The paintbrush in his hand shuck slightly. For most people it would have been difficult to wield a brush accurately with a hand that missed its little finger, but he had learnt to deal with the mutilation. It was the cold which was beginning to trouble him.
The sun set beyond the small window, and the inside of that small window was covered in ice which sparkled in the light of the two candles and tiny fire which lit the room. Their breath drifted like smoke in that room, which served as his studio, kitchen and living room.
‘This is intolerable,’ declared Molly, the young lady who reclined on the floor at the other end of the room, wearing only a toga improvised from a bed sheet. ‘I shall become ill, like that poor girl from the Ophelia painting.’
‘That girl was immortalised in Waterhouse’s Ophelia, and you too shall be immortalised as the very archetype of beauty when I have completed ‘Guinevere’s Lust’.’
She looked unimpressed, but remained dutifully still as he painted her.
‘Could you not put a little more coal on the fire?’ she asked a moment later.
‘Molly, my dear, there is to be no more coal coming until next week, and I wish to save some for Christmas.’
‘It is alright for you, I am only wearing a damned sheet.’
‘It is my understanding that you normally work with no clothes on at all.’
Which was both true and insulting. She bit her lip. She knew that the more time she spent complaining, the longer the painting would take. Soon it would be too dark, and work would end for the day. She would remember the insult to use against him at a more opportune time in the future.
He put down the brush and rubbed his hands together for warmth. Despite the fingerless wool gloves which he always wore in winter, his hands felt like they were made of ice. Even the missing finger was bitterly cold, which seemed unfair. After staring adoringly at her for a few moments, he rearranged the candles and stoked the fire to improve the light. For the next half hour he continued painting her toga, which was transformed on canvas to an elegant gown.
After a final stroke, he laid his brush down. Looking first at his canvas and then at her, he smiled.
‘That shall do for today, thank you Molly,’ he said, rubbing his numb hands together.
She stood, stretched her slender limbs, then rushed through to the other room to dress. When she returned, he was crouched by the fire. She joined him there and warmed her hands and face. Then she took a small, cracked mirror from her bag and inspected herself. She quickly ran a brush through her long dark hair, then applied a little colour to her lips and cheeks.
She stood and silently looked at him, and then the door. He stood, and then they did what they always did. He paid her, she put the money in the hidden pocket of her petty coat (without making eye contact with him), then she hugged him.
As he pulled away from her embrace, he risked kissing her on the cheek, which he did not normally do- but it was nearly Christmas.
He opened the door for her, and she left.
‘See you next week,’ he called after her.
As usual, she did not reply.
He tidied away his paint and brushes, then gazed again at the canvas. He wished to paint in the fashionable Pre Raphaelite style, but he was not a member of the select Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood, and had been too busy in his youth to attend any of the colleges of art, so he did not know their secret methods which made the painting shine with inner light. But he would learn. He would paint the most beautiful woman in the British Empire, and then he would be the most famous artist in the British Empire.
Eventually.
After lovingly returning the bed sheet to his narrow bed, he pulled on his grey overcoat and red cravat and strode out onto the snow covered streets.
Any passer by would have struggled to identify his class. At first glace he looked like an educated man, perhaps an educated man who was something of a Dandy. Closer inspection of his threadbare clothes and pinched features may have suggested a pauper who had stolen his suit from a corpse.
A brief stroll took him to the relative warmth and comfort of his favourite tavern. After ordering a pint of porter from the comely serving maid, he joined his friend Lloyd.
‘God save the Queen!” Lloyd said, which was his usual way of greeting people.
‘God save the Queen,’ he replied dutifully. ‘How are you?’
‘Quite well. How do you do?’
Both men were in their mid thirties, but Lloyd looked the younger man by far. A Lieutenant in the Dragoons, Lloyd enjoyed rather more in the way of fresh air and exercise than his artistic friend.
‘Not bad,’ he said, taking a swig from his porter and feeling the nearby fire warm him. ‘In fact, rather well.’
