Growing Pains (22 page)

The land around Bushey dipped and rose pastorally and was dotted with sheep, cows and spreads of bluebells. Everything was yellow-green and pearly with young spring. Larks hurried up to Heaven as if late for choir practice. The woods in the hollows cuckooed all day with cuckoos; the air melted ecstatically into the liquid of nightingale music all night.

John Whiteley was a quiet man and shy, his teaching was as honest as himself. There were sixteen students in his class, men
and women. We worked from costumed models, often posed outdoors among live greenery. The students were of the Westminster type—cold, stand-offish. They lodged in the village. Being mid-term, all rooms were full, so I had to climb the hill to a row of working men’s houses to find accommodation. Many in the row were glad to let rooms. The man and wife in my house kept the kitchen and the front bedroom for their own use, renting the front room downstairs, into which the house door opened, and the back, upstairs bedroom. The back door was their entrance. They were expecting their first baby—and were singing happy about it, so happy that they just had to do something for somebody. They showed me many kindnesses. When there was nothing else she could think of the woman would run into their tiny patch of back garden and pull half a dozen rosy, tender-skinned radishes for my tea. The man, returning from labouring as a farm hand, would ask of me, “Can ’er go through you, Miss; it be a long round from back. ’Er’s not spry jest now. Us likes listenin’ to nightingales down to valley”—and, passing hand in hand through my room, they drifted into the dimness of the dusky fields.

Mr. Whiteley’s was a silent studio. No one talked during pose; few spoke during rests. To English girls Canadians were foreigners. A snobby trio in the studio were particularly disagreeable to me. They rented a whole cottage and were very exclusive. The bossiest of the three was “Mack,” an angular Scotch woman. The other two were blood sisters and English. They had yellow hair and black eyes and were known as “The Canaries.” After an ignored week, I came into the passage one morning to find a scrawny youth trying to make up his mind to knock on Mr. Whiteley’s door.

“This Mr. Whiteley’s studio?”

“Yes.”

“Can I see him?”

“He does not come for ‘crit’ before ten.”

The youth fidgeted.

“What’ll I do? I’m a new student.”

“Come on, I’ll show you.

He threw a terrified look round the room when I opened the door, saw the work on the easels and calmed. I think he had expected a nude model. I got him an easel and board, set him in a far corner where he could not be overlooked, showed him where to get charcoal and paper. He was very grateful, like a chicken from a strange brood that an old hen has consented to mother. He stuck to me. The Canaries and Mack froze, throwing high noses and cold glances over our heads.

That night there was a tap at my door. A tall, loose-knit boy stood there. He said, “I’m from St. Ives. The students said to be sure to look you up. My name is Milford and do you mind if I bring Mother to see you? I’m going to Whiteley’s too. Mother’s come to settle me in—she’s two doors off.”

Milford had a stepfather who considered both stepsons and Art unnecessary nonsense. The mother doted on Milford. “That dear boy won’t chew, such poor digestion. Keep an eye on his eating,” she pleaded, “insist that he chew and, if you would take charge of his money. He spends it all the first day, afterwards he starves!”

I said I would do my best over Milford’s chewing and cash. I felt very maternal with two boys under my wing.

Milford lived down the street; his table was pushed close to the window. I passed at mealtimes whenever possible and yelled up, “Chew, Milford, chew!” He kept his weekly allowance in a box on my mantelpiece.

“Can I run up to London this week-end?”

We would get the box down and count. Sometimes I would say, “Yes,” and sometimes, “No, Milford, you can’t.”

Milford and I sketched around the Bushey woods. Little Canary followed us. Presently we would find her easel set close to ours. Milford and I humanized those Canaries. (We never tackled Mack.) Little Canary soon ate out of my hand; she was always fluttering around me, and I gave her a hard flutter too. I made her smoke, damn, crawl through thorny hedges, wade streams. I brought her home in such tatters as made Big Canary and Mack gasp. They were provoked at Little Canary for accepting my lead. I behaved outrageously when Mack and Big Canary were around; I wanted to shock them! I was really ashamed of myself. The boys grinned; perhaps they were ashamed of me too—they were English. Mack would say, “Where
were
you brought up?” and I would retort, “In a different land from you, thank Heaven!”

