The Painter's Apprentice (16 page)

The Bishop sighed. ‘What a pity! I had hoped …’

A strange mixture of regret and relief stirred in Beth’s breast as she walked beside her mother. She was uncomfortable that
she appeared to have disappointed the Bishop, who had been so kind to her. ‘Your Grace?’ she said.

He glanced at her, his ready smile playing about his lips. ‘Changed your mind?’

She glanced at Susannah, who stared at the ground as she walked. ‘No, it’s not that. I wondered if you had news of Princess
Anne?’

‘Indeed! She was here not two days ago, in excellent spirits. It would seem that she is expecting a happy event.’

‘So, it’s true, then?’ said Beth. ‘I am very happy for her. She confided in me before she left Merryfields that it might be
the case.’

‘She has been disappointed before but I will pray for her,’ said the Bishop.

Emmanuel was waiting for them at the landing stage and once they had said their goodbyes and settled themselves into the boat,
he cast off.

Beth stood before her portrait, now hanging on the studio wall. Her painted self stared back at her, a paintbrush in her hand
and a mischievous invitation in her eyes. Where had all that self-confidence gone? Taking a fleeting look over her shoulder,
she wondered if she would catch sight of Johannes’s shadow hovering over his easel but the studio was as quiet as a tomb.
The aconite and crocus plants rested on the painting table, their roots still wrapped in damp sacking. She laid them out on
a piece of white linen, arranging them carefully so that the leaves and flower heads were seen to their best advantage and
began to set out her paints and brushes.

Glancing up at her portrait again she caught her breath in surprise. She moved closer to study the canvas. On the wall behind
her painted self was a mirror. In minute detail, there was a reflection of Johannes at work on her portrait. He wore his usual
sacking apron around his broad middle and his blond hair stood up in spikes, touched with blue paint. It was Johannes’s last
joke: his own miniature portrait contained within her own.

Laughter bubbled up within her, breaking the uneasy silence in the studio. Johannes had thought she could paint; he’d even
said there was no more he could teach her. It was up to her now to refine her skill and to be her own taskmaster.

Taking a deep breath, she picked up her brush.

A few days later, Beth was helping her mother in the apothecary. The memory of Johannes’s impassioned plea in his letter to
her reverberated in her mind.
Look beyond your small dreams. Go into the world and let people see your work. Reach for the heavens and I know you will find
you can go further than you believe is possible
.

At last, she could bear it no longer. ‘Mama? I don’t wish to make you unhappy but I do so very much want to go and work at
the palace. If I stay at home I know I’ll always regret the lost opportunity.’

Susannah was silent for a moment. ‘I’ve seen your new paintings. Henry Compton’s aconite and crocuses seem to have set you
on your way again. They are as fine as anything we saw by Alexander Marshal.’ Susannah sighed. ‘It’s selfish of me to want
to keep you by my side when you have a gift that the world should know about. If you wish to go I will not prevent you.’

Beth bit her lip. Excitement fought with trepidation again at the thought of it.

‘Let us go together to talk to your father,’ said Susannah.

William was in the library looking out of the window and Beth was concerned to see that his eyes were unnaturally bright.

‘What is it, Father?’ she asked, reaching for his hand.

He sighed. ‘I was wondering what Kit is doing. It’s a hard thing to accept that he may never return home. And I fear for Merryfields
with no one to carry on my work.’

‘But the funds from Princess Anne have helped, haven’t they?’

‘Not nearly enough. We must find another way to bring more
income into the household. We have the capacity for more guests but not the funds.’

‘Then perhaps I can help,’ said Beth slowly. ‘I would like to accept Bishop Compton’s invitation to work at the palace, after
all. I’d meet people of importance and I can tell them about the work you do at Merryfields. Perhaps they may have relatives
or friends who might come here.’

‘No!’ William’s jaw clenched. ‘I’m not having you racketing across the countryside to stay, unchaperoned, in a place full
of strangers.’

‘Father, it’s not some terrible den of iniquity, it’s a bishop’s palace.’

William stood up, his brow thunderous. ‘Do not presume to argue with me, miss!’

‘Can’t you
see
what an opportunity this is?’

‘Silence!’

Sudden anger and despair made Beth clench her fists. ‘Why do you have to stop me doing the one thing that’s important to me?
You’ve
never
loved me like you love your own children!’

William’s face blanched and a muscle trembled in his jaw. ‘That isn’t true,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve always thought of you
as my own.’

‘No, you haven’t! I’ve never fitted in. I even
look
different from them.’

Susannah, her expression shocked, reached for Beth, who avoided her embrace and stumbled out of the room.

Beth ran outside, down the steps into the courtyard and through to the back garden, not stopping until she reached the potting
shed where she threw herself, sobbing, on to a heap of sacks in the corner. She buried her face in the rough, earth-scented
sacking and howled.

Probably ten minutes later she heard a noise behind her.

