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Rosings! An image of her home came before her eyes, an artist’s image of the façade painted in early spring, with green flecking the trees and the family posed for the picture. Rosings wasn’t one of the great houses of England, it was not a house to compare with a Chatsworth or a Wilton, but it was still a fine, imposing house—and, for Cassandra, the place where she had spent the previous nineteen years of her life, until she had driven away from it, with scarcely a backward glance, only a few weeks since.
What a difference those few short weeks had made, what a complete change in her circumstances had been wrought in that time. She looked with unseeing eyes at the little piles of colour set out in trays behind the tiny panes of the shop window, wondering if there were a time or place she could pinpoint that marked the turning point; a day, an incident, which had propelled her on the course that had so changed her life?
Chapter Two (#ulink_442b0463-6300-5ade-a0a0-6bdd64b26fc5)
It had been a morning at the beginning of April when Cassandra rode over to Croscombe House from Rosings with some exciting news. Croscombe House was two miles distant from the village of Hunsford, where Rosings was situated, and Cassandra could have found her way there blindfold, so much time had she spent there over the years in Emily’s company.
It was the fashion for owners of large and elegant houses to have them painted: house, park and, generally, the family lined up in front of the building. Mr. Partington, never one to be outdone by his neighbours, had, through the good offices of Herr Winter, a painter who lived in Hunsford, engaged an up-and-coming young artist to come down to Rosings and paint the house and family.
“Imagine,” Cassandra told Emily. “He is only four-and-twenty, but already, Herr Winter says, he is making a reputation for himself in London as an artist.”
“Is he English?”
“No, he is a fellow countryman of Herr Winter, who knew his father when he lived in Germany. But he speaks excellent English, Mr. Partington was insistent on that point, of course, he would be, for otherwise how could he tell him what to do, and how to paint the picture? Oh, I can’t wait for him to arrive, it is a great opportunity for me, to see such an artist at work.”
“You won’t be able to see much,” Emily observed. “Not when you’re sitting still, looking like a well-bred young lady for hours on end, under the portico.”
“That is what I feared, but all is well, it is to be a portrait of the Partington family, and of course I am a Darcy.”
Mrs. Croscombe was so shocked she could hardly speak. “Do you mean that you are not to be painted with your mother and sisters and brother?”
“Half sisters and half brother, as Mr. Partington is always so quick to point out. No, and don’t look so horrified, for I don’t give a button for being painted. I should very much prefer to be on the other side of the process, I do assure you.”
Emily could see that her mother had a great deal more to say on the subject, so she intervened: “What is this painter’s name? When is he to come?”
“He is called Henry Lisser, and he will arrive on Thursday se’ennight. By which time we will have another visitor, I forgot to mention that, because Mr. Lisser is so much more exciting.”
“Not another clergyman?” said Emily.
“No, not at all. It is my cousin Belle, Isabel Darcy. I have no recollection of her, although I know we met as children, when I visited Pemberley.”
“So she is one of your cousin Mr. Darcy’s daughters,” said Mrs. Croscombe. “He has five, has he not? Isabel will be one of the younger ones, I think, for I am sure the older two are married.”
“Yes, and her twin sister Georgina is lately married and gone to live in Paris. And, in the strictest confidence, although Mama won’t say anything, and Mr. Partington just tut-tuts and looks grave, I have a notion that she has been in some kind of a scrape, and that she is coming to Rosings to be out of the way and kept out of mischief.”
“I would have thought Pemberley would keep her out of mischief.”
“Oh, I believe her parents are abroad or some such thing, but do not want her to stay in London for the summer.”
“She will be company for you, is she about your age?”
“She is eighteen.”
“What is she like?” Emily asked. “Is she pretty?”
“I have no idea, but you may see for yourself, for she arrives tomorrow, so unless she is to be kept strictly within bounds, or cannot ride a horse, I shall bring her over to make your acquaintance.”
Belle was no horsewoman, but the visit was paid nonetheless, Cassandra being allowed to take her cousin with her in the carriage. “Which,” she said to Emily as she jumped down outside the steps of Croscombe House, “shows you how rich and important Belle’s papa is, for you know how Mr. Partington hates to have the horses put to the carriage on my behalf.”
