Page 59 of Everything But the Earl
“Ah, yes. Check for authenticity. That is, I can assure you, these are genuine Makepeace vases. I received a letter from Mr. Makepeace himself when these arrived, but I understand the need to check.”
Owen thought the shopkeeper rather resented Owen checking, but Owen did spot the mark on the bottom.
GM. Gerard Makepeace. Grace Midwood.
But surely it couldn’t be.
“I’m afraid I don’t know much about pottery,” Owen said, “aside from the fact that my wife dabbles in making her own pieces. She made me a lovely vase recently, although not nearly as lovely as these.” That was a lie. Owen loved the piece Grace had sent him more than any other piece of art in his house. “What would you say are the distinctive qualities of a Makepeace vase?”
“No two are alike, for one. But also, he always makes these rounded bodies, like this, you see?” The shopkeeper pointed his pinky finger along the side of one of the vases. “And then he puts a little twist near the mouth. That is one of his signatures. Overall, though, the main trait is that they always look graceful, like this one does. I believe he’s changed his glaze formula recently, too, because the white on these is brighter than in some of his older pieces.”
Owen put the vase in his hands back on its pedestal. He realized that the vase in his home had that same signature twist near the mouth. Was it possible that his wife did not just dabble in pottery but was, in fact, so talented that her work was coveted by the wealthiest men of Britain? The evidence was not inconclusive, but there was enough for Owen to think his suspicion was correct.
“Tell me, for how much would a piece like this sell?”
When the shopkeeper told Owen, he felt his jaw go slack. Was it possible his wife was also independently wealthy? If she made money from pottery, where did she keep it? And then, if she had enough money from this endeavor to live on, why marry him?
Before he had some kind of mental episode, he thanked the shopkeeper for his time and promised to return at a later date. He then opted to walk home instead of hiring a hackney, so he could contemplate what all this meant. If it was true, he didn’t love that Grace had kept it from him, although if she were operating with a male pseudonym, he supposed he could understand why. But he was trustworthy, was he not? Why could she not confide in him?
Of course, he did not know if any of it was true. It could be a coincidence that the GT and GM marks looked so similar, that Grace’s initials before she married were GM, and that she also produced pottery at a fast enough clip to sell a few pieces to a shop in Penmaenmawr—if that was even true—and ship a few pieces to this shop in London. Not to mention, Mr. Makepeace’s holiday would have correlated to Grace’s move to Wales.
He wondered if he should ask her directly in his next letter, but that seemed aggressive. And maybe hehadn’tearned her trust. After all, they’d barely known each other when they married, they’d only spent a few weeks together after the wedding, and the agreement they’d made allowed Grace her independence.
So maybe he was wrong to feel offended if she was indeed keeping a secret. She didn’t owe him anything. He, in fact, had told her repeatedly that she didn’t.
On the other hand, he thought their letters had brought them closer together and she could trust him now. But perhaps he was wrong.
Why did that make him feel so terrible?
*
Catrin helped Gracepack two vases into a crate, careful to shove as much straw and crumbled newspaper inside it as possible to ensure the vases stayed whole in transit.
“Explain to me again why you haven’t told your husband you’re this famous artist,” Catrin said as Grace fetched a hammer and nails to seal the crate.
Why hadn’t she? “I feel silly about it now.”
“It’s all right. Just tell me what you are thinking.”
Grace sighed. “At first, I didn’t completely trust him with the secret. I barely knew him when we married. I didn’t know if he’d think it inappropriate for a woman to be an artist or earn her own money, and I didn’t know if he’d forbid me from doing it. But then when we arrived in Wales, he was so sweet, and allowed me to use the cottage to make my art. But I still wonder sometimes if he would find it objectionable.”
“Perhaps,” said Catrin.
“And even if he’s fine with all of it, he’d wonder why I withheld for so long, and now it’s been months, so I feel like I can’t say anything. If I confess I’ve held secrets from him, he’ll be angry I withheld them.”
Catrin raised an eyebrow. “What other secrets are you keeping?”
“I…nothing.” She still hadn’t told him about the baby, though. She had no real justification or it. “We made an agreement when we married that he would allow me independence. I wanted to live in the country and make my own friends and make art without anyone telling me what I could or should do with my time. That’s all I ever wanted. If I could have done that without marrying, I would have, but my parents never would have allowed it. My husband offered me the greatest gift he could have, which is that he would let me live here while he is away on business in London and that I might conduct my affairs as I see fit. This is how I see fit.”
She placed a nail at the corner of the crate and hammered it into place.
“Do not take out your aggressions on that nail,” said Catrin. “I did not mean to anger you. I just wanted to inquire as to why you were keeping things from your husband. I do not blame you, I am merely curious. What you just said may be true, but circumstances have changed somewhat now that you have a baby on the way. Not to mention, you’ve said you and the earl have grown closer as you’ve exchanged letters these last few months. Surely your feelings have changed somewhat.”
Suddenly a little dizzy, Grace placed the hammer and nails on top of the box and sat in a nearby chair. “They have changed, I suppose. And I do wish he were here sometimes. But he’s been gone so long now, I think I’d forget his face if there weren’t a portrait of him hanging in my home. And his business in Parliament has been challenging. His letters often tell me he’s struggling. He’s so busy in London that I think if I asked him to come, he wouldn’t.”
“Surely, that is not true. You are his wife. You’re about to be the mother of his child.”
He still did not know about the second thing, and the truth was that Grace suspected if she wrote and told him he had a child on the way, he would drop everything and come to Wales. She didn’t want that. She wanted to be able to work on her own at the pottery studio until she grew too big to reach the pottery wheel. She didn’t need him fussing over her. She wanted her independence.
