Babe Page 11

  At her wits’ end, Lady Withers took him into a tiny garden, where two rosebushes in a shaded corner straggled vainly towards the sun, a few yards away.

  “How ugly England is,” Lord Romeo said, looking at the roses with a sympathetic nod. “I know just how you feel, roses. But the far corner gets a drop of light. I shall bring a caryatid with me to put in that corner. It is done in the middle classical period, stiff and uncompromising. Similar to those adorning the Porch of the Maidens of the Erectheum. My plan is to do Lady Barbara in the late classical style, with more naturalism, and perhaps undraped to show the beauty of her body, her gentle foot trampling a hyacinth.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Lady Withers gasped, unsure she had heard him aright.

  “What of the peplos?” Barbara asked, curious but not totally shocked, as she assumed he was out to shock them.

  “I have reconsidered. We shall discard the peplos, to heighten the contrast between periods.”

  “We shall discard the whole project, if this is the way you mean to carry on,” she told him, with a flashing eye.

  He was struck most forcibly at the beauty in her eye, and smiled with simple pleasure. “For such a woman, we will long suffer woes,” he said, to no one in particular.

  “Well, sir, have you no more to say than that?” she pressed him.

  “You are very ignorant,” he admitted sadly. “The body is not something to be ashamed of and to keep hidden. With a form such as yours, you should be proud to reveal it to the world. It is prudish England and her false modesty that perpetuate this folly of painting women in clothing. And such ugly clothing too. The female form is the most beautiful structure in the world. From that flowing bosom, all allurements flow—love, desire, blandishing persuasion, to stir mankind.”

  “I think you had better leave,” Lady Withers decided.

  “That is poetry, ma’am, not, alas, my own. My talents lie in another direction. Painting is poetry without words, and poetry painting that speaks. You have the Anglo géne at discussing the body and sexuality. But till we are married, I shall content myself to paint my Lady Barbarian draped, if you insist. I shall have my caryatid brought here, and tomorrow at three I shall come with my equipment, and my talent. I want you wearing the peplos you wore last night, my dear,” he said to Barbara. “I shall arrange your hair. We’ll begin the preliminary sketch tomorrow—that face, sweetly speaking, softly laughing.” Then he looked around the garden. “Shall we go inside and eat? I don’t believe I have thought to eat yet today.”

  “It’s past three o’clock!” Lady Withers reminded, whi1e reminding herself luncheon was past, tea several hours away. “You cannot mean you have not taken anything yet?”

  “I may have had a nectarine. I like nectarines. Do you have any?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t,” she confessed.

  “Bread and cheese will do, and a bottle of ouzo.”

  “What is that—ouzo?” the hostess enquired, giving herself over to confusion.

  “A liqueur from Greece, flavored with anise. It tastes very bad, but it makes me drunk quickly—Homerically drunk. It is divine. I have come to adore it.”

  Lady Withers took her charge’s hand and dashed quickly into the house to order bread, cheese, and tea. This meager repast was in the process of being consumed when Clivedon was announced. “You have decided to take the Clitias vase,” Romeo greeted him. “I am monstrously glad.”

  “My mind is not quite made up.”

  “Would you like some cheese?” Romeo offered. “It is extremely bland and quite stale. I blush to offer it, and of course tea does not go at all—”

  “Thank you, no,” Clivedon replied, with a look at his sister, who looked back in helpless dismay.

  Soon the unwanted guest arose. “Thank you very much for your efforts at hospitality, ma’am. I shall return tomorrow at three.” Then he turned to Barbara. “Where are we going this evening, my dear?” he asked her in a caressing tone.

  “Lady Barbara is attending a ball at Lord Winchelsea’s house,” Clivedon told him

  “Winchelsea? What names you people dream up. How is one expected to remember Winchelsea? Very likely I have been invited. I shall ask my valet. He handles my correspondence for me,” Lord Romeo said, in a vague way. “But in any case, I shall see you there.”

  “You can’t go without an invitation,” Barbara reminded him.

