A Mad, Wicked Folly (16 page)

CHECKED MY PENDANT
watch for the third time as
the driver pulled the cab up at the Burlington Arcade.
Because of traffic, I was a quarter of an hour late. I
hoped Will was still there.
What if he left, thinking
I’d changed my mind?
I paid the cab driver and hurried

Will hadn’t left. He was waiting underneath one of
the arches, leaning against the stone, hands in his pockets, watching the people walk by on the pavement. He was
not in his police uniform; instead he was wearing a flat
cheese-cutter cap, dark-green trousers, and a herringbone
tweed jacket that looked a little big for him.

But Will simply glanced at me and then went back to
scanning the crowd.
“Will!”
He glanced at me again. “Vicky? I didn’t recognize you.”
Close up, Will’s ill-fitting jacket was frayed at the cuffs. But
it was clean, and his trousers were neatly pressed, which
gave him an endearing shabbiness.
“I’m not surprised. Almost every time you’ve seen me,
I’ve been in some sort of horrid state, either falling on you
or dripping with rain or running away from you.”
“You forgot tripping over barrels.”
“That too.”
He looked at me for a moment. “You look so different.
You look . . . smashing, actually.”
“Thank you.” I was pleased that Will noticed. More
than pleased, actually. Far too pleased.
“Talking of those barrels. How are your hands?”
“Much better.” I held out my palms.
“I thought my clumsy nursing might have made them
worse instead of better.” He ran his fingers over the fading scrapes, and I shivered at his touch. He had beautiful
hands: large, callused, and strong, the sort of hands an artist dreams of sketching. I thought about drawing them in
a study, his hand lying on the curve of Guinevere’s breast;
male strength against female vulnerability. I wondered
what the RCA examiners would think of that?
“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” I said, taking
my hand away from his before I had any more wicked
ideas of ways to draw him.
“Not long.” He looked through the archway toward
the entrance of the academy. “I’ve never been in here. I’ve
gone by it lots of times on my beat.”
“My favorite painting hangs here. I come by to see it
whenever I can.”
We went through the archway and to a place in the
courtyard where I liked to sit and sketch while my mother
went shopping in the arcade next door. It was bright and
peaceful in the courtyard. Will and I sat down on a bench,
and I got my pencils and sketchbook out. I took a graphite
pencil out of the box and sharpened it with a fruit knife
I had taken from the kitchen pantry. I planned to sketch
Will’s face. Faces were difficult to draw. They caught and
reflected the light in so many different ways. Expressions
were ever changing and were complicated things to capture on paper.
“I wish to make sketches first. I have an idea to do
a study portraying you as Lancelot, just after he sees
Guinevere for the last time.” I had decided I would include
the studies in my sketchbook for my application and then
show a pastel sketch for the further work that was required
for the examination. “Do you know the story?” I asked.
“Of course. Lancelot and Guinevere fall for each other,
and King Author sentences her to burn at the stake for it.
Lancelot rescues her, but they can’t be together. She goes to
a nunnery, and he goes to war.”
“Dante Gabriel Rossetti portrayed their last meeting.
I’d like to show only Lancelot as he watches Guinevere
walk away.”
“What should I do?” Will asked. “I know you told me to
keep still and keep my gob shut, but I suspect there’s more.”
“Do you mind taking your cap off so I can see your
face?”
He did so and ran his fingers through his hair.
“If you can think about what Lancelot thought and felt
when he saw her, that will appear in your expression,” I
said. “I won’t tell you what to think because that would
ring false.”
“Like this?” He opened his eyes wide.
“Uh, less like you’re longing for presents from Father
Christmas.”
He laughed. “How about this?” He stared at me with a
startled look.
“Now you look as though you’ve backed into a cactus.”
He put his chin in his hand and gazed at me. “Well
then, how do you mean?”
“Don’t try so hard. Think about something you really
want but that’s denied to you . . . your stories. Think about
what it would feel like if they were never published.”
“That makes me feel sick. Father Christmas and the
cactus might be preferable.”
“Don’t worry about it; we’ll work on expression later.”
I began to sketch an oval outline that tapered down at the
bottom. I divided that with vertical and horizontal lines,
which would help me block the basic details in the right
proportions. I looked up to get the measure of his eyes.
“Um, do you mind turning your shoulders a bit that
way?” I gestured with my pencil. I was suddenly feeling
shy in front of him. Drawing someone, especially someone
sitting so close, was an enormously intimate endeavor. The
artist had to really look at the person’s features closely.
