Chapter 10 #3
“She’s too humble to say it, but she’s actually married to the prince,” announced Vern.
Nobody but a trained conservator could have glimpsed his knowing wink.
Florrie flushed, but she did find it strangely sweet that Vern would attempt a protective lie on her behalf.
He clearly had not overheard what Aesti said about the practice’s recent obsoletion.
“You are married to Ardant,” Lord Mauve stated in a tautly furious voice. “And he sent his new bride to rid himself of his least favourite painting?”
Though Florrie could not guess at the cause of Lord Mauve’s dismay, she suspected she ought to alter Vern’s bold proclamation, to keep their host in better spirits.
“My friend made an understandable error.” She willed Vern not to contradict her. “Prince Ardant is my employer, who charges me with maintaining his collections. But I am also married to… well, er – a different prince. As circumstance would have it. Please don’t blame Vern for confusing the two.”
Lord Mauve tapped his fingers solemnly against his arm as he pondered this entirely implausible situation. “You are married to one prince and employed by another?”
“Precisely! Working for a prince, wed to a prince. It’s princes day and night, you know.”
“The only way to live, I’m sure,” Lord Mauve muttered. He straightened back into his regal posture and sniffed imperiously.
“If you aren’t Ardant’s bride, I can’t imagine why you’d come here with that painting.
In truth, I would rather not know. As it happens, however, I am a scholar at heart, possessed by an irrepressible inquisitiveness.
” Lord Mauve’s breath seemed to catch, and he quickly coughed to cover his gasp.
“I don’t suppose he noticed something different about it? ”
Florrie coughed to cover her own gasp. “That you replaced The Resolute Portrait with a forgery?”
“Yes, of course I did,” he said. “Did Prince Ardant notice anything else?”
“Such as what?”
“It’s been nearly ten years, or a hundred, or something like that,” continued Lord Mauve. “Could Ardant remain oblivious for so long? Well – knowing him, perhaps… No, he must not know. He would have come himself.”
“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Florrie asked. “You replaced the painting ten years ago. But why?”
“No, I shall not indulge you! Likely Ardant has commanded you to force it out of me – to make me pay further penance.” Though Florrie shook her head vehemently at this suggestion, Lord Mauve simply sighed.
“But that is only what I deserve, so pay it I shall. Yes, I stole the painting, a fortnight after the worst day of my life. Did you hear the precise way in which I described that day? Note that well, Florrie, because he must know.”
“Know what?” Though she did not want to invoke the Fairy lord’s wrath, Florrie was beginning to feel rather frustrated. “If there is something significant about your history with Prince Ardant, Lord Mauve, I swear he told me nothing of it. I took it upon myself to locate the original painting—”
“Forget that accursed painting!” Lord Mauve grabbed the ball again so he could roll it angrily about his palm. “It’s brought me nothing but heartbreak. I thought the heist would help after Ardant and I ended our engagement, but, clearly, I was a fool to think so.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Florrie.
“How romantic!” said Vern. “Goodness, there are so many ballads about broken engagements, and they’re rarely broken for long…”
“Has he truly told you nothing?” seethed Lord Mauve.
“Yes. In my youth, I made quite a name for myself in Stillscape society. Nobody expected me – the most promising practitioner of the athletic arts this side of the canyon – to become a scholar specialising in Folk history. But it was my greatest passion, so I abjured my feats of strength in favour of my books, following the fine example of the exceptional scholar Hyacinthine Mire. How I idolised them, as a youth! Mire spent nearly a century living in Stillscape, they did, and returned with the conviction that no dry research could teach us as much as experiencing your galleries and galas – so that’s precisely what I did.
When, in the interim, that old bore Loftus asked me to pose for a portrait at an autumn ball, I was thrilled.
Then my fellows grew tired of you Folk and your peculiar dedication to artistic naturalism.
Soon, I was the only Fairy among my ‘set’ who visited your realm. ”
“I imagine that must have been difficult,” Florrie said, cautiously.
“Everyone was bored of Folk society, yet I was bored of Fairy society!” He threw his hands in the air.
