The Fraud (40 page)

To Thomas Towers’ credit he said nothing more.

‘Tomorrow then,’ said Francesca quickly. ‘I will do the preparatory Drawings tomorrow,’ and she was gone from the church and Thomas Towers stared after her.

‘I should like to be a Picture, Father,’ said Eliza Towers.

 

Again she was awake most of the night, staring at the unfinished painting, rubbing colours in, scraping them off, perhaps, if she could paint that grave young face . . .
but I am so tired
. . . she was so tired she hardly knew what she was saying to people any more - never before had she betrayed their Bristol origins by mistake,
if I can just get the face
, the thought went round and round in her head all night: she saw what she wanted to do, the face looking away from the book, with the shadows, and light coming from the small window.

In the morning, in the mirror, huge eyes stared at her out of a drawn face. She prepared herself to go to Frith Street, charcoal and paper in her basket; then she heard an unfamiliar sound outside her door and then an urgent knock. Swiftly she picked up her basket and closed tight the inner door to her sewing-room. When she opened the door out into the passageway her nephew Claudio stood there, dishevelled and wild, obviously he had not been to bed.

‘Claudio. Whatever has happened?’ Claudio had never come to her room since he was a small child, never.

‘I have to talk to you.’

‘Let us go downstairs.’

‘No, I have to talk to you privately - now!’

Reluctantly she nodded. ‘Very well. Come in.’ He almost pushed past her. ‘Whatever is the matter, Claudio?’

‘I have to have money.’

‘You know I have no money. You must ask your Father.’

‘I cannot.’ He threw himself upon her small sofa. Across the sofa was her quilt of many colours that his mother had found comfort in; the painting of Angelica flashed into her mind as she looked down at the boy. ‘I promised Father I would leave the cock-fighting, you were there, you heard me say it. When we were returning to England. He thinks I am painting. Everyday he thinks I am painting.’

‘I thought you were painting.’

‘I
hate
painting!’ The words spat out with extraordinary vehemence, startling her. She thought of him, playing a part then, at the dinner-table, telling his father’s colleagues about Michelangelo.

‘Where does he think you are painting?’

A shamed voice emerged from the couch. ‘He rented me a Studio of my own.’

She put down the basket. ‘
A Studio of your own
? Where?’

‘In St Martin’s Lane. Like he used to do, he wants me to somehow re-live his time - I had money to buy my Supplies by myself, like he used to do. But
Zia Francesca
, I do not want to be a Painter! I do not have the skills.’ She stared at him. Claudio had not called her
Zia Francesca
for years; she saw his thin dark young face, she saw her brother Tobias who had lost the teeth.

‘You have some skills, Claudio - you have lived with Painting all your life, you know things, you know people.’

‘I thought that would be enough, but it is not. I am a man! I am seventeen years old! I want another Life entirely!’

‘What other Life?’

‘Away from London.’ He looked at her miserably, looking nothing at all like a man, only a boy. ‘They say they will kill me if I do not find the money.’

‘Who says that?’

‘The street-men. The cock-fighting men I owe the money to.’

She looked at him in horror. ‘Of course they will not kill you.’

‘Who will stop them?’

Still she stared at him. ‘What men?’
No, this could not be Tobias.
‘You are speaking foolishly, Claudio.’

‘Who will stop them?’ he said again and his voice was louder and more frightened. ‘The King’s army? The old drunk watchmen in their boxes? People are killed in London every night, you know that. They
say
they will kill me. You must talk to Father for me.’

Her head ached and she felt dizzy with tiredness. She must go downstairs to the servants, she must go to Frith Street, she must paint the girl who would be leaving.

‘You will have to talk to your Father yourself, Claudio.’

‘But I promised him before. He will only say that I promised him, if he cleared my former debts, to work only at my Studies and my Painting. But I do not want to be a Painter. Please, you have to help me.’ He was crying: her seventeen-year-old nephew crying.

‘What do you want to do if you do not want to be a Painter?’