One Saturday morning I came to Studio late. The door banged on me and I “damned.” I felt shudders and tension in the room, then I saw two strangers—a doll-pretty girl, and an angular sourness, who knitted beside the doll while she drew.

Kicking Little Canary’s shin, I mouthed, “Who?”

“Wait till rest,” Little Canary mouthed back.

It seemed that the silk-smocked, crimp-haired girl was titled and a tremendous swell, an old pupil of Mr. Whiteley’s. The other was her chaperon. They had been abroad. This was their first appearance since I had been at Mr. Whiteley’s studio. The girl only “arted” on Saturday mornings and was always chaperoned. The chaperon had been heard to allude to Mr. Whiteley’s studio as “that wild place!” Her lips had glued to a thread-thin line when I “damned.” She stopped knitting, took a shawl from their various luggages, draped it over the doll’s shoulder that was
nearest to the wind which had rushed in with my entry. She took the doll’s spectacles off her nose, polished them and straddled them back again, sharpened six sticks of charcoal neatly into her pocket-handkerchief, then shook the dust and sharpenings over the other students and resumed knitting. After class they were escorted to their waiting carriage by a footman bearing the girl’s work gear. The Canaries and Mack bowed as they passed.

I laughed all the way home, then I drew and rhymed a skit in which we all decided that we must bring chaperons to this “wild place.” Even the Master had to “bring his loving wife and she their children three.”

The model said, “I will not sit
In solitude alone,
My good old woman too must come
And share the model throne!”

I took my skit to class on Monday. The Canaries were very much shocked,—a student caricaturing a master!

“Suppose he saw!” they gasped.

“It would not kill him,” I grinned.

At rest I was sitting on the fence, giggling over my skit with the boys when Mr. Whiteley came by.

“Can I share the joke?”

The boy holding the sketch wriggled, “It does not belong to me, sir, it is Miss Carr’s.”

Mr. Whiteley looked enquiringly at me.

“Just some nonsense, but certainly if you wish to, Mr. Whiteley.”

He took the skit in his hand, called “Pose”; it was the last pose of the morning. Dead silence in the studio, Canaries very nervous.
Noon struck, model and students filed out, Mr. Whiteley settled himself to read, to look. The Canaries hovered; they were going to be rather sorry to see me evicted from the class—in spite of my being colonial and bad form it had been livelier since I came, they said.

Chuckle, chuckle, laugh, roar! Great knee-slap roars! No one ever dreamed Mr. Whiteley could be so merry. The hovering Canaries stood open-mouthed.

“May I take this home to show my wife?”

“Certainly, Mr. Whiteley.”

“This chaperon business has always amused her.”

He did not bring back my skit back next morning, instead he took from the wrapping a beautiful sketch of his own.

“Will you trade?” he held out the sketch—“My wife simply refuses to give your skit up!”

“She is most welcome to it, Mr. Whiteley, but it is not worth this.”

“We think so and, anyway, I should like you to have a sketch of mine to take back to Canada.”

There was wild jealousy. Mack happened to be home ill. Little Canary asked, “May I take Mr. Whiteley’s picture to show Mack?”

Mack said, “Huh! I doubt
that Canadian
is capable of appreciating either the honour or the picture!”

IN THE LITTLE WOOD
behind the Meadows Studio, where the cuckoos called all day, I learned a lot. Like Mr. Talmage, Mr. Whiteley said, “Trot along to your woods; I will give you your ‘crit’ there, where you are happy and do your best work.”

That was a luscious wood, lovely in seeing, smelling and hearing. Perpetual spring seemed to be there.

I remember with affection and gratitude something special that every Master taught me. Mr. Whiteley’s pet phrase was, “The coming and going of foliage is more than just flat pattern.” Mr. Talmage had said, “Remember, there is sunshine too in the shadows,” when my colour was going black. Sombreness of Tregenna! Sunshine of Bushey! Both woods gave me so much, so much, each in its own splendid way, and each was interpreted to me by a good, sound teacher.

I WORKED IN BUSHEY
till late autumn, then decided to winter again in St. Ives. But first I must return to my London boarding house and get my winter clothing from a trunk stored at Mrs. Dodds’! (We were allowed to store trunks in her basement at tuppence a week, a great convenience for students like me who were moving around.)

