A Mad, Wicked Folly (5 page)

I just received your letter. I’m sorry you were
punished for posing, but don’t say I didn’t warn
you. I only hope the penalty wasn’t too harsh.

I apologize for not replying to your letter
swiftly, but the spring light was too good to miss
and the boys and I went off into the countryside to
paint. Étienne tried to find a goat so we could take
a stab at replicating Hunt’s The Scapegoat, but all
we could find was an old donkey, and he wouldn’t
keep still long enough to let us draw one whisker!

As far as your letter of reference goes, one
from me wouldn’t do you much good as I never
completed the course. Monsieur Tondreau would
be the better choice, but he left just after you did
to visit his sister, who is ill. I don’t know where
she lives. Étienne says maybe Paris but he isn’t
certain. Monsieur might be back in a month or
so, but that’s probably not soon enough for you.

Bertram’s gift was the sketch he had done of me on the
day I posed.
In the drawing, I sat on a chair on the artist’s dais, with
one leg tucked under the other, leaning forward with my
elbow on my leg, my chin in one hand, looking out at my
fellow artists. The expression he had drawn on my face
was one of contentment and strength. Did he really see me
that way?
I dropped my head against the headboard and stared
out at my room. My mother had not yet turned her redecorating attention here. It still had the same dark, fanciful
furniture of my childhood; drawings and paintings I had
made through the years festooned the doors of my wardrobe. Pinned onto the corner of a pastel sketch I had done
of a fishmonger’s cart was the RCA leaflet. I should just
throw it in the rubbish. Throw it all in the rubbish. But I
couldn’t bring myself to.
A chance for a different life. Just a chance was all I
asked. If I got into the RCA, maybe my mother would see I
had talent to be an artist and talk my father round. Maybe,
just like with Freddy, Father would think my art success
was his own making.
But how could I get near the RCA to apply when my
mother had me on a short lead, like a dancing bear in a
circus?
Then I swung my feet to the ground and sat up. Heart
thudding in my ears and hope shooting through me like
quicksilver, I fetched my art satchel from my wardrobe
and slung it over my shoulder.
My mother might have forbidden me to walk out the
front door.
But she had said nothing about the window.

I clung to the ancient wisteria vine and
tried not to look down. A branch under my left
boot snapped, and I scrambled against the wall. The trellis

creaked. Of course, I had timed my climb out of the window badly and now my skirt was caught above me on my
bedroom-window latch, frillies on show for all the world to
see if they cared to look up.

I stifled a whimper and reached up to pat around the
window ledge, trying to find the end of the skirt. I had to
do something quickly, or I could possibly hang there forever with the breeze whistling round my underthings.

I yanked on the garment as hard as I could until it
ripped. I hoped it wasn’t too badly rent. It wouldn’t do to
pitch up at the RCA with my skirt in tatters.

I climbed down as far as I could and then jumped the
rest of the way. The impact with the ground caused me to
stumble and I sat down hard.

That was when I saw our gardener, Harold, with clippers hoisted midchop over the privet hedge, his mouth
open wide in bewilderment.

“Oh!” I said from my seat on the ground.
“Afternoon, Miss Darling,” he mumbled.
Blast!
How long had he been there? How much had he

seen? The look on his face told me he had seen everything.
His ruddy, weather-beaten features were even redder than
usual. His glance traced from me to my window, where a
long streamer of lace hung out, billowing in the wind.

I looked at my skirt missing its wide lace edging.
I didn’t care about the skirt, but I might as well have
left a calling card for my mother telling her exactly how I
had escaped.
With as much dignity as I could muster, I struggled to
my feet, waved at Harold, and ran.

BY THE TIME
I reached a busier street where I could flag a
cab, I was panting like a hound, and my side ached. I found
a hansom cab and directed the driver to the Royal College
of Art.

The school surprised me. It was housed inside what
appeared to be an unimposing building, hardly the sort
of place where great artists would be nurtured. But on the
inside it was magical. In the anteroom, honored paintings
from former students hung from floor to ceiling. I stopped
to scan the paintings, and my eyes lit on one I hadn’t
seen before that looked inspired by the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood.

The PRB was a small group of Victorian artists famous
for painting women from myth and story. Waterhouse,
the painter of
A Mermaid
, was an inheritor of their legacy. I admired them so, and I longed to paint like them,
but I wanted to portray men in myth and legend instead
of women.

