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

behind, since rain seemed not far off – heavy rain at that, the air already turning sultry, promising thunderstorms before long. But Ellie shrugged. Nothing was going to stop her.

‘I’ll see you later on then,’ she said to Dora as she took the old, faded black umbrella off the chair where it lay. She frowned as a knock came on the door.

‘If that’s the landlord,’ she snapped as she went to answer it, ‘he can wait until Monday morning. He’s been coming it lately – frightened we’d run off.’

Opening it, she was surprised to see Felix there, his face full of smiles. ‘Someone to see you. He didn’t know where you lived, so I brought him.’

Stepping to one side, he revealed the smartly dressed, bulky figure of Hunnard in a light-grey, single-breasted morning suit, the coat open to show a well-fitted waistcoat with a thick, gold fob chain. He wore a grey-silk top hat and beneath his trim beard a starched white collar seemed to be holding his neck in a vice. The cane he carried had what looked like a silver top.

He looked so immaculate that, for a second, Ellie stared at him with her mind racing idiotically to the shambles of her humble room and what he’d think, seeing where she lived. Even so, she couldn’t keep him standing there. Without speaking, she stood aside for him to enter, which he did, deftly removing his hat. Felix followed him in, his face still wreathed in smiles.

Ellie’s eyes were trained on her main visitor, but with nothing coming to mind to say to him, she just stood there, feeling like an idiot.

‘I’ve not seen you lately,’ he began. He was gazing directly at her, not around at her poor surroundings, thank God. ‘I’ve looked for you on several Sundays, but you don’t show up – a fine way to sell your work, eh? But this young man says you’ve completed another two paintings.’

His gaze began to roam the room. ‘So I should be happy to see them, if I may, young lady?’

Ellie felt her scepticism start to mount. Obviously he had it in mind to buy them, not just to gaze at them. It would mean money wouldn’t be quite so tight for a little while if she sold them to him. But if he thought he could fob her off with another few pounds, he had another think coming. And what about those he’d already had from her? Had he sold them and wasn’t telling her? If he hadn’t sold them, why was he after more of her work?

‘What about those other paintings you bought from me?’ She came out bluntly with it, almost rudely, seeing Felix’s mouth drop open. ‘Are they still hanging on that wall in your gallery?’

Hunnard smiled. ‘As a matter of fact there has been a great deal of interest in them. If your two new paintings are of the same standard, I have in mind to include them in a small exhibition I’m planning. It should prove a success, as all my exhibitions are, though small.’

Ellie’s eyes remained hard. ‘And I suppose you want to buy my others from me for another few pounds, like you did before.’

From the corner of her eye she could see Dora, now up from the chair by the window where she’d been looking down into the street for something better to do as Hunnard entered, tensing with interest at the mention of money. Felix, too, was looking attentive, sensing the possibilities here; but she knew that his interest was centred unselfishly on her welfare.

‘I take it you’re after buying them?’ Ellie went on. ‘If you’ve plans for them, I think I should get a bit more for them than last time. I’ve seen nothing of that last proposition you spoke about.’

Maybe she was being rude, but she felt angry. Months of eking out the last few pounds he’d handed her to have him lord it in here, dressed like a millionaire, on paintings no doubt bought for a song from other struggling artists – she’d rather throw her own in the Thames than hold out a servile hand for his measly few quid!

‘No, so far you haven’t,’ he answered, still smiling. ‘But if your recent work comes up to the standard of the previous two, I may give you cause to take that frown off your face for a long time to come.’

Laying his cane and hat on a chair, he took hold of the one Dora had vacated and brought it to the table where she and Ellie would eat.

Indicating for her to sit on the one on the opposite side of the small table, he glanced up at Felix.

‘I’m much obliged to you for guiding me here. I shall find my own way when I leave. Now perhaps you could take Miss Jay’s young sister for a little stroll – say for half an hour or so while I speak to Miss Jay.’

‘I want them to stay,’ Ellie interrupted sharply. It sounded just a little too forceful and she glanced out through the window. ‘It’s started to rain and I think we’re in for a storm.’

She’d hardly spoken when a low, prolonged growl of thunder rumbled in the distance. Hunnard regarded her for moment, then nodded and turned his back on the other two to rivet his attention on her.

Looking a little awkward, Dora went and sat on the bed in the far corner, Felix going to sit beside her.

‘Now then,’ Hunnard began, leaning towards her, his elbows on the table’s scratched surface, ‘if your recent work is of the same standard as your previous work, I have it in mind to put on an exhibition at my galleries. I am certain it would cause quite a stir. Your paintings are revolutionary to some extent and there are those with money looking for something different. We’ve had impressionism, expressionism, the violent colours of Fauvism.’

He spoke the word almost contemptuously. ‘Your work, young lady, falls between