Chapter Sixteen #3
When Mrs Edwards pulled back the large drapes at the windows, light flooded the room, and the sense of those other-worldly beings scuttling away like beetles to lurk in other dismal corners filled me with relief.
I couldn’t think what was the matter with me, but the ancient house felt as if the shadows it contained would consume me.
I longed to tell Thomas, but I thought he might laugh at me.
He didn’t look in the least bothered by the house or by Mrs Edward’s teasing, and then I couldn’t help thinking he’d be justified in finding me amusing.
My imagination was running away with me.
I couldn’t help remembering the tale about La Baccelli scandalising society by wearing the Sackville jewels at a ball in the house, and knew this was the very room where she’d danced with her duke as she sparkled in diamonds.
I could imagine the fine company standing by the huge window like bejewelled peacocks as they cooled down after a vigorous dance, and the moonlight filtering through to silver every precious object and painting.
On one side of the magnificent marble chimneypiece next to a row of old family pictures was a portrait that particularly stood out.
‘And that,’ said Mrs Edwards, pointing to it, ‘is my master as a young man - and a very good likeness of him too. Do you not think him very handsome?’
The Duke of Dorset’s portrait was undeniably striking - he was a very good-looking gentleman. I couldn’t help thinking about the statue of Madame Baccelli, in contrast to this portrait of a gentleman richly clothed from head to toe.
‘You’ll see a more up-to-date picture as we go along, and a fine one of my mistress,’ the housekeeper added, pausing to straighten a gilt armchair, carved with cherubs’ heads and swags of foliage. I wondered if Madame Baccelli would be fully clothed in her portrait.
It was a short step to the gallery with its rows of gilded portraits from another age lining the dark, panelled walls.
‘Did you ever see such a set of frights?’ said Mrs Edwards and laughed again, though it wasn’t a happy sound, more like a witch’s cackle, I decided, sounding menacing in the gloom of the passageway.
I looked back at the unsmiling faces. I could feel their eyes boring into mine from garlanded frames as they followed our progress along the gallery.
Once again I felt troubled and apprehensive - as if the very portraits on the walls were saying I didn’t belong there and I was unwelcome.
We were shown many rooms, richly furnished, each leading from one to another in a building where the age and history of all that had happened there seemed to press around us. And then we turned into a room where the walls were blood red, lined with crimson velvet, and covered in large pictures.
‘Here are Mr Reynolds’ paintings,’ said Mrs Edwards. ‘The Duke of Dorset is a great collector of his work, especially his fancy pictures. I don’t hold with all of them, myself, but he can certainly paint.’
Thomas pointed out the picture of Wang-y-Tong, the Chinese page he’d told me about, and I could see instantly why Thomas had liked him so much.
He had a gentle expression, if a melancholy air about him.
Looking into the distance, I wondered if he’d been dreaming of his home, as he sat for his portrait, and the friends and family he’d left behind.
‘Oh, that’s Warnaton, that’s what we servants called him,’ said Mrs Edwards, ‘the mistress still misses him terribly. He was always such good company for her when the duke was away, and such a clever boy, always top of his class at school.’
‘Look here, Jane,’ said Thomas showing me another picture of a learned looking man with dark hair, heavy brows and generous lips. ‘I think you’ll be interested in this one. It’s Dr Johnson.’
‘Oh yes,’ I cried, stepping forward to examine it closer. ‘I’m a great admirer of Dr Johnson’s writing, though he looks a little stern here, as if anxious to explain his point of view.’
‘And that’s a very striking painting,’ Thomas dashed along, pointing to another one on the opposite side of the room. ‘It shows Count Ugolino and his sons in the Dungeon at Pisa.’
‘Oh, from Dante’s Inferno,’ I cried, and saw the awful expression on the father’s face as he realised with horror that he’d been sealed into the dungeon. ‘It’s perfectly horrid … I cannot imagine why anyone would want to paint such a distressing subject or have any pleasure in looking at it.’
‘There seems to be a macabre theme running through many of the works in this room, don’t you think? Look at this one of the gipsy telling the young girl’s fortune, while she sits on her lover’s knees. What have you to say about that one?’
I spoke without reserve. ‘I think she’s being told she will soon be his wife, but how can she laugh and look so pleased, without knowing what marriage entails?
I do not like the way the boy restrains her, as if he has possession of her young soul.
She cannot see that is how her life with him will be.
Oh, Thomas, it is such an unsettling picture … I cannot like it.’
The heat in the dark room felt suddenly oppressive, and the paintings seemed to crowd and swim above my head in a sea of vermillion.
So many faces were staring back at me - leering, and laughing, as if they were capable of coming to life and living a secret existence as soon as we disappeared.
There were other paintings - disturbing pictures of children - poor wretches in ragged clothes - Mercury as a cut-purse in a winged hat with a miserable, menacing expression, and Cupid who was equally pitiful, dressed as a link-boy with sooty bat’s wings, and a smoking black torch, set against a city landscape - both pictures far more sinister in my eyes than any other paintings in the room.