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

‘Of course it’s genuine. Look, I’ll help you buy whatever is needed. Me and Jock will run whatever errands you want.’

‘But I can’t paint to order. I need a subject. I can’t conjure up the feeling I get, not out of the blue. I need…’ She paused. She couldn’t say ‘anger’: he wouldn’t understand. ‘I need passion,’ she said desperately, ‘something in here.’

‘You’ll find it when you need to,’ Felix said and, kissing her on the cheek with excitement, he grabbed one of the banknotes and sped from the room. ‘I’ll be back shortly with everything you need,’ he called back.

She could hear his footsteps running lightly down the two flights of uncarpeted stairs, the door to the building slamming as he let himself out into a virtual cloudburst, a great boom of thunder rolling overhead as if to proclaim her future.

She hadn’t seen Hunnard for nearly three weeks but letters arrived every so often telling her to keep working, that all was well, that he’d made some very interesting and opulent contacts.

Ellie had persuaded Felix’s Jock to pose for her. What she saw in the young man’s eyes that appealed to her senses was a sort of vacancy coupled with a soul that had been hurt in the past. What he was, the way he had behaved, had been condemned, maybe from childhood. It struck her that he must have had a miserable childhood and it made her feel for him – so much so that the finished work made her almost want to cry.

She dragged her second subject off the streets – a ragged individual she’d seen begging. In him she found pure, unadulterated despair and painted him, dirt and all, so that anyone viewing the subject would almost have felt they could smell the filth on him. He went away happy with the money she handed him, and she just hoped it would give him an incentive to wash.

She’d painted it far too quickly to feel happy with the results, but Felix enthused over it and Dora looked sufficiently sick to make it impressive.

There was also a little girl, not much more than seven or eight, apparently the sole provider for a mother left widowed and desolate and two younger siblings, one only a baby, the girl told her.

Ellie hadn’t asked her name. Somehow that would have made her too real. She just sat the child down in her room and painted her, the wan little face with eyes so terribly empty for one so young, when they should have been bright with childish laughter. Ellie had found her trying to sell pitiful little bunches of flowers she’d gleaned from those dropped by more proficient flower sellers who sat around Piccadilly Circus with baskets of flowers got from the Covent Garden itself. The girl must have thought heaven had smiled on her as she finally left with an apron pocket heavy with the handful of silver coins Ellie gave her.

By the time Hunnard called with news of the approaching exhibition and the numbers of well-feathered clients eager to view his new protégée, all Ellie had to offer was these three paintings. Although, for her, all three had turned out to be immensely satisfying, she felt drained, as if the suffering of her subjects had seeped into her.

‘It’s not a lot,’ she accepted.

‘Enough to be going on with,’ he said, not noticing how pale she was, her shoulders stooped from exhaustion, with sleepless nights, hours on her feet.

She was beginning to feel that if she continued working like this she’d end up going off her head. With Felix and Jock setting themselves the task of providing her with all the paint and canvas she needed, she hardly saw the outdoors, felt the hot summer sun beating on her face, heard the babble of people she’d have passed in the street.

‘I’ve got to get out for a while,’ she told Dora, who was going off on her own these days to enjoy the company of friends she’d made from those she now associated with.

Left to herself, Ellie began to feel trapped. She hadn’t even been to see Mrs Sharp, hadn’t set eyes on Ronnie, and guessed he’d given up on her, seeing her as too snooty for him. She wanted so much to get into contact again, but Hunnard was giving her no time to herself.

What was it all about, if she found herself deprived of a normal life, of happiness? Yet if she didn’t make the money Hunnard kept referring to, how would she ever be able to search out and confront her father – if she ever did find him. And if she never found him, then what was the point of doing what she was doing?

Perhaps in time it would all come to an end, leaving her free to contact Ronnie again, explain the cause of her absence and hope to goodness that he might ask her to go out with him – that was, if he hadn’t by that time found himself another suitable girl to propose to.

Twenty-Nine

‘We need more,’ Hunnard was saying. He’d been surveying the three further paintings she’d done and said they were exactly what he needed.

‘These will have them begging to buy,’ he had said; then, as bold as brass, had added his need for more.

‘I can’t do any more,’ she told him wearily. ‘I feel worn out.’

Hunnard turned on her almost savagely. ‘That’s not good enough. Your work is all-important.’

‘I said I’m too tired,’ she said. ‘I’ve worked myself to a standstill.’

She received no sympathy. ‘You’ve no time to feel tired when a golden future could be staring you in the face. Perhaps after the exhibition. Even then demand could grow, though I would recommend we keep them wanting by holding back a little. That way your work will become even more sought-after, with buyers ready to pay whatever we ask.’

He spoke as if he shared her talent. ‘To make the exhibition work we must have