Twenty #2
“If it don’t involve blood, it can wait until morning. In fact, even if it do involve blood, it can wait until morning.” And when Mertons attempted to shake the hand loose, Stephen added, “Do not make it involve blood, sir.”
The apprentices stepped forward.
“You’ll regret this,” Mertons said.
“Please usher the master’s cousin to his room in the cellar. See that he rests there until morning.”
* * *
Peter’s hand was warm and dry, and her own felt like a child’s within it.
He led her through the double doors to a small balcony.
The sun was gone, replaced by a blue-gray black, and a field of stars adorned the sky.
The balcony stood high above the street, and they had a clear view across the roofs of the city.
The vastness of such a vista, as always, sent a pang of awe through her.
She loved the way the southern hills of Pittsburgh looked from the windows of her loft—there was something about the way the sky enveloped you when you had the long view that really took your breath away—but this was even more spectacular: squat chimneys, unknown spires, glimpses of cobbled streets abuzz with Londoners, and, on a far hill, even a windmill silhouetted black against the sky.
“Oh my.”
He smiled, slipping his coat back over her shoulders. “I know. I love the feeling of gazing over the city. It’s as if one has been transported from one’s problems.”
“You have problems? Well, the king, I suppose. But I should think there are many rewards to being the royal portraitist as well.”
“There are. Look around. The house, the staff, the line of patrons. I am very grateful.” But his hand went to his ring, and there was something in his voice that didn’t quite ring true.
She was torn. She was tempted to pursue a line of questioning related to this ambivalence, but she knew she had a job here.
“I, uh, know there’s a lot of rivalry in the art world. You must have dozens of unpleasant stories of other painters trying to insinuate themselves with the king to take your place. I mean, how did you come into the position yourself?”
He laughed. “I hope, milady, I am not reading an implication of misconduct into your question.”
She flushed. “No, of course I did not mean you. Still, the story of how you got your start would be most interesting.”
“Well, of course, the position had been Van Dyck’s for many years.
I was a great admirer of Van Dyck. He has certainly had a profound influence on my work.
And you are right about rivalry. I do not think he cared o’ermuch for me, and he would certainly not have considered me an equal, with me being half his age and he being a man of preternaturally large pride. ”
“So rare to find that in an artist.”
He smiled.
“And…?” she prompted.
“And I suppose I find myself in his shoes now. His age. Past the peak of my career. And yet I find myself far less eager than Van Dyck to cling to what I have.”
There it was again. That note of sorrow. She had the next Van Dyck question on the tip of her tongue, and a dozen more after that, but somehow the woman in her was more curious than the writer.
“You have problems? I mean, apart from the king?”
An uncomfortable quiet came over him. She waited, wondering if he’d say more. He lifted his chin, as if to reply, but he must have changed his mind, for all he said was “Come.”
He led her to the edge of the balcony, and she took a place along the wide, low balustrade by his side. He splayed his fingers on the marble, elbows straight, abstracted. She held her tongue, waiting for him.
“There,” he said.
She turned. In the distance, toward the river, tiny streamers of white fire rained down on the river, illuminating for an instant the decks and yardarms of several tall-masted ships. Muffled cheers from a crowd rose over the night.
“Fireworks!” she cried.
“The usual for Guy Fawkes, I should think.”
The Guy Fawkes celebration in England was akin to Halloween, she knew, and had something to do with the defeat of a plot to blow up Parliament, though her knowledge of English history was more than a little hazy, and she had not been aware the holiday had been celebrated as early as the seventeenth century.
“It’s still a bit early. Another quarter of an hour will see the start of something more organized. I take it you’re meeting someone?”
Meeting someone? Then it dawned on her. He thought she had a date for Guy Fawkes, which is why he had said “tonight of all nights” when she’d mentioned she couldn’t stay much longer. “No, I…It is something else. But surely you had an engagement?”
He smiled. “No, I am practically chained to the studio.”
Still he maintained his rigid grip on the railing. What haunted this man?
“Your ring is quite unusual,” she said.
His hands came up as if he’d been burned. He nearly tucked them under his arms, but at last he brought the ringed one forward with evident will. “It is my mark.”
“In an emerald?” She could see the P and L etched backward in the surface.