Mutely, John offered her a grubby handkerchief and sat down beside her. ‘This is where I come, too, when I’m m-m-miserable,’
he said. Do you want to talk about it?’

‘No,’ she sniffed, leaning against the reassuring warmth of him.
Then she told him all that had passed. ‘I’ve always felt so different from you and Cecily and Kit because Father
isn’t
my father,’ she finished.

‘Funny that,’ said John. ‘You see, I’ve always f-f-felt different from you and Kit and Cecily. Kit is my big brother: tall
and handsome. Father really never sees me because Kit’s star shines too brightly. He was so proud of the son who was going
to be a doctor. And then Cecily is so very p-p-pretty and lively. And you, well you look so like our lovely mama and you have
an extraordinary talent. Then there’s m-m-me. I’m not handsome or clever. I always have earth under my fingernails and no
one listens to me because I s-s-stutter. Sometimes I think I mean no more to Father than one of the g-g-guests.’

‘Oh, John!’ Beth hugged him so tightly he grunted. ‘But you can make
anything
grow in the garden. You know how to make sick plants thrive and you guide and encourage the guests to make their own gardens.
You never make fun of them or judge them when they behave oddly. And you
are
handsome. You must know that you are a younger version of Kit? Just look at yourself in the mirror!’

‘Do you t-t-think so?’ he asked.

‘I do.’

He stared at her intently. ‘Did you know there’s a dead s-s-spider in your hair?’

William didn’t come to take his meals in the great hall during the week following Beth’s outburst but remained cloistered
in his study.

Beth was pleased to avoid his company but she couldn’t put out of her mind the memory of his hurt expression when she accused
him of favouring his own children. She relived the incident over and over again, angry and self-righteous one moment and then
overcome with guilt. Did he
really
favour them? She’d lived with those jealous thoughts for so long she couldn’t remember where they came from, or even one
example of favouritism to support her argument.
Perhaps it was only that she loved Father so much that when her siblings arrived she had been jealous, as a small child will
be. These troubling thoughts twisted around in her mind like a spider twirling on a strand of silk in the breeze.

Early the following morning Beth found the door to William’s study was firmly shut. She’d tossed and turned all night and
knew that she would not be happy until she had spoken to him. Tentatively, she knocked and then went in.

William stood by the window, looking out at the garden.

‘Father?’ she whispered.

He whirled round at the sound of her voice, his face set. ‘Beth.’

She didn’t know how to begin. She wanted to run to him and bury her face in the safety of his chest, just as she had when
she was a little girl. If she spoke, she thought she might cry so she simply looked at his shoes.

‘Beth,’ he said again. Then he took two strides across the room and crushed her to his chest.

Weeping, she clung to him. At last he let her go and held her at arm’s length. ‘Look at me, Beth!’ he said. ‘I’ve loved you
from the first time I saw you when you were only a week or two old. You squinted at me as if you didn’t much like what you
saw and then smiled with milk dribbling down your chin. You captured my heart and hold it still. Love is a funny thing. It’s
not finite but it grows as much as necessary. Yes, of course I love your brothers and your sister but I do not differentiate
between you. You are
all
my children.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

‘Let us have no more unhappiness.’

She shook her head. ‘But I wish you could understand how much I wish to go to Fulham Palace.’

William sighed. ‘I cannot stand to lose you, Beth, not so soon after Kit …’ He swallowed and cleared his throat. ‘I do see
that it
is a wonderful opportunity for you but I cannot bear the thought of any harm coming to you.’

‘None will!’

‘I don’t like the idea of you staying alone at the palace.’

‘But it’s too far to travel there every day!’

William bit his lip. ‘If there was a way … Let me think about it. Meanwhile, shall we go down to the hall for breakfast? I
think perhaps I could fancy an egg this morning.’

Puffs of white clouds drifted across a powder blue sky and Beth sighed as she leaned back against the sun-warmed garden bench
and turned her face up to the spring sunshine.

‘You’ll grow freckles if you do that,’ warned Cecily. ‘Then no one will marry you.’

‘I don’t care if I have freckles and anyway, I’ve decided I shall never marry.’

Cecily squealed. ‘Don’t say that!’

‘I owe that to Johannes. He begged me not to waste his training and if I have little ones there will be no time to paint.’

‘I can’t bear to think of you as a lonely spinster, living all alone and with no children to look after you in your old age.’

‘Don’t worry; I’ll be a devoted aunt to all your offspring and they’ll bring me sugared almonds for Christmas.’

‘That’s not
at all
the same thing, Beth!’ Cecily suddenly pulled on her sleeve. ‘Look, coming through the orchard gate.’

Beth opened one eye and then sat bolt upright. ‘It’s Noah!’ Sudden warmth flushed her cheeks.

‘And Grandmother is with him. Oh! I do wish I had put on my best dress this morning.’

Arm in arm, Noah and Lady Arabella made stately progress towards them, while Beth and Cecily smoothed their skirts and tidied
their hair as best they could.