Page 1 of The Model Debutante
Chapter One
February 1816
Miss Talitha Grey shivered slightly and risked a glance downwards. A single length of sheer white linen draped across her shoulder and fell to the floor at front and back, beneath it her naked skin had a faintly blue tinge. Tallie strongly suspected that it was marred by goose bumps.
With a resigned sigh she flexed her fingers on the gilded bow in her left hand and fixed her gaze once again on the screen of moth-eaten blue cloth that was doing duty for the skies of Classical Greece. Perhaps if she thought hard enough about it she could imagine that she was bathed in the heat of that ancient sun, her skin caressed by the lightest of warm zephyrs and not by the whistling draughts which entered the attic studio by every door and ill-fitting window frame.
Tallie did her best to summon-up the distant sound of shepherds’ pan pipes floating over olive groves to drown out the noise of arguing carters from Panton Street far below. She was concentrating on conjuring the scent of wood smoke and pine woods to counteract the distressing smells of poor drainage and coal fires when a voice behind her said peevishly, ‘Miss Grey. You havemoved.’
With care to hold her pose and not turn her head Tallie said, ‘I assure you I have not Mr Harland.’
‘Something has changed.’. Tallie could hear the creak of the wooden platform on which Mr Frederick Harland had perched himself to reach the top of the vast canvas. On it he was depicting an epic scene of ancient Greece with the figure of the goddess Diana in the foreground, her back turned to the onlooker, her gaze sweeping the wooded hillsides and distanttemples until it reached the wine-dark Aegean sea.
There was more creaking, the muttering which was the normal counterpart to Mr Harland’s mental processes and then the floorboards protested as he walked towards her. ‘Your skin colour has changed,’ he announced with a faint air of accusation.
‘I am cold,’ Tallie responded mildly. Frederick Harland, she had discovered, took no more, and no less, interest in her naked body than he did in the colour, form and texture of a bowl of fruit, an antique urn or a length of drapery. When in the grip of his muse he was vague, inconsiderate and sometimes testy, but he was also kindly, paid her very well and was reassuringly safe to be alone with – whatever her state of undress.
‘Cold? Has the fire gone out?’
‘I believe it has not been lit today, Mr Harland.’ Tallie wished she had thought to insist on it before they had started the session, but her mind had been on other things and it was not until the pose had been set and the artist had clambered up onto his scaffold that she realised that the lofty attic room was almost as chilly as the February streets outside.
‘Oh. Hmm. Well, another ten minutes and then we will stop.’ The boards groaned again as he walked back to the canvas. ‘In any case, I need more of that red for the skin tones, and the azure for the sky. The cost of lapis is extortionate…’
Tallie stopped listening as he grumbled on, his words indistinguishable. She knew she was frowning over her thoughts, but at least in this pose she did not have to guard her expression. Mr Harland had placed her standing with only a hint of her right profile visible from behind, her long, slightly waving, blonde hair falling free to midway down her back.
Her feet were bare. A fine filet of gold cord circled her brow, its trailing ends forming a darker accent in her hair, and the linen drapery revealed her left side, the curve of her hip, the swell of her buttock and the length of her leg. All of whichnormally smooth features were now covered by a rash of goose bumps.
Still, at half a guinea a sitting she could hardly complain, and Tallie had no option but to make her own living. The guineas from Mr Harland paid the rent. The fact that she was engaged in an occupation which was entirely beyond the pale for any lady and which would be regarded by almost every right-thinking person as scarce better than prostitution, did not concern her. Having a roof over her head did.
She entirely trusted Mr Harland’s intentions towards her and it was not even that he wasmakinghimself behave in an entirely proper manner. No, she knew he was entirely disinterested in not only her but, apparently, all females. She had heard that some men were attracted to their own sex, but this did not appear to be the case either. It seemed that his mind was filled with a single-minded obsession for his Art and it allowed no room for any other strong feeling.
The other reason that Tallie was unconcerned about the nature of her employment was that she was certain that no work of Mr Harland’s in which she featured was ever likely to grace the walls of an exhibition. It was not that his obsession for the Classical ran counter to the modern taste, as the excitement at the news that the Elgin Marbles were to be exhibited showed. No, it was simply that his canvasses were too vast, and his perfectionism too obsessive, to allow him ever to finish one, let alone submit it to critical judgement.
The Diana picture was the fourth in which Tallie had featured. Each had reached a stage of near-completion when the artist had flung his brushes from him with a cry of despair at ever realising his inner vision. They were stacked away now and from time to time he would attack one of them again for a day or two, then give up in frustration.
It was fortunate, both for Mr Harland and for Tallie, thathe was not only the possessor of a modest inheritance but also had a flourishing and lucrative business in portraiture, an occupation he despised as mere craftsmanship. On three days a week he indulged his Classical passion. For the rest of the time he painted Society portraits in the rather more salubrious studio on the first floor of the ramshackle house. It was a tribute to his work that thetonwere prepared to make the journey to the shabby house in a decidedly unfashionable street just off Leicester Square to have their likenesses taken.
Tallie was mentally casting her accounts in an effort to decide whether she could see the winter out without replacing her light brown walking dress and pelisse or whether her other, publicly acknowledged, occupation required her to make an investment in a new outfit.
From four floors below there was the sound of the knocker on the front door being pounded, then a number of male voices echoed up the uncarpeted stairwell.
With an exclamation of impatience Mr Harland cast down his palette with a clatter, clambered down from his post and flung open the attic door.
Tallie ran to his side and out onto the bare landing, clutching her flimsy draperies around her. Clearly up the stairway from below she could hear the voice of Peter, Mr Harland’s colour-man. Peter inhabited the ground floor rooms with his pots and jars, his bags of pigments and flasks of oils and there magically ground vivid colours out of strange materials.
‘Mr Harland doesn’t receive clients on Wednesdays, gentlemen. Tuesdays and Thursdays are his days. You can’t go up there now, sir!’
‘Dammit, I wrote to say I would call to arrange my aunt’s portrait and I have no intention of trailing back another day at Harland’s convenience.’ The drawling voice was arrogantly dismissive of the colour-man’s protests. ‘Are you saying he is nothere?’
‘Yes, sir, I mean no, sir, he is here but he–’
‘Perhaps he is with someone?’ It was a new voice, carrying easily up to Tallie far above. A coolly sardonic, rather bored voice which made the previous speaker sound affectedly high-handed.
‘The man has just said that Harland does not have clients on a Wednesday, Nick. Step out of my way, fellow, I have no intention of standing here banding words with you all afternoon.’
‘But the master’s working with a model, sir. You can’t go up there.’ From the rising note of Peter’s voice the speaker had pushed past him and was already on the stairs.
‘What? A female model? Now that is more the thing! Come on, you fellows, this should be good sport.’ The voice had lost its drawling arrogance and held a note of excitement which made Tallie’s chilled skin crawl. They were coming up, and it appeared that there were several men in the group.
