Type of Beauty

Patricia O'Reilly

Description

A Type of Beauty is the dramatised account of the life of Kathleen Newton (1854-1882) whose love affair with French artist Jacques Tissot scandalised Victorian society.A sweeping story set in London, Agra, Bombay and Paris, it brings to life the sights, scents and emotional landscape of the Victorian era.When Kate Kelly, beautiful and feisty, travels to India to marry a man she has never seen, she considers her life is over. But little does she know it is just beginning.She ends up back in London with an unconsummated marriage, a pending divorce and is pregnant by a man she despises. Despite the awfulness of her situation, she never loses hope of finding happiness which she does while holidaying in Paris with her sister. When she meets the sensual French artist Jacques Tissot it is love at first sight, for both of them.But complications test their love for each other until destiny steps in.A Type of Beauty was awarded Historical Novel Society's, Editor's ChoicePraise for A Type of Beauty:'In this one of the great romances of the Victorian era, Patricia O'Reilly has brought to live a past that is at once vivid and utterly credible. A joy to read' - Christine Dwyer Hickey'Patricia O'Reilly has woven a truly intriguing story. I was fascinated by this life of an unconventional woman who lived exactly as she wanted to, despite society's disapproval' - Lucinda Hawksley'An engaging and illuminating exploration of the intersection of these Irish, English, Indian and French worlds in the intriguing, tragic and very modern relationship of Jacques Tissot and Kathleen Newton' - Carlo Gebler'A beguiling tale and an imaginative melange of historical characters with a sharp insight into women's lives...Kate's story is most compelling and this an altogether fine literary accomplishment by Patricia O'Reilly' - Mary Kenny

Informations

• Publié par: Cape Press
• Date de parution: 20 août 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780956363220
• Langue: English

Extrait

A Type of Beauty, the story of Kathleen Newton (1854-1882)
Patricia O'Reilly
Copyright

© 2012, 2010 Patricia O'Reilly
Patricia O'Reilly has asserted her rights in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
http://www.patriciaoreilly.net
Published by Cape Press
First published in eBook format in 2010
eISBN: 978-0-9563632-2-0
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
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Contents

Prologue
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part Two
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Bibliography
Prologue
London: Thursday, 15th June 1933
 
