Chapter 10 #4
He re-enacted this memory by pacing furiously around the Pellucid Gallery.
“I came home to soothe myself. I’d barely made it back before I felt wretched.
I maintain I was correct about Ardant’s tendency to overcommit himself, but I can concede he was also correct about me.
He claimed he felt neglected. That I had never once made a grand gesture of love.
Thus, I decided to copy the painting. Fairies rarely stoop to stealing and replacing Folk artwork these days – our tastes have improved immensely – but at the time I found the idea of a changeling painting quaintly nostalgic.
I had the forgery completed by my court artist, made the switch, and waited for Ardant to notice what I’d done. Alas, he never did.”
“Do you mean your grand gesture simply involved stealing his beloved painting and replacing it with a near-indistinguishable fake?” Florrie asked before she could stop herself.
“Near-indistinguishable? Are you such a poor conservator as that?” Lord Mauve spat out a laugh and turned to the painting once more.
“May I?” he asked, seemingly to both Florrie and Vern.
Florrie pulled an extra pair of gloves from her portfolio-bag – Fairies might not have oils on their fingers as Folk did, but it was best to be safe – and offered them to Lord Mauve, who accepted them without a word.
He then proceeded to pick up the painting and began walking backwards with it through the gallery.
“See you in a moment, Florrie!” exclaimed Vern as he gazed at the surrounding cabinets with great interest.
“I took great care to conceal my message, to ensure only Ardant would notice it,” explained Lord Mauve. He stopped, assessed the distance between himself and Florrie, shook his head and continued for a few paces.
Once he reached the other side of the gallery, he called out, “Do you see anything?”
Florrie scrutinised the distant painting. She could discern a flicker of movement that must be Vern, but it was hard to make out any other details. All the brushstrokes seemed to blur together.
“Try half-closing your eyes, like you are about to kiss someone.” Lord Mauve’s face wrinkled with disgust at his own words. “Don’t be flattered. That is merely how I imagined explaining it to Ardant, you see.”
Though she felt horribly embarrassed – and terrified of revealing how long it had been since she’d kissed anyone – Florrie did her best to soften her gaze.
The distant colours blended more dramatically, revealing strange shapes and shadows she never would have seen up close.
In fact, as she tilted her head just slightly, Florrie noticed that the lines and circles formed by the boundaries between the various colours came together to create letters, in Folk script, reading “I am sorry, my prince.”
“You see it!” exclaimed Lord Mauve. With a remarkably quick dash – no doubt evidence of his alleged athleticism – the Fairy lord returned and replaced the painting on the easel. “It is a brilliant bit of artistry, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is,” Florrie said. “But with all due respect, Lord Mauve, you might have concealed your message a little too brilliantly. I don’t imagine Prince Ardant has ever looked at this painting closely enough to see it. Why, he never wears his spectacles!”
“I gave him those spectacles,” Lord Mauve fumed.
Florrie snapped the easel’s support arms back into place.
“I don’t mean to offend you, Lord Mauve. I only think you ought to consider the possibility that Prince Ardant ignored you for so long because he never noticed your apology.”
“I suppose that’s also in keeping with his character,” murmured Lord Mauve.
“I can’t claim to know what the prince thinks or feels,” Florrie cautioned, “but I know this painting remains his most treasured possession. If he discovers that the real Resolute Portrait is lost, I fear it will break his heart further. So for the sake of the love you once shared, and by the tenets of curatorial honour, I respectfully request that you return the original painting.”
It didn’t feel like quite the right time to make her plea, but Florrie had grown fretful and fidgety from their extended conversation. Besides, hadn’t their discussion proven that Lord Mauve was more sympathetic to Prince Ardant than they might have expected?
Lord Mauve immediately disproved this assumption by summoning his fiercest frown yet.
“By the tenets of curatorial honour?” he said, mockingly. “What am I – some knightly collector from a courtly ballad?”
Florrie looked to Vern again, who became rather fidgety himself under her scrutiny.