  “I go everywhere without invitations. I shall be there. Don’t wear anything ugly,” he pleaded, then left.

  “Larry, the boy is impossible,” his sister wailed.

  “As close to mad as makes no difference,” Larry allowed. “But I don’t think there’s any vice in him.”

  “No vice! You are far out in your opinion. He wants to paint Barbara nude, in Great Ormond Street, and if he is not dead drunk on ouzo we may count ourselves fortunate.”

  These statements had to be explained in considerable detail. As it seemed likely to take several minutes, Clivedon suggested Barbara get her bonnet to go out for a spin. When she was gone, he turned to his sister. “Yes, he is damned odd, but well-born, and very well to grass.”

  “How well?” The sum mentioned was sufficiently large to mitigate Lord Romeo’s behavior and even to call to mind to Lady Withers that he really was excessively handsome.

  “She shan’t marry him, of course, but there can be no harm in letting him paint her here, well-chaperoned and well-gowned. It will keep her out of other mischief. She will soon tire of him,” Clivedon thought.

  “Yes, I was fagged to death myself after ten minutes of his company, and she handles him remarkably well. Calls him to account as though he were a stripling.”

  “He is a stripling.”

  “They grow very handsome striplings in Greece,” his sister said, smiling in a bemused way.

  “Very short ones as well. I confess I am interested to see how he paints. He talks a high set of standards, but I expect he’ll give us no more than a cartoon likeness, exquisitely mounted in goatskin.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lord Romeo was at the Winchelsea ball, whether by invitation or otherwise was not ascertained. When he created such a stir, there was certainly no thought of hinting him away in any case. Lord Romeo was rapidly becoming one of the Season’s top beaux. He spent a good deal of his time dangling after his model, but found opportunity as well to point out to his hostess that a chiton would be kinder to her overly full figure than a clinging silk gown, and to his host that he would be happy to redesign his entranceway. No one took offense at any of his speeches, for they were delivered always with the native innocence and goodwill of a child. Lord Liverpool was obliged to refuse him a sitting, due to the pressures of political work.

  “What a pity. Such exquisite ugliness ought to be captured for posterity. I perform particularly well with the two extremes of perfect beauty and perfect ugliness, unalloyed with any charm or taste or accomplishments. Perhaps Lady Castlereagh . . .” Romeo turned his appraising eye on another candidate well-qualified to sit.

  When he stood up with Lady Barbara, they formed a very pretty picture, the young, slight, fair couple, moving gracefully together. “We must look charming together,” he thought. “I wish I could see us.”

  The next morning an enormous carved statue of a woman arrived at the doorway of Cavendish Square on a cart, and was hauled by eight men into the garden, where it was placed against a fence in the corner. Lady Barbara and Lady Withers went out to examine it and puzzle over how Romeo had got it back from Greece. It was heavy enough to sink a ship.

  At three the artist arrived to find his model outfitted in the mode demanded by her chore. He nodded his approval and said, “Now all we need is a brush to do something with your hair.”

  Harper had been at pains to arrange her hair à la Grecque, and the lady herself was not of a mind to have it disarranged, but Romeo was adamant. She was set down in a chair, the pins pulled out, and he lifted it through his fingers, all under the startled eyes of
Lady Withers, who felt she ought to object, yet knew not quite how to set about it with this strangely willful young man. Soon he had it as he wanted, in a looser style than Harper devised, with a few stray tendrils allowed to escape. “I strive for a naturalistic effect,” he explained, “to contrast with the middle-classic form of the caryatid. The folds of the gown too I shall treat more softly. Those of the statue, you will notice, resemble the fluting of' a column in their severity. I want a more rounded form, to suggest the curve of bosoms and thigh.” One white hand, reached out towards the part of the anatomy first suggested, to rearrange a fold, and Barbara gave it a sharp slap.

  “You’ll keep your hands to yourself, sir, if you mean to complete this job.”

