Chapter 241: Friends of Women (k4)

Chapter 240 Friends of Women (4k4)
London, in a small building down the street from Mayfair.

The bright sunlight shone through the glass on Mrs. Norton’s delicate makeup, as if the lady’s succinct but powerful quote said – Yes, we are beautiful to look at in person.

Perhaps because of the prolonged family quarrels of the past few years, Mrs. Norton, though she sat quietly, without any expression acting as a model, always had an indefinable haggardness between her brows.

Arthur and Disraeli each moved a stool to sit opposite her, these two always talkative young people at this moment but rarely fell into silence, they both feel a kind of inexplicable embarrassment.

It was only then that they realized that accompanying a married woman to paint her portrait should have been done by her husband or lover, so what was it for them to stay here?

The artist gently lifted his brush and dipped it into the palette in his left hand, and made a few strokes on the canvas, occasionally raising his eyes to look at Mrs. Norton, and then falling headlong into an obsession with the art of painting.

In this state he should not have been aware of Arthur and Disraeli behind him.

But perhaps the atmosphere in the air is too cold and silent, even concentrated on the painting of the painter can not stand the reaction of these two, he stretched a lazy waist and spoke: “Let’s take a break, Mrs. Norton, you can now walk around, ease the stiff back, sitting too long, your body curves look a little unnatural. As for these two gentlemen sitting behind me, would you like me to bring you a cup of tea? It must be so boring just sitting around like this.”

Hearing this, Mrs. Norton also slowly stood up and spoke at Arthur and Disraeli with apologies, “Both of you gentlemen, although I would love to talk to you about the manuscript in between paintings, my back is really hurting too much, and I think that I should probably really go out and move around right now. Although it may not be appropriate for me to say this, after all, the two of you have been waiting for so long, but I think it may be a mistake to delay your precious time here, why don’t we talk about the manuscript some other time?”

“Manuscript?” The painter spoke, “Actually, it’s not a big deal for you guys to stay here and talk about it, ma’am, it’s just a matter of moving your mouth, this won’t actually affect the completion of my painting.”

Mrs. Norton sniffed in surprise, “So that’s it? I’m sorry, it’s my first time painting a portrait as well, I’m inexperienced.”

Arthur nodded and smiled, “Then let’s talk about it when we come back, you can go out and move around first, ma’am.”

Mrs. Norton nodded slightly, and then walked down the stairs step by step with the support of the manservant at the door.

Seeing Mrs. Norton walk away, the atmosphere in the drawing room began to come alive.

While turning the brush in his hand, the painter spoke, ”Mr. Hastings and Mr. Disraeli, right? Although it’s normal for a gentleman to accompany a lady to paint, it’s really rare to have two of them here at once, I thought only Italians and French people would be like this. Could it be that I have been away from Britain for too long, and now the customs of my beautiful homeland have changed?”

Hearing this, Disraeli just put up his finger and shook it, “Sir, please don’t misunderstand our relationship with Mrs. Norton, we are really just here to talk about the manuscript with her.”

The painter picked up the cup of coffee that was placed aside, “I hope so, but by the looks of the two of you, neither of you should be married yet, right?”

Arthur asked, “How do you see that?”

“It’s simple, just by the words of this gentleman sitting next to me just now, you two have revealed yourselves.”

“How?”

The painter smiled, sipped his coffee, and spoke, “Because only you unmarried boys want to talk business or reason with women in a serious manner, and let me tell you, if you want to get these lovely ladies to agree to something, being so formal or normal usually doesn’t work. I didn’t realize that until I got married.”

Disraeli wondered, “Did anything happen after you got married?”

“What happened? My God! Listen to what you’re saying!” The painter rolled his eyes, “Let’s just say you can’t even imagine how difficult it is to deal with my wife. She’ll often ask me a question, then answer it herself, and then later spend the next half hour explaining to me why my answer was wrong.”

Disraeli’s eyes popped when he heard this, “But didn’t you not answer?”

The painter warned, “Young man, if you get married in the future, you must not say that to your wife or her mouth won’t be idle for the next half hour, you know what I mean? She doesn’t care if you answered or didn’t answer, she simply wants to count on you being wrong, it’s totally up to her mood. If you know how to coax a woman, then she is simply the world’s most adorable angel, no matter how much you raise excessive requirements, she will agree with you. However, if you don’t have this ability, then even if you go up to the sky and pick a star for her, she will ask you why you don’t pick the moon, and after picking the moon she asks you why you don’t pick the sun ……”

Disraeli asked, “And what if I pick the star, the moon, and the sun?”

