Love and Lucia Page 3

  “I understand what you are saying,” the Marquis said, “and because that is undeniably true, I am curious to see how your father paints.”

  As he spoke he started to walk away from the café in the direction of the San Marco, and as she moved beside him he wondered how he had known that where she was living was not in the direction from which he had come.

  Then, as they walked across the centre of the Piazza with the pigeons fluttering ahead, the Marquis felt as if they were leading him.

  Although his logical mind told him it was impossible, he knew he was on the point of discovering something new.

  Chapter Two

  The Marquis walked with Lucia along a narrow street from the corner of the San Marco, then into a much narrower callete in which the high houses on either side were in a very dilapidated condition.

  It was what the Marquis expected.

  At the same time it struck him that if he was walking into a trap where he would be robbed and doubtless rendered unconscious, he had nobody to blame but himself.

  Then Lucia led the way through the high double door of a 17th century building which the Marquis guessed had once been a nobleman’s house.

  There was a long flight of stone stairs winding upwards and the steps themselves were chipped and broken.

  As they climbed and went on climbing, the Marquis was glad that he was in good athletic condition.

  He noticed that the steepness and height of the stairs did not seem to affect Lucia, and they moved side by side in silence until they reached the top landing.

  From there the Marquis glimpsed through a small window a magnificent view over the roofs of the City.

  Lucia opened a low door and the Marquis, realising he was in the attics of what had once been a palazzo, had to bow his head to enter.

  He then saw that he was in a large attic, which had been chosen by a painter because it had a sky-light.

  Then he had eyes only for the low bed at the far end of it, on which lay a man.

  Lucia had run towards him with a little cry, and now as she knelt down beside her father the Marquis heard her say,

  “Papa! Papa! Wake up! I have brought the Marquis of Wynchcombe to see you!”

  For a moment there was no response, and the Marquis wondered if in fact Lucia’s father was already dead.

  Then, as he reached the bedside, he saw lying on it a man who must once have been extremely handsome, but who was now emaciated by either illness or starvation to little more than a skeleton of what he should have been.

  Nevertheless the broad forehead, the greying hair that swept back from it, and the fair skin, proclaimed him to be an Englishman and a gentleman.

  Very slowly, as the Marquis and Lucia waited, Bernard Beaumont opened his eyes.

  They were sunk deep into his face, and the lines beneath them were the result of pain and privation.

  But there was a faint smile on his pale lips as he managed to say in a low voice,

  “This is – extremely – gracious of – your Lordship.”

  “I am sorry to see you so ill,” the Marquis said, “but your daughter tells me you have some pictures to sell.”

  “I – hope there are – some – left.”

  Then, as if the effort had been too much for him, Bernard Beaumont closed his eyes and Lucia rose from her knees.

  “He is very weak,” she said in a low voice to the Marquis, “but I am glad that he recognised you.”

  She moved away from the bedside, and the Marquis now looked round the attic.

  It contained little except for a painter’s easel, a deal table in the centre of the room, and two chairs which had been roughly repaired with string.

  There was what looked like a make-shift screen in one corner of the room which the Marquis was sure hid a couch or a bed on which Lucia slept.

  Moving to the wall near the screen, Lucia disclosed some canvases that were stacked there.

  As if she sensed that the Marquis was questioning their position, she explained,

  “I was afraid they might fade in the sunlight, which can be very hot and strong at midday.”

  She carried one of the larger canvases towards the Marquis as she spoke, and when she reached him turned it round and lifted it up on to the easel, which was empty.

  The Marquis looked at it, hoping he was not about to see the usual amateurish impression of Venice, gaudily coloured and indifferently drawn.

  On the other hand, it might be worse still, and be merely a poor copy of one of the great paintings by Canaletto, Guardi or Piazzetta, which had been copied a thousand times and never very successfully.

  Instead he found himself staring at something so unusual and so original that for the moment he found it hard to believe what he was seeing.

  Without speaking Lucia brought another picture from the pile against the wall to set it against the bottom of the easel, then two others to put on the chairs, and the last two against the legs of the table.

  The Marquis did not speak.

  He merely looked from the first painting to the next, and then to the others she had brought.

  Although they were very different from any painting he had ever seen before, he knew, because he was a connoisseur and experienced in recognising what was right or wrong in an artist’s work, that what he was seeing was revolutionary.

  They were so different from the traditional style of the Venetian artists that he could understand that such pictures, in Venice, more than anywhere else, would be unsalable.

  Slowly, as his eyes went from one to another, he realised that what Beaumont had depicted was what he felt, rather than what he saw.

  He had managed, perhaps better than even Turner had done, to depict the translucency of the light which was characteristic of Venice, and at the same time to give an impression of life which other artists had attempted, but failed.

  For the moment, because it was so unusual, he almost doubted his own ability to criticise it.

