would come back in the evening to Fitzroy Street and find Gwen prostrate on her bed, fists clenched, body rigid in some kind of sustained grief too awful to speak of. Once, the name Ambrose McEvoy was mentioned when Winifred asked what was the matter, but no explanation followed the muffled reference to him. It was all rather frightening.
*
Climbing the steps of the National Gallery made Gwen feel important. She was not a tourist, she was not an ignoramus, she had not come merely to gape. This was her work. Tonks had had no need to urge her to make this gallery her second home, to visit it often and learn from all it held. The very stones of the building felt sacred to her and when she was settled in front of a painting that she had come to study, she lost herself completely for hours. She sat on her folding stool perfectly composed, staring, seeking the internal structure of one picture before her. She looked for the muscles beneath the sleeves, the bones beneath the skin and the sinews of the neck, the veins in the eye. Then she opened her sketchbook and copied the line, leaving aside all colour and texture.
She had finished with Gabriel Metsu’s
A Woman Seated at a Table and a Man Tuning a Violin
. Today she had come to look at Rembrandt’s
Self-Portrait
, aged thirty-four. Young, but fourteen years older than she herself was now. She had fourteen years to reach Rembrandt’s standard, a thought which made her shiver. She wished he had looked straight at himself but his gaze was slightly off-centre. Why? How? Where was his mirror? And was he left-handed? If not, why was his right hand folded across his body? He was leaning on something, a banister perhaps, or a shelf. The clothes, the hat, were striking, but she was more interested in the face, especially the chin and the sparse growth of hair around it. Her own chin made her despair. Gus hid his chin, which like hers receded slightly, with his beard, and she almost wished that she could do the same. Always, she drew herself full-face, and then the chin did not bother her as much. Full-face and, increasingly, one hand on her hip. She liked the feeling this gave her, of defiance, even arrogance. She hoped it suggested that she was in control and able to face herself without shame. It was a lie, but she wanted it to be a successful lie, one that would not be questioned.
Last night, they had all gone to the Café Royal, she and Gus, and Ida and Ambrose and Grilda. (She would rather have been with Ursula, but Ursula had gone home to her father’s vicarage in Essex.) They had eaten sandwiches and drunk lager, and watched what was going on around them though none of them sketched. Winifred would not go with them; she had said she would be out of place and feel uncomfortable, and this had made Gwen realise that she herself felt perfectly at ease. To be part of a group, a gang, was not a situation she had either wanted or anticipated – surely, she was a solitary being, more solitary than her sister. It was Gus who needed people around him and liked to be at the centre of activity, not she. And yet there she had been, as she now often was, sitting with friends, drinking and eating and talking, quite comfortable. She had caught sight of herself in a huge mirror fixed along the wall opposite and she could not credit it was herself. Ida on one side, Ambrose on the other, squashed up together on the banquette, smoke wreathing their heads and the light from candles casting their faces into shadow. She looked so small and demure beside Ida who was dressed in crimson and wore a flower Gus had given her in her hair. Nondescript, that was the word that had come to her as she looked at herself. Dark dress, plain hairstyle, pale unpainted face. Only her necklace sparkled, her mother’s diamonds brilliant against her black velvet dress. She hadn’t known whether she should wear them or not: they looked out of place on her and might draw attention in a way she did not want. But wear
*
Climbing the steps of the National Gallery made Gwen feel important. She was not a tourist, she was not an ignoramus, she had not come merely to gape. This was her work. Tonks had had no need to urge her to make this gallery her second home, to visit it often and learn from all it held. The very stones of the building felt sacred to her and when she was settled in front of a painting that she had come to study, she lost herself completely for hours. She sat on her folding stool perfectly composed, staring, seeking the internal structure of one picture before her. She looked for the muscles beneath the sleeves, the bones beneath the skin and the sinews of the neck, the veins in the eye. Then she opened her sketchbook and copied the line, leaving aside all colour and texture.
She had finished with Gabriel Metsu’s
A Woman Seated at a Table and a Man Tuning a Violin
. Today she had come to look at Rembrandt’s
Self-Portrait
, aged thirty-four. Young, but fourteen years older than she herself was now. She had fourteen years to reach Rembrandt’s standard, a thought which made her shiver. She wished he had looked straight at himself but his gaze was slightly off-centre. Why? How? Where was his mirror? And was he left-handed? If not, why was his right hand folded across his body? He was leaning on something, a banister perhaps, or a shelf. The clothes, the hat, were striking, but she was more interested in the face, especially the chin and the sparse growth of hair around it. Her own chin made her despair. Gus hid his chin, which like hers receded slightly, with his beard, and she almost wished that she could do the same. Always, she drew herself full-face, and then the chin did not bother her as much. Full-face and, increasingly, one hand on her hip. She liked the feeling this gave her, of defiance, even arrogance. She hoped it suggested that she was in control and able to face herself without shame. It was a lie, but she wanted it to be a successful lie, one that would not be questioned.
Last night, they had all gone to the Café Royal, she and Gus, and Ida and Ambrose and Grilda. (She would rather have been with Ursula, but Ursula had gone home to her father’s vicarage in Essex.) They had eaten sandwiches and drunk lager, and watched what was going on around them though none of them sketched. Winifred would not go with them; she had said she would be out of place and feel uncomfortable, and this had made Gwen realise that she herself felt perfectly at ease. To be part of a group, a gang, was not a situation she had either wanted or anticipated – surely, she was a solitary being, more solitary than her sister. It was Gus who needed people around him and liked to be at the centre of activity, not she. And yet there she had been, as she now often was, sitting with friends, drinking and eating and talking, quite comfortable. She had caught sight of herself in a huge mirror fixed along the wall opposite and she could not credit it was herself. Ida on one side, Ambrose on the other, squashed up together on the banquette, smoke wreathing their heads and the light from candles casting their faces into shadow. She looked so small and demure beside Ida who was dressed in crimson and wore a flower Gus had given her in her hair. Nondescript, that was the word that had come to her as she looked at herself. Dark dress, plain hairstyle, pale unpainted face. Only her necklace sparkled, her mother’s diamonds brilliant against her black velvet dress. She hadn’t known whether she should wear them or not: they looked out of place on her and might draw attention in a way she did not want. But wear
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