Georgian: The Prince and the Quakeress Part 18

What a beautiful gown this was! She thought of the day the seamstress had brought in the material and how it cascaded over the table in the sewing-room... yards and yards of thick white satin.

'Oh, Madam, this will become you more than any of your gowns.' And the woman had held it up to her and draped it round her and Hannah had swayed before the mirror, holding the stuff to her as though it were a partner in a dance. Then she had caught sight of her flushed face in the long mirror. Even such a mirror would have been considered sinful in her uncle's home. And she thought: What have I come to?

But even so, she could not help being excited by the white satin and when the sewing-woman had made those enchanting blue bows with which to adorn it she had expressed her delight.

And now she was going to be painted in this gown by a great painter.

Her maid had slipped the white satin gown over her head and stood back to admire.

'Oh, Madam, this is truly beautiful. The most beautiful of all your gowns.'

Hannah's gaze returned to the mirror. I am always looking in mirrors, she told herself. Yet she could not look away.

She had changed since the child's arrival; the hunted look was less apparent in her beautiful dark eyes. She was more serene. Odd, she thought, for the sin is greater now. I have pa.s.sed on the sin to an innocent being and that my own child.

'You like this dress?' she said to the maid. She must remember not to use the Quaker thee and thou which slipped out now and then.

'Oh, Madam, it is a miracle of a dress. But it needs a beautiful lady to show it off... and you are that.'

'Thank you.' She smiled gently. Yes, she thought. I am glad I am beautiful. And if I were meant to live humbly all my days in a linen-draper's shop, why was I made beautiful?

It sounded like one of Jane's arguments.

'Tell them to let me know,' she said, 'immediately Mr Reynolds arrives.'

The painter's carriage turned in at the private drive which led to the back of the house and was completely secluded. This was the drive George used when he came.

Some secret woman, mused Mr Reynolds, but he was not very interested in whose mistress this was, only whether she would be a good subject. He supposed she would have beauty of a kind, but he did not seek a conventional beauty. Nor did he wish to turn some woman, plain in the flesh, into a canvas beauty, which was often the expectation. He hoped for a subject who had something to offer, something on which his genius could get to work, so that he might reproduce her as a Reynolds portrait which would be apart from all other portraits which might be painted of her.

He was here because of the notorious Elizabeth Chudleigh. From what he could discover she was involved in almost every Court scandal, while she took care to keep her own past which he suspected must be lurid well hidden.

Not that he was interested in Court intrigues but he was interested in Miss Chudleigh. He had a special reason for this. As soon as he had seen her he had recognized her as a perfect subject for his art. There was a great deal more in Miss Chudleigh than met the eyes, and the artist in him itched to get something of that on canvas.

It must have been eighteen or nineteen years ago when he had first met her. He was visiting his native Devonshire and Miss Chudleigh would have been sixteen or seventeen at the time. To all she must have appeared as a ravishing beauty; to Joshua Reynolds she was a girl he must paint.

He soon made the acquaintance of Miss Chudleigh and asked her permission to paint the portrait. Miss Chudleigh's permission was very readily obtained and during sittings he learned something of her background. She was the daughter of a Colonel and Mrs Chudleigh, she told him. 'Papa was an aristocrat... but a penniless one. Mamma was not an aristocrat but she had all the spirit. He was Lieutenant-Governor of Chelsea Hospital and I was born there.'

He liked his subjects to talk; it brought out their character. He liked to watch the emotions flit across their faces as they discussed this or that incident from the past. It told him so much that he wanted to bring out in the portrait.

'Papa married for love... an extremely foolish and inconsiderate thing to do in the eyes of his relations.'

'They disowned him?'

'Not exactly. I believe if we could get back to London we might find... friends.'

If we could get back to London! This girl had been obsessed by the idea of getting back to London. She had been like a tigress in a cage, pacing up and down... imprisoned by the green fields and winding lanes, longing for the freedom of the London jungle.

'Why did you come to Devonshire?'

