Lady with A LUTE
THE STORY SO FAR: Northern England, 1570. During the suppression of a rebellion against the Protestant Queen Elizabeth, Lizzy Goode’s artist father lost many friends and the freedom to practise his Catholic faith. A fleeting visit from Monsieur Durand, a French artist, is a welcome distraction. Over dinner, Edgar, her father’s assistant, stops Lizzy from discussing a gown belonging to a French gentlewoman, whose portrait her father painted 10 years earlier. After a strained trip to the village the next day, Lizzy and Edgar arrive back to find the cook, Martha, and maid, Sally, in distress. Lizzy’s father has been in a terrible state since the Frenchman’s departure. Edgar goes to investigate. Later Lizzy finds both men looking at the very gown she’d wanted to discuss. It should be in France. Her father orders Lizzy to forget its existence, accuses Edgar of treachery and, in a fit of terrible fury, collapses to the floor.
![f085-01](https://article-imgs.scribdassets.com/62rtivy88wa6sf22/images/fileAXDC1L3F.jpg)
Lizzy’s father was a large, heavyset man. It took the whole household to carry him to his bedchamber. Sally hurriedly lit candles and drew the curtains, while Martha, the cook, dabbed a cooling cloth at her master’s forehead, promising broth as soon as ever he could take it.
Lizzy looked on in consternation, wondering how a gown, no matter how sumptuous, could cause such trouble? She glanced at Edgar, who seemed to be in despair over her father. But she had no sympathy for him. He had stopped her
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