Keeping the World Away

by Margaret Forster

  *

  There were caves under the crumbling town walls, dangerous places where the boys went. Gus had told Gwen about them, how dark they were, how damp to the touch the rocky sides felt, how strange the smell of putrid sea water. The boys took candles into the caves and lit them and frightened each other with the shadows they cast. Gus said he would take her one day, but not Winifred, who would be sure to scream. Gwen did not think she wished to go with him though she was curious to see what the caves were like. She wondered if she could live in a cave, if she had to, if some peculiar set of circumstances made it imperative. She imagined herself running away and having nowhere to go and no money to obtain shelter. She imagined what she would need to take with her to make a cave into a home. A blanket to sit on, a paraffin lamp to see by, a wooden crate to put her clothes in. She would cower there and no one would know where to find her. It would be quiet, so quiet, and she would hear drips of water falling from the rock above and her own breath going in and out. She would be alone, huddled into a ball, almost invisible in the gloom.

  She tried to draw the cave as she imagined it. She put nothing in it except some stones, some shells. She used pastels, dark brown and grey melded together and a lighter brown for the ground. It was hard to draw the entrance. Could the sea be glimpsed? Would the sun strike through it? She needed help but Miss Wilson did not teach drawing beyond tracing outlines of flowers. Gwen would get no help from her. Gus, who could help, was now away at school, and her mother was dead. She imagined that the grave her mother lay in was a kind of earth-cave, but it would be alive with insects and worms weaving their way through the heaving soil. Her head was spinning, thinking of it, and she had to stop. Drawing Winifred settled her dizziness. Winifred wearing a hat, or Winifred with a ribbon in her hair, or herself, looking straight into the mirror.

  It was disturbing, staring at herself, but she grew used to it. After a while, she saw a person who was not familiar but a stranger and then she could begin to draw. This person in front of her had such a cold, haughty look, as though proud of herself but unlikely to say why. She was not pretty. Her face was too flat, none of its features had any charm. The lips were thin, the chin receded, the eyebrows were too marked. The expression in the eyes bothered her and would not translate to paper. Only the clothes were easy. She liked clothes. She and Winifred had very few and none that were fashionable but with no mother and no aunts in the house they were allowed to choose material and instruct the dressmaker themselves. They spent hours hunting for fabrics beautiful to the touch but serviceable, knowing that the dresses must last a long time. They liked subtle colours, dark reds, deep greens, nothing too light or bright. Their mother’s clothes had mysteriously disappeared but they had her jewellery and wore her brooches and some of her necklaces and bracelets and cameos. When they were older, they would try the earrings, especially the pearls.

  They had special skirts made for cycling, in black worsted material, but the waists had white ribbons sewn into them which streamed behind as they pedalled. They had jackets made with tight sleeves, and cut into the waist so that the wind would not ride up them. Clothes were a comfort. Clothes were something they had control over and they could make their own even if they could not dress like the Gypsies. Their dressmaker said they had good figures. Even though they had yet to fill out, she commented, rather impertinently, that for their age (Gwen fifteen, Winifred twelve) they were developing nicely. Gwen was pleased, though she did not show it. Her body was easier to look at in the mirror than her face. Having no eyes, her body did not challenge her. She could look at it and try to draw it and not feel irritated. Breasts were interesting to draw. Hers were not large, or not yet, but she liked their shape, round and high with brown nipples, pert and almost sharp. Pubic hair was difficult. She had seen Gwenda’s bush, when they had changed together on the beach at Broad Haven, and it had made her draw in her breath and want to touch the auburn fuzz, so springy-looking and plentiful, and spreading high and wide on Gwenda’s lower belly. Touching her own was disappointing. It was dark and sparse and she would rather it had not grown at all.

  She was too old now to run naked on the beach, or so people would say. It made her curl her lip in contempt when she saw the bathing cabins being taken out to sea so that the modesty of the female bathers might be preserved. It was not the way to bathe. She longed still to stand on the beach and disrobe and walk naked into the waves but she could not face her father’s fury when such a scandal was reported to him, as it surely would be. He would call her wanton and say she tempted men to sin. He was the one tempted to sin, she knew that. He hung pictures of naked women in his bedroom. He humiliated her and Winifred with his attempts at courting women. They knew why he wanted another wife and his need disgusted them. She had tried to draw the male body but her attempts were unsatisfactory. There was something ridiculous about the genitals which her pencil exaggerated and she had torn these drawings up, but not before Gus had seen them. He had shaken his head and asked did she want to draw him. He would pose for her, and she could pose for him. Why not? She did not know why not, but she had shaken her head, said no. But when Gus was sent away to boarding school, she regretted her refusal.

  It made her shiver to think of what she had missed.

