On Renfrew Street (Amherst Island Trilogy Book 2)

by Kate Hewitt

  Ellen blushed at the use of her Christian name, even though she knew she’d just, albeit mutely, given him permission to use it. It still felt strange, as well as inappropriate.

  “And now I shall introduce you to Miss Gray,” Henry said, and still holding her hand, he drew her to the front step of the house and rapped smartly on the door.

  Ellen didn’t think Henry was aware he was still holding her hand. He might be unconventional, but holding hands in public was surely a step too far, even for him. As discreetly as she could, she tugged her hand from his and waited, her heart thumping, her hands clasped together, for the door to open.

  Seconds later it was opened by a tall, elegant woman with dark hair and soulful eyes, wearing a loose dress covered by what looked like a man’s overcoat. Ellen had never seen an outfit like it, yet Norah Neilson Gray wore it with glamorous ease.

  “Mr. McCallister!” she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling with a knowing sort of humor. “How charming to see you. And this must be Ellen Copley.”

  Ellen bobbed an awkward curtsey and Norah let out a light laugh. “Oh my dear, we do not stand on formalities here. You may call me Norah, if I may call you Ellen.” She held out one slender hand which Ellen took as awkwardly as she had curtseyed.

  Despite Norah Gray’s easy manner, she continued to feel disconcerted—and rather conservative and even prudish in the dress she’d been so proud of when she’d purchased it in New York.

  “Come, we’ll have tea in the sitting room,” Norah said. “Henry, you must join us.”

  Ellen followed Norah into a room that was, at first glance, both overcrowded and interesting. Canvases cluttered the walls, done in a variety of styles, some with thick splodges of oil paint, others delicate watercolors.

  Fascinated, Ellen stepped closer to a painting of young girls playing in a garden, the colors muted and haunting.

  “Do you like that one?” Norah asked as she poured tea from a Chinese-painted teapot. “It was inspired by my childhood in Helensburgh. We had such a lovely garden.”

  “You did this?” Ellen exclaimed, and then let out an apologetic laugh because she sounded so incredulous. She was, in fact, quite overwhelmed; she’d never even used paint of any kind before. All of her artwork was in charcoal pencil, often on the back of butcher’s paper, the only medium she’d ever had the opportunity to work with.

  Norah seemed to guess the nature of her thoughts for she said, “I am sure you will find so many opportunities here to explore and develop your talent, Ellen. Mr. Newbery encourages his art students to try all manner of classes—painting, sculpture, drawing, embroidery, metalwork… but of course you must find your true calling. Every artist, I think, has a medium in which she is the happiest and most creative.”

  “And what is yours?” Ellen asked as she sat down on a horsehair sofa and accepted a cup of tea from Norah. The cup had Chinese characters painted in indigo on its side, and no handle. Ellen had never seen anything like it, and she cradled it between her hands uncertainly.

  “Oils, I think,” Norah answered after a moment’s reflection. Her gaze drifted towards the pale painting of the children in the garden. “But I do like watercolors on occasion. They give things a rather ghostly feel.” She turned to Henry, who was sitting on the edge of an ottoman, balancing his cup on his knee. “And what about you, Henry? What medium do you prefer?”

  Henry smiled ruefully. “As you know, I am no artist, merely a connoisseur.”

  “As an observer, then. You have seen most all of the works that have come out of the School. What do you prefer?” Norah’s eyes twinkled and she gave Ellen a laughing glance, making her wonder what her landlady thought of Henry bringing her here.

  Henry reflected for a moment, his blue eyes thoughtful above his teacup as he lifted it to his mouth. “I do have a fondness for charcoal pencil,” he said, and Ellen quickly took a sip of tea to hide yet another blush.

  Nora’s mouth had curved in a knowing smile and Ellen could feel the older woman’s gaze upon her before she said, “Well, I look forward to seeing what you are capable of, Ellen. Henry has certainly vouched for you, and I have seen a few of your charcoal drawings myself. But it will be interesting to see what you are able to do in other mediums, and how you can stretch yourself. As artists, we must never be content to remain comfortable.”

