by Maggie Ford
Like most she had met last night, he had no prim notions about life, had likely had his fill of women when the chance came, had no trouble drinking himself into a stupor; nor could she really see him drawing back from an occasional dip into drugs, hemp or a pipe of opium. Yet she did like him. After all, it was well known that in society circles many a lady kept a neat little small-bowled pipe on her person for a puff or two to steady her nerves, and laudanum wasn’t always taken merely for medicinal purposes.
Ellie felt she must have derived something from that evening, for she had awoken this morning feeling unexpectedly lively, not even with a headache. Going over to the portrait of her mother, she knew she could finish it.
Better still, where the painting was concerned, surveying her mother’s likeness rekindled the old pain and instinctively she knew that this portrait was going to be the best work she had ever done.
Twenty-Three
At the sound of Mrs Lowe’s voice calling her Dora looked up sharply from the book she was reading in her little side room.
She wished she had a room like Ellie used to have. This one, coming directly off Mrs Lowe’s room, gave her no privacy at all. She had made one or two tentative approaches, asking that she might use the now vacant room, but Doctor Lowe had refused on the grounds that it had been his daughter’s room and was not to be disturbed, which made no sense. So it had been all right for Ellie to have it, but not her.
Mrs Lowe, too, had found obstacles to put in the way. ‘I cannot go running to that room whenever I want you. Dora, I need you by my side.’
It seemed that she was constantly needed, that Mrs Lowe would have sewn her to her skirt if she could. Forever at her beck and call, she felt that the woman was using her to vent her self-inflicted loneliness upon. Dora’s role, as a maid as well as a lady’s companion, was one that never seemed to let up for a moment. She felt more a slave than a paid companion. Even slaves would probably have had some time to themselves, but she… she was expected to be on hand at any moment. She was meant to have days off, but Mrs Lowe seemed to view their days out together as being sufficient.
‘I don’t know why you wish to go off on your own,’ she had said many times when the question arose. ‘Don’t you care for my company, Dora? I do my best to make you happy. I buy you nice things. I take you to select little restaurants for lunch. We go together to the most fashionable shopping streets and to the finest emporiums, such as you would never see if on your own. Isn’t it enough? Is it so boring being with me?’
‘No, of course not,’ Dora would assure her.
‘I have tried to be a good friend to you, Dora. Do I not do enough for you – is that the problem?’
‘Yes, you do.’ She felt that her reply had to be meek, grateful.
‘And am I not kind to you?’
To this Dora would nod in an abashed sort of way. But Mrs Lowe was not all that kind. Dora had known that when she had first taken her on to train her to be a lady’s maid; but when Ellie had apparently become the apple of Doctor Lowe’s eye, so to speak, Mrs Lowe had become quite sweet towards her.
She guessed now that it had been only to make Ellie jealous because, since Ellie had left, Mrs Lowe had changed completely and for the worse. She’d quibble over the least thing and nothing seemed to please her, often being sharp with her – and nothing Dora did was right. Yet the woman clung to her as if she would be utterly lost without her, maybe because she was so ill at ease in social circles.
‘I’m afraid it is inconvenient,’ she’d snapped when this morning Dora had timidly asked yet again if she could have a day off.
It had led to yet another bewildered tirade. ‘I don’t know why you feel the need to go off on your own. Where can you go that I cannot take you? It’s not as if you’ve a family you can visit.’
That last cut deep. ‘On your own’, Mrs Lowe had said. Lately she’d never felt so alone – Mum gone, never a word from Charlie. And Dad? God knew where he was and he seemed unlikely to ever show himself again. As for Ellie, she’d been gone nearly six weeks and hadn’t come nigh or by to see how she was. It was like she didn’t have a sister.
Ellie had sent her a Season’s Greetings card at Christmas, saying she hoped she was coping all right at the Lowes’ without her, but there had been no address to write back to.
