Lucy’s nerves at dining with a group of respected, professional artists were about equal to her excitement. As well as Mr Thornton, there was a young painter of romantic landscapes called Mr Cotton, and two ladies—Mrs Moller and Miss Villars—one a French sculptor, one a portrait painter.
George was there too. And Jack, as now seemed inevitable. Between the allure of Miss Sedgewick and his conviction that Lucy wouldn’t survive a day in society without his dubious support, the man was firmly back in her life. She supposed she would just have to get used to it.
Currently the charms of their hostess appeared uppermost—Lucy suspected they often were—and he’d spent the evening absorbed in Miss Sedgewick’s company, barely speaking two words to Lucy. Which was good. She was glad. It left her free to get on with the job of not appearing foolish in front of people she was desperate to impress. The last thing she needed was for Jack to blunder into the conversation and laugh at her and call herMinnow.
She couldn’t help but note, however, that though he had little interest in art, he spoke to the assembled company in his usual amiable way, feigning a good impression of curiosity, if not understanding—he freely admitted he knew nothing and laughed at himself about it.
His good-natured friendliness, his openness of manner, his warmth, had always been some of Jack’s most endearing characteristics.Hewasn’t awed by these artists. He smiled, laughed, was entirely at his ease—and that was exactly how she wanted to feel, rather than the stuttering, stupid creature her nerves made of her. So she found herself glancing at him often, as though to learn his trick, but it was reassurance she borrowed, his smiling presence a familiar comfort. Or comforting when it was likethis, observed from the corner of her eye and not directed fully at her. It was the difference between looking at the sun and stealing up to a warm campfire, unseen in the night.
So long as she could forget his embrace, she found she was glad to have him in the room.
After dinner, with the whole party assembled in the drawing room, the dreaded hour came when Mr Thornton examined her sketchbook, just as Miss Sedgewick had threatened. He was silent turning the pages, while Lucy sat on the edge of her seat, heart racing and fighting to keep her clenched hands still upon her lap.
He closed the book, was silent a moment more while he looked at her. His eyebrows lifted. “And you say no one taught you?”
“J-just books.”
“Very good.” He nodded, then repeated it more firmly. “Verygood. You have that rare ability to combine expression with precision. I’d like to see more of your work.”
Then her sketchbook was passed around, and the compliments were too sensible, the questions too perceptive,to be anything other than honest praise. Knowledgeable people admired her work—and meant it!
Jack was last to receive the book. He turned the pages quickly but smiling, his smile growing until he reached the end. Then he stood, came over to where she sat, and returned the sketchbook to her hot, nervous hands. “What a relief. I’m glad you’re so good. Now I don’t have to think up awkwardly polite nothings.” Still smiling, he bent low, speaking for her ear alone, and she felt his words stir the hair against her neck. “You’re wonderful, Min. I knew you would be.”
He gave her the sort of fond smile that usually preceded one of his careless, casual chucks to her chin, but, to her relief—she was certain it was relief—it remained only a smile, and he returned to Miss Sedgewick’s side.
Lucy put her sketchbook away, knees still shaky from her ordeal but a warm glow in her stomach. How stupid to be so pleased, as if Jack’s inexpert opinion counted more than Mr Thornton’s, or any other of the professionals here. Jack could hardly tell a Cruikshank from a Constable. He was only being polite.
But… But it was Jack who’d defended her when his sisters mocked her, teasing her for taking a sketchbook everywhere.“You’re only jealous,”he’d told them,“because Min’s never had so much as a minute with the drawing master who’s been teaching you both for years, and she’s still a thousand times better than either of you. You’re mean, jealous shrews, the pair of you.”Which had of course set them both to indignant tears and Jack to even harsher words, the result of which had been a violent argument and all three of the Orton children punished, Jack with a switch across his palm.
“Don’t cry, Min,”he’d said afterwards.“You know I’d take a thrashing for you and give one too. But you better keep drawing after all this. Promise me that.”
That was why his praise moved her. If it wasn’t for Jack… No. She had to be honest. She would’ve carried on drawing even without him. But he was still there, in the background of her mind, whenever she felt like giving up.
He’d never been a bully. She shouldn’t have called him that.
She returned to find the parties had naturally split, Jack, George, Mr Thornton, and Miss Sedgewick standing before the fire, laughing and talking loudly, while the others sat in a group at the other end of the room discussing the intricacies of gallery positioning. Lucy joined them.
“You have quite a range of subjects in your sketchbook,” Mrs Moller, the portrait painter, now said to her. “Are your larger works likewise diverse?”
“I… I suppose so. I do not think I have quite settled yet. Sometimes I try a still life, sometimes a landscape. I have had very few people to sit for portraits. I lived only with my aunt, and she did not like to be stared at—so she said! I think my painting of people is weak. But it is…is the area I would like to most improve. The area I think I…I truly wish to develop.”
“Portraits? I’d gladly take you in hand.”
“Thank you! But not…not just portraits. But…but more…more dynamic scenes.”
“The historical,” put in Miss Villars, the sculptor, with a smile. “Roman and Greek mythology. Stories brought to life! But you suffer from the same issue as I do—as all of us females who wish to depict the human form. We cannot study it as the men do. We have no schools, no classes, and even where we are permitted to learn, we have no access to drawing the form from life.”
“Come now,” put in Mr Cotton, “I’ve seen your marvellous studio, Miss Villars. You have casts of many of the principal statues.”
“Yes, I’ve studied my anatomy from books and from other sculptures. But if that were the ideal way, why does every art school offer studies from life?”
“The sufficient may differ from the ideal,” said Mr Cotton.
“You say sufficient,” started Lucy, forgetting herself and blushing as every eye in their small circle turned towards her, “but I…I argue it is barely that. A cast taken from a sculpture is already two times removed from the original. And my painting of it is another step. Don’t you think that some…some details must be lost at every stage? We are getting further from…from the essential truth of the subject, from its reality. A sketch of a sketch of a sketch gets distorted at every stage.”
“Yes!” agreed Mrs Moller. “Copies of portraits are frequently made. But no matter the skill and care taken, they are never quite exact. I can’t help but feel they miss the vital spark of personality that is found in an original portrait.”
Lucy nodded. “It is that vital spark—that living feeling—that I really wish to capture.”
