Growing Pains (21 page)

I found living quarters next to the churchyard. My host was a maker of antiques; he specialized in battering up and defacing old ship’s figure-heads and grandfather clocks. Six grandfathers higgledy-piggledyed their ticks in my sitting-room. When they all struck high-count hours simultaneously your hands flew to your ears, and your head flew out the window.

My window opened directly onto the cobblestoned street with no mediating sidewalk. Heavy shoes striking cobblestones clattered, clattered day and night.

Student heads, wrapped in student grins, thrust themselves through my window announcing, “We are about to call!” Then I rushed like a flurried hen to protect “the complete beach.” This object was an enormous mahogany and glass cabinet in which was displayed everything nautical except a mermaid—shells, coral, seaweed, fish-bones, starfish, crabs—all old and brittle as eggshell. My foot and that of every student who called on me itched to thrust through the prominent glass corporation of this rounded glass monster, to crush, to crackle. My hosts, the Curnows, valued the thing highly. When a student warned through the window, I pushed the six straight-backed leather chairs whose leather laps
were usually under the big mahogany dining-table (as if the chair feet had corns and were afraid of having them tramped on) and circled the chairs, round “the complete beach.” The room was not any too large. What with this massive furniture, a fireplace, the cat and me in it, it was over-full.

My bedroom was marvellous! You reached it through an ascending streak of black between two walls. The treads were so narrow that they taught your toes the accuracy of fingertips on a keyboard. But glory dawned when I opened my bedroom door. Two large windows overlooked the sea. In the centre of the room stood an enormous bed—mahogany, carved with dolphins galloping on their tails. Mrs. Curnow told me this treasure-antique was built in the room by Pa Curnow himself. It would have sold many times over, only it had been built in the room, and could never be moved because no door, no window, certainly not our stair, would have permitted the passage of its bulk! There were four posts to the bed and a canopy of pink cotton. I was solemnly warned not to lay so much as a pocket handkerchief across the foot-board for fear of scratching or otherwise defacing a dolphin. Even on the side-boards dolphins galloped. I had to taut myself, run and vault in order to avoid touching one, when at night I retired to rest on the hard unbouncy mattress. Beside the bed there was little else in the room—a meagre washstand, a chair, a clothes closet set in the wall. The closet contained all the family’s “best.” This is a Cornish way; rental of a room does not include its cupboards.

My Curnow family were reputed the cleanest folk in St. Ives because for years they had threatened to install a bath in their house. No other family had gone that far. I bargained for a hot wash once a week. The three women, mother and two girls who would never see forty again, gravely consulted. It could be managed, they said
mournfully, but Saturday was always an anxious and disturbed day for the Curnow family.

Ma tip-toed into my room after supper and, carefully shutting the door, whispered, “The cauldron, Miss, it is heated to wash your feet.”

She would not have allowed “the girls” to hear mention of such a thing as a bath. No one suspected me of such indecency as taking an “all-over”! The tin foot-bath was set as far as possible from the dolphins, who were draped in pink calico for the event. Greatest secrecy was exercised in getting the bath down the dark stair and through the kitchen without old Curnow or a visitor seeing. The girls frankly admitted they preferred men lodgers. If they must bathe they did it in the sea.

When storms came the whole St. Ives Bay attacked my room with fury and with power. The house was built partly on the sea-wall, and waves beat in thuds that trembled it. The windows, of heavy bottle-glass stoutly braced, were dimmed with mazed green lights. I was under the sea. Sea poured over my roof, my windows were translucent, pouring green, which thinned, drew back receding in a boil of foam, leaving me amazed that the house could still be grounded. Water raced up the alley between the graveyard wall and our house, curled over the cobble-street to meet the flood pouring over the low roof-top of the house on the other side of ours. We were surrounded by water. Privies, perched on the sea wall, jaunted gaily off into the bay. Miles inland bundles of white fluff, dry as wool, clung to the trees; it was beaten foam, carried inland by tearing wind. These storms were, of course, exceptional but there was usually breeze in St. Ives, though she had many, many bright, glistening days—sea sparkling, air clear, mud flats glowing.

Tides ruled the life of the town and of the fishermen. All night lanterns bobbed, men shouted, boats clattered over cobbles, cats prowled the moonlight, their eyes gleaming.

