LITMIR.BIZ

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relieve the pain of his throbbing knees. A much higher stool—the artist’s perch—rested in front of one of the covered easels; another of middling height rested in front of the balcony window. Used palettes were scattered on the tabletop; one lay on the floor by the easel.

      The studio held the faint odors of linseed oil and turpentine, of musty fabrics and canvas. Open shelves were crowded with jars, bottles, and brushes. Muslin aprons, flecked and streaked with hundreds of stray brushstrokes in every conceivable hue from vermillion to violet, hung on a series of wooden pegs set into the shelves. A trunk and a narrow chest of drawers had been set side by side under the shelving.

      Restell stepped toward the window and looked out past the balcony, past the rooftops of the houses across the street, and allowed his eyes to grasp the grand vista presented by even this small corner of London. “It is a view such as I have rarely seen,” he said.

      “Few people have unless they frequent the quarters usually given to the servants.”

      Restell glanced over his shoulder and regarded her quizzically.

      Emma flushed. She spoke quickly to disabuse him of the construction he seemed to have put upon her words. “I didn’t mean that you…that is, I never intended…I think you have mistaken my—” She cut off her inadequate explanation when she was finally able to divine that he was much amused by it. Irritation made her mouth flatten, which only seemed to amuse him more. Determined to ignore him by not making further comment, she took deliberate strides to the window where he stood and pushed it open, propping it in place with an iron rod made specifically for that purpose. Raising her hem a few modest inches, she stepped over the sill, ducked under the open glass, and came to stand on the balcony. “Would you care to view from here?” she asked.

      Restell followed her example, though with less ease than she had shown. He also refrained from going to the edge of the wooden balustrade. “Does your uncle paint out here?”

      “He has,” she said, “but not in recent years. In fact, I do not believe I’ve ever seen him stand on the balcony.”

      “And you’ve lived with your uncle and cousin for three years, I think you told me.”

      “Yes, that’s right.”

      Restell noted the stippling of paint on the balcony’s floor, most of it concentrated in one particular area. He could make out the L-shaped corners where the easel legs had been resting. Paint dappled the balustrade, the colors still as rich and deep as they were on the floor. “Your cousin paints, Miss Hathaway?”

      “Marisol?” she asked in incredulous accents.

      “You have another cousin, mayhap?”

      “Pardon? Oh, no. No, I don’t.” She tried to recover, realizing her reaction was hardly complimentary to Marisol. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I have never heard Marisol express the least interest in painting. It is difficult for me to imagine that she would find any pleasure in it. I’ve heard her remark that she finds it a messy, malodorous business. Her talents are the pianoforte and dramatic readings.”

      “Then you are the family’s other artist.”

      “Me? Hardly. Why do you suggest it?”

      He pointed to the balcony’s floor and balustrade. “Someone has been painting out here recently. You say it hasn’t been your uncle, and you’ve acquitted Miss Vega of the same. I think I can safely eliminate any of the servants, so I submit that it is you.”

      “You are not wrong with your facts, Mr. Gardner, but your conclusion is still incorrect.”

      A lock of pale, sun-gilt hair fell across his forehead as he leaned forward to regard her more intently. “Is it?”

      Emma’s own gaze did not falter. “It is. My uncle accepts students from time to time.”

      “So it is a student who paints out here.”

      “Yes. Is it important?”

      “I doubt it, but you are gracious to indulge my curiosity.”

      “What is it precisely that you are curious about?”

      “Why, you, of course.” He retreated into the studio before she managed a reply, but not before he glimpsed her openmouthed astonishment.

      Emma followed Restell; this time exercising more caution as she crossed the sill. It was all in aid of giving her a moment to recover.

      Restell considered offering his hand to assist her but thought better of it. She would not likely spurn his help; neither was she likely to be made comfortable by it. He waited beside the easel until she had crossed the sill and composed herself before he inquired about the painting he’d asked to see.

      “I believe it’s over here,” Emma said. She moved to the loveseat where three canvases were leaning against the left side. She examined them quickly and found what she was looking for at the bottom. “This is it. I fear you will be disappointed. Uncle Arthur did point out to you that this is a first, and wholly unsatisfactory, early work.”

      Restell accepted the painting and studied it without comment for several minutes. It was an incomplete work. The canvas measured some eighteen by twenty-four inches, a little over half the size of the painting his mother had purchased. The right side of the painting was largely finished, though without the small details and richness of color and character that were so remarkable in the final work. The brushstrokes faded toward the middle of the painting and the left side was devoid of color. The rest of the scene was still visible because of the pencil drawing that remained.

      “There are sketches also,” Emma told him. “Would you like to see those?”

      “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I would.”

      Emma went to the chest and began rifling the contents of the bottom two drawers. She removed several sheets and carefully laid them on the table. “You will observe that none of them is like the finished work, yet elements from all of them are in the painting. When seen like this, end to end, one has the sense of the breadth of his vision.”

      To Restell’s eye it seemed that Sir Arthur’s initial vision had been far more ambitious than what he had finally put to his canvas. The sketches suggested a view of the village that allowed one’s eye to travel a full three hundred sixty degrees, as if one were standing at the epicenter of all the activity. Nevertheless, these pencil drawings of the village were astonishing in their attention to detail and portrayed the villagers in such an intimate way that they seemed familiar. “The painting that hangs in my mother’s salon,” Restell said, “am I correct to assume it is but the first piece in a series?”

      Emma stacked the sketches and made to return them to the chest. Restell reached across the table and lightly touched her forearm, halting her.

      “You have not answered my question,” Restell said. He straightened and allowed his hand to fall away.

      “I have the intention to do so,” she said. “You are not patient after all.”

      “And you are not the first to remark upon it.”

      It was not an admission, she realized, but did point to an awareness that others saw him in the same light. “Allow me to put these away.”

      “That is precisely what I meant to prevent. I am interested in purchasing the sketches.”

      “These? But they are—”

      “Ambitious,” he interjected. “And intriguing. It is why I wondered if there indeed would be a series of paintings. If these are of so little value to Sir Arthur that they are relegated to a drawer, then I should very much like to own them.”

      “I don’t know what my uncle’s intentions are regarding a second and third painting. You are correct that he considered a different project at the outset, but he was never quite satisfied with what could be accomplished and frankly could not wait to be rid of it. He was taken aback, I believe, when it aroused interest. Mr. Charters was helpful in that

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