21
Eliza finished the portrait the next day. The next morning, truly, for no sooner had she woken from a disjointed sleep than she was jerking upright—falling into her dressing gown and down the stairs as if she were late for an appointment. Opening the parlor’s door, Eliza crossed the floor and opened the bureau to rummage through the oils within. Seizing the yellow and the brown and the white, she squeezed out drops of each onto a clean stretch of her palette.
She did not put on her apron, nor fold back her sleeves, before setting to work, uncaring of any risk to her grey robe and nightgown. Finally, when she had reached exactly the right shade, she selected her tiniest brush of finest sable and approached the portrait. It was the work of a moment, the final touch she had not even known was missing: the tiniest fleck of gold within each eye.
There!
Eliza took exactly six steps backward, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, so that she might look upon it with fresh eyes, as an audience would. The likeness, she flattered herself, was clear—and better than she could have hoped. It was a head and shoulder view. One hand rested lightly upon the chest, as if Melville were about to play with his collar—which he often did when he was thinking—and even in the stillness of the painting, there was somehow a sense of motion: his face set at a tilt, while the eyes remained directly regarding the viewer, a playful challenge within them. Exactly how he had looked at her last night as he asked her to dance.
It conveyed all she had wanted to: Melville’s humor and slyness, but also his warmth and countenance. One hand upon a notebook—cuffs bedecked with ink—suggested he might be about to compose you a poem, the curl to his lips that he was about to say something outrageous. Eliza felt her own mouth twitch in response, as unable to resist this Melville’s teasing as she was the real one.
Eliza took a step closer. Yes, now that she had seen Melville at . . . at such close quarters, she could be quite certain the likeness was very good. With the eyes finally right, the whole portrait seemed to come alive, and while it could never be as compelling as he was in real life, as he had been, hand in hers upon that terrace, his draw so palpable that she wondered it had not pulled more people out onto the terrace with them, it gave an impression of it.
She had been able to convey, too, as she did when painting Margaret, her affection for the subject. It was there, obvious to her even if to no one else, as clear as if it were another color on the canvas, the strength of the regard she felt for him. In a portrait that seemed all about touch—of fingers, of lips, of eyes, the paintbrush too seemed almost to be caressing its subject with warmth, with affection, with . . .
And all at once, as if it had always been there, it became very clear to Eliza that she was in love with him.
The revelation came slowly and yet instantaneously. As when one searches for a word that stands out of reach of the mind for days—but then, when hearing it, one knows immediately that it is the correct one. She was in love with Melville. And it seemed quite possible that she had been for a long time. She had felt drawn to him from the beginning, of course—but then, so very many people were, and attraction was not love, however thrilling. It must have crept up on her, stealthy and unobserved, born out of their long conversations, his regard and curiosity for her thoughts, opinions, skills, the laughter they had shared . . .
Eliza staggered back from the portrait and sank down onto the sofa. It was impossible! It was surely impossible. She was in love with Somerset. She was engaged to Somerset. She could not be in love with Melville, too. But when she looked at the portrait, the truth stared her in the face, as plain as day.
“Margaret!” Eliza called, her voice shrill. “Margaret, can I borrow you for a moment?”
“Is something wrong?” Margaret called back, though she appeared obediently in the parlor a few moments later, hastily dressed and red hair falling about her shoulders.
“Oh, Eliza!” she said. “It’s wonderful! The likeness is superb.”
Eliza searched her face closely, there seemed to be no evidence that she was undergoing any of the same revelations as Eliza.
“You like it?” she said. “It seems . . . normal to you?”
“Normal?” Margaret said quizzically. “It resembles him, if that is what you are meaning, most strongly. You ought to be proud of it.”
Eliza breathed out a sigh. There was no need, then, to make a confession.
“I think I’m in love with Melville!” Eliza blurted out, her voice so loud it made Margaret jump backward.
“Goodness, Eliza!” she complained.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, for it was right in my ear,” she said, rubbing at it.
“You do not seem shocked!” Eliza said, accusatory.
“Well, I am not,” Margaret said.
“Excuse me?”
“Come, Eliza,” Margaret said, as if Eliza were a small child refusing to behave. “The way you speak to one another. The way you flirt. You must have suspected something before now.”
“I did not,” Eliza said faintly. “I swear I did not. I have been so focused upon Somerset, I—I have always loved Somerset . . . I never considered this to be even the slightest possibility.”
Eliza paced the length of the room, sat down upon the settee, stood back up again, looked at the portrait, closed her eyes and pressed her hands to her face. What had she done? In the light of such a revelation, her behavior over the past few weeks appeared very suspect—the flirtation, the teasing, the dancing! She had betrayed Somerset’s trust in every way she could.
“What are you going to do?” Margaret asked.
“Nothing,” Eliza said at once.
“You are not going to tell him?”
“Tell him? Tell him? Tell him?”
“I am sensing the answer is no,” Margaret said.
“Margaret, you do not seem to understand the gravity of the situation,” Eliza said. “I am as good as engaged to Somerset. I love Somerset. I love Oliver.”
She felt a surge of powerful guilt that she had even considered she might love another—when she had promised herself to Oliver, she had meant it with her entire being. That had to count for something.
“Do you love him?” Margaret said, eyes narrowing.
Eliza took a deep breath. She thought of Somerset. She thought of his letters, the way they made her feel. How it had felt to see him again, in January. How it had felt to touch him, to kiss him, in the carriage on that night of the concert. As if something lost had been returned to her, long after she had renounced all hope of its restoration.
“Yes,” Eliza said.
“More than Melville?” Margaret said.
“I . . .” Eliza started. “I do not know.”