‘At the School they sent me to there was a farm nearby. When I could not come home because Mamma and father were so busy I went to the farm and helped the Farmer. I want to go back there but he does not hear me when I try to tell him. Please, please
Zia Francesca
, you must help me.’ And to her consternation he leapt up from the sofa and threw both his arms around her, just as he used to when he was a child. And because she was so tired, and because he was now bigger than she, she fell, and he with her, to the floor.

To her nephew’s immense surprise his aunt pulled herself up from almost underneath him, and from where she sat on the floor she began to laugh helplessly.

‘Why are you laughing? You cannot laugh! Why are you laughing! ’ Still the tears started in his eyes.

‘Claudio, I am an old lady! You cannot throw me hither and thither!’ Slowly she got up from the floor, dusting at her gown. ‘I am laughing at the irony of you wanting to be a Farmer when your father has tried so hard to give you the opportunities to do something so completely different and you gamble his help away. You remind me of some people I used to know.’

‘What people?’

‘Oh - some people - they were called the Wiltshire Marshalls - no,’ as he seemed about to question her further, ‘it is nothing. I will lend you two guineas to pay your Debts, you will then talk to your Father, tell him what you have told me, and require the money from him to re-pay me - but do not say it was I who lent it to you. Now I must go downstairs, the servants will be waiting for their instructions for the day.’

‘No!’ He was shouting at her as she fumbled for the money James Burke had given her for the girl with the letter at the back of the mahogany drawer, not wishing him to see. ‘It is not a matter of two guineas. I owe them nearly five hundred.’

She closed the drawer quickly, turned; he heard her shocked voice. ‘Five hundred guineas? But Claudio, you
cannot possibly
owe that much - he paid your debts not long ago. People, families -’ She stared at her nephew. ‘People in London live for years and years on that amount of money,’ she said slowly.

‘Father does not.’

She had to go to Frith Street, she could not wait any longer. ‘Claudio, I cannot talk to your Father now, and anyway you know how early he begins in his Studio and he does not like to be interrupted. I will talk to him later.’

‘He will be drinking later! There will be crowds of people here later as there always are! Then he will go to his Club later, as he always does. It will be too late later. What am I to do till then - they will kill me!’

‘They will not kill you.’ But how did she know if what she said was true. ‘It will be best if you stay indoors today, and’ - looking at him - ‘sleep.’

‘I will kill myself!’

But she saw his weak, shifty face, and she knew he would not.
I must, I must go to Frith Street.
‘I will see you at dinner, at three o’clock, and then before your Father goes out I will tell him you need to speak to him.’ And his aunt hurriedly, distractedly, picked up her cloak and her basket and literally pushed Claudio out of the door of her room and closed it firmly. ‘We will talk to him this afternoon,’ and then she almost ran, down and down the long winding staircase, past the beautiful picture of his mother.

At the address in Frith Street, Mr Thomas Towers and his daughter were already seated at coffee beside a fire. The large room was covered, every wall space, every table, even the floor, with books, books of all shapes and sizes. Mr Towers wore a cap instead of his wig, the cap brightly-coloured like his waistcoat and several shawls about his shoulders. He looked rather like a wonderful padded bear, a genial face looking out from many layers. Francesca di Vecellio apologised for her late arrival, she had been running, she was dishevelled in a way ladies of her age never were and she thought of her nephew. But Mr Towers seemed not to mind that she had been running, and Eliza was grave and contained and excited all at once, dressed in her best gown in readiness.

‘Take off your cloak, put down your basket, drink coffee first,’ said Thomas Towers. Reluctantly the visitor sat down, accepted coffee, smiled nervously, looked about the room, all the books, hundreds of books, the clock, several family portraits, more shawls on the chair by the large writing-desk. In the biggest bookcase she saw several titles bearing the name, THOMAS TOWERS. But after a few moments she took out charcoal and paper. She put her weeping nephew out of her mind:
I must
.

‘Let me start, Eliza,’ she begged.

Eliza sat where she was directed, grave and important. And then the woman with the charcoal gave a tiny sigh, but how were they to know that this was her first real model?

The light was not good in the drawing-room in Frith Street, there were similar tall houses on the other side of the road. Thomas Towers quietly moved several candlesticks nearer to the girl, lit extra candles. Eliza sat gravely, staring at Francesca di Vecellio. ‘I have never been a Picture before,’ were the only words she said. The fire spat.

