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

‘Well, it was fifty guineas.’

This last was blurted out. Ellie stared at him, unsure what her mind was deriving from his news. Her picture hanging in an important West End gallery: for a second that sounded absolutely wonderful; then slowly it began to dawn. She’d been paid four pounds, thinking that a marvellous sum. Now it was being sold for fifty bloody guineas! A sense of having been robbed, of having been taken for a fool, sent her suddenly livid with indignation.

‘He swindled me! How dare he!’

Felix’s laugh was filled with relief at having rid himself of the news. ‘That’s how it goes, love,’ he said lightly. ‘We’re only the bricklayers – no matter how much the finished building sells for.’

She didn’t see the wit behind the wisdom. ‘I’ve a mind to go there and tell him just what I think of him, the thieving old bugger!’

He smiled. ‘It’s not worth shedding blood over. Be glad that someone important took that sort of interest in it. Some would give their eye teeth for that.’

‘I don’t care how important he is. He cheated me and I’m going to give him a piece of my mind!’

‘I’m afraid, love, you’ll be better off just grinning and bearing it. You’ll only show yourself up in front of everyone. The sort who visit those galleries are usually well off and they’ll merely think you mad.’

‘I don’t care!’ she said defiantly. But his advice brought her feet back on to the ground. She let her anger subside. She’d already been taken for a fool – no use adding to it.

‘But he’d better not show his face here again,’ she griped sullenly. ‘Because if he does, I’ll give him what for.’

‘At least someone of importance taking notice of your work must count for something. Anyway, I don’t suppose he’ll be back.’

But Ellie wasn’t so sure. If Mr blooming Hunnard thought he had got away with it, he could come back looking for more from her, seeing her as an easy touch. And she’d be ready for him.

She managed to sell just one painting during the afternoon, for only a few shillings, which was no more than she’d expected. She’d had little heart in painting it and it probably showed. Her mind at the time had been solely on the portrait she’d been working on.

The people who’d bought the watercolour had glanced at the portrait and quickly looked away, their exchange of grimaces making it hard for her to hide her contempt for them as she took their money and handed over the poor piece of work.

‘At least you’ve sold something today,’ Felix put in. He seemed very sensitive to how she was feeling. ‘I’ve not even had a nibble.’ He glanced along the row of others trying to make a living from art. ‘There’s too much competition.’

‘Not down on your uppers, are you?’ she asked, suddenly concerned for him.

He gave a small shrug. ‘We manage.’

‘We?’ She pounced on the word, her heart sinking. Someone with his looks had to be married or perhaps sharing his place with a girl.

‘Didn’t I tell you?’ he said. ‘I share a room. We share the rent and – well, everything else. He sculpts. He sold something recently, so we aren’t too badly off. I’d just like to sell something so I can pull my weight. Though he’s very good about it.’

He. Ellie couldn’t help a sense of relief. At the same time she felt sorry for him having to put up with sharing, both no doubt getting under each other’s feet. But then, it was probably better than going back to an empty room, with no one to talk to or go out with to meet others.

She’d made no friends apart from Felix. The way he’d smile at her, she still had hopes that he might ask her out at some time, maybe to meet his friends. That would be nice. And maybe there might come about a more lasting union, though she wouldn’t make the same mistake as she’d made with Michael Deel. Or with her father.

She would need to keep him at arm’s length where that was concerned, at least until she was very, very sure of him. Odd, though, that while he’d been very free with that red-headed female she’d seen him kissing with gusto on New Year’s Eve, he hadn’t made a single advance towards her so far.

Perhaps she wasn’t his sort. But she was pretty and lively and if he looked deeper he’d find that she liked fun. Perhaps he preferred the more unconventional artistic type, the bohemian type of woman who dressed outrageously, dyed her hair and made free with men without a qualm. She, with her conventional dress, stuck out like a sore thumb amid such. If she dressed like them, would he take more interest in her? Ellie vowed to try and make an effort so as to get closer to him. She needed companionship more than anything at this moment.

As Felix accompanied her home, he carrying her unsold paintings along with his own, showing more strength than his thin physique would have had people believe, Ellie took his arm. But when she made to snuggle against him, he pulled away.

‘Whoops-a-daisy!’ he laughed. ‘You’ll have me over, carrying this lot.’

She immediately let go his arm. ‘It must be heavy. Let me carry mine. There’ll be one less for me to carry now.’

‘Doesn’t matter; we’re almost here,’ he said, his old self again as they turned a corner into her street.

‘Would you care to come up for a cup of tea?’ she asked eagerly as she took her canvases from him.

He pursed his lips. ‘Thank you, perhaps another time. Ginger, who I share with, will have got something in for us. I’ll see you tomorrow though?’

‘Yes.’ She felt a little deflated. But now her mind turned to Dora. If she could get Dora to leave, then they could share this room and she’d have companionship, someone to talk to; and as Dora