by Kate Morton
I could not say how long we stood like that – seconds, minutes – time had slipped its bounds.
Only when Martin appeared and uttered a cry of, ‘Stop! Thief!’, was the spell broken. I blinked and stepped away.
Martin launched into his practised ruse, but I was impatient, suddenly, with its shabbiness. No, I said firmly, this man was not a thief.
No, indeed, said Edward, he was a painter and he wished to paint my portrait.
Martin began to stammer – nonsense about young ladies, his ‘sister’, respectability; but Edward took no heed. He spoke of his family, promising that he and his mother would come to my home and meet my parents: reassure them that he was a gentleman of fine character and that an association with him would not tarnish my reputation.
The proposal was wholly unexpected, the suggestion of parents and a home so very quaint, and I confess to being much taken with the idea of myself as the sort of young lady whose modesty might require such protection.
I agreed, and when upon leaving he asked me my name, aware that Martin was watching, I told him the first thing that came to mind: ‘Lily,’ I said, ‘My name is Lily Millington.’
Mrs Mack, always able to smell a profit, was inspired to immediate action. She began at once the process of turning her parlour into the picture of domestic gentility. One of the newer children, Effie Granger, who was eleven years old but big for her age, was outfitted in a maid’s black-and-white uniform, snatched by Martin from a drying line in Chelsea, and given a quick and brutal course in the basics of service. Martin and the Captain were instructed in the roles of upstanding brother and father, and Mrs Mack began a process of embodiment as she turned herself into a Doting Mother Fallen on Hard Times with a commitment that would have put the actresses down on Drury Lane to shame.
When the auspicious day arrived, the younger ones were tucked away upstairs, under strict instruction not to so much as twitch the lace curtains with their spying if they knew what was good for them, and the rest of us waited downstairs nervously for the doorbell to ring.
Edward and his mother, a woman Mrs Mack described later as being of Continental looks and manners, were shown inside, the latter unable to resist a curious glance around as she unpinned her hat. Whatever she thought of ‘Mr and Mrs Millington’ and their household, her son was her pride and joy, and in him she had invested all of her artistic aspirations; if he believed that Miss Millington was what he needed to complete his vision, then Miss Millington would be his. And if that meant drinking tea from the pot of a strange couple in Covent Garden, then she was more than willing to do it.
During the meeting I sat upon one end of the sofa – a position I was rarely granted – with Edward at the other, Mrs Mack intoning, in what I can only suppose she imagined a decorous manner, as to my goodness and virtue. ‘A proper Christian girl, my Lily. Innocent as the day.’
‘I am very glad to hear it,’ said Mrs Radcliffe, with a charming smile. ‘And so she shall remain. My late husband’s father is the Earl of Beechworth and my son is a gentleman of most noble character. You have my word that he will take the utmost care of your daughter, returning her to you in the condition that she arrives.’
‘Harrumph,’ said the Captain, who had been schooled in the role of Reluctant Paterfamilias. (‘When in doubt,’ Mrs Mack had said, ‘grunt. And whatever you do, don’t remove that leg.’)
Permission was eventually won, and a price agreed, the payment of which, Mrs Mack declared, would make her feel comfortable that her daughter’s virtue would remain intact.
And then, as I finally allowed myself to meet Edward’s gaze, a date was agreed on which the initial sitting would take place.
His studio was at the back of his mother’s garden, behind her house in Hampstead, and on the first day he took my hand to help me down the slippery path. ‘Cherry blossoms,’ he said, ‘beautiful but deadly.’
I had no experience with painters, having learned all that I knew of art from Pale Joe’s books and the walls of his father’s house. And so, when Edward opened the door, I had little idea what to expect.
The room was small, with a Persian rug on the floor and an easel upon it facing a plain but elegant chair. The ceiling was made of glass, but the walls were wooden and painted white; along two of them ran a purpose-built bench with shelves beneath, filled with wide drawers. The top was covered with tiny jars containing pigments, bottles of assorted liquids and pots of brushes in every size.