The card had come with Doctor Lowe’s post and been handed to her by Mrs Lowe, having been opened. To Dora it seemed she had no privacy at all, but complaining would have evoked a prolonged and hurt reproach so cleverly designed that she’d immediately feel ashamed at having complained, the reproach so subtly manipulative that it trapped her every time.
She sometimes wished she’d taken up Ellie’s offer to go with her. If she’d known where her sister was, she’d have upped and left as Ellie had done. But she wasn’t like Ellie. She couldn’t have upped and gone off all alone out into the wide world like she had. She hadn’t her courage and, with no idea where Ellie was, she was stuck here.
Dora put down her book and hurried to answer Mrs Lowe’s call.
‘Why did you take so long answering me, child?’ The reprimand was aggrieved but had a sharp edge to it. ‘What were you doing?’
‘I was reading, madam.’
‘Haven’t you anything better to do, Dora? Doctor Lowe and I will be out this evening. Come and help me choose a gown. Something warm. It is such a chilly night and our host’s home is always so cold. I do believe they are not so affluent as they like to pretend and I am sure that they must be trying to save on fuel. I am not at all looking forward to this evening.’
Going to the great satinwood wardrobe, she opened it to gaze at the row of gowns she possessed. There were dozens, all of them beautiful. They made Dora’s mouth practically water to see them, but though Mary Lowe adored buying, she rarely wore what she bought.
‘I wish Doctor Lowe would not accept these invitations,’ she went on. ‘But I suppose as it is in connection with his profession I must suffer to meet people in whom I myself find no interest.’
She sighed mightily, surveying the row of gowns. ‘Now, which do you think would be suitable for this evening?’
Dora glanced along the row. What Mrs Lowe was already wearing looked to her to be as suitable as any, but it was a house gown. Of grey watered silk, the fashionably pouting bodice was all tucks and frilled lace, the lower part of the skirt ringed with a swirl of ribbon, the sweep of the hem trailing the carpet as she walked. The sleeves, following the mode, were puffed, narrowing down to the wrist – not a gown for an ample figure like hers but in Dora’s estimation beautiful enough to indeed be worn for a social occasion rather than just around the house; but then what did she know about it?
Mrs Lowe was running her fingers along the row, making each gown shimmer. Her fingers paused at one particular gown of pale-blue silk, its length striped with evenly spaced tucks, the skirt decorated with artificial flowers. The décolletée, not as low as some were, had a bertha, a small fichu and epaulettes of cream silk and deep-blue velvet with more artificial flowers. At the waist was a huge bow edged in deep-blue velvet, again not something that flattering to the shorter, plumper figure like Mrs Lowe’s, but again a really lovely thing.
Dora took her cue from the pause. ‘What about the blue silk one, madam?’ she suggested cautiously.
She had learned always to suggest, never to inform. Mrs Lowe might be indecisive about what she should wear, but to be told would immediately put her back up, no doubt because she felt she could be easily belittled. The only times she became set in her views were when she felt put out, such as in her ongoing dislike of Ellie.
Dora thought again of her sister as she helped her mistress prepare for her apparently miserable evening with Doctor Lowe’s colleagues, easing her into the gown, doing up the hooks at the back, making sure the slightly greying hair was dressed nicely, the way she had been taught.
Last week Ellie had written to her, this time with an address. It had been delivered by hand and passed t
o her by the new housemaid Sarah.
‘The gel give me sixpence ter give it ter you only an’ no one else,’ she said, beaming, enjoying the conspiracy. ‘Said she was yer sister.’
The new girl was nice but Mrs Lowe’s diktat that a lady’s maid didn’t fraternize with the lower servants had made it doubly difficult to pass on the letter. But Sarah agreed to post an answer. Florrie might not have done. She no longer worked here, having left not long after Ellie to look after her mother, who had fallen sick following the death of her father. Dora was glad she had gone because after Ellie had left, Florrie had become very full of herself.
The next day Dora wrote Ellie a letter, handed it to Sarah and set herself to wait hopefully for her sister to reply.
