by Nancy Carson
‘I wonder what your husband would think if he saw you now, Daisy?’
‘Frankly, John, I wouldn’t give tuppence to know what he thinks.’
‘You wouldn’t?’
‘No.’
‘I’m intrigued.’ He noticed how her eyebrows flickered momentarily, wincing. He was touched. Something was manifestly amiss.
‘Can I let you into a secret, John? Swear you won’t tell anybody?’
‘Of course. I swear.’
‘He’s been unfaithful … I found him with another woman.’
‘Good Lord! You poor, poor thing … Is he mad? I think he must be mad.’
‘I certainly was, I can tell you. But … putting two and two together, I can generally come up with four. I think he’s been unfaithful quite a few times … He’s out most of the time, even when he’s not travelling on the Continent … and he does have a way with women, you know.’ She went on to tell John exactly how her discovery had come about, how her suspicions had been aroused. She told him how she felt about it, about the anger that kept her from sleeping at night, how indifferent and resentful of Lawson she had since become.
‘But it surprises me, John,’ she went on, ‘how my feelings have turned around. I mean, in only a few weeks I’ve gone from being hopelessly besotted to being almost totally uninterested. That doesn’t seem right. So I ask myself whether I was really in love with him in the first place.’
‘Oh yes, you must have been in love, Daisy,’ John said emphatically as he mixed two colours together with a brush on his palette. ‘If you think you’re in love, then you are in love. Love is a state of mind as much as anything else. The fact that your emotions tell you you don’t love him any more might be a reaction, a sort of protection that possibly comes from being hurt. Maybe you’re telling yourself that he wouldn’t do what he does if he loves you. So why should you love him? In the same way that you once conditioned yourself to love him, you have since conditioned yourself not to. Do you follow?’
‘But I didn’t know you could turn love on and off like a tap.’
‘It’s just an illusion, Daisy. I’m sure you do still love him, deep down. It’s just that you can’t admit it to yourself any longer because he’s hurt you so much. In other words, you are saying to yourself, why reward him with your love when you so obviously feel he doesn’t deserve it? But that’s good. It’s good because it saves you a lot of pain.’
‘Do you still feel pain for Fernanda?’
‘Not so much. Not nearly so much.’ He wanted to be truthful and add that he felt no pain at all for Fernanda since Daisy had entered his life, but that would be too presumptuous. Any hopes he might harbour of winning Daisy were truly pie-in-the-sky. He could never compete with the likes of magnetic Lawson Maddox. He could never hope to win such a prize as Daisy.
Chapter 17
Every day that week Daisy travelled to Windmill Street and sat for John Gibson. When she wasn’t posing as ‘The Lonely Maiden’ in the plum dress, she was making herself useful in other ways. She went to the shops for him and bought groceries, meat from the butcher, lamp oil from the hardware shop. She washed and peeled vegetables and put them into pans of water so that all he had to do was stand them over the fire in the range in his scullery when she had gone. She swept the house, cleaned the windows and found it not in the least demeaning, although John Gibson protested vehemently that she must not do the work of a maid.
‘But you don’t have a maid,’ she replied, ‘and I only want to help.’
‘There’s no need, Daisy. I am perfectly capable.’
Although she did not confess it, she had nothing else to occupy her, and was doing only what was second nature to her. At home, Emma did all the domestic chores and Mrs O’Flanagan did the cooking. Other than deciding what they were going to eat and giving Emma instructions, there was little else to do. Albert, the groom, was making a fine fist of the garden but she could hardly stand and supervise him all day without getting her own hands and shoes dirty. She was terrified of having nothing to do; time spent in idleness spawned anxiety and self-pity over what Lawson had done, and entertaining such thoughts was not her intention.
John Gibson was something of a godsend during this time of intense emotions and uncertainty in her marriage. He was a calming influence. His unassuming way and his imperturbability were touchstones that seemed to whisk her back to the reality of a more normal life. Yes, he was unsure of himself, irreconcilably a loner, but she felt easy with him, and was flattered that he was so evidently at ease with her. She felt she understood him, and wanted to protect him from his inborn vulnerability. She was taking an avid interest in his work and felt inclined to help all she could to make him successful … if he would allow her.
The Lonely Maiden was finished and Daisy inspected it with awe. John had caught her looks wonderfully, albeit in profile, an aspect of her face she was not used to seeing. He had also painted the plum-coloured dress in such a way that there was no trace of her nakedness beneath the folds of material. It could hardly offend even the most prudish viewer. Whether he had done this in deference to her modesty, or whether it actually appeared thus to him, she did not know and did not feel compelled to enquire. The composition of the picture was tight; only the maiden, the balustrade, the sky and the sea, but it was serene, calming, innocent, like all his paintings.
‘Would you like to pose for me again, Daisy, for another painting?’ he asked.
‘You really think I’m suitable?’ she replied, seeking reassurance. Despite all, Lawson’s infidelity had shaken her self-confidence.
‘If you weren’t I wouldn’t ask you.’
She smiled gratefully. ‘Then I’ll do it, John. ’Course I will.’
