‘The Pre-Raphaelites,’ her mother repeated in a horrified whisper. ‘The way they carry on is shocking, I’ve heard.’
‘But the new style of painting is wonderful. Why, I saw an extraordinary work in the Royal Academy of Art.’ Cameo’s heart beat faster as she recalled it. ‘If I took lessons, perhaps I could learn to paint like that. I’ll never be that good, but one day, I might be able to exhibit.’
Her mama almost dropped her coffee cup. ‘You couldn’t possibly show your paintings in public. What would people say? Perhaps you could paint some flowers on the name cards for our dinner parties this Season instead,’ she added hopefully. ‘That would be lovely.’
‘I suppose George could have art lessons if he wanted them?’ The question burst out before Cameo could halt it. She gripped her hands together.
‘It’s different for your brother.’ Her mother put her fingertips to her temples. ‘And please don’t raise your voice.’
Her father glowered. ‘Stop upsetting your mama and stop these foolish ideas. I’ve let it go far enough. I ought not to have allowed it in the first place.’
‘Papa...’
‘Enough, I said. I won’t discuss this matter with you again. Why are you arguing in such a manner? It isn’t like you, Cameo. Now, behave like a young lady.’
I’d rather behave like an artist. Cameo choked back the words.
‘I’m sorry, Papa.’
With shaking fingers she picked up her cup.
She hated to deceive her parents, but she had no choice.
Alas. It was already too late.
* * *
‘Cameo?’ Maud poked her head around the drawing-room door. ‘Briggs told me you were in here. Am I interrupting?’
‘Not at all.’ Cameo laid down her paintbrush. No matter how hard she tried there was no discernible improvement in her work. ‘It’s lovely to see you, Maud. It isn’t going well this morning.’
Cameo stood at her easel, an old linen sheet spread beneath her. She was fortunate to be allowed to continue to paint in the drawing room, after an incident with some spilt paint. Of course, it had been ochre.
Her easel was placed where the light was best. Through the windows the March sun cast its spring promise. Cameo had asked her mama if she might fling wide the heavy curtains for more light, but at her mother’s shocked face the question had trailed away.
Now Maud peeped over her shoulder. ‘What are you working on today?’
Carefully Cameo wiped her hands with a rag. She’d promised her mama to try to keep her hands clean, too, after she’d appeared at luncheon with oil paint under her fingernails.
‘I’m doing what apprentices used to do when they worked in the studios of the Old Masters,’ she explained. ‘They copied the Masters’ work to learn their technique. It’s a good way to learn, though not as good as actually watching a master at work with his own hands. I’m not up to landscapes yet so I’m making a copy of that portrait.’
She pointed to the gold-framed portrait that hung above the fireplace. It depicted her grandmother as a young woman. She wore a white dress and a cameo necklace tied with a black-velvet ribbon, the same black-and-white stone that now hung around Cameo’s neck. Set in gold, with a loop as well as a pin, it could be worn as either a brooch or a necklace.
‘You’re so like your grandmama,’ her mother often said. Her grandmama’s hair had been dark, almost black, and her eyes, though difficult to discern in the portrait, were the same deep blue as Cameo’s, so deep they could appear purple. Violet eyes, her mama called them.
Maud glanced from one painting to the other. ‘Your painting will be just as good,’ she said loyally.
Cameo slipped off her paint-splattered artist’s smock. ‘You’re being much too kind, Maud, and you know it. I’ve got so much to learn, but how can I improve when there is always a luncheon or a dinner or a ball we must attend? And we have to keep changing our clothes. Imagine how wonderful it would be to get up in the morning and be able to paint all day.’
Cameo sighed. She tried to keep her spirits high, but it was difficult. More often now, at night, she despaired. Sometimes she lay awake in bed until she threw back the covers, lit a candle and seized her pencil. Then she drew and drew, sheet after sheet, until dawn came. It was the only way to soothe her sense of being trapped, her frustration. Yet she was forced to play at art, to keep it as a hobby, never learning, barely improving. Without lessons, without a guiding hand, she would never become the artist she longed to be.
Maud’s round blue eyes were sympathetic. ‘Do you really want art lessons so much?’
‘So much that I had the most terrible argument with Papa and Mama.’ She paced the room, her gown trailing across the carpet. Impatiently she hitched it up. ‘I must take matters into my own hands. I’ve got a few ideas.’
‘Oh, no, Cameo.’ Maud’s curls bobbed in alarm. ‘Your ideas are always so reckless. Surely you must obey your parents’ wishes.’
Maud would never do anything of which her parents disapproved.
‘Art is everything to me,’ Cameo said. ‘I will even pay for lessons myself.’
Maud appeared bewildered. ‘But how would you pay?’
In spite of the luxuries that surrounded her, Cameo had only a little money of her own. All her needs were provided for and she was made a small allowance, but that was all.
Her fingers touched her throat. ‘I could sell some of my jewellery.’
Maud’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Not your cameo necklace.’
Cameo smiled. ‘I’ve worn it ever since Mama gave it to me. Just as I’ve worn the name George gave me when I was born.’
‘Cam-mee, because he couldn’t say Catherine Mary.’ The dimple that displayed whenever George was mentioned appeared in Maud’s cheek. ‘And it became Cameo.’
Cameo’s fingers ran over the black-and-white jewel with the woman’s profile carved on to its face. She shook her head firmly. ‘No. I could never sell my cameo necklace.’
But she would do almost anything for painting lessons.
Benedict Cole would understand. She felt convinced of it. No one in her family or any one of her friends, not even Maud, understood her longing, her need to paint. To try to speak of it, to explain to those who didn’t share her passion, was like speaking a foreign language.
In Benedict Cole’s painting at the Academy she’d discerned a flame that burned inside the artist’s heart, which drove him on to create, no matter what the cost, no matter what the risk. She couldn’t describe it but she knew it was there, that flame.
It burned inside her, too.
* * *
After Maud left, Briggs, the butler, entered the drawing room, with a white paper square held aloft on a silver tray. ‘This has come for you, Lady Catherine Mary.’
‘At last!’ Cameo leapt up and reached for the envelope. Her name and address was written on it in strong black letters. ‘Thank you, Briggs. And—no one saw?’
The merest glimmer of a smile showed on the butler’s impassive face. She only ever saw him grin widely at Christmas, when each year she gave him a picture she had painted especially for him, as she’d done since she was a small girl, the results improving somewhat over the years. One could not call the butler family, yet to Cameo he was. All the servants were old friends and allies, people she could trust with her secrets.
‘His lordship