Page 83 of The Christmas Retreat
‘Best place for her, if she has the flu,’ said Nerys. ‘I’ve taken her temperature and it’s almost normal so it may just be a cold.’
‘Well, we don’t want to share it, whatever it is,’ said Evie with cheerful callousness. ‘Just as well Noel went home and wasn’t here tonight for dinner, although, like me, he’s had a flu jab. Bed’s the best place for her, and anyway, all that sniffling was driving me homicidal.’
‘Youdidn’t have to share a studio with her all afternoon,’ Nerys said darkly. ‘Let’s hope she stays in her room till she’sbetter, even if it does mean trotting up and downstairs with even more trays of soup and hot drinks.’
When the others were making their way into the sitting room, Nerys invited me and Evie into their private quarters, to look at the old family photograph albums. Timon and Rhys came too.
The private sitting room was small, shabby and cosy, with double doors into another that seemed part office, part study.
The walls were hung with paintings and sketches, and Evie was immediately drawn to two large oil paintings.
‘Are these Cosmo Caradoc’s work?’ she asked with interest, leaning forward to see the signature, a sort of double, back-to-back letter C. ‘Oh, yes, I see they are, but very much looser in style and a little different in colour palette to other works of his I’ve seen.’
‘They’re the last things he painted,’ Nerys said. ‘He’d had an exhibition not long before he died, so there wasn’t much work left in his studio and these were kept in the family.’
‘They’reveryinteresting,’ Evie said, and Nerys looked sharply at her.
‘I don’t see why. His style slowly began to change over the last few years of his life. It didn’t remain static.’
‘From what I’ve seen online, you are quite right,’ Evie said amiably. ‘Only I hadn’t seen any changes quite as marked as these. Perhaps if he hadn’t met with that sad accident but continued in this vein, his work would not have fallen out of fashion in the way it did.’
‘Maybe not,’ Nerys agreed, ‘although, of course, in the first quarter of the twentieth century, there were so many new movements that the art world was in a constant state of flux.’
‘Very true,’ Evie said. ‘I hope you will let me have another look at these in daylight, some time?’
‘Of course,’ Nerys agreed, but with seeming reluctance.
‘If you turn round, there’s a portrait of Cosmo Caradoc himself on the wall behind you,’ Timon said. ‘Nerys has inherited his black hair and deep blue eyes, but nothing else.’
The portrait was of a tall, commanding-looking man, very handsome in a classical way, but with a brooding, haughty, reserved look about him, like an extreme Mr Darcy.
‘My grandmother Rose said it was quite a good likeness,’ said Nerys. ‘He was very reserved – almost a recluse in his dislike of company. I think the artist has captured that.’
‘An interesting face,’ pronounced Evie, ‘but not perhaps an easy one to read.’
‘No,’ said Nerys, then led the way through the arch into the other room, where two large old-fashioned photograph albums were laid out on a table.
Unfortunately, it soon became evident that the Caradoc family didn’t seem to have been keen photographers. Most of the pages were filled with the usual studio portraits of wedding couples, babies, etc.
Cosmo Caradoc appeared once or twice – posed stiffly in a wedding photograph with a very pretty girl, who, Nerys explained, was his wife who had died young, leaving one daughter, her grandmother Beatrice.
Caradoc appeared again, this time posed more naturally by a large and expensive-looking car.
Nerys, obviously looking for something, turned a few more pages and then stopped. ‘This one will interest you, I think.’
It was a picture of three ladies having afternoon tea on the lawn at the back of the house, seemingly frozen in thatmoment: a small, middle-aged woman, caught in the act of raising her teacup to her lips, and two girls, one small, dark and very pretty, and the other, taller and very fair.
Evie leaned forward with an exclamation.
‘Yes – that’s Arwen Madoc,’ said Nerys. ‘It’s written underneath, in my grandfather Hugh Caradoc-Jones’s handwriting, but the likeness to her portrait sketch in the library is unmistakable in any case. The other girl is Beatrice Caradoc, who, of course, married Hugh after her father’s death. I think the other woman was some kind of relative or companion.’
Evie was more interested in Arwen. ‘Is that the only photograph Arwen appears in?’
‘Yes, but then, she stayed here for so short a time, you know, that that isn’t surprising.’
Timon had been leaning over to scrutinize the photo. ‘You have a look of Arwen, Evie.’
‘Yes, tall, very fair women with aquiline noses run in the family, although Ginny has escaped those attributes.’ She looked up. ‘Might I borrow this photograph to copy for the book? I promise to take great care of it and return it safely.’