Arthur spoke up, “Then she’d say, Honey, why don’t you spend your picking these things time with me more?”

Hearing this, the painter couldn’t help but point at Arthur, “Young man, you’re a quick learner! It looks like your plans for today’s appointment will go well. In return, would you like to come to me for a portrait? While you’re still young and still have hair on your head, keep a souvenir for yourselves.”

Said here, the painter also did not forget to take out two business cards from his jacket pocket and handed them over.

Arthur looked down and saw that the content of the business cards was not particularly complicated, but the series of titles and experiences adorned in the iris pattern still made Arthur understand that the price of painting a portrait under this gentleman would not be too cheap, right?

Name: John Ertel
Born in Britain, studied in the Apennine master of portrait painting, will devote his life to the pursuit of the combination of man and nature of the Romantic painters.

At the age of fifteen, he held a private exhibition in Rome, and was praised by Sir Thomas Lawrence as the leader of the new generation of academics.

He was a lecturer in watercolor portraiture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, and is now Professor of Faint Colors at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and head and principal artist of the Eitel Studio.

Although Arthur didn’t know much about Romantic painters or the Academy of Fine Arts and Rome, as a not-so-authentic English gentleman, he still knew that anything on this island that was associated with royalty, regardless of its quality, was always not cheap.

Although Mr. Etel was all smiles, in Arthur’s eyes, it was as if the early-thirties, genteel, and highly sought-after artist was staring dead in the face of his not particularly generous bank account, ready to cut out a large portion of it at any time.

Though it was often said by the guys that works of art would continue to appreciate in value over time, especially when the artist died. But Arthur felt that Mr. Ertel still looked too young, and as a prudent investor, he would not pay most of his family’s assets to gamble on Mr. Ertel’s sudden and violent death.

Just as Arthur was pondering how to politely and unobtrusively rebuff the other party’s suggestion, Mrs. Norton, who had finished moving her stiff body, pushed open the door to the drawing room and resumed her seat.

Seeing this, Etel could only wink helplessly at Arthur, “Talk to you later, mark my words, you can now talk to Mrs. Norton about the manuscript.”

Disraeli, who had been taught by Aethel’s words, spoke first, “How are you feeling right now? Ma’am.”

Mrs. Norton was puzzled by Disraeli’s sudden question, but she still responded politely, “Thank you for your concern, after moving my body, I feel much better now.”

“So have you thought about writing some kind of novel on the subject?”

“Well ……,” Mrs. Norton said dumbfounded, “To be honest, there are quite a lot of things I want to write about lately. But if you were to ask me out of the blue, I wouldn’t really know where to start.”

Seeing this, Arthur suddenly smiled and spoke, “Actually, when Benjamin first asked me, I didn’t know what things to write about either. But at that time, he told me, just write about the things you are most familiar with and care about. And so it was that there is now this Hastings Mystery Book. Ma’am, if you don’t have a clue, why don’t you do what I did, and start with something you’re familiar with.”

Mrs. Norton maintained her smile while speaking, “Thank you for your advice, Mr. Hastings. But unfortunately, I cannot claim to be as learned and experienced as you. I’m just a common woman, as you can see, and I was married not long after I came of age at sixteen. My family had arranged a husband for me, but I chose my own, and ended up with the same fate as the women who were arranged. You have met the one in my family, I believe, who is a Justice of the Peace at Westminster; did you get on well with each other?”

Arthur felt only a little embarrassed when he heard this.

It would have been decidedly unsocial to follow straight on from Mrs. Norton’s words and denounce Mr. Norton as an unseemly villain.

But if he praised Mr. Norton, it would cause Mrs. Norton to resent him.

And most importantly, according to the latest information from the London Police Intelligence Service. Since Mr. and Mrs. Norton attended the Coburg concert together half a year ago, Mr. and Mrs. Norton’s relationship seemed to have eased, which was best evidenced by the fact that the couple, who had been separated for a long time, were living together again, so Arthur did not understand how Mr. and Mrs. Norton were able to get along with each other.
Therefore, Arthur did not understand whether the resentment in Mrs. Norton’s heart was still as big as it was half a year ago.

