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Where was Kate? Lucy felt a clear bubble of hope rising in her chest. No need to wait any longer. If the news was good, she could share her friend’s happiness without a particle of reservation.
She saw larvae ripple and scatter, and then she saw Kate, shoving through them, grinning so hard it seemed her face would crack as she ran to Lucy, almost bowling her over. Her fierce hug held her upright.
“Tell me!” Lucy gasped then laughed at the impact. “You had a picture accepted?”
“Two.” Kate let her go to spin in a circle, arms upraised. “And so did Gwen, although we don’t know yet where they’ll be hung. But, Lucy”—she swept one of her arms out, a capacious gesture, taking in the whole chattering assembly—“everyone is talking about you.”
As if on cue, Lucy felt a tap on her shoulder. A curly-haired blond man of about forty had come up behind her and stood with a little pad of paper. His smile was toothy and ingratiating.
“You’re Lucy Coover, I take it?” he said, pencil already scratching.
“No interviews!” Kate crowed. “Unless . . . are you with the Art Journal?”
“The Herald.” The man did a double take, eyes darting from Kate’s gray fedora down to her fawn-colored trousers. Kate made a face, steering Lucy away.
“Don’t waste yourself on him. We’ll hold out for a real critic, like Alan De’Ath. Wouldn’t that be cracking? An essay by De’Ath!” She took off her hat, screamed into it, then replaced it on her head at a jauntier angle.
“Cracking,” Lucy agreed without comprehending. She glanced over Kate’s shoulder, then to the left, to the right.
People were staring. Not at Kate. At her.
When the articles about Lady Euphemia had appeared in the papers, Lucy had feared that she and Kate would be mentioned as well, but she’d since put those worries aside. The asylum staff had drugged them both too heavily for preliminary questioning, and Jephson had never gotten the chance to conduct his investigation. No one had learned their names.
But perhaps some new information had come to light? Or—her next thought made her face flame—was some bit of gossip going the rounds, linking her to Anthony’s broken engagement?
Miss Yardley had broken it, so the story went. After the latest scandal, she’d thought better of connecting herself to a family so thoroughly besmirched.
Maude’s version—which she’d recited to Susan and Constance loudly, the three of them in a huddle behind Lucy’s easel—was, predictably, more shocking, including a new marriage proposal, from an impoverished Welshman, which Miss Yardley had secretly accepted.
If it were true—a very big if—Lucy supposed Miss Yardley was either following a wild impulse of the heart, as Maude implied, or heeding the call for self-preservation. She knew that her family name would soon be blotted with an indelible stain of its own. Escaping to Wales with a husband, however humble, was perhaps her best option.
“Spill it,” Lucy said to Kate tersely. “What are they saying about me?”
“Saying?” Kate capered. “They’re saying you’re a genius, but I say you’re a damn liar. I should dissolve the Sisterhood on principle, but I can’t, not now, when we’ve done it, Lucy. We’ve done it!”
“This isn’t about me and Anthony?” Her blush, which had subsided, fired her cheeks anew at the phrase.
Me and Anthony. He hadn’t renewed his proposal since that night in the coach. Giving her time, she supposed. Or changing his mind.
In any event, he’d been occupied settling his legal affairs, traveling between London and Hampshire, and they’d only seen each other briefly.
The effectiveness of his statecraft, however, was very much in evidence. A medical inspector had come last week to Charlotte Road, a young, rail-thin doctor, Dr. Penn, who’d crawled over every inch of the properties before hopping onto a barrel in the back court to denounce, roundly, the city’s swindlers and the vestry’s pothouse factions to a crowd of tenants who made the air rattle with their cheers. At one point, he’d yelled out that sanitary improvement, until reformed, could be nothing but the car of juggernaut, a phrase Aunt Marian had repeated admiringly for days afterward.
A few of the older Cantrell children, along with a few borough lads always up for mischief, had ripped down the notices, and no bill poster had appeared to stick them up again.
The buildings were saved.
“You and Anthony,” repeated Kate musingly. “It will be, in part, about Weston, yes, and that will be very interesting indeed.” She managed to keep still as she answered, still grinning. “But the Hanging Committee didn’t notice. They were too walloped! Imagine them—bored to tears, lulled half to sleep under their lap rugs by the seven hundredth piteous picture of a Yorkshire seaport. And then, behold! Endymion!”
Lucy heard her own heartbeat in her ears.
Kate clapped her hands. “I heard from Davis, who heard from a porter that there was applause when the foreman brought it out. The president said it’s as good as the best myth painting by Burne-Jones.”
Later, she would remember this moment—she would always remember it—how the world reorganized itself around her, the roadway changing, the Schools, the galleries, everything glowing with possibility.
“You swore to me that he destroyed it!” Kate hugged her again. “What am I going to do with you? You’re a monster, but I love you, and your picture is going to hang on the line!”
She shouted at the sky. Anyone who hadn’t been looking was looking now.
