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

‘What are they trying to say?’ queried the young woman of the man beside her. She had sounded knowledgeable.

The way she was dressed indicated an arty sort – floppy, fur-trimmed hat, extremely loose coat that concealed every trace of figure, a long, thin, squirrel-fur boa wrapped several times around the neck, the hands hidden in an old-fashioned but expensive fox-fur muff.

‘I don’t quite know,’ the man answered. ‘But it makes me feel a little uncomfortable.’

‘I suppose that’s what it’s meant to do.’

‘Well, I think it’s very clever, but I wouldn’t want it hanging in my hall,’ came the reply as they moved off with another brief smile, almost like an apology for having dismissed her work after taking up her time.

The scenes might not have been to their liking, but at least they were proving food for discussion.

She went home as darkness fell, cold, with no money, her paintings under her arm, but with a determination to try again tomorrow, fighting off the disgruntled sensation in her breast.

One thing at least had come about. The young man next to whose exhibits she had placed hers, and who for most of the day had ignored her, had towards the end of the day moved closer to take a look at them.

‘I like that,’ he’d said, pointing to the so-called portrait of Bertram Lowe’s wife. ‘It’s a real person, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she’d said a little guardedly, but heartened. He had recognized her interpretation of the inner person using characterization in a rather more vicious way, perhaps. But he’d said he liked it.

He’d said his name was Felix and she’d given him her name. Talk had fizzled out, a passer-by having stopped to question him about one of his pictures – one of a small brook trickling over stones through a leafy woodland glade – and had actually bought the thing. For most of the day, several passers-by had kept his attention diverted from her as he’d sat on the pavement, smoking the occasional rolled cigarette, at midday falling to eating bread and cheese and drinking from a bottle, though he’d been sipping from it for most of the day.

Ellie had had only water and some bread spread with a scrape of jam – jam that she trusted would last her a few more days yet. She had never been a big eater, even when with Bertram Lowe and there’d been the chance to be. Even so, the man’s cheese sandwich had looked delicious from where she sat on a little folding stool from the room she rented.

In her room she returned the paintings to the corner where sat just two more, painted under Michael’s tuition from earlier days and of a more acceptable type – pretty little country scenes. With no money in her pocket she brewed herself some tea and toasted another piece of bread, spreading it with another scrape of jam. At this rate she would end up starving.

Her only other source of income now looked like being a few bits of clothing. Bertram had insisted she clothe herself as ladies did, entailing at least three changes each day – morning, afternoon and for her, if called for, a nice dress for evening.

The clothes she’d brought with her hadn’t included those for evenings; they were not needed and took up room. Instead she had stuffed the two bags with a couple of morning and afternoon dresses and a warm jacket, a second pair of button-up boots, necessary underclothing and toiletries, as well as the paintings she’d selected, plus what artists’ requirements she could fit in. It was about all she’d been able to carry. The rest of her clothing she’d worn: warm coat, straw boater, gloves, shawl – the sort of things needed for winter wear. If she now sold two of her dresses, she would at least eat. She felt degraded – having expected her paintings to be snapped up, she was now reduced to selling the clothes off her back. It was depressing.

The next day, one of those early-December days that suddenly seem to recapture summer, she stood in her spot, the sun bringing her new hope. The weather seemed to have brought out plenty of Friday shoppers, no doubt beginning to browse in preparation for Christmas, and by lunch time the area had workers taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather to enjoy their lunch in the park.

Ellie’s was again bread and jam washed down with frequent sips of water. The meagre meal made her think of the money she’d so carefully built up in her savings book and how Bertram Lowe, having once praised her for her sound sense, was now preventing her touching one penny of it. Maybe unjustly, but she blamed him, and it made her blood boil.

If it hadn’t been for him, she and Michael might have been together still. His fault too that she had come down to this. But if he thought she was going to go running back, he was mistaken. Even though her money was being withheld from her, she intended to thrive – somehow.

To this end she’d desperately included the two pretty landscapes. She wasn’t very hopeful. Poor examples of her earlier work and not very well painted, who’d buy them? Comparing them to some of the talented works of art hanging from the railings, she felt almost ready to pack up and run back to her lodgings, though what good that would have done?

She was about to yield to temptation when two women, mother and daughter by the look of them, paused in passing. Their gaze riveted on her two landscapes, totally ignoring her three stronger paintings, they came nearer for a better look. Ellie held her breath.

‘Just perfect, pet, for your bedroom,’ she heard the older woman say, to which the younger one simpered, ‘Can we afford them?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she was told. ‘If you like them, they can be part of our wedding presents to you and