Page 12

CHAPTER XI.

WHICH INTRODUCES ONE LECHEROUS PAINTER AND ONE INNOCENT LAMB.

G rowing weary of his wife’s jealousies, Mr Pounds commissions a portrait of Mrs Pounds to occupy her days. He hires a Mr Gotthard Johnson, a half-German, half-Scottish castaway from the Leeds Academy of Fine Art who allegedly studied under a well-known society portrait painter, and who also happens to be a bit of a lecher, judging by the way he kisses and caresses Drusilla’s hand upon meeting her.

After debating several figures from ancient myth amid uproarious cackles that disturb my lessons in the school-room, the painter and his subject have settled on Flora, Roman goddess of spring. As Rembrandt did with his wife, Mr Johnson has swathed Mrs Pounds in green and silver silk and has fashioned a crown and staff from flowers which do not, in fact, bloom in spring, but which one hopes the artist will accurately replace on the canvas.

Between lessons I have been tasked with waiting on them in a corner, holding bolts of fabric in the crook of my arm and an assortment of flowers strewn on a silver tray in my hands. I stand in complete silence, Mrs Pounds’ eyes widening irately at me anytime I swallow.

Mr Johnson had at first proposed a Flora in the style of Titian, but Mr Pounds objected, surely reluctant to hang a portrait of his wife, half-dressed, the rim of her areola peering over her dressing-gown, anywhere in his home.

Mrs Pounds maintains a wan smile as all diaphanous, flower-loving deities do, at the ready to be plucked and ravished, resigned to their fates but welcoming them.

I swallow – I cannot help it now.

‘Miss Notty, you might need some honey for that cough,’ Mrs Pounds says.

‘Please – do not move,’ moans the painter.

Mrs Pounds gives a virulent grimace. Johnson procures a new tube of paint and through a performance of elaborate postures we can all see that it is from Roberson and Co in London. The shade is ‘Mummy Brown’. If mummified Egyptians had known they were fated to be pulverized to produce an umber for such a mediocre painter, they surely would have chosen other burial options.

A thin brush clenched between his teeth, he directs Mrs Pounds in the placement of a satin mantle and she slouches into an unflattering pose, making her appear with child.

AFTERWARDS, I STUMBLE upon Drusilla and the painter behind the screens in the Great Hall, his hands clasping hers with great fervour, one of his rings digging into her palm. They both look at me, startled, and he drops her hands, one of his eyes twitching.

‘Apologies,’ I say, and draw the curtain on them.

DRUSILLA APPEARS LATE to the school-room, a sheen of sweat on her temples.

‘You look rather feverish, Drusilla,’ I remark as she squeezes into her little desk. ‘Are you ill?’

‘I am a lady, and ladies are never ill, we are indisposed ,’ she says, lifting her chin. I must applaud her dignity, however scraggly her plaits and pasty her complexion.

‘None the less I think I should ring for some water,’ I say, tugging the tapestry bell pull.

Andrew leans over to touch one of the burgundy bows of ribbon that has become undone in Drusilla’s hair. She slaps his hand away just as – lo and behold! – the pretty housemaid arrives in answer to the bell.

She proffers a clumsy curtsy, ruffling her starched apron, beaming at me. Her gums are so pronounced, her smile is a fistful of pink flesh. I stay my urge to advance upon her and lick her face, instead emitting a refined cough and asking for a glass of water.

‘Thank you, Miss . . . ?’

‘Sue Lamb, ma’am, at tha’ service.’

‘Miss Lamb.’ I wet my lips.