The Irish girl Hilda and I were warm friends. Outdoors we did not work together—she was for sea, I for land. But we hired fisher children to pose for us in the evenings, working by a coal-oil lamp in my sitting-room. The boy students jeered at our “life class” but they dropped in to work with us off and on.

The atmosphere of Julius Olsen’s studio was stimulating. He inspired us to work. He was specially nice to his boy students, inviting them up to his own fine studio on the hill, showing them his great seascapes in the making, discussing an artist’s problems with them, treating them as fellow workers.

Mrs. Olsen was a billowy creature who only called on those of her husband’s students who were worth while; she did not call on me.

I never liked Jo much, but I respected his teaching and the industry which he insisted that his students practise and which he practised himself.

CHRISTMAS CAME,
everyone went home except me. The Olsens went to Sweden on their yacht. Noel, a nice English student, came to bid me goodbye.

“I say, it’s going to be beastly lonely for you with everybody gone—studio shut. What shall you do with yourself?”

“Explore. Albert will still be here, he will pilot me, he knows Cornwall.”

“Albert! That wretched little cockney!” said the autocrat, Noel, with a lift of his nose.

“I
could
visit, too, if I wanted.” I tossed a letter across for Noel to read.

“Whew—horses to ride and all and you turned this down!” he exclaimed.

“Don’t like the outfit, connections by marriage, snobs, titled too!”

“What matter? Put likes and dislikes in your pocket, silly; take all the good times you can get.”

“Take and hate the giver?”

Noel shrugged, “I
was
going to ask Mother to invite you to visit us in the summer holidays. How about it, Miss Snifty?”

“Try.”

“Tell me, what are you doing at this present moment?” asked Noel. “Hat, felt slipper, snipping, sewing—it’s beyond my figuring entirely!”

“Felt from under hat ribbon provides patch for toe of slipper. See, Mr. Dull-Head?” I fitted the patch.

Noel’s roaring laugh—“Canadian thrift!” He vaulted through the window shouting, “I’ll ask Mother about the summer visit.”

Cornish people love a wrench of misery with every joy. The Curnows wept all through Christmas. I came upon Pa, Ma, and both girls, stirring the plum pudding, eight eyes sploshing tears down into the mixing bowl.

“Anything wrong?”

“Always something wrong for we,” wailed Ma.

It seemed some relative preferred to Christmas elsewhere than with the Curnows. Their grief seemed so disproportionate to the cause that I laughed. Eight mournful looks turned upon me.

“You be awfu’ merry, Miss. Thousands of miles betwixt you and yours, yet you larf!” There was reproach in the voice.

UNDER THE GUIDANCE
of Albert I saw Polperro, Mousehole, St. Earch, St. Michael’s Mount and more places. Little cockney Albert enjoyed having company. He was not quite one of us—no one bothered about him.

For one week Albert and I holidayed, then I fell on work with doubled fury. I knew I was a fool, grinding, grinding, but I had so much to learn, so little time.

They all came trooping back to the studio. Olsen outstayed himself by a matter of six weeks. Talmage took charge. High on the hill I had discovered Tregenna Wood—haunting, ivy-draped, solemn Tregenna. Talmage saw what I had been doing up there during the holidays, away from the glare and racket of St. Ives. He was a calm, gentle man, one who understood.

“Trot up to your woods; that’s where you love to be. I will come there and give you your lesson.”

I gave a delighted squeal. “Oh, but, Mr. Talmage, wouldn’t it be too far for you to come for my lesson alone. None of the other students work there.”

“Trot along; one works best where one is happy.”

Tregenna Wood was solemn, if not vast. A shallow ravine scooped through its centre. Ivy crept up the tree-trunks to hang down in curtains. No students worked here, few people passed this way. A huge white sow frequented Tregenna, a porky ghost, rustling through the bushes. She aimed always to pass at lunch hour so that she might share my lunch. If I had any form of pigmeat (Mrs. Curnow often gave me fat pork sandwiches), then, out of delicacy, I did not offer anything but the breadcrust.

The students teased me about my “lady friend in Tregenna” but I loved my sow. I wrote a poem and made a skit about the
students and her. It was more complimentary to the sow than to the students.

I said to Talmage, “I don’t care if Jo never comes back; I learn much more from you than from him.”

“Jo is the better artist,” replied Talmage. “Jo is a genius. What I have got has been got through grind. Probably that helps me to understand my students’ problems better.”

