31
Eliza awoke early the next morning, before the rest of the household, and Pardle helped her dress in a simple gown of dove-grey silk before they quit the house without breakfast. Eliza had decided she would attend the Summer Exhibition alone, this morning, for she did not know how she was likely to react upon seeing the portrait again. The last time she had seen the painting she had been sending it off for judgment, full of thrill and pride and love. Today, she was in a far more somber mood, for the pall of Mrs. Balfour’s visit and the news of the loss of her fortune the night before had cast the future in a grim, uncertain light.
The difficult thing with acts of bravery, in Eliza’s opinion, was that they did not feel nearly as good as one might imagine. In fact, in the aftermath, one could feel quite as guilt-ridden and as nervous and dreadful as one did after an act of cowardice. Only almost, however. For underneath it all, underneath the fear of what was to come, the concern that her family might never forgive her, Eliza could be reassured by one small kernel of satisfaction: even if this turned out to be the most egregious mistake of her life, at least it would be one that she had chosen, rather than one that had been chosen for her.
The cab slowed as they neared Somerset House. That the Summer Exhibition was held at a property which had belonged, two hundred years before, to her late husband’s family, was a piece of irony that had, strangely, only occurred to Eliza at this very moment. She wondered if she had submitted the portrait under her own name, whether this fact would have secured her a more favorable spot? The placement of paintings within Somerset House was at the discretion of the hanging committee, and the range of positions ran from the very good (eye level, in the first rooms, usually reserved for academy members) to the average, to the very poor (on the ceiling in the notoriously dark Octagon Room) and Eliza had no idea where her portrait was likely to be.
They pulled into the courtyard and Eliza squared her shoulders. It was time. When Eliza had visited the exhibition before, as a child, it had been thronged with people, but today Eliza must have been one of the very first visitors. She was offered, immediately upon entering, a copy of the catalogue, but although she knew this volume to be an indispensable guide to locating the pieces of art displayed, Eliza did not make the purchase. She felt the moment was too momentous to take a shortcut.
Instead, she passed slowly from room to room, followed by a silent Pardle, her eyes as wide and admiring as they had been upon her very first visit, so many years ago, her hand clasped in her mother’s as they tried to locate her grandfather’s pieces. The walls and ceilings were packed so tightly that it was difficult to know where to look, and Eliza’s gaze traveled from portraits to landscapes to seascapes to historical paintings, all clustered and mingled together. She allowed her attention to wander freely, not paying too much heed to the artists of each work but lingering wherever she felt compelled to do so. She gazed upon miniatures and etchings and sculptures, and marveled at the myriad of skilled hands that could have created such beautiful objects.
She walked through the fifth room—taking in the vast historical battle scene on the east wall—and into the sixth, where she stopped abruptly in the entrance. For there, hanging opposite, in her direct eyeline, was her portrait. And although Eliza had come with the express intention of seeing it, she still felt as if all the breath had been knocked out of her. It was here. It was really here. Whole and undamaged.
She had done it.
And as Eliza stared, and the portrait-Melville returned her gaze a little quizzically (as if to say “who did you expect?”), Eliza felt a smile spreading across her face. Despite all that had happened, despite all the uncertainty of the future, in this moment she felt only exultation. A painting of hers was hanging here, amongst some of the greatest artists in Europe, at an exhibition she had thought, as a child, so above her she might as well be glimpsing heaven. It was almost beyond comprehension.
She could not have said how long she had stood there, in front of it, only that after a little while, a few persons began to trickle into the room around her. They seemed mostly—by the way they were speaking—to be exhibitors themselves, and from the way several came to linger at the same wall as Eliza, it seemed that her portrait had already begun to generate discussion.
“Who do you think did it?” one gentleman said to his fellow. The paint stains on his hands told Eliza that he, too, was likely to have a painting hanging on the wall. “Got the look of Jackson about it—do you think he’s snuck it in anonymously as a joke?”
“No, no,” his friend disagreed. “The colors are all wrong for Jackson—I think it far more likely to be an Etty. Look at the flair, my boy.”
They examined it for a few more moments, guessing at the artist—all the names were, of course, men—before moving on. Melville’s portrait looked sidelong at Eliza, eternally amused, and Eliza returned the smile a little sadly.
“Lady Somerset?”
Eliza turned her head to see Mr. Berwick
“Good day,” she said, smiling in greeting.
“Good morning!” he said. “You are here early.”
“I wanted to avoid the crowds,” Eliza said simply.
“I see you have located this year’s mystery!” Mr. Berwick said jocularly, with a nod to the portrait.
“I have,” Eliza noted.
“I don’t suppose you have any guesses as to the artist?” Mr. Berwick asked.
Eliza shook her head.
“It is a very good position,” Mr. Berwick said enviously. “Though sometimes they have to give such spots to the more simplistic portraits—they would be quite washed out with anything more challenging, you see.”
“I do see,” Eliza said. “And where is your portrait, sir?”
“Oh, they gave me the location of my choosing, this year,” Mr. Berwick said airily. “It is best viewed at an angle, you see—somewhere high is essential.”
“Of course,” Eliza said, smiling. “Well, it was good to see you, Mr. Berwick—I have enjoyed seeing another Bath face, here.”
“I quite agree,” he said with a bow. “And none of you thought to warn me of your arrival! I had to berate Somerset most severely . . .”
“Somerset?” Eliza said, her attention sharpening. “I thought he was in the country.”
“No, no,” Mr. Berwick said, smiling genially. “I saw him just an hour ago—he would have liked to linger and speak longer, I daresay, but he had an urgent meeting at Grosvenor Square—Lady Somerset?”
But Eliza, with unpardonable rudeness, had left his side mid-sentence. She had thought Somerset at Harefield. She could not believe that all this time he had been in lodgings not a mile away from where Eliza had been.
He must have heard she was in town, must have known where to find her. And he had sent such a missive by way of Mrs. Balfour, anyway.
The serenity that Eliza had found that morning had vanished. She stalked back through the rooms of Somerset House, out into the courtyard, and back into her hackney cab in a steadily climbing rage.
How dare he!
How dare he.
“Grosvenor Square, please!” she called to the driver. “And make haste!”