Читать книгу Patriotic Lady - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 13

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Mr. Greville moved from Portman Square and rented a modest brick house, which stood in Paddington near the spot where the rich outlines of the baroque church showed attractively incongruous on the prim sweep of the village-green; it had a neat secluded garden, looked on trees back and front; the neighbours were quiet, genteel, and not too close, the tradesmen conveniently at hand and obsequious, as befitted those who served an Earl's son who paid cash—at least for his smaller needs.

The interior of the house was well kept and contained some treasures, the result of Mr. Greville's fine taste and careful buying. The panelled walls were dark and the furniture had a masculine severity, walnut and mahogany without cushions or fripperies, but in the parlour was a Correggio where the tones of the hyacinth and the violet, the May rose and the Italian skies melted on the canvas in voluptuous harmony. This was balanced by a modern masterpiece that Mr. Greville had obtained cheaply, a work by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the President of the Royal Academy, of which a story was told to set the gossips sniggering.

Emily Bertie had engaged the fashionable artist, whose prices had lately risen, to paint her portrait, had paid half the fee—seventy-eight guineas—in advance and given Sir Joshua several sittings when some crisis in her domestic affairs caused the lady to change her plans abruptly, and her portrait remained unfinished in the studio. Such was too often the end of the paintings of frail beauties, who lost their protectors before their features could be completely transferred to canvas. Sir Joshua, irritated by the unfinished bargain, and by hearing that Miss Bertie was sitting for George Romney, had completed the picture and sent it to the Royal Academy under the unkind title of Thais Setting Light to the Temple of Chastity at Persepolis. This direct allusion to Miss Bertie's profession amused the critics, but was considered a piece of unnecessary spite on the part of a rich man towards a fine girl who had paid him nearly a hundred guineas for which she had had no return.

Mr. Greville had enjoyed the scandal, admired the picture, asked Sir Joshua to retouch it here and there, according to his own ideals of beauty and had bought it cheaply.

Besides the Correggio and the Reynolds there were other treasures for Emma to admire, a cabinet of coins and medals, where the flattened, polished profiles of Kings, Queens, Popes and worthies gleamed in gold and silver from their padded drawers, a case of sparkling mineral specimens, that Mr. Greville valued very highly, some spoils from the vineyards of Tuscany in the shape of urns and vases, some curios from the sulphurous earth of Sicily and the lava of Vesuvius. Emma was not impressed when Mr. Greville tried to refine and widen her mind by showing her the lovely curve of an Etruscan vase, the delicate modelling of a royal medallion, or the manner in which Sir Joshua had handled his flesh tints, but when he told her that she herself might become a work of art, she began to be extremely interested, her vanity, hitherto that of any pretty wench, took a higher turn, and she saw herself, through Mr. Greville's eyes, as a potential beauty.

With gratifying intelligence she grasped the ideal he set before her, and what she must do to achieve it; her behaviour became exemplary, she watched Charles Greville with the pathetic keenness of the dancing-dog balancing on a pole and eyeing the master who has the sugar and the stick. All that Mr. Greville said was law to Emma; her quick docility gave him much pleasure and he was patient at his task, though he did not forgo long lectures, which Emma only half understood, on propriety, decorum, genteel behaviour, good taste, what was and what was not done in polished circles and by the mistresses of well-bred men.

Emma was taught to disdain finery; no tawdry ornaments, cheap showy dresses, no fard, patches, curls stretched over pads or frames, no beads nor posies; Mr. Greville chose her dresses himself, found her a dressmaker and did not allow her a single flower for her bosom or hair. He engaged masters to teach her singing, playing on the harpsichord, deportment and dancing; he encouraged her to read refined and moral books, he taught her how a gentlewoman entered a room, how she poured out tea, how she listened to the conversation of gentlemen. There were no more rich dishes nor glasses of champagne, Emma might have one half-pint of beer daily, and that was all; she must take frequent exercise, go to bed early, rise early, she must, above all, learn to consider money with respect, to lay out every farthing to the best advantage. Mrs. Cadogan helped her there with the anxiety of a woman who knew that her livelihood depended on her zeal, neither mother nor daughter ever forgot that they might be turned off at a moment's notice; Mrs. Cadogan had only to think of the kitchen basements from which she had been rescued, and Emma of that odious cottage at Hawarden, for them to redouble their efforts to please kind Mr. Greville.

No marriage could have been quite so dull in its setting; Emma saw no one outside the house beyond the tradespeople, the milliner and the dressmaker; when she went for her dutiful walks, either her mother or her lover accompanied her, when she was at home she must read an improving book or study her music, or listen to Charles Greville's discourses on manners and refinement, or admire the treasures of virtu that she did not understand.

Further, she had to keep her accounts very carefully indeed; she had an allowance of #20 a year, for her mother and herself and every item of expenditure had to be noted down; she did this dutifully, "a mangle 5d., poor man =d., cotton and needles 9d., apples 2d."

This was all a vast change from life at Up Park, from anything that life had meant to her before; but she was not dull; she had two objects with which to fill her days, Charles Greville, the god of her little secluded universe, and the pursuit of beauty.

Her mirror assured her that she had improved under her lover's handling; her teachers assured her that she might be not only a beauty, but an accomplished beauty; she had a strong voice, sweet and powerful, she sang with an emotional stress on moods and melody that disguised the deficiency of her ear, her fingers learned to trip over the keys as quickly as they learned to move among the tea equipage of egg-shell china, beaten silver and lacquered caddy. She could strike an attitude with rather more than the usual zest and grace of the servant girl portraying a romantic heroine in a cracked mirror. Mr. Greville noticed her poses and quietly encouraged her; he bought her a plain robe, made her knot up her hair and asked her to stand in the position of one of the figurines on the orange-ochre antique vases. He was astonished at the ease and elegance with which she assumed the classic pose; he began to think that Emma Hart was even a greater bargain than he had at first supposed; surely no man had ever achieved material comfort and ecstatic delight, gratification of body and mind, at a cheaper rate. Mrs. Cadogan's exquisite little dinners were as perfect in their way as Emma's caresses—and the whole establishment including the fees of the teachers of accomplishments, cost no more than #300 a year.