Keeping the World Away

by Margaret Forster

  She had only been out of the room twenty minutes, but it was her first outing for a week. She had broken the spell it held her in. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open vigorously, wanting to take in the room all at once. The shock was profound – it was there! She felt dizzy with relief and had to sit down and put her head on the table. It was not an illusion. The corner of her room spoke loud and clear. It only needed her maître to come and hear its voice.

  *

  Winifred had written. When the concierge said that there was a letter for her, Gwen had hoped it was from Rodin and she had almost snatched it from the woman’s hand. But she saw at once the foreign stamps and recognised Winifred’s writing. It shamed her to feel such disappointment and she punished herself by not opening the letter at once. Winifred’s life seemed to her extraordinary – to take herself off like that to join Thornton in his strange wanderings through Canada, and then to go on to America, was quite bizarre. It could never have been predicted. Where was her sister’s music in all this? Once, it had seemed to drive her, as art drove Gus and Gwen, but now there was no mention of hours of devoted practice. Music was not her god.

  It was a cheerful letter, amusing, full of lively descriptions of people and places. Winifred sounded happy, and Gwen was glad of it. She wondered, in this letter, if Gwen was once more working or whether she was still ‘in thrall’ to her lover. Only Winifred and Ursula knew about Rodin and sometimes Gwen regretted confessing to either of them, but there had been a great need in her to burst out to someone, to tell them what was filling her heart and her life. They had been kind, and respectful. They had not cast doubt on her passion, or uttered dire warnings of what might happen. They had, she thought, both been glad for her. She loved them for it.

  But Winifred now upset her by asking if she was still ‘in thrall’ to Rodin. Of course she was, yet she did not like her feelings for him described thus. Someone ‘in thrall’ was surely blinded to reality, and on the brink of being silly. It made her sound weak and feeble, and she was neither. She tried to think how she could honestly respond to her sister’s enquiry. The attempt stopped her painting. She sat at her easel, facing the beautiful corner of her room, and she did not touch the canvas all day. Slowly, seeping through her brain, was the terrifying knowledge that she was no longer ‘in thrall’. She wanted to be, but doubt had begun to break the spell and she did not like what she glimpsed behind it. She loved her maître every bit as fiercely, but she needed him to love her as she loved him. His absences spoke for him. She had transformed herself for him, and had become his willing slave, but now he was wary of her hunger for him. He had said he was merely tired, he’d pleaded his great age, but she had seen in his eyes that it was more than that. It was like watching the moon wane, the full glory of its light weakening, the great roundness fading round the rim, and she could not bear it.

  The next morning found her back behind her easel, still staring at the corner of her room but seeing it differently. It was a cheat. It was full of hope, yet she was losing hope. But instead of discouraging her, instead of breaking her heart, this revelation strengthened her sense of purpose. She knew what she saw in the corner of her room and she had to make sure that others saw it too. She wanted to record how things might have been and so nearly were. Contentment, peace, a life lived sweetly and quietly. No mess, no trouble, no agonising. The person who lived in this room was in perfect control of her emotions. She had been out for a walk and picked the flowers and had come home to it well satisfied. She might seem invisible, but she was across the room, pouring a glass of wine, putting bread and grapes for her supper on a plate. Soon, she would come to the chair and sit down, and put her glass and her plate on the table, and perhaps draw the curtain back and look out of the window. She wanted for nothing.

  But I, thought Gwen, still want so much. I may not be quite ‘in thrall’ to my lover, but I am not free and I do not think I can bear to be free.

  *

  She had worked long enough on the painting. Day after day she had gone out and bought primroses and when primroses were no longer obtainable any other small flowers she could find. Sometimes, in order to get a posy of the matching size, she had to accept some tiny pink primulas too, and a few blue ones, though it meant changing what she had already painted. But now, on her thirty-first birthday, she had done as much as she could and it was not enough. She took the small canvas off the easel and turned it to the wall. She would try again, and meanwhile give this one to Ursula. Already she had the version with the open window and the book hidden away. It worked better but still did not say what she wanted it to say. She would keep that one.

  The 22nd June, her birthday, was a lovely sunny day, but she was not happy. How could she be? No letter, no card, from her maître, and she had no hope that he was about to surprise her with a sudden visit. She went out in the afternoon and walked first by the river and then took a tram to Rodin’s studio. She would confront him. She would remind him that it was her birthday and hope to witness his guilt at having forgotten. She wanted him to take her in his arms and see him contrite and concerned and eager to make up for his neglect. Her heart beat more quickly as she neared the studio but she did not falter – she was tired of waiting, of being humble. A birthday was a good day to make a stand. But his studio was empty of people. No one at all working there, only half-completed works shrouded in sheets. She had an insane desire to slip the sheets off and smash to bits what was underneath but instead she went into the adjoining studio in search of Hilda Flodin, who would know where Rodin was.