‘Excellent. Thank you. Of course, I’ll pay you.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she replied indignantly. ‘Do you see me as one of those gay women that takes money for men’s favours?’
He laughed and raised his hands defensively. ‘Not at all. You must know I don’t. But I am taking up your valuable time.’
‘Only because I enjoy being with you.’ At once, she was concerned that perhaps her words conveyed more than she intended. She must play down its suggestion and divert him. ‘So what is this next painting?’
‘Oh, not unlike the last, except that you’ll be more or less facing the viewer.’
‘And the dress?’
‘Shall we go and choose one?’
In the lumber room, they agreed on a greeny-grey satin dress that this time was not translucent. Daisy changed into it while John went to his studio. She used the same bodice straps on this dress too, but she knew how to tie them herself by now.
John arranged her pose and asked her to adopt a wistful expression, then painted a draft study in oils to ascertain the composition and colouring of the final painting. It took him about an hour, during which time they talked almost continually.
‘How is Lawson?’
‘Too attentive for it to be sincere,’ she replied.
‘He doesn’t want to lose you.’
‘I guessed that, John. But he’s lost me already. Oh, we live in the same house, I’m married to him, but I don’t share his bed any more. He’s lost me. He’s lost my respect, my trust … everything.’
John lifted his brush to eye level and held it at arm’s length towards Daisy, peering at it with one eye shut to size her up. ‘Do your family know what’s happened?’
‘Lord, no. I don’t want to burden them with my problems. They have enough problems of their own. In any case, they think the sun shines out of his bum. They think he’s the most marvellous person on two legs. And with good reason, I suppose, since they live rent-free in one of his houses … And my sister Sarah, poor devil, is still secretly in love with him, I’m certain.’
‘I didn’t know you had a sister.’
‘She’s fifteen … Now there’s a stunner, if ever there was one, John.’
‘Maybe she’d like to sit for me sometime
?’
‘Who knows? Maybe when she’s a bit older. You’d have to pay her though.’
‘Of course I’d pay her.’ John stepped back from his easel and assessed the completed study. ‘Let’s take a break.’
‘What shall you call this picture?’ she asked, gratefully sitting down in front of the easel next to John.
‘I think, “Italian Reverie” has a good ring to it, don’t you?’
On the first Sunday in October, on their way back from church, Alexander and Ruth Gibson called at the old mine manager’s house in Windmill Street to collect their son. John had a standing invitation to dinner at their house every Sunday. The coachman stopped the vis-à-vis phaeton outside, the couple alighted and Alexander rapped the iron knocker. John appeared in a sombre, dark grey Sunday suit, a striped cotton shirt and a necktie. He invited them in.
‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ his father replied. ‘I need a drink, having sat through that interminable sermon. Do you have any port?’
‘Sorry. I might have some dry sherry, though. Will that do?’
Alexander nodded resignedly.
‘Same for you, Mother?’
‘Very well, dear.’
‘Why don’t you find somewhere to sit?’ John suggested.
Alexander strutted into the largest room and looked around. ‘If I could find a damned chair, I might be able to oblige,’ he called and his voice boomed through the hallway that was devoid of linoleum, carpet, or rugs. ‘Don’t know how you can live without even the simplest comforts.’
‘There are chairs in the studio,’ John called from the scullery. ‘Come through.’
Ruth moved through the scullery, twisting to avoid snagging her bustle on the rough corner of a chest of drawers, followed by Alexander. They arranged the two cheap wooden seats to face each other and sat down. Alexander peered with a superior expression at the overgrown garden outside and grunted some comment to his wife.
John came in, bringing two decent measures of a pale sherry, and handed one to his mother.
‘Pity about the garden,’ Alexander commented as he took his glass. ‘Couldn’t you get young Lawson Maddox to arrange for somebody to renovate it?’
‘I doubt if Lawson Maddox would want to spend the money, Father.’
‘Don’t see why not. It’s his property. It’s in his interest to see that it’s properly maintained, garden and all.’
‘Well, you only have to look at his own garden to understand that he wouldn’t spend money on another,’ Ruth remarked disparagingly. ‘I don’t know why that poor wife of his tolerates it.’
‘Maybe he’s expecting her to do it, eh, Ruth?’ Alexander chuckled at the thought. ‘After all, she is from gardening stock.’
John was suddenly incensed by his father’s insensitivity but, typically, would not be drawn to remonstrate. ‘She seems very decent,’ was the best defence he could muster, without creating dissent.
‘That she is,’ Ruth proclaimed. ‘A fine, sensible young woman despite her lowly origins. Though whatever possessed her to marry him I fail to understand.’
‘Money,’ Alexander baited. ‘What always decides a woman?’
‘I don’t think Daisy is like that,’ John said.
‘Don’t be so bloody naïve, John,’ Alexander scoffed. ‘They’re all like that. Especially those from the lower orders if they believe there’s a chance of a leg up the social ladder.’
‘Some are, I grant you, but I don’t think she is,’ John said, determined to defend her, then left the studio to get a drink for himself.
When he came back with a glass of beer, Alexander was poring over The Lonely Maiden, which was propped up against the wall on his workbench, drying out.