  “I’ve never used paint before,” Ellen admitted. “I’m afraid I am quite inexperienced, Miss Gray.”

  “Norah, remember,” she reminded her. “And inexperience means little, in my opinion. You will get plenty of experience here. It is dedication and creativity, courage and boldness, that count.” She put her cup down and rose from her chair. “But Henry, you really ought to leave us now. Ellen is no doubt exhausted from her voyage, and I am sure she wishes to settle into her room and rest.” She turned to Ellen with a smile. “Later we can walk to Renfrew Street, and you can see the school building. Charles Mackintosh completed the new addition only a year ago; it is quite remarkable. And perhaps we shall finish the day with tea at Miss Cranston’s tearoom, which is just as remarkable.”

  “I can see that I am being dismissed,” Henry said as he rose from the ottoman. “I hope to see both of you ladies again soon.”

  “I am sure we will be far too busy,” Norah answered lightly. “An artist cannot be distracted from her work, Henry.” Although her tone was still light, her gaze rested seriously and even sternly on the charming trustee. “You must remember that, you know.”

  Ellen watched as color touched Henry’s cheekbones. “I shall bear it in mind,” he answered and with a gallant bow, he took his leave.

  Norah closed the door behind him and turned to Ellen, her eyebrows raised. “It seems you have an admirer there.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t think…” Ellen began, mumbling in her embarrassment. “Surely not…”

  “Never mind, it is of no account. You have come all this way to study, Ellen, and I meant what I said about not being distracted, and certainly not by the likes of Henry McCallister. He is charming, I know, and a devotee of the arts, which suits the school very well, but it would not do at all for you to step your cap at him.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t,” Ellen assured her, her face fiery now.

  “Good. His parents are quite snobbish, and his mother is insistent that he marry a gently-reared society miss, you know the sort?”

  Ellen did not know the sort at all, but she supposed she could imagine, and it was a far cry from who she was. “Honestly, Miss Gray, you needn’t worry. I didn’t even know Hen—Mr. McCallister was going to meet me at the docks.”

  “Ah, then you shall have to be careful, because he can be quite insistent, and he’s used to getting what he wants.” She raised elegant eyebrows. “You are aiming for a diploma, are you not?”

  “Yes…”

  “Then you will have to work hard indeed. Only half of the candidates last year were granted a diploma. It is not a thing to undertake lightly, I warn you.”

  “Oh, I assure you, I won’t,” Ellen said quickly. “I wish to devote all my time to studies. I didn’t intend to have a friendship or even an acquaintance with Mr. McCallister at all!” She bit her lip, embarrassed again at revealing too much.

  Norah’s mouth twitched in a small smile. “Henry has always been too impulsive for his own good,” she said with a sigh. “It is, at least in part, why he is a trustee and not an artist. He simply hasn’t the patient or forbearance to work hard at something. His family is in banking, and he’s been handed a vice-presidency, although heaven knows what he’ll do with it. He prefers to gallivant around the world on behalf of the school. Now, come, I will show you your room.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Three days later Ellen stood in front of the cheval mirror in her bedroom at Norah’s house, gazing at her reflection. Today was the first day of term, and she was incredibly nervous. Butterflies swooped and swarmed in her stomach, and she smoothed the front of her plain dark skirt that she’d chosen to wear along with
a white shirtwaist. She knew her clothes would be covered during lessons with a large smock, and Norah had told her that sensible, plain clothing was best.

  “We create art, we don’t wear it,” she said with a smile, and Ellen thought of the dresses she’d splurged on in New York that would never likely see the light of day in Glasgow. How foolish and ignorant she’d been.

  The last few days with Norah Gray had been illuminating—as well as nerve-wracking. After Ellen had rested, they’d walked the few blocks to School of Art’s home on Renfrew Street, an impressive building with huge windows that Charles Rennie Mackintosh had designed.

  Norah had shown Ellen the library, the studios with their strange smells of paint and turpentine, the long, sashed windows letting in streams of September sunlight. Ellen had tried to imagine herself standing in front of one of the large easels, listening to one of the instructors and actually putting paint to canvas, but it had felt like nothing more than a dream.