  He was in Oxford, it seemed, attending a ceremony admitting him to the university. Hilda smiled when she gave this information, an annoying smile, malicious. ‘He did not tell you?’ she asked Gwen. Gwen did not reply. Why would she be asking if she already knew? And she would not pretend that she had been told and had forgotten. She turned, without saying anything to Hilda, though Hilda was saying something else, and left the studios. It was unendurable to think that Rodin had actually left the country and had not thought to tell her. Tears blinded her as she stumbled home and when she got back to her room she flung herself on her bed and wept and wept. Eventually, through sheer exhaustion, she fell into a half-sleep in which she was calling out to Rodin to come to her but was conscious enough to realise this was not a dream but a hallucination. She could see him coming towards her, arms outstretched, and she tried to rouse herself enough to stand up and embrace him. The effort was too much. She sank back onto the bed, and this time truly slept.

  The light, when she woke, had changed. It was late evening, she knew. No need to consult a clock when the setting sun told the time so obligingly. She rolled onto her side, her head throbbing, her eyes hurting from all the tears. How sad the empty chair looked, how pathetic the little posy of flowers wilting on the plain wooden table. They spoke of loneliness and blankness. There was no life there, or no life worth having. The parasol did not fool her. It had not been opened, had not been taken on a walk. Why had she been so proud of this corner? Why had she been so sure her maître would approve of what it represented? It was an interior like any other. The props were universal – the cheap chair, the cheap table, the poverty of it all. And she had wanted it to prove her own triumph. She had wanted to show Rodin that this was evidence of her transformation. She had imagined him walking into her room and being transfixed, overcome with admiration for what she had achieved.

  But now she doubted if she had achieved anything. Was the painting good? She did not know. She wanted to be rid of that first version, the one painted with such joy. The next she would complete in a different mood, and then hide. Then she would be done with trying to make herself into what her lover wanted.

  *

  This time, Ursula came by arrangement, to say goodbye. How her friend could leave Paris, Gwen did not know, but the answer was simple: Ursula’s father wanted her home. ‘You listen to your father?’ Gwen asked. ‘Still?’ Ursula smiled, but felt her face flush. She loved both her pare
nts but especially her father, who had always championed her cause. If it had not been for him, she would never have gone to the Slade. Were it not for his indulgence, she could not have come to Paris at all. Like Gwen, she was in her thirties and unmarried – she had no means of support other than her clergyman father’s allowance. ‘I did without any allowance from my father,’ Gwen told her, ‘and so could you.’ Ursula shook her head. It seemed unnecessary to point out the difference to her friend, who knew perfectly well that she loved her father and would not for the world disobey or offend him. Art was not important enough to contemplate a rupture with her parents.

  Gwen was ready for her. She had bought delicious pastries and had the table set with pretty pink teacups and teapot. They sat by the window, listening to the canary singing in its cage on the balcony below and watching the tree-tops shiver in the breeze. ‘I love your room,’ Ursula said. Gwen nodded, and said that she loved it too, but that lately she had experienced a yearning for the country. ‘The country?’ Ursula queried, surprised. ‘Meudon,’ Gwen said. ‘Oh, Gwen,’ Ursula said, ‘is that wise?’ Gwen shrugged. They sat in silence for a while. A child laughed somewhere below them and they could hear a ball bouncing against a wall. ‘Come and live with me,’ Gwen said. ‘We will take a cottage together. It will not cost much.’ Did she mean it? Ursula was not sure. Her friend could be impulsive and then regret it. And she did not know if she could live harmoniously with Gwen. Often, after a mere hour in her company she felt drained by the emotional demands made on her, that urgent need for constant sympathy which was so exhausting to give. And Gwen, in that respect, gave little in return.

  They ate the pastries and drank the tea and it felt comfortable and companionable, so much so that Ursula wondered what had happened to make Gwen seem relaxed and cheerful when for the last few months she had been tense and depressed. Had Rodin come to her? From what she had heard said in and around the studios of the Dépôt des Marbres, she did not think so. Or was this change of mood in Gwen due to her acceptance that Rodin had found someone new? Again, Ursula did not think so. Gwen did not accept unpalatable truths – she denied them, fought them and could only be bludgeoned into defeat. Then it occurred to Ursula that there could be another reason for her friend’s apparent contentment. Perhaps her work was giving her pleasure again? Perhaps she had completed a painting, or even more than one, to her satisfaction? That would be something.

  ‘I have a present to give you,’ Gwen said, rising and brushing crumbs off her skirt. ‘Take it, look at it when you reach home, and think of me.’ She handed Ursula a package, clearly a small canvas, framed, already wrapped in calico and tied with string. She made to undo the knots but Gwen stopped her. ‘No,’ she said, ‘don’t look at it now. Wait. Look at it when you are home, alone, in your own room.’ Ursula felt overwhelmed. She clutched the package to her, embraced it tightly, feeling the sharp corners of the frame with her fingers. ‘Is it this room, this corner?’ Gwen nodded. ‘Your primroses,’ she said. ‘But Gwen …’ Ursula began, and was stopped. Gwen put a finger to her lips. ‘Say nothing,’ she commanded. ‘I want you to have it. It was the first. I have another, which will be better. But this one has your primroses. Show it to no one, promise?’ Ursula rose, and kissed her on the cheek. They held each other for a moment. ‘Thank you,’ Ursula whispered. ‘I shall treasure it.’ ‘There is treasure there, for you to find,’ Gwen said, but smiling, laughing at herself.