‘Jolly good. How goes the painting?”
“Well.’
‘And the lovely Molly?’
‘Lovely… She will be happier when the spring comes.’
‘As shall we all be. But I must say that if a few more Londoners spent a summer in Africa, India or Afghanistan then they might be less inclined to complain about the cold.’
He nodded agreement. Lloyd had a very unfashionable tan and a few scars to prove that he had spent most of the year in those boiling corners of The Empire. He was wondering what is would be like to be too warm when the serving wench came to refill their glasses.
‘Do you want to put me in one of your paintings, mister?’ she asked playfully.
‘Not right now,’ he replied awkwardly. ‘Maybe in my next painting…’
She looked thoughtful for a moment and fiddled with her golden hair. Then she broke out into giggles and leaned over to Lloyd.
‘Then maybe Mister Lloyd could prefer to keep me company,’ she said.
‘Later,’ he replied.
She blushed, giggled some more, and trotted away.
‘We shall get drunk today,’ Lloyd declared. ‘It is nearly Christmas, and an officer ought to be generous.’
So they did.
Soon it was midnight, and a great deal of ale had passed through them.
He rose unsteadily to his feet and headed for the outhouse. On the way past the bar, the serving maid winked at him, and so he was utterly distracted when he walked into the very large man, and knocked the very large man’s drink all over his very large and expensive shirt.
‘You, sir, have spilt my drink!’ the very large man roared.
He looked up at the man, who was very tall, very broad- but not fat- and wore the dress uniform of a Heavy Cavalry Officer and an impressive moustache on a face which was red with drink.
‘My apologises sir, my friend shall buy you a new one.’
‘Your friend? Your friend?’ roared the very large man, who was now surrounded by several associates in the same uniform. ‘Are you such a pauper, sir, that you cannot pay for your own mistakes?’
‘I, sir, am an artist.’
‘An artist indeed! First you spill my drink, then you stain my shirt, then you have the nerve to pursue such a disreputable trade! Damn your eyes, sir!’
‘Damn your manners, sir. You do no credit to your rank. Allow me to replace your drink and offer my apologies, and let the manner rest.’
‘Never! I demand satisfaction!”
‘Satisfaction?’
‘A duel! At dawn on Saturday, if you are man enough for it!’
‘But sir, Saturday is Christmas Eve,’ one of the large man’s associates said.
‘Christmas Eve! And a fine Christmas it shall be after I have slain this lowly artist!’ the man boasted. ‘Sabres or pistols?’
‘Sabres, and where?’ he know there was no backing out.
‘Horse Guards Yard.’
‘So be it. Good night to you sir,’ he said as he rushed to the outhouse.
On his return to the tavern, the artist avoided eye contact with the very large man and returned to his table.
‘Who is yonder giant and pompous oaf?’ he asked his friend.
‘That, my friend, is Sir Thomas Blake, and you ought to be a tad more careful with your words, as he is said to be the finest swordsman in London.’
‘It is a little late for that, he has already challenged me to a duel.’
‘Dash.’
He woke with a sore head the next day. Even though he was fully dressed, it was freezing in his bed. He dragged himself out of it, and staggered through to the next room where he lit a fire with wood chippings and a few handfuls of coal. After blowing it carefully for a few minutes it produced some heat, and he began frying bread and dripping.
After breakfast he tried to work on his painting. There were parts which he could paint without Molly- the crown beside her, the lance she held suggestively, the woodland and setting sun behind her- but he found it impossible to paint well without her. She was his muse.
After an hour he gave up, and read some of the many poems which Tennyson had written on Arthurian themes. They inspired him a little, but he could not be distracted from the fact that he would probably be dead by Christmas.
As an artist and a Post Romantic he had always been comfortable with the idea that he would die, and that he would probably die young. It would increase the value of his paintings. The difficulty lay in knowing the exact date, and the exact- particularly painful- way in which he would die. It was Thursday, in less than two days he might die.
It was horrid to think of, so he had lunch instead.