  “Fra Newbery has insisted that women be allowed to attend life drawing classes,” Norah told her, referring to the school’s head by his nickname. “You will not find us backward here, I assure you.”

  “Life drawing?” Ellen had repeated blankly. She didn’t even know what it was.

  “Of nudes, my dear,” Norah said, almost gently, as if she expected Ellen to be embarrassed, which of course she was. She fought a flush, striving to keep her expression composed, and feared she failed miserably. “How else can you draw the human form with any accuracy?” Norah asked, to which Ellen had no real answer.

  After they’d toured the art school, Norah had taken her to a tearoom run by the formidable Miss Cranston on Buchanan Street, an institution as venerable as the school itself.

  Ellen had never been in such a place, and she could not keep from staring at everything. The walls were hung by paintings done by the ‘Glasgow Boys’, a group of painters that had come out of the school, and she was fascinated by their colorful depictions of various subjects, almost all of them from around Glasgow. While some were realistic, others gave no more than an impression of color and light, a hint of emotion, and yet they were powerful all the same. Ellen had never seen such artwork before; the walls of Jasper Lane as well as her aunt and uncle’s house in Seaton were hung with samplers and the Farmer’s Almanac calendar, perhaps the odd print of a famous painting, something by Monet or Degas.

  The paintings in the tearoom were something else entirely, with their focus on simple, rural subjects, their stark lines and poignant realism.

  “Aren’t they marvelous?” Norah came to stand beside her as they both surveyed a painting by James Guthrie of a girl herding geese. “’To Pastures New’,” she said, with a nod towards the painting. “Apropos, don’t you think?”

  The tearoom itself was decorated in the latest Arts and Crafts style; the separate Ladies Room was large and comfortable and there were plates of cakes and scones that customers could help themselves to without the need of a server. It felt like someone’s home, and reminded Ellen a bit of Jasper Lane, the kind of place you could simply stroll into and be made welcome. She was enchanted.

  “Miss Cranston is a patron of the school, and of Charles Mackintosh,” Norah explained. “These Ladies Rooms have provided places for women artists to meet together for years now. She is really a most remarkable woman.”

  Ellen was fast getting the sense that everyone in Glasgow’s art world was remarkable—except for herself. Norah had told her about the artistic vision of various instructors and pupils, the exhibitions they had put on and the awards and commendations they had received.

  She’d listened while Norah had described the visionaries and luminaries that made up the art community of Glasgow, the second city of the Empire—men and women who had been bold enough to see something different, and then to paint or sculpt or work it out of cloth or iron.

  Ellen felt rather ridiculous with her little portfolio of pencil drawings, some of them on not-very-good paper, made with nothing more than a nub of charcoal. Now that her first day was actually here, she was terribly afraid she would humiliate herself in front of all the other students, or be told she wasn’t School of Art material, after all.

  Norah rapped on the door of her bedroom. “Come, Ellen. We don’t want to be late on your first day!”

  Slowly Ellen opened the door. “I feel like a fraud,” she admitted, and Norah’s eyebrows drew together.

  “My dear, you must never admit it. We’re all frauds, and we’re all genuine. There is no separating one from the other.” She tapped Ellen’s temple. “What you have that is unique is up here. It is your vision of the world, what you are able to bring to the table, and to this community. That, my dear, does not make you a fraud.” Ellen managed a small smile, and Norah turned briskly away. “But I’m afraid I have neither the time or the patience for such shilly-shallying. You have been grated an enormous opportunity, Ellen Copley. Use it.”

  Suitably chastened, Ellen could only nod as she followed Norah out of the house.

  An hour later she stood by an easel in her first painting class; there was a jug of daisies and a few oranges on a table in the center of the room, with a draped and rumpled rust-colored cloth. The instructor, Maurice Grieffenhagen, had lectured them for over a quarter of an hour on the importance of composition, most of which had gone right over Ellen’s head.