  All the way down the staircase Ursula puzzled over what such an odd statement could mean.

  *

  The temptation was too strong. Before she left Paris, Ursula looked at the painting Gwen had given her, justifying this disobedience by persuading herself that to open the package in absolute privacy fulfilled the spirit of her friend’s command. And, besides, she needed to wrap it more securely for it to be better protected during the Channel crossing. She carried the package over to the window where a small desk stood, and searched in one of the cubbyholes for scissors. Outside, it was raining slightly but the sky was not completely grey. There were patches of blue visible and the clouds were white, not black. It was just a shower which would soon stop.

  The calico was just the outer wrapping. Underneath, the painting was swathed in several layers of cotton muslin and she removed each one with exquisite care, folding them as she went to prolong the delicious anticipation. She guessed that the canvas underneath was about twelve inches by ten, small indeed, like most of Gwen’s paintings. Every single one she had seen could hang comfortably in an ordinary-sized room – there would be no difficulty in hanging it. At home she had a dressing room opening off her bedroom and no one went into it except Mary, the maid, who, if she noticed a new painting on the wall would hardly remark on it. After all, Gwen would not have expected her to keep her gift literally hidden – it was to be enjoyed, gazed upon often, but not shown off, that was the difference.

  No figure. She remembered saying that to Gwen. An empty room, a mere corner of an empty room, with no one in it, and yet Gwen’s presence so powerfully there. Ursula held the unwrapped painting in her hands and stared at it. There was such longing there, she thought. For the quiet pleasures of a walk in the sun and the picking of primroses. A life outside which had been brought inside and held there? But then she held the small canvas at arm’s length and looked again. It was in fact the opposite: a life inside which had been brought outside. The empty chair, the parasol leaning against it, the table bare except for the flowers – they were all disguises. But what lay underneath? She seemed to see the parasol trembling in Gwen’s hands as she walked to Rodin’s studio and found him absent, and then it would be furled up and held tightly to stop the rage this absence provoked. The empty chair would not be empty long – she saw Gwen hurl herself into it, slump down against its uncomfortable back and weep. The corner of the room was soon invaded by the real Gwen, the distraught Gwen longing for her maître who no longer deigned to visit her. He would not be fooled. Indeed, Ursula found herself thinking, in all probability he had never been fooled. Gwen had intrigued him, and he had undoubtedly felt passion for her, but he had always been wary of being consumed by her, and when that became too great a danger he had extricated himself. Ursula felt such pain for her friend. She walked around the room, cradling the painting in her arms, and there were tears in her eyes.

  The frame was old and cracked and did not fit the canvas exactly. Ursula hesitated. She knew that Gwen searched out used frames, preferring them, and that this one would not have cost much. It seemed wicked to discard it but if she did so the painting would fit into the special compartment in her largest valise and be very well protected during the journey. This compartment was like a second case within the valise and she had used it to transport her own work. Carefully, she detached the battered frame and wrapped the canvas in a length of gauze she had bought that day, intending to make a veil for a hat, and then in the layers of cotton muslin Gwen had provided. She put the parcel between two sheets of cardboard and wrapped the whole thing in a woollen scarf. There was still plenty of room in the compartment so she further padded the package all round with her silk underwear before closing it. The valise was clearly labelled with the Pimlico address where she would stay before going on to her father’s vicarage. Once there, she would take the painting out of its hiding place and carry it in her bag the rest of the way. The painting would be quite safe. The valise, purchased at Harrod’s some years ago, was strong and had good locks.

  At the last minute, she almost took it out and put it in her travelling bag there and then, but stopped herself with the memory of having mislaid two such bags on other travels through sheer carelessness – she was always putting her bag down and forgetting it and moving away only to realise, far too late, that she did not have it with her and could not remember when she last had it. She did the same with her purse, and her clasp bag, and had had to teach herself always to wear some garment with capacious pockets so that her money and passport could be kept within them. If only
Gwen’s little canvas had been just an inch or two smaller then, even well wrapped, it could have gone into such a pocket on the inside of her long coat. But it stayed in the big, secure valise.

  Ursula was to regret this for the rest of her life.

  CHARLOTTE

  I

  THE HOUSE WAS full. Every bedroom taken, and even the better rooms among the servants’ attics commandeered for the weekend. Where the evicted servants would sleep nobody had the slightest interest. Charlotte should not have been up on that floor at all, she was in the way, but she wanted to see what was going on, and her mother was much too agitated to care where her youngest daughter had got to. It was Jessie who snapped at her instead. ‘If you please, Miss Charlotte!’ she shouted, as she staggered up the last flight of stairs, carrying bed linen, and Charlotte, pressed against the staircase wall, knocked a pair of pillowcases off the pile – ‘If you please!’ Charlotte apologised, picked up the pillowcases and followed Jessie into the end attic.