A Map of Glass - Jane Urquhart [66]
Her father looked up now in irritated astonishment. “Whatever can you mean?” he asked. He had no time for frivolous interior decoration. A succession of mainland drawing rooms of various hues might have passed through his mind, drawing rooms in which he would have been ill at ease, bored, and overheated.
“He wants to make frescoes, to paint landscapes in hallways.”
“Landscapes? Hallways?” Joseph Woodman removed his reading spectacles and peered at his daughter. “For heaven’s sake, why?”
“To give the people here more scenery.” Annabelle drew herself up into her nearest approximation of good posture. “Some trees, perhaps …”
“I’ll show them trees,” said her father testily.
“Live trees,” continued Annabelle. “Mountains … waterfalls.”
Her father placed his hands flat on the desk and leaned forward. “Don’t be foolish,” he said. “No one will want these walls. No one at all. Paris was clearly a mistake. It’s time he became a man, took some responsibility, and got over his fancy French ways.” This declaration was followed by an ominous, angry silence. Then he said, “Has his mind been destroyed by drink, by absinthe?” Joseph Woodman had no doubt heard about the unsavoury side of the Parisian art world but had overlooked these rumours in favour of removing his son from the vicinity of the hired girl. “Well,” he continued, “did he? Has he?”
It was well known that Joseph Woodman permitted no liquor of any kind to be unloaded on the island in order to prevent the Frenchmen from infecting the more serious workers of Scots and English descent with their fondness for the grape. Since any reference to Ireland brought with it a tinge of remembered frustration and humiliation, no Irishmen were tolerated on the island either, thereby removing that particular brand of alcoholic danger. Joseph Woodman insisted that Timber Island remain a parched community.
“Of course not,” Annabelle said. She had read enough about Paris to know that wine, at the very least, would have been imbibed regularly. She didn’t know anything at all about absinthe, but was certain that, regardless of what he may have consumed, her brother’s mind, though filled with melancholy, was completely intact.
“Well, I won’t have it, this business of decorating parlours …”
“Hallways,” Annabelle corrected.
“Parlours, hallways, it’s all the same and I won’t have it.” Both of his fists were clenched now as if he were preparing to do battle with these parlours, these hallways, and his face was reddening as his blood pressure rose. Joseph Woodman had been in a particularly foul temper in recent months. The entire treasury of his beloved Orange Lodge (he had been ardently anti-papist ever since his Irish adventure) had been spent in Kingston on a marvellous triumphal arch that had been erected in anticipation of a royal tour. The Prince of Wales, however, tired of the wretched Irish question, had refused to dock at Kingston at all, forcing schoolchildren to enter boats in order to serenade him with their patriotic songs. These boats could be seen quite clearly from the shores of Timber Island, and the sweet voices of the youngsters could be heard by Mr. Woodman as he sat seething in his office. “Branwell should stick to portraits,” he told Annabelle now, “if he insists on art as a profession. Portraits are what people want.” He looked past her shoulder. “But in truth,” he said, pointing one long finger in the direction of the outer office, “what he should undertake instead is gainful employment with Cummings.”
Cummings was a thin, sallow-faced clerk of indeterminate age who had been a fixture of the outer office for years. Although he was timid and withdrawn, he had nevertheless once, and only once, summoned the courage to leer at Annabelle as she passed by his desk. No man had ever looked at her that way before, and she was determined that no man would ever look at her that way again. She had, therefore, since that day resolutely refused to speak to Cummings for any reason at all, though she did not tell her father about the incident.
“That will never happen,” said Annabelle.