  There were a dozen pupils in the class, both men and women, all of them very serious-looking in their voluminous smocks. She stared at her blank canvas and tried not to panic. She felt as if she’d never so much as picked up a pencil.

  “Miss… Copley, is it?” Ellen tensed as Maurice Grieffenhagen came to stand by her, his eyes shrewd above his pointed gray beard. “Most of the others have made a start, Miss Copley. Is there a reason why you are staring at a blank canvas as if a painting will magically appear upon its pristine surface?” He smiled slightly to take some of the sting from his words, but Ellen still felt scorched by humiliation.

  “I—I was just considering how best to start,” she said, trying not to stammer, and Grieffenhagen nodded in understanding.

  “The muse is fickle, Miss Copley. Perhaps, for the sake of our lesson, you could at least pick up your brush.” He handed her a paintbrush and moved on to the next student, leaving Ellen cringing in mortification. Was this how it was always going to be? She stared at the blank canvas in terror, afraid to spoil its so-called pristine surface. Nothing she could paint would compare to that perfect whiteness.

  She glanced up and saw a woman across the room with a plain, freckled face and a ginger pompadour make a funny face, followed by an encouraging smile. Heartened, Ellen picked up her brush. The paint felt thick, the brush unwieldy, as she made her first wavering line across the canvas. She glanced up, and the woman caught her eye and winked. Smiling back, Ellen painted another line.

  By the end of the class she had, she hoped, managed to make a decent start; the oranges were apparent, at least, and Grieffenhagen had given her a grudging nod, which compared to before had felt like the highest praise. His mocking criticism still stung, but she told herself to shrug it off. As Norah had told her, she had no time for fainthearted histrionics. She was here to learn, and, God willing, get better.

  Ellen gathered up her things as students streamed from the classroom; she stilled when she felt a hand placed on her arm.

  “Don’t take what Mr Grieffenhagen says to heart.” The woman from across the room was smiling at her. She was dressed exceedingly well under her smock, in a satin-striped skirt and matching jacket, and Ellen guessed she was a woman of some means.

  “I fear I am meant to take it to heart,” she answered. “It seems very serious here. I am trying to match it.”

  “Oh it is, is,” the woman assured her. “Fra Newbery has tried to roust all the dilettantes from the school, but he hasn’t managed to get rid of me yet.” She tossed her head with a little laugh, and Ellen smiled.

  The woman’s open friendliness and lack of pr
etension was refreshing, especially as some of the other students, with their paint-smeared smocks and grubby fingernails seemed serious indeed. “And would you really call yourself a dilettante?” she asked and the woman laughed again.

  “Oh, indeed. I am Francis Newbery’s nemesis. The socialite who dabbles in art. He can’t stand anyone who isn’t a Serious Artist, but he allows me to attend classes because my father gives a large amount of money to the school.” She raised her eyebrows. “It proves to be quite an incentive to allow at least one dilettante amidst all these melancholy artistes, like a cat among the pigeons. And it suits me, because I do like to dabble.” She held out a hand which Ellen took. “Amy McPhee.”

  “Ellen Copley.”

  “Well then, Ellen, if you don’t mind me calling you that, that’s an odd accent I hear. You sound both Scottish and American.”

  “I suppose I am,” Ellen answered, and with a lighter heart she walked out of the studio, explaining to Amy just how she’d come to arrive at the Glasgow School of Art.

  A fortnight into term, Ellen was both exhausted and invigorated. She’d been exposed to so many different artistic styles and mediums, and in just two short weeks had learned and experienced more than she’d ever dreamed of. But she still felt, on occasion, unsettlingly out of place; so much of what the instructors said, while seeming to resonate with the other students, went right over Ellen’s head. Composition, contrast, convention… they blurred in her mind until she didn’t know which was which. In the end, all she could do was paint or drawc as best as she knew how, but sometimes it seemed like lamentably little.

  In between lectures and studio sessions, the other students often argued about this style or that, tossing around terms such as Impressionism or Cubism that Ellen had barely a passing acquaintance with. No matter what Norah had said, she felt like a fraud, and she suspected some of the other students felt it as well.