This painting before me appeared to be inspired by
John Everett Millais’s
Ophelia
. Millais, one of the PRB
founders, had portrayed Shakespeare’s character floating
in her watery grave, but in this one, the painter had chosen
to depict the doomed Ophelia running toward the stream.
He had caught the movement of the devastated girl and the
light that fell upon her hair beautifully.

I stepped closer to the work to inspect the brushstrokes.
The sunlight streaming through the trees was filled with so
many different colors. It was astonishing. How did he do
that? This painting illustrated perfectly the reason why I
had to attend the RCA. I wanted to know what this artist
knew.

Footsteps came from the back of the room. I turned
around to see a balding man dressed in a morning suit and
spectacles walking quickly toward me. He looked annoyed,
as though I had interrupted him in some important task.
“We aren’t open for viewing today, miss.” He held his hand
out toward the door. “If you’ll just come back on Saturday,
we’re open to the public from morning to teatime.”

“No, no. I . . . I’ve . . .” My face blushed hotly. “I’ve not
come to view, although the paintings here are extraordinary. I’ve come to inquire about the application process.
And the scholarship,” I hastened to add, seeing the growing look of disinterest on his face. “I’m just inquiring as to
when I can submit my sketchbook. I, uh, have it here if I can
submit now.” I fumbled for it in my art satchel, and held it
out to him. To my dismay, my hand trembled. “Um . . . what
do I do?” I broke off. I sounded so daft, and not at all like
the sophisticated artist I wanted to appear.

His gaze flickered to my book briefly and then away.
“The application window is not open.”
“Oh,” I said. I pulled my sketchbook back and clutched
it to my side, embarrassed.
“It opens in April. All work must be submitted for
consideration by the end of April, along with a letter of
reference from an instructor or one from an artist alumnus
of the school.” He regarded me over his half-moon spectacles. “I should warn you, though, we only accept very
serious students of the highest quality. This school turns
out professional artists. If you plan to get married and
have children, this may be a waste of time for you. Perhaps
you should discuss things further with your parents to see
what would be best for your future.” He inclined his head
and started to leave.
Before I knew what I was doing, my hand shot out and
grabbed his arm. His eyes widened.
“I do apologize, sir,” I said, finding my voice, even though
it wobbled. “I plan on completing my course of study, and I
very much look forward to attending the school. I’m quite
serious about my work and someday I plan to see it hanging here among the works of these alumni. And not high
up, sir, where no one will notice it. Right on the line of
sight, in pride of place.”
Goodness gracious, where did all that come from? I
didn’t give a fig because the look of disinterest fell from
his face, and now he was listening. “Now, what is required
for submission?” I let go of his arm. My voice cracked, and
tears of frustration were only an inch away.
“I have some information I can give you.” The gentleman went out of the room and then came back with a
leaflet in his hand. “This explains it all. You must drop off
what’s listed by the date there. We’ll review it and then
contact you if you’ve been chosen to sit for the examination. My name is Mr. Earnshaw. If you have any problems,
ask for me.”
“Thank you.”
“I wish you the best of luck, Miss . . . ?”
“Darling. Victoria Darling.”
“Miss Darling. And I do look forward to seeing your
work hanging amongst our alumni’s.”
“On the line.” This time I did smile.
“Of course,” he said, smiling back at me. “Wherever
else?”
“Good day, Mr. Earnshaw.”
“Miss Darling, just before you go,” he said. “Present the
best work you have. I’m not on the selection committee,
but as I said, they are very critical where women are concerned. You must put your best foot forward.”
“I shall,” I said, and then bade him good day and left.
Outside, I took a deep breath and blew it out in relief.
My knees were shaking, so I found a bench in a tiny garden
nearby, and sank onto it to rest for a moment and read the
leaflet:

All work submitted must have been
produced within three years and dated.
Only genuine sketchbooks and notebooks
will be considered; loose sketches will be
disregarded.

False statements made will result in
disqualification.
If invited to the interview and
examination, you will be requested to
bring further work with you.

I stuffed the leaflet and my sketchbook into my satchel.
With all that was required, what if my studio drawings
weren’t enough? Only one woman was selected for a
scholarship.
Put your best foot forward
, Mr. Earnshaw had
said. The paintings from the alumni were so good, so wellcrafted and inspired. The way that artist caught the light.
And then the awful voice inside me began to whisper:
You
don’t know how to do that
.
How will your work measure up?
And then my mother’s voice chimed in:
What makes you
think you have the talent? . . . Preposterous, preposterous,
preposterous
.