I t was one of those golden June evenings when sunshine bathed the astonishing greenness of the parks, dappled shadows on the tree-lined streets and glimmered and glowed off tall buildings. It was a perfect evening for a party, and the Leicester Galleries in the heart of London was hosting an exclusive affair.
The guest list was made up of the usual mixture of beautiful people: glittering socialites, the occasional right honourable and wide-eyed debutantes, as well as a scattering of art dealers and dignitaries from the Royal Academy. More contacts than anyone’s friends. A string quartet plucked out the rhythms of ‘Love is the Sweetest Thing’, and a sweet-faced soprano with finger-waved hair and bright red nails echoed that sentiment. Waitresses in black frocks, frilled aprons and starched white headbands wove through the crowd, skilfully balancing silver trays of champagne and crystal platters of canapés.
A tall, slim man moved hesitantly across the marble floor of the foyer. He looked carefully around, not quite believing he was in, that he had gained admission to the launch of what newspapers, magazines and even the wireless were all calling the most important art exhibition of the decade.
He straightened his shoulders and ran his fingers over his rather sparse moustache. Turning sideways, he eased forward into the gallery space. He was oblivious to the elegance of the venue and to the buzz and hum of the crowd, hearing but not registering a snatch of conversation from a bony woman in pansy-purple, as she admired ‘the courage of Huxley’s Brave New World ’, or the burst of laughter from another at the idea of Marlene Dietrich arriving in Paris dressed in a man’s suit. ‘And darling, can you imagine, in brown too!’
He presumed Violet was present, the respectable Mrs Walter Burns. Unlike him, she would have received a formal invitation in the post. He had no wish to see her; even thinking of his sister had him doubting himself. All of a sudden, coming uninvited to the exhibition was no longer the clever idea it had seemed when he had sat on the edge of his unmade bed, in his greasy room, and plotted his grand entrance. His nostrils quivered as he gulped for air. He should have known he couldn’t cope in this public place. Inhale, exhale . Slowly . Like the doctors in the hospitals said. But his breathing couldn’t control his panic as his body began to quiver, as though made up of echoing and re-echoing harp strings. Inhale . Exhale .
He was on the point of turning back when the crush of people parted and there she was. Rows and rows of her, immortalised in paintings, etchings and line drawings mounted on the stark white walls.
Her impact on him was like taking a bullet in the chest. Despite her leaving him, he had never left her. How wrong he was to think he was prepared for this exhibition, for seeing her again. For quite some time he had not been prepared for anything out of his ordinary, which was as basic as getting out of bed in the morning and muddling through the day.
He took a few steps backwards. How beautiful she was, how she shone out from her portraits, and what memories she and they evoked.
His solemn face softened as he went up to the wall, closing in on his favourite painting of her. She was wearing the russet gown, playing the piano and singing, and looking down at the boy standing beside her, the child’s intensity forever captured in paint. He could not have been more than five, wearing a pale green suit, his blond hair of then touching the back of his collar, as his greying hair did now. He knew she was performing especially for him. All these years and she still held power over him. Happily he drifted out of himself, away from the crowded gallery, back in time to the music room, with its clutter of books and ornaments and sunlight dappling through the long window leading to the garden.
In Mavourneen her expression of dreaminess was painted full on, although he could not remember her having a fringe of hair on her forehead. He wrinkled his nose in dislike. He nodded in approval of her black coat with its face-framing fur collar, and the hat with its turned-back brim. Running the pads of his fingers up the trousers of his uniform, he felt not the coarse serviceableness of military material, but the delicate ridges of her velvet titillating the tips of his nails.
His breathing steadied as he nodded at the pictures he was familiar with, greeting them as beloved and trusted friends. He was regaining control, although he knew his hands were still trembling. He clasped them firmly behind his back.
He had no recollection of that portrait of her sitting in the armchair in the small drawing room, an open book resting on her lap—she was a prodigious reader—but that was the way she was: smiling a welcome as though waiting for him to walk through the door for a chat. She loved chatting and telling stories; she said it was the Irish in her.
In Octobre she was waving a book and posed in playful flight against the golden foliage of the shrubbery. She had laughed and laughed at the idea of a footman polishing the leaves and of everyone drinking champagne, which a French critic had written after visiting their home in St John’s Wood.
His body was loosening and he was beginning to relax, to lose himself in the world of the past, where he longed to be, when he came upon La Frileuse ( The Shivering Woman ), aptly titled, as she felt the cold more than most and shivered her way through the English winters. He took a step backwards from the black ink portrait, wondering why as a child he had so disliked it. As an adult he knew, but then as an adult he had come to know too many things, more than he could cope with. The simplicity of the picture captured her as she was then, closed away from all but the chosen few who were permitted to enter the Camelot-like seclusion of the inner sanctum, her lover had created for his ravissante Irlandaise .
His attention was diverted by a burst of female chatter. It was the Dietrich woman, all backless gown and jangling jet earrings, and waving an ebony cigarette holder. She was surrounded by a group of women whose feline eyes were turned in his direction. Surely they knew it was the pictures and not him that they should be looking at? He turned away from them.
He could imagine her at an occasion like this. She would be the most beautiful woman present: her chestnut hair piled high, diamonds and pearls gleaming at her ears and throat, wearing one of her jewel-coloured gowns. Like an exotic bird, she would draw the other guests towards her, enchanting them with laughter and repartee as she sipped champagne and smoked the gold-tipped cigarettes specially imported from Paris.
When he saw the porter approaching, he went into his protective mode of bent head. Madness was his recurring nightmare, the fear of relapse into that mental blackness, the fear that took him one blameless day to the banks of the Thames and set him adrift on the river. He had been pulled back from the waters of oblivion on many an occasion and he knew the lead-up all too intimately: loss of energy and appetite, and whole days spent lying in bed when the fire in his brain and the weight of his eye sockets prevented constructive movement.
When he lifted his head, the porter was signalling him, and the faces of the surrounding crowd were bright with salacious interest. He had been identified. His closed, middle-aged face crumpled; his hands resumed their frantic clasping and unclasping, dividing, linking in an odd dance of fear, a choreography of panic, as he saw Violet coming towards him.
His mental images were liquefying. He could no longer separate his impressions of the past from what he was seeing in the pictures. Unease, like a drawstring, pulled his throat tight, filling every plane of his face, draining away the blood from his skin, widening his eyes. He turned and with awkwardly angled shoulders passed through the crowd, which briskly parted ranks, eager to hurry him on his way, to have him gone.
When he reached the door, the quartet was playing another popular tune, still extolling the virtues of love, although there was no sign of the singer. He faced his audience, paused momentarily, raised his arm and gave a military salute as befitted a lieutenant of the Royal Field Artillery. ‘She was my mother, you know.’ His eyes were steady and his voice was calm. He shuffled out into