The Painter's Apprentice (6 page)

Darkness was falling outside and the candles were being lit. Gradually, people began to leave and soon Lady Arabella joined
them, her eyes glittering with suppressed excitement as she simmered with the latest scandals.

It was time to go. The coachman was sent for and they went out into the night. The street was bustling as ladies kissed their
friends and climbed into their carriages while knots of men stood in the street exchanging loud goodbyes.

An orange-seller caught Beth’s arm and thrust an orange into her face. ‘Oranges! Lovely oranges!’ she shrilled. On an impulse
Beth rummaged in her pocket and found a few coins to exchange for one of the fruit. She would give it to Johannes as a gift.

Link boys lit the way to where their coachman waited for them and Noah handed the ladies into the carriage.

The twins lingered in the street, laughing and chatting to their acquaintances until Lady Arabella called sharply to them.

Full of good cheer and burnt wine, they climbed into the carriage, rocking it about on its straps and slamming the door too
hard.

The coachman cracked his whip and they rolled away.

‘Well!’ said Lady Arabella. ‘What excellent news! There were some who decried me when I married Sir George since he is Catholic.’
She narrowed her eyes and gave a small self-satisfied smile. ‘But I reasoned that since the King is a Catholic, too, it could
only be a matter of time before the old religion would be in the ascendant again. And so it has proved. I live in the sure
and certain hope that once the King’s son is born there will be considerable scope for advancement for Sir George.’

But what would that mean for the rest of us, wondered Beth.

In the morning Beth drew back the heavy damask bed curtains to find that a fire had already been lit in their bedchamber and
warm water and Castile soap laid out for them.

A little while later she came down the imposing staircase to find Noah in the hall, sketching the carving on the wall panelling.

‘I like to keep a reminder of interesting details,’ he said, ‘for when I’m designing a new building.’ He lowered his voice.
‘Some of the detailing in this house is a little fulsome, in my opinion. I prefer more restraint.’

‘May I see your sketchbook?’ asked Beth, curious.

Noah handed it to her and she turned the pages carefully, interested in the variety of sketches: some vivid and quickly executed
in charcoal and others worked in more precise detail in pen and ink. She felt a strange sense of relief that his work showed
a high level of competence. It would have disappointed her if his drawings had been clumsy and unskilled. She returned it
to him with a smile. ‘There is a vivacity about your sketches that is very pleasing,’ she said.

‘Praise indeed, from one as skilled as yourself.’

A door closed upstairs. Lady Arabella came down, fetchingly dressed in a ruffled dressing gown and embroidered slippers. Her
blonde hair had been curled and her face carefully painted.

‘I will take my breakfast downstairs today,’ she said. ‘The twins are still asleep.’

‘Joshua certainly will have a thick head after the considerable quantity of wine he drank last night,’ whispered Noah as Cecily
came, yawning, down the stairs to join them.

In the dining room, where a fire crackled merrily in the elaborately carved marble fireplace, two maids brought them coffee
and warm bread.

‘I should like a house as beautiful as this when I’m married,’ sighed Cecily as she smoothed her fingers over the crisp linen
tablecloth.

‘Sir George’s family home in Windsor is so damp and draughty that I insisted on a new house as our main residence,’ said Lady
Arabella. ‘I do like everything to be comfortable.’

‘This house is so warm!’ exclaimed Cecily. ‘Merryfields is always bitterly cold in the winter.’

‘Housekeeping never was one of your mother’s strong points,’ said Lady Arabella.

Beth bit her lip to prevent herself making a sharp retort.

The dining room door opened quietly and Sir George joined them at the breakfast table. Tall and lean, his pink cheeks were
freshly shaven and the buckles on his shoes as carefully polished as his manners. Lady Arabella kept up a flow of bright chatter
and he watched her through heavy-lidded eyes as she made known her views and expectations following the previous day’s gossip.

‘My dear,’ he said, ‘it is unwise to anticipate too much at this time. The Queen has been disappointed on many occasions.’

‘But you must see,’ said Lady Arabella, pushing away her untouched plate of bread, ‘this is
exactly
the time you need to be seeking out every opportunity of bringing yourself to the King’s notice? Once the prince is born
the King will have the confidence to
seek out the Roman Catholics around him and elevate them.’

‘I fail to see …’

‘Must I spell it out to you? You must be
there
, Sir George! Wherever the King turns, you will be at hand to flatter and support him.’

‘Quite the little politician, aren’t you, my dear?’ He drained his coffee cup and stood up. ‘I have business to attend to
but I shall be home for supper.’

‘Then we shall continue our conversation later.’

Sir George smiled sardonically. ‘No doubt.’ He bowed to Noah and the door closed softly behind him.

Lady Arabella sighed. ‘He doesn’t seem to realise the richness of the opportunities which await us. Ah well, I shall bring
him round in time.’ She turned to Noah. ‘Meanwhile, I’d like to hear your suggestions for improving our house in Windsor.
Something absolutely has to be done about the kitchens; I cannot go on with the smell of burning pig fat clinging to the curtains
in my boudoir. And then there’s the front façade; it’s simply not grand enough.’

Noah raised an enquiring eyebrow. ‘Especially if you expect to be entertaining a great deal more than at present?’

‘I knew you’d understand!’

After breakfast Beth and Cecily took their leave of Lady Arabella, thanking her prettily for the invitation to the concert,
and Noah accompanied them along the lane to the public stairs. Beth took a deep breath of fresh air, relieved to have escaped
from Lady Arabella’s testing company. ‘You may have found yourself a commission to redesign Sir George’s house, Noah.’

‘So it would seem. Assuming, of course, that Sir George is happy to indulge his wife’s whims and that I have time to visit
Windsor. Sir Christopher Wren keeps me very busy.’

