Restoration

Signed, Charles R.

I looked up at Fi

"Alas, Fi

"Why so?" said Fi

"Why? Because such commissions are numerous. I wager the King puts out no less than two or three per diem. And already portraits of my wife have been done, but none have been paid for and the poor artists are, as far as I know, still wandering the land like the Idle Poor or decaying in their rags on the steps to the King's barge."

I was earnestly hoping that these words would cast Fi

"This one will be paid for," he said, "because I will make a portrait too beautiful to be resisted. I have heard your wife is a pretty woman and I will improve, even, on what nature has created."

"By surrounding her with flowers and harps and foolish garlands, I suppose? But these will not improve your chances."

"No. Not by embellishment, but by succeeding at what you attempted, Sir Robert, and failed to achieve: the capturing of her essence. I will capture it and the face will be a magnet, drawing all eyes and hearts towards it."

"I wish you luck," I said acidly. "But let me warn you: much of what the King commences he does not finish. The clamour about him is so noisy, so colossal, he ca

"But I have my paper…"

"Paper! Do you not know the First Rule of the Cosmos, Fi

"What 'First Rule'?"

"That all matter is born of fire and will one day again be consumed by it."

Having delivered myself of this piece of questionable wisdom and before Fi

"Concerning your lodging here," I said, "I suppose the King gave you money for this?"

"No, Sir Robert. As I told you, I have not one farthing…"

"I am to feed you and house you as a favour?"

"As a favour to His Majesty."

"For which I shall be rewarded how?"

"He did not say. But I am a person of modest appetite…"

"Not so, judging from your clothes."

"That is mere outward show…"

"As much as life proves to be. But God sees into your heart, Fi

"I am no parasite. I work hard for the meagre living I make."

"And will do so here. In return for your board, you will concentrate such talent as you have upon my work. I wish to begin some new pictures. You will help me with questions of perspective and light."

"But what of the portrait?"

"My wife is most busy with her music and her attempts to comprehend the work of Dryden. She will not spare you more than an hour a day."

Fi

I found myself in the attic room at the Jovial Rushcutters sooner than I had intended: I lay there that very night.

The day of Fi

What so vexed me was Celia's treatment of Fi

I observed Celia closely. Her beautiful smile, which I had seen so often given to the King, but scarcely ever to me, was almost constantly upon her lips, thus rendering her most infinitely pretty and sweet. Hers is the kind of sweetness which, once glimpsed, makes my heart tender – as if towards a child – and my manhood cruel – wanting to possess and abuse that very same childlike thing. I saw that Fi

I sat and watched her until I could endure it no longer, then went to the Music Room and played some foul blasts upon my oboe and kicked over my music stand, then threw the instrument down and went calling for my groom. On my way to the stables, I met Cattlebury who informed me that he had come by two dozen thrushes for supper. I told him curtly that I was not hungry but that he should serve up the wretched birds in a pie "for my wife and her new friend, Mr Fi