LAMBERT IN THE STUDIO
By Lucy Deedes April 2020
Lambert sighed and tucked his hands under his armpits as he studied yesterday’s work on the easel. Sir James, naturally, would wish to be portrayed as trustworthy and serious, with a hint of spirituality, but there was a touch of greed in those eyes which he had never intended, too much wetness around the lips.
Could his own thoughts have crept onto to the face of his subject? Had the workings of his own imagination had stolen down through his fingers and onto the blameless face of Sir James? This was worrying indeed. He would not normally work on a picture without the presence of the subject, but those lascivious lips would have to go and without a moment to spare.
He pushed back the sleeves of his nightgown, found a stoats’ fur brush of passable cleanliness and assembled his saucers. Vermilion, white lead and a smear of lamp black, fine and oily.
Oblivious to everything but those few inches of painted flesh, he trod back and forth between table, easel and his viewing spot. At length he stood back, arms folded over his chest, cold fingers under his arms.
‘Better, Sir James. Before, it seemed as if you might tup your own grandmother.’
‘Whereas now,’ came a voice from the stairs, ‘He looks as though he would merely rob her blind.’
Lambert bowed his head, closing his eyes.
‘I did not hear you, Mistress Brewer. That was a private rumination.’
She came towards him, smiling like an accomplice, which made him shiver. Where was Margery? When Mistress Ingleby visited Margery was far too much in evidence, flitting up and down the stairs with trays of refreshments.
‘Some ale perhaps…..Margery…?’ He called down the stairwell but his voice came out reedy and beseeching, not at all masterful.
There was something toad-like about Mistress Brewer: those cushioned cheeks, bumpy forehead and wide elastic smile.
‘Sir James is very fine, is he not?’ she said, planting herself before the painting.
He nodded.
‘I expect his daughter has given invaluable help.’
‘She was good enough to visit, being curious to see the work.’
‘Ah!’ The word hung in the air, like smoke. ‘Master Sheringham had the idea that she was quite the regular visitor.’
Lambert waved away an imaginary fly. ‘No, not at all.’
‘She is a recent widow, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘And Sir James will want to see her well-settled again, one day.’
Heavy footsteps thumped up the stairs. He took a deep breath.
‘Ah, Margery, we wondered where you were.’
‘Laundry.’
On one hand she balanced a tray with cups and a plate of sweet-smelling toasts; with the other she picked up a stool and set it down between them with a thump, as though it had offended her.
She put the tray on the stool, pushed back the shutters and stood at the window overlooking the street.
‘There’s Mistress Ingleby, back again. I’ll fetch another cup, shall I?’
From Simon: This piece is based on an interesting idea – that an artist can betray too much of his or herself in their art. This applies in all areas of creativity. Writers are particularly prone to self-revelation, frequently inadvertent. They actually don’t know how much of their secret self they have given away. And in fiction, this can we used infinitely through the device of the unreliable narrator, someone the reader starts by believing but in whom he or she gradually loses confidence. In this piece, Lambert has subconsciously put too much of his own personality into his portrait of Sir James and has to adjust the painting accordingly. A few loose ends in the narrative show the difficulty of making an existing extract from a book fit the brief, rather than writing something specifically for the brief.