The painters apprentice, p.15
The Painter's Apprentice, page 15
The Bishop set off at speed back to the palace and they all trotted along behind. He opened a door into a passageway and then another door leading to a library, where he carefully took out a sheaf of papers from a drawer and spread them out on the table.
Beth drew in her breath sharply. The papers were covered by an explosion of colour: painted orange lilies, striped auriculas, anemones, purple tulips and more. ‘But these are exquisite!’
‘Alexander Marshal,’ said the Bishop. ‘He and his wife lived at the palace for several years and he painted many of the plants we grow here.’
‘I should like to meet him.’
‘Alas, he died a few years ago. But your own paintings are quite as good as these, Miss Ambrose.’
Covered in confusion, she shook her head.
‘No false modesty, now! Take another look.’
Beth picked up one of the paintings, a gloriously pink-and-white striped tulip, and took it to the window to study it more closely. Each careful little brush stroke of carmine and madder and moss green glowed and the rendition was lively. She narrowed her eyes while she thought about her own work. These paintings were very good but were they really any more proficient than her own? She looked up to find her mother and the Bishop watching her intently. A tiny bubble of excitement began to fizz in her stomach. ‘Perhaps it is time for me to try again,’ she said.
‘There are a great number of new species of plants here since Mr Marshal died,’ said the Bishop. ‘It’s my intention to document all the flowers that grow in the garden and publish this as a record for gardeners in the known world. If you came to live here at the palace your skill would allow me to achieve that ambition. What do you think, Mistress Ambrose?’
Susannah was silent for a moment. ‘I believe my daughter has the artistic ability to carry out the task.’
‘She has a talent which should be allowed to flower in the public gaze. What is your opinion, Miss Ambrose?’
‘I’m not sure …’ She looked again at the marvellous painting of the exotic tulip and thought she might be able to paint again here, away from the place where Johannes’s absence haunted her and with such a variety of different flowers to inspire her. But would it be too cruel of her to absent herself from Merryfields so soon after Kit’s departure? She glanced again at her mother, saw the apprehension in her green eyes and made up her mind. ‘Merryfields is my home,’ Beth said, smiling reassuringly at Susannah, ‘and I have no wish to leave it.’ Carefully, she put the painting back on the table.
The Bishop sighed. ‘What a pity! I had hoped …’
A strange mixture of regret and relief stirred in Beth’s breast as she walked beside her mother. She was uncomfortable that she appeared to have disappointed the Bishop, who had been so kind to her. ‘Your Grace?’ she said.
He glanced at her, his ready smile playing about his lips. ‘Changed your mind?’
She glanced at Susannah, who stared at the ground as she walked. ‘No, it’s not that. I wondered if you had news of Princess Anne?’
‘Indeed! She was here not two days ago, in excellent spirits. It would seem that she is expecting a happy event.’
‘So, it’s true, then?’ said Beth. ‘I am very happy for her. She confided in me before she left Merryfields that it might be the case.’
‘She has been disappointed before but I will pray for her,’ said the Bishop.
Emmanuel was waiting for them at the landing stage and once they had said their goodbyes and settled themselves into the boat, he cast off.
Chapter 20
Beth stood before her portrait, now hanging on the studio wall. Her painted self stared back at her, a paintbrush in her hand and a mischievous invitation in her eyes. Where had all that self-confidence gone? Taking a fleeting look over her shoulder, she wondered if she would catch sight of Johannes’s shadow hovering over his easel but the studio was as quiet as a tomb. The aconite and crocus plants rested on the painting table, their roots still wrapped in damp sacking. She laid them out on a piece of white linen, arranging them carefully so that the leaves and flower heads were seen to their best advantage and began to set out her paints and brushes.
Glancing up at her portrait again she caught her breath in surprise. She moved closer to study the canvas. On the wall behind her painted self was a mirror. In minute detail, there was a reflection of Johannes at work on her portrait. He wore his usual sacking apron around his broad middle and his blond hair stood up in spikes, touched with blue paint. It was Johannes’s last joke: his own miniature portrait contained within her own.
