Chapter Text
Barringford and London, 1855
The Earl of Barringford could no longer gallop across the countryside as once he had done. He enjoyed a ride each day, one of his grooms accompanying him at a discreet distance, so as to ensure his lordship's safety without making him feel inadequate to an exercise in which he had engaged nearly every day of his sixty years. In this as in many other matters, Lady Barringford saw to it that her guidelines were strictly adhered to, all from her magnificent townhouse in Grosvenor Square. Tristan did not make objections to her schemes, for they were, he believed, generally well-intended, and they allowed her to live her life apart from him as she deserved, while not neglecting the social duties, or indeed, forfeiting the privileges, of her rank.
He managed to suppress the gasp of pain that was ready in his throat when, upon dismounting in the stable yard, first his hip, then his knee, gave sharp twinges. It was a damnable thing, he reflected, to reach one's sixtieth birthday only to be asked to pay at last for a long life of reckless physical pleasure. He had been feeling rather breathless, too, enough so that he was considering returning early to London to see his Harley Street physician. He was growing bored at Barringford in any case. Freddie and Victoria and the children were spending their summer in Switzerland, of all the absurd notions, and John was not due to come north for another month. Perhaps, Tristan thought, he would write and suggest a change of plan.
He led his mount into the stables, and though his many eccentricities did not extend to currying his own horses, he did insist upon seeing him into the care of one of his grooms, and offering him a handful of oats.
Mr. Weatherley, his latest secretary, awaited him at the back of the house.
"Good day, sir."
"Weatherley," Tristan replied with a nod. This new generation of rising young men certainly was not overly observant of rank. He supposed that was what came of gallivanting about the country on the railway, and sending telegraphs where letters had once sufficed.
"The daguerreotypist will be here within the hour. I have taken the liberty of informing Larkin that you will wish to prepare."
"Very well," Tristan said, waving him off and striding into the house, ignoring his right hip as best he could. This rage for having portraits made by chemistry instead of by art was not very much to his taste, but then neither had it ever been to his taste to sit still for an artist. There had been a family portrait shortly after Freddie's birth; at Alexandra's insistence, he had sat for another likeness only two years later to commemorate his accession to the earldom, and in both instances she had refused to consider giving the commission to John, saying that he was no longer quite the thing. Accordingly, both pictures were hanging unseen at the far end of the hall of family portraits, gathering dust. Now, in the fashion set by Her Majesty for marking out anniversaries, he was to have a daguerreotype portrait taken for his sixtieth birthday.
"It is a damned foolish thing to do," he had told Alexandra, but, as nothing was so important as appearing to be with the times, she had been firm, and he had given in. His policy of more than thirty years was to refuse her nothing he could reasonably grant; his life was easier that way, and it was a small enough recompense for the poor bargain she had made in marriage to him.
By the time Larkin had helped him into a fresh shirt and coat, Tristan felt a bit better, though he reluctantly owned to himself that he had ridden too far this morning and was discouragingly tired. He descended to the great drawing room to find that the daguerreotypist had arrived and was making a damned nuisance of himself placing his light-box and fussing over the handling of the large and delicate plates.
The chemist--Tristan could hardly think of him as an artist--bowed and indicated that his lordship should be seated in a rather showy, high-backed-chair which Tristan had never liked.
"Let me not offend her Majesty by suggesting that I, too, wish to sit upon a throne," he said mildly. He knew that Alexandra would have been quite explicit with Weatherley as to every detail of this exercise, including the choice of chair. He turned to the daguerreotypist and said, "I do not wish to be depicted among my possessions or with emblems of my dominion, young man. Follow me."
He turned and walked out of the room, and heard the frantic scuffle and whispered admonitions of Weatherley and the daguerreotypist behind him. He went back up the stairs once more, and all the way along the richly carpeted corridor to his private rooms at the far end of the east wing, then entered his dressing-room and waited. Eventually, those hurrying after him with their unwieldy and fragile equipment caught up.
"My lord," Weatherley said, "Are you unwell? Do you wish me to send the daguerreotypist away?"
"I am well enough, Weatherley," Tristan answered, though in truth the stairs had taken a toll upon his breath. "I shall be--oh, what is the word now? We cannot say 'painted' and I certainly do not like 'taken' or 'captured' as if I were a marauding lion!"
"Photographed, my lord."
"What a ridiculous word! Oh, very well. I shall be photographed here." He pulled the unprepossessing chair out from his dressing table and placed it near the far wall. "I am fond of this notion," he said, sitting in it. Weatherley cast a dubious glance at the setting before saying, "Very well, my lord," and stepping out into the corridor to give instructions to the damned chemist and his machine.
"I will say only this for the daguerreotype-maker," Tristan said afterwards. "He did not make me sit still for very long."
"No, my lord," Weatherley said. "Will you allow me to send Larkin in? You seem rather tired, sir."
Tristan waved him away. "I shall lie just down for a moment," he said, and went to stretch out upon the dressing-room couch. "Please inform Lady Barringford that I was intractable upon the matter of the setting for my portrait. She will have a fit when she sees it."
"I shall write to her ladyship this afternoon."
"Thank you, Weatherley. That is all. You may go."
Weatherley went away and the Earl of Barringford put his feet up. "Photograph," he snorted. He lay back and closed his eyes, shaking his head a little and murmuring, "Forgive me, John."
Clara came into the study with her usual firm stride, her cheeks rosy from exertion. She was untying her bonnet while trying to clutch a folded newspaper under one arm. "I am home, Papa," she said.
"So I see," John said. He reached for her hand and patted it. "Where have you been?"
"Oh, Beatrice and I have been at the British Museum looking at the new Assyrian sculptures."