  Then, as he slowly moved so as to stand in front of each picture in turn, he knew that Beaumont was a genius.

  Yet because he was so far in advance of his time, the Marquis knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, even for those who considered themselves authorities in appreciation of art, to recognise him.

  It was only, the Marquis thought, because he himself was in some way attuned to the picture and to what Beaumont was trying to say, that he could realise how remarkable the paintings were.

  It was in fact his instinct which told him that one day they would be acclaimed.

  But his mind, logical and factual, was aware that Beaumont would for the present be either laughed at, scorned, or worse still, ignored.

  The Marquis was concentrating so intently on what he was seeing, and on recognising the subtlety and the artistry of Beaumont’s work, that he had forgotten for the moment that Lucia was there.

  Just as he thought the pictures spoke to him and aroused a strange response within himself, so he felt that she did the same.

  Without even looking at her he could feel her tenseness and that she was willing him with her whole being to approve what he was seeing.

  He thought too she was praying, and once again, although she was very still, her fingers were locked together and the knuckles were white.

  Then the Marquis looked at her face and saw her eyes, grey and flecked with gold in the sunlight, beseeching him without words to understand.

  And he knew without being told that she was not at this moment asking him for money.

  She was wanting him, as an acknowledged collector and lover of art, to understand what her father had attempted to portray on canvas.

  The Marquis looked down at her. Then he asked,

  “Are these all your father’s pictures?”

  She looked away and he saw a faint flush stain the whiteness of her skin.

  “There were – others.”

  “And what happened to them? Have you sold them?” Again she hesitated before she said,
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  “A dealer took one – but he did not expect to be – able to sell it. Two others I gave in – exchange for food, one to a butcher, the other to a small café, where they let me have the – stale bread at the – end of the day.”

  The Marquis did not speak, and she said,

  “Do you – do you – like them?”

  It was a simple question and he knew that she awaited his answer almost as if she expected a blow.

  “I think what you are asking me,” the Marquis replied quietly, “is whether I will buy them.”

  “Would – you?”

  He turned to look at her again, thinking that the anxiety in her eyes was so poignant, so intense, that it was almost too revealing to be anything but embarrassing.

  Then he said quietly,

  “I will buy these and any more you can get back from those who have them!”

  For a moment it seemed as if Lucia did not understand what he was saying.

  Then the pain in her eyes changed to a light that seemed to be part of the pictures themselves.

  It was joined with the sunshine to seem dazzling, and to dance and glitter as if on water, over the shabby poverty of the attic.

  “You will – buy – them!”

  She repeated the words as if to reassure herself.

  “Your father is undoubtedly a genius,” the Marquis said, “but I doubt if people will realise it for many years. He is too far in advance of his time.”

  Lucia drew in her breath in a voice that was hardly audible,

  “How – can you – understand? How can – you say anything so – wonderful?”

  The Marquis saw the tears fill her eyes, making them seem larger and more luminous than they were already.

  Then she turned with the swiftness of a bird in flight, and ran to the bed to throw herself down on her knees beside her father.

  “Papa!” she said. “Listen – Papa, the Marquis will – buy your – pictures! He appreciates them – and says you are a – genius!”

  Very slowly Bernard Beaumont opened his eyes.

  “You have – sold the – pictures?” he asked in a whisper.

  “All of them, Papa! All we have – here!”

  “You are – a clever – girl – Lucia,” her father said, and shut his eyes again.

  The Marquis had returned to the contemplation of the pictures.

  It seemed extraordinary, he thought, that no one had ever before thought of using that particular technique in depicting Venice.

  And yet now he saw it, it seemed almost as if it was the only way to capture on canvas anything so beautiful, so elusive and so dream-like.

  Beaumont had made the water in the canals seem alive as others had failed to do.

  There was life, too, rather than merely the perfection of architecture, in the Palaces he had painted with the sun warming their ancient stones and making even the darkness of the door and windows seem to move.

  Everything Bernard Beaumont had touched, the Marquis thought, appeared not only to glow but to breathe, and his pictures in some strange way did not make one remember only the past, but think of the future.

  He was aware that Lucia was standing beside him, and he said,

  “First we must get your father well, then we must bring him back to England. I want him to paint my house in the country.”

  He saw the excitement in her expression and knew that for the moment she could not find words in which to answer him.

  Then he said,

  “But more important than anything else, you both need food. If I give you the money now, is there anybody who can go out and buy some for you?”

  “I will go,” Lucia said quickly.

  “Alone?”

  His voice told her what he was asking far more than his actual word.

  She glanced out of the window as if the sunlight told her the time.

  “Usually,” she said, “now that Papa is ill – I go very – early in the – morning. That was – how I saw – you.”

  The Marquis understood only too well that later in the day a woman as young and attractive as Lucia walking about alone would be followed and insulted by men.

  He appreciated that it had been intelligent of her to go so early when, as he had found, there was practically nobody about.