‘Damned if the girl in this painting isn’t the spitting image of the aforementioned Daisy Maddox,’ Alexander said.
‘It is Daisy Maddox, Father.’
‘You mean she’s been sitting for you? Here? In this house?’
‘Yes.’
Ruth got up from her chair in a state of high concern at this disturbing revelation and stood by her husband to scrutinise the work. ‘Sitting for you?’ she asked reproachfully. ‘You mean, posing in those disgraceful frocks that you can see straight through?’
‘They’re hardly disgraceful, Mother, and you can’t see through the one she’s wearing there. In any case, they are perceived to be of their time – classical Roman and Greek.’
‘I can scarcely believe she would do such a thing as to pose like that. I trust she was chaperoned?’
‘Only by me.’
‘Then she’s certainly dropped in my estimation. Ever since she brought you here alone that day I’ve had a sneaking suspicion …’
Alexander and Ruth both peered intently at the painting.
‘Hang me!’ Alexander declared. ‘How many times has she been here, posing like this?’
‘Several. She was here every day last week and most days this.’
‘My God!’ Ruth exclaimed. ‘Have you no shame? Has she no shame, posing without a corset?’
‘Does Lawson know she’s been posing like this?’
‘No, and why should he? He doesn’t deserve her, the way he treats her.’
‘Doesn’t deserve her!’ Alexander roared. ‘My God, what nonsense you spout! Do you know what you’re playing with here, man? Do you? You have the gall to admit you are entertaining a young, recently married woman in this house, she practically naked by the looks of this, and without a chaperone …’
‘I don’t see what all the fuss is about,’ John responded quietly. ‘She comes here to sit for me. Nothing more.’
‘Well, it’ll have to stop. I won’t have a son of mine dragged into some unnecessary scandal, even if it is of his own making.’
‘Well, I won’t stop it, Father.’
‘Then I shall make damned sure it is stopped. Furthermore, if you persist in encouraging her, you may rest assured, sir, that I shall cut you off without a penny. I will not have the good name of Gibson besmirched by scandalmongers.’
‘Whether you cut me off or not, Father, I doubt whether you will stop it. She’s a grown woman. Old enough to know her own mind.’
‘She is a married woman, John, and her own mind is of no consequence. She belongs to her husband and she must be ruled by him.’
The following day Alexander Gibson sought out Lawson Maddox in one of his regular haunts, the Dudley Arms Hotel. He was upstairs, drinking in the saloon with two other men and a woman. Alexander drew him aside.
‘I am in possession of some information, Lawson, which distresses me no end to recount. However, before I report it, you must realise that I offer it to you in the best possible spirit and to avoid future embarrassment to us both.’
Lawson looked at him with some concern. ‘All right, I understand, Alex. So what the devil is it?’
‘It concerns my son John and … I’m afraid … your wife.’
‘My wife? Are you suggesting …? What exactly are you suggesting, Alex?’
‘I’m not certain that I’m suggesting anything, Lawson. But your wife has been sitting as a model for John. Knowing the kind of voluptuous pictures he paints, you will realise that modelling for them requires her to be … well, almost completely naked but for some … some transparent attire, as you well know. During this time, they have been quite alone together. As I said, I am anxious to avoid a scandal. I have threatened my son with disinheritance if it continues but, for your part, I would like your reassurance that you will put a stop to these visits.’
‘You may have it, Alexander. Of course I shall put a stop to it. And I appreciate your telling me.’
‘I am absolutely satisfied, of course,’ Alexander continued, ‘that this liaison is totally innocent and that that’s all it is – a modelling arrangement. But in our respective positions Lawson, we cannot afford unwanted attention.’
‘I agree. And thank you again for enlightening me.’
‘My duty, Lawson. My duty as a friend.’
‘Good. Will you allow me to buy you a drink?’ Lawson cocked a knowing eyebrow. ‘Or are you otherwise engaged, Alex?’
Alexander grinned sheepishly. ‘Not presently, Lawson. Of course you may buy me a drink.’
Lawson and Daisy dined together that evening. Emma served the meal that Daisy had already organised with Mrs O’Flanagan. When she had finished serving the maid left the room.
‘I sometimes wonder if it’s necessary to have any staff at all,’ Lawson said, salting his meal.
‘Oh? From what point of view?’
He took the pepper pot and shook it over his plate. ‘The expense, for one thing.’
Daisy picked up her knife and fork. ‘Have you hit on hard times?’ she asked, her voice tinged with sarcasm.
‘I was thinking about it from another aspect. For instance, if we got rid of them, Emma and Mrs O’Flanagan, you would have more to do at home. You could cope with the cooking and the cleaning, couldn’t you?’
‘I could, but why should I? You want me to be a skivvy now, do you?’ She cut a piece of meat and was poised to put it in her mouth.
‘Not at all. I’m aware you’re unsettled, Daisy.’
‘On the contrary,’ she said haughtily, ‘I’m quite content. In any case, why should you care?’
‘I do care. It seems to me you need something to occupy you.’
‘I have plenty to occupy me.’
‘Oh? So tell me. What has occupied you today?’
‘This morning I collected your rents, as I do every Monday morning.’
‘Where from?’