And it felt awkward to look at Will so. I’d only ever drawn
people in a studio setting with other artists, and strangers from a distance. I’d never had a personal model before.
I was frustrated. With such a large body of work to complete in such a short while, I didn’t have much time for this
nonsense. I was sure the Pre-Raphaelites never felt nervous around their models. Then again, the Pre-Raphaelites
and their models were often lovers.
Will and I, lovers?
That
thought flitted across my mind for a brief second before
I pushed it away. Such a traitorous thought for a woman
engaged.
“This way?” He shifted the wrong way, and the light
fell upon his lap instead.
“No, actually . . .” I stuck my pencil in my mouth and
placed my hands on his shoulders, turning them so that a
flash of sunlight fell upon his face. Then, realizing what I
was doing, I dropped my hands away from him quickly. I
took my pencil out of my mouth and bunched my hands in
my lap, my fingers squeezing the pencil. “I’m sorry; forgive
me.” I felt like a stupid girl, dressed in her brother’s clothes,
pretending to be an artist.
“It’s all right, Vicky, I’m not bothered,” Will said gently.
I returned to my sketch, but every time I looked at his
face, his eyes met mine and I got flustered. This was pointless. If I didn’t get over my nerves, then what was the idea
of the whole exercise?
“I’m putting you off,” Will said. “But I understand. We
didn’t start out on the best foot, as it goes. Why don’t we
just talk a little more?” He reached over and took my pencil from my hand. “Forget the drawing for a bit.”
I shrugged, casting about for something to ask him.
I’d never had a conversation with a boy like him before.
Most of the boys I knew wanted to talk about shooting
grouse or yachting at Cowes or how their racehorse did at
Newmarket. They were crushingly boring, actually. “How
long have you been a police constable?” I finally asked.
“A little under a year. I joined at seventeen. Coming to
London was a shocker for me. I still haven’t gotten used to
the noise and the crowds of the city. I’d never been out of
East Sussex before, see.”
“Really? Never ever? East Sussex is only a couple of
hours away from London by train, is it not?”
“It’s not far, which is good because I get home every
once in a while. My mum and dad and sister and nephew
still live in East Sussex. My dad is the constable in a little
village there called Rye, as was his father before him.”
“What’s it like there?” Will was right. Talking helped
ease some of the nerves I had around him. I could feel my
shoulders relaxing. I loved the way he spoke. Will didn’t
have the drawn-out gentrified drawl that the boys I knew
affected, learned at some boarding school. He spoke in a
quick, almost cheeky, manner.
“It used to be a smugglers’ den, if you want to know the
truth of it. There’s an old inn there where they used to do
their evil deeds. They say it’s haunted as anything. You’d
like it. Lots of artists do because of the beauty and solitude.
The American writer Henry James lives near my parents’
house, and my mum does his laundry. He’s quite friendly;
always happy to give me advice. One time I went over to
deliver his laundry, and H. G. Wells and Rudyard Kipling
were there.” There was wistfulness in Will’s voice.
“It sounds as though you miss it.”
“I do. Very much.” He looked down at my charcoal pencil, turning it over in his fingers.
“So why did you leave?”
“To make my fortune, I suppose, although a London
bobby will never make a fortune, but it’s a sight better than
what a small-town copper would make. My story is set in
London, so I wanted to stick myself in that setting. Helps
me understand my characters better.”
“It’s such an artist thing to do,” I said.
“It is?” Will looked surprised. “That’s good to know. I’ll
have to tell my parents that. They still aren’t thrilled I left.
My dad was hoping I’d join the police in Rye.”
“My friend Bertram moved to France because the light
is better there for painting.”
I studied the cover of my sketchbook, traced my fingers
over the leather. I felt less anxious now, but I didn’t want
to stop talking to Will. “Will you tell me about your story?”
I asked.
Now it was Will’s turn to look anxious. He had an
expression on his face that I recognized: unsure, as though
he might not describe the work well enough; worried that
the person might misunderstand and he would appear
foolish.
“It’s a modern-day retelling of Robin Hood,” he started
out slowly, fixing his gaze on one of the paving stones in
the courtyard. “Only my character’s name is Robert Hoode
and he’s a politician.” He darted a look at me, seemingly
gauging my reaction. I nodded,
Go on.
