No Darkness for Love

Chapter One 1880-1

Chapter One 1880

Walking through the Park under the shade of the great oak trees, where the daffodils were as golden as the spring sunshine, Atalanta hummed a little tune to herself.

It was an inexpressible joy to think that, having come away early from The Castle, there was no reason for her to hurry home.

She could linger in the woods, which were the shortest cut to the village and where she had spent so much of her time when she was free from the innumerable tasks that engaged her at the Vicarage.

When she was a child, she had told herself stories in which the pinewoods held fierce dragons from which she was rescued by a handsome Knight.

Even today, when she moved softly under the dark branches of the trees and felt the green moss springing under the lightness of her feet, she had the strange feeling that the tales that had filled her dreams for so many years would still come true!

Swinging her cotton sun-bonnet by its strings, Atalanta was so intent on her own thoughts that she had nearly reached the edge of the wood before she looked up and saw, white between the trunks of two tall trees, the square of an artist’s canvas.

In an instant her happiness ebbed away.

Mr. Oliver Whithorn was painting another picture of The Castle!

This meant he was in financial difficulties once again and would send it to her soft-hearted father, simply because no one else would be foolish enough to take it off his hands.

‘There goes my new dress!’ Atalanta thought despairingly.

Last time it had been a winter coat of which Mr. Whithorn, with his excruciatingly badly painted picture, had deprived her.

There were by now no less than half a dozen of his canvases stacked in the attic and Atalanta was convinced that they were quite useless except for firewood.

She thought of turning aside and approaching the wood from another direction, but she realised that Mr. Whithorn must have seen her crossing the Park and to avoid him deliberately would appear gratuitously ill-mannered.

Moving a little slower, now with no smile on her lips, Atalanta walked towards the easel set up in an all too familiar spot. Mr. Whithorn never chose any other viewpoint from which to execute his daubs of Combe Castle.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Whithorn. I see you are starting another masterpiece,” Atalanta said trying to keep the note of sarcasm out of her voice.

Then to her astonishment the man who rose from behind the canvas, was not short, grey-haired and ageing, but tall and dark, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the local artist.

“I regret, mademoiselle,” the stranger said in a deep voice, “that I am not Mr. Oliver Whithorn.”

“Oh, I am glad!” Atalanta exclaimed impetuously before she could prevent herself and then felt the colour come into her cheeks as she saw the twinkle in the stranger’s dark eyes.

His English had been perfect, but there was just a faint suspicion of an accent and his addressing her as ‘mademoiselle’ made his identity clear.

“You are French!” she exclaimed, forgetting as usual that Mama had told her over and over again not to be too talkative or familiar with strangers.

“I thought as I saw you come across the Park,” the stranger replied, “that you must be a small Goddess. You seemed to be part of the sunshine.”

Two irresistible dimples appeared in Atalanta’s cheeks.

“Alas! I am not a Goddess,” she answered, “my name is Atalanta.”

“The swift-footed huntress who could spring so lightly from crest to crest of a wave that she did not wet her feet!”

“I see, sir, you have a knowledge of the Greek legend,” Atalanta smiled. “That is unusual. Most people cannot understand why I have such an outlandish name.”

“A very beautiful one and very appropriate,” the newcomer said quietly.

Again Atalanta felt the colour rising in her cheeks.

She had not believed that any man could look at her with quite such a bold expression in his dark eyes or indeed that she would find someone so unusual in the woods.

In fact, she told herself, she had never seen anyone like this strange man.

He was not so very young. She guessed him to be about twenty-eight or perhaps a little older, but he seemed taller and more broad-shouldered than she had expected a Frenchman to be.

His dark hair was swept back from a square forehead and his clear-cut features were decidedly handsome, even if he had an unusual appearance by English standards.

He wore, she noticed, a green velvet coat such as might have been expected from an artist and, although his collar was of fashionable height, his tie was distinctly floppy.

He stood there looking at her and, because the expression in his eyes made her feel shy, she said quickly as if to draw away attention from herself,

“You speak very good English, sir.”

“My grandmother was English,” he answered. “Et vous, mademoiselle, vous parlez Francais?”

Atalanta smiled.

“Oui, monsieur,” she replied in French, “my grandmother was French!”

“C’est extraordinaire!” the stranger exclaimed. “And may I add I also had an English Nanny.”

“So did I,” Atalanta said, “but I assure you that she never did hold with ‘them foreigners across the water’.”

The stranger threw back his head and laughed.

“My Nanny always said, ‘you can’t help where you were born, poor child, but I’ll make you into a gentleman if I die in the attempt’.”

They were both laughing and then, as if Atalanta suddenly realised the irresponsible manner in which she was behaving, she said demurely,

“I hope, sir, you enjoy painting The Castle. It is very beautiful.”

As she spoke, she turned away to follow the path through the wood.

“Wait! Wait!” the stranger called out quickly. “Please don’t leave me! There is so much I want to know.”

“I think – I should – go,” Atalanta faltered.

She was intensely curious about this stranger, but at the same time she knew that her mother would not approve.

It was one thing to pass the time of day, everyone did that in the country, but it was quite different to linger chatting and laughing with a man to whom she had not even been introduced.

As if he read her thoughts, the artist said almost pleadingly,

“Do you not realise that our Nannies, had they been with us, would undoubtedly have talked to each other? We would have been introduced from our perambulators.”

