osprey_archer | Vane and Troy's Awkward Adventures (Reply)

evelyn_b won a fic from me in the

fandomlovespuertorico auction, and one of her prompts was "Vane and Troy's Awkward Adventures."

So I've finally finished that fic! It is not very long, so I will in the long run write another auction fic, but for now - please enjoy the Awkward Adventures.

Dear Rory,

I know I had some sharp words for you when you first passed along Lord Peter Wimsey’s request that I paint his wife’s portrait, but I take them back without reservation. She has a marvelous face. Not pretty - you know I mean this as a compliment. Pretty faces are so boring to paint.

But she is extraordinarily striking. Once you see her face, you want to keep looking at it. Even those horrible newspaper photographs they printed during her trial captured that quality, and the effect is far more powerful in person. It’s fortunate I didn’t have any charcoal with me at luncheon, or very likely I should have begun preliminary sketches right there on a napkin in the restaurant.

Lord Peter was terribly sorry you couldn’t make it - regaled us with stories of your years together at Eton. All a lot of bosh, I’m sure. Did he wear that monocle even then? I suppose it must have been a great provocation to you all, but all the same, I really can’t see you paddling Lord Peter with a hairbrush, though he swears up and down that you did.

Or can I? Charming though I found him, I imagine that when one is stuck in a dormitory with him, the temptation to strike him might become overwhelming. Especially if he is not exaggerating when he claims that he liked to tell you all tales of his apprenticeship with Sherlock Holmes. “That was Allers’ first case,” he said proudly. (Did they really call you Allers, Rory?). “He wanted to prove I made it all up.”

He also claims that your friendship began after you capped his quotation from Macbeth, which has the ring of truth. And I shall certainly want to hear your side of the story of the Case of the Missing Cricket Bat when you return.

Harriet – we progressed to first names during her portrait sittings; you see I’m not such a cold fish after all – let Lord Peter do most of the talking at that first lunch. Indeed, I don’t believe we exchanged more than a few pleasantries until her third sitting. It is a real pleasure to paint someone who doesn’t take advantage of the captive audience to treat you as a psychoanalyst. The family secrets people sometimes impart!

I am not sure Harriet and I ever would have had a conversation at all, except that when I arrived for the third sitting - Lord Peter wanted her painted in situ at her desk, and sent a car to bring me to their townhouse for the sittings - I found her still scribbling away. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “I’m in the middle of a scene, but I can stop if you need me to.”

Even as she offered, her eyes strayed back to her page and her fingers twitched on the pen. I assured her that I could work on the background, and she might keep writing as long as she needed.

But in fact I ended up finishing the work on her face at that sitting. Her look of absorption was exactly right - far more becoming than her self-consciousness in earlier sittings. It’s the pensiveness, I think, that makes her face so absorbing. Perhaps also that touch of sadness. Even her marriage, though it seems almost alarmingly happy, has not banished that.

At last she set aside her pen, and sat back in her chair, and sighed – and then started at the sight of me: she had forgotten I was there. “Oh! I am sorry,” she said.

“Oh no,” I assured you. “It was perfect. It made you so much less self-conscious.”

A tactless thing to say, of course, but it made her laughed. “Self-consciousness has always been my bugbear,” she said. “I was a wretchedly awkward girl.”

People like you, who were born polished and elegant (the Handsome Detective, as they call you in the papers! Nigel Bathgate may expire for want of copy while you are in New Zealand - ), probably cannot imagine what a bond it is to discover someone who shared one’s own childhood awkwardness. In a moment we were both transported back to our younger days, when we stood sullen and slump-shouldered in corners with our hands thrust in our pockets, bitterly and rebelliously aware that our angularity was an affront to the sugar-and-spice ideal of girlhood.

We found a great deal to talk about, and ended by sitting on the hearthrug - not ungracefully, I might add. “We’ve both grown into ourselves quite well,” I told Harriet cheerfully, and almost at once lost a crumpet off its toasting fork into the fire.

I even let her see her portrait, although it was not yet quite done. Already I could tell that it was the best thing that I’ve painted all year - perhaps the best thing I’ve painted since the war began. Painting can feel so frivolous when there are bombs dropping from the sky.

Harriet went all queer and shy as she studied the portrait. “Peter will love it,” she said quietly; and stood and looked a while longer, which is better praise than all the gush in the world, and more than makes up for the pangs I felt about not being able to send it to the Salon.

Even before I began painting, Lord Peter insisted upon the condition that the painting must not be publicly exhibited, but even if he had not I wouldn’t have sent it. The newspapers would take any public exhibition as an excuse to write yet another account of Harriet’s trial - doubtless with at least one execrable pun on the theme that “at last the notorious Harriet Vane has been hung somewhere, if only on the walls of the Salon.”

That phrase is Harriet’s, not mine. It is the only time she has ever alluded to her trial. She is such a private person: it must have hurt her deeply - the trial itself, but even more, the publicity. Even now, the reviews of her books never fail to allude to her “notoriety.” It infuriates me. I haven’t read her books - I am almost afraid to; I think I will like them, but it would be horrible if I don’t, and even if I do I may not have anything intelligent to say. But I am sure they deserve to be considered on their merits, rather than always linked to this sordid case in which she was cleared of all charges.

If people mentioned the Gluck case every time they discussed one of my paintings, I believe I would hang up my brushes. No - I don’t think I could bear that. But I might very well turn into a mad recluse who paints murals on the inner walls of her house, like Goya.

Harriet, however, has simply set her face against the wind, and continues to write. I admire her tremendously and wish that I knew how to tell her so, but so far my awkwardness - not outgrown after all, alas! - has gotten in the way.

The portrait is done, but we have continued to see a great deal of each other. We have even been Christmas shopping together, and you know how I loathe Christmas shopping - and it is even worse than usual now, with rationing. But Harriet took me to a peculiar shop, where I found a Chinese vase for Kattie which I hope will make up for all the years of lackluster gifts I have given, when I went to Harrods and fled with the first halfway presentable object I could find.

Harriet found the most marvelous chess set. She stood a long while in silent rapture at the sight. I think she and Peter must play. He is away on war work, and she rarely speaks of him, but I know she misses him a great deal.

She has invited me to spend Christmas at the Wimsey family seat. I have accepted: I hope your mother won’t be too disappointed. But it seems that your mother and the dowager duchess of Denver are great friends, so I may very well see your mother over the holidays after all.

Harriet has offered to try to line up a few of the women dons at her old Oxford college to sit for me. I do hope it works out. They acted as her bridesmaids at her wedding - she showed me the wedding photographs, at my insistence - and many of them have truly interesting faces. Do you think Oxford dons will think it is frivolous to have one’s portrait painted? Perhaps if I try to appeal to their sense of the higher aesthetic appeals of art…

I hope you arrived in New Zealand without any trouble on the high seas. One doesn’t hear as much about U-Boats this war as during the last, but still one can’t help worrying. Do send me a letter when you can. Until then, I send you

All my love,
Agatha