MR AND MRS ANDREWS – a totally untrue story

‘Did you say something, Eloise? You need to speak up sometimes.’

‘However, when I do, you tell me to stop my caterwauling.’

Richard sighs. Seconds tick by. ‘So, what did you say?’

‘I asked when our coachman said he would return for us. We seem to have been waiting an age.’

‘About four, but I suspect that hour has gone. And before you ask me to pull out my fob watch I have already discovered that my valet forgot to wind it this morning. The man is an idiot.’

‘Return him to the footmen’s ranks then.’

‘I intend to do that.’

‘Perhaps our driver also needs to be disciplined – perhaps with a spell of mucking out the stables.’ Eloise’s frown deepens. ‘This wait is intolerable. I should be comfortably indoors sipping tea.’

‘Elouise, I won’t have him shovelling ordure, he is too good a driver. I doubt he’s put the landau in a ditch, but perhaps there’s been an accident. Or one of the horses is lame. Whatever the cause, he is now absent. So, we must start walking, or risk getting damnably wet.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Look at those clouds, growing darker by the minute. The wind is coming from that quarter.  You’d realise that if you ever spent more time in the garden than it takes to pick lavender and rosebuds.’

‘I’m a lady! What would you have me do? Spend my days digging potatoes?’

Richard shrugs, hoists his gun and clicks his tongue at the dog.  ‘Come!’ he says.

But my shoes,’ Eloise wails. ‘They’ll be ruined.’

Richard takes in the pale silk slippers peeking out from beneath the sweep of her powder blue skirt. ‘At least the wardrobe needed for gardening would cost me less than your current ensemble. Buck up, Eloise!  A mile or two of exercise won’t harm us.’

‘Speak for yourself!’ snaps his wife as she rises and walks off towards their distant manor house. She wobbles a little as she turns to fling irritation at him. ‘Why can’t we spend more time in London where there are more vehicles, more safety, more people to ask for assistance?

As a veil of rain approaches, cold drops begin to wet her bare shoulders. The lane is rutted and lumpy. Her shoes are indeed too flimsy. Robert can see mud stains already.    

He knows what her next retort will be.  ‘I hate it here!’ she shouts.’ He lets her go ahead, her gait stiff with outrage. Best just to let her words drift over him. He pats his dog’s head. At least this companion will offer no complaints. ©

Mr and Mrs Andrews – The True Story

This couple would have been very displeased if they could have known that long after their 18^th century portrait was painted by an up-and-coming artist called Gainsborough, I would cheekily give them new names and make up a fake conversation for them.

In real life they were Robert and Frances Andrews and they were very rich. They lived in a time when wealthy English people liked to impress others by commissioning portraits that showed their high status.  Her voluminous gown is a clue, for that shade of blue was extremely costly.

Gainsborough set the couple to the side of the canvas to encourage our eyes to drift over their vast Suffolk acreage. Paintings like this were known as ‘conversation pieces’ and showed couples or groups of friends posed in similarly grand environments. They were the influencers of their day.

The Andrews’ wedding was likely to have been more a business arrangement then a love match.  She was 16. He was 22. Both their families were well off and marrying had made them richer still. They weren’t aristocrats, more landed gentry. People like them owned most of England. A grim law called the Land Enclosure Act had enabled the wealthy to snap up communal land that had previously belonged to generations of small farmers. The Andrews’ assets were built from many sources – shipping, silversmithing, money lending, textiles.

The grand house they lived in was nearby but out of sight in this picture. It was the land that mattered. Labourers who worked the fields are also invisible.

I have played with the idea that the Andrews awaiting transport rather than being patient sitters for an artist, but in real life they would probably have posed for Gainsborough inside, out of the weather, so he could later insert them into the landscape. Both look bored and supercilious.   

The painting, probably commissioned soon after their marriage, is unfinished. Note the empty beige gap on her lap. Art historians have suggested many reasons for that blank spot – perhaps a book, a puppy, flowers or even a baby to represent Frances’s future children, for bearing babies was her wifely duty. She would comply in future years, delivering nine infants.  Perhaps her glum expression hints that she would have preferred a different destiny.

Mr and Mrs Andrews, Thomas Gainsborough, 1750, the National Gallery, London.