Page 7 of A Brush With Love at Brookview Hall (Noble Hearts)

Six

JULIA

“ M ay I move now?” Julia held her last pose as Mr Robertson clenched and released his fingers and rolled his head on his neck. Her shoulders felt as stiff as the wood supporting the canvases, and she thought she had lost feeling in her toes.

The artist snapped his head towards her.

“Yes! Of course. I ought to have said so. Thank you. You are an excellent subject. My only difficulty will be in choosing which pose to paint.”

He bent down to capture a selection of the many sketches he had done of her face and hands, and shuffled them for a moment, stopping now and then to examine one more closely.

Julia shook out her aching feet and began to rub at her shoulders where they met her neck. Heavens, but it was no easy work being an artist’s model. Testing her foot on the ground, and feeling no creeping pins and needles, she inched forward to look at the various drawings Mr Robertson had made.

“Why, these are very good!”

“You need not sound so surprised,” he answered in mock indignation, and she had to laugh.

“I did not mean… Of course, they are good. I mis-spoke. It is only that one is not used to being drawn by so skilled an artist. Selina’s sketches are very fine, but one must make allowances for her youth.”

“Art is a matter of both innate skill and hard work, Miss Lyddon. Miss Selina has the raw talent. Now she must apply the effort.”

She tilted her head as she contemplated him.

“That is not what you said the other day, when you arrived so… so unexpectedly.”

“And so late. Yes, I admit it. What did I say then?”

Julia pursed her lips.

“Only that art is a matter of feeling more than technique. Yet now you seem to imply the opposite.”

He gave her a smile that did strange things to her belly.

She had previously noticed, abstractly, that he was handsome, but had considered that as worth little, a treat for the eyes but of no real value.

But now, something about him was worming its way into her better opinion, and she was uncertain how she felt about it.

“Art is most certainly a matter of feeling, of finding the heart of one’s subject, whether that be a landscape or a bowl of fruit.”

“Or a person?” Her eyebrows rose.

“Yes, or a person. I wish to understand something about you, who you are when you are not standing before your pupils. I want to convey more than your appearance. You, yourself, said that you felt the gathering storm in this seascape. Without feeling, a painting is a mere record of some image. It might be accurate, but it does not make you feel. I wish to make my viewers feel . And yet, without technique and practice, one cannot achieve those lofty goals.”

Perhaps there was more to Mr Robertson than she had initially imagined.

He strode to the wall of windows and gazed outside.

“It is a fine afternoon, and there is still time before we are expected for dinner. Come and walk with me. After sitting for so long, you must be in want of exercise, and I feel likewise. Perhaps towards the cliffs?”

The pocket watch she carried told her the time was not yet half-past-four.

While Julia usually joined the children for their early dinner—the better to instruct them on proper manners and etiquette—the adults, including Selina and Harriet, dined later.

Mr Robertson had been invited to join these meals, and for the duration of his tenure at Brookview Hall, Julia was expected to join them as well.

She wondered if this was some particular affectation on the part of Mr Derriscott, who wished to boast of dining with a renowned artist, without having the bother of actually having to converse with him.

Regardless, they had nearly three hours at their disposal before the meal was served, and over two hours before Julia must wash and change. A walk sounded like just the thing.

For the first few minutes, they walked in relative silence.

They had spoken during this first session, of course, but the exchange had been entirely centred around their business.

“Move your head to the left, fold your hands one over the other, look up.” There had been no real conversation, and despite having spent all afternoon with the man, Julia had no idea of what to say to him.

But a question had been simmering, unknown even to herself, and she found herself asking it almost before the words formed in her mind.

“Mr Robertson, why are you here?”

If he was offended, he did not show it.

“I am here to instruct the children in painting,” he replied in a matter-of-fact voice.

“That is not what I meant. There are plenty of children throughout England with a need for tutelage in art. Why here? Why in this tiny part of Cornwall, so very far from the galleries and the salons and the society of fellow artists you must crave. We are not quite at the end of the world, but it does feel that way at times. Surely, one of your talent could find a position anywhere you wished.”

“I might turn the question around, Miss Lyddon. Why are you here? Do you not wish to be closer to town, to the balls and afternoon visits that surely formed part of your youth? You are a lady; it is evident. And you are young and, as I said before, beautiful. You might still marry well and have your own home.”

Julia swallowed. He knew little of how much his words stung.

“A woman has little choice, and a woman of… of society, less still. I am grateful to Mr Derriscott for taking me on. But I asked about you. Why here?”

Mr Robertson stopped in his steps and spread his arms wide, turning in a slow circle, his face turned up towards the sky.

“Look about you! Open not only your eyes, Miss Lyddon, but your heart. Look at the sun, the grass, the woods. There, yonder, you can hear the waves crashing at the shore. Is it not lovely? Does it not move your spirit? I am here to paint it all, to capture this natural beauty that surrounds us in paint and movement.” He spun about once more, then stopped his revolutions to face her.