  He smiled sweetly and accepted the stricture poetically. At least the ladies had come to assume his higher flights of absurdity were borrowed from his favorite poets. “My tongue falls silent, and a delicate flame courses through my skin at your touch,” he told her. Then he turned to the chaperone. “She is cruel to me, is she not, Lady—Withers, right? I am coming along with my names, you see.” Agnes found herself flushing with pleasure that her name had been recalled after no more than four meetings. Really, the boy had a charming smile.

  “That is a marvelous gown you are wearing today, Lady Withers,” he continued. “The deep rose is a highly felicitous hue to emphasize the maturity of your years.” The conclusion dampened her pleasure somewhat, but the remark was intended as a compliment, and found some favor. “Like a rose just before decay sets in. That is the glorious moment—or a peach the instant before it falls. Marvelous.”

  That decay was so close at hand was hardly a thought to cheer, yet Lady Withers smiled slightly.

  “Shall we go into the garden before this hair tumbles down completely?” Barbara asked.

  Agnes did not mean to devote her hours exclusively to playing watchdog, by any means. She had a dozen servants who could fill the job easily enough, but for the first day she would go along, to see how Lord Romeo behaved. He was solicitous to find her a chair in the sun, which inconvenience she overcame by calling for a parasol to keep the rays from darkening her face.

  “I shall be brown as a milkmaid before this painting is done,” Barbara complained. She was not allowed any shade at all.

  “No, you peaches-and-cream girls do not darken,” he told her. “The pink of your cheeks will become slightly more pronounced. It will prove flattering.” He had already set up his easel and was sketching with swift strokes, all the while chatting in his soft, almost crooning voice about his travels abroad. He spoke of the ordered and serene beauty of Greek art, of sun-drenched skies arcing above classical ruins of antiquity, of orchards eons old where he walked, musing on the philosophy of Pericles and Demosthenes. He also spoke quite outrageously of the social customs of the era, finding slavery to have been unfortunately necessary and prostitution raised to a religious function, in some manner that remained obscure to the ladies.

  “Prostitutes are not quite so acceptable in Greece today,” he mentioned sadly. “How are they looked upon in English society, Lady Withers?”

  There was some insidious quality in his manner that made the question seem not salacious or even ill-bred. In a philosophical mood, she found herself looking for the truthful answer. “Why, they are more or less accepted in theory, but kept behind the scenes in fact. They are not invited to one’s home, of course, or to polite parties. They attend the theater and have their own do’s. The gentlemen attend, but ladies do not.”

  “There is a prostitutes’ do called the Cyprians’ Ball held each season, I understand,” he went on. “I must go, to see what the English ladies of pleasure look like, and how they perform. Someone pointed one out to me yesterday, and I was surprised at her plainness. She must be skilled at her trade to have acquired such a high reputation. She was pale as grass and ill-formed, yet I found myself strangely attracted to her.”

  Lady Withers looked at him and delivered no stricture. At the end of an hour he laid down his pencil. “I have finished the sketch. Would you like to see it, ladies?”

  They were both eager to do so, and rushed to his easel. “It’s beautiful!” Barbara exclaimed. “I am not so pretty as that.”

  “I have not begun to capture the essence of your beauty. Still, I have gathered some of the joys which bright dawn scattered, I think. In oils it will look much better. Half your beauty is in the coloring. There are practically no Greek paintings extant, you know. I must devise my own technique, working from what few relics remain—a painted bowl or vase, a few panels. You see what I am about, contrasting the two classical styles?”

  Looking at his depiction of the caryatid, Barbara got a glimmering of his intention, but the more loving care had been rendered to her own likeness. An expression rested on the portrait’s face that was not her own. There was a peace, tranquility, serenity in it, yet with no loss of animation. The eyes seemed almost alive, and the mouth looked ready to smile. “How peaceful I look,” she said.

  “I am painting you as you will look after we are better acquainted, when I have made you more familiar with the Greek philosophy. It is the expression found on the best sculpture in Greece, comprising, in my view, simple elegance, intelligence, satisfaction. Leonardo captured something of it in the Mona Lisa. She has an Attic smile, though her nose is appalling. You, Lady Barbarian, have not yet achieved that state of Attic bliss. When you do, we shall change your name. You are a trifle restless yet, but you will get over it. Are my nectarines ready, Lady Withers, or must I have that dreadful cheese again? I hope not.”

