“And I said,” inserted Abigail, “then they ought to be worn by handsome gentlemen.” His sister threw up her hands. “And somehow that translated to Beatrix thinking her painted flowers would look best on lady’s clothing.”
“As I didn’t have time to paint my gown—”
“Surely you don’t intend to do that!” gasped his stepmother.
Beatrix frowned. “I didn’t have time,” she repeated.
Then Camile finished for him. “So she cut up her paintings and tried them all over her gowns with pins. We couldn’t agree on the best position—”
“Bodice!” said Abigail firmly.
“Skirt,” returned Camile.
“Hairpin,” said his stepmother.
“I thought I’d put them all on and let you decide,” Bea finished. Then she flashed a smile at Gwen. “And you, of course, but we didn’t know you were coming.”
“Very sensible,” Gwen said with a nod.
His father grunted. “And that’s what comes of letting ladies think.” He gestured at Bea. “My daughter covered head to toe in canvas.”
“Actually,” Jackson said as he really looked at his sister’s art. “I think that’s a very clever idea. Though I can’t believe you cut up your paintings.”
She shrugged. “They weren’t very good.”
He doubted that. She was an excellent artist, though he didn’t recall her working in oils before. That must be new. Meanwhile, he bent down and picked up one of the daffodils she’d dropped on the floor. Spinning it in his hands, he realized it was relatively stiff and yet still flexible enough to pin onto a dress. Lifting it up, he held it next to Gwen’s hair, then shifted it to somewhere near her bodice, before finally positioning it near her knees on her skirt. The effect was odd, but distinctive. Here was a way he could highlight the Lincolnshire daffodils without worrying about keeping them freshly watered in a pin vase.
“How many of these could you make?” he asked his sister.
“As many as you like,” she answered. “How long do I have?”
“They would have to be correctly drawn,” he said. He looked at Gwen. “Can you teach her that?”
“Yes.”
He grinned, then he turned to the room at large. “Never fear, family, we shall make a fortune from this for sure!”
Everyone gasped at that. Well, everyone but Gwen, who looked as if she never doubted a word he said, which he knew to be untrue. But it was his father who snorted out his disdain loud enough to silence everyone.
“Paint on canvas? Posies from daffodils? You’re mad,” the man said.
“No, father, I’m not.” His voice was hard. He didn’t want to have a confrontation with his father, not in front of everyone, but if the situation warranted it, then he would—
“Of course, you’re mad,” Gwen interrupted, her tone almost conversational.
He spun to her in shock. “What?”
She tilted her head as if surprised by his outrage. “Most experiments fail. More than 90%. Probably much more than that, but I haven’t any way to measure it beyond my own work. Given that truth, it is madness to believe anything would succeed.”
“See!” his father inserted. “Even she says your plan will fail.”
“I didn’t say that,” Gwen returned. She spoke without heat—as if she were speaking about the way to grow a tree—and because of that, her voice carried weight. “Given the rate of failure, only a madman would attempt anything new. And yet without madmen, nothing new would ever get done. I don’t know that we’d have invented the wheel, much less carriages and mills. Who thought it would be a good idea to try to sit on a wild horse? Or tame a wolf until generations later we have dogs? Only madmen, I assure you. And we are all the better for it.”
His father folded his arms and glowered. “It’s still a fool’s choice to spend good money on such a thing. Canals,” he said with a thump on the armrest of his chair. “Now there’s a proven idea.”
No one could argue that. It was a well-established business. “I don’t own a canal,” Jackson said into the silence. “I own daffodils.”
“I own them,” his father stressed.