Authors: M. A. Sandiford
The gruelling journey continued in stages of some two hours, each stage taking them ten or fifteen miles further north. By early evening, when they had been travelling nearly ten hours, their coaches left the turnpike just south of Northampton and followed a dirt road to the village of Milton Malsor, finally halting at a junction outside the Greyhound Inn, a long white rustic house roofed in slate, where dinner and rooms had been reserved. Now weary, especially of sitting, Elizabeth joined Bridget and Georgie in a quick tour of the village before eating a hearty meal and retiring to the comfort of her tiny but well-appointed room.
Next morning she was woken at dawn for another early start, and by mid-morning they had reached the outskirts of Rugby, where they stopped for an hour to attend morning prayer. As they approached the city of Leceister, Elizabeth kept a watchful eye for signposts to Market Harborough and Wistham. However, their route took them a good ten miles west of the Kaye family estate, and while Bertha remained interested in the passing scenery, she showed no sign of recognising where she was. As they pulled away to the north-west Elizabeth began to relax, and to focus instead on the imminent introduction to Sir George Beaumont and sundry distinguished guests.
Bridget, now carrying Georgie on her knee, pointed out of the carriage window. ‘Look, we’re arriving at Coalville. Not far now!’
The little boy screwed up his face as they passed a row of ugly blackish mounds. ‘What are those hills?’
‘Slag heaps,’ Bridget said. ‘Waste from the coal mines.’ She turned to Elizabeth. ‘The Beaumonts have had mining interests for many years, and there are now fifteen pits open in the area.’
Elizabeth observed the scene, fascinated by its ugliness, which lent it in her eyes a certain realism—rather as the depravities of the Kaye family had revealed a world from which she had been sheltered. She knew that deep under the ground, men covered in sweat and grime laboured long hours to bring up the black lumps that were fuelling new industries. At home this world was never discussed, although it interested Mr Gardiner, always on the lookout for promising investments.
They joined the road to Ashby-de-la-Zouch, leaving the pits behind, but before reaching the town, veered right along an uneven dirt road which had been churned up by frequent use after recent rain. After a few bumpy minutes the track mercifully widened into a gravel path flanking a green with a chapel to the left, and the hall beyond. The view was majestic and breathtaking, and the hall ideally situated so as to highlight the complex architecture of its main entrance, which protruded by several layers from the main block and was capped by a stocky hexagonal tower.
As the coaches pulled up outside the entrance a posse of servants came to their assistance, while at the bottom of the steps a distinguished-looking gentleman of perhaps fifty years awaited them, arm in arm with his wife. With a squeal Georgie wriggled free of Bridget’s grasp and rushed to the gentleman, who scooped him up and playfully span him around before turning to greet Thomas and Bridget. Observing the baronet Sir George Beaumount, Elizabeth found him unassuming, and almost boyish in his enthusiasm—the opposite, one might say, to another gentleman who had been much in her thoughts of late. From conversation with Bridget she knew that his interests ranged across politics and literature as well as art, and that he had served as Member of Parliament for a Devon constituency in the 1790s, before deciding in his mid-forties to return to his first love of landscape painting. A shiver passed through her as Bridget turned and approached a step or two.
‘Elizabeth, my cousin has asked to be introduced to you. Sir George, may I present my friend Miss Elizabeth Bennet.’
He bowed slightly and gave her a relaxed smile, without offering his hand. ‘Delighted, Miss Bennet. You have brought good weather I am glad to say. I do so love the light at this time of day.’
‘It is a beautiful park and I am honoured and excited to be here,’ Elizabeth replied simply.
He turned a fraction to include Bridget in the conversation. ‘Bridget tells me that you met in the Lake District, and walked the coffin road above Rydal Water to visit the Wordsworths.’
‘And most impressed they were with Elizabeth’s knowledge of
Lyrical Ballads
,’ Bridget said, giving her a teasing glance. ‘Have they been invited to join us during the coming weeks, cousin?’
‘Yes, but unfortunately Mr Wordsworth has declined. He is working on an ambitious project with Mr Coleridge, and they are both disinclined to travel.’ He turned to Elizabeth. ‘However, we have an artist in residence whom I would like you to meet, Miss Bennet. He hails from Suffolk, and has recently switched his allegiance to landscape painting, at some risk to his career. Fortunately his efforts have been well-received, and last month his work was exhibited at the Academy.’