Laughter bubbled up within her, breaking the uneasy silence in the studio. Johannes had thought she could paint; he’d even said there was no more he could teach her. It was up to her now to refine her skill and to be her own taskmaster.
Taking a deep breath, she picked up her brush.
A few days later, Beth was helping her mother in the apothecary. The memory of Johannes’s impassioned plea in his letter to her reverberated in her mind. Look beyond your small dreams. Go into the world and let people see your work. Reach for the heavens and I know you will find you can go further than you believe is possible.
At last, she could bear it no longer. ‘Mama? I don’t wish to make you unhappy but I do so very much want to go and work at the palace. If I stay at home I know I’ll always regret the lost opportunity.’
Susannah was silent for a moment. ‘I’ve seen your new paintings. Henry Compton’s aconite and crocuses seem to have set you on your way again. They are as fine as anything we saw by Alexander Marshal.’ Susannah sighed. ‘It’s selfish of me to want to keep you by my side when you have a gift that the world should know about. If you wish to go I will not prevent you.’
Beth bit her lip. Excitement fought with trepidation again at the thought of it.
‘Let us go together to talk to your father,’ said Susannah.
William was in the library looking out of the window and Beth was concerned to see that his eyes were unnaturally bright.
‘What is it, Father?’ she asked, reaching for his hand.
He sighed. ‘I was wondering what Kit is doing. It’s a hard thing to accept that he may never return home. And I fear for Merryfields with no one to carry on my work.’
‘But the funds from Princess Anne have helped, haven’t they?’
‘Not nearly enough. We must find another way to bring more income into the household. We have the capacity for more guests but not the funds.’
‘Then perhaps I can help,’ said Beth slowly. ‘I would like to accept Bishop Compton’s invitation to work at the palace, after all. I’d meet people of importance and I can tell them about the work you do at Merryfields. Perhaps they may have relatives or friends who might come here.’
‘No!’ William’s jaw clenched. ‘I’m not having you racketing across the countryside to stay, unchaperoned, in a place full of strangers.’
‘Father, it’s not some terrible den of iniquity, it’s a bishop’s palace.’
William stood up, his brow thunderous. ‘Do not presume to argue with me, miss!’
‘Can’t you see what an opportunity this is?’
‘Silence!’
Sudden anger and despair made Beth clench her fists. ‘Why do you have to stop me doing the one thing that’s important to me? You’ve never loved me like you love your own children!’
William’s face blanched and a muscle trembled in his jaw. ‘That isn’t true,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve always thought of you as my own.’
‘No, you haven’t! I’ve never fitted in. I even look different from them.’
Susannah, her expression shocked, reached for Beth, who avoided her embrace and stumbled out of the room.
Beth ran outside, down the steps into the courtyard and through to the back garden, not stopping until she reached the potting shed where she threw herself, sobbing, on to a heap of sacks in the corner. She buried her face in the rough, earth-scented sacking and howled.
Probably ten minutes later she heard a noise behind her.
Mutely, John offered her a grubby handkerchief and sat down beside her. ‘This is where I come, too, when I’m m-m-miserable,’ he said. Do you want to talk about it?’
‘No,’ she sniffed, leaning against the reassuring warmth of him. Then she told him all that had passed. ‘I’ve always felt so different from you and Cecily and Kit because Father isn’t my father,’ she finished.
‘Funny that,’ said John. ‘You see, I’ve always f-f-felt different from you and Kit and Cecily. Kit is my big brother: tall and handsome. Father really never sees me because Kit’s star shines too brightly. He was so proud of the son who was going to be a doctor. And then Cecily is so very p-p-pretty and lively. And you, well you look so like our lovely mama and you have an extraordinary talent. Then there’s m-m-me. I’m not handsome or clever. I always have earth under my fingernails and no one listens to me because I s-s-stutter. Sometimes I think I mean no more to Father than one of the g-g-guests.’