He hesitated, then added,

“Alors! I should no longer have been in my perambulator, would I? Yet, if we had met in the Bois de Boulogne or in Hyde Park, I am sure that I should have been told to amuse you while our Nannies gossiped about their employers!”

He saw the smile on Atalanta’s face and added,

“May I therefore present myself? Paul Beaulieu, mademoiselle, at your service.”

Atalanta dropped him a small curtsey.

“Atalanta Lynton.”

“And you are the Princess who lives in that magnificent Castle?” he asked.

Atalanta shook her head.

“No indeed,” she replied. “I am only the poor relation.”

He raised his dark eyebrows.

“Poor relation?” he questioned in puzzled tones.

“The Princess, as you have called her, is Lady Clementine Combe,” Atalanta explained. “She lives in The Castle and is spoken of as the most beautiful girl in England.”

“And you?” Paul Beaulieu enquired.

“I am her cousin and live in Little Combe. My father is the Vicar. He is also a Greek scholar, hence my name.”

Again the dimples appeared in Atalanta’s cheeks,

“My twin sisters were christened Chryseis and Hebe and resent it very much! They would so much rather have been called Emily and Edith or something quite unexceptional.”

“And you?” Paul Beaulieu enquired.

“I am content to be Atalanta, but then I enjoy reading Greek.”

“For the first time in my life,” Paul Beaulieu said, “I don’t regret the long hours I spent struggling with that very complicated alphabet and being reprimanded by my tutor for not pronouncing the poetry of Homer in the correct manner.”

“And yet later one comes to realise that it is fascinating,” Atalanta said.

“Fascinating indeed!” Paul Beaulieu agreed.

He was looking at Atalanta as he spoke, seeing her tiny pointed face with its huge grey-blue eyes that seemed to reflect their owner’s feelings as clearly as the clouds crossing a sunlit sky.

And above the oval forehead there was that very pale golden hair, which had made him believe, as he had seen her walking through the Park, that she was the very embodiment of spring.

Her well-washed cotton dress was unfashionable and it clung, because she had almost grown out of it, to the budding maturity of her small breasts.

There was a grace about her that made him think once again that she was aptly named.

“I want to paint you,” he said suddenly. “It is not often an artist gets a chance to portray the heroine of a Greek legend who looks like a Goddess. Please stay! Already I have the idea of how I wish you to pose.”

“But surely you were painting The Castle,” Atalanta objected. “May I see what you have done?”

“I should be honoured,” Paul Beaulieu answered, standing aside so that she could draw near to his easel.

Atalanta had seen many pictures of The Castle. All down the centuries it had attracted famous artists and there were many versions of it in the Picture Gallery.

There were conversation pieces depicting the various Earls of Winchcombe with their families with The Castle in the background or as Turner and Constable had painted it silhouetted against the setting sun.

Originally Norman, on one side the great grey tower stood sentinel over the countryside.

The main building had been added to generation after generation until, now one of the largest private houses in England, it was a symbol of the wealth, importance and prestige of the Winchcombe family.

Close to, as Atalanta knew only too well, it was rather overpowering and awe-inspiring. But seen from the distance it had an almost Fairytale-like quality and this Paul Beaulieu had captured in his picture, which was unlike any she had ever seen before.

She stood looking wide-eyed at the brilliance of the colours and at the foreground in which the daffodils vividly gold and compelling seemed to lead the eye towards the mystical majesty of the tower etched against the blue and white of the sky.

The way Paul Beaulieu painted it was different. No black, a radiance of colour, every stone seeming through the light falling on it to have a vibration and a movement.

It was different from anything she had seen.

Then suddenly she knew!

“You are an Impressionist!” she exclaimed.

Paul Beaulieu who had been watching her face said quietly,

“And what do you know about Impressionists?”

“I have read about them,” Atalanta answered, “and Papa has told me how they have been abused and scorned in Paris.”

“And you, what do you think of my picture?” Paul Beaulieu asked.

“It’s very beautiful,” Atalanta said softly.

“Do you mean that?” he asked.

“Of course I mean it,” she replied. “I would not lie, even to flatter you, about something so important.”

“I never thought,” he said slowly, “that an English woman would appreciate what a few revolutionary men are trying to convey on canvas.”

“Papa has told me,” Atalanta said, “that the Salon and most art dealers in France believe that art does not consist of painting what one sees, but what is conventional to see. You, I think, are painting what is in your heart.”

“You are very perceptive,” Paul Beaulieu said, “and now let me paint you.”

“I ought not to stay,” Atalanta hesitated. “They are expecting me at home.”

“Please. It would be a great kindness! I cannot tell you how much I want to capture your little face on canvas. I have never before seen anyone so lovely.”

She blushed at the compliment. Then she told herself that he was only trying to cajole her into sitting for him. Perhaps he found it difficult to pay a model.

Had not Papa said that the Impressionists starved themselves for their pictures? Paul Beaulieu might have to go without meals so that he could purchase his paints.

If so, he certainly would not be able to afford the fees of those who made their living by modelling.

“I cannot stay for long,” Atlanta pointed out.

She remembered guiltily the chickens, which had to be fed, the horses waiting for their hay and the innumerable other tasks she was neglecting at home.

And yet she told her conscience that she had been early leaving The Castle.

Cicely had been told that she was to have her rest an hour earlier because her brother William was expected home from Paris that evening.

The Viscount Cottesford was in the Diplomatic Service and was usually abroad. But now the whole household was in a state of excitement because a telegram had announced his arrival.