"Your mama would have been proud."
She set her bonnet aside and ran her free hand through her cropped curls, careless as always of her appearance, then came forward to kiss the top of John's head before flinging herself into his favourite armchair. "Let us see what is in the news," she said, opening the paper.
John paused in writing out his bill to Mr MacIntosh for the portrait of Mrs MacIntosh that he had just delivered, and regarded his daughter for a long moment as she read. She was, he realised with a start, no longer young. With her bluff manner, her love of travel, and her many friends, she had stridden breezily through her twenties, and now her thirtieth birthday was imminent. John could not discover that she had ever had any inclination to marry, and though she was remarkably independent, she did not seem to chafe at living under his roof. He certainly enjoyed having her company. He had lately had some thought of going back to Venice, and if Tristan could not get away, he knew Clara would happily make the journey with him.
"Oh!" she said, her brow furrowing. "Oh, no." She looked up at him, lowering the paper, and her expression showed real dismay.
"What is it, my dear?"
"I am afraid there is sad news, Papa." With a reluctant hand, she proffered him the paper. "Your old friend, the Earl of Barringford, has died."
John did not at once comprehend her words. It was a moment before their purport registered upon his mind. "I--he..." he said, shaking his head. "Dead?" The pain of comprehension engulfed him so suddenly, and overwhelmed him so completely, that he could not move or speak.
"Papa?"
"Y-yes, Clara. I heard you. Would you--could I ask you to leave me now, just for--I--would be alone just now, my dear."
With a shaking hand he drew out his spectacles, and when he could hold the paper steady, he found that his pounding heart made it difficult for him to see. He swallowed hard and read.
The article stated that Tristan, Ninth Earl of Barringford, had died very unexpectedly at his estate in Cumberland two days previously, apparently from heart disease; that he was survived by his countess, his son, and his two daughters; that he had not been known to be ill; that he had ridden out over his estate on the very day of his death, and that he had been photographed only hours prior to his decease in commemoration of his sixtieth birthday. Her Majesty Queen Victoria had offered her condolences privately to the Jarrett family.
What was I doing two days ago? John asked himself. How is it possible that I did not feel him go out of the world? He set the newspaper down, took off his spectacles, and rose from his desk. He paced across the room, and back.
"You cannot be dead, Tristan," he said. "I have not yet told you everything I wished to say. We have not yet had enough time." John Acklebury sat down at his desk once more. He picked up the newspaper, held it to his chest, and wept.
John had worn black for a twelvemonth after little George died, and again when the influenza carried off poor Georgina in her forty-second year. He had observed proper mourning for the death of his father, and for his mama, when, after an extraordinary life lasting ninety years, she had gone peacefully in her sleep, only two years ago. He had done so in each case because it was proper, and because he missed each of them, and because he was deeply conscious of having, by his flawed nature, contributed to the grief in their lives, and therefore to the sadness of their passing.
He could not wear black for Tristan. For the death of a civil acquaintance one might wear an arm-band or carry a black-edged handkerchief as a mark of respect. One did not mourn overlong for a mere friend.
And so he painted. He painted thunderclouds, and the slanting lines of rain over a distant field. He painted dark, midnight streets. He painted the night sky over water, boats pummelled by stormy seas. He painted in profligate strokes, careless of waste, layering paint upon paint as if in doing so he could use up all the colours in the world and put an end to painting. He painted until he was hollow inside, fragile and empty and clean.
The letter came six months months after Tristan's death, accompanying a wooden-crated parcel, flat and heavy and stencilled "Handle with Care" and "Glass".
Barringford House
Cumberland
22 January, 1856
My dear Mr. Acklebury,
Please find, within the parcel which this letter will accompany, the daguerreotype that my father, the late Earl of Barringford, had made on the day of his death. It was the wish of my mother, the Dowager Lady Barringford, that you have it. I regret that affairs relating to the succession and the estate have prevented my fulfilling this bequest for so many months.
However irregular it must seem, I beg leave to offer you my condolences upon your loss, for though my family, and her Majesty the Queen, and indeed the nation, have condoled with me upon the death of my dear father, you have lost that rarest thing, a life-long friend. My father spoke of you always in terms of the utmost respect and fondness, and gave me to believe that he had never had a dearer or a better friend than Mr John Acklebury. You will, perhaps, take comfort in knowing that he passed quietly away in his private apartments, and that it is very likely that the last thing he looked upon was your marvellous portrait of him as a young man, which hung in that room for many years.
You may also wish to know that the Dowager Lady Barringford donated that painting to a new institution of art in London in which he took an interest. The board of governors there have told me that, as an image of a great man, by one of England's great artists, "Penrith After A Ride" will form the cornerstone of their public collection of portraits, and will at last be seen, and certainly admired, by the world.
Sir, if I may in any way be of service to you who were a life-long friend to my esteemed father, I beg you will not hesitate to call upon
Your servant,
Alfred, Earl Barringford
John opened the crate. Inside, a framed daguerreotype lay nested in straw. He brushed and blew this away and lifted the picture out, then carried it to the large window and fumbled for his spectacles, which were perched atop his head.
There was Tristan, sitting in the same striking, indolent pose that had taken society by storm in the spring of 1818. His tall form was no longer lanky, but broad and powerful, and if he seemed not quite ready to leap out of his chair, he was certainly still too long for it. His legs were stretched out before him and his dark-coated arm rested across the back of the chair and draped lazily down.
On the wall behind him, a little blurred but unmistakable, was Penrith After a Ride.
A laughing sob escaped John's throat. "Oh, Tristan," he said, pressing a kiss to Tristan's mouth through the cold glass of the photograph. "Oh, my beloved Tris."
THE END