‘Oh, John!’ Beth hugged him so tightly he grunted. ‘But you can make anything grow in the garden. You know how to make sick plants thrive and you guide and encourage the guests to make their own gardens. You never make fun of them or judge them when they behave oddly. And you are handsome. You must know that you are a younger version of Kit? Just look at yourself in the mirror!’
‘Do you t-t-think so?’ he asked.
‘I do.’
He stared at her intently. ‘Did you know there’s a dead s-s-spider in your hair?’
William didn’t come to take his meals in the great hall during the week following Beth’s outburst but remained cloistered in his study.
Beth was pleased to avoid his company but she couldn’t put out of her mind the memory of his hurt expression when she accused him of favouring his own children. She relived the incident over and over again, angry and self-righteous one moment and then overcome with guilt. Did he really favour them? She’d lived with those jealous thoughts for so long she couldn’t remember where they came from, or even one example of favouritism to support her argument. Perhaps it was only that she loved Father so much that when her siblings arrived she had been jealous, as a small child will be. These troubling thoughts twisted around in her mind like a spider twirling on a strand of silk in the breeze.
Early the following morning Beth found the door to William’s study was firmly shut. She’d tossed and turned all night and knew that she would not be happy until she had spoken to him. Tentatively, she knocked and then went in.
William stood by the window, looking out at the garden.
‘Father?’ she whispered.
He whirled round at the sound of her voice, his face set. ‘Beth.’
She didn’t know how to begin. She wanted to run to him and bury her face in the safety of his chest, just as she had when she was a little girl. If she spoke, she thought she might cry so she simply looked at his shoes.
‘Beth,’ he said again. Then he took two strides across the room and crushed her to his chest.
Weeping, she clung to him. At last he let her go and held her at arm’s length. ‘Look at me, Beth!’ he said. ‘I’ve loved you from the first time I saw you when you were only a week or two old. You squinted at me as if you didn’t much like what you saw and then smiled with milk dribbling down your chin. You captured my heart and hold it still. Love is a funny thing. It’s not finite but it grows as much as necessary. Yes, of course I love your brothers and your sister but I do not differentiate between you. You are all my children.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘Let us have no more unhappiness.’
She shook her head. ‘But I wish you could understand how much I wish to go to Fulham Palace.’
William sighed. ‘I cannot stand to lose you, Beth, not so soon after Kit …’ He swallowed and cleared his throat. ‘I do see that it is a wonderful opportunity for you but I cannot bear the thought of any harm coming to you.’
‘None will!’
‘I don’t like the idea of you staying alone at the palace.’
‘But it’s too far to travel there every day!’
William bit his lip. ‘If there was a way … Let me think about it. Meanwhile, shall we go down to the hall for breakfast? I think perhaps I could fancy an egg this morning.’
Puffs of white clouds drifted across a powder blue sky and Beth sighed as she leaned back against the sun-warmed garden bench and turned her face up to the spring sunshine.
‘You’ll grow freckles if you do that,’ warned Cecily. ‘Then no one will marry you.’
‘I don’t care if I have freckles and anyway, I’ve decided I shall never marry.’
Cecily squealed. ‘Don’t say that!’
‘I owe that to Johannes. He begged me not to waste his training and if I have little ones there will be no time to paint.’
‘I can’t bear to think of you as a lonely spinster, living all alone and with no children to look after you in your old age.’
‘Don’t worry; I’ll be a devoted aunt to all your offspring and they’ll bring me sugared almonds for Christmas.’
‘That’s not at all the same thing, Beth!’ Cecily suddenly pulled on her sleeve. ‘Look, coming through the orchard gate.’
Beth opened one eye and then sat bolt upright. ‘It’s Noah!’ Sudden warmth flushed her cheeks.
‘And Grandmother is with him. Oh! I do wish I had put on my best dress this morning.’
Arm in arm, Noah and Lady Arabella made stately progress towards them, while Beth and Cecily smoothed their skirts and tidied their hair as best they could.