‘I know that he’s been responsible for much of the rebuilding of the city.’

‘Sometimes I wish I had been born twenty years earlier. What an incredible time that would have been, to be an architect immediately
after the Great Fire, with the opportunity to leave your mark upon such a prominent city! But there is still work to be done
on many of the churches.’

‘Is that what occupies your time?’

‘St James Garlickhythe is my special concern. The church itself has been rebuilt already. It’s a beautiful building with ceilings
some forty feet high and so filled with natural light that the people call it “Wren’s Lantern”. I’m working on drawings for
the new steeple.’ Noah’s eyes shone with enthusiasm and he lengthened his stride as he described the church. ‘It’s to be a
grand affair with ascending tiers set upon columns, all built in white stone.’

Cecily, tagging along behind, ran to catch them up. ‘Tell me more about London, Noah.’

‘The theatres are most entertaining. Once I saw King James and his party.’

‘How thrilling!’

‘He’s not much liked in the city. The Bishop of London, a truly estimable man in my opinion, fell foul of him and is suffering
for it.’

Beth frowned. ‘What could a bishop do to displease the King?’

‘One of the clergy spoke out against the King’s Catholic leanings and the King demanded that the Bishop dismiss him. But he
refused.’ Noah laughed. ‘Still, since he’s been suspended, he’s had more time for gardening, which pleases him greatly. Gardening
is his passion as much as architecture is mine.’

Noah hailed a boat and made sure that the boatman erected the canopy, since the sky was grey and full of rain.

‘Come and see us soon,’ said Cecily as the boatman pulled away upstream.

‘I will.’ They waved at him until he was out of sight.

‘And Grandmother has all new furniture and fires in
every
room, even the bedchambers,’ said Cecily.

Beth caught her mother’s eye and returned her wry smile. Still in their travelling cloaks, they sat at one end of the great
hall warming their toes by a meagre fire.

‘And I had a glass of burnt wine and it made my head spin and the music and the singing were so beautiful that it made me
cry,’ continued Cecily.

‘You c-c-cry at anything!’ said John, leaning against the fireplace picking lumps of mud off his boots and tossing them into
the flames.

‘You’re jealous, John because you weren’t invited.’

‘I wouldn’t have g-g-gone if you’d paid me.’

‘It was a marvellous concert,’ said Beth, ignoring her siblings’ squabble.

‘And how was Arabella?’ asked Susannah.

Beth made a face. ‘You know how she is. And we met her daughter, Harriet.’

‘I knew Harriet very well, once upon a time. She was an ungovernable child.’

‘She was so rude, Mama,’ pouted Cecily. ‘She ignored us completely while she told Grandmother the latest gossip. And she’s
married to an ugly old man and it serves her right!’

‘Harriet did have some interesting news, though,’ said Beth. ‘The Queen is to have a child. Her priests are predicting a prince.’

Susannah shivered a little and moved her chair closer to the fire. ‘She’s just as likely to have a girl. And that would save
a great deal of trouble.’

Later, Beth pushed open the studio door. ‘I’m back,’ she said.

Johannes glanced up from the table where he was arranging a pewter candlestick and a delftware bowl filled with apples against
a carefully draped backdrop of a Persian carpet. His brow was furrowed
and his lips tightly compressed. ‘Tell me, what is it that is wrong with this, Beth?’

She looked at the arrangement carefully for a while. The richly intricate pattern of the silk carpet seemed curiously bland
against the other objects. She said, ‘There is something lacklustre about the colour …’

Suddenly she had the answer. She took from her pocket the orange she had bought for him and placed it in the fruit bowl. ‘There!
Isn’t it beautiful? The ultramarine in the carpet makes the colour of the orange sing by its contrast. And see how the fruit
reflects like gold on the metal of the candlestick!’

Johannes studied the composition, walking around it to see it from different angles. ‘I think, perhaps, you have it, Beth.’
He twitched the Persian carpet so that the silken folds lay in a different direction, leading the eye up to the orange and
then on to the top of the candle. He muttered to himself and moved one of the apples a fraction, then snatched up a taper
from the mantelpiece and thrust it into the glowing embers. Shielding the flame with his hand, he lit the candle. ‘There!
What do you think now?’

‘Perfect!’ Beth watched him closely, letting out her breath in a small sigh as his face relaxed. He selected a piece of fine
charcoal and rubbed it to a point on the rough sacking of his apron, then pulled his easel a little closer and began to draw.

She watched him for a while, his skilful and economical strokes creating a delicate outline on the canvas. Reaching for the
burnt sienna, she scooped a little of the ground pigment into a small bowl and dripped in some linseed oil and turpentine.
She mixed it together until it was the consistency of thin cream, pressing it hard against the side of the bowl to check for
any lumps. When the mixture was ready she put it on the table next to Johannes, together with a fine squirrel hair brush,
ready for the under-painting.

Now that Johannes was settled, Beth was able to concentrate on her own work. She ground small quantities of pigments and
mixed them with water in an array of mussel shells, the colours of the different paints clear and beautiful against the pearlescent
linings. Earlier she had collected a handful of leaves from the garden in a variety of glorious autumn shades from russet
to gold; she spent a happy few hours drawing and then painting them in watercolour.

At last she rinsed her brush and glanced up at the window. Darkness was falling. Johannes’s head was still bent over his easel,
his homely face illuminated by the single wavering candle in the gathering gloom.

‘Johannes? The light is going.’

He eased back, stretching his arms out in front of him. ‘I know. The shadows are changing.’

‘You look tired. Why don’t you rest until supper?’

He was silent for a moment. ‘I cannot sleep. When I close my eyes I have terrible dreams.’