  *

  ‘Sit,’ their father said, and the girls sat, smoothing their skirts down and folding their hands demurely on their laps. Their eyes were lowered, ready for him to begin. Gwen stared at his feet, encased in black slippers, side by side, absolutely flat on the carpet. He kept them so very still all the time he was reading, and his knees too, firmly pressed neatly together, never one leg restless or flung over the other. ‘The red room,’ he read, ‘was a spare chamber, very seldom slept in; I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it contained; and yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawn colour, with a blush of pink in it …’ He read on, but Gwen heard no more, only the rise and fall of his voice. She was in the room with Jane Eyre, oppressed by the mahogany and stifled by the red drapes. She fought for breath and there was a hissing in her head. It was the room of her nightmares. Her father noticed nothing. He loved to read to them and paid little attention to the effect of the words he read out. Should he look up from the book, he had Winifred to be gratified by. She sat, rapt, her mouth slightly open and her expression one of utter concentration.

  It was after tea, on Sunday. This was part of the Sunday ritual and it was not unpleasant. The fire burned brightly in the drawing room and they were full of plum cake. That morning they had been to St Mary’s where their father had played the organ for the service. They had walked there, as usual, even though it was raining and there was a bitter wind. Without the boys, both long since away at boarding school, it seemed a dismal and embarrassing walk. They were too old now to be led through the streets by their father, stalking ahead in his top hat. It would have been more bearable, and more fitting for their ages, that he should walk with them, side by side, he in the middle, in a dignified way. As it was, they felt they were scurrying after him. Anger burned in Gwen at this enforced humiliation and she could only manage her rage by projecting herself into a future where she would walk by herself and never have to follow anyone.

  On the walk back from church, they had passed a woman to whom their father had doffed his hat. He stopped and exchanged greetings, and they had been obliged to stop too, though they took care to stand some way off. He had not introduced them, though in fact they knew her by sight. She was called Mrs Thomas and had a little girl, Stella, who had red hair and was pretty. They might have b
een servants, but for once Gwen was glad of the insult. She did not want to have to speak to Mrs Thomas. There were other women to whom their father made tentative advances. His manner was always proper but his intentions, Gwen was quite convinced, were not. The woman, today, had blushed. It was not, both girls afterwards reckoned, a blush of pleasure at a compliment but rather a colouring caused by unease. Mrs Thomas, they knew, was a widow. She had not wanted his attentions. But he failed to appreciate this. Afterwards, when they had walked on, there had been a spring in his step and a foolish smile on his normally unsmiling face. They hated his complacency.

  ‘I will continue next Sunday,’ their father said.

  *

  Gwenda left, to be married. She went back to Haverfordwest and she was not replaced. Then Eluned went home to nurse her mother though their father made it clear that he thought her first loyalty should be to them. There were tears when her brother came to take her home, her tears, not Gwen’s, though Winifred managed a few. Unlike Gwenda, Eluned would have to be replaced so an advertisement was put in the paper. A series of what their father described as highly unsuitable women applied for the post before someone was found. ‘You are old enough, Gwendoline,’ her father said, ‘to take your place as head of my household. You must learn how to manage the servants and see that it runs smoothly.’ Gwen stared at him in disbelief. Eluned had never been ‘managed’. Not even Aunt Rose had managed her. She had done what she thought needed to be done and her word had been law. Their father did not seem to realise this. His notion of how their household was run was founded on a myth to which he had clung in the face of all the evidence. Gwen kept quiet. She had no intention of learning how to manage any running of the household. It could continue to jerk along as it had always done, though without Eluned and Gwenda it was difficult to see how.

  The new cook was a Mrs Ellis, who came in daily, and therefore breakfast was half an hour beyond the usual time, which did not suit Father at all. But Mrs Ellis could not arrive before seven in the morning, for reasons so long-winded and tedious that Father did not hear them out, but was obliged to accept the change in his timetable. Gwen was forced to speak to Mrs Ellis on her first day. ‘You may cook what you think fitting,’ she told her, ‘as long as it is within your budget.’ Fortunately, Eluned had left a list of their preferences and dislikes, and Mrs Ellis seemed content to work from that. Gwen had added a few dishes to the list of family dislikes. Rice pudding was one. She loathed it with a passion, but in the past her father had made her eat every last slithery spoonful. She wondered how long it would be before her father enquired of her why Mrs Ellis never gave them rice pudding.

  Mrs Ellis expressed surprise at the meagreness of the budget. Gwen told her that her master liked plain food and had no desire for luxuries at his table. But she felt ashamed on her father’s behalf. There was no need, she was sure, for them to live on boiled mutton and scrag-end beef and have every last scrap of inferior meat turned into rissoles. Food did not matter to her unless it was fatty or stringy. She preferred to eat bread and cheese and fruit, and had vowed that when she left home and lived by herself that is all her diet would consist of. Winifred ventured the opinion that without meat Gwen might not grow, but Gwen replied that by the time this happy day came she would already be fully grown. ‘Then you might faint,’ Winifred argued. ‘Your blood would not be rich enough without meat.’ Gwen did not believe it. Meat was disgusting. She could not bear the sight of it. She had tried to explain this to her father as she sat, tearful, with lumps of meat in a stew before her, but he had said she was too squeamish. ‘You cannot go through life squeamish,’ he had said. ‘It is not possible. Eat.’ He told her that she was too pale, too thin and that it was her duty to eat what was good for her or she would become ill. Once, he began a sentence, or what seemed likely to be about to be a sentence, with the words, ‘Your mother became ill …’ and then stopped abruptly and played with his silver napkin ring. He bowed his head, and Gwen waited. Had he intended to blame her mother for her own illness? Had he meant to go on to say that if she did not eat what was put before her she, too, would become ill? ‘Eat,’ he repeated, but his tone was soft.