  She had had no luck in procuring nectarines, but sent her servants for what fruit she had. He was served a pineapple and oranges instead. The fig on the plate, he informed her, should have remained on the bough another month. The pineapple he found interesting, the orange very sour, “but I shall finish this one, as I would not like to hurt your feelings,” he explained to her.

  There soon developed a routine to the family’s dealings with Lord Romeo. He came each afternoon to paint, and he met them in the evenings at various social functions. Crowds continued to flock around him to hear themselves insulted. Only the Prince of Wales, with great tact, stayed away. He was pronounced on all the same by the undiplomatic arbiter of beauty, who found him to resemble an aging Adonis who had fallen into a vat of Portland cement and had come out deformed and enlarged, to harden into creaking immobility. Once the dreadful verdict was out, Prinney relented and had him to Carlton House to hear all his expensive treasures ridiculed. It was assumed there would be a commission to do a little redesigning after this visit, but Lord Romeo’s suggestion that the whole be blown up and the job started again from scratch was too expensive, even for the most expensive monarch in Europe.

  Lady Withers found herself daily drawn to the yard to watch him work and to listen to him, and perhaps too to gaze at his astonishing beauty. In any case, Clivedon took pleasure in teasing her about her new flirt and warning Barbara she had better look lively, or she’d lose him.

  Clivedon seemed content with the painting sessions, although he personally never attended them, and heard of them only second-hand. He might have felt a few qualms had he bothered auditing them, for Romeo’s monologues were very outspoken indeed.

  When the ladies told him what was spoken of, they grasped on some such trifle as “accidie,” a matter on which Romeo had once lectured them. “It is a sort of spiritual sloth or listlessness,” Agnes outlined to her brother. “It is very widespread in London, he tells us.”

  “He has certainly escaped the taint. He was rifling Petersham’s collection of snuffboxes at Harrington House yesterday morning, and has ordered the owner to be rid of a round hundred of them. He is helping him make up the even three hundred and sixty-five, for Petersham likes a different one for every day of the year. He has—Romeo, that is—forbidden any colors but green, yellow, and pink for spring, for March, April, and May respectively. They now require another dozen pink. He is redesigning
the stairway at Burlington House, on his own authority, and speaks of taking the dome off Saint Paul’s. I quite blush at my own comparative inactivity. I wish be would give us a more comfortable seat in the House, but he doesn’t concern himself with that.”

  “You may joke,” Agnes defended her protégé, “but he is fanatically interested in artistic things and knows a great deal. I own he draws me on to become interested myself.”

  “It is the artist that interests you, sis.”

  With a little blush, she arose quickly to speak to cook about trying for some sweeter oranges and riper figs. Romeo had not liked the last pineapple either.

  Clivedon turned a dark eye on Barbara. “And is it of ‘accidie’ the artist speaks to you as well?”

  “Amongst other things. We discuss poetry and philosophy and history.”

  “That would have the charm of novelty, at least, for you.”

  “I read things! I am not as ignorant as you think. Romeo lent me a book of poetry by someone called Shelley that is very interesting. A thing called Alastor I am reading. Are you familiar with Shelley?”

  “Not personally, but I am familiar with his writings. And reputation,” he added in a certain voice.

  “You are implying something horrid. What is it?”

  “I have nothing against his poetry, but do not recommend his philosophy. He is a revolutionary, an atheist, anti-monarch, anti-government, anti-religion, and possibly anti-money. I am not sure of the last item.”

  “Money? What is that? I seem to remember the word from my past.”

  “It is the stuff you used to carry in your reticule to gamble with.”

  “Ah yes, it seems my Harper mentioned it to me last night. She has the odd notion I ought to pay her her wages.”

  “What, are you actually completely out?”

  “Certainly not. I have three shillings and twopence, which I am saving against an emergency.”