Always, when approaching London, a surge of sinking awfulness swept over me as we came to its outskirts, and the train began slithering through suburban manufacturing districts. Open country turned to human congestion, brick and mortar pressed close both sides of our way—ache of overcrowded space, murk, dullness stared from behind the glazed fronts and backs of brick houses. No matter how hard I tried, I could not take interest in manufacturing districts—they wilted me. Love of everything, that swamped me in the country, was congealed here, stuffed away like rotten lettuce. Nothing within me responded to the hum of machinery.

A crawling slither and the train oozed into the allotted slot, opened her doors and poured us into Euston’s glare and hurry. Worry about luggage came first. To me the wonder is that any ever
was
found—no checking system, identification established solely
by means of a pointing finger. The hot, hard pavements of London burned my foot soles.

“Why must you fuss so immediately upon coming to town?” I enquired angrily of my aching feet, and took a huge china water-pitcher from my cubicle to the floor below for hot water. The stair was straight and very long, the jug of water heavy. Only one step more, but one too many! I reeled; every step registered a black bump on me. There I lay in a steaming pool, among pieces of broken pitcher. I might have been an aquatic plant in a fancy garden.

The steaming water seeped beneath the doors of rooms. I hurt terribly, but the water must be mopped up. My groans brought students to doors which they slammed to quick and grumpily to keep the water out of their rooms.

I was unable to rise next morning. I sent a wire to Mildred, “Tumbled downstairs, can’t come.” Mildred sent the carriage and insisted. So I went. I managed to keep going till bedtime. That night is a blur of awfulness. When Mildred came into my room next morning she sent quickly for the doctor. Two nurses came, straw was laid on the pavement to dull the rumble even of those elegant, smooth-rolling carriages. For six weeks I lay scarcely caring which way things went.

“Send me to a nursing home,” I begged. But Mrs. Compton’s cool hand was over mine, “Go to sleep, little Motor, we’re here.” She always wore three rings—a hoop of rubies, a hoop of sapphires, and a hoop of diamonds. Even in the darkened room the gems glowed—they are the only gems I have ever loved. They were alive and were on a loved hand.

The doctor came and came. One day after a long, long look at me, he said, “You Canadians, I notice, don’t take kindly to crowded cities. Try the sea-side for her, Mrs. Compton.”

“There will be trees and air,” I thought, and was glad.

There were no trees. The small, private convalescent home was kept by a fool. Because she had nursed in the German Royal Family she fancied herself. Every day she took their Royal Highnesses’ photographs from the mantelpiece and kissed their ugly faces before us all. It made us sick. She was the worst kind of a snob ever made.

The sea was all dazzle and the sands white. My room was white, even the blinds. I asked for dark—the glare hurt my head. If I sat in dark corners Nurse said I was morbid! From my window I saw a scrub willow tree. I took a rug and lay in the little back lane under the willow. Looking up into its leaves rested my eyes. Nurse rushed out, furious.

She shrieked, “Morbid nonsense! Get out onto that beach, let sunshine burn the germs out of you!”

I was wretched but I shammed robust health to get away from her house. I fooled the nurse so that she let me travel to Noel’s mother. She had come several times to Belgrave Square and said, “Come to us as soon as they will let you travel. Don’t wait to be well, come and get well in our garden—my four boys to wait on you!”

The journey relapsed me. I was so desperately ill that they wired to Canada. I did not know that until my sister Lizzie marched into the room. They sent her because she was on the edge of a nervous breakdown and they thought the trip would do her good. It was bad for both of us. This sister and I had never got on smoothly. We nearly sent each other crazy. She quarrelled with my doctor and my nurse, got very homesick, wanted to take me home immediately. The doctor would not let me travel. She called him a fool, said he knew nothing. She scolded me. I went
to a London specialist. He was as determined about the travel as my own doctor.

“Complete rest, freedom from worry and exertion for at least one year.”

He recommended an open-air Sanatorium, and, above all, that my sister go home, leave me.

Lizzie was very, very angry. She refused to go because of what people would say. By luck my guardian and his wife came tripping to the Old Country. When my guardian saw me all to bits, tears ran down his cheeks.

“Anything to get you well, Millie,” he said, and prevailed on my sister to return home leaving me in a Sanatorium—no work for me for at least one year!