“Aye, her given name was Gabriella all right. Only I called her Ella, it made her smile.”
“Yes?” Eulogy’s heart swelled.
“Kind, gentle, a rare beauty.” Farrell eyes grew misty. “You coming here, tis as if she has come back to give me a second chance.”
Eulogy didn’t know whether to laugh or weep. “You knew her well?” A hitherto unformed thought took shape and she blushed violently. “Oh!”
Farrell shook his head. “Now, Mauvoreen, don’t go getting any wrong ideas now. No, I was honored to name Gabriella Devlin as a true friend, but we were never lovers if that’s what you’re thinking. Lady Devlin was a noble woman, in the purest sense of the word. Utterly faithful to that bully of a husband.” With a curse, he reached for the porter, and then again, with an equally vehement oath pushed it aside.
Eulogy’s heart thudded. Farrell must be confused. How could her father be a bully when he loved his wife so much? To be so devastated by her death? Eulogy let the point go. “How did you know her?”
“Lord Devlin commissioned me to paint her portrait. A good artist studies his subject, gets inside their mind, and I was the best.” Farrell paused, to turn his penetrating blue eyes on Eulogy only now he didn’t seem like a man confused. “Huntley doesn’t know. He hasn’t realized you’re a Devlin?”
“You alone believe me. After the death of my guardians, I came in search of my last living relative, my brother.”
Farrell sat bolt upright. “Lucien Devlin!”
“Yes, I tried to explain to Lord Devlin, but he called me a liar.”
“You’ve seen Devlin?” Farrell looked shocked.
“Indeed.”
“Heed my warning.” Farrell’s hands shook. “That man is a serpent. He appears a gentleman, but has no compunction in using people. The less you have to do with him the better.”
“But he’s my brother. There’s much that only he can tell me.”
“Devlin’s not to be trusted.”
“Even so, to learn from the woman who raised me on her death bed that I have a living relative, a brother. Can’t you see I have to speak with him?”
Farrell avoided her gaze and nervously licked his lips and muttering, “Lucien Devlin would assume you wanted money.”
But Eulogy refused to be deterred. “If I cannot ask him, then who?”
Reaching for the tankard, Farrell stared into the porter. “I cannot. Not yet.”
“When you first saw me, you saw Ella didn’t you?”
Farrell paled.
“She trusted you. Don’t you think she would want me to know the truth? Why else would her letter tell me to find you if ever I needed help.”
A groan escaped Farrell’s lips. “She did that?”
“A letter written as she lay dying, giving birth to me!”
“I don’t understand.” Farrell looked startled. “That’s not how it was.”
Eulogy was dumbstruck. “I don’t understand.”
“Now dear,” Mrs. Featherstone interrupted, “Tis enough ghosts woken for one night. Perhaps tomorrow.”
A pathetic sob wracked Farrell’s frame. “I let Ella down and on my life I swear to tell you everything, soon, but not tonight. Tis too sudden.”
-oO0Oo-
As the days passed, life fell into a new rhythm; each morning Eulogy helped Mrs. Featherstone and then in the afternoon she went looking for work. But no one wanted to hire a young woman without references, and each day Eulogy walked further, venturing into backstreets and the poorer neighborhoods, half-expecting to be attacked. Out of desperation, several times a day she pulled out Huntley’s card, wondering if she should call on him for help, then thought better of it and hurriedly pushed the card back into her pocket.
One Friday morning, just over a week after her arrival, Eulogy and Mrs. Featherstone worked together in the front parlor; dust tickled their throats as they took down the curtains for a beating.
“Here, take the corners,” Mrs. Featherstone instructed, as they folded the first set of drapes. “You look tired, dear. I’m not working you too hard?”
“Oh no! Quite the opposite. I like hard work.”
“Mr. Farrell would have you stay as long as you need.”
“But he has been so generous. I can’t possibly impose much longer, not without bringing money in.” So much weighed on her mind, she needed new clothes and longed to call again on Devlin but couldn’t in her old, brown dress.