‘I believe I attended the exhibition,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Are you speaking of Mr John Constable?’
‘The very same.’ He regarded Elizabeth with obvious approval. ‘I should be most grateful, Miss Bennet, if you could find time to speak with Mr Constable and engage his interest in your tour of the Lakes. He has never visited the area, and I am strongly of the opinion that he should. Perhaps if your voice is added to mine, we can help him appreciate beauties beyond those of his beloved Suffolk.’
‘Ha!’ Bridget cried, punching Elizabeth lightly on the arm. ‘You have been charged with a mission, Miss Elizabeth, and should you fail, you will be ejected from your room and must sleep in the stables.’
Sir George frowned slightly, but Elizabeth smiled at him reassuringly. ‘Mrs Beaumont is a merciless tease, Sir George, but you must not concern yourself on my behalf, for I never take seriously anything she says.’
He chuckled. ‘I dare say you can take care of yourself very well, Miss Bennet. Now with your permission, I would like to present you to my wife.’
After these preliminaries, the travellers were invited to stretch their legs by taking a turn around the gardens, while refreshments were brought to a table on the lawn. The gentlemen were soon engaged in trying out some fine wines, but Elizabeth, desiring to keep a clear head, joined Georgie and Bridget at the other end of the table, where there were cakes and cold meats and glasses of lemonade.
‘I hope Bertha is all right,’ Elizabeth confided in a whisper. ‘I fear she will be overwhelmed by such a grand house.’
‘Suzette has been here before, and will tell her what to do.’ Bridget nodded in the direction of the house. ‘Shall I give you a tour, once you have finished your lemonade?’
Leaving Georgie with Lady Margaret, they returned and began to explore the rooms. The hall was elegantly appointed, and there was much to admire in the furniture, carpets and chandeliers; however, in almost every room it was the paintings that caught the attention. It was like walking through an art gallery, with one masterwork after another adorning the walls: Gainsborough, Claude, Rubens, Carracci, van Ruisdael, among many others. Her own chamber, although modest in size, was graced by a sketch by the French artist Cassas and a small oil by Sir George Beaumont, evidently a fine amateur painter in his own right.
Their tour included a glimpse of Sir George’s studio, a large well-lit room on the first floor, and she wondered as Bridget tapped on the door whether Constable would be at work there. In the event the studio was empty, but in a parlour at the end of the south wing they found a young man with an easel set up in front of a Claude landscape,
Hagar and the Angel
, which he was carefully copying. With a whispered apology Bridget retreated to the doorway, but after completing a brush stroke the young man turned round and urged them to remain.
‘We will disturb your concentration,’ Bridget protested.
He pointed to the window. ‘The light is failing anyway. I should have stopped half an hour ago.’
Introductions were made, and Elizabeth asked: ‘Mr Constable, do you mind if I look at your painting?’
He coloured a little and moved aside. ‘It is but a sketch.’
She moved closer, and realised that rather than trying to copy the whole picture, he had given detailed attention only the foliage of the trees and bushes; all the rest had merely been blocked in using a background colour.
‘It is fascinating.’ She regarded him with a smile. ‘We looked for you in vain in the studio.’
He was silent for a while, allowing Elizabeth time to take his likeness. She guessed he was in his early twenties, for he had a fresh complexion and a somewhat gauche manner; he was also quite handsome, with a long straight nose, sensitive mouth, and fairish hair with long sideburns.
She was about to turn away when he replied awkwardly, ‘I seldom use a studio. My credo is that one should draw and paint from nature herself.’
Bridget glanced at Elizabeth with a grin, as if mocking this somewhat pompous statement, and replied: ‘That must present difficulties, sir, when it rains, or when the wind blows down your easel.’
‘But these are mere inconveniences,’ Elizabeth cried, ‘and they amount to very little, when compared with the immense benefit of encountering nature as she really is, undistorted by the cliches of human imagination and memory.’
Constable nodded several times during this speech, and Elizabeth felt herself the object of a close and admiring scrutiny. After she had finished he continued to regard her, as if hoping that she might have more to say, and there was a moment of embarrassed tension before Bridget said:
‘Well Mr Constable, we had better proceed with our tour and intrude on your work no longer. Will we have the pleasure of seeing you at dinner?’
