Pictures of Perfection

Volume the third

PROLOGUE BEING AN EXTRACT FROM THE

Journal of Ralph Digweed Esq.

June 13th, 1886.

Edwina has asked me to paint her portrait. I told her I doubted if my poor skills were up to the subject, meaning I could not, as she desires, hope to produce anything which could stand comparison with that ancestral portrait from the last age which, if I am not mistaken, shows the hand of a true master. She, however, took this as a compliment to herself, the kind of compliment which to tell truth I have long been tempted to give, but have always lacked courage. Now she blushed, and looked modestly down, then looked up again straight away with such bright eyes and so pleasing a smile that I could not but hope perhaps she nursed for me something of the deep feeling I have long felt for her. So I have been bold by accident!

When I told Jeremy of this, he laughed and said I was a booby and it is my shy diffidence which has forced Edwina into this subterfuge to throw us together! I can hardly believe this, but he assures me that in these matters, particularly where there is a difference of fortune, young ladies of the most unquestionable modesty are permitted by instinct and custom to drop an encouraging hint. So I have agreed to do the painting unless, as seems likely, her parents forbid it.

June 15th. Her father, it seems, offers no objection! When I marvelled at this, Jeremy replied a trifle sardonically that the Squire would see no objection to indulging Edwina in this silly whim of wanting her portrait done so long as he didn’t have to pay a real artist, and in addition he could not imagine one so self-effacing and deferential as myself would ever dare aspire to his daughter’s hand.

This was a mixed comfort to me! And I still have grave doubts as to my ability to perform the task as I would like. Edwina has sent the other portrait from the Hall to my studio so that I might better imitate the style and my heart sinks as I study it. I could see that Jeremy too had misgivings when he saw the painting for the first time, saying he had not thought it would be of so high a standard. But he has made a suggestion which may lessen the comparison: that if both the portraits are set in matching frames, this outward similarity may divert the uncritical eye from the differences of artistic quality! Edwina offers no objection, and Jeremy has undertaken to use his connections to find a fine framer, though I have not mentioned his name to Edwina. Not that she would object, but her father still flies into a fury at the name of Halavant!

July 2nd. The portrait is finished! To tell the truth it might have been finished a good week or more earlier had I not been so reluctant to lose this excuse for being so often in my love’s sweet company. For now at last I have the right to call her my love. This forenoon, prompted by her own expression of regret that soon my task would be over, I made my declaration and she almost fell into my arms. I am the happiest of men. But this confirmed that these sittings must cease, for while love unspoken must take what chance it can get of proximity, once a man has declared and been accepted, it would be ungentlemanly to continue in a situation which takes advantage of her parents’ ignorance. Therefore the portraits have been given to Jeremy for dispatch to the framers, and Edwina and I have agreed that I shall use the occasion of their delivery to the Hall to seek the necessary interview with her father.

I find that I am more pleased with my own painting than I had hoped. Though it is far beneath the transcendent quality of the older portrait, and though I cannot come close to catching the perfection of my loved one’s inward beauty, yet I think that what true love and deep devotion can do has been done, and if this shows through, then I need not feel ashamed to see my effort hung alongside the other.

July 30th. Four weeks since the pictures went to be framed. I have never known time to pass so slowly! But Jeremy says that such work as these deserve may only be obtained in London. And he added, with a kind of sad knowingness, that perhaps I would not thank him for hurrying the framer for now, though I do not yet possess my love, I may at least continue to dream of her possession. I suspect he fears that my suit will be rejected by the Squire. Yet why so? I am not rich, it is true. But my family have been gentlemen as long as the Guillemards and Yorkshiremen a lot longer!

August 4th. It is over. The pictures are hung, and so might as well I be. Jeremy was right beyond my worst fears. There was no raging rejection, just a terrible coldness. ‘It will not do,’ said the Squire. And I was shown the door, all so smooth and swift that I found myself walking down the drive with scarce any awareness of how I got there. And Edwina, I learn, is sent away to some old connection of the family in Wales.

Jeremy has urged me to pursue her and persuade her to come away with me. Would she agree? I think she might. But what right have I to tempt her to a course which will separate her from her family, probably for ever? As Jeremy well knows, the Guillemards do not easily forgive. Nor are my own prospects so sure that I can, unaided, offer her anything but deprivation and hardship. Jeremy has offered to loan me money but I cannot take it. I will, however, accept his invitation to join him on the tour he proposes through Italy to Asia Minor as his aide-de-camp and secretary. I would go to the wastes of Lapland rather than remain in reach of such sights as rend my heart with sad remembrance here in my beloved Enscombe.