Belle, angelically fair, with striking violet eyes, had a discontented expression on her pretty face as she stepped down from the carriage. She made no bones about telling Emily and Cassandra why she had been posted off to Rosings. “It is because I am in love with the most handsome, dashing man, my dearest Ferdie, only my family consider I am too young and too volatile in my affections to enter into an engagement.”
Mrs. Croscombe had, through an intricate network of friends and acquaintances, found out more than this. When Emily told her at breakfast the next morning what Belle had said, and expressed her indignation at any family being so gothic as to stand between a girl and the object of her affections—“For he is a perfectly respectable parti, an eldest son, and very well-connected”—her mother thought it only right to say that this was the third young man within a year that Belle, “who is but eighteen, my dear,” had fallen in love with and wished to marry.
Emily was much struck with this, and passed the information on to Cassandra, warning her not to reveal to Belle how much Mrs. Croscombe, who had a wide correspondence, and kept up with all the gossip of town, knew about her. Cassandra thought it a very good joke. “Perhaps she will next fall in love with one of Mr. Partington’s clerical protégés, or with one of your rejected beaux.”
“I do not mind whom she falls in love with, so long as it is not my Charles,” said Emily.
There was no danger of that. Charles Egerton, while appreciating Belle’s undoubted prettiness—although he was wise enough not to comment on that to Emily—had no time for such a flighty piece of perfection. “She is very silly,” he said disapprovingly. “She would drive any man of sense to distraction. Her father and mother are very right to remove her from London, for it will be much better for her to grow up and become more sensible before she marries any of her lovers.”
Nor did any other of the young men of the district seem to take her fancy. “In fact,” Belle confided to Cassandra, with a prodigious yawn, “I do wish they had let me visit my sister in Paris. I have never been so bored in all my life. This is even worse than Pemberley, how do you stand it?”
“I have plenty to occupy myself. You could do some sketching, if you choose, or there is the pianoforte, in tune, and very willing to be used.”
“Oh, I never play the piano if I can help it. I leave all that to my younger sister, Alethea, who is a prodigiously fine musician. I play the harp, and my sister Georgina was used to sing with me, but now she is in Paris, and I have not brought my harp with me, and besides, what is the point of playing, if there are no young men to listen and applaud? And as for sketching, I have no talent in that direction, none at all.”
“You could read. The library here is very good.”
“I’ve looked, and it’s all fusty stuff. Nothing modern, does not your mama buy any novels?”
“My stepfather does not approve of novels.”
Belle stared. “You mean you do not read novels?”
“I do, only without his permission. Emily lends me what I want, she and her mother are both great readers.”
“Mrs. Croscombe is very learned, is not she? The books she reads must be very dull.”
“Some of them are, but she enjoys novels as much as Emily does. When we next go over there, ask to borrow one.”
Another yawn from Belle. “Why don’t you take my portrait?” she suggested, brightening up at the thought. “I would like to have my portrait painted, of me on my own, because whenever anyone has drawn or painted me, it has always been with my sister. If you take my likeness, I can smuggle it out to send to my dearest Ferdie, would not that be a very good plan?”
Cassandra was always happy to have a new model, and Belle went off to change into her prettiest dress and a smart new bonnet, while Cassandra rang for Petifer and went up to her studio, which she had set up in one of the attics, as far away as possible from both the public rooms and the family rooms.
Petifer had been detailed to look after Miss Darcy, once she reached an age to have her own maid, and she was kind, fierce, and devoted to Cassandra. Taking her side against Mr. Partington, whom she despised, Petifer aided and abetted Cassandra in her painting, even though she thought it a strange occupation for a lady, and she had become very handy with the paints and canvases. She also did Cassandra a further service, which her mistress knew nothing about, by keeping the servants from gossiping too much about the hours Miss Darcy spent up in her attic with all those odorous paints.
Cassandra had never had a more chatty subject, for Belle wouldn’t stop talking.
“My sister Camilla is lately married, to a very agreeable man, and he had her portrait painted, it is considered a very good likeness. She is wearing yellow, which is her favourite colour, and it makes her look almost pretty. She is the least handsome of us, but Wytton, that is her husband, does not seem to mind. Or perhaps he has not noticed, his mind is taken up with antiquities and ancient Egypt and that kind of thing. Did not you say that Mr. Partington has engaged an artist to paint you all? Perhaps he might draw me as well. When does he arrive? At least it will be more company, or will he be consigned to the servants’ quarters?”
