The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland Page B

Priscilla Hamilton, President
Vancouver Ladies’ Art Club
    â€œWhat!” She stormed across the room, unable to believe the words in front of her. “Inadequate! Pish! What do they know?” she told Joseph. “They’re beastly and ignorant. They have prehistoric ideas about art. I’d rather starve than teach them.”
    â€œI’d rather starve,” Joseph mimicked, saying it twice.
    â€œGood thing, because if I go, you go.”
    She slammed the teakettle onto the stove. Jessica was right. They weren’t serious about art. They only wanted to paint flowers and themselves. Flamingo-hatted pretenders. She rolled a cigarette from her tobacco tin, lit it, then touched the match to the letter and watched the blackening edge of the paper advance toward Priscilla’s graceless signature.
    What would she do? She’d earned enough for only a few more months. Going home was unthinkable. She’d just begun to establish herself here. Jessica was here. Her new friend, Sophie, was here. The reserve was here. Possibility was here. The city was growing. Every month there were new houses of lumber barons to fill with paintings. But her trust fund wouldn’t last forever.
    She surveyed her recent work. Were they any good, or did she only like them because of the associations? Art couldn’t just be personal. Her old flop fears crawled up her spine. The Ancestor was a strong composition, though Tommy under it might be too precious. She’d try it without him. She wanted to draw Annie Marie too, sometime. Annie, so curious when she watched her from behind. She probably had never seen anyone draw before. The Ladies’ Art Club prima donnas never watched her draw. Annie watched, and then drew in the dirt. It was natural that children imitated what they liked in adults.
    She rolled and lit another cigarette, and discovered the first one still burning in the ashtray. She pushed it aside and wrote out an advertisement: Emily Carr, Classes in Drawing and Painting, Children Only. 570 Granville Street. First class free. She’d never teach adults again. Ingrates. But children, that was a different kettle of fish. Jessica would enroll her daughters, and they had friends. She might even have a ripping good time of it.
    â€¢ • •
    At the top of the incline above the cove, Emily dug her fingers into the shaggy black and white coat of the dog’s neck. He’d behaved himself well coming here, their first walk together. His lumbering gait had made her take long strides, swing her arms, breathe deep, feel plucky.
    She saw a long plank placed across the muskeg, and on the far end, the drawing that had blown away on her previous visit, weighted on four corners with stones. “Besides you, pooch, that plank’s the best thing that’s happened today.”
    She stepped carefully down the slope, the dog close to her on a leash, and crossed the muskeg on the plank, squeezing her toes to keep her balance, and urging him across.
    â€œGood boy!” She chucked him under the chin. “You’ll be good with the children, won’t you? You’ll keep them together on our drawing outings just like they were sheep.”
    With his mauve tongue on the