* * *
Ellie stood back to survey her work. It was finished. It was everything she had envisaged, as if a ghostly hand, perhaps even her mother’s, had guided her brush strokes – the hazel eyes staring out of the canvas straight at the viewer as if defying anyone to try to look down on her.
It had taken several weeks to finish. This one she would frame and take with the other silly little landscapes to display to the public. Would that man Hunnard come by? It was a slim hope. Yet if he did, would he turn up his nose and tell her it was a piece of rubbish? Oddly enough, it was him she had painted it for as much as for herself. The man haunted her just as her paintings did, refusing to be flushed out of her mind. Why did he find the painting he’d bought from her so interesting? She’d only put them out for the public because she had needed money and could only hope someone would buy, but she had never expected someone to practically drool over them.
This Monday morning she parcelled up a couple of watercolours of scenes she’d taken from a poster advertising trips into the country and two small oil paintings of street scenes, hopefully quite saleable. She also included her mother’s portrait, which she knew would be given no more than a few odd glances from passers-by and would probably end up being brought back here the same way as she was taking it.
In the dingy hallway she handed over next week’s rent to the scruffy-looking landlord.
‘Letter for you,’ he said shortly, handing her the envelope with the single blue stamp on it, and disappeared back into his room.
Recognizing her sister’s hand, Ellie put down her parcel and ripped open the envelope. Her first thought was that Dora might be in need of her, but scanning it gave no indication of anything wrong – just an ordinary account of daily goings-on.
But something about the letter wasn’t quite as it seemed. Ellie began to read it over again, more carefully. Dora had written that she missed her so and wished she had left at the same time as her. That was odd. She’d been so adamant about staying.
Slowly Ellie began to realize, reading between the lines, that though Dora seemed to be making light of all that went on, little things – the odd word dropped here and there – appeared to reveal that Dora was not at all happy.
Refolding the letter and putting it into her pocket, Ellie hoisted the somewhat bulky tied-together canvases under her arm and turned towards Bayswater Road. But her mind kept going over all that Dora had written, bit by bit deciphering it until by the time she arrived there she was convinced something must be done about the girl. That evening she’d go and see her – not slink there as she’d done on delivering her letter, but arrive openly, and brave whatever unfriendly reception she would get from Dora’s employers.
She was ready for Mrs Lowe, but how would Bertram Lowe deal with her sudden appearance? What would his reaction be? Hurt, bewildered, angry? Or would he keep well out of the way, unable to confront her? She would face that when she got there.
The next move would be to get Dora to come away with her. That was if she meant all she had put in her letter. It could have been a moment of upset when she’d written it. By the time she got there, Dora might have changed her mind, feeling better. It was an uncertainty that dogged her mind as she began to set out her few paintings against the park railings.
Felix was already there. She’d not seen him since the New Year party, being too engrossed in her work and he probably in his. Whether he’d been here she didn’t know, not having come here herself. But she had thought about him a lot since the party. Despite his scruffy looks he was certainly handsome, his face smooth and gentle – she would have said ‘sweet’.
She felt her heart race as he lifted a hand at seeing her. His light-voiced salutation – ‘Hullo there, love! Are you all right?’ – had her replying that she was fine and experiencing a little thrill of excitement as he came over.
The sensation surprised her. It seemed to her that it never took long for a man to be lured by her: Ronnie, Michael, now Felix. Had she in some way been instrumental in luring her own father to do what he did? As she smiled at Felix, her mind flew back to those days. Had it been her fault? Had she the right to look for revenge for what he’d done? Was she so pure that she could blame him entirely? She shuddered and pushed the thought away.
‘It certainly is cold this morning,’ Felix laughed, misinterpreting the shudder. His laugh was high, musical. ‘All I hope is that this bit of sunshine, cold as it is, will bring out a few punters. Can’t wait for spring.’
Pausing, he eyed her for a moment, seeming about to say something.
