That Summer: A Novel (8 page)

There was another man in the back of the room, in quiet conversation with Arthur. His back was to Imogen; all she saw was close-cropped dark hair.

They must be more of Arthur’s protégés. He collected people as he did manuscripts, trading them off when he grew bored.

Imogen felt a moment of malicious amusement. Three male guests for dinner, and none of them announced. Jane must be down in the kitchen, cajoling Cook into stretching the soup and shredding the hens into timbale. The table would be unbalanced, but Arthur never cared for things like that. Jane did, but Jane would never naysay Arthur. Jane was, Imogen had realized years ago, quietly and painfully in love with Arthur.

And Arthur was simply Arthur, imperturbable and entirely self-absorbed.

Belatedly aware of his wife’s presence, he turned, holding out a hand to her. “Imogen, my love. Come and greet our guests.”

What a misleading word, that
our
. It pleased Arthur to pretend that she had some role in the household, as gracious chatelaine, if nothing else. It masked the fact that her only task was to be ornamental, to smile at him with the feigned echo of the love she had once believed she bore him.

Sometimes she thought back with astonishment to that sixteen-year-old girl she had been, poor, naïve sixteen, still dreaming of knights in shining armor, convinced that Arthur was the embodiment of all her maiden dreams.

The years had been kind to Arthur, but there was no disguising the fact that he had broadened and settled into comfortable middle age. His once ginger hair had faded in parts to gray; the whiskers she had once found so dashing had grown bristled and bushy. He looked more and more like the portrait of his father that hung above the mantel, a prosperous merchant with a merchant’s mind, smug in the constant counting of his treasures.

Of which she, for some reason, was one, acquired and cataloged like the porcelain in the cabinet or the books on the shelves.

She supposed it was better than being a pensioner in her uncle’s home. That was what she told herself, and there were times when she even believed it.

Arranging her paisley shawl more securely around her shoulders, Imogen moved gracefully across the room, taking her husband’s proffered hand, letting him tuck her arm through his. Arthur liked to show her off, she knew, just as he liked to display the Book of Hours in the study, or the fifteenth-century triptych in the hall. Outside, it was dark already, the early dark of February, but the firelight reflected prettily off the purple poplin of her dress, picking out the richness of mother-of-pearl buttons and silk braid.

“Gentlemen,” she said, her smile nicely calculated to include them all, while marking no one in particular. Over the years, she had become very good at playing Arthur’s hostess, at showing the face he wished for her to show. “Welcome.”

“We are now,” said the man with the wild dark curls, flashing her a smile intended to be dangerous. Imogen couldn’t help but be amused by it, the dash and bravado of it all, a little boy playing at Casanova.

“My love,” said Arthur, leading her forward like a visiting dignitary, “I should like to present to you Mr. Rossetti.”

The man with the careless cravat and the tousled curls pressed his hand to his heart.

“Mr. Fotheringay-Vaughn.” Blond and elegant, the second man essayed a languid bow. He had cultivated the look of perpetual ennui that went with his tightly tailored waistcoat and carefully tied cravat.

“—and Mr. Thorne.” That was the third man. He inclined his head in greeting but made no move closer. He put Imogen in mind of a jungle beast, quiet and alert. “They have come to visit our collection.”

There was no need to specify which collection; there was only the one that counted, Arthur’s medieval objets d’art, carefully selected and enlarged over time. Imogen could see lying open on the card table Arthur’s pride and showpiece, her father’s Book of Hours.

“You must have a powerful love of antiquities to venture out on such an inclement day,” said Imogen lightly. The rain had been hissing and spitting down all day, the sky the color of sleet, the ground an unappealing blend of mud and slush. “Are you also collectors, then?”

“Call us admirers, rather,” said Rossetti. His teeth flashed in a smile. “We haven’t the tin. Our pockets are to let.”

The blond man, Fotheringay-Vaughn, looked pained. He fingered his expensive enamel watch fob. “Yours, perhaps.”

Thorne made no response. Alone of the three, he stayed clear of the female presence, withdrawing with Arthur to the table by the window.

“These gentlemen are all artists, Mama.” Evie hastened to fill the gap. “They have come for
inspiration
.” She spoke the final word with touching conviction.

“And have you found it, then?” Imogen asked.

“Most certainly,” drawled Fotheringay-Vaughn. His eyes were on Evie, frankly admiring.