“Hush, chick, things have a habit of working themselves out. Don’t go being in a rush to leave now.”
“But I hate being a burden.”
“Pssh, don’t be daft. You’re never that, besides, look how this place has cheered up since you arrived. I didn’t want to admit, but it’s too much for me alone.”
A shaft of sunlight shone approvingly through freshly cleaned windows.
“And besides, you’re a reet tonic for Mr. Farrell. It’s the closest to a miracle I’ve ever seen, leaving off the drink like that. And that’s your doing.”
Eulogy nodded slowly. It was true Farrell now smelt of carbolic soap rather than alcohol, and his face was losing its bloated puffiness. Each evening at supper he was shaven and wearing a clean shirt. But as his appearance became more conventional, his behavior certainly didn’t. Indeed he had the most alarming habit of staring that made her squirm, and then he would jump up and hurry away, muttering under his breath.
“And happen,” Mrs. Featherstone interrupted her thoughts, “happen the master’s getting back to his old ways.”
“What do you mean?”
A smile softened the old woman’s face. “Happen as yer’ll find out for yerself, when the master’s good and ready.”
Once the main rooms had been thorougly cleaned, Eulogy moved her attention to the rest of the house. She set about tackling the cobwebs on the second floor landing. As she cast around for something to stand on to reach the highest corners, Mr. Farrell came up the stairs.
“Ah, Mauvoreen! I’ve been looking for you.”
“Oh, Mr. Farrell, please hand me that broom?”
The Irishman shook his head.
“Later. Leave that. You must come with me.” Farrell’s blue eyes sparkled, like a child’s at Christmas.
“Why? What’s happened?” She placed the duster over the mahogany banister. “Is something amiss?”
To her surprise Farrell chuckled. “Oh no…but I need your opinion.”
“Very well. Let me just tidy these things away.”
“Oh no,” Farrell all but hopped impatiently from one foot to another, “no time. Come! Now!”
Puzzled, Eulogy put down her duster and followed him up the staircase, wondering at the cause of Farrell’s eccentricity. He took the stairs two at a time, forcing Eulogy to hurry until she found herself higher in the house than she’d been before, on a cramped landing with no window. Ahead of her in the gloom, Farrell turned a key and a door creaked open. Biblical shafts of light threw him briefly into silhouette as he vanished inside the attic room.
Bemused, Eulogy entered to find herself in a large, open space beneath the roof, cluttered with what appeared to be random clutter and old furniture. She blinked and as her eyes became accustomed to the brightness, she made out empty picture frames, canvasses, and a chaos of brushes, paints and pots, uniformly grey beneath a blanket of dust.
“What is this place?” Despite the disorder, the attic held promise as a bright, airy place. The sun shone bravely through a glass roof, albeit encrusted with decades of grime.
“My studio.”
With a burst of energy, Farrell swept a pile of books from a wooden chair.
“Over here, Mauvoreen. Sit!”
Too bemused to argue, Eulogy stepped over discarded jars and stacks of newspaper, her skirts raising a cloud of dust and she sneezed.
“Now, where did I put it?” Farrell grabbed at a sheath of papers, only to discard them like confetti. “I had it here a moment ago.” With a flourish he brandished a page in the air. “I have it!” But then his manner changed. The exuberance vanished, replaced by shyness. Quietly, he placed the paper in her hands.
“Well? What do you think?”
Eulogy followed his gaze to the page now resting in her lap. Her eyes dilated.
“Why, this is me!” She studied a charcoal sketch of a beautiful young woman. She recognized her own features from the mirror, and yet this rendition was lovelier, breathtaking in fact. But the picture went beyond a neat rendition of her snub nose and plump lips…a deeper, intangible quality about the drawing…something about the open, curiosity burning in her eyes.
“Well?” Farrell pulled at his graying hair. “Do you like it?”