He praised my woods studies highly, so did the students.

Jo came home.

“Jo’s home! ‘Crits’ in the studio at eight tomorrow!” A student’s head thrust the news through my window.

I had a vast accumulation to show Jo. I knew the work was good—happy, honest stuff. I swung into the studio with confidence. Jo was pacing the floor. The Frenchman sat crying before his easel. Jo gave me a curt nod, “Fetch your stuff.”

I turned my canvases face out, waited—silence, except for Jo’s snorts through a dead pipe.

“Maudlin! Rubbish!” he bellowed, pointing his dead pipe at my canvases. “Whiten down those low-toned daubs, obliterate ’em. Go out
there
,” (he pointed to the glaring sands) “out to bright sunlight—PAINT!”

Kicking the unlucky canvases into a corner, I bolted. No one was going to see me as I had seen Frenchie.

On a desolate road far beyond the town I came to my unhappy self. On either side the way were fields of frosted cabbages. I crept among them to sit down on a boulder, rocking myself back and forth, crying, crying till I was very hideous and very hungry.

I got up. I’d see how the others came out. I dragged myself back to town.

Burgess, one of the Australians, studied under Jo, but he had a studio of his own. Burgess and I had a pact. He had chased away a fisherman who had religious mania and tormented any student he could find working in a quiet corner, as to their views on purgatory. In return I went to Burgess’ studio when the Frenchman had declared his intention of giving him a “crit,” because, unless Burgess had company, the Frenchman
would
kiss him, not only on one but on both cheeks.

It took three knocks to rouse a dreary, “Come in.” When I pushed open the door Burgess was seated on a three-legged stool before a dead grate, his red hair wild, his hands shaky. He kicked forward another stool.

“Poor Mother, she will be so disappointed. Do you suppose Grant’s will take back that gold leaf frame?”

“The one for your Academy picture?”

“Academy! I’m returning to Australia right away. You may have the pile of canvas stretchers.”

“Thanks, but I’m thinking of leaving for Canada myself immediately.”

Shamed grins spread over our faces.

“Let’s call on the rest, see what Jo did to them.”

We met Ashton; he was whistling.

“Get a good ‘crit,’ Ashton?”

“You bet.”

“Liar,” muttered Burgess. “Hello! There’s Maude,…morning, Miss Horne, taken your ‘crit’?”

“Criticism first morning after Jo’s vacation! Not I. Jo always returns in a rage. This time it is two rages—his usual and a tooth-ache. You pair of young fools!” she grinned at our grief-wracked
faces. “Poor children, I s’pose you knew no better.” Maude put on airs.

“I’m hungry as a hunter, Burgess. I’ll run home for a bit, then the sun will be just right for painting those cottages in the Diji. Oh, about those canvas stretchers?”

“Needing them myself!”

We exchanged grins. Burgess had forgotten Australia. I had forgotten Canada. With noses and hopes high we were off again to work.

WHEN LONG VACATION
came I went back to London.

A sneezing creature sitting next to me in the train gave me ’flu. When that was through with me, I crawled to Westminster. ’Flu had sapped the energy I had forced so long. Mildred found me huddled on a bench in the Architectural Museum, among the tombs—idle.

“Why, Motor!”

“After ’flu, Mildred.”

“If we were not just starting for Switzerland I’d take you home right now.”

MRS. RADCLIFFE GROANED,
“You’d best take a strong tonic, Klee Wyck. Why you should fall to pieces the moment you come to London I can’t imagine. London suits
me
all right.”

Always kind, Fred said, “Try Bushey, Herts, Klee Wyck—Herkomer’s Art School, a big art colony. Bushey is an easy run up to London for exhibitions and galleries. You just don’t thrive as Mother does in London.”

To Bushey I went.

THE STATION MASTER’S
direction was accurate. “Bushey? Turn by that ’ere pub and keep a-goin.’ ”

The road was a long squirm without any actual turnings.

Herkomer had built a theatre in connection with his Bushey art school; more time was now devoted to drama, they said, than to Art. For earnest Art I was advised to go to John Whiteley, Number 9, Meadows Studios.

The Meadows Studios stretched in a long row. Of unplaned lumber, linked together like stitches in a chain of crochet, they ran across a hummocky field, spattered with kingcups. Each frame building was one room and a thin corridor wide. Each had a door into the emaciated passage and a large north window.