“I have mentioned my upcoming exhibition. This, all this, shall be a great part of it. And everybody in England will be clamouring to see this glorious countryside that you call home.”

They continued walking for a moment. The distant sounds of the sea grew clearer as they moved.

“I had already planned to spend time here, in these parts,” he said after a few more steps.

“An acquaintance, a wealthy gentleman who is a respected patron of many artists, knows somebody who had heard of Miss Selina’s talents.

I sent a letter to Mr Derriscott, stating my intentions and asking if he wished to engage me for a time, and he agreed at once.

So, you see, I am here quite voluntarily. Willingly, even.”

“Then you are a rara avis , Mr Robertson. It is beautiful here, I admit, but I feel the isolation at times.”

They had been walking for about twenty minutes now, first towards and then along the cliffs.

Picking their way along the path that traced the precipice, high above the crashing waves, Julia led her companion for a distance to a particularly dramatic outlook over a small cove, dotted with jagged rocks, ornamented by screeching gulls.

“Behold, Mr Robertson. I must admit that even I am not immune to this beauty.”

“We are to be colleagues, Miss Lyddon, and more so, friends, so I hope. I said I wish to paint not only the face I see, but the person beneath it. Can you let off calling me Mr Robertson and use my given name? We artists are a strange set, I admit, but I cannot abide such formality when we strive to peer into another’s soul. ”

“Such talk is quite alarming!” Julia backed up instinctively, from her companion as much as from the precipice a few feet away.”

“I mean no harm by it. I only wish to see some of the strictures stripped away, so I can paint you , the real you. When you call me Mr Robertson, you erect walls. My name is Cornelius. Is that so hard to say?”

“Cornelius.” She tested the sound in her mouth. “A Roman name. Or are you named for the centurion from the Bible?”

“I believe,” he replied, “that my mother simply liked the sound of it. My older brother was burdened with the family names of my father’s choosing. I was the late arrival, coming after my siblings were almost grown, and my mother insisted on having her choice. I do approve. Can you use it?”

“Cornelius,” Julia repeated. “I can try.”

“And you? I cannot go on calling you Miss Lyddon, unless you absolutely insist.”

This was rather unsettling, but there seemed to be much about artists that was unconventional. A little thrill of rebellion raced through her veins.

“I beg you not to use it in company, or near the children, but my name is Julia.”

He beamed at her, a sight that almost outshone the sun. Grabbing her hand, he clenched it in his own and raised it to the level of their hearts.

“Likewise, a Roman name.” He beamed. “Then, Julia, it is done, and we are now fast friends.”

What a strange man this was, and how unusual, but somehow, Julia could not find it within herself to object.

This now became their routine.

After the main lessons of the day were complete, Julia would leave the younger children to Miss Kingstone’s care while the older ones amused themselves, after which she would wander down to the old greenhouse where Cornelius had set up his studio.

They were usually quiet while he worked, other than any necessary communication, but afterwards they would talk.

Sometimes, if the weather was dreary, she would peruse his existing landscapes while he cleaned his tools, asking questions about this or that, or commenting on any work he had done on his landscapes since last she had seen them.

At other times, when the sky was clear, they would wander through the grounds of Brookview Hall, enjoying the scenery and each other’s company.

On days when they finished early, Julia led Cornelius through the further parts of the grounds, out along the coast for three miles or so, past ponds and beaches, and an assortment of outbuildings and other structures.

“There is a hide there, scarcely visible, where you can watch the birds,” she explained, pointing through a clutch of low trees to the wooden structure behind them.

“And there are some storage sheds that I can lead you past. None is particularly lovely to see, but you might find them of interest to paint. Some overlook the cliffs and the little islands off the shore.”

On one day Julia took him in the other direction.

There, a narrow path meandered through the woods towards a stream, from which the house took its name.

It ran through the little valley between two rocky hills before widening into the pond that Mr Derriscott had built two years before.

The pool was striking, with its geometric lines in the French style, and supplied with a number of statues both around the perimeter and on plinths set in the water, and this, Cornelius opined aloud, was the vista from which their employer hoped he would paint the house.

“It is a fine enough prospect, I dare say.” He stood, feet planted apart and hands on his hips, taking in the view.

He stepped to this side, and then to that, and then crouched low to the ground.

“It will not be my finest work, for the lines are too contrived for my tastes, but I can provide him with a painting he can crow about.”

Then he turned his attention to the house itself, rising in its grey Palladian majesty from the beautifully landscaped grounds past the pool. How well it was set off by the carefully placed trees and shrubs, how elegant it looked with the manicured gardens spread before it.

“Was the house always thus?” Cornelius asked. “Somebody has put a great deal of effort into making so pleasing a vista.”

Julia shrugged. “This is a recent endeavour. Along with the pool, Mr Derriscott had the gardens redesigned only four or so years ago, after my arrival here. It is magnificent, but a bit too grand for me.”

“It will make an impressive painting.”

With this easy rapport that she and Cornelius had stumbled into, a budding friendship, even, Julia was quite shocked when, the following day and with no notice whatsoever, the artist had disappeared.