I couldn’t think this way. Monsieur Tondreau and
Bertram believed in me. I must believe in myself.
I had, what was it? Five weeks or so before the window
closed. I would just have to put my shoulder to the wheel
and produce more work. Starting immediately. I wished I
had subjects like the absinthe woman in France. I needed
something compelling, something fiery and bold, something that would make the panel feel what my subjects felt.
If I could make them feel, then they would sit up and take
notice.
Suddenly I remembered the suffragettes. I stood up and
started walking. If anything fit into the category of compelling, the suffragettes and the crowd that came to gawk
did. I could draw the police constables, the passersby, the
suffragettes themselves. A whole litany of subjects was
there for the taking. Freddy said they picketed Parliament
every day. I wasn’t far from Parliament.
I stepped into the street and waved down a hansom
cab.

HEARD THE NOISE
even before reaching Parliament.
Half of London must have been there. When I stepped
out of the cab and drew closer, I saw the crowd was
made up mostly of rough-looking men who didn’t
appear to be interested in women’s suffrage. More men

poured up the pavement from all directions. A few women
hurried past with downcast faces, towing their children
along. Some crossed the street to avoid the spectacle.

“Go home where you belong!” a sneering man shouted
at me.
I stepped back, unsure.
“Shut your mouth and leave her be!” said a pinch-faced
woman standing in a group of other women. She waved
her hand to me: come along.
Smiling my thanks, I joined the women and found a
place out of the way of the men, next to the railing. I pulled
out my pad and looked through it to find a blank page.
The words of Monsieur Tondreau filled my mind.
Draw
what you see,
ma chère
, not what you know.
I made some
quick sweeps with my pencil, warming up, getting the
measure of the crowd. I began to lose myself in the work,
and my mind settled.
“Are you drawing that for the newspaper, for
Votes for
Women
?” A teenage girl wearing a straw boater peered
over my shoulder.
“It’s just a sketch.” I turned my pad away from her. I
didn’t like people to look at my sketches while I was working. Especially strangers.
“I wish I could draw,” the girl said, and then she brightened. “I’m in the poster parades though. We wear sandwich
boards and march in a line together singing songs. It’s ever
such a lark. So
are
you drawing that for the paper?”
An older woman standing next to her glanced around.
“Margaret, don’t be so beaky.”
The girl shrugged. “I’m only asking, Mum.”
“Don’t know how Miss Pankhurst will be heard over
this din,” her mother grumped.
“Miss Pankhurst?” I said. “Do you mean Christabel
Pankhurst?”
“That’s why so many people are about, to hear her
speak. She’ll be along in a moment.”
I could not believe my luck. Having such a famous figure in my sketchbook would be a boon.
“Come along, Margaret. Let’s get closer.” Margaret’s
mother took her hand and set off. As I watched her tow her
daughter through the crowd, I couldn’t help but think how
strange it would be for my mother to bring me to such an
event.
The area around me began to fill, so I stepped back into
an empty space next to a woman standing alone. I recognized her from the group of suffragettes I had seen the day
I arrived home. She was the middle-class woman who had
been handing out leaflets. Up close I saw she was young,
probably no more than a year or two older than me. She
peeped out from under the brim of a hideous felt hat with
wide eyes that made her look a little like a startled mouse.
When she stepped to one side, I saw that a long iron chain
trailed out from under her coat, the ends padlocked to the
railings of the fence.
I was taken aback. “Is that a chain?”
She grinned widely. “It is indeed.” She spoke in a flat
accent.
“You’re American.”
“So?” Despite her small size, she had an air of fierceness about her.
I turned my pencil around and around in my fingers. “I
don’t meet many Americans. Are you visiting?”
“I’m here for school. I was working for the vote in
America, so I picked up the cause here when I arrived last
year. But it makes no difference what nationality I fight
for. It’s the same war to me.” She studied me for a moment,
glancing from my face down to my sketch pad.
“Why the chain?”
“The prime minister made it unlawful to loiter last
week, so the police try to move us on if we stop and give
a speech. If I’m chained, and there’s no key for that lock,
they can’t force me off very easily.”
“Why doesn’t Christabel chain herself, as she is the one
giving the speech?”
“Because she’ll get arrested. The police arrest anyone
who obstructs the pavement. And Christabel can’t do the
work she needs to do in jail. She’s too valuable. If the police
come, the girls over there make sure she gets away. I’ll
gladly get pinched in her place.”
“Why?”
“Going to jail is our way to wrong-foot the law. We’re
denied the rights of being citizens, so we have to be outlaws and rebels. The newspapers used to ignore us, but