Edward went first to light the furnace in the far corner. He did not want me to get cold, he said; I was to tell him if I became uncomfortable. He helped me to remove my cloak, and when his fingers brushed my neck I felt my skin heat. He indicated that I should sit upon the chair; he would be working on studies today. I noticed then that the wall at the back of the room was already covered with a haphazard array of pen and ink sketches.
Here, now, in this strange betwixt-and-between existence that I lead, I can see but no longer be seen. I did not understand before how fundamental an act it is to exchange glances: to look into the eyes of another human being. I did not understand, either, how rare it is to be afforded the opportunity to devote one’s entire attention to another person without fear of being caught.
While Edward studied me, I studied him.
I became addicted to his focus. And I learned, too, the power of being watched. If I were to move my chin, even a little, I would see the change reflected in his face. The slight narrowing of his eyes as he took in the new spill of light.
I will tell you something else I know: it is hard not to fall in love with a handsome man who pays you his complete attention.
There was no clock inside the studio. There was no time. Working together, day after day, the world beyond its walls dissolved. There was Edward and there was me, and even those boundaries came to blur within the strange envelopment of our endeavour.
Sometimes he asked me questions about myself that came from nowhere to disrupt the dense quiet of the room, and I answered as best I could whilst he listened and painted, concentration making a faint line appear between his brows. At first I was able to skirt the truth, but as the weeks wore on, I began to fear that he could see through my shadows and embellishments. More than that, I felt a new and troublesome urge to lay myself bare.
And so I steered the conversation on to safer subjects like art and science and the sorts of things that Pale Joe and I discussed, about life and time. This surprised him, for he smiled, a slight quizzical frown, and stopped what he was doing, considering me over the top of his canvas. These topics were of great interest to him, too, he said eventually, and he told me then about an essay he had written recently about the connection between places and people, the way certain landscapes were more potent than others, speaking to the present about the happenings of the past.
Edward was like no one I had met before. When he spoke, it was impossible not to listen. He was wholly committed to whatever it was that he was doing or feeling or expressing at the time. I found myself thinking of him when we weren’t together, remembering a sentiment that he’d expressed, the way he’d thrown his head back and laughed freely at an anecdote I’d told him, and yearning to make him laugh like that again. I could no longer remember what I’d used to think about before I knew him. He was the music that gets inside a person’s head and changes the rhythm of their pulse; the inexplicable urge that drives a person to act against their better judgement.
We were never disturbed, except briefly, on occasion, by the arrival of a hot teapot. Sometimes it was his mother who brought the tray, eager to glance over her shoulder and to gauge Edward’s progress. Other days it was the maid. And one morning, after I had been meeting Edward daily for a week or two, when the knock came at the door and he called out, ‘Yes,’ it was opened by a young girl of about twelve years old, holding her tray very carefully.
She had a nervousness that immediately endeared her to me. Her face was not pretty, but I glimpsed strength in the set of her chin that
made me feel that she should not be underestimated; she was curious, too, her eyes darting around the room from Edward to me to the sketches on the wall. Curiosity was a trait with which I identified and which, in truth, had always seemed to me a prerequisite for life. What purpose could a person find in the long trudge ahead, if they hadn’t curiosities to light the way? I knew at once who she must be and sure enough:
‘My littlest sister,’ said Edward, with a smile, ‘Lucy. And Lucy, this is Lily Millington, “La Belle”.’
I had known Edward for six months when the La Belle painting debuted at a Royal Academy exhibition in November 1861. I had been told to arrive at seven and Mrs Mack was eager to ensure that I had a dress befitting the occasion. For a woman of such blowsy self-confidence, she was almost endearingly impressed by celebrity, even more so if it brought with it the prospect of ongoing income. ‘This is it,’ she said, fastening the pearl buttons that ran all the way up my back to the nape of my neck. ‘Play your cards, right, my girl, and this could be the start of something magnificent.’ She nodded then towards the collection of cartes de visite on her mantel, members of the royal family and other well-known and distinguished persons. ‘You could be on your way to being one of them.’