“I loved your carriages and cottages and old-fashioned insistence upon doing everything in the most difficult way. Most of all, I loved your art – and The Resolute Portrait best of all. Not because I am so enamoured of my appearance – why, I have an entire gallery of historical looking-glasses; I have no need to gawp at myself as I am. The portrait showed the man I would like to be. Strong and unshakeable and rather fetching in the moonlight. Consequently, I developed the habit of sneaking into your city to see which collector possessed my portrait at any moment.”
“Rather fetching in the moonlight, did he say?” asked Vern. “Is that really how I look, Florrie?”
Florrie had the good sense to avoid sharing her thoughts on that matter.
“Many years ago, I began patronising the Commonplace Palace,” Lord Mauve continued.
“I would wait until midnight, shrink to an appropriate size to steal through a keyhole, and return to my usual form within the gallery. One evening, however, I found I was not the only one looking upon my portrait. Before the painting was the most striking Folk man, who was studying me – me – with great intention.”
Lord Mauve’s gaze drifted to the cabinets on the ceiling.
“I stood in silence for some time. I dared not disturb him.
He stared at the painting, and I stared at him.
Though I could not quite see his face from the front, I observed as much as I could.
The proud angle to his chin. That perfect little skin-mark, just to the right of his strong nose.
The intensity of his gaze was like nothing else.
Why, I feared he might forget to breathe!
“Consumed by my amazement, I made the lamentable error of stepping too loudly on that ghastly stone floor. The man stirred. Our eyes met. He moved towards me like a figure in a dream. He ought to have been more surprised. If he’d had any sense at all, he would have been startled.
“Instead, all he said was, Why, it’s you.”
At that point, Lord Mauve paused. Florrie was well into the process of determining a socially appropriate way of continuing the conversation, when she heard Vern speak.
“Was that all it took?” he asked. “You saw each other and you fell in love?”
Lord Mauve shook his head.
“I consider myself a learned fellow, little stranger. No true bonds form simply from seeing someone comely in a gallery. But that experience we shared – the feeling of looking so intently, all alone, only to realise someone was looking back the entire time – it was enough. It was a start.”
It was also oddly familiar to Florrie. That day, when she’d first laid eyes on The Resolute Portrait and stared at it for a quarter-hour – she never would have guessed that a curious, lonesome Fairy might return her gaze from behind the canvas.
“And you two became engaged?” she said, to distract herself.
Lord Mauve nodded. “After a thoroughly pleasant courtship, yes. But then the trouble began. I was expected to take over my family’s collections, just as he was. One of us needed to give up life as we knew it for the other’s sake – and I was happy for that to be me.”
“How lovely,” sighed Vern. “Just like in ‘The Grim Lord Wanders Homeward’.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Lord Mauve.
To Florrie’s surprise, the Vibrant Lord fell to his knees to see the painting at eye level.
“You impress me, little Lord Mauve,” Lord Mauve said. “You are like me in every way, and yet I don’t know the first thing about you. How startling that your very existence resulted from the artist’s only mistake – rendering my expression in such an unbecoming manner.”
“Florrie thinks it suits me!”
“The change in expression makes the painting quite singular, from an artistic standpoint,” Florrie explained, hastily. “But please, Lord Mauve, I don’t think I quite understand. How in the world did your engagement conclude with an act of art theft?”
“If I must…,” groaned Lord Mauve as he rose to his feet.
“The prince and I, despite our mutual attraction and shared interests in the fine arts, athletics, and ribald Folk poesy of the fourteenth century – despite all that, we had our differences, too. I found him overly affectionate, occasionally frivolous and disappointingly disengaged from his responsibilities. He’d promise the sky to everyone and become too overwhelmed to deliver a single cloud, in a manner of speaking.
In return, he found me cold, dismissive and excessively formal, though I can’t imagine why.
We were trying to plan an existence together, and I couldn’t ask him to be serious without being called a stuffed-shirt scholar.
It all concluded with a calm but candid debate, during which he ended the engagement, for our mutual benefit, and I departed. ”