Soul

After her death, the Colonel had had gas lamps installed—the first in the square. The ornate brass and glass fittings flung light into the darkest corners, illuminating the depths of the many paintings he had inherited.

A portrait of the Viscountess in her youth hung on the wall opposite. Handsome rather than beautiful, with a pronounced chin and sweeping jawline, she posed in pale cream silk, a pair of greyhounds—restlessly thin and eyes bulging—at her feet.

Lavinia glanced at her own portrait, which her husband had commissioned in Dublin, insisting that Lavinia should pose as the huntress Diana despite the goddess’s legendary virginity. ‘How are you to explain the presence of a baby?’ Lavinia had asked him, smiling at the time, indicating her pregnancy. ‘We shall place him into the composition and disguise him as an infant wood sprite,’ he’d replied, determined to incorporate a personal symbolism into the painting that embodied his own love of adventure and hunting.

She had completely escaped the village, Lavinia thought to herself, smiling at her own image, proof of her success. She had freed herself of the claustrophobia of the place and all that went with it. She had arrived. Even now she was incredulous at her achievement. Most of all she had the freedom of study, the opportunity to indulge her intellectual curiosity. For that alone she would love her husband.

As if in answer, his melodious voice boomed out of the half-opened dining room doors.

‘My studies have convinced me there is a natural hierarchy—even in the animal kingdom. After all, what is a human being? We display the same tendencies as our animal cousins.’

‘Speak for yourself, James. I like to think of myself as slightly more advanced.’

Lady Frances Morgan’s alto voice was distinctive and decidedly flirtatious, Lavinia observed unhappily. She had not yet fathomed the nature of the intimacy between her husband and the aristocrat he described as an ‘old, dear friend’.

‘I entirely agree with the Colonel. As far as I am concerned, many of our politicians are hardly more than baboons. Disraeli himself has often displayed behaviour in the house which could more properly be ascribed to an ape.’ Lavinia recognised the voice as belonging to a cartoonist for Punch magazine—a gentleman of forty with the most protruding forehead.

‘As you have so sensitively illustrated on many an occasion,’ the Colonel retorted smugly.

‘Whig!’ shouted Mr Hamish Campbell—Lady Morgan’s latest prodigy—in mock accusation. The party erupted into laughter.

One sole voice remained stern. ‘Come now, I do believe some politicians have transcended their more bestial impulses. Abraham Lincoln, for example—any humane person would support his campaign against slavery…’ the Colonel replied before Lady Morgan interjected.

‘Lincoln fights for cotton not the Negro. You may wish to assume otherwise, especially if you have the advantage of youth and naivety, like the Colonel’s sweet wife. But the rest of us must be pragmatic and look to our investments as Mr Lincoln does. He needs to impose his export cotton tax to prevent the Lancashire mills from undercutting the cost of manufacturing cloth. The north of the United States is the manufacturing centre, and so he naturally wishes to bring prosperity to those States. I believe this means that our sympathies may more naturally lie with the southern States, n’est-ce pas?’

Now anxious she might eavesdrop upon a conversation that could prove compromising, Lavinia stepped into the flurried atmosphere of the dining room.

The Colonel, sensing her presence before the others, turned. Lavinia radiated a warmth that had initially made him believe she would serve as the ideal counterbalance to his own compulsively critical eye. The young Irishwoman was naturally generous, whereas he was not. Misanthropy was one of the Colonel’s natural tendencies and one he tried to conceal. He stood, followed by the other male guests, as one of the footmen pulled out a red velvet-covered oak chair for Lavinia.

The female guests turned towards the hesitant young woman in the doorway. The coiled plaits visible under a filigree of black lace and seed pearls—a little too ornate for the season, Lady Morgan noted spitefully—gave her the air of a Medusa. The young Irish girl reminded her of a Ford Madox Brown model with her chalk-white skin and disproportionately large eyes. A common look, Lady Morgan observed ungenerously. London’s streets were awash with such women.

It was true that Lavinia Huntington’s most startling feature was her eyes; aquamarine ringed by yellow, they gave her a feline quality. Over the years, fascinated, the Colonel had watched those eyes mature, shifting in light like the mist over a distant lake, a burgeoning intelligence behind the beauty.

Impervious to Lady Morgan’s scrutiny, Lavinia concentrated on gliding with grace across the room, guiding her crinoline with both hands. To her relief, she successfully navigated her way into her seat at the table.

‘Please forgive my absence, but my child required my attention.’

‘My wife insists on feeding the babe herself,’ the Colonel ventured.

‘How quaint.’ Lady Morgan did not bother to disguise her disapproving tone.

‘I believe it to be healthier, but perhaps in the present company such a belief might be considered naive?’

The other guests laughed politely, while Lady Morgan broke a piece of bread with her fingers.

‘Not at all,’ she responded carefully. ‘And in any case, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with naivety. It allows one to get away with the most outrageous of behaviours—at least for a short time. Is that not true, James?’

The Colonel was determined to rescue his wife from Lady Morgan’s sarcasm. ‘Indeed, in battle it is often the quality that underpins the greatest acts of courage,’ he counteracted.

Lavinia turned to Lady Morgan. ‘I believe you were talking of Lincoln. I am a great supporter of his ambitions. How else to unite a nation in the face of such conflicting interests?’

‘Ah, my dear, but is it a nation or merely a gaggle of colonies of disparate refugees?’ Lady Morgan curled her fingers around the stem of her wine glass; a small gesture that indicated much.

There was a pause, as if the room itself had inhaled. Aware that a starting pistol of sorts had been fired, the diners turned towards Lavinia.

‘If it is not a nation now, it certainly will be if there is a civil war. For what else defines sovereignty so aptly—a bill of rights, a war of independence and perhaps now a civil war? The Irish could learn much from the Americans.’

A half-smile flitted across the mouth of the cartoonist sitting opposite and Lavinia’s diatribe faltered as she suddenly became aware that her intensity did not suit the timbre of the evening. After all, she reminded herself, these were people who took art more seriously than politics.