A Few Right Thinking Men by Sulari Gentill Read Free Book Online

to one side as she considered the picture as a whole. “I think you need to put in a couple more figures.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œHere, and here.” She pointed to two spots on the canvas. “You have the Communists here and the New Guardsmen facing them in opposition. But there were others there too…ordinary people who were somewhere between the two. It won’t be complete without the people in the middle.”
    Rowland stepped back and considered his work. The people in the middle. He thought of Alcott. Yes, she was right. “What would I do without you, Ed?”
    â€œNothing worth hanging, anyway.”
    He grinned as he picked up his brush and started dabbing at the mess of colour on his palette.
    Milton sauntered in, fussing with the cuffs of a cream jacket he had paired with a red brocade waistcoat and cravat. He carried a pale buckskin fedora with a jaunty feather stuck into its band. Where and how Milton procured his idiosyncratic apparel was a mystery to his friends. The poet had his own contacts. Rowland assumed there was an insane, colour-blind tailor among them.
    â€œOh, you’re still at it.” Milton kept well clear of Rowland and the paint, lest his immaculate attire be spattered. He pointed vaguely toward the dining room. “Breakfast is served. Are we ready to partake, wot? Those cooks, how they pound, and strain and grind, and turn substance into accident, to fulfill all your greedy appetites.”
    â€œChaucer,” Rowland said, without taking his eyes from his canvas. “Tell Mary I’ll eat later.”
    Milton nodded. “You coming, Ed? Clyde’s working too. Don’t make me eat alone.”
    Rowland worked through the morning. Absorbed, he didn’t notice the time. Clyde came in at some stage to borrow some viridian blue and Rowland could hear Edna and Milton in the conservatory. It was where Edna sculpted the clay models she’d use to make castings for her bronzes. Despite the tragedy of the previous evening, the morning seemed almost normal.
    ***
    It was afternoon when Rowland finally cleaned his brushes. His brother had arranged to meet him at four. Johnston, the chauffeur, was to meet the train at Central Station at two-thirty with the Rolls. Wilfred Sinclair had some business in the city he needed to attend to first, but Rowland knew he wouldn’t be late. Wilfred was never late.
    Rowland showered and changed, going through several shirts and waistcoats before he found one free of paint, and only then did he wander into the kitchen in search of food. Mary Brown shooed him out, sighing repeatedly, and banishing him to the dining room while she reheated the meal he’d earlier missed.
    His stomach settled, he stuck his head into the sunroom where Clyde painted.
    â€œWhat’s your hurry?’ Clyde began, tapping his pocket watch in case it had stopped. It read just half-past two and the elder Rowland Sinclair’s house was not far.
    â€œI thought I’d have a chat to Mrs. Donelly—the housekeeper—before Wil arrives,” Rowland explained. “The poor old thing might have calmed down by now and have something to say.”
    â€œThe police didn’t get anything useful out of her.”
    â€œYes, but she knows me…has for years. She might be able to remember something if I ask her.”
    â€œWould you like a mate?” Clyde asked, a little too eagerly.
    â€œNo. You finish your commission…the sooner you get that blasted harridan out of my house, the happier we’ll all be.”
    Clyde sighed. A struggling artist could hardly turn down commissions, but the wealthy subject of his current work had few redeeming qualities. The portrait was taking Clyde much longer than usual because he was struggling to balance accuracy with his artistic desire to produce something pleasing to the eye. “It’s hopeless,” he said, despondent. “Its only value as a portrait is