Read Online The Land of Summer by Charlotte Bingham - Free Book Online Page A

Make a suggestion as to the correct colour?’
    ‘Only if you would welcome such a suggestion, and were unable to decide yourself, Julius,’ Emmaline replied. ‘Or if you were in two minds about one shade or another.’
    Julius shook his head, but said nothing. He continued to sit staring at the wall, and then at his palette, then back at the wall.
    ‘Here!’ he said suddenly after some minutes. ‘Catch!’
    Emmaline found the small wooden palette flying down her way and just managed to catch it before it fell to the floor.
    ‘None of those colours are right,’ he said, sliding down the ladder to walk over to the fireplace, where, mercifully, a large log fire burned. He lit a fresh cigarette, blew some smoke upwards in a plume, watched it disperse, and then took another deep pull. ‘And it has to be plain painted paper – anything else would be completely wrong. We need a clean, firm line. Patterned paper would just be so entirely wrong in a room this size.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ Emmaline asked, looking at the palette. ‘When you say a clean line, do you perhaps mean to lighten the colour, and make the room somewhat less – less daunting? Because if so I think you may be right. The room does need warming up.’
    ‘The whole place needs warming up,’ Julius interrupted from the fireplace, his back to her. ‘I have never been in such a cold, unwelcoming house.’
    ‘Then blue – all of these blues – you are quite right to reject them. Blue is such a cold colour for a room, particularly a room this size.’ She knew Julius was looking at her now, but she refused to meet his eye. ‘Perhaps what the room needs is a warmer paint altogether – may I?’
    She was standing by a worktable where Julius had placed his pots and brushes among samples of various papers and fabrics, and she gestured to it as if seeking permission to try mixing up some colours.
    ‘What?’ he asked with a look of disbelief. ‘You want to—’
    ‘It’s all right, Julius,’ Emmaline assured him, interrupting him deliberately to stem any immediate objection. ‘I won’t make a mess.’
    ‘Oh.’ Seemingly at a loss for words, Julius hesitated. ‘Oh, very well,’ he muttered, returning to the fireplace, where he lit another cigarette. ‘
Very
well.’
    When she had finished preparing her mixes Emmaline put samples of those she considered the most suitable on a clean wooden palette and took them over to Julius, who now sat stretched out in a large dust-sheeted chair.
    ‘They’re only suggestions, but they might be something to work on,’ she said, offering Julius the palette. ‘This kind of peachy mix has warmth.’
    Julius stared at the samples in the silence which seemed habitual to him when working, yet Emmaline noticed that he kept hold of the palette, not discarding it or consigning it to the fire as Emmaline had half expected him to do, just tapping it slowly on one knee as he continued to consider her work.
    ‘This is what you would choose?’ He stared around. ‘I see. In that case, you should know how to achieve this effect.’ He smiled at her suddenly. ‘Which of course you don’t, because the light in your ballroom at home was quite different from the light here. If we applied this colour to these walls, because of the way the light plays you would find that it would come out a baby pink, not an apricot. To achieve your colour,’ he leaned forward and pointed, ‘we will have to use
this
one.’
    Emmaline stared first at his choice of colour, and then at him.
    ‘But – but that looks brown.’
    ‘Precisely. Until we put it up on the walls, when the light will turn it into a beautiful apricot. You will see. But first we must apply two coats of white distemper, and then probably two or three coats of this brown, and go on building on and on until this lovely colour you have chosen is reached.’
    ‘I can’t quite believe this—’
    ‘No, of course you can’t, because you have not studied the light in