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

This one’s even better… I put my heart and soul into my work and you treat it as if it’s just a business. You’re the one with no soul.’

He interrupted her with a laugh. ‘My dear child, I am appreciative of the work you people do, and art is in my soul. That is why I am proprietor of an art gallery. But business is business and my establishment does not run on hot air. It is costly, there are massive overheads and risks taken, and at the end of the day I am not a charity. I also need to make a profit from what I love selling. Is that enough for you, child?’

Ellie wasn’t impressed. She was incensed. ‘And what about my overheads, as you call it?’ she demanded. ‘I’ve got to find the money to buy paint and canvas and food, and pay for the room I have to live in and coal for a fire to keep warm with. At the end of the day what profit is there for me?’

‘So what are you asking for this?’ Completely unmoved, he looked back at the portrait. ‘Who else is going to buy it other than myself? You have a client here who is interested in your strange interpretation of the human form and I happen to think it may have a market. But your price must be a viable one.’

She didn’t know what viable was. All she wanted was her due. Ellie tightened her lips. ‘I want half of what you sell it for.’

‘That means I take it away and pay you nothing until it is sold. That could take months, or might not happen at all. Maybe people are not ready for work such as yours.’

‘You sold my other one.’

‘No-o-o.’ The reply came slow and exacting, almost patronizing. ‘That hangs in my gallery still, awaiting a buyer. That is the risk I take. Therefore I will not meet any exaggerated price, and your suggestion is not sensible, to my mind. I shall give you twenty pounds for it.’

Ellie stood dumbfounded in disbelief, but he continued to talk.

‘Here is my proposition. I will give you twenty guineas, here and now, and take this away with me. I will give you my card. And if I find a buyer I’ll give you ten per cent. That is a generous offer. Take it or leave it. Leave it and I will not buy your painting.’

Ellie thought quickly. Ten per cent of fifty guineas wasn’t all that generous – a little over five pounds – but she’d have the twenty in hand. Dared she take up his offer? He seemed very keen to possess her painting. She might even up the price.

‘Come on, young woman!’ he prompted. ‘Make up your mind. I’m paying a lad to keep an eye on my vehicle. He’ll be wondering where I am.’

‘Vehicle?’

Unable to help herself, she queried the word and saw him grin behind his beard. She was informed that he had one of these automobiles that were beginning to be seen on the roads, frightening the horses.

The revelation chased away what she’d had in mind to tell him and she found herself blurting out the words, ‘All right, I agree. If you take me to see your showrooms.’

Instantly she realized how childish she must sound, proving her not to be as adult as she assumed she was. ‘I’d just like to see the other one I did hanging there.’

To her surprise he nodded. ‘Very well.’

‘Twenty guineas,’ she reminded him before he could move to take up the picture. His smile broadened as he reached into his heavy, dark-coloured, astrakhan-collared topcoat. Extracting a leather wallet, he took out several large, crisp, white banknotes and handed them over.

‘Bring the painting,’ he ordered and strode off rapidly, Ellie following.

She saw Felix with both his thumbs up and displaying a broad grin. In reply she indicated a plea for him to keep an eye on her other pictures, and he nodded, still grinning. She could trust him. He might even sell one. But with interest being sparse, she reckoned not. Anyway he had his own to sell.

This was the first motor vehicle she’d ever been near enough to touch, much less ride in. Slipping a sixpence to the young lad he’d enlisted to keep an eye on the vehicle, Hunnard took the painting from her to place behind the long, leather seat before taking her hand to assist her into the vehicle. She had to gather her skirts so as not to trip on them as she stepped tentatively up into the thing, bending her head low so that her straw boater did not collide with the hood that had been unfolded to shield the inside from the weather, very much like the hood on a baby’s pram or on a bath chair.

‘Are you comfortable enough?’ he asked. Ellie smiled and nodded, feeling not at all comfortable but very much on edge in case she might topple out onto the ground the moment the contraption started up. Her heart was in her mouth, but she held her smile.

Closing the little door on her, Hunnard went round to climb in beside her, spreading a thick rug over her knees, making her feel strange sitting so near to a man she hardly knew; but he took little notice of her as he began adjusting things that probably worked the engine.

He seemed quite at ease with it all, but Ellie clung with clawed fingers to the edge of the seat, unsure what would happen as they moved off, sure she might be flung up into the air. At a signal from Hunnard, the young lad began to energetically crank the engine, part of the task he had been paid to do. His job done, he scurried off, a silver sixpence richer for his pains.

As the engine started up, Ellie gave a little squeak of terror. Hunnard gave a deep chuckle.

‘It’s quite safe. Safe as houses,’ he remarked and she held