on you.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘What is your work?’ asked Grace. ‘Whyever would they hit you?’
The girl looked at her again. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, ‘but thanks. Go back that way,’ and she pointed to a street at the side of them, ‘they won’t find yer down there.’ And she disappeared down a different alley and Grace realised at once, mortified: of course, she is a street-girl. She wondered why she hadn’t realised from the beginning, but the girl was so pretty and so - what is the word I am thinking? - defiant.
Another day, hurrying home with her basket, she saw a whole garden of grapevines growing further up St Martin’s Lane. An old lady was tending them.
‘You must come and taste my wine one day,’ said the old lady, ‘I make it for my son, the Colourman.’ And sure enough, just beside the grapevines which were such an unlikely vision in the city, she saw another vision - a small shop that advertised its wares thus: COLOURS FOR PAINTERS, and she laughed aloud for joy and at the changes that were coming to her life. Mr James Burke, the dealer with such piercing grey eyes, was walking down St Martin’s Lane and came upon the laughing girl.
‘What is it that amuses you so, Signorina ?’ he asked but she only blushed and curtsied and hurried away, indicating the shopping under her arm. And then there she would be, somewhere in the corner of her brother’s studio, watchful as a cat.
Philip saw how quickly she had taken on her new persona, perhaps remembered the days when he taught his little sister to read and she would say to his friends so proudly, When I do count the clock that tells the Time and Philip did not know how impassionedly she did indeed count the time now, and wait for her moment.
Several days a week now people came for dinner at three o’clock. The house filled with scents and smells: the arriving guests brought their own aromas and their own odours which mixed with the meat cooking and the fish cooking and the wine. The Nobility whom her brother sometimes painted were not present of course, that was not a Painter’s social scale (or not yet , as Philip Marshall saw it) but Mr James Burke the dealer was often present; occasionally (though not as often as her brother would have liked) the feared critic Mr Hartley Pond.
‘ Buongiorno , Signore Pond,’ said Grace Marshall, her head was bowed demurely but she watched him most carefully, this important person, the Art Critic. Mr Hartley Pond was a thin, scented, supercilious gentleman who took snuff from a beautiful enamelled snuff box decorated with an exquisite miniature painting, and who dominated the conversation with his very definite opinions. Grace, as instructed, listened carefully to every word. Mr Pond had what people described as a Roman nose but would have preferred it to be Greek: art began with the Greeks, he said - indeed life began with the Greeks as far as Mr Hartley Pond was concerned. Grace imagined he must spend all his spare time learning things from books so that he would know, always, better than anybody else.
An older man, a painter called John Palmer, was often there. Grace soon learned he was her brother’s oldest friend, a wise and cynical man: a failed painter who lived in the wilds of Spitalfields where the French weavers had settled, although he was neither a weaver nor French. He was balding but often removed his long, unfashionable (and, if truth be told, rather grubby) wig; he would wipe his pate with his big kerchief and entertain them all with his stories of painting people less rich, and less salubrious, than Philip’s clients, and of painting biblical scenes above fireplaces or in corners of poor, religious people’s houses.
‘I am a craftsman,’ he would say wryly, ‘not an Artist. I charge by the yard like the sky-men.’ But Grace quickly understood that he believed that he was an artist, but one who had not had the luck of his Italian friend. ‘I design also
‘I’m all right.’
‘What is your work?’ asked Grace. ‘Whyever would they hit you?’
The girl looked at her again. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, ‘but thanks. Go back that way,’ and she pointed to a street at the side of them, ‘they won’t find yer down there.’ And she disappeared down a different alley and Grace realised at once, mortified: of course, she is a street-girl. She wondered why she hadn’t realised from the beginning, but the girl was so pretty and so - what is the word I am thinking? - defiant.
Another day, hurrying home with her basket, she saw a whole garden of grapevines growing further up St Martin’s Lane. An old lady was tending them.
‘You must come and taste my wine one day,’ said the old lady, ‘I make it for my son, the Colourman.’ And sure enough, just beside the grapevines which were such an unlikely vision in the city, she saw another vision - a small shop that advertised its wares thus: COLOURS FOR PAINTERS, and she laughed aloud for joy and at the changes that were coming to her life. Mr James Burke, the dealer with such piercing grey eyes, was walking down St Martin’s Lane and came upon the laughing girl.
‘What is it that amuses you so, Signorina ?’ he asked but she only blushed and curtsied and hurried away, indicating the shopping under her arm. And then there she would be, somewhere in the corner of her brother’s studio, watchful as a cat.
Philip saw how quickly she had taken on her new persona, perhaps remembered the days when he taught his little sister to read and she would say to his friends so proudly, When I do count the clock that tells the Time and Philip did not know how impassionedly she did indeed count the time now, and wait for her moment.
Several days a week now people came for dinner at three o’clock. The house filled with scents and smells: the arriving guests brought their own aromas and their own odours which mixed with the meat cooking and the fish cooking and the wine. The Nobility whom her brother sometimes painted were not present of course, that was not a Painter’s social scale (or not yet , as Philip Marshall saw it) but Mr James Burke the dealer was often present; occasionally (though not as often as her brother would have liked) the feared critic Mr Hartley Pond.
‘ Buongiorno , Signore Pond,’ said Grace Marshall, her head was bowed demurely but she watched him most carefully, this important person, the Art Critic. Mr Hartley Pond was a thin, scented, supercilious gentleman who took snuff from a beautiful enamelled snuff box decorated with an exquisite miniature painting, and who dominated the conversation with his very definite opinions. Grace, as instructed, listened carefully to every word. Mr Pond had what people described as a Roman nose but would have preferred it to be Greek: art began with the Greeks, he said - indeed life began with the Greeks as far as Mr Hartley Pond was concerned. Grace imagined he must spend all his spare time learning things from books so that he would know, always, better than anybody else.
An older man, a painter called John Palmer, was often there. Grace soon learned he was her brother’s oldest friend, a wise and cynical man: a failed painter who lived in the wilds of Spitalfields where the French weavers had settled, although he was neither a weaver nor French. He was balding but often removed his long, unfashionable (and, if truth be told, rather grubby) wig; he would wipe his pate with his big kerchief and entertain them all with his stories of painting people less rich, and less salubrious, than Philip’s clients, and of painting biblical scenes above fireplaces or in corners of poor, religious people’s houses.
‘I am a craftsman,’ he would say wryly, ‘not an Artist. I charge by the yard like the sky-men.’ But Grace quickly understood that he believed that he was an artist, but one who had not had the luck of his Italian friend. ‘I design also
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