now they can’t. Our names and the circumstances of
our arrest are written in the newspapers the next day.
Or course, they’re as prejudiced against us as you can
imagine, but all publicity is good publicity for our cause.
And because of this we’re willing to pay the price for our
actions. You see?”
“I suppose,” I replied, just to be polite. I couldn’t begin
to imagine why anyone would want to put herself in harm’s
way for any reason. To volunteer to go to prison seemed
extreme.
“My name is Lucy. What’s yours?” she said.
I hesitated. “Victoria,” I finally said, omitting my
surname.
“Like Queen Victoria?”
“Yes.”
She looked at my sketchbook again. “Are you going to
join the WSPU?”
“I’ve only come to draw.” I turned my attention back to
my sketch. “I’m an artist.”
“Well, this is your lucky day. We have need of artists,”
she said. “Cristabel’s sister Sylvia is recruiting artists to
assist her with a grand mural for the Women’s Exhibition
in May. I’ve been helping with it and I’m sure she’d welcome you.”
“I appreciate the invitation, but I’m very busy just
now.” I admired the suffragettes’ conviction, and certainly
believed in women’s suffrage, but I had little time to join
such an organization. And besides, my father would have
a fit of apoplexy if I became a suffragette.
Furthermore, an artist had to focus, and that left little time for anything else. It didn’t matter if I joined the
suffragettes anyway. One woman more or less would not
make a difference.
“So you’re the type of girl who lets the rest of us do the
heavy lifting while you sit back and reap the rewards,”
Lucy said matter-of-factly.
“I beg your pardon! You don’t know what you’re talking
about.” I glanced around for another place to stand, away
from her questions, but there was nowhere to go in the
crush of people.
“Christabel Pankhurst always says that women who
aren’t willing to fight for the vote are unworthy of it.”
“I agree with the WSPU, I really do,” I said. “You don’t
have to convince me.” I shifted under her frank gaze. “I
told you, I’m very busy. I’m applying to the RCA and I have
a great deal to do to get ready for the exam. Maybe I can
donate some money or some such.”
“Sylvia went to the RCA. Said the principal hated
women.”
My shoulders hunched up. I pressed my mouth closed
and bent to my drawing.
“I do apologize,” she said, not sounding sorry in the
least. “I’ve been told I’m a bit pushy sometimes.” She pulled
loose a small pin from her jacket. “Maybe you’ll accept this
gift.” She reached over and fastened it to the lapel of my
coat, giving the pin an emphatic tap with the tips of her
fingers. “I hope you’ll wear it proudly.”
I pulled my lapel up and looked at it. It was an enameled striped shield with WSPU stamped on the top and the
phrase
deeds not words
written underneath.
“If you want to make a
donation
, when you have the
time
, bring it to the headquarters.” She handed me a leaflet.
“Clement’s Inn, just off the Strand.”
Without looking at it, I shoved the pamphlet into my
sketchbook, and turned away from Lucy.
What an annoying know-all!
“Here she comes!” someone from the crowd shouted.
I stood on my tiptoes and craned my neck for a better
look. The crowd near the Members’ Entrance had parted
to allow a dainty woman through. Several women flocked
around her, protecting her. One set a wooden parlor chair
down and helped her up onto it so that the crowd could see
her better.
“There she is,” Lucy said, rapt.
I began a quick sketch. Christabel Pankhurst was even
prettier in person than in her photos. She was dressed in a
coral-colored lace frock with a wide sash across one shoulder. The sash read
Women’s Social and Political
Union
. She had a sweet appearance, with delicate features and curly brown hair that framed her face. But her
countenance was not sweet. She glowered down at the
restless crowd. Several men moved up to stand in front
of her, arms folded and faces grim. Another man leaned
against the railing right to the side of her with a sneer upon
his face. If she was afraid of them, she did not show it.
And then her stalwart expression collapsed, changing
to one of dismay. I turned around and saw a square black
wagon pulled by two dray horses approaching.
“Here come the coppers,” Lucy said under her breath.
“And they didn’t even give her a chance to speak.”
The women around Christabel closed ranks. Two helped
her down from the chair; another threw a cloak over her
head and bundled her off toward Westminster Bridge. The
pinch-faced woman and the others followed. Margaret and
her mother hurried away toward Old Palace Yard.
“You’d better scarper,” Lucy said to me. “Quickly,
unless you want to get arrested, and I doubt that you do.”
But I did not heed her. I had entered the fervor that
gripped me whenever I saw something I wanted to draw. It
was always the same. It was as if something possessed me
and forced me to capture the scene unfolding in front of
me. I began a new sketch of the police van, hurrying to lay
down the structure of the van and to portray the essence