Moreover, the most strange thing for Arthur was that according to the information, Viscount Melbourne would still go to Norton’s house as a guest from time to time. And when Mr. Norton was not busy, he would also personally send his own wife to the Ministry of the Interior to talk about friendship with His Excellency the Viscount.

This kind of behavior, which was so marvelous that it was difficult for Arthur to understand, naturally pushed the twisted and complicated bizarre relationship between the three to a new level.

This kind of complicated to the extreme emotional connection was probably something that only Elder could stir up and understand.

But unfortunately, it was possible that Elder had already entered the mouth of the cannibals at this moment.

Under the uncertainty of the enemy situation, Arthur pondered for half a day, but finally decided to play it safe and chose a slightly euphemistic way of saying, “Although Mr. Norton was previously a senior lawyer, before he came back to be a judge, he had been focusing on parliamentary minutiae, and adapting to his new job will take a little bit of time, and in this regard, I can understand that. ”

This passage of Arthur’s speech both took care of Mrs. Norton’s face and went along with her wishes.

But what Arthur did not expect was that Mrs. Norton did not seem to intend to give Mr. Norton much face.

“Alas …… I knew it, the magistrate’s seat is not even hot, and the knowledge of the law that has been lost for several years has not yet been all picked up, and yet he is thinking of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office at this moment. This is just like the time he lost the election. Before his base was stabilized, he went to fight for the middle of the road. The result, in the end, is that he failed to pull in votes from both sides, and could only run back to London in disgrace and lash out at me.”

Mrs. Norton’s passage was just a complaint in the usual sense, but Arthur quickly extracted the key information, “Mr. Norton wants to go to the London District Attorney’s Office? Wow, I almost forgot, it seems that there is an intention to appoint a senior QC to act as the Director of Public Prosecutions over there. Since Mr. Norton can be appointed as a magistrate, this means that he has been practicing for more than seven years, so looking at it this way, it’s really not like he doesn’t have a chance.”

Mrs. Norton just shook her head, “No, Mr. Hastings, you don’t know him. He hasn’t done many cases in total in his seven years of practicing law, he’s just following his family’s arrangement to mix it up for seven years first and take the title of Queen’s Counsel. If he had worked his way up the ladder like you, I wouldn’t say a word. But the problem is, he’s not.

Ever since he became a magistrate, his greatest pleasure is to go around pulling strings with people. If he is allowed to become a prosecutor, he will definitely make a mess. However, it is such a simple thing that he has no self-awareness, which is simply ridiculous. More than once he had the cheek to ask me to beg William for him, and he even said those ugly things. You have no idea what he thinks of me, I am not a shameless person like him. Oh! My God! All this is stranger than fiction.”

At the end of her speech, Mrs. Norton, not forgetting to speak at Mr. Etel, said, “I beg you to add an emerald necklace and a couple of ruby rings to the portrait for me.”

Eitel froze at his words, “But, ma’am, you’re not wearing any of that jewelry today!”

Mrs. Norton gritted her teeth, “I know, I don’t have any of that jewelry either. But I feel like I’m going to die of anger sooner or later, and once I’m dead, it won’t be long before he’s sure to remarry. I’m going to make that new woman go crazy trying to find these jewels so that he can get his comeuppance. I swear, even if I die, I have to give him no peace!”

Hearing this, Arthur suddenly spoke up, “Ma’am, I think if you really do this, you might have to be hurt yourself before you hurt Mr. Norton. Not only that, but it might hurt Viscount Melbourne, too.”

Mrs. Norton sniffed, “Why is that?”

Arthur returned, “Think about it, you don’t have the jewelry, but the portrait is out. Mr. Norton, if he saw the painting, would surely say that the jewelry was given to you by someone else. This is not ……”

No sooner had Arthur said this than Mrs. Norton awoke as if from a dream, “Good heavens! Mr. Hastings, you’re right, I can’t do that. But …… if I don’t do something about it, I feel a little ungrateful ……”

When Arthur heard this, the corners of his mouth suddenly turned up, and he just smiled, “It’s nothing, haven’t you forgotten? You still have your pen. If you do meet with misfortune one day, we will find a way to publicize these things for you, of course, provided that you are willing.”

(End of chapter)