“Not just an emerald. ’Tis the Kingfisher of Istanbul.”
“Oooooh,” she said, impressed, for the only named jewelry she owned was a Joan Rivers bracelet from QVC. “Does it come with a curse?”
“It did for me.”
She held her breath.
“I bought it six years ago, after a particularly large commission from the Duke of Silverbridge. Once I saw it in the jeweler’s hand, it was the only thing I could think about.
It cost a king’s ransom, but to me it represented reaching the height of my profession.
The woman I loved—Ursula—laughed when I told her I planned to buy it.
She thought I was making jest with her. When I told her why I wanted it, she told me that if I depended on the adulation of gemstones, I would never be fulfilled.
We quarreled. I bought the emerald, had it engraved, and we never spoke of it again.
It wasn’t until years later that it dawned on me I would have been far happier if I had given her the stone and watched it blaze away the rest of our days on her finger. ”
Odd, Cam thought. He has a ring that brings him pain, but he wears it, and I have a ring I love that I hide.
“Were you together long?” she said.
“Ten years.”
“That is a long time.” And a lot to regret. But the trick had to be letting go of the regret. Starting over. That’s what Jacket wanted her to do. She’d been so angry for so long. She had to teach herself to cling to what she had, not what she’d lost.
“Why do you wear it?” she asked.
For a long moment he was silent. Another flash of spangling lights brightened the night sky, and a soft wind blew the hair around his shoulders. “I don’t want to forget. I don’t deserve to forget.”
As he gazed at the ring, she watched his face: the pained eyes, the strong, determined mouth.
“In my opinion,” she said, “one of the hardest tasks for a human is to accept that what comes our way is a journey we need to take,” she said.
“If we err, we should not add unnecessarily to our burden. Failure is enough. Nor should we try to avoid the good things that come our way serendipitously, even when the reasons for them are unclear.”
She thought of that book on and the amazing gift it had given her. She thought of Jacket, renewing his proposal. That was a good thing, right?
“Do you think all things that come our way serendipitously are good?” he asked.
“Not so much good as necessary, something we must act upon. But they can be very, very good. And it is our responsibility to find out how by working them through to their conclusion.”
“My success,” he said, “came very serendipitously.”
“Oh?”
“Which is not to say I lacked talent, but talent, as you know, is quite different from success.”
She did.
“Van Dyck—you know his work, aye?” He continued when she nodded.
“I was not his pupil, yet it was impossible not to be influenced by him. He was one of the most famous artists of the time, and I traveled to Antwerp not once, but twice, to see him. He was already quite established as the portraitist to Charles’s father here in London. ”
Cam tried not to move. This was exactly the information she needed.
“He looked at my work—I was exceedingly good—and gave me the usual encouragement. Well, it so happened Elizabeth of Bohemia was at his studio at the time, as were a number of her ladies-in-waiting. There was one—Giselle—” He caught himself.
“But perhaps that is a story best left for another time, for it caused Van Dyck trouble he did not fairly deserve. In any case, Elizabeth had the opportunity to admire a painting of mine, and when Van Dyck died, she wrote to her brother recommending my work.”
“And her brother was connected with the king?”
He laughed. “Her brother was the king. Charles the First. My original patron. The father of my far more troublesome one. But my point is, things came very easily to me—my talent, my position with the court, considerable wealth. I grew accustomed to this success, placing a value on it far beyond its worth and, worse, allowing myself to grow blind to the things I had that really did matter.”
He twisted the ring absently, eyes focused on the dark night. He gave her a sidelong smile. “Regrets.”
She touched his hand. “One must let failure be enough.”
* * *
The touch rose up his arm and exploded in his chest, like one of the fiery bursts over the river, only this one seared his heart, like the touch of God upon Adam, and he wanted her.
Every particle in his body strained toward her.
But she was affianced, or nearly so, and in any case, her body was committed.
He had seen it with his own eyes, the way she arched when her lover’s hands were upon her in her head.
The man, whoever he was, did not deserve her. To have broken her heart and then expect to be welcomed back? Had he been married? Freed now by the death of his wife to offer her his hand? Was he married even now? Did he expect her to take a place as his mistress?