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Authors: Christina McKenna
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those he considered to be from the “lower orders.” Lorcan Strong fitted into that category—as did practically everyone else who crossed Sir Edward’s path.
“Rather too largely and strongly limned,” the curator continued, hauling Lorcan out of his reverie like a boatswain weighing anchor.
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Boswell said that of him.”
“Ah. I see.”
“Yes, a well-born and well-bred English gentleman. One must do right by his memory.”
“Yes indeed, sir.”
He hated these weekly meetings. Sir Edward, eccentric and a staunch stickler for protocol, could be willfully unpredictable. He’d ramble through thickets of verbiage and fire off arcane quotations simply to try and catch Lorcan out.
“A bachelor all his life,” he waffled on. “It wasn’t for the want of ladies, I dare say. He had enough of those to paint. A poof. What say you?”
All bachelors in their thirties—including Lorcan—were homosexuals in Sir Edward’s opinion. He rarely missed an opportunity to vent his views on the subject.
“I couldn’t really say, sir.”
“He had all the hallmarks of a queer fellow-me-lad in my book.”
Lorcan, not wishing to get himself entangled in a parley over the sexual proclivities of a pre-Victorian painter, tried to avoid commenting by feigning a sneeze. He drew a handkerchief from his inside pocket.
And wished he hadn’t.
Onto Sir Edward’s desk plopped the remains of Mavis Hipple’s spurned Ulster fry: the charred sausage, the slice of bacon, and the half tomato. The items lay in a neat little group atop the highly polished wood. The artist saw at once an interesting still life worthy of Cézanne himself. Great art could be realized in the most absurd of situations. Was that not its genius?
The curator stared at the food offerings. His lips were pursed, causing the bristles of his mustache to extend outward. Lorcan was put in mind of a pig, Mrs. Hipple’s favorite barnyard animal. Since becoming her lodger, it seemed he’d been served every part of the humble hog, bar the grunt.
“Sorry, sir,” he said at last. “My landlady isn’t the greatest of cooks, and one has to be polite.”
The sausage, bacon, and tomato had come to rest by a framed photo of the formidable Lady Constance Fielding-Payne, the curator’s wife, which took pride of place on the desk.
“Yes, a queer fellow, I’d say,” Sir Edward continued, his gaze drifting toward a cut-glass decanter to his right. It was clear that the faux pas was being overlooked.
Lorcan, cheeks burning like a workman’s brazier, seized the opportunity to raise himself discreetly off the chair and briskly brush the food items back into his hankie.
“Even so, fairy chappie or no, one must do right by his memory. I have no need to tell you how valuable the portrait is. A million pounds would not be an overestimation by any means. So, no fiddling about with bits of her that aren’t there. No surplus rendering. Lady Constance was never one for surplus rendering. Frills belong on cabbages, not on necklines.”
“I couldn’t agree more, sir.”
“Your foray with Lady Blessington was…how should one put it…”
“Too slow? Yes, I apolo—”
“Too fulsome . It was Lady Fielding-Payne who drew my attention to it.”
“Oh, really?” said Lorcan, believing that his boss was about to wander off into one of his endless orations on the finer points of eighteenth-century portraiture. He slipped the food into his jacket pocket, prepared to be bored senseless, if only to save his own embarrassment.
“Lady Fielding-Payne has an eye for the abstruse,” the curator was saying. Lorcan, half-listening, was unprepared for what came next. In his jaded mind’s eye he’d been morphing Sir Edward’s image into that of the victim in Blake’s Satan Smiting Job with Boils . He’d been busy etching in a couple more nasty-looking furuncles on the cheeks when the boss’s tone shifted up a gear.
“I say, my dear fellow,
“Rather too largely and strongly limned,” the curator continued, hauling Lorcan out of his reverie like a boatswain weighing anchor.
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Boswell said that of him.”
“Ah. I see.”
“Yes, a well-born and well-bred English gentleman. One must do right by his memory.”
“Yes indeed, sir.”
He hated these weekly meetings. Sir Edward, eccentric and a staunch stickler for protocol, could be willfully unpredictable. He’d ramble through thickets of verbiage and fire off arcane quotations simply to try and catch Lorcan out.
“A bachelor all his life,” he waffled on. “It wasn’t for the want of ladies, I dare say. He had enough of those to paint. A poof. What say you?”
All bachelors in their thirties—including Lorcan—were homosexuals in Sir Edward’s opinion. He rarely missed an opportunity to vent his views on the subject.
“I couldn’t really say, sir.”
“He had all the hallmarks of a queer fellow-me-lad in my book.”
Lorcan, not wishing to get himself entangled in a parley over the sexual proclivities of a pre-Victorian painter, tried to avoid commenting by feigning a sneeze. He drew a handkerchief from his inside pocket.
And wished he hadn’t.
Onto Sir Edward’s desk plopped the remains of Mavis Hipple’s spurned Ulster fry: the charred sausage, the slice of bacon, and the half tomato. The items lay in a neat little group atop the highly polished wood. The artist saw at once an interesting still life worthy of Cézanne himself. Great art could be realized in the most absurd of situations. Was that not its genius?
The curator stared at the food offerings. His lips were pursed, causing the bristles of his mustache to extend outward. Lorcan was put in mind of a pig, Mrs. Hipple’s favorite barnyard animal. Since becoming her lodger, it seemed he’d been served every part of the humble hog, bar the grunt.
“Sorry, sir,” he said at last. “My landlady isn’t the greatest of cooks, and one has to be polite.”
The sausage, bacon, and tomato had come to rest by a framed photo of the formidable Lady Constance Fielding-Payne, the curator’s wife, which took pride of place on the desk.
“Yes, a queer fellow, I’d say,” Sir Edward continued, his gaze drifting toward a cut-glass decanter to his right. It was clear that the faux pas was being overlooked.
Lorcan, cheeks burning like a workman’s brazier, seized the opportunity to raise himself discreetly off the chair and briskly brush the food items back into his hankie.
“Even so, fairy chappie or no, one must do right by his memory. I have no need to tell you how valuable the portrait is. A million pounds would not be an overestimation by any means. So, no fiddling about with bits of her that aren’t there. No surplus rendering. Lady Constance was never one for surplus rendering. Frills belong on cabbages, not on necklines.”
“I couldn’t agree more, sir.”
“Your foray with Lady Blessington was…how should one put it…”
“Too slow? Yes, I apolo—”
“Too fulsome . It was Lady Fielding-Payne who drew my attention to it.”
“Oh, really?” said Lorcan, believing that his boss was about to wander off into one of his endless orations on the finer points of eighteenth-century portraiture. He slipped the food into his jacket pocket, prepared to be bored senseless, if only to save his own embarrassment.
“Lady Fielding-Payne has an eye for the abstruse,” the curator was saying. Lorcan, half-listening, was unprepared for what came next. In his jaded mind’s eye he’d been morphing Sir Edward’s image into that of the victim in Blake’s Satan Smiting Job with Boils . He’d been busy etching in a couple more nasty-looking furuncles on the cheeks when the boss’s tone shifted up a gear.
“I say, my dear fellow,
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