Evie’s cheeks went pink, her eyes as wide as saucers.

Imogen looked pointedly at Arthur, but Arthur was deep in conversation with Thorne, their heads bent over the Book of Hours as Thorne sketched something in a notebook with a quick, sure hand.

Not that Arthur would be any use; Imogen had warned him, time and again, that he was keeping his daughter too close, that she needed to be allowed to try her charms on the inoffensive sons of neighbors, under the watchful eye of half a dozen earnest mamas. She would be an heiress when the time came. Not a great heiress, not the sort who made waves in society and elicited articles in the
Illustrated London News,
but she would have a tidy enough sum to bring to her future husband. Especially for an artist with pockets to let and expensive taste in watch fobs.

Kept close as she was, Evie was likely to be easy prey for the first plausible fortune hunter who came her way.

As you were, my dear?
Arthur had chucked Imogen under the chin and laughed a little laugh to show that he was joking.

The idea, of course, was risible: the fortune was his; she had been all but penniless when he married her. Jane had certainly remarked upon it often enough. And yet … And yet. Imogen wondered if the arrow had fallen quite so far from the mark as he had intended. He might not have married her for money, but she had been gulled by him all the same, had, in her naïveté, believed him something quite other than what he was.

She was determined that Evie shouldn’t make the same mistake; when Evie married, it should be for some form of real and lasting affection, not on the strength of a compliment and an illusion.

Sometimes Imogen thought that those years in the schoolroom with Evie were all that had kept her from packing a bag and slipping out a window in the middle of the night. Their lessons had been no great success. Evie would never make a scholar; she hadn’t the interest or the dedication. She had a facile, if shallow, intelligence, but she made up for it with the exuberance of her affection.

Evie was the closest to a child that Imogen was ever likely to have, and Imogen wouldn’t let her throw herself away on a scoundrel.

“Goodness, how interesting,” said Imogen loudly. “It is so seldom one gets to see real artists at work.”

She crossed carefully between Evie and Fotheringay-Vaughn, sliding her arm through her stepdaughter’s, ranging herself between them. She was taller than Evie by half a head; if she didn’t entirely block her stepdaughter’s view of the older man, at least she impeded it.

She squeezed Evie’s arm affectionately. She was so slight, so unprotected, her Evie, as unaware of the vagaries of the world as Imogen had been. In its own way, Herne Hill felt as far from London as Cornwall.

“You must tell me more of your visit,” Imogen said to Rossetti. “Was there anything in particular in my husband’s collection that you came to see?”

“Anything!” said Rossetti, with a sweeping gesture. “Everything! It has been a revelation.” The word must have pleased him, because he repeated it. “A revelation! I had seen the works of such painters before only in crude, printed copies. To see the originals…”

“Was a revelation?” Imogen provided with a hint of a smile.

“Like a heavenly vision,” said Rossetti extravagantly. “Did you know that in all of our National Gallery there is only one work painted by an artist prior to Raphael?”

Fotheringay-Vaughn rolled his eyes.

Imogen found Rossetti’s enthusiasm rather charming. Had she been like that once? Yes, a very long time ago, when she had thought she would help Arthur in his work and they would immerse themselves in medieval manuscripts together. Such a utopian vision and so very far from the life she now led. The study door had been courteously but firmly closed to her. “I must confess. I was unaware of that. There are several lovely Reynolds, however.”

“Sir Joshua Reynolds!” Rossetti was deeply indignant. “Sir Sloshua, more like! His meaningless rules have stifled generations of English painters. There is no life in his paintings, no color. Do you know that he has decreed that all landscapes must be painted in shades of
brown
?”

Imogen felt her lips relax into a smile. “I fear that does seem to be the color of our countryside at present.”

“Yes, but think of May!” said Rossetti passionately. “Think of the sun gilding the fresh, green grass and the roses unfurling their first velvet petals. There is a world of color and light just waiting to be captured on canvas.”

Despite herself, Imogen was moved by his words. “I am sure that if anyone can, you shall, Mr. Rossetti,” she said.

“Not if the Academy has its way,” said Mr. Rossetti darkly.

“The Academy does its best.” It was Thorne, who, with Arthur, had come to join them. Imogen didn’t miss the warning look Thorne sent his friend. “I wouldn’t say ill of them.”

