Page 47 of Passion Painted in a Lady's Heart
“I’m sorry. I just want to be alone for a while,” Sebastian said, and his uncle nodded.
“I understand. I’m not going far. I’ve got lodgings at an inn near Saint Paul’s,” he said, but at these words, Sebastian’s stepmother tutted.
“We won’t hear of it, will we, Sebastian? You’ll stay here, Julian. I’ll have the housekeeper make up a room for you,” she said, and despite a somewhat lackluster protest from Sebastian’s uncle, the matter was settled.
Sebastian had no choice to agree. But he wanted to be alone, and after excusing himself, he went upstairs to his studio. To his surprise, he found the door unlocked. But he was certain he locked it when last he had been there; he always locked it.
“How curious,” he thought to himself, stepping inside and looking around at the paintings covering the walls.
There were his thoughts, his feelings, and passions covering the canvases with trails of paint in every color of the rainbow. But it was the painting on the easel his eyes were drawn to. This was the picture of Rosalind, her naked form like those they had seen at Somerset House. It was still half finished, the outline roughly sketched, her form taking shape.
Sebastian stepped forward, running his fingers along the lines, tracing Rosalind’s outline. Suddenly, he drew back, staring at the face. The eyes, they were different somehow.
“It isn’t her,” he said to himself, but who else could it be?
Something was wrong. The eyes had been altered, and as he looked at the face, he saw changes there, too. The cheekbones were not as he would have painted them, and the nose was too long. Her forehead was different, too. It was a different face, and Sebastian’s eyes grew wide and fearful at the unfamiliar figure staring back at him.
He had wanted to see Rosalind, to be comforted by her familiar figure, to gaze into those same eyes he had found refuge in that very day. But this was a stranger. It was a different painting, and Sebastian could not understand how it had come to be.
“But it has to be me. No one else could…I did this,” he told himself, even as he had no recollection of having done so.
Try as he might, he simply could not remember painting the face. It seemed like a dream, and staring at the unfamiliar eyes, Sebastian was suddenly seized with dread.
“It’s a nightmare,” he said to himself, knowing it was one there could be no awaking from.
If he could paint a face and not remember it, anything was possible. Paranoia seized him, and he felt terrified at the thought of the things he might have done, and the things he might have forgotten doing. It was all a blur. His memory was possibility mixing together a terrible confusion of truth and falsity.
There was no telling what was what, and glancing again at the unfamiliar eyes of the painting, Sebastian turned and fled. He clattered down the stairs from his studio, calling for the butler, and demanding to know if anyone had been in his studio.
“Who was there? I demand to know who’s been into my studio. Has someone been in there? One of the maids? A footman? They’ve no business being in there. I found the door unlocked. Someone’s been there,” Sebastian cried, as the astonished looking butler shook his head.
“My Lord, you’re the only one with a key to the studio. The servants never go there. I’ve never been inside myself,” the butler protested, but Sebastian shook his head.
“No, you’re lying, Langton. Someone’s been in there,” Sebastian replied.
The commotion now brought his stepmother and uncle from the drawing room, and Lady Southbourne stared at Sebastian in astonishment as he pointed accusingly at the butler, who continued to deny any involvement.
“Sebastian, what’s wrong? What’s happened?” she exclaimed, as Sebastian took a deep breath, a sudden pain shooting through his stomach.
“My…the studio. Someone’s been in my studio. They’ve changed my painting. It’s different: the eyes, the nose, the cheekbones. They’re all different. It’s a different face staring back at me,” he cried, but his stepmother shook his head.
“How could anyone have gone in there, Sebastian? You keep the key around your neck,” she replied, adopting a calm and sympathetic tone.
Sebastian’s eyes grew wide, and his hand went to his neck. The key was there, and he clasped at it, pulling it out of his shirt. Terror gripped him. His stepmother was right. He always kept the key around his neck. He alone was responsible, even as he had no recollection of altering the picture as it now appeared. He looked at his stepmother in disbelief, fighting back the tears now welling up in his eyes.
“But I can’t remember,” he said, as the butler sighed and shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter, Sebastian. Come and sit down in the drawing room. I’m sure the doctor won’t be long,” Lady Southbourne said, and she took Sebastian by the hand and led him into the drawing room, urging him to lie down on the chaise lounge by the window.
He could hear his uncle talking in low and apologetic tones to the butler, and a moment later, he, too, entered the room. He looked worried, and poured himself a brandy, before coming to sit next to Sebastian by the window.
“It’s very worrying, Sebastian. But you mustn’t worry. Your stepmother and I will do everything we can to help you,” he said, glancing at Lady Southbourne, who nodded.
“Absolutely we will,” she said, smiling reassuringly at Sebastian, who could do nothing but lie there, knowing he was surely in the first throes of a worsening madness, one from which he could never hope to recover.
As they waited for the doctor, Sebastian tried desperately to remember, willing himself to recall even the smallest detail to prove other than the facts appeared. He remembered painting Rosalind’s outline on the canvas after he lost the cigar case. He had gone to bed late, rising only in time for the exhibition at Somerset House. Only the hours of sleep were unaccounted for, but it was surely then he had made the alterations.
“I can’t remember,” he said, and his stepmother looked at him sympathetically.
