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By Root 2064 0

Fludd’s artistic energy, on the arrival of Philip. He had noted that the daughters—Imogen certainly, Pomona in an odder, jerkier, more effusive way—had taken on Seraphita’s vacant look. He went back from time to time to encourage the firings and was surprised how long both the work and the marginal profit-making had gone on. He thought this was to be attributed to Philip Warren, whose own throwing and, later, glazes increasingly impressed him. He thought Philip was stolid—he saw to the flues and the packing of the kiln—and was surprised by the intricacy and delicacy of his designs for tiles and bowls. Fludd was bold and breath-taking. Philip was fine. Prosper Cain was both amused and encouraged by the unconventional commercial support the pottery had. Geraint, still in a rage to escape poverty, suborned traders and charmed great ladies. Miss Dace, Frank Mallett and Dobbin kept track of orders and dispatches—these were not numerous, but were increasing. Fludd disappeared from time to time, silently and without warning, in the old way, but Philip went on with the work, silently. The house was more like a house, and less like a wrecked barn, Prosper said to Olive Wellwood, with whom he went walking in the Marsh, occasionally, when they were visiting.

“Oh,” said Olive. “That’s Elsie. None of them could do anything without Elsie.”

Prosper said he had hardly noticed her, which pleased Olive at some subliminal level, since Elsie had recently become very pretty indeed, almost beautiful.

“She doesn’t try to be noticed,” said Olive, fairly. “She gets on with fixing things, so that they work. You know, Prosper”—they were on first-name terms now—“you know, I don’t think either of those two—Philip and Elsie—get paid a penny. I suspect she gets all her clothes from cast-offs or Patty Dace’s jumble sale stuff. I think Dobbin looks after him. I think Seraphita notices nothing and no one dare speak a word to Fludd in case he goes into a gloom, or stops working, which they expect him to do, every day, although he’s been working on and off for five years now.”

Prosper Cain was shocked. Olive went on.

“I notice—a woman will notice. Curtains are mended and things are polished—sideboards and spoons. There are bowls of wild flowers on the dresser. The sink is clean.”

“How old is that girl?”

“No one knows. She must be about twenty.”

“Do you think—with some arranged assistance—she could look after a group of students from the Royal College of Art? The poor souls are much harassed by the building works at the Museum—I had the possibly over-ambitious idea of a summer school in the outhouses and meadows of Purchase House—with tents to camp in, and camping for the ladies in the haylofts—and with great luck a few master classes from Benedict Fludd.”

“It is ambitious,” said Olive. “It would delight Geraint. We could add other things—literary talks, and plays put on, and so forth.”

“Fludd is the attraction, and Fludd the major hazard,” said Cain.

Fludd was in rather a gleeful mood, having made some odd-shaped vessels with Black Widow spiders lurking in their depths, their spinnakers busy, their multitude of eyes glittering opal. He said “Why not, why not, let them all come, let them learn to see clearly and use their hands.”

They were having a business tea, and Frank and Dobbin were present. Dobbin asked, respectfully, if Fludd was sure he wouldn’t find a summer school—intrusive maybe, oppressive perhaps?

Fludd said “Don’t be daft. A bevy of lovely young ladies is just what we need around us—and some of them may even have an inkling of what it’s all about. I’ve been thinking of modelling women again. Let them come.”

“We must talk to Elsie,” said Frank, who was quite as aware as Olive was of the importance of Elsie.

“Elsie’ll do as she’s told. Elsie’s a good girl,” said Fludd.

No one asked Elsie what she thought or felt. Or, at least, with a youthful egoism which she had been forced entirely to conceal, Elsie believed no one asked or cared what she thought or felt. She had worked out her master plan from the moment of setting foot in Purchase