The Painter's Apprentice (14 page)

Johannes’s love for her shone in his eyes as Beth lifted his clasped hands to her lips. ‘I understand, Johannes.’

His grip relaxed a little. ‘You are capable of great things, Beth. Your botanical paintings are excellent but you should experiment.
Look beyond the flowers you love and try different styles and larger canvases! Paint life in all its different forms and settings.
Be bold and brave!’

Early the following morning Beth persuaded her father that Joseph need not come to watch over her and William accompanied
her to the studio.

Johannes was already bent over before his easel. Absorbed in his task, he barely glanced at them. The table at his side was
untidy, as if he’d been at work for several hours.

Curious, she wondered how long it would be before she would be allowed to see her portrait.

‘Johannes? Can we talk to you?’

Slowly he looked up and Beth was concerned to see that his eyes were strained and his face pallid with fatigue.

Johannes bowed his head. ‘I am ashamed that I have caused distress, Dr Ambrose. You have all been so kind to me …’ He blinked
hard and rubbed at his eyes with paint-stained knuckles. ‘It is not my usual nature …’

William clasped his arm. ‘We know that. You may return to your room in the attic and take your meals in the great hall again.’

‘I promise that I will trouble you no longer,’ said Johannes.

‘Then I shall leave you to your work.’ William smiled. ‘And I look forward very much to seeing my daughter immortalised in
oils.’

‘How is the portrait coming along?’ asked Beth after William had gone.

‘I worked all the night and hope to finish today. The background is complete.’ He spoke in low tones and Beth had to strain
to hear him.

Johannes sat her back in the same position at her easel, turned towards the window, with her feet touching the chalk marks
he’d placed on the floor to note her position. He adjusted the window shutter until the light was right and tipped up her
chin with his forefinger. ‘Now lick your lips and take a breath as if you are about to speak. Good.’ He returned to his easel
and where he began to work without speaking, the tip of his tongue protruding and an intense frown of concentration on his
brow.

Some considerable time later, Beth had an itch on her nose. She stared fixedly up at Johannes as he painted her, not daring
to move. Spots began to float in front of her eyes. At last, unable to stand it any longer, her hand moved involuntarily.

‘Ach! Beth, can you not sit still for five minutes?’

‘Johannes, it’s been hours!’

He came to reposition her arm. He tilted her head a fraction towards the window and tweaked at the folds of her skirt. ‘Now
keep still!’

Outside rooks squabbled in the elm trees; Beth heard John’s voice calling to Silas in the garden.

A couple of hours later every muscle in Beth’s body was screaming but still she dared not move.

At last, Johannes stood back from the canvas. He studied it for a while, made to move forward with his brush poised but then
changed his mind. ‘It is done,’ he sighed.

Beth stood up and stretched. ‘May I see it?’ Curiosity made her voice eager.

Johannes hesitated. ‘Later. I would like to be alone now.’

Rebuffed, she studied his hair, streaked with paint and hanging in lank clumps around his face. She was overcome with love
and compassion for him to see how old he looked. ‘You look tired, Johannes. Can you rest a while?’

He took her hand and kissed it. ‘My sweet Beth. You must not worry about me.’

‘I do worry about you! Your health is not robust …’

He caught her up in a bear hug and kissed the top of her head. ‘You may have a holiday from your work this afternoon and I
shall rest now. I believe I have found the way forward again.’ He held her at arm’s length and smiled at her. ‘Your portrait
can never truly do you justice but nevertheless, I am pleased with it.’

He carefully covered the canvas again and untied his sacking apron.

Quietly, Beth closed the studio door behind her.

During the afternoon Beth helped her mother in the apothecary, then went outside to the garden. She came across John tying
up a rose bush that had fallen over in the last storm.

‘The f-f-fresh air has put roses in your cheeks, Beth,’ he said.

She folded her arms and buried her hands in her sleeves against the bitter wind. ‘I came outside searching for a snowdrop
to paint.’

