A Brighter Tomorrow by Maggie Ford (read with me .txt) 📕

food, clothed you and gave you money from his own pocket, not as wages but as an allowance. It was he who opened a bank account for you and it cannot be touched by you without his consent.’

‘I’d have been better off spending it!’ she’d retorted and had seen the hint of an almost understanding smile twitch the fair moustache.

‘I suggest, young woman, that you speak with Doctor Lowe. He may see your point of view and be swayed by your argument. But until that time I am afraid I can do nothing.’

It had all left her feeling bitter, knowing how hard she’d saved.

It did occur to her in a moment of anger that her so-called guardian might even use her hard-earned savings for himself. But common sense asked why he should need to: he had plenty of money; he didn’t need her paltry sum. And if she couldn’t touch the money without his consent, most likely he couldn’t lay his hands on it without her presence. She was ignorant on points of law, but it seemed logical. While it just sat there in the bank, however, she sat here with hardly a penny to her name and this Monday coming would be asked for rent for next week.

As they had done for the last three days these same thoughts left her with no incentive to shift herself, no ability to think things out. Gazing at the paint-splashed walls and the old table in the centre of the room, that too paint-splashed, she wondered if the previous occupier had had any luck in selling what he painted. It looked more as if he must have failed miserably, or he wouldn’t have had to vacate the place. The thought opened up a moment of speculation. If she could sell just one of her own paintings, there might be enough for rent and a bit left over for fuel and food.

Coming suddenly to life, Ellie leaped up from the broken chair. Going to one corner where she had stacked the five small paintings she’d brought with her, she lifted them up and looked at them. None was framed, but she’d seen artists’ work hung on the railings of Hyde Park in the Bayswater Road, some framed, some not. People hovered to gaze at them while a hopeful painter looked on. There were all sorts – some just splashes of colour and shapes, others beautiful landscapes she could never hope to emulate, some copied from old masters. Why couldn’t she hang her small offerings on those railings? It was a bit of a walk to Bayswater Road certainly, but she had been brought up to walk. And at least her paintings were different.

Certainly they were a little out of the ordinary. Michael had told her they were brilliant, that she was tremendously gifted, but had queried why she chose such subjects. But he didn’t understand and she had never been able to bring herself to enlighten him on why she painted what she did. She wasn’t sure herself except that the finished work would leave a sense of fulfilment and relief.

Thinking of Michael brought on a heavy sense of aching regret and absolute emptiness deep inside, one that persisted in recurring but one she determinedly thrust aside. She thrust it aside now. Pining wouldn’t help. Instead she concentrated on what she had painted in happier times, not all that long ago.

One of her most graphic works was of the man whose muscles bulged under his loose shirt, whose thighs showed strong beneath ragged trousers as he stood over the huddled figure that could be vaguely interpreted as that of a woman. It would have been a very striking painting had it not been for a hand in one lower corner tensely gripping a pencil, the scene seeming to have been almost obliterated by the thick black marks that pencil had made. Small though the hand was, it dominated the picture and, as if having come from nowhere, unattached to a limb, it seemed to hover, the fingers tight with prominent veins and sinews, portraying the hatred they contained.

Two others were portraits – one of Doctor Lowe’s wife, the other of herself. The likenesses were recognizable enough, but while the lips on both faces bore a charming smile, the eyes, far from reflecting the smile, held malice in the one of Mary Lowe and contempt in that of herself. But the eyes themselves were so offset from the face as almost to have no connection with it, seeming to be floating. There was a disconcerting feel to them, as if the artist’s hand had been jogged while painting in the eyes. The faces had a naivety about them, as if done by a child, but would hopefully leave a viewer wondering how deliberate was the expression in the eyes that didn’t match the exquisite smile. Ellie had known just what she was about when she’d painted them. Whether anyone else liked them had been immaterial at the time.

Dressing warmly, she tucked the three paintings under her arm and let herself out of her room.

Despite her warm clothes she felt chilled right through, standing in one spot eyeing every person that chanced to glance at her work. As the overcast sky began to fade to evening and her fellow exhibitors were gathering up their work and moving off, she too prepared to leave. She’d sold nothing. Silly to think she would, with so much competition; and hers would be of interest to only a certain type of person. Another day gone and her funds were dwindling fast.

Perhaps she should have gone in for a few of a gentler sort of paintings, that didn’t bite back when people stopped to look at them and have them gnawing at their lips as they struggled to make sense of what they saw. But she had perked up when a particular couple had pointed to them, approached with quick, embarrassed smiles in her direction, then resumed their study.