Louise Allen - Regency Pleasures and Sins Part 1

With an internal sensation of having eaten far too much ice cream, Tallie read on. Please do not suppose that there is the slightest danger of the works being seen by London Society, Mr Harland had written, obviously anticipating Tallie’s anxieties. The gentleman concerned tells me he is buying them to decorate his private rooms in his castle in the far north of Scotland. He has lately returned from the Mediterranean lands and wishes to have a tangible reminder of the classical landscape.

Tallie blinked at the closely written sheet. It seemed likely enough, she supposed—but how had this Scottish patron heard of Frederick Harland, and particularly how did he know he had classical scenes for sale?

She opened the door and looked into the hall. As she hoped, it was Peter who had brought the letter and who was sitting patiently on one of the hard shield-back hall chairs, hat on knee, waiting for the expected answer.

‘Peter? Could you come in here, please?’ With the door safely shut on Rainbird, Tallie asked, ‘Have you any idea how this gentleman who is buying Mr Harland’s classical canvases came to hear that he had them available?’

‘Why, yes, Miss Grey—he said he made enquiries for a painter of classical scenes at the Royal Academy. You know, Mr Harland talks a great deal about his ambitions for that style of art, even if he does not exhibit.’

‘Oh.’ That seemed plausible, but Tallie was still uneasy.

Peter appeared to understand. ‘He is genuine, Miss Grey, I’m sure of that. Gentleman with a strong Scottish accent and his skin deeply tanned by the sun—he’s been in the south, all right.’

Tallie turned back to the letter. The artist must want some sort of response from her, otherwise Peter would not be waiting.

As you know, none of the canvases is entirely complete and the purchaser — who does not wish to be named — requires to take them back with him in two weeks’ time. In most cases the outstanding work is architectural or landscape and I have every expectation of completing these before he leaves. However, the last canvas, the ‘Diana’ scene, requires one more sitting from the live figure. While fully appreciating your reluctance to be further involved with my work, might I hope that you will oblige me on this one final occasion? To think that six major pieces of mine will be hung together in a fitting setting is a matter of such importance to me it gives me the hope that you may find yourself able to oblige me.

Tallie dropped the pages onto the sofa and stared blankly at Peter. ‘Do you know what is in the letter?’

‘Yes, Miss Grey. Mr Harland wishes you to sit for him one last time.’

Tallie’s immediate reaction was simply to say ‘no', but then the recollection of how grateful she had been for the money Mr Harland paid her, the gentlemanly manner in which he had always treated her and his intense belief and pride in his classical paintings made her hesitate.

‘I do not know when I can sit for him, though,’ she said. ‘Lady Parry is away, but when she returns she will expect me to accompany her. It would be difficult to explain why I wished to spend several hours at the studio.’ She bit her lip. ‘I suppose this afternoon …?’

‘Mr Harland is painting a portrait this afternoon and the gentleman in question will be attending the studio.’

‘Oh, dear. Then I cannot say, for I do not know when Lady Parry will return—it could even be tomorrow.’

‘Would this evening be convenient, Miss Grey?’ Peter asked hopefully.

‘But the light—surely that would be impossible?’

‘Mr Harland has invested in some of the new oil lamps, Miss Grey—why, it is almost as light as day with those all lit up.’

Tallie bit her lip. It seemed that both circumstances and her own conscience were conspiring together.

‘Shall I tell Mr Harland a time?’ the colourman pressed.

‘Eight o’clock?’ Tallie suggested faintly. She could have an early dinner and take a hackney. Rainbird would suppose her to be going to Upper Wimpole Street, for she had not mentioned to him that the household was away.

In the event it proved almost too easy to evade difficult questions, for Rainbird had not been in the hall when she asked a footman to call her a hackney carriage. She remarked carelessly that she was going to meet friends and the sight of her evening dress and opera cloak was obviously sufficiently usual for the young man not to make the sort of more probing enquiry that the butler in his more privileged position would have had no hesitation in making.

Tallie checked nervously up and down Bruton Street but could see no one lurking suspiciously in the evening drizzle and she sat back against the squabs feeling slightly reassured. It appeared that her mysterious follower had gone—or she had refined too much upon a series of coincidences.

As they neared Panton Square, however, she discovered that her stomach was a mass of butterflies. Somehow there was all the difference in the world in sitting for Mr Harland when it was a routine matter of earning her living. Now—with no excuse other than a sense of obligation that she was certain any respectable lady would tell her was misplaced—she was creeping out alone in a cab, dressed up to deceive the servants and feeling thoroughly uneasy about the entire enterprise.

The hackney turned into Panton Square. Too late to go back now, she told herself firmly, paying the driver. She would insist that Peter found her a cab for the return journey before she left the house, she decided, glancing up nervously from returning her purse to her reticule as another cab drew up a little further down. But the short, middle-aged man who climbed down bore no resemblance to her sinister follower and she watched in relief as he opened an area gate and vanished down the steps after a word with the driver.

Once she was inside a sense of familiarity took over from the nervousness and she climbed the stairs to the attic studio, feeling calmer. The artist had the large canvas already set up and his palette set and was busily adjusting the bright new lamps around the model’s podium and the old blue screen.

‘My dear Miss Grey, I cannot thank you enough,’ he exclaimed, bustling forward to shake her hand. ‘I understand how difficult it is for you now, but to be able to complete the canvases … to know that they will be fittingly hung, even if it is in remote and private rooms, not in a gallery … I cannot begin to explain …’

‘I quite understand,’ Tallie assured him. ‘I will just go and change.’

‘I have set up screens, in the corner.’ Harland gestured to a set of old Spanish leather folding screens from which hung a length of white linen. ‘With the new lamps it is so much warmer up here, I thought it would be more convenient.’

Tallie found the screened area contained a chair, a mirror and a clothes stand and began to undress. She had chosen the evening gown for its ease of removal and was soon draped in the linen and unpinning her hair. The gold filet hung from the mirror and within a few minutes Diana stared back at herself in the fly-spotted glass. Forcing herself to be practical, Tallie flicked her hair into the style of the portrait, gathered the linen around her as modestly as she could and went to stand on her mark.

After the first few, strange, minutes it simply became ordinary and familiar again. The attic still creaked, mice still scuffled in the corners and the familiar drafts penetrated even the warmth created by the powerful spermaceti lamps. The artist paced and muttered behind her, once hurrying down to twitch the hem of the linen drape, again to adjust the angle of the lights.

After an hour he observed, ‘Splendid! Splendid. Now, Miss Grey, if you would like to take ten minutes to rest, then I believe another half-hour will see all complete.’