“He steals from the
upper class and gives to the poor in the East End. Because
he couldn’t right the wrongs done to the poor through the
law, he finds ways to swindle the rich and give the prizes
to the poor.”
“But that’s a brilliant story, Will! I can think of illustrations already.” I wasn’t just saying that; the story was
intriguing, and ideas were popping into my mind.
“Really?” Will asked, his eyes hopeful. “I’ve never told
anyone about it before. Only you.”
“It’s exactly the kind of thing my brother does in his
publishing company.” I took my pencil back from Will,
opened my book, and did a quick scribble of Hoode. Will
leaned over, watching closely. “Something like this?”
“Yes! That’s it. You’ve got the way of him.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
He grinned. “So enough about me. What about you?
What are you going to do?”
I shook my head. “I’m going to the art college, like I told
you before.”
And I will be married then, and I won’t know
you anymore
, I thought. I doubted Edmund would welcome
my having a personal model, especially a male one—
especially one as handsome as Will. Despite how modern
Edmund was, for his wife to keep company with another
man would border on scandalous. I didn’t wish to have my
marriage end up like Louis Trevelyan and Emily Rowley’s
in Anthony Trollope’s novel
He Knew He Was Right
. At
Madame Édith’s Finishing School for Girls, the literature
tutor wielded the book as a cautionary tale to us hapless
girls.
Never be alone with a man, ladies, lest you be accused
of something unsavory
, she had said. I don’t think my tutor
understood the irony of the book, and that Trollope was
sympathetic to the wife, but that was Madame Édith’s
Finishing School for Girls.
“Yes, but then what?” Will asked. “Do you want to live
somewhere else? I hear there are many artists in Cornwall,
in Newlyn. Or do you want to go back to France?” His face
softened. “You look upset. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have mentioned France.”
I looked away, praying that I wouldn’t start blubbing.
Thinking about France still hurt. Will, thankfully, stopped
asking questions. Instead he glanced around the courtyard. Then he finally broke the silence.
“Say, why don’t you put your sketchbook away, and
you can show me that painting you mentioned before?” he
said.
Grateful for the suggestion, I put my things in my
satchel and we went into the Academy. As we approached
A Mermaid
, I could feel that eager tug I always had when I
came to see her. It was as if she were an old friend I couldn’t
wait to greet.
Will and I turned the corner and there she was, sitting
on her tail on the shoreline, combing her long red hair with
her mother-of-pearl comb, her mouth open in song. I could
almost hear the waves of the sea as they purled toward
the shore, and smell the brackish scent of the foamy water
in the bay and the seaweed on the shingle. The towering
cliffs stood sentinel, protecting her from prying eyes. Her
gaze looked out at the viewer as if to say,
Where have you
been? I’ve been waiting for you for ages.
The carefree independence of the mermaid constantly
touched something inside me. I supposed that was why I
liked the Pre-Raphaelites and their successors so much.
They chose to paint things that human beings would
never see on earth, only in imagination. Fanciful things,
like this mermaid. Subjects like these made you imagine
that life could be far, far different than you ever thought.
“‘Who would be a mermaid fair, singing alone, combing her hair,’” Will quoted as we stopped in front of her
and stood side by side.
“You know Tennyson’s poem?” I said, surprised.
“Yes, ‘The Mermaid.’”
“They say the artist of this painting, J. W. Waterhouse,
drew his inspiration from that.”
“I believe it. She’s Tennyson’s poem in perfect illustration.” He clasped his hands behind his back and leaned
forward for a closer look, giving her his full attention.
Would Edmund look at her in that fashion? I wondered.
And if he didn’t, would it matter to me?
“Waterhouse is such a successful artist,” I said. “People
love him. When he donated this painting as his diploma
work, everyone raved about it. See how her tail shimmers?
And the rocks and seaweed around her have such texture
and color. Each one is different. And the iridescence in
the abalone shell where she keeps her pearls? No one can
match Waterhouse for that technique.”
“Maybe you will someday. You’ll go to the art college,
learn lots, and be a big success, like this chap.”
“I should like to be a mermaid fair. Like her.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked, pulling his gaze away
from the painting and squinting at me.
“She knows where she belongs, where she fits in. No
one tells her what to do or how to spend her days. She’s
completely and utterly free.”
“And you are not?”
I shrugged. “Who is? No one really. Well, no woman at
least.”
“That’s a very melancholy thing to say,” Will said, a
note of surprise in his voice.