Free Rose Trelawney by Joan Smith

dressing room attached, and as to the studio, I understood the portrait I am painting would more than cover its hire.”
    I was undertaking a likeness of Abigail, using a spare bedroom with a southern exposure—bad light, but not so draughty as some of the others. Its conversion to a studio consisted of no more than taking down the curtains, rolling up the carpet, and pushing the furniture against the wall. I had no real desire for him to knock out a wall or give me a larger window, but every disapproving eye turned on the renovations was met with the hint, to keep him in line. There was a fire given to us in the spartan chamber—for Abbie’s benefit as she wished to be done in the guise of a nymph, wearing only the scantiest covering, a chiffon curtain it was. Actually after the first ten minutes she put on a woolen undershirt and petticoat beneath it, pretending she was cold, but she was only overly modest. Perhaps my mentioning she was a little too bulky about the midriff for a nymph had something to do with it. She had set fifteen pounds as her target for removal.
    The afternoons in the studio were the most pleasant part of the day. Annie never bothered us, as she disliked the smell of my materials. Sir Ludwig also expressed the greatest aversion to them, but was frequently present all the same, complaining he could smell the paint downstairs in his study.
    “You have come up here to get away from the odor, I take it?” I asked.
    “No, no. I am come for my daily drubbing. You neglected to mention over lunch—being so preoccupied to see I didn’t have a piece of cake—how poorly equipped you find your studio. I wanted to give you a chance to remind me.”
    “Consider yourself reminded. I do wish I had a smaller brush as well, for this bit around the mouth. You won’t mind if your mouth reaches your ear on the left side, Abbie? I could not like to buy a brush for the detailed work when I was already in such deep debt to your brother.”
    “Do I have to keep smiling?” she asked, through a pained smile.
    “No, my dear, it is not in the least necessary. I know it is a trial to all you Kesslers to tackle a smile. I should have painted you as Cassandra and had done with it.”
    “I suppose she is some fat goddess, is she?” Abbie asked suspiciously.
    “She is the prophetess of doom.”
    Ludwig came around to stand at my shoulder, thus making it utterly impossible to put on a single atom of paint without making a mess. “That’s very nice,” he said judiciously.
    “Nice is an uninformative word. Could you be more specific?”
    “Surely it indicates approbation of some sort.”
    “Yes, but of what? Do you like the pose, the expression, the style?”
    “Yes, yes, and yes—satisfied with all three.”
    “Good, then if you have no constructive criticism, perhaps you will be kind enough to get off my shoulder and let me proceed with it.”
    “One would take me for the governess,” he said with ill humor, but he left us alone.
    We—Abigail and I, worked on French in the mornings, did some readings of a broadening nature in English (we interpreted the term broadly, to include any novel in which we were interested), and occasionally took a turn at the pianoforte. She was the teacher here. She had exceeded my slender accomplishments and laughed quite openly when I sat down to hammer out my three tunes. Her brother’s suggestion that I ought to knock a little something off my fifty guineas per annum due to this lack in my skills was met with the rejoinder that I doubted very much I would ever see a penny.
    “So do I doubt it. You’re into me for twenty guineas already, and you’ve only been with us five days. At this rate you’ll have run through something in the neighborhood of fifteen hundred pounds by the end of a twelvemonth. Pass the ham, Abbie.” We were having this discussion over dinner one evening.
    “Your brother is a keen accountant,” I complimented Abigail. “Do you suppose he might give