‘Go and look under the old oak tree. There is a c-c-cloud of snowdrops there.’

Snowdrops in full bloom and tight bud carpeted the ground under the oak tree and Beth examined them closely until she discovered
a perfect specimen. Pleased with her find, she hurried upstairs to the studio to show it to Johannes.

Johannes was nowhere to be seen. She stood in the stillness of the room, remembering how exhausted he’d looked and guessed
he must have returned to his attic to sleep.

The paintbrushes had been placed in a neat pile, wrapped in a turpentine-soaked cloth, ready for her to clean. Her portrait,
covered
in muslin, rested on the easel. After a moment or two she went towards it. Looking over her shoulder she lifted a corner of
the cloth and caught a glimpse of the bottom of the canvas. It showed a corner of the intricately patterned Persian rug and
part of Orpheus’s flank, with every hair of his wiry grey coat seemingly painted individually.

The sound of footsteps along the gallery made her drop the muslin and retreat to the window, her heart clamouring in her chest.
But the door didn’t open and Johannes didn’t materialise.

She cleaned the brushes and restored order to the painting table, all the while resisting the urge to peep again at her portrait.

The light was fading; it was too late to start painting the snowdrop now. She placed it in the little green glass bottle that
John had dug up in the garden, the one he always insisted was Roman. Stepping back to look at it, she smiled to herself. She
would start work bright and early the following morning.

Orpheus waited patiently outside the kitchen and grasped the opportunity to sidle inside as soon as Beth opened the door.

Phoebe, slicing cabbage at the table, smiled a greeting.

Peg flapped a cloth at Orpheus. ‘Go on, you great brute, out of my kitchen!’

Orpheus slunk under the table, eyeing the soup cauldron from behind Phoebe’s skirts.

‘Have you seen Johannes?’ Beth asked. ‘He missed his dinner again.’

‘Not seen him since the incident with Noah,’ Peg said. ‘He looked as miserable as a featherless chicken in the snow. I thought
then that he might be heading for one of his funny turns again.’ She pushed Orpheus away from the cauldron with her knee.
‘Dratted dog, always sniffing round the soup! But then, a dog’s never likely to be content with bread and water, which is
all he’s had for the past few days. Take Johannes an apple. There are still some that aren’t too wrinkled.’

Beth put an apple, bread and a heel of cheese on a plate and carried
it up to the attics. She knocked at the door of Johannes’s room and waited.

Orpheus sniffed loudly at the gap under the door.

Beth knocked again. Silence.

‘Shall we go in, Orpheus?’

The dog pricked up his ears and his tail stirred.

Very gently, Beth lifted the latch and peered inside Johannes’s room.

The shutters were closed but the bedclothes were tossed into a heap at the end of the mattress. Johannes wasn’t there. Beth
stepped inside the room and opened the shutters to let in the last of the light.

She stared curiously around the plain, whitewashed room, bare except for the bed, a rag rug, a wooden chest and a small picture
hanging on the wall above the fireplace. The painting, one of Johannes’s own, showed a homely scene of his wife, Annelies,
sitting in a doorway with her spinning wheel. Beth looked closely at her, studying her rosy cheeks and sweet smile.

Beth placed the plate of food on the trunk next to the bed. As she turned to leave she caught sight of a scrap of paper, half
tucked under the trunk. She bent to pick it up and was surprised to see a smudged chalk drawing of herself sitting at her
easel. It was sketched in vivid, flowing lines and caught her likeness well; perhaps it even made her look prettier than she
was. Carefully, she placed it back where she had found it.

Beth glanced into all the attics and dormitories before going downstairs and through the inner court to look in the library
and the parlours, stopping to ask the guests one by one if they had seen Johannes.