At sunset, he set off to the tavern, where he found Lloyd.
‘You have finally done it,’ Lloyd said, after commanding God to protect his Queen.
‘Done what, exactly?’
‘What you always wanted to do, become famous!’
‘How so?’ he thought for a moment that his luck had changed.
‘That duel, old boy. Everyone at Horse Guards is talking about it. No one has duelled all season, and now you are fighting Sir Blake. It is quite legendary.’
‘Ah, so my corpse shall be famous?’ the artist almost buried his face in his hands.
‘Quite famous! Indeed, they are holding bets on it at Horse Guards- to add to the sport, seeing as it is Christmas!’
‘What are my odds?’
‘Not good.’
‘Please get me a drink, gin if you would be so kind.’
The next day passed slowly, and the night passed drunkenly, and then it was dawn on Christmas Eve.
The artist found himself in the middle of a large crowd of officers in the centre of The Horse Guard’s Yard. The courtyard was covered with four inches of snow, as where the stately building which surrounded it.
A senior officer briefed them on the rules, which involved killing each other in the most gentlemanly way possible. Then they stripped down to their shirt sleeves, and were handed identical sabres.
He looked up at the very large man, and the very large man looked down on him, and then they shuck hands.
After they had moved three paces apart, the senior officer commanded them to begin.
Sir Blake leapt forward, swinging a massive over arm cut- clearly hoping to expand his considerable reputation by killing a man in one blow.
He dodged it by half an inch, and managed to cut the large man’s exposed arm.
The crowd cheered for first blood.
Sir Thomas Blake showed no surprise or pain under his moustache, but adopted a more careful stance. The artist stood with his feet wide apart and his sabre on-guard.
Sir Blake lunged at him, but he parried, and struck for the large man’s knees.
Sir Blake easily parried it.
As the artist had anticipated when he had made that fein. His sword struck upwards in an arch, then rapidly down into Sir Blake’s right collar bone.
The very large man dropped his sword to the ground, and his self to his knees.
The crowd fell silent as blood flowed rapidly.
‘Will you surrender, sir?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Blake gasped as he coughed and spat blood.
‘Then you shall have quarter, because it is Christmas.’
He put down his sword, and stood back as men rushed to Sir Blake’s aid. Then he noticed that all of the crowd looked at him in moody disgust.
‘Lloyd,’ he called out to the crowd, ‘have I done some thing wrong?’
His friend came to his side, and shuck his hand firmly.
‘No, sir, you have done well,’ Lloyd told him.
‘These gentlemen do not look impressed.’
‘All of these gentlemen bet against you, you see. Some have lost a fortune today. No one thought that you could win.’
‘Did none of them know that I was in the Dragoons in my youth?’
‘No, even I forget that sometimes.’
The crowd dispersed in poor spirits, and Blake was carried away on a stretcher.
‘Do they think I lost my finger to a rouge paintbrush?’ he asked indignantly
‘Some of them believe that you sold your finger to a medical student in order to buy gin… No one bet on you…’
‘Not quite no one.’
After putting on his coat, and collecting his winnings, he had breakfast washed down with a great deal of sherry.
Then he went out and bought a sack of coal, and a bag of potatoes, and a turkey, and a bottle of port, and a small gold ring. As an after thought, he bought himself a new paintbrush.
Then he bought Lloyd and himself a drink.
Then he started looking for Molly.
All night he trailed the taverns and ally ways for her. He heard the clock strike midnight, and still he had not found her.
He had almost given up, and was heading for home, when he saw her leaning against a pub doorway. She looked tired under her smile, and she must have been very cold.
‘Hello,’ she greeted him.
‘Hello Molly. Come home with me. You cannot work tonight, for it is Christmas day… and we shall have ever so much fun.’
THE END
Image by Victoria Francise.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND GOOD WILL TO ALL MEN! (AND WOMEN, BUT NO GOOD WILL AT ALL TO TORY POLITICIANS, THE POLICE AND SECURITY GUARDS).
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