of the placid nature of the horses, so at odds with the ominous conveyance they pulled.
The doors at the back of the van flew open, and several constables jumped out. One of them hung back, an
expression on his face as though he was embarking upon a
distasteful task. He was a lot younger than the other constables, maybe only eighteen or nineteen, but he had the
air of someone much more mature. He cut a very masculine figure in his uniform, with the dark-blue trousers and
the long five-button tunic. He looked familiar. I had seen
him before somewhere.
I began to draw his profile in the corner of the page.
He had strong facial features, with a long jawline and
high cheekbones. The police constable had an expression
of strength, but there was a vulnerability about him that
appealed to me. He would have made a wonderful model
for heroic poses, like Michelangelo’s
David
. I could picture
him as David, standing tall, holding the slingshot over his
shoulder, as if waiting quietly for the chance to unleash
the rock against an enemy that was stronger than he. (But
without the stupid tin fig leaf!)
I smiled and glanced up from my sketch. The constable
was staring at me, a look upon his face as if he knew me. I
recognized who he was, then. He was the young constable
who had rolled up the poster and handed it to Lucy.
With an exasperated tsk, Lucy shoved me away from
her. “Go!”
I tripped forward, and the pencil skittered across my
drawing, marking the sketch.
She faced the crowd. “The government levies taxes
upon women as well as men, but women have no say in
how that money is spent,” she shouted out, her voice calm
and steady. “How can we if we are unable to express our
opinions by casting a vote? This is taxation without representation. America, my own country, raised arms against
its sovereign for such treatment. Now women of both
Britain and America are feeling their backs against the
wall and we are not willing to submit tamely and without
protest to political tyranny—”
“Oi, love!” a man wearing a bowler hat and a long canvas duster shouted. “You know what they say . . . hell hath
no fury like a woman scorned!”
“Nay, sir, hell hath no fury like a woman denied her
God-given rights!” Lucy put the heckler in his place with
barely a pause. “Women of the nation have made crystal
clear—”
“Clear as mud, I’d say!” the same man shouted. Others
nearby laughed.
Lucy was undaunted; she leaned forward, warming
to the task. “Listen with your ears then, sir, and not your
eyes!”
“Wouldn’t do any good, lass!” the man shouted out.
“I should think not. I feel sorry for your poor wife if
you give her the same attention as you’re giving me.”
“He hasn’t got a wife!” another man near him said.
“No woman will have him, eh?” Lucy’s smile took the
sting from her barb, and gales of the crowd’s laughter covered the man’s sheepish retort. “Now, gentlemen, if I may
carry on entertaining you with my fine speech.”
Lucy darted her eyes at the approaching constables,
registering them for only a moment before turning her
attention back to the crowd, which had increased greatly.
More men had joined the fray—so many that they spilled
out into the road, creating a traffic snarl, forcing omnibuses
and cabs to trundle round them.
Lucy leaned casually against the railings, as though
she didn’t have a worry in the world “Working women and
women in the home are in special need of the vote’s protection. After all, legislation interferes with our interests just
as much as, or maybe even more than, it does with men’s.”
A burly constable with muttonchop whiskers reached
the scene first. He stepped in front of Lucy, blocking the
crowd’s view of her. “All right, that will be enough,” he
said. “So your leader’s done a bunk and left you to it, eh,
lass?” He took hold of the chain and rattled it against the
railing, pulling at it to test its strength. His eyes traveled
the length of the chain to where it ended under Lucy’s coat.
“Unlock this tackle now, there’s a good girl.”
Lucy slid away, as far the chain would allow, to the next
section of railing. “As I was saying, we want the government to remove the sex disability which deprives qualified
women of their just right to vote on the same terms enjoyed
by men.”
The constable shifted back in front of her. “Enough
with that codswallop! I’ll ask you one more time. Unlock
the tackle.”
She wagged her finger, smiling prettily at him. “Don’t
be rude. I haven’t finished my speech.”
But Lucy’s humor had no effect on the constable; in
fact it appeared to stoke some fury within him. He towered over her, his face filled with hatred, and I wondered
for a moment if he would strike her. Lucy’s calm demeanor
cracked. She took another step away, but there was no
slack remaining in the chain.
“If you won’t give us the key then we’ll just take the
chain off you!” he said. “I know you’ve a belt buckled
round you underneath your kit. Think I won’t strip you
starkers to get to it? Is that what you want? ’Cause that’s
what’ll happen.” He grabbed her hips and his huge fingers
fumbled with the dainty feminine buttons on her skirt.