Page 24 of The Laudanum Ladies' Society

They clinked glasses and, with the invitation open, Jenny gave into her nosiness and looked around with interest. The room was long and thin, running from front to back with windows at each end. Miriam had divided it into two with a large folding screen. One end contained a neatly made bed, dressing table and wardrobe, a small armchair and a coat-stand; all the accoutrements of a normal bedroom.

The other half of the room was the most interesting, as it had been given over to a makeshift studio. There was a low chaise longue that looked as if it had seen better days, with squat clawed feet covered in a red and gold velvet stripe, an easel,and a wash-stand that was splattered with paint that dripped down the side. Pieces of paper were pinned to the wall, no doubt in defiance of what the landlord would expect. There were a few sketches of men but more pictures, by a factor of three or four, of women. Some Jenny recognised as classical sculptures, others were copies from a portrait of the Queen. One face looked familiar and made her skin prickle and the hairs on her neck stand up.

‘Is that me?’ Jenny asked, pointing to the small sketch in pencil of a person standing in a doorway wearing trousers and an overcoat.

‘Yes. I hope you don’t mind. I sketched it when I came home after I bumped into you outside the lecture hall. I wanted to remember what you looked like. I think I did rather well, don’t you?’

Miriam looked anxious and Jenny couldn’t find the words to explain how touched she was that she had been able to recall her face after their short time together.

‘I do,’ Jenny breathed. To know that she had been thought of, even though the chance of them meeting again had been so remote, was more affecting than she could articulate. She looked around the space again, ‘How lucky you are to have all this!’

‘Luck had nothing to do with it!’ Miriam said, arching her brows. ‘You can’t imagine how much I have had to throw myself out of accepted society in order to live like this. It was worth it, though, because I am free in a way that I doubt I would ever have been otherwise.’

‘Yes, I see that,’ Jenny said longingly. She thought of the women whose company she had shared earlier, and how they spoke of and paid mind to their husbands and families. Of poor Mrs Browne, beaten for sleeping while her children played. She clutched onto her own situation through the frustration it caused her. What would Mrs Walters or Mrs McAllister think ofhearing Miriam so carelessly dismiss polite society? What did she think of it herself, for that matter?

‘Don’t move,’ Miriam murmured. ‘Don’t stop thinking whatever you are thinking. Your expression is perfect.’

As anyone issued such a command would, Jenny felt the instinct to look around to see the speaker. She began to turn her head, then caught herself and obeyed. From the corner of her eye, she saw Miriam dash to the easel. It was almost impossible to keep still now that she’d been told not to move. The urge to look round and see what Miriam was doing was overpowering, but Jenny fixed her thoughts back and held her face as still as she could. She thought of Gwen again and then, inevitably, of Selina Salisbury. She was starting to feel more lethargic, and the chair looked inviting.

Eventually Miriam told her she could move. She was holding a piece of thin paper and a stub of charcoal.

‘Can I see it?’ Jenny asked.

‘Of course.’ Miriam held out the paper. It was a sketch in charcoal and was the work of maybe ten minutes, but Jenny recognised herself. Plainer as a woman, she looked less attractive in her eyes than the young man on the wall, but it was her eyes that hollowed out her stomach with sadness.

‘Did I really look that sad?’

‘You looked thoughtful,’ Miriam said quietly. ‘I couldn’t resist. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘No. It’s very good,’ Jenny assured her. ‘I’m just surprised at my expression. I was thinking how lucky you were to have your independence and wondering if I’d ever be brave enough to take my own.’

Miriam walked to the wall and pinned the sketch of Jenny beside the previous one.

‘It gets lonely sometimes,’ Jenny said quietly. She sipped her cordial then continued, ‘Not having family. I mean, I do havefamily– there’s my uncle– but it’s not the same as parents or siblings.’

‘I am one of four siblings, but they have all disowned me.’

‘Because you’re an artist?’

Miriam hesitated. She walked over to the spirit stove and lit it, then put the coffee pot onto the top and spooned grounds into it before answering.

‘Because I chose an artist’s lifestyle, and other unconventionalities, shortly after my father’s death.’

‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ Jenny said. ‘I lost both my parents, too. I was quite young and don’t really remember much about the circumstances.’

‘Tell me about your family,’ Miriam asked. She walked to the chaise longue and sat down, patting the seat beside her.

Jenny joined her and sighed. ‘There isn’t much to tell, really. I thought we were in quite comfortable circumstances, but it seems that that wasn’t the case.’

She tailed off into fuzzy memories. Her family hadn’t felt poor. They’d kept servants, and as a child, Jenny had a nursemaid and a nursery full of toys, but the inheritance of three hundred pounds she had received apparently gave her such a poor income that she would barely survive on it without Uncle Conrad’s charity.

‘Fortunately, my aunt and uncle took me in. If it hadn’t been for their kindness, I might have been a pauper.’

‘Yes, that is fortunate,’ Miriam said. ‘And now, of course, you live with your uncle as his housekeeper and paid companion?’

Paid! That would be a thing! Board and lodging was about all she received.

‘Yes, and I think I probably will forever, because I cannot see what would change that.’