Page 19 of Miss Devoted
Michael eased to his feet, tried a few stretches, then folded the blanket neatly over the back of the chair while the cat settled into the posture of a sphinx. To return to the studio meant passing through the bedroom. Michael had tried not to gawk earlier in the evening, but a lady’s boudoir said much about her.
Mrs. Fremont liked her comforts. The bed was capacious and done up in a peacock palette. The hangings were silk, probably worth a year of Michael’s salary, and the carpets—same luminous blues and greens—were pristine. The landscape over the mantel depicted a white-washed stately manor resplendent amid green fields.
Home? An early study? That painting did not fit with the rest of the room, and where was the obligatory portrait of the late Mr. Fremont? Perhaps he graced the family parlor or the library.
“None of my business,” Michael muttered, tapping on the studio door, then admitting himself.
Mrs. Fremont gave no sign that she’d heard his entrance. She sat in the same wing chair she’d occupied earlier, but her stockinged feet were propped on a hassock and her knees drawn up to support her sketch pad. She glanced at the empty chair opposite, nibbled the end of her pencil, and resumed sketching.
“A moment,” she said. “Just give me one…” She frowned, used an eraser, and then made a few more lines with the pencil. She could hold the pencil and the eraser in the same hand, dropping the eraser when she was through with it.
Nimble hands. Michael recalled the feel of her fingers arranging his hair. Berthold explained a posture to Michael or demonstrated it for him, but he did not touch his models.
“There,” she said, setting the pencil aside and holding her sketch at arm’s length. “Not a bad beginning. Would you like to see it?”
In Michael’s experience, the better artists were both passionately attached to their creations and also professionally disinterested. They could be critical about their own work without lapsing into self-disgust or arrogance.
Mrs. Fremont was truly talented. Michael accepted the sketch from her a little reluctantly.
“Dermot depicts me as haughty,” he said. “Belchamp finds me effete. Henderson’s renderings are marvels of accuracy and seldom more than that.”
“The class is a study of anatomy, Mr. Delancey. Berthold is insistent that we learn accuracy first and take artistic license only when we’ve earned the privilege. How does Berthold draw you?”
Michael studied the sketch, which was exquisitely composed. All elements configured such that the man’s face drew the viewer’s attention.
“Berthold draws me—and everything—as faintly scornful. He’s trying for aloof, but allows a touch of pique to creep in. This drawing was not done by Henderson.”
Mrs. Fremont drew her feet up under her, a highly informal posture, but then, Michael was barely dressed himself.
“I like it,” she said, arranging her skirts over her toes. “I’ve had the luxury of sketching you on many occasions, so the rendering should be accurate, but I can’t study you as I prefer when I’m lurking at the back of a classroom.”
“Berthold wants his students to move about, to not occupy the same seat week after week.” And yet, she moved about only on the fringes of the classroom.
“Tell me about the man I’ve sketched, Mr. Delancey. I know what I was trying to achieve, but did I achieve it?”
She would not leave this, so Michael resigned himself to opining. “The arrangement is skillful, centering the subject without appearing geometric. The mood is pensive thanks to abundant shadows, and yet, there is also a sense of activity resulting from the many curving lines leading to the subject’s face. The subject is immobile, but the flames of the hearth and candle are leaping and flickering—a subtle contrast. He is weary, perhaps past dejection and into the nether reaches of mindless determination. The day has been hard. Tomorrow will offer no relief. Such a robust, well-favored man should have a pleasant path in life, and yet, we all have sorrows and burdens.”
He passed her back the sketch, which she resumed studying. “The fatigue comes through, then.”
The fatigue, as she called it, was always coming through. Strong tea helped, as did liberal doses of frigid winter air.
“I apologize for taking an impromptu nap in your sitting room, madam. You should have awakened me.”
“I had what I needed for the evening, and sleep is what you needed. Has anyone ever done a portrait of you?”
Michael battled the impulse to yawn, gave up, and did his best to cover his rudeness with a seated stretch.
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Because somebody will recognize my subject?”
She was too quick by half. “Mostly, people see what they want to see, which creates the artist’s challenge—to make visible a truth rather than what satisfies the viewer’s preconceived expectations. Nobody expects to see Michael Delancey, Lambeth cipher, lounging about in the nude as the subject of a shop-window print. Besides, Berthold would expel from the class any student who sold an anatomical study. He considers his exercises proprietary, so I’m relatively safe from discovery.”
“If I do a portrait of you, I will obscure your face,” Mrs. Fremont said, setting aside her sketch. “An interesting challenge. You must be discreet about your modeling, and I respect that. London in general is far too concerned with invading any and everybody’s privacy. Let’s get you dressed, shall we? Never let it be said that I overtax my models.”
Michael’s first thought was that he’d vexed her by denying her a standard portrait pose, but then the clock chimed the three-quarter hour.
“You really ought to have awakened me,” he said, rising. “You are not paying me to sleep.”
