving in a huge breath, she lifted her head just enough to hover it above the pillow.
“Last week Aunt Mildred said I shouldn’t even bother going to London next summer; the Burtons don’t want me in their house, and none of the bachelors will take interest either.
She said if I promise to be polite, she will try to find me a nice farmer to marry!
Maybe a nice farmer will have you were her words. ”
“My sister is always saying such things. It’s never bothered you before.”
Violet let her head fall back down.
And why would he lower himself to have me?
“You know Margaret will never make you leave, Violet. You have a safe harbor here for as long as you wish it,” her mother continued.
“My sisters are always saying it, and sometimes I worry that they are right—your father and I were too permissive with you girls. But you were so happy and carefree when you were little, singing your songs and putting on your plays, and I fooled myself into thinking the world would never intrude on our little haven.”
“ ‘Are you sure that we are awake? It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream,’ ” Violet mumbled into the pillow.
“Your ridiculous father and that play,” Mrs. Arden said with a sigh, but affectionately. “We must live in the waking world, darling, and sometimes in that waking world we must bend, lest it break us.”
Her mother stayed awhile and trailed her hand lightly up and down Violet’s back.
She pretended to fall asleep, and when she was alone, she reached for the top drawer on her nightstand.
It was a small room with a slanted ceiling, dried flowers and herbs hanging from the rafter scenting the space with lavender.
The colorful, merry quilt on the bed had been lovingly sewed by Winny.
There was a single triangular window with the rocking chair in front of it.
The curtains were open, the sunlight illuminating the chair and easel where Violet had been painting.
An unfinished watercolor of Winny bent over her needlework was secured to the board.
With the room being so cramped, the sisters had a serious pact that they would never disturb each other’s dresser drawers, the one narrow slice of privacy in an otherwise overcrowded home.
Violet fetched the letter Mr. Kerr had sent and turned onto her back, unfolding it to read.
She knew it by heart, even though there was nothing romantic about it.
He may as well have been writing to a complete stranger.
None of it made any damn sense. She was sure he had provided the expensive, anonymous gift, had very nearly confessed love or something like it to her, but then why write to her like this? Where was the warmth?
She clasped the letter to her breast and let the tears that had been building roll silently down her cheeks.
To him, she was no better than a secret mistress, someone to spoil when nobody was looking, a thing to be enjoyed in the darkness.
After all the suitors she had offended in London, after her public scandal with the Frenchman, no man of Mr. Kerr’s status and wealth would risk openly admiring her.
Violet turned and shoved his letter back into the drawer, slamming it shut. Let the world break her, she decided. It was better than giving in to its injustices.
The next day, Maggie’s husband returned from London.
Beadle Cottage was once more overflowing, and Violet confined herself to her bedroom to paint.
She had nothing against Bridger Darrow. In fact, she liked him, and especially liked how radiant Maggie became in his doting presence, but she was painfully aware of the thundercloud hanging over her own head.
She seemed to darken whatever room she stepped foot in; it was better that she practice her portraiture for the benefit, and for the life Cristabel had warned her was imminent.
She yearned to paint him, to see his face again, even if lifeless and made by her own hand. But she refused to do it; she would not be mastered by her feelings for him if he was intent on only teasing her! The chilly indifference of his letter lingered like the last hard frost of winter.
Downstairs, they discussed the garlands for Christmas Eve, listened to Bridger’s stories of London, laughed, sang songs, lit candles, and prepared for the holiday with the boisterous spirit it normally engendered.
Maggie had finished her novel and kept Winny company in the drawing room while Winny embellished their old gowns for Ann’s Christmas Day benefit.
There was no beef, and nobody seemed to mind, while upstairs Violet painted until her hands cramped.
If she wanted a life outside of Beadle Cottage, she would have to scratch it together herself.