  “Stay here,” he said, and it was an order. “I will send you everything you require for today. Tomorrow, if he is well enough, I think you should move your father into better and more congenial surroundings.”

  He saw an expression of fear in her grey eyes and knew that she was afraid to go searching for a different place to live, in case, because she was enquiring as a woman alone, what she wanted was misunderstood.

  He acknowledged to himself that he had made a mistake and said quickly,

  “Leave everything to me. I will make all the arrangements for you. In the meantime, here is some money in case you need it, and what I will pay for the pictures would be best placed in a Bank.”

  As he spoke he drew from his pocket what money he had with him, and put it on the table.

  It was not much, yet at the same time he knew it would seem a lot to Lucia.

  He saw that she was looking at it as if she did not believe it was real, but like Fairy Gold would disappear.

  “As soon as I return to my Palazzo,” he said, “I will send you food and somebody to collect the pictures, and I will also instruct a physician to call to see your father.” Lucia was silent for a moment. Then she said,

  “The – doctors in Venice are not – very good. I think if they had been – more experienced they would – have saved Mama from – dying. I am – sure that what Papa needs is food – and hope – and if you give him those – he will – live.”

  The Marquis smiled.

  “Perhaps you are right. We will forget about the doctor, unless you ask me to obtain one for you. In the meantime, take care of yourself, and do not go walking about the streets alone.”

  “I will – stay with – Papa,” Lucia replied, “and thank God for – you and – your kindness. I have no other way of – telling you how – grateful I – am.”

  The Marquis smiled at her, thinking that the gratitude in her voice was very moving, and that the happiness he had given her made her eyes shine in a way he had never seen before in any other woman.

  Almost as if he assured himself that she was real, he looked again at the pictures and saw that there was the same light in them.

  A light so brilliantly expressed that it was almost as if the paints themselves had a magic quality in them, rather than the painter.

  He opened the door, and bending his head carefully, went out on to the landing.

  It was then, as he saw the dirt and dilapidation of what had once been a fine staircase, that he thought how incongruous it was that hidden here in the attics of a house that belonged to the past was a painter whose work undoubtedly belonged to the future.

  He knew that Lucia was watching him as he went slowly down the stone steps, avoiding their broken edges and treading a little gingerly where they were cracked.

  Only when he had reached the bottom floor and the door which was open into the callete outside did he look up. He could see her face almost as if she was poised above him in the sky.

  It struck him she might easily be and angel or a goddess on one of the magnificently painted ceilings in the Doge’s Palace.

  Then, as she made a movement with her hand in farewell, he realised she was human, and yet as insubstantial and translucent as her father’s pictures.

  *

  Travelling back over the Grand Canal in a gondola to his Palazzo, the Marquis felt as if what had just happened had been part of a dream or his imagination.

  How could he have guessed, when he left Francesca sleeping in his bed, that he would have such a strange adventure that in retrospect it seemed incredible?

  Incredible that in Venice, a City filled with artists of every sort and description and of every nationality, he should find an Englishman who
could paint in such a strange and original manner that he was already doubting his own judgement of him.

  ‘It is fantastic!’ he assured himself. ‘At the same time, the man is a great artist, although I think there are only a few people who will feel as I do about him.’

  He was sure that the six pictures he had bought would confound a great number of those to whom he would show them, and would doubtless prove controversial for a long time until he was acknowledged to be right in what he thought about them.

  It was not difficult to be aware that fashion in art changed all the time.

  At the beginning of the century the Prince of Wales had been laughed at and thought a fool because he had bought Dutch pictures that had been out of favour for years.

  And yet now already the Museums and Galleries were competing to add Dutch artists to their collections, and the King crowed triumphantly over those who had criticised him.

  “I will come into the same category,” the Marquis told himself.

  At the same time, he had a feeling that it would be years before Beaumont’s particular style was acknowledged, and then imitated.

  ‘I shall then be able to laugh at those who undoubtedly will now say I have wasted my money,’ the Marquis thought with satisfaction.

  As the gondola he had hired came to rest outside his Palazzo one of his servants ran forward to help him out of it.

  He stepped out with an alacrity that was unusual, feeling he had a great deal to do.

  He hurried up the long flight of stairs which took him to the main floor where the State Rooms were situated, including his own bedroom.

  He imagined that by this time Francesca would have returned to her own room, but he was taking no chances. He went directly to the dining room, where he knew breakfast would be waiting for him.

  Before he seated himself at the table he sent a servant hurrying for Mr. Johnson, his secretary, and when a few minutes later he arrived, gave him his instructions.

  “You quite understand,” the Marquis finished, “I want the food taken there with all speed. There is no time for the chef to cook a great deal. He can do that later. Just tell him to heat the soup and put it in a hay-hamper. When that is done I will see him and give him further orders for later in the day.”