She could still remember, if vaguely, how she had loved to make sketches of her toys and pets when she was very little, and how her parents had been pleased when presented with examples of her artwork by her nanny and governesses. No one had ever encouraged her to do anything more, however, and after a while she had become frustrated by her inability to capture what her eyes saw.
And then, the year she’d turned twelve, Miss Renfrew had been engaged as governess to her and Amalia. The woman hadn’t been especially friendly or kind, and most of her lessons had been extremely boring, but she had known a little about art. Miss Renfrew had taught Helena the basic rules of composition and perspective, had shown her how to use pastels and watercolors, and had encouraged her to always carry a sketchbook and pencils, just in case inspiration struck when she was far from home. When Miss Renfrew had been replaced by another, less artistically inclined governess the following year, Helena had been disconsolate, but she hadn’t given up. She had, instead, saved for months to buy an illustrated guide to figure drawing, and once she had memorized its precepts she had bought and devoured similar volumes devoted to watercolors and pastels.
And there she might have stayed, a self-taught but woefully inexperienced artist, if not for the war.
In the early years of the conflict, she hadn’t done much in the way of volunteer work, apart from the same sort of Red Cross meetings and bandage-rolling parties that every other girl her age seemed to do. She had been bored and restless, and before long had started to pester her mother for permission to do more.
It had taken months and months, but eventually she had worn Mama down. By the middle of 1917 she had begun to volunteer at a small auxiliary hospital in Grosvenor Square. At first her work had been confined to letter-writing for men too weak to do so themselves, but one day she had found herself at loose ends, and without anything else to do had pulled out her ever-present sketchbook and pencil and had sketched one of the wounded men. He had been turned away from her, his face in profile, and it had been surprisingly easy to capture his likeness. One of the nurses had noticed, and complimented her, and soon every patient on the ward was asking for a portrait to send home.
Art had sustained her that year and the next, all those long, bleak months at the rag end of the war after Edward had gone missing and her happy, na?ve dreams for the future had melted away like so much sand before the tide. In the years that followed, art had become her salvation. No matter how horrid people had been to her, no matter how lonely she had become, she’d always been able to escape to her room, to her easel by the window where the light was best, and forget everything.
Helena returned to her easel, again working with fragments of hard pastels, breaking them as needed to find a sharp edge for the details she sought. A mossy green traced the length of individual stalks of lavender, a shard of dark indigo further shadowed the crevices between the wall’s ancient stones, and tiny pools of warm white, softened with her fingertip, caught the fractal path of sunbeams through a parasol of olive leaves.
She took a step back and surveyed her work. It was a simple scene, nothing that would ever turn the world on end, but it nonetheless filled her with a deep sense of satisfaction. Out of nothing more than a sheet of paper and a handful of broken pastels, she had created something beautiful.
And a year from now? What would she be capable of creating then? The possibilities alone were enough to make her feel nearly dizzy with excitement.
Just then, a bell rang inside. Micheline was reduced to almost comical levels of anxiety at the thought of interrupting Helena while she was painting, so they had come up with the bell as a tolerable means of summoning her to meals. She tidied away her things and headed back to the house.
The villa was cool and dark, its shutters still drawn against the sun, and its tiled floors felt pleasantly cool against Helena’s bare feet as she went upstairs to wash her face and hands.
Agnes had a love of cold soups, the more exotically flavored the better, and as Helena joined her aunt in the dining room she braced herself for that day’s offering. The soup from yesterday, which had contained ground almonds, of all things, had reminded her unpleasantly of melted ice cream.
Today’s first course, however, was a concoction of tomato, cucumbers, and onions, as well as a headily fragrant amount of garlic; when they’d first had it the week before she had thought it delicious.
“I’ve forgotten the name for this,” she said.
“It’s gazpacho. The Princesse de Polignac has a Spanish chef and I persuaded him to explain how it’s made. So wonderfully refreshing.”
It was, and Helena had a second helping before devouring a plate of cold, grilled vegetables and several slices of day-old bread, also grilled, that had been rubbed with olive oil and yet more garlic.
“What are you doing this afternoon?” her aunt asked.
“I’m going down to the beach, as usual. Why don’t you come with me? The Murphys have half a dozen parasols all set up, so you’ll be in the shade, and—”