Martin, predictably, did not share her enthusiasm. He had resented the time that I’d spent as Edward’s model, seeming to take my absence during the days as a personal slight. I heard him some nights in Mrs Mack’s parlour, complaining about the diminished returns, and when those arguments failed to sway her – the payment for my modelling services was more than equal to the earnings from my thievery – he insisted that it was a ‘risk’ to let me get ‘too close to the quarry’. But it was Mrs Mack who ruled the roost in the rooms above the bird shop. I had been invited to an exhibition at the Royal Academy, one of the brightest, most important events on the London social scene, and so, tailed by Martin, I was dispatched.
I arrived to find a mass of people, men in shiny black top hats and long evening jackets, and women in exquisite silk dresses, filling the great room. Their eyes brushed over me as I made my way through the thick, warm sea. The air was very close and it thrummed with rapid conversation broken occasionally by barks of laughter.
I was beginning to give up hope that I would find Edward when suddenly his face came into focus before me. ‘You’re here,’ he said. ‘I waited at the other entrance, but I missed you.’
As he took my hand I felt a hot rush of electric energy surge through me. It was novel to see him like this, in public, having spent the past six months cloistered away in his studio. We had spoken about so many things, and I knew by now so much about him, yet here, surrounded by all these other laughing people, he was out of context. The new setting, familiar to him but foreign to me, rendered him a different person from the one I knew.
He led me through the crowd to where the painting was hanging. I had glimpsed it in the studio, but nothing could have prepared me for the way it would look upon the wall, magnified by virtue of its display. His eyes searched mine. ‘What do you think?’
I was at an unusual loss for words. The painting was extraordinary. The colours were lush and my skin looked luminous, as if it would be warm to the touch. He had painted me at the centre of the canvas, my hair flowing in ripples, my eyes direct and my expression as if I had just given a confidence that would not be repeated. And yet, there was something more underlying the image. Edward had captured in this beautiful face – far more beautiful than my own real face – a vulnerability that rendered the whole exquisite.
But my speechlessness was about more than the image itself. La Belle is a time capsule. Beneath the brushstrokes and the pigments lies every word, every glance, that Edward and I exchanged; she bears a record of every time he laughed, that he came to touch my face, shifting it ever so carefully towards the light. Each thought that he had is recorded, each instance that our minds met in that isolated studio in the corner of the garden. Within La Belle’s face there lie one thousand secrets, which together tell a story, known only to Edward and me. To see her hanging on the wall in that room of noisy strangers was overwhelming.
Edward was still waiting for my answer and I said, ‘She’s …’
He squeezed my hand. ‘Isn’t she?’
Edward excused himself then, for he had spotted Mr Ruskin, and told me that he would be back immediately.
I continued to look at the painting and was aware that a tall handsome man had come to stand close by. ‘What do you think?’ he said, and at first I thought that he was speaking to me. I was struggling to find words when another woman answered. She was on his other side, pretty and petite with honey brown hair and a small mouth.
‘The painting is wonderful, as always,’ she said. ‘I do wonder, though, why he insists on choosing his models from the gutter.’
The man laughed. ‘You know Edward. He has always been of a perverse nature.’
‘She cheapens it. Look at the way she stares directly at us; no shame, no class … And those lips! I said as much to Mr Ruskin.’
‘And what did he reply?’
‘He was inclined to agree, although he did say that he assumed Edward had intended to make that very point. Something about contrast, the innocence of the setting, the boldness of the woman.’
Every cell in my body retracted. I wished nothing more than that I might disappear. It had been a grave mistake to have come; I saw that now. Martin had been right. I had become caught up in the energy that surrounded Edward. I had allowed my guard to drop. I had thought us partners in a great endeavour. I had been unthinkably stupid.
My cheeks burned with embarrassment and I longed to escape. I glanced behind me to see how easily I could get to the door. The room was overflowing with guests, one pressed up hard against the next, and the air was cloying, thick with cigar smoke and cologne.
