Page 3 of A Brush With Love at Brookview Hall (Noble Hearts)
Two
JULIA
J ulia sucked in a deep breath as the wooden ball went rolling once more into the pile of small lead soldiers. The resultant din caused her teeth to clench, but Charlie let out another squeal of delight as he called out to his brother, “Now you try again!”
It had been an hour since she had found Miss Kingstone and the children in the schoolroom, an hour since she had informed them that the painting instructor was expected at any moment.
Wishing, for Mr Derriscott’s sake if nothing else, to make a good impression, she had brushed the children’s hair, straightened their clothing, and checked that there were no remnants of the pond—or its amphibious inhabitants—under their fingernails or anywhere else about their persons.
She had given them a lecture on the importance of excellent behaviour, as befitting the offspring of a gentleman as respected as their father and a lady as eminent as their mother, and then set them down on their chairs to wait, ready to leap to their feet the moment the new instructor entered the room.
An hour.
It had been an hour, and still the painter had not arrived.
At first, when she had expected to wait for only a minute more, Julia had decided to talk about the morning’s excursion to the pond. She asked the children what they had seen—reeds, grass, fish, and yes, frogs—and tried to carve a small lesson from the few minutes they had.
Then, when they had quite exhausted the topic and he still was not there, she had the children recite their multiplication tables and repeat their spelling words.
Then she had suggested that the older girls read quietly to themselves, while she read a short book for children to Charlie and Roger, who were too young to read anything without a great deal of assistance.
Twenty minutes had elapsed, then thirty. And still, the painting master had not arrived.
Whatever was she to do now?
With no message that the newcomer was particularly delayed, Julia could not begin a new lesson, for it would be most troublesome to be interrupted shortly after beginning.
Nothing would be learned, and it would set the children off poorly.
She tried what games she knew, and attempted to have the children recite the poetry they had been learning, but her own attention was as much on the door as on her charges, and her efforts were quite for nought.
Eventually, she gave up all hope of teaching them anything, and wished only to keep them somewhat under control.
The older girls were no trouble. Selina and her friend took themselves off to a corner to chat and sketch on their notepads, and at Julia’s fervent request, they invited Annie to join them.
What topic kept their heads together as they were, interjected with the occasional giggle, Julia did not know, but they were quiet and calm, and she had to be satisfied.
The little boys were more trouble.
They were difficult enough to manage during lessons. Oh, they were not bad children, nor particularly naughty, but little boys want to run and squirm and are loath to be turned into gentlemen. Without even the structure of some exercises to keep them occupied, they were quite wild.
Charlie began to run in circles, making noises like the lions they had read about the previous week, and started pulling all the books off the shelves.
Roger, while somewhat easier at first to settle with some suitable activity, was quickly drawn into his younger brother’s games, and before long, the two children were tearing about the room as if it was a racecourse.
None of Miss Kingstone’s efforts could quiet them, and soon the girls were raising their voices as well, complaining of the racket.
With instructions to have the children ready at a moment’s notice for the art instructor, sending Annie and the young ladies off was impossible, and the schoolroom descended further into chaos with every passing moment.
Forty minutes…
Only the suggestion of a game of bowls with the toy soldiers restored any sort of order to the turmoil, and that was with a clamour that must have been heard in the kitchens several storeys below.
Once more, the wooden ball went rattling across the thin carpet, before crashing into the double line of toy soldiers, an outsized cannonball wrecking the neat military lines that Charlie and Roger had set up moments before.
The din of the metal figurines colliding with each other was nothing to the whoops of glee from the two miniature generals, who jumped up and down, shaking the other toys and teaching tools on the tables and causing Julia’s head to throb all the more.
Fifty…
If the Duke of Wellington had been in possession of such a tool, or such young martials, a decade before, Napoleon’s armies would have stood no chance at all. Perhaps, Julia considered through the pounding in her skull, she could use such a game in their history lessons next week.
An hour…
With this vague notion in mind, her eyes followed the ball across its path of destruction. Across the carpet, towards the door?—
—Where they encountered not the painted wood she expected, but two brown boots, the bottoms covered in mud, out of which stretched two long legs encased in light brown trousers.
Slowly raising her head, she took in the rest of the person’s body.
He wore a simple coat in darker brown over a nondescript waistcoat.
A dark red scarf, looped in a single knot, served in place of a cravat, and his collar was open at the neck.
Wild hair, light brown and too long, topped a face that might be handsome if worn by a tidier sort of person.
Bits of grass and dried leaves clung to his sleeves.
Julia scrambled to her feet. The children had not yet noticed the newcomer.
“Who, sir, are you?” she asked in her best school marm’s voice. The children finally stopped their games and turned towards the door.
“Cornelius Robertson, the painting master, at your service.” The man swooped into a mockery of a courtly bow. “Were you not expecting me? I was told you were all waiting.” His glance swept the room. “Are the children always so poorly behaved?”
His voice was rich and musical, his cultured tones quite at odds with his countrified appearance.
Had Julia seen the man in the streets of the village, she would have taken him for a farmer or itinerant labourer.
His vowels suggested otherwise. Still, such was her anger at the moment that his elegant tones and stormy blue eyes could all go to the dickens.