‘You will.’ With an obvious effort, the young man transferred his gaze from Elizabeth to the unfinished painting as the women took their leave.
The days that followed were among the most memorable of Elizabeth’s life. To her delight the weather remained fine, allowing pleasant outings with Bridget and other guests. On most afternoons a party set off to picnic beside the lake, attended by servants including Bertha and the nanny, who was charged with keeping an eagle eye on Georgie at all times, to avert any danger that the prized heir to the Beaumont estate might venture too near the water. Freed of responsibility, Elizabeth and Bridget held wide-ranging conversations on family and art and the place of women in society.
In the evenings at dinner Elizabeth followed Bridget’s example by leaving the talk mainly to the gentlemen, and especially to Sir George Beaumont. While appreciating Sir George’s virtues, Elizabeth soon understood that he was at root a conservative, in art as much as in politics. As a well-mannered gentleman he seldom raised his voice, yet in quietly dismissive tones he regularly castigated modern trends, with his most extreme distaste reserved for a certain Joseph Mallord William Turner, whose painting style he declared melodramatic to the point of unintelligibility. Glancing round the table, Elizabeth noticed mixed reactions to this speech, with John Constable in particular squirming in discomfort.
Next day, returning alone from a trip to the village, Elizabeth spotted the young painter with his easel set up to face the chapel, and could not resist veering into his path to get a closer look. Again she saw he was sketching, with emphasis on foliage; she noticed also that he stared more at the scene than at his canvas, sometimes biting his lip in concentration as if trying to reason out a problem. So intent was he in his work that she wondered whether he was aware of her at all, but of a sudden he laid down his palette and brushes and greeted her with an awkward bow.
‘Miss Bennet.’ He seemed to cast around for something to say. ‘I see you are also a lover of the outdoors.’
‘May I see?’
He extended an arm towards the easel in assent, and she stepped forward and studied the canvas.
‘I think I understand,’ she said after a while. ‘You are trying to apply a technique from the painter you were copying yesterday—Claude Lorrain. There is something in his method of painting trees and bushes that you would like to emulate. However, the ability to copy from a painting is no guarantee that the same effect can be recreated from nature, so now you are using as a study the row of trees beside the church.’ She smiled at him archly. ‘Or perhaps you have quite another purpose, and I am babbling nonsense—which I am informed is a common occurrence.’
‘On the contrary, you are astonishingly acute. May I …’ He coloured slightly. ‘May I ask whether you have yourself taken lessons from a master?’
Elizabeth laughed. ‘We had not even the benefit of a governess, let alone an art master.’
He picked up a brush and pointed to the canvas. ‘The problem with foliage is how to convey density without losing lightness of touch. Look for example at the elm just behind the spire. What colours do you observe?’
‘Dark green, with patches of yellow?’
‘That is our immediate impression, but in fact there are many colours arranged in layers. At the back, small areas of blue sky are visible. In front of these, dark shadows of hidden foliage, some almost black, following through to foregrounded leaves, speckled silver-white where they are caught by the sun. How to suggest all this to the eye without clogging the canvas with four or five coats?’ He blinked, as if catching himself, and replaced the brush next to his palette. ‘But I am boring you.’
‘Not at all, I am fascinated.’ Elizabeth hesitated, wondering whether she should raise the topic of the Lake District, but instead asked:
‘Are you interested also in the techniques of contemporary painters, such as Turner—who apparently is not Sir George’s favourite?’
The young man smiled. ‘I have always admired Turner’s work, while feeling no desire to take the same direction. He seeks, one might say, a vivid depiction of emotion, rather than fidelity to nature herself.’
‘And is Sir George aware of your attitude?’
‘No, I see no advantage in trying to change his mind. I appreciate his many kindnesses, for instance in allowing me to make copies from Claude; and in return I am respectful of his opinions.’
Elizabeth smiled. ‘I should warn you, Mr Constable, that your patron has directed me to wax eloquent on the beauties of the Lake District, an area that I recently toured with my aunt and uncle. He wishes, I think, to enjoy his favourite vistas interpreted by your hand.’