‘Lily.’ Edward was back, his face warm with excitement. But then: ‘What is it?’ as his gaze raked mine, ‘what’s happened?’
‘There you are, Edward!’ said the tall handsome man. ‘I was wondering where you’d got to – we were just admiring La Belle.’
Edward shot me a final glance of encouragement, before meeting the grin of his friend, who was now slapping him on the shoulder. He placed his hand gently in the small of my back and ushered me forward. ‘Lily Millington,’ he said, ‘this is Thurston Holmes, one of the Magenta Brotherhood and my good friend.’
Thurston took my hand and brushed it with his lips. ‘So, this is the famous Miss Millington about whom we’ve heard so much.’ His eyes met mine and I read within them unmistakable interest. One did not grow up in the shady laneways of Covent Garden and the dank streets around the Thames without learning to recognise that look. ‘It is a pleasure finally to make your acquaintance. About time he shared you with us.’
The honey-haired woman beside him held out her cold little hand then and said, ‘I see that I shall have to introduce myself. My name is Miss Frances Brown. Soon to be Mrs Edward Radcliffe.’
As soon as I noticed Edward in deep conversation with another guest, I gave a vague excuse to no one in particular and extricated myself, making my way through the crowd until I reached the door.
It was a relief to escape the room, and yet as I slipped quickly into the dark folds of the cool night, I could not help but feel that I had stepped through more than one doorway. I had left behind an alluring world of creativity and light, and was now returned to the dim, bleak alleyways of my past.
I was in just such an alley, thinking just such a thought, when I felt a grip on my wrist. I turned, expecting to see Martin, who had been lurking all night in the middle of Trafalgar Square, but it was Edward’s friend from the exhibition, Thurston Holmes. I could hear the clatter of noise on the Strand, but aside from a vagrant slumped in a gutter we were alone.
‘Miss Millington,’ he said. ‘You left so suddenly. I was concerned that you were unwell.’
‘I’m fine, thank you. The room was so hot – I needed air.’
‘It can be overwhelming, I expect, when one is unused to the attention. But I fear it is not safe for a young lady by herself out here. There are dangers in the night.’
‘Thank you for your concern.’
‘Perhaps I could take you somewhere for some refreshment. I have rooms nearby and a very understanding landlady.’
I could see at once the sort of refreshment he desired. ‘No, thank you. I don’t wish to detain you from your evening.’
He came closer then and laid one hand upon my waist, sliding it around my back and pulling me towards him. With his other hand, he took two gold coins from his pocket, holding them up between his fingers. ‘I promise to make it worth your while.’
I met his eyes and did not look away. ‘As I said, Mr Holmes, I would prefer to get some air.’
‘As you wish.’ He took off his top hat and gave a quick nod. ‘Goodnight, Miss Millington. Until we meet again.’
The interaction was unpleasant, and yet I had matters of more importance on my mind. I had no wish to return yet to Mrs Mack, and so, with care not to attract Martin’s attention, I went instead to the only place that I could think to go.
If Pale Joe was surprised to see me, his reaction was mild: he set the bookmark on his page and closed the cover. We had spoken with much anticipation about the unveiling of the painting and he turned now to receive my triumphant story. Instead, as soon as I opened my mouth to speak, I began to cry – I who had not cried since the first morning that I woke up at Mrs Mack’s house without my father.
‘What is it?’ he said with some alarm. ‘What has happened? Has somebody hurt you?’
I told him no, that it was nothing like that. That I was not even certain myself why I was crying.
‘Then you must start at the beginning and describe everything. That way, maybe I will be able to tell you why you are crying.’
So I did. I told him first about the painting: the way I had stood before it and felt shy of myself. The way the image that Edward had created in that glass-roofed studio of his was so much more than I was. That it was radiant; that it swept away all of the petty concerns of daily life; that it captured vulnerability and hope and the woman beneath the artifice.