Mr Reynolds said: ‘Now you are looking too sad. We do not want sadness in the portrait, do we? At least not much. Just a little… but that is something we cannot avoid. But you are not sad all the time, Mrs Axford?’
‘Oh no. I am very happy… sometimes.’
‘When memories don’t intrude?’
She was silent and he looked up from the canvas intently.
‘Now, Mrs Axford, hands in lap. Have you lived long in this house?’
‘N… no. About five years…’
She would have been just past twenty when she came here. Who was the lover? Some nobleman. She was not of the Court, he knew that.
‘It is a pleasant place and not too far from London.’
‘No… not too far.’
‘I’ll warrant you visit the capital often, Mrs Axford.’
‘No… rarely.’
‘That is strange. Most ladies cannot resist it. There is so much of interest. The theatre for one thing, do you like the theatre?’
‘I do not know. I have never visited a theatre.’
He was silent. He could not place her. There was an air of serenity about her, an air of refinement. Who was she? Who was her lover? It was necessary for him to know if he were going to paint her as he wished to. But was it? Why should he not paint her with her air of mystery, for that was how he saw her.
‘We will rest awhile, Mrs Axford. Come and see what you think of the progress.’
She came and stood beside him.
‘Thou art a very clever artist,’ she said.
He was quick to notice the form of address. A Quakeress, he thought. Of course! Why did I not realize it before? From then on he began to think of her as the beautiful and mysterious Quakeress.
He could not tempt her to speak of herself when she so clearly did not wish to do so. Instead he found himself talking of his own life.
She was very interested and as he talked she became animated. She was living the scenes he described as surely as though she had been present when they had happened; it brought a new animation to her face.
He told her about his home at Plympton Earl in Devonshire. He talked of the beauties of Devon, the coast, the wooded hills and the rich red earth… all exciting in the artistic eye.
‘But it was always portraits which fascinated me… people. Landscape is exciting but people are alive . . . They present one face to the world, but there is another which is perhaps truly themselves. One other? There are a thousand. A thousand different people in that one body. Think of that, Mrs Axford.’
‘Are we all so complex, then?’
‘Every one of us. Yourself, for instance; you are not solely the charming hostess to a painter, are you. You are many things beside.’
‘Yes, I see. I am good and I am wicked. I’m truthful and I lie. My life is beautiful and hideous…’
‘And you live here in this comfortable house, a lady of fashion…’
‘Never that. How could I be when I don’t…’
He waited hopefully, but she merely added: ‘Never a lady of fashion.’
‘Yet not a Quakeress?’
‘Why did you say that?’
‘You were once a Quakeress, were you not?’
‘Yes. I betrayed it.’
‘Don’t forget I am an artist. I try to discover all I can about a sitter so that I can see her not only as the world sees her but as she really is. You look alarmed. There is no need. I am sure that I should never see anything of you, Mrs Axford, that was not admirable.’
‘You flatter me.’
‘I never flatter. That is not the way to produce great art.’
She fell silent and to bring back her serenity he talked about himself.
‘I always knew I wanted to be an artist. My father was a clergyman. He was master of the grammar school too. I had a religious upbringing.’
Her eyes glowed with understanding. He pictured the austere Quaker household. Poor girl, she must find it difficult to escape from such an upbringing. And what courage she must have, what a deep love she must have felt, to have risked eternal damnation – for that would be what she would have been led to expect – by setting up house with a lover.
‘But I wanted to paint,’ he went on, ‘and at last my father understood there was no stopping me. So he sent me to London and apprenticed me there to Thomas Hudson. He was a Devon man settled in London.’
‘And you learned to paint?’
‘I learned to paint and I was happy. And when I had served my apprenticeship and thought myself a fully fledged portrait painter I came back to Devon, settled at Plymouth Dock and started to paint portraits. But it was no use. I had to return to London. It is the only place for a man of ambition.’
‘Thou wert ambitious.’
She was interested in his progress and had not noticed that once more she had slipped into the Quaker form of address. He found it charming on her lips. How I wish I were painting her in Quaker gown and bonnet. She does not need white satin and blue bows, with beauty such as hers.
‘I was ambitious, so back to London I came, where Thomas Hudson introduced me to many artists. I joined their club… the. Artists Club. It meets at Old Slaughter’s in St Martin’s Lane. You know the place?’
‘I saw it often when I used to go…’
He waited. ‘So you lived near there?’
‘Yes, I lived near.’ She was shut up again. He wondered where the nobleman had found his little Quaker girl.
‘It was my painting of Captain Keppel which brought me many commissions. Then I went to Italy. All artists must go to Italy. Have you ever been, Mrs Axford?’
She had never left England, she told him.
‘Ah, you would love Italy. Perhaps Mr… Mr Axford will take you one day?’
A faint shiver touched her, and he was aware of it. It was no use trying to make her talk; he must rouse the animation he wanted to see in her by talking of his own life. So he talked of Minorca, Rome, Florence, Venice… and she was enchanted by his description of these places. He described with the artist’s eye… in colours, and she seemed to understand. Then he told her of his friends, Dr Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, the actor Garrick.
‘There is not much support for the arts from the royal family. Let us hope young George will have a little more artistic sense and responsibility than his grandfather when his time comes.’
‘I… I think he will.’
‘They say he is not very bright, and, of course, Bute and the Princess have him in leading strings.’
‘Is that what they say?’
‘And it happens to be true. I have friends at Court. Oh well, they tell me he needs these leading reins. He’s only a boy… simply brought up… in fact, a simpleton. I wish they would teach him a little about art. I suppose they think that an unnecessary part of life. They’re wrong, Mrs Axford. A nation’s art and literature are a nation’s strength. We need a monarch who understands this. I wish I could have a talk with the young Prince. The King is too old now, but I had heard that he had a great contempt for poetry. Poor man. I pity him. Let us hope the new King will be different. For his own sake I hope so. Being a King is something more than marrying and producing children. I dareswear they’ll be marrying young George off soon. He’s of age. Time he had a wife.’
She was sitting very still and it was as though all the life was drained from her.
She was a woman of moods, he decided. And he wondered whether he had succeeded in getting what he wanted.
When he finished the picture he called it ‘Mrs Axford, the fair Quakeress’.
He received his fee through the ubiquitous Miss Chudleigh; and after a while he ceased to ponder on the strangeness of the mysterious Quakeress.
Rule Britannia