  *

  The journey was long, but they were glad to make it. Hours and hours they sat in the train, straight-backed, silent enough to please their father, books open on their knees. Gwen was reading Far from the Madding Crowd and did not know what to make of it. They had neither food nor drink with them. Their father thought it ridiculous not to be able to endure six hours without sustenance. They would eat and drink when they arrived in London. He knew a teashop near the National Gallery which was modest and gave good value. There they would refresh themselves before proceeding to the pictures.

  Once inside the galleries, it did not matter that their father ignored them. Gwen was glad of it. Within minutes she had lost him and could stop and look at whatever she wished. It would have been better to have had Gus with her but really she had no need of anyone. Even Winifred was a distraction, soon whispering that she would like to sit down. Gwen left her in front of a picture of a winter scene with skaters and went to find Vermeer’s A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal, which she very much wanted to see. She was annoyed to come upon a small crowd in front of the painting and she hung around the doorway until it had dispersed somewhat. First she viewed the picture from the other side of the room and then slowly moved forwards. She admired it more from a distance, and this seemed curious to her. She thought it meant that the artist was outside the painting and not condensed within it. She herself was in what she drew and painted. She knew she was.

  Winifred fell asleep in the theatre. They were in the circle, front row (about some things their father could be startlingly generous). Red plush, comfortable seats, proper arm-rests with tiny binoculars inset, which they were allowed to use, their father willingly providing the coins for both of them. But Winifred dozed, exhausted by the travelling and the walking round the galleries and streets, her head nodding forward after the first half-hour. It was a stupid play but Gwen was happy. She had her sketchbook and worked rapidly, drawing the costumes one after the other, and then started on the set. The action of the play was in a drawing room. It was boring to draw the furniture but there was a spiral staircase in one corner which was a challenge and she drew it in minute detail, using the little binoculars to scrutinise the ivy embellishments on the wrought-iron banisters.

  Their father was absorbed. He kept lifting his binoculars again and again to study the leading actress, whose voice Gwen thought shrill. She had already made two sketches of the actress, for no other reason than that her costume was ravishing. She wore a dress of striped silk, with gorgeous panels of purple and gold in the skirt, its sleeves, wide and full, in shimmering gold. Gwen thought that the sleeves, cunningly devised so that again and again the actress’s perfect white arms were displayed, were of a different, heavier, material from the skirt. Satin, probably. She spent a great deal of time shading the sleeves to convey this difference. There was plenty of bosom on display too. The top of the dress was tightly corseted, pushing up the actress’s breasts. Gwen, staring critically, found she was not envious. She did not wish either to have such breasts or to flaunt them. But she thought how, stripped of the dress and the corset underneath, the actress’s body would be interesting to draw.

  Coming out into the Haymarket, they were confused by the commotion, by the many carriages waiting for the theatregoers and by the press of people pouring out of the theatre. Their father seemed to hesitate, unsure which way to go, unused to crowds. Gwen was happy to stand there with him, taking in bits of overheard conversation and watching the expressions in the faces around her. At last their father decided where they would go. For once, he held both of them, one either side, clutching them just above the elbow and squeezing hard enough almost to hurt, and led them round to the left where the crowd was not so dense. There was no question of a cab. They walked again, quickly, and were soon at their lodgings in Covent Garde
n.

  Winifred slept the moment she got into bed but Gwen sat awhile, looking at her sketches. Some she thought good, worth keeping, but most she tore up, upset that she had wasted the special paper. She never liked to tear up paper, and tried hard to concentrate and think carefully before making any mark in her precious sketchbooks. She did not like to rub out, it was messy, so once she had made her drawing it had to stand or be destroyed. Painting was less wasteful. She had learned already that paint was amenable to alteration, oils especially. She could paint in layers and rectify mistakes. She wished she could learn more of the subtleties involved in the use of paint about which she felt she knew so little. It was no good trying to teach herself these practical things. She needed a teacher, and access to materials which she did not have. Her hunger to learn was ferocious.

  Gus was going to learn. It had been agreed. Their father, astonishingly, was willing to pay for him to enrol at the Slade School of Art, and he was to begin soon. Gwen’s envy was violent; she could hardly bear to think of what lay ahead for Gus, and she had said so. She had told their father that she wanted to follow Gus. ‘Do not think of such a thing,’ he had said.