For how could one compare the two? One she had carried with her, her whole life it had seemed. It was requited, and close now to being hers for perpetuity. The other she had only just stumbled across. And Melville? Every woman in England seemed to have a tendresse for the man. He could have his pick of anyone. And while he might—might—be fond of Eliza, yes, and flirt with her, that too, and sometimes look at her as though he was delighted by the mere sight of her . . .
“It does not matter,” Eliza said. “I am promised to Somerset. He is the man I will marry.”
“You are not engaged yet,” Margaret pointed out.
“We are as good as,” Eliza said fiercely. “And I will not—I cannot—jilt him for a second time, Margaret. I cannot.”
The sound of hooves upon the cobbles outside had her looking toward the window.
“Caroline!” Eliza said. “I had forgotten.”
She must have slept late this morning. She had not even had breakfast.
She looked down at herself as if expecting to find herself miraculously gowned in a habit. She was not.
“You could cancel,” Margaret suggested.
“No, no! I—I do not want to,” Eliza said.
She wanted everything to be normal, for all that had just occurred to be placed back from whence it came.
“Then I shall delay her,” Margaret said easily. “While you change.”
And although Caroline was notoriously impatient at such delays, when Eliza finally emerged from the house, wearing her black habit, gloves and velvet beaver hat, she did not seem irritated.
“She hath risen!” Caroline called, leaning up from where she had been bent toward Margaret.
“My apologies,” Eliza said, as Margaret stepped back from the carriage and Caroline’s groom threw Eliza up into the seat. “What are we practicing today?”
“Junctions!” Caroline said merrily, and she set the horses off.
For all of Eliza’s abstraction, that day made for a good lesson, one of the few where Eliza felt as if she were properly driving with a measure of competency, rather than those where she felt she might cry from frustration.
“Very good,” Caroline said, after a few minutes of watching. “I am persuaded that soon you might be able to have a phaeton of your own.”
“Of my own?” Eliza said, startled by the thought. “I’m sure I am not nearly dashing enough for that.”
“Well, you cannot always be borrowing mine!” Caroline retorted. “I am not nearly kind enough for that.”
Eliza laughed. “I have seen ample proof of your kindness. Do you really think I am ready?”
“Indeed I do,” Caroline said promptly. “You may not yet be driving to an inch, but you are not far off. Perhaps not a high perch, but I think you might manage something a little staider—though in a very fine color.”
“Perhaps a violet, or a pink? As I am a very grand lady,” Eliza suggested.
“Oh, why choose? Stripes, I say!”
Eliza laughed. The decision to come out today had been a good one. Out here, in the hills, she did not need to think of Somerset, or of Melville. There was too much else to concentrate on.
“But perhaps you may not want to make such a purchase,” Caroline said. “Would you get enough use from it, at Harefield?”
Eliza’s smile abruptly faded from her face.
“Margaret has not broken any confidences,” Caroline said quickly and unnecessarily, for Eliza knew that Margaret guarded her secrets as closely as a dragon hoarding gold, just as Eliza did in return. “But the way she has begun speaking indicates that she believes your time in Bath to be soon at an end. And it is not difficult to divine why.”
Eliza, navigating a corner, did not answer. For what could she say?
“Am I to wish you happy?” Caroline pressed.
“Such wishes would be . . . a trifle premature,” Eliza said at last.
This Caroline appeared to accept. There was a silence for a moment, then, “At least you will not have to change your name.”
Eliza could not help but laugh.
“Have you ever been tempted, my lady?” Eliza asked, once she had mastered herself. “By marriage, I mean.”
“Tempted? Yes,” Caroline said with a sly smile. “By marriage? No.”
“Is it that you never met a gentleman you felt affection for?” Eliza asked, curious as ever for more details of the lady’s life.
“After a lifetime of my name already coming second to my brother’s,” Caroline said, “I am in no hurry to relegate mine into third place.”
At Eliza’s inquisitive look, she added: “First Melville’s sister, then Lord Whosit’s wife—for if I am marrying, I assume him to be a marquis at least—and Caroline, third.”
“I did not know that bothered you,” Eliza said. “You and Melville seem to rub along so nicely together.”
“Oh, it is an old wound—watch their mouths now!” Caroline said.
There was a little interval in the discussion as Caroline talked Eliza through looping the reins and then they were on their way again.
“I am the elder, you know,” Caroline said abruptly. “People forget, but I am the elder. The first to begin writing. But in every other way, I have come second. He was the first to be published. The more successful. He inherited the title. And my name will always appear . . . second. Forever the postscript.”
Eliza did not speak, for what could she say? She could not say it was untrue, for it was a fact; she could not say it might not be that way always, for it would.
“Marriage cannot offer me any advantage I do not already possess,” Caroline said after a pause. “I already enjoy independence, rank and freedom. What motive would I have to marry?”
“You do not consider love to be a motive?” Eliza asked.
Caroline looked at her a little askance.
“I would have thought you knew a great deal better than most that marriage rarely has anything to do with love,” she said.
“I do,” Eliza acknowledged, “but knowing it has not prevented me from yearning for it, still—nor so many from venerating the idea.”
“But why is romantic love to be so venerated?” Caroline demanded. “It is the greatest fraudulence of which I can think: one will do anything, forgive anything in service of love. One’s lover can be cowardly, selfish, thoughtless, choose you last, always . . . and yet, in adoration of them, one will do almost anything, no matter how unhappy it makes one, no matter how unlikely they are ever to offer you the same, in return.”
Caroline had lost, in the speech, the languor that usually characterized her. Her voice was vehement, bitter.
“You speak as someone who knows,” Eliza said.
Caroline dismissed this with a flap of her hand—the languor returning.
“I endeavor to speak with confidence on all matters, that is all,” she said. “Though it sounded good, did it not?”
It had certainly made Eliza wonder after the gentleman who had broken Caroline’s heart so thoroughly.