“He is to stay with Herr Winter, who is an old friend of his family. But I believe the habit of treating artists as tradesmen has quite gone out. Mr. Lawrence dines with the king, you know, and a fashionable painter, such as I believe this Mr. Lisser to be, is received in all the best houses.” Cassandra didn’t add, as she might have done, that it had taken considerable persuasion and an extremely large fee to entice Mr. Lisser away from London and down to Rosings. Anyone who could command so much money was unlikely to find himself dining among the servants.
Henry Lisser posted down from London, and word of his arrival at Herr Winter’s house flew around Hunsford. The next day he came to Rosings, and stepped out of the carriage sent for him by Mr. Partington, followed by his servant, a thin, undernourished young man, who unloaded a surprising number of boxes and cases and several canvases under Mr. Lisser’s directions.
Mr. Partington sailed out to greet the young artist with more than his usual condescension. He was taken aback, Cassandra saw, to find Henry Lisser seemingly quite unimpressed by his surroundings and company; here was no bowing and scraping young man, overwhelmed by the grandeur of Rosings. The young artist cast a quick glance around, looked Mr. Partington up and down, and, Cassandra felt sure, took his measure in those few seconds, and held out his hand.
Belle was watching from an upstairs window. “Do not you think him a remarkably handsome young man?” she said as soon as Cassandra joined her.
“I didn’t notice,” Cassandra said. “He seems pleasant enough. I shall know more about him if I am allowed to watch him while he works. Some artists won’t allow it, you know, but Herr Winter promised to put in a word for me.”
“Oh, you will be more interested in his palette and paintbrushes and how he mixes his paints than in his countenance,” Belle said with a toss of her head. “I shall ask if I may watch, too.”
That rather alarmed Cassandra; while she knew she could tuck herself in a corner and not be noticed, Belle was never happy unless she was conspicuous.
“It will be very tedious to watch, you know, unless you happened to be interested in technique as I am. Besides, you will catch Sally’s eye and give her the giggles, you know you will, and that will put Mr. Partington into a temper, and get Sally a scolding.”
“He is not so very tall, and I like a man to be tall, but he has a good figure. And those eyes, they are very fine, his eyes. Do you not think he would look well upon a horse?”
“I think you had much better return to your novel, you said it was most exciting; I dare say much more exciting than any painter.”
Chapter Three (#ulink_42b4f6ec-7c6e-5226-8f94-63aab77935ca)
The previous evening, dining with his old friend Joachim Winter, Henry Lisser had questioned him about the family at Rosings.
Herr Winter was a retired artist of some distinction, who had been obliged to lay down his brushes on account of rheumatism in his fingers. However, he had taken on a new career, as master to the many young ladies who lived in the neighbourhood, and who wished to improve their drawing and painting skills beyond the instruction that their governesses could provide. It became quite the thing among the families to employ Herr Winter; kind, tolerant and conciliatory, he was a great favourite with his young pupils.
It was fortunate for Cassandra that her grandmother, the formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, had agreed that she might learn with Herr Winter. Lady Catherine, who had been thwarted in her attempts to make her own sickly daughter, Anne, as accomplished as she would have wished, was determined that Cassandra was going to turn out the most accomplished young lady in the country. So when the governess, Miss Wilson, came to her ladyship with the suggestion that a master might be engaged to instruct Cassandra in drawing and water-colours, she was listened to.
“Pray, why cannot you instruct the girl?” was Lady Catherine’s immediate reaction.
This was rough ground, and must be got over as lightly as possible—Miss Wilson’s brother was in the army, and she often thought of her life at Rosings in military terms. “Indeed, I can, and she has made good progress. However, there is a notable master come to live in Hunsford, a Herr Winter. He is retired, but is taking pupils: He goes to Croscombe House to teach the Croscombe girls, and Miss Emily is doing remarkably well under his tuition. The Tremaynes think so highly of him that they send a carriage over, twice a week, for him to attend at Hunsford Lodge, where he instructs Mr. Ralph, who has considerable talent in that direction, and all the Miss Tremaynes.”
