“One would like to think you’ve boxed a fellow right into the ground over my sister,” Lady Cordelia said.
“Pounded into dust over Viola,” Lady Juliet said nodding. “It’s a lovely thought, is it not?”
A parrot in a cage near the window screamed, “Murder!”
Roland jumped. Seeing his alarm, Lady Juliet said, “That is Chester. Unfortunately, he’s picked up that word from Cordelia’s acting out of Desdemona’s death fromOthello. You really should see her perform it, it’s terribly heartbreaking.”
“Now, Jules,” Lady Cordelia said, “you are putting a bushel over your own light.” To Roland she said, “Our Juliet is a poetess. Just now she’s completed a new ode in under a quarter of an hour. I expect you’d want to hear it?”
“Ah, of course,” Roland said, not entirely certain of what was soon to come in his direction. A parrot cried murder, one sister seemingly routinely acted as Desdemona dying, and the other one wrote an ode in fifteen minutes?
He must assume this was one of the very short odes that Lady Viola had mentioned as being superior to Wordsworth.
Lady Juliet stood. “Ode to Beatrice.”
The news on the road was perfectlywild
Our sister Beatrice is now withchild.
Van Doren has very predictably lost hismind
That is the truth and therefore notunkind.
Both sisters looked to him for his reaction. His real reaction was,What on God’s green earth was that?Instead, he said, “Brava, Lady Juliet.”
They nodded at him approvingly. Lady Juliet said, “Now, you are in for an even bigger treat. Follow us.”
He did as he was told and followed them to the far end of the drawing room to an easel and canvas.
What he beheld there was…he did not know what it was. It was a multi-colored oval of…something.
“You see?” Lady Cordelia said. “It is Chester! Viola took up painting last year and well, you can judge for yourself how it’s going.”
He certainly could judgesomething, though the idea that it was going anywhere was bizarre.
Roland had a sudden remembrance of something Lady Viola had told him—the great portrait painter, Thomas Lawrence, had viewed one of her works.
Well, it could not have been as bad as this one. Perhaps she was a deal more skilled at capturing the likenesses of people, rather than parrots.
“One might even imagine having a lady take up a permanent residence in one’s house and that lady might paint portraits that could be hung in the great hall,” Lady Juliet said.
“Did you ever imagine anything like that, Lord Baderston?” Lady Cordelia asked.
Quite naturally, he had not ever imagined having such a canvas hung in his great hall. However, seeing how keen the sisters were, and guessing they were hinting that the lady painter was Lady Viola, he nodded and said, “It is a thing to contemplate and look forward to.”
The drawing room doors were thrown open. “Lord Baderston,” Lady Viola said.
There she was, and looking particularly smashing in a simple muslin. She was not alone, as Darden and Miss Mayton were on her heels.
Roland bowed. “Lady Viola, Lord Darden, Miss Mayton.”
“I’ve asked for a tea tray to be sent in,” Lady Viola said. She hesitated, then said quietly, “If you can stay, of course.”
“I’d be delighted,” Roland answered.
This seemed to be met with approval from everybody. Except for the parrot, who screamed, “Murder!”
“Baderston,” Lord Darden said. He then turned to the younger sisters and said, “Cordy, Jules, Miss Mayton will take you above stairs.”