“Sorry,” he said. “Worth a try, right? If it had been me, I would have given it back to you.”
The gallery fell silent as Florrie considered the best course of action.
While the Conservatory did include negotiation among the core skills every working conservator ought to acquire, studying it was optional – Florrie had chosen an extra course in brushwork analysis instead.
She ground her gloved hands against the easel as she tried not to cry.
Florrie couldn’t cry. It was an entirely overblown response to a mundane situation, and it would destroy her professionalism, and yet this was one of those moments when everything felt entirely out of her control.
“May I make a suggestion, Lord Mauve?”
It was Vern’s voice, quiet as always, but loud enough to push through Florrie’s storm of feelings. She let go of the easel and focused on the painting – the flowers, the cottage, the brushstroke textures – and the small, softly-spoken man at the centre of it all.
“Lord Mauve,” said Vern, “what if we approached Prince Ardant on your behalf? We could show him the painting and explain what’s happened.”
“Do you think me so weak that I require some meddlesome third party to make my case to Ardant?”
Lord Mauve cleared his throat. “Because, in truth, I am.”
“Pardon?” said Florrie.
Lord Mauve gazed at the waxwork carousel spinning in the case nearest to his shoulder.
“I wouldn’t know how to begin talking to Ardant after all this time,” he said. “If you choose to reveal the painting’s secrets to him, I won’t complain. Odds are it will amount to nothing.”
“I’m not so certain.” Having calmed herself, Florrie took a moment to think back on her time with the prince.
Though Prince Ardant was more light-hearted than Lord Mauve, she wouldn’t say the prince eschewed his responsibilities in favour of frivolity.
His commitment to his collections and the wellbeing of the visitors astounded her.
Perhaps, just as Lord Mauve had acquired his strange fixation upon informality, Ardant, too, had changed himself over the years.
From what she could recall, the prince also kept a certain pair of spectacles hung safely on a velvet cord in his secret study.
“I suppose, however, that you will not do me this great service unless I give you the painting.” Lord Mauve snorted. “Very well.”
He pulled a notebook from his pocket, opened it, and suddenly employed some creatively foul language that Florrie hoped Vern would not ask about later.
“Is there any scrap of paper in this world that Aesti has not contaminated with her cursed word-puzzles?” Lord Mauve groaned.
“No matter. I suppose the registrars expect nothing less. I shall scratch out my sister’s miserable mess and direct my colleagues to pack The Resolute Portrait for travel post-haste. ”
“I’m afraid there is one additional condition,” Florrie said. She thought she’d said it loudly, but Lord Mauve frowned over his pen and paper and asked her to repeat herself.
“I should have known,” he said. “What now, Miss Florrie? Do you wish to have a gallery named in your honour? Or a Fairy’s hand in marriage? Perhaps my sister might—”
“Thank you, but no.” She glanced at the painting and took a deep breath. “I would like to learn how a Fairy in a changeling painting might be freed, if he wished.”
“Florrie,” Vern whispered. “Thank you!”
“Oh? Is that all? Couldn’t be easier,” said Lord Mauve.
“Truly?” Florrie found herself suddenly inclined to jump up and down – or, she would have, if they weren’t standing atop countless glass cabinets. “How soon can he leave?”
“You misunderstand.” Lord Mauve placed his writing materials back into his pocket. “It is an easy request for me, because I need do little to grant it. I certainly can’t help you myself. Goodness, wherever did you get that idea? From that ballad about the fellow trapped in a portrait?”
“It’s a fine ballad, isn’t it?” said Vern.
“Passable,” Lord Mauve conceded. “At any rate, perhaps my court artist might offer a suggestion.”
“That’s better than nothing, isn’t it?” Vern’s voice sounded painfully eager. “Would you please take us to him now?”
“Now, you say? Oh, very well. Though I should clarify that the question is not whether I can take you to the artist – it is whether he will meet with you.” He pointed an accusatory finger at the canvas. “By which I specifically mean you, little Lord Mauve.”