'It was all we could do. Papa died. He was rather fond of... strong waters... rather too fond. It was bad for his heart... his liver... I forget which... in any case it was bad. I was too young to remember him... but I remember London. I remember riding with my parents through the streets. The City... the sedans, the carriages, the fine ladies in their carriages and masks... I particularly remember the masks... and the gentlemen with their elegant snuff-boxes and quizzing gla.s.ses. I was young when we came here but I wept and wept for the ladies and the gentlemen and the snuff-boxes and the quizzing gla.s.ses, and the noise and mud of the streets. And it is where I must be sooner or later for I do a.s.sure you, Mr Reynolds, the country is no place for me.'

He had nodded encouragingly. What a wonderful sitter! He would never forget her. How could he when that picture had meant so much to them both.

'No one would help us... My mother was without the means to stay in London. It is cheaper to live in the country... and rightly so, for who would live in the country from choice?'

He smiled, remembering that his friend Dr Johnson had expressed the same sentiments often enough. 'Sir, the man who is tired of London is tired of life.' There was a world of difference between Miss Chudleigh and the venerable doctor, but at least they thought alike on this point.

'We have an income of two pounds a week. Country folk think that a fortune, Mr Reynolds. We are ladies here. But how could we live in London in befitting manner on two pounds a week?'

There were many living on far less, he might have reminded her, but he understood Miss Chudleigh's viewpoint perfectly. When she came to London she would live in Court circles; she would make a stir in her surroundings. Of course she would. Miss Chudleigh was the girl to make a stir wherever she might be.

He had proceeded with Miss Chudleigh's picture and each day he looked forward to those sittings; as he painted he listened to her colourful conversation her scorns and hatred, her desires and ambitions. They were all there in the portrait for anyone who had the discernment to recognize them.

When the portrait was finished he was almost satisfied with it: she was entirely so.

'One of us, Mr Reynolds,' she observed, 'is very clever. Or perhaps it is both of us you for painting this picture and myself for giving you such an opportunity to show your talents.'

He was amused. It was one of the best pictures he had painted to that date.

'I want to exhibit it in London.'

Her smile was dazzling.

'My dear Mr Reynolds, it is exactly what I hoped you would do.'

And he had; and it had been acclaimed. His name was made. Everyone wanted their portrait painted by Joshua Reynolds. Moreover, everyone wanted to know who was the outstandingly lovely subject of the portrait.

'Miss Elizabeth Chudleigh of Devonshire,' he told them; and he wrote to her.

'Your picture has created tremendous interest here in London. I think there are many who would be delighted to see the original.'

Elizabeth needed no more than that. She and her mother packed their bags and within a short time Elizabeth was in London; it was the starting-point of her extraordinary career, for she was an immediate success. Several men wanted to marry her; she selected the Duke of Hamilton as the most agreeable suitor; that romance went wrong; but Elizabeth was launched and soon had a post of maid of honour in the household of the Prince of Wales.

What had happened since then, why she had not married, was her own secret affair.

But Joshua Reynolds could imagine that it would be a startling story if it ever came to light.

And now she had been instrumental in bringing him to this strange house.

'Mr Reynolds, sir. Will you step this way.'

A pleasant house, comfortable, luxurious even, just the sort of house in which a wealthy n.o.bleman would set up his cherished mistress.

He was ushered into a room, a room with a high vaulted ceiling and big windows, heavily curtained he noticed. We shall have to let in the light, was his first thought.

And she was rising to greet him. Tall, beautiful, dressed in white satin adorned with blue bows.

Charming! he thought. Beautiful... and certainly not conventionally so.

He approached her and bowed; his artist's eye took in the oval face, the large dark eyes some brooding secret there. The dark hair was drawn back from a somewhat high brow and she wore a cap; her dress was low cut but there was a vest of fine lace which covered her neck and ended in a frill under her chin.

Mrs Axford, he thought. Who is Mrs Axford?

He could not recall ever having heard the name; but that was unimportant. He knew now that he wanted to paint her.

Hannah looked forward to the visits of Mr Reynolds. On those days when he came she would awake with a pleasurable feeling of antic.i.p.ation. It was always a joy to slip into the white satin dress and she could never resist studying her reflection in the mirror and comparing it with the portrait which was rapidly growing on the canvas.

