“I have been told you are French, but that cannot be true.”
“Mm?” Zoë responded vaguely, dabbing paint onto canvas. “Please tilt your head a little to the right.”
“Hmph!” The old lady tilted. “Where were you born?”
“I don’t remember. I was quite young at the time. And you, Lady Bagshott, where were you born?”
“What impudence! As if I’d share intimate knowledge with one such as you.”
“Oh,” Zoë said innocently, “I assumed we were making what the English call ‘polite conversation.’ ”
The old lady gave her a sour look.
Zoë said, “I see you have your lips pressed into a thin line—almost invisible—is that how you wish me to paint them?”
A forced smile appeared on the old lady’s face. If she’d been painting a crocodile, it would have been perfect.
“It would help if you told me a little about how and where you grew up,” Zoë said.
She stiffened. “Why? What business is it of yours?”
“It will help me to know what kind of things to include in the background of the painting.”
The old lady gestured to her surrounds with her cane—since Zoë had called it the sign of a ruler, she’d taken to using it more frequently. “This is all you need. No one needs to know where I came from—it’s what I have achieved that matters.”
Zoë agreed with her, to a point. Sometimes knowing where someone started made what they achieved more admirable. But Lady Bagshott would never admit that.
“Perhaps not,” Zoë said. “Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouth, others must work to achieve wealth and position. I know which of the two I admire more.”
The old lady narrowed her eyes and stared at Zoë, as ifshe thought Zoë was making fun of her. But she wasn’t. She just kept painting.
From time to time, the old lady rose a little stiffly from her chair to walk around the room and stretch her legs. Naturally, with each circumnavigation, she would stop to inspect the portrait. And offer advice.
“My nose is not that pointy.”
“It is, I’m afraid.”
The old lady’s hand flew to her nose and briefly explored its contours. “I know my nose, and it isnotpointy.”
“I am the artist and I’ve painted your nose exactly as I see it. Do you want people to recognize it as a portrait of you or not?”
“Don’t be insolent. I’m paying you, remember.”
“You’ve already paid Lady Scattergood, remember?”
She huffed bad-temperedly. “I don’t care. Change it at once.”
Zoë pretended to consider it. “You mean make it pointier? Or fatter? I could give you a Roman nose if you like. Or one with more of a hook. It does have a slight hook, now that I come to look at it again.”
Nettled, Lady Bagshott snorted and resumed her seat. Until the next time she needed to stretch her legs and inspect the portrait. And criticize.
And so it went, every day until the portrait was finished. The final result was, she grudgingly admitted after a long examination, acceptable. Just.
Zoë thought it was one of her better efforts: in fact, she was quite proud of it. The portrait wasn’t just a very good physical likeness, it also gave an insight into Lady Bagshott’s character: her need to dominate, but underneath, a hint of vulnerability; her will to succeed, balanced by a wish to be esteemed—a wish Zoë feared would never be fulfilled unless the old lady softened her attitude to others.
Gazing at the portrait, Zoë realized something else:despite all the difficulties, she had come to rather like the old harridan.
There was a brief but spirited tussle when Zoë needed to take the finished painting away to have it framed, but it was more of a token effort: Lady Bagshott simply didn’t like not having the last word on any matter. But as Zoë pointed out, the framers didn’t make home visits, and unless she preferred the painting unframed, she had to trust that Zoë would return it and not, as she feared, put it up for public exhibition.