“Croscombe House, you say, and Hunsford Lodge?”
“And several other pupils besides. He is so much in demand, that I fear he may be unable to take on any more at present.”
No master was going to refuse to teach Lady Catherine’s granddaughter. The amiable Herr Winter was summoned, subjected to an impolite interrogation as to his background and abilities, and informed that he was to have the honour of teaching Miss Darcy.
Fortunately, Herr Winter was possessed of a sense of humour, and he had taken a liking to this Cassandra, with her wide grey eyes and ill-contained energy. At first, he had expected no more of her than of his other female pupils, who needed to sketch and draw and do water-colours as an accomplishment and as an agreeable way to pass the empty hours of leisure, and he had been astonished to find in Cassandra a talent far beyond that of the usual run of young ladies.
Very soon discovering that there were few of his male pupils, in Germany or in London, who had ever shown more promise, he forgot about her sex and simply enjoyed unfolding to her the mysteries of his craft. “Art, I cannot teach,” he would always say. “That comes from the soul and cannot be taught.”
Water-colours and pastels weren’t enough for her, and by the time she was fourteen, she was already an accomplished painter in oils, a skill she took care to keep hidden from her mother. He would have liked her to tackle some bigger themes, but Cassandra was firm about where her tastes and skills lay: She could paint from nature well enough, for her early training with her father had made her observant, and the liveliness of her flowers and trees and landscapes made them delightful, but her real love, and gift, was for portraiture.
Herr Winter showed some of her work to young Henry Lisser, who was duly impressed. “Were she not a young lady, and born into an English gentleman’s household, she could make a living from her brush,” he said.
“Look at the upstairs parlour at Rosings, if you are able,” Herr Winter said. “She painted the panels in there; they thought I did it, but she wanted to learn fresco techniques, and so I showed her, and let her do the work. It was irksome for me to take the credit and the fee, but the pleasure and pride she took in the work were their own reward for her, and the main reward for me. It is much admired, I could not have produced anything so charming myself, and I was besieged with requests from other houses to do a similar thing. I had to say that my fingers were giving me considerable pain, since otherwise it might be noticed that those exquisite pastoral scenes did not come from my brush.”
Henry Lisser shrugged. “It is a waste of a talent,” he said, almost to himself. “However, she will marry a country squire and settle down to be a wife or mother, as is her destiny.”
Herr Winter put Cassandra’s work back in its portfolio. There was a tiny frown on his amiable countenance. “Part of me hopes that this will be the case. But, with this particular young lady, I do wonder about her future. I think it may not be as you describe. Her life at Rosings is not altogether a happy one; I only hope that she does not break out some day, tired of the smallness of her life, and perhaps take some disastrous step that she will come to regret.”
Once Mr. Lisser began work at Rosings, he saw for himself what Herr Winter meant. However, he kept his thoughts to himself, and, in truth, he was not much interested in a set of persons whom, he imagined, he would never see again, once the painting was finished. He had a good deal of reserve, and liked to keep a professional distance between himself and his clients.
Mr. Partington tried to draw him out—what was his background, what were his antecedents?—but he gave little away. He had studied in Leipzig and Vienna and Paris, before coming to London, he said, and no more could be got out of him.
Mr. Lisser had been surprised to find that the family arranged in front of the view of Rosings that he was to paint was to consist of only five members of the family. Mr. Partington chose the grouping, with him standing protectively behind his wife, who was seated with her baby son in her arms. Their youngest daughter sat cross-legged at her feet, in a foaming muslin dress with a pink sash, and her older sister, similarly attired, sat on a nearby swing.
It was a charming composition, very much in the modern taste, showing a paterfamilias enjoying the pleasures of family life, and the dutiful and fecund wife serene and contented, under his care.
“You have another daughter,” Henry Lisser said abruptly. “Is she not to be in the painting?”
She was not, Mr. Partington said snappishly, since she was a Darcy, a mere stepdaughter, not a Partington. However, Mr. Partington would be very much obliged if Mr. Lisser would include one or two of his prized Shorthorn cattle in the picture.