Did she really look as Mr Reynolds saw her? She hoped so, for the effect was pleasing. She had not wanted George to see it until the portrait was completed and she was longing to show him the finished picture yet she would be sorry, for that would be the end of the artist's visits.

She was stimulated and perhaps a little apprehensive during sittings. Although that was not what he desired. He was always begging her to be relaxed, to imagine she was chatting with an old friend... about herself.

An old friend. She thought of chatting to Aunt Lydia or her mother. Her mother! She could never think of her mother without feelings of unbearable guilt. What a wicked daughter she had been! She pictured them now, praying for her in the dining-room where they had prayed incessantly, before all meals, first thing in the morning, last thing before going to bed.

'Save Hannah from her wickedness. Let her repent, O Lord.'

Little Hannah would be lisping her prayers now and so would baby Anne; and she had heard from Jane that there was another baby boy named John.

Mr Reynolds said: 'Now you are looking too sad. We do not want sadness in the portrait, do we? At least not much. Just a little... but that is something we cannot avoid. But you are not sad all the time, Mrs Axford?'

'Oh no. I am very happy... sometimes.'

'When memories don't intrude?'

She was silent and he looked up from the canvas intently.

'Now, Mrs Axford, hands in lap. Have you lived long in this house?'

'N... no. About five years...'

She would have been just past twenty when she came here. Who was the lover? Some n.o.bleman. She was not of the Court, he knew that.

'It is a pleasant place and not too far from London.'

'No... not too far.'

'I'll warrant you visit the capital often, Mrs Axford.'

'No... rarely.'

'That is strange. Most ladies cannot resist it. There is so much of interest. The theatre for one thing, do you like the theatre?'

'I do not know. I have never visited a theatre.'

He was silent. He could not place her. There was an air of serenity about her, an air of refinement. Who was she? Who was her lover? It was necessary for him to know if he were going to paint her as he wished to. But was it? Why should he not paint her with her air of mystery, for that was how he saw her.

'We will rest awhile, Mrs Axford. Come and see what you think of the progress.'

She came and stood beside him.

'Thou art a very clever artist,' she said.

He was quick to notice the form of address. A Quakeress, he thought. Of course! Why did I not realize it before? From then on he began to think of her as the beautiful and mysterious Quakeress.

He could not tempt her to speak of herself when she so clearly did not wish to do so. Instead he found himself talking of his own life.

She was very interested and as he talked she became animated. She was living the scenes he described as surely as though she had been present when they had happened; it brought a new animation to her face.

He told her about his home at Plympton Earl in Devonshire. He talked of the beauties of Devon, the coast, the wooded hills and the rich red earth... all exciting in the artistic eye.

'But it was always portraits which fascinated me... people. Landscape is exciting but people are alive . . . They present one face to the world, but there is another which is perhaps truly themselves. One other? There are a thousand. A thousand different people in that one body. Think of that, Mrs Axford.'

'Are we all so complex, then?'

'Every one of us. Yourself, for instance; you are not solely the charming hostess to a painter, are you. You are many things beside.'

'Yes, I see. I am good and I am wicked. I'm truthful and I lie. My life is beautiful and hideous...'

'And you live here in this comfortable house, a lady of fashion...'

'Never that. How could I be when I don't...'

He waited hopefully, but she merely added: 'Never a lady of fashion.'

'Yet not a Quakeress?'

'Why did you say that?'

'You were once a Quakeress, were you not?'

'Yes. I betrayed it.'

'Don't forget I am an artist. I try to discover all I can about a sitter so that I can see her not only as the world sees her but as she really is. You look alarmed. There is no need. I am sure that I should never see anything of you, Mrs Axford, that was not admirable.'

'You flatter me.'

'I never flatter. That is not the way to produce great art.'

She fell silent and to bring back her serenity he talked about himself.

'I always knew I wanted to be an artist. My father was a clergyman. He was master of the grammar school too. I had a religious upbringing.'

Her eyes glowed with understanding. He pictured the austere Quaker household. Poor girl, she must find it difficult to escape from such an upbringing. And what courage she must have, what a deep love she must have felt, to have risked eternal d.a.m.nation for that would be what she would have been led to expect by setting up house with a lover.