Eulogy had no need to spare his feelings. “This is amazing. I’m…speechless…”
“Speechless in a good way?”
“Oh, yes, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. This picture is so alive. And yet, I look so lost.”
In a flurry of activity Farrell skipped around the studio, causing Eulogy to cough as he pulled drawers open and snatched at brushes.
“I knew you’d see it! The scales have fallen from my eyes. The barren years wiped away and I can draw again.”
“Oh.”
“You have freed me. With you as my model, I can paint again.”
Her excitement cooled and died. “I cannot be your model.”
Farrell’s hand paused in midair. “Why on earth not?”
“Because,” she took a deep breath, “because it isn’t decent.”
Farrell’s face brightened. “Is that all? Piffle, this is high art. Not some penny peep show.”
Eulogy bristled. “My good reputation is all I have.”
“Don’t worry on that account. Mrs. Featherstone shall be your chaperone… she’ll be glad of the sit down.”
“But I must find a job.”
“Nothing could be simpler. I shall pay you. My paintings were once well regarded and will be again.”
“I’m really not sure.”
“Why your friend Mr. Huntley will surely be interested and that’s just the start. Sit for me for one week and if you still feel the same you can look for other work.”
Eulogy weighed the options. She remembered Huntley’s words that Mrs. Parker was a decent woman making a respectable living. Her stomach felt unexpectedly hollow as she recalled that afternoon in the carriage and of her condemnation of Mrs. Parker, a woman earning an honest living.
“Miss Foster, what say you?”
“Very well, but on the condition I keep my clothes on.”
“Oh that will never do.”
Eulogy gasped.
“That dress is hideous. Change it you must.”
Eulogy regarded her brown dress despondently. No wonder Devlin had not believed her, a country mouse in a coal sack.
“But I have nothing else.”
“Then Mrs. Featherstone shall make something, but that can be sorted later. Now, I will draw you in profile. Sit by the window, so the light catches your hair just so.”
In a daze, Eulogy did as she was bid. Her thoughts drifted as Farrell fussed about, angling her chin this way and that, and then stepping back and clicking his tongue.
“Mauvoreen, my work will create a sensation. You will be the toast of town.”
“I don’t want that.” Uneasy at the thought of London laughing at her, only her regard for Farrell stopped her getting up. “This isn’t for me. I had thought of earning a more conventional living as a nurse or companion.”
“That would be a waste. On my life you have come here for a reason. When I’m finished, Devlin will beg to be acknowledged as you brother. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Eulogy swallowed hard. “Do you really think so?”
“Yes, Mauvoreen, I do.”
Slowly, Eulogy relaxed. If nothing else, sitting for Farrell meant hours in his company and plenty of time to talk of Lady Devlin. Another thought sauntered through her mind. If what Farrell said was true, then Huntley might call and that alone was appealing.
Seated at the kitchen table, Eulogy frowned in concentration, following the tricky bodice seam. It had been Mrs. Featherstone’s idea to convert a tablecloth into a costume to wear whilst posing for Farrell. With more determination than inspiration, Eulogy worked a row neat of even stitches along the white linen.
“Gilbert, get down!”
A scrawny ginger Tom cat, with cheeks the size of apples, clambered up onto Mrs. Featherstone’s discarded sewing.
“Doesn’t matter if you’re her pride and joy, she won’t appreciate sooty paw prints.”
The cat rumbled a deep throaty purr as Eulogy scooped him up and deposited him on the floor.
“There, go catch a mouse.”
With a disgruntled flick of the tail the cat wove around the table legs and wandered off.
Eulogy resumed her sewing. The rhythm of the needle was soothing, and quickly she lost herself in the task until voices approaching down the hall, broke across her concentration.
“Ouch!” She pricked her finger. Her composure ruffled, every nerve alert to the muffled voice nearing the kitchen door.
Mrs. Featherstone entered, and then, there he was, silhouetted against the doorway, Jack Huntley.