Cecily ran forward to kiss Lady Arabella.
Beth met Noah’s ironic smile.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I am accompanying Lady Arabella to her house in Windsor to look at the proposed refurbishment work and we thought to call in to break the journey.’
‘You are both very welcome,’ said Beth. ‘In spite of the sunshine it’s cold on the river. Please, come inside and take some refreshments. Cecily, will you run ahead and tell Mama that Lady Arabella and Noah are here?’
‘No need to run, child,’ said Lady Arabella. ‘It’s not ladylike.’
‘No Grandmother.’ Cecily skipped off towards the house.
Lady Arabella sighed. ‘Someone needs to teach that girl how to behave. She has a measure of good looks but she’ll never go anywhere while she acts like a hoyden.’
Beth, in an attempt to give her mother time to ready herself for the surprise visit, engaged Lady Arabella in conversation to delay her progress towards the house. She showed her the newly flowering tulips in the great stone urns at either side of the pleached lime walk and the bank of crocuses. Naturally, these were of no interest to Lady Arabella.
‘There is too much wildness and profusion in this garden,’ she said. ‘For myself, I prefer a garden designed in the French manner with low box hedges and coloured gravels.’ She stopped to disentangle a stray bramble from her skirt. ‘Really, I cannot abide a country garden. It’s all far too untidy.’
Susannah opened the door just in time to prevent Beth from saying something she might regret. She noticed that her mama, slightly out of breath, had found time to change into her second-best gown.
‘Welcome, Arabella,’ said Susannah. ‘And Noah. How kind of you to call.’
While Lady Arabella divested herself of her travelling cloak, Susannah whispered, ‘Beth, fetch your father, will you?’
Beth slipped away to knock on the door of her father’s study.
William looked up from his account books, his brow furrowed.
‘Lady Arabella has descended upon us and Mama is asking for you.’
‘What does that tiresome woman want now?’ he sighed.
‘She’s taking Noah to Windsor to see what he can do to modernise Sir George’s house.’
‘I expect she wants to trick it up and make it more ostentatious to suit her affectations.’
‘Noah won’t let her do that.’
‘Then he’s a better man than most,’ said William. He tucked Beth’s hand into his own and they set off for the little parlour.
Susannah, her eyes shining, passed William a piece of paper. ‘Noah had a letter from Tom and enclosed within was a letter for us. From Kit.’
Beth exclaimed in delight. ‘Father, will you read it aloud?’
William unfolded the paper and held it to the light of the window.
My dear Mama, Father, Beth, John and Cecily, I hope this finds you as well as it leaves me. I arrived here after a stormy passage but Noah’s family greeted me with much kindness.
Uncle Tom is teaching me everything he knows about running the tobacco plantation, while Aunt Caroline is feeding me up as I became rather thin on the voyage. Noah’s sisters, Abigail, Kate and Maryanne, are full of questions about their cousins and send their love to you all.
I wish I could show you the wealth of exotic plants and flowers here, Beth. You could paint something different and unusual here every day for a hundred years and still not catalogue it all! John, I have planted the seeds you gave me and hope to show my newfound family an English garden by the end of the season.
Mama and Father, please do not worry about me. I truly believe I have found the place where I want to spend the rest of my life.
Your ever-loving son, Kit
PS Remember me to the servants and the guests.
Susannah slipped her hand into William’s, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears.
William fixed his gaze out of the window.
‘I expect it’s all very primitive,’ said Lady Arabella with a supercilious lift of her painted eyebrows. ‘But then, if you are not used to living in refined surroundings perhaps you do not draw such comparisons?’
‘On the contrary,’ said Susannah with a brittle smile. ‘Your knowledge is quite outdated. My brother and his family live in an elegant house amongst a circle of educated and sophisticated friends.’
Noah turned his back to Lady Arabella and made a comical face at Beth. ‘Come and sit beside me and tell me how the world goes with you,’ he said. ‘Bishop Compton told me that you refused his invitation.’
