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.Grace Marshall watched in amazement as the lady with the high hair took both the rather large Titian painting and the small painting of the girl with the letter to her bosom as her own, as if she would trust no other.When she made to enter her coach, which stood waiting, the Duchess had to bend her head completely sideways to get her flower- and fruit-bedecked wig inside.Grace Marshall’s last view of her benefactor was of her clutching the paintings to her while her head poked forward at an extremely odd angle inside the coach, because her wig was too tall to allow any other stance.She looked like a mad, exotic bird.‘The first test is over.I will find a way to bring the prepared board,’ said James Burke quietly as she passed him on her way out into the grey light in Poland-street.‘Then the paints.’She nodded.Said nothing.Thirty-one guineas for a Painting by me, Grace Marshall.On her way home, if she had not (still, unbelieving, seeing in her head her own painting and that of Mr Titian clutched together) taken the short route through Broad-street she would not have seen the noisy, illegal cock-fight down the dark alley where she had once long ago in her distress come herself and placed the bets on her life; would not have seen her nephew Claudio, jacketless and sweating in the chilly air, his hair tousled as he shouted in vain for his bird to win.The faces of the crowd of men were wild and concentrated and cruel; hot, dangerous violence in the air, feathers and blood and screams of the fighting cocks, and perhaps in the shadows she would not have seen the other face, if the man had not, at that moment, turned to look towards Broad-street.For a split second she was certain it was her brother, Tobias.She was so stunned that she said his name: not as a question but as a statement, Tobias.She moved forward instinctively into the mêlée but the man disappeared into the shadows; had she been mistaken? She stood stock-still in the noise but nothing happened: nobody came, nobody called Gracie! Only the shouting and the birds screeching and the slap of the bets going down.When Claudio suddenly turned and saw his aunt, a dark blush spread over his face, he looked about him for some sort of escape although even then his eye was drawn back to the ring, but as the shrieks and shouts and feathers filled the air in the alley where blood ran, and guts of birds fell, his aunt turned away quickly and was gone.She burst into her brother’s studio without knocking; a client bowed, just leaving.‘I saw Tobias.’ She could hardly breathe.He was handing brushes and paints to an assistant, washing the paint on his hands with a rag.He waved the assistant away.He kept washing methodically.‘It was him.I am sure it was him.But he disappeared.’‘Why do you tell me?’She looked at him in astonishment.‘It was Tobias.Our Brother.’‘And so?’‘But - we are all the Family he has.He is our Brother!’‘Tell me, Francesca, what does that actually mean? What is a ‘Brother’ if you have not seen him for over twenty-five years? What have you in common now?’And she knew the answer of course: it was the past that was shared.But Philip had changed their past, and created them again.‘I am surprised he is not in Newgate Prison.And I told you long ago you would have to choose, and you have chosen.Do not mention him again.’At the dinner that afternoon (skies darkening earlier as if to warn that winter was approaching: the painter’s sister lit the candles earlier than usual), Claudio and Isabella were present as usual, and Lady Dorothea Bray of course.Claudio looked evasively at his aunt, her face was blank; her nephew excused himself abruptly when dinner was over.There were several painters present and they talked of the Titian, some bitterly.‘Still we wait for our own Acknowledgement,’ said one of them angrily.‘When will an English Painter fetch six hundred guineas? Not even Sir Joshua Reynolds himself can sell for a quarter that, nor Thomas Gainsborough neither!’‘Give it time, give it time,’ the others murmured filling their glasses, for they could hardly say ‘Down with all Foreign artists’ when they were drinking the fine wine of their Italian host.Filipo had finally, requiring to be paid the sum of four hundred guineas for his kindness, taken on a young apprentice as well as his usual assistants: a young painter named Saul Swallow who would learn from the great Master and finally prosper by his association.Already Mr Swallow was painting whole storms and mountains in the background of portraits (such was the fashion just at the moment) and he ate with the family most days as part of his apprenticeship bargain.This particular day the young Mr Saul Swallow leant across the table to the old sister, to Signorina Francesca di Vecellio.‘Have you heard, Signorina, that I am keen to write a Biography of your Illustrious Brother? I am taking notes already - a Boswell, you might indeed call me.’‘That will be a very interesting Enterprise, Mr Swallow,’ murmured the signorina, passing fruit across the table as the meal came towards its end.‘I hope’, said Saul Swallow, ‘that you will speak to me freely.’She looked at him, startled.‘About what exactly?’‘About your Childhood.About your Family.About Florence.About - all sorts of things.Your memories.Perhaps the day when you realised your Brother’s great Talent.’Francesca looked across the table at her brother.‘I do remember the day,’ she said.‘I remember it very well, today especially,’ for today I sold a Painting by me for thirty-one guineas.‘You remember the Actual Day,’ cried Mr Swallow.Suddenly, and most unusually, the whole table turned to the quiet sister in her grey gown, including her brother Filipo with an infinitesimal warning look in his eyes.And then there was a tiny silence at the dining-table in the house in Pall Mall.And then the sister spoke.‘He used my Chalks,’ said Francesca di Vecellio.‘Your Chalks, Signorina?’ The apprentice’s voice was puzzled.She was, after all, only the housekeeper.And into the silence the sister spoke.‘My brother will tell you that I was a great failure at Drawing, although I did try!’ she said, smiling.‘Our brother Tobias’ (she saw his look but took no notice) ‘would find Colours for me around the city
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