Keeping the World Away by Margaret Forster Page B

Paris.’
    *
    She had only enough money to travel third class but this suited her perfectly. It was September and sunny, and being out on deck was exhilarating. No one noticed her, and she was able to lean on the rail and watch the white cliffs fade. Only the thought of arriving in Calais, and having to get herself on the train to Paris, made her apprehensive. No one seemed to understand her French and the speed with which the French themselves spoke meant that she understood little of what they said. But, though she felt nervous, she was also aware of a kind of relief to be so isolated. The hubbub was great, and in the midst of it she was speechless and deaf and turned in on herself, which thrilled her. There was a sense of containment that she had never experienced before, and when, at the Gare du Nord, she was met by Ida she was almost sorry. Ida laughed and talked and hugged her, and that sense of being remote, untouchable, disappeared.
    The apartment thrilled her. Three large rooms,
empty
. Wooden floors, long windows, dazzling light. They did not need beds. Mattresses would do, and cushions were preferable to chairs and stools. Gwen felt giddy with excitement. In no time the three of them had been to the market and bought the very minimum they needed, and then Ida and the other Gwen went off to Boulogne for the weekend leaving her alone. When the door closed, Gwen let out one of her loud exclamations. ‘Oh!’ she cried with delight. Round and round the rooms she paraded, arms flung wide, dancing in the space. At one and the same time she never wanted to leave the apartment but longed to explore Montparnasse. Out she went in the end, not caring if she got lost, and wandered the streets, the boulevards, feeling carefree and eager. When she returned to her room, she began painting immediately, her easel set up near the window so that she could see the scene below.
    But street scenes were not what she wanted. The only reason she wanted Ida and Gwen Salmond to return was so that they could pose for her, so that she could attempt an interior with figures in it. They were obliging when they arrived, understanding her feverish impatience. The other Gwen donned a white muslin dress and Ida a flounced skirt with a pink shawl draped round her upper body, and she posed them standing together, Gwen reading a book, Ida peering at it over her shoulder. Though it was not the figures she had difficulty with – the composition was simple – but the room around them. She struggled to capture the spirit of the room but felt it slipping from her. The eye was drawn to the window in the background but tripped up on its way there by the fireplace and a picture framed on the wall above it. And the plaster rose in the ceiling. There was something not right. She needed a teacher. The teacher she wanted was Whistler, but his fees, for lessons in his Académie Carmen, were double those of other schools. What was to be done?
    She borrowed money. It was against everything her father had preached – neither a borrower nor a lender be – and he would be furious if he found out. But his allowance would not pay for lessons at the Académie Carmen and so she took the money Gwen Salmond offered. The moment she stepped into Whistler’s presence, she was happy. He was small and neat, with curly grey hair; she noted his bright inquisitive eyes and his exquisite hands, which were rarely still. There was a passion about him which appealed to her immediately. He was different from Henry Tonks and his ideals not those of the Slade. Art, he believed, was about poetry, about bringing forth the spirit of things and expressing beauty of every sort – line, form, but most important of all, emotion. Art was about speaking from the soul.
    She did not want to return to London and the Slade. Paris was right for her, she decided, it was where she must stay. So she wrote to her father, an impassioned letter, trying to make him understand the vital importance to her