She pulled herself to her full height—admittedly nothing intimidating—and glared back.
“The children, sir, were perfectly behaved an hour ago when we were told to expect you. I might ask if you are always so poorly behaved that you cannot be punctual, or send word as to when you might be expected. Mr Derriscott implied that you would join us within moments. An hour ago.” She enunciated those last words with cold precision.
His eyes narrowed for a moment, and he opened his mouth as if to offer a retort, but then snapped it closed. He pushed a hand through his hair, revealing the paint-stained cuffs of his sleeves.
“The weather was fine, and I thought to take a short stroll through the gardens,” he stated. “But the sun called to me, and I could not stop walking. Did you know that the house lies only half a mile from the cliffs?” His voice now took on the enthusiasm of a child.
“I could have informed you of that,” Julia replied, ice in her tone.
“The view down to the rocks on the beach is wonderful. And the seascape, with the cove and that outcropping further along the water, is magnificent. I had to keep following the path, to see what other delights it might bring to the eyes. How can one force oneself inside, to a dreary classroom, when all the glories of nature are unfolded before us? The crash of the waves, the caress of sunlight, the gentle kiss of the late summer breeze…” He swept his arms wide, letting the words float in the air like motes of dust. His smile was one of dreams.
“Could you not spare a moment to think of others? We were here, in this dreary classroom, as you term it, waiting for you this whole time, with no idea as to your whereabouts. Had you sent a note, we could have started a lesson, or reviewed previous classes. But instead, we could do nothing for we expected your appearance at any moment. I do have a classroom to manage, sir, and obligations to my students and my employer to discharge. I cannot have my schedule so disarranged because you wished to walk in the sunshine.”
“And I, madam, am an artist, who must chase inspiration when it blesses me with its presence.” His voice, dripping with feigned indignation, was worthy of an actor.
“To reject the call of the sea, the whisper of the wind, would be akin to rejecting nourishment for the body, or air to breathe. The sky is my master; the sea my mistress. My calling is to capture what nature has given me on canvas, to translate that joy into something to bring sunshine into the hearts of others. What need have I of a schedule? To force me into your neat boxes of time would be to crush the art that I am here to teach.” He spun about again in a wide circle.
“This room is so bleak, so confining. No, I was far better wandering through the fields.”
“I am here to teach the children, to form them into educated and genteel Englishmen and women, who will help lead us into the future, and that requires discipline and structure. Lessons, arithmetic, spelling words, literature, science, history… these are what I offer. They are the tools we all need to move in the world. I cannot teach without regulation.”
“And I, madam, bring joy. Can you say that of your arithmetic?”
The children were gaping at this exchange, and Miss Kingstone rubbed her hands one in the other, looking anywhere but at them.
But the youngest person in the room did not seem bothered by Julia’s frustration at all.
Instead, Charlie stepped forward, the ball and toy soldiers quite forgotten.
He gazed up at the newcomer with big eyes and asked with wonder, “Are you a real artist?”
Mr Robertson’s glower broke at the sound of the child’s whispered question.
He lowered himself to one knee and beamed at the lad.
“I am, at that, my friend. I have brought some paintings to show you, and the supplies to create new, amazing ones. Together, we shall create wonderful art, if you wish. Who are you?”
With his open face and enthusiastic countenance, Julia almost felt herself softening towards him. Almost. For now, she had to regain control of the classroom and dispense with her obligations, so she could, at last, return to the lessons she was expected to teach.
“We will discuss punctuality later. Permit me to introduce the children.” She inserted herself into the conversation, and the artist stood once more.
He was no giant, but was taller than her first impressions had suggested, with broad shoulders and long limbs.
His mouth tightened as she spoke, but it softened into another easy grin as she presented each of his young students by name, starting with the youngest and ending with Selina and Harriet.
“Miss Selina Derriscott’s paintings and sketches have received accolades from the whole neighbourhood, and we hope her talents will flourish even more under your tutelage,” Julia concluded. “The landscape on the wall to your side is hers.”
To her surprise, Mr Robertson moved to the framed watercolour and peered at it for a long time, seeming to give it all possible attention.
At times he stepped back, leaning back further on his heels to take in the entire work, and at others, he pressed his nose almost to the surface of the canvas, scrutinising the strokes from different angles, until at last, he took a great breath and spun around.
“A delightful piece, Miss Derriscott. Your talent is clear.”
The young lady grinned in response. “Thank you, sir.”
“We can work on brush work and blending colours, and with creating depth and movement, but your promise is unmistakable. What have you been doing of late? Is that your sketchbook? Wonderful. A great likeness of your friend. Now, if we add some more shadow there, beneath her chin, and let this part of her cheek almost disappear into the background…”
He had grabbed her pencil and danced it over the sheet as she looked on, until she raised her head with a look of amazement in her eyes.
“Why, that is remarkable. You did almost nothing, but the whole picture has changed! I must learn that! Harriet, shall we draw each other again and attempt this very thing?”
The young ladies scuttled off to their corner, leaving Mr Robertson holding the emended sketch. Even to Julia’s untrained eye, the few strokes he had added to the drawing had rendered it remarkably improved, even from its original excellence.
This man, despite everything, seemed at least to know what he was doing.
No matter how annoying he was, they would have to find a way to work together.