Work Text:
They sit for the portrait in Cádiz, in a cramped artist's studio with a view to the marina. High masts prickling a low sky, the business of a short-lived peacetime climbing inside the windows along with a few tendrils of fragrant honeysuckle, not enough to cover the smells of turpentine or bitter almond liqueur ingrained into the walls.
A good use for the profits of Frederick's most recent prize, and a peculiar hankering of his. A whim of the day, at the end of a long conversation when they took shelter from the high sun beside the church.
"I have spent years avoiding thinking of you, and wondering how much I had forgotten of your countenance," he said. "How much you may have changed."
"I grew sallower, I think," Anne noted."Thinner, and with less roses upon my cheeks, though I was not so freckled as I am now. No, one of us only grew handsomer in separation."
Her husband kissed the back of her hand over her glove, pressed the warmth of it against his breast.
Years after their marriage, the old injuries they had dealt each other had much eroded in sharpness, a reminder that ached and prickled and did not mark the shape of their days. Not easily laughed at; though Frederick could make her smile, not happily, by mentioning some of the foolish things he had done in trying to hold her in his heart only with dismay - walking out of recitals when a song she had liked was played on the piano, pretend to loathe Figaro when speaking to a disciple of one of Mozart's disciple, lie unwisely to his sister to little and unprofitable results.
"Your eyes were lovelier," Frederick said. His fingers, light and careful, wrapped around a stray curl of the windswept hair beneath her bonnet. "And they are lovelier yet today. As they may grow moreso in time, I would like to have a keepsake for memory, for when the mind falters."
The composition did not permit much irreverence; it was to be a small painting, larger than a miniature but not overly large, just the right size for a Captain's cabin.
Still, the artist was young and forceful, used to a clientele of officers and officer's wives and sweethearts. He flirted politely with Mrs. Wentworth, was politely indifferent to the Captain's opinions on background colors, made himself amusing with presenting a number of nautical implements laid out for choice.
"I have not seen so many broken astrolabes all together since my midshipman days," Frederick commented, turned a small model of a ship inside a bottle between his palms. "Many officer's children brought to pose, then?"
Indeed. Indeed, of course; and midshipmen, too. Anne took the small bottle, rubbed some old jammy thumbprints with the edge of her kerchief. For a moment her thoughts turned to her nephews, as they sometimes did, not often. It was good to live in peacetime, better to live in peacetime with no child of her family in the lists of the Navy.
You must sent us a copy. The sketches at the very least, so we might have them engraved, Sophy wrote to her brother and sister-in-law.
It is past time. In truth I had expected Frederick to beg you to sit for a miniature when you were wed; though there was little time then, and being lucky enough to sail together, I suppose he prefers the living model. But it is good to have these things; I for one brag quite badly of you to my acquaintances, so make certain to send a decent likeness, and a handsome one at that. The better, if you can have Frederick to do as Nelson did and trim his sideburns for it. He has not the cheeks to do them justice, as he indeed he ought to have learned already, if means to do justice to Anne's countenance.
Frederick did trim his sideburns for it. He did however sent his sister the first sketch only, before visiting his barber. Anne touched the neat line of his jaw afterwards, pressed her cheek to his to test them pleasing rasp of skin against skin.
They stood side-by-side, Captain and Mrs. Wentworth, for the initial sketching and then three or four further sessions, in between social engagements and official meetings.
It was something of a bother, but no true irritation, made better for the mirror against the studio wall, from which they could gauge their stance, and spy the other.
Few things in marriage are better conductive to love than a happy secret in company. The Wentworths had learned that even in their first betrothal, had long mastered the art of speaking from the side of their mouths in company, and having conversations in glances alone, which many a happy couple does possess, and few own to.
In the end Anne held a spyglass against her breast, while her husband rested a hand upon his sword, and another against the curve of her arm. Near enough the starch in his collar filled her nose. A few times he did touch her loose curls, to tease or adore; then the artist turned his back to fetch some paint or linseed oil, and pretended at polite deafness. Sailors, port side artists know, were very like each other, no more so than when in love.
Not more than three months they stayed in Cádiz, and a pleasant time it was, more so by the knowledge of its brevity. In this fashion they passed some afternoons, and referred friends in their circles to the care of the artist. As for the painting, it referred itself.
A fine painting from a fairly mediocre hand, with some fine Mediterranean light to it; all that saw it agreed something to that effect. His epaulets glittered, her mantilla was well-made, and the lace passably managed in oil. A handsome man; and the lady's eyes were striking. One could tell, not by the varnish or the trick of light in a delicate paint stroke, but the angle of her husband's chin, tilted to glance sideways at her profile.