Emmanuel, replenishing the fire and lighting the candles in the great hall before supper, shook his head in answer to her
question. Then she surprised Joseph and Sara in the pantry. They sprang apart and Sara blushed scarlet and ran from the room.
Barely acknowledging Joseph’s defiant grin, she simply asked him if he’d seen
Johannes. He had not, so she carried on to search the next store room after he shook his head.

Anxious now, she ran at full tilt into Clarence Smith, who was crossing the hall. She curtsied deeply as she apologised.

‘Where are you off to in such a hurry, little maid?’

‘I beg your pardon, sire. Have you seen Johannes this afternoon?’

Clarence adjusted his crown, which had slipped down over one eye. ‘I did see him. Hmmm.’ He tapped a finger against his cheek.
‘A little after two, I believe. Looked as happy as a piece of week-old fish. Suggested that he made your dear mother a visit
in the apothecary and took a purge.’

‘I was with Mama most of the afternoon and we didn’t see him.’

‘Can’t help you then. Too busy to pass the time of day, my dear! Important affairs of state to attend to!’ He inclined his
head graciously and set off towards the great hall.

Beth sat down on the hall bench. Johannes had looked so tired she could only suppose he’d fallen asleep somewhere. But where?

Orpheus scratched at the great oak door and whined to go out.

As Beth unbolted the door a gust of wind snatched it from her hands. The icy draught made her shiver. Johannes wouldn’t have
gone outside so late in the day, surely? It was dusk already and beginning to rain. She had no desire to go out in such blustery
weather but where else was there to look? She hurried to the boot room to slip on her gardening shoes and wrap herself in
her cloak before following Orpheus down the steps.

Darkness was falling and it was raining as she hurried down the lime tree walk, the big dog trotting at her heels. A crescent
moon glowed silver in a deep sapphire sky. The cold wind whipped her hair across her face, puffing her cloak out like a sail
behind her. Suppose Johannes had slipped and twisted an ankle? She called his name and stood still for a moment, her ears
straining into the dusk for an answering cry. Nothing.

An owl hooted from the elm tree but otherwise the garden was
silent except for the patter of rain and the rustle of dead leaves as they whirled and spun in the wind. Setting off again,
she dashed around the perimeter walls until she came to the vegetable garden. There was no sign of John. The potting shed
loomed up out of the increasing dark. She snatched open the door and recoiled in disgust as a cobweb draped itself across
her face in sticky folds. But, except for garden tools, the dim recesses of the shed were empty. The rain drummed on the roof,
making her reluctant to leave its shelter.

The gate to the orchard was open, banging back and forth in the wind. Orpheus, nose to the ground, thrust his way through
the gate and Beth ran after him.

‘Johannes!’ She cupped her hands around her mouth as she called his name, the wind snatching her words away into the looming
darkness. The dripping branches of the apple trees swayed and creaked eerily as Beth stumbled through the long grass. Now
that it was becoming too dark to see clearly she tripped on a tussock and fell headlong on to the wet grass, winding herself.
Dragging herself into a sitting position against a tree trunk, she gasped and wheezed, fighting for breath. Shocked and chilled
through, she began to shiver violently. Then the rain began to come down in torrents and her wet hair clung to her cheeks
like seaweed.

When at last she got to her feet she gasped as the dark silhouette of a fox streaked past her, eyes glowing green in the moonlight.
Suddenly the orchard was unfamiliar to her, full of menacing shadows and unfamiliar sounds. Anxiety gave way to sudden fright.
Rooted to the spot, she wondered how she would summon the courage to find her way home through the storm.

The wind howled through the trees and a sudden fierce blast nearly knocked her over. Without warning, something hard struck
her on the back of the head. Flailing her arms in fright, she turned to see who, or what, had attacked her.

Her mouth fell open. She let out a sob, fumbled at the neck of her
dress and pulled out her silver whistle. Eyes tight shut, she blew into it hard, again and again.

Orpheus crept out of the shadows, lifted his head to the moon and howled.

Johannes, hanging by his neck from the apple tree, swayed from side to side in the wind.