Free The Crimson Bed by Loretta Proctor Page A

paint. Pass me the turps over there, Fred. It really is time I got myself one of those white porcelain jobs that Roberson's do if I want my colours to be pristine, which they must be. I want them to be like jewels.'
    'I thought you had a porcelain palette.'
        'Erm – yes. Well, it got broken. Rosie chucked it at me in a fit of jealousy over one of my new models.'
        Fred laughed, 'What a pair you are! How can you live like that? It would drive me mad. I want a quiet life when I'm married.'
        'A quiet life – what an ambition for a young fellow. Who but you wants a quiet life?'
        'Henry, you would want it too if you had a mother like mine.'
        'There's some truth in that,' Henry conceded.
        He scraped diligently at the wooden palette until it looked a good deal more immaculate and then began to fill a syringe with the paint he had prepared earlier that day.
        'Damned good invention, these,' he said.
        'They are a good idea,' agreed Fred, 'but last time I used my syringe it was so jammed up I couldn't get the damned paint out. They're bringing in metal tubes now, far easier. Time you invested in a few.'
        'But I like to mix my own paints,' Henry objected, 'then I can get the tints I want, not the muddy ones some colourman has invented. No, I'll stick to the syringe which is a damn sight better than those old bladders.'
        He fell silent, absorbed now in preparing his painting tools. Fred looked into the fire and seemed lost in thought.
        'I'm thinking of that poem you recited,' he said after a while, 'I suppose I am searching for my Blessed Damsel, just as I suspect Rossetti always does. Look at that girl, Lizzie, he's so mad about now! She appears in all his designs, she obsesses him – and frankly, she's not much to look at. She does have lovely hair and a slender, elegant figure, I'll grant him that.'
        He turned with sudden eagerness towards his friend, 'I have the queerest feeling Eleanor is my "Blessed Damsel"... but, Henry, isn't the damsel of that poem meant to be in Heaven?'
        'When Gabriel read it out to us, he said it was to be a contrast to Poe's sainted maiden who grieves on earth for her lost love. His damsel is in heaven and yearning for her lover to join her there.'
        'Well, I've no wish to join this maiden in heaven. I want her now while we're all here on earth. I know nothing about heaven and am deeply suspicious of it.'
        'Is heaven necessarily a state that only comes with death?'
        'So they say.'
        'They also say there are seven heavens and we can find one of them on earth as easily as we can find the seventh hell down here.'
        'Maybe, then, maybe heaven on earth could be found in sweet Eleanor's arms. She is coming?'
        'Oh, she's coming. Her father sent word earlier. Pass me that rag over there, old fellow.'
        Fred obliged and began to pace around the studio. He came back to study the portrait, now sketched in and the flesh parts already filled out in detail.
        'Is there no mother alive?' he asked after a while.
        'I think her mother died a year or so ago. I'm not sure. Her father, it strikes me, dotes on the girl, nothing seems to be too good for her – bit spoilt, you understand. But let's see what you make of her.'
        'My God, she's beautiful, if your drawing is anything to go by.' Fred felt a sudden sense of fear. Would she disappoint him? 'If only beauty lasted,' he sighed.
        'Oh, beauty... it doesn't last, Fred. You set too much store by it. Better to find a girl who is good inside, like my Rosie.'
        'I see you've hidden Rosie away.'
        'I have to, haven't I? Such is the hypocrisy of the world,' said Henry with a shrug, 'but I mean to educate my Rosie and then she'll be fit to sit with a duchess, you wait and see.'
        They heard the bell ring. Fred was sent to open the door, which he did with alacrity.
        There