Chapter Four (#ulink_bbb295f0-0dc7-5cb1-9e24-fbddbb635d6e)
Cassandra was exasperated. Belle had been introduced, thanks to Mrs. Croscombe, to several agreeable and handsome young men; why did her volatile fancy have to alight on Mr. Lisser? And while she might tell her stepfather that such an artist would be a welcome addition to the dinner table at many a lofty home, it didn’t mean that he would in any way be considered a suitable lover for a Miss Isabel Darcy, with a fortune of some thirty thousand pounds or more.
Belle was a flirt, a determined and accomplished flirt, and now her attention was fixed on Mr. Lisser, there was nothing Cassandra could do to prevent her cousin from playing off her tricks. And it seemed that Henry Lisser was not displeased by the pleasure Belle took in his company. When he was at work, his attention was focussed entirely upon his subject. He was grave and uncommunicative, saying little to his subjects, and those few words merely a request to move this way or that, or to place a hand or reposition an arm. He gave instructions to his assistant, as necessary, and sometimes spoke to Cassandra, as to a pupil, but in a low, indifferent voice.
To her admiration, he banished Belle from his presence while he painted, in a kind enough way, but with sufficient authority that she accepted his rejection with no more than a toss of her head. The children, of course, could not hold their poses for very long, so he had filled in their small shapes and then dismissed them, bidding them to run along and play with their cousin Miss Belle. They skipped off, and he was left to do some more work on the patient Partingtons.
Cassandra was fascinated to see how he worked, it was so very different from her own style of painting. He took numerous sketches, charcoal or graphite, and had always a sketchbook in his hand, drawing the house from numerous angles: “You must see the whole in your mind, even while you only paint one view.”
Cassandra was full of admiration and questions. He asked to see her notebooks, making few direct comments, but suggesting a shading here, another grouping of a composition there, and gave her some valuable advice as to portraiture, although, as he said, his own genius did not lie in that direction. Oh, yes, he could paint figures in a landscape, but head and shoulders or full-length portraits were not for him.
“You should travel, Miss Darcy, it would be of great benefit to you to go to Italy, to study the works of the masters and also to see for yourself the landscapes of that country.”
“Italy! Why, Mr. Lisser, Bath would be an adventure for me, and as for London, I long to go there, but”—with a sigh—“it is not at present possible.”
Mr. Lisser remembered what Herr Winter had said about his talented pupil, and said no more about her painting or travel. Instead he wanted to talk about Belle.
“She is your cousin, I believe?”
“The relationship is not such a close one. We share great-grandparents through her father and my mother, and there is also a connection through my father, who was the younger son of a younger son. Belle’s father is the eldest son of an eldest son. Do you have brothers and sisters, Mr. Lisser?”
“I have a younger brother, and two sisters.”
“Are they artistic?”
“My brother is destined for the military. One of my sisters is a good musician, the other has no artistic bent that we are aware of.”
“And they live in Germany?”
“Yes.”
“Yet you chose to come to London to work.”
“There are reasons…” His face took on a reserved look. Then he smiled, a smile that transformed his features. “London is a good place for those who wish to make their way as a painter, and I have to earn my bread like this. In the future perhaps—”
“You will prefer different subjects, a different style?”
“I hope so. But meanwhile I can benefit from the English love of landscape, especially when a painting portrays their own handsome property set in the midst of it. I have noticed that these kinds of paintings and family portraits are what hang on the walls of most houses that I visit.”
Cassandra thought of the dozens of portraits that hung in the public rooms at Rosings and also in corridors and passages where they were never noticed. And on the top floor, a picture gallery ran the length of the central part of the house, where the finest portraits hung, from stiff Tudor faces, all very much alike, through the long, big-eyed, livelier Stuarts, a riot of lace and silk and satin, for the de Bourghs had always held to the royalist cause, to the wide-skirted and gold-laced men and women of the last century.
Belle came dancing into the room, a vision in a figured muslin, with a wide sash about her slim waist, and a fetching hat in her hand. Now, as he rose to his feet, Mr. Lisser had no eyes or thoughts for anyone but Belle; she was a minx, to lead him on like that. Cassandra stood up, too.
“I am going to show Mr. Lisser the gallery of family portraits,” she said.