His voice was deep and rich, with the hint of a regional accent he made no attempt to hide, the vowels flattened, the consonants soft. He was older than his peers, closer, Imogen imagined, to her own age than Rossetti, who looked to be scarcely older than Evie. The sun had burned Thorne’s skin brown and etched lines on his lean face.

Imogen found herself intrigued by what it was he wasn’t saying. “What would you say of the Academy, then, Mr. Thorne?”

“Oh, Thorne is one for painting, not for talking,” said Rossetti merrily. “He believes in saving his breath to wield his brush. He leaves the grand manifestos to the rest of us.”

“Have you a grand manifesto then?” asked Evie breathlessly. The question was for Rossetti, but her eyes were on Fotheringay-Vaughn.

“This lot do,” said Fotheringay-Vaughn indolently. He fixed his gaze on Evie. “My only creed is to paint beauty where I find it.”

That, decided Imogen, was quite enough. Leaning down to put her mouth to the girl’s ear, she murmured, “Evie, dearest, would you go and see what’s keeping your aunt Jane?” She deliberately made her voice droll. “I should hate to think she’s been kidnapped by Cook.”

“Yes, Mama.” Evie always made a point of calling her mama.

For a moment, Imogen fought against a wave of bleak despair. What was she to do when Evie was gone? Well, she would face it when she faced it. She just needed to see Evie happily settled, with someone who appreciated her for her many excellences of spirit, not for the money Arthur had settled in the Funds.

“If you will excuse me?” Evie’s words were painfully dignified, stilted even, but her voice betrayed her youth. She still curtsied like a schoolgirl, awkwardly, her eyes darting up for approval. “I must see to supper.”

The gentlemen made the appropriate polite noises. Rossetti picked up immediately where he had left off, saying something about throwing off the shackles of artistic constraint. Imogen wasn’t quite listening. Neither was Fotheringay-Vaughn. His eyes followed Evie as she left the room.

The other man, Thorne, was watching Imogen.

She caught him watching her, watching her watching Fotheringay-Vaughn, and there was recognition in Thorne’s eyes, as though he knew exactly what she was about—as though he knew and was watching her as one might a caged beast in a menagerie! His eyes ought to have been black, with that coloring, but instead, they were a pale brown, the color of amber, or of aged sherry, light and bright and far too observant.

Imogen bit back the angry words that rose immediately to her throat. Instead, she adopted her most painfully proper expression, pushing the anger, the indignation, down, down, down, and away, down beneath her stays, compressed into a tiny little ball as shiny and hard as a locket, a locket with a picture in it no one could see.

What right had he to judge her? It was no business of his, no business at all.

“How fascinating,” she said politely to Mr. Rossetti, and turned her face away from the other man’s disturbing amber eyes.

Herne Hill, 1849

The Granthams set a lavish table.

There had been turbots in sauce and lamb cutlets and saddle of mutton and asparagus and fresh peas—asparagus and peas, in February!—and other dainties Gavin didn’t even recognize.

The chair in which he sat was awkwardly shaped and uncomfortable, the seat slippery, the back elaborately carved with knobs and curlicues that dug into his back when he leaned back too far. Bad on him for letting himself slouch; no wonder the ladies of the house had such good posture. Miss Cooper—Miss Grantham’s aunt?—looked as though she had swallowed a ramrod and found it tough going. Her mouth was permanently pursed in an expression of displeasure, but at no time more so than when her gaze happened to land on her guests.

They looked all wrong in this lavish room, with the light of the candles reflecting off mahogany and cherrywood. Gavin knew that. Even Augustus in his expensive cast-offs (oh, yes, they were cast-offs, for all the other man’s airs) looked out of place, too flash, too fast. Only Rossetti looked comfortable, his elbows on the table, his cravat carelessly tied, fingers curled around the stem of his wineglass, but Rossetti was one of those men who were at home anywhere, from a tavern to a palace; his opinion of himself and his own abilities was that high.

Gavin would have been far happier supping on bread and cheese in his own studio. But he didn’t need Augustus to tell him that this was part of how the game was played, Augustus, who had no interest in antiquities and had only come, so he said, in the hopes of wrangling a commission from a rich bourgeois who might be tickled at having his portrait painted by a rising society painter. An artist needed patrons, and Grantham certainly had money enough and connections with those who dabbled in art and criticism.