‘Of course.’ And then, because the conversation had reached a natural lull: ‘Are we expecting Fanny to join us?’
Edward’s demeanour did not change, but he said, ‘No, Fanny isn’t coming,’ and then he moved at once to point out a nook beside the fireplace that he suggested would be perfect for concealed reading: ‘No one would even know that you were in there, and I have it on good authority that reading when hidden improves the experience immeasurably.’
Lucy had let the subject of Fanny drop.
Later, she would wish that she had probed further, asked a few more questions; but in truth she did not much care for Fanny and was glad that she wouldn’t be joining them. At the time, Edward’s perfunctory, almost dismissive, response had said it all. Fanny was a bore. She commandeered Edward’s attention and tried to make him someone he was not. As a fiancée, she was far more threatening to Lucy than a model. Models came and went, but marriage was forever. Marriage meant a new house for Edward somewhere else. Lucy couldn’t imagine living without her brother, and she couldn’t imagine what it would be like for him to have to live with Fanny.
Lucy had no plans for marriage – not unless the perfect person happened along. Her ideal husband, she had decided, would be someone just like herself. Or Edward. And they would be very happy, the two of them, alone together forever.
Edward had been right about the library: it was as if it had been designed and stocked with Lucy in mind. Shelves lined the walls, and unlike the collection at their grandparents’ house, which comprised copious religious tracts and pamphlets protecting against the commission of social solecisms, here were real books. The previous owners of Birchwood Manor had amassed a tremendous amount of material on all manner of fascinating subjects, and where there were gaps, Edward had sent to London for further titles. Lucy spent every spare moment scaling the sliding ladder, scanning the spines, and planning the summer weeks that stretched ahead – and she had many spare moments to fill, because from the first day that they arrived, she was left to her own devices.
Even as they had carried out their initial explorations of the house, each artist had been focused on finding the perfect place in which to work. There was an added urgency to their quest, for just before they left for Birchwood, Mr Ruskin had undertaken to support an exhibition of their collective works in the autumn. Each member of the Magenta Brotherhood had a new creation in mind, and the air was thus infused with a blend of creativity, competition and possibility. Once the rooms had been chosen, each painter fell at once to unpacking the art supplies that had come by coach from the railway station.
Thurston chose the large sitting room at the front of the house, because he said that the south-facing window afforded him the perfect light. Lucy tried to stay out of his way, partly because she found Thurston inexplicably disconcerting, and partly because she was embarrassed to have to see her sister’s big mooning eyes. Lucy had chanced upon Clare modelling when the door was open and had needed to run through the meadow at full speed afterwards just to rid herself of the uncomfortable creeping sensation. Lucy had glimpsed the painting before she left. It was fine, of course – even if still in its earliest incarnation – for Thurston was a competent technician; but something had struck her as notable. The woman in the painting, though she shared the languid position that Clare was modelling, draped with ennui over the chaise longue, had been given lips that belonged unmistakably to Lily Millington.
Felix had commandeered the small enclosure off the panelled drawing room on the ground floor, and when Edward pointed out that it had hardly any light at all, he had agreed eagerly and said that this was the point. Felix, who had heretofore been known for painting moody scenes from myth and legend, now declared an intention to use photography rather than paint to portray the same subjects. ‘I am going to make an image of Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott to rival Mr Robinson’s. Your river is perfect. It even has the willows and aspens on offer. It shall be Camelot, you’ll see.’
Fierce debate had been raging ever since amongst the group as to whether it was possible to render the same artistic effect in the new medium. At dinner one night, Thurston said that photographs were a gimmick. ‘A cheap trick, all well and good for creating reminders of loved ones, but not for communicating on a serious subject.’
At which point, Felix had taken a button from his pocket, a small tin badge, and flipped it over in his fingers. ‘Tell that to Abraham Lincoln,’ he said. ‘Tens of thousands of these have been given away. There are people all over the continent of America wearing the man’s face – his very image – on their clothing. Once, we wouldn’t have known what Lincoln looked like, let alone what he thought. Now he has forty per cent of the vote.’
‘Why didn’t his opponents do the same thing?’ asked Adele.
‘They tried, but it was too late. He who acts first wins. But I’ll promise you this: we won’t see another election in which the candidates don’t trade on their image.’
Thurston took the tin badge and flipped it like a coin. ‘I’m not denying that it’s a useful political tool,’ he said, slapping the badge down on the top of one hand. ‘But you can’t tell me that this is art.’ He lifted his palm to reveal Lincoln’s face.
‘Not that particular button, no. But think of Roger Fenton’s work.’
‘The Crimean pictures are extraordinary,’ Edward agreed. ‘And certainly the communication of a serious subject.’
‘But not art.’ Thurston poured the last of the red wine into his glass. ‘I will allow that photographs are useful tools for reporting news and happenings; for performing as the … the …’
‘The eye of history,’ Lily Millington proffered.
‘Yes, thank you, Lily, the eye of history – but art they are not.’
Lucy, sitting quietly at the end of the table, enjoying a second serving of pudding, loved the idea of the photograph as the eye of history. So often in her own reading about the past – and in the digging she had been doing in the woods behind the house, where she had started turning up odd and ancient remnants – she was frustrated by the need to extrapolate and imagine. What a gift it was to future generations that photographs could now record the truth! Lucy had read an article in the London Review that referred to the ‘unimpeachable evidence of the photograph’ and said that from now on nothing would happen without photography being used to create—
‘A tangible, transferable memory of the occurrence.’
Lucy looked up so sharply that a dollop of cream fell from her spoon. It was Lily Millington who had taken the words right out of Lucy’s mouth. That is, she had taken the London Review’s words right out of Lucy’s mind.
‘Just so, Lily,’ Felix was saying. ‘One day the photographic image will be ubiquitous: cameras will be so small and compact that people will carry them on straps around their necks.’
Thurston rolled his eyes. ‘And their necks will be stronger, too, I suppose, these Amazonian people of the future? Felix, you’re making my point with your talk of ubiquity. Having a camera to point does not an artist make. An artist is a man who sees beauty in a sulphuric fog where others see only pollution.’
‘Or a woman,’ said Lily Millington.
‘Why would anybody see a woman in pollution?’ Thurston stopped as he realised what she meant. ‘Oh. I see. Yes, very good, Lily. Very good. Or a lady who sees beauty.’