Finally the older woman held out a paper to the girl. ‘It is not exactly right yet,’ she said. ‘I must do more.’ And she immediately took out more paper.

‘Look Papa!’ cried the girl. ‘It is only black, but - is that me?’

‘It is very you,’ answered her father, and he felt uneasy suddenly. This was not an
amateur
. He watched Signorina Francesca di Vecellio carefully as she drew again, saw how her eyes went from the girl to her paper, from her paper to the girl. Drays and coaches rattled past outside, horses’ hooves on the cobblestones; they heard another milkmaid, BUY MY FRESH MILK; dogs fought just below the window. Inside the room all that could be heard was the breathing and the crackling of the fire and the ticking of the clock and the scratching of the charcoal and then the sound of the paper as the Artist reached for yet another sheet.

‘Now please, Eliza, could I ask you to take down a book.’

‘A book - what for?’

‘I - I would like to draw you holding - but not reading - a book, as if, as if you were thinking of something else.’

Eliza obediently fetched a book - chose one by her father and smiled at him. The large clock ticked loudly, then chimed the hour.

‘What books do you write, Mr Towers?’ She spoke as she drew, half-listening only.

‘I often write books about people’s lives. I have studied King Charles II, and I have written something on Mr Handel.’

Francesca di Vecellio nodded, concentrating on her drawing. After a while she said, ‘Are you like Mr Boswell, who followed old Dr Johnson round with a notebook?’

He smiled. ‘There are various ways of writing of someone,’ he said. ‘And sometimes one must use one’s imagination also. Perhaps it is easier to get a more honest view when people have died - I certainly await Mr Boswell’s life of the great Dr Johnson with much interest.’

She bent over her paper. The clock ticked. After a very long time Eliza said very politely, ‘Might I move my arm?’

The lady with the charcoal looked up, surprised. ‘Of course.’ And it was as if she shook herself slightly. She stared for a moment at the last picture she had done. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. And then she straightened up, looked about the room in Frith Street as if she had to remind herself where she was. Thomas Towers, asking her permission first, came and stood behind her: she felt something, a kind of tenseness, emanating from him, from his waistcoat and his cap and his shawls.

It was some time before he spoke. ‘But that is extraordinary,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’

‘I do not profess to know your Brother well, having only spent that one dinner at his table, but I imagine he would be very proud.’

‘My brother must not know!’ There was no way to wrap up the words.

‘Let me see!’ cried the patient Eliza, moving quickly to stand beside her father. There were six drawings. Two of Eliza facing the painter. One of her reading. Three of her looking away, past her father’s book, her hand just touching it.

Eliza did not speak either, for a moment. At last she picked up one of the drawings of herself looking away, and one looking out at the Artist. ‘They seem . . .’

‘Yes?’ The painter’s large eyes were watchful.

Eliza struggled to find the words. ‘The one of me looking at you, I think it is something that I see in the mirror. I do not stare often,’ she added hurriedly, not wanting to seem vain. ‘But the one of me almost reading, but looking away instead . . .’

The Artist was still looking up at her. ‘Yes?’

‘It is - it feels like it is more about what I - that is, because the face is not quite clear it seems to be a picture of the way I am feeling. ’ She looked at the adults to see if they would think her foolish but the painter was looking at her intently, and then suddenly stood. She did something odd then: kissed the girl’s cheek briefly. ‘Painting is - it is another Language, that is all. What you have said in words: that is what I drew. That is all.’ Quickly she slipped the precious papers into her basket, underneath bread. ‘It may be some time before I finish my Picture of you, Eliza, but on my oath I will finish it, and you shall see it one day.’

And she was gone.

 

There were the usual guests at dinner that day and also several of Lady Dorothea’s young men-about-town with a pretty little actress who was a friend of one of them. Saul Swallow the apprentice who was recording Filipo di Vecellio’s life cast admiring looks at Isabella (who tossed her head, for she was to embark upon a much more interesting experience than Mr Saul Swallow in a very few hours).