‘Yes?’ Ellie prompted.
He gave a small shrug. ‘Oh… it’s nothing really.’
‘Tell me.’
What had he been about to say? Ask her to go out with him? Mention going to another party? She knew that artists frequently met together, maybe in a café, or someone’s studio, being ever in need of company after working alone for hours on end. Some shared accommodation, and not only to eke out the rent. Most artists were hard up. Paints cost, and paintings were hard to sell. Normal working men, poorly paid as they were, could never know the sort of income some of these people often had to subsist on.
It was obsession for their art that drove them to live as they did – pure obsession, and the hope that one day a painting would make them suddenly rich. For her, all she’d wanted was enough to be able to stand over her father and humiliate him. Now she wasn’t sure. She, too, wanted to be blessed by that one big success. But her sights had been set long ago: to find the man she loathed so much. She couldn’t give up now.
‘Tell me what you were going to say,’ she said again.
Felix nibbled at his top lip. He had such lovely white teeth. ‘It’s just that…’ He paused again, then went on with visible determination.
‘Just that I went to Hunnard’s galleries only to see if that self-portrait of yours was there. And it was.’
‘Did you?’ Ellie cried excitedly, unable to curb the thrill of knowing that something of hers was actually hanging in an important art gallery. ‘Was it? What did it look like?’
He still seemed to be playing for time, again nibbling at his lower lip. When he spoke, his words were stilted. ‘Well… it was small compared with some, but it looked very special. But what I’m trying to get at – and I think you ought to know it – was the price being asked.’
‘Yes?’ she prompted as he hesitated.
‘Well, it was fifty guineas.’
This last was blurted out. Ellie stared at him, unsure what her mind was deriving from his news. Her picture hanging in an important West End gallery: for a second that sounded absolutely wonderful; then slowly it began to dawn. She’d been paid four pounds, thinking that a marvellous sum. Now it was being sold for fifty bloody guineas! A sense of having been robbed, of having been taken for a fool, sent her suddenly livid with indignation.
‘He swindled me! How dare he!’
Felix’s laugh was filled with relief at having rid himself of the news. ‘That’s how it goes, love,’ he said lightly. ‘We’re only the bricklayers – no matter how much the finished building sells for.’
She didn’t see the wit behind the wisdom. ‘I’ve a mind to go there and tell him just what I think of him, the thieving
old bugger!’
He smiled. ‘It’s not worth shedding blood over. Be glad that someone important took that sort of interest in it. Some would give their eye teeth for that.’
‘I don’t care how important he is. He cheated me and I’m going to give him a piece of my mind!’
‘I’m afraid, love, you’ll be better off just grinning and bearing it. You’ll only show yourself up in front of everyone. The sort who visit those galleries are usually well off and they’ll merely think you mad.’
‘I don’t care!’ she said defiantly. But his advice brought her feet back on to the ground. She let her anger subside. She’d already been taken for a fool – no use adding to it.
‘But he’d better not show his face here again,’ she griped sullenly. ‘Because if he does, I’ll give him what for.’
‘At least someone of importance taking notice of your work must count for something. Anyway, I don’t suppose he’ll be back.’
But Ellie wasn’t so sure. If Mr blooming Hunnard thought he had got away with it, he could come back looking for more from her, seeing her as an easy touch. And she’d be ready for him.
She managed to sell just one painting during the afternoon, for only a few shillings, which was no more than she’d expected. She’d had little heart in painting it and it probably showed. Her mind at the time had been solely on the portrait she’d been working on.
The people who’d bought the watercolour had glanced at the portrait and quickly looked away, their exchange of grimaces making it hard for her to hide her contempt for them as she took their money and handed over the poor piece of work.
‘At least you’ve sold something today,’ Felix put in. He seemed very sensitive to how she was feeling. ‘I’ve not even had a nibble.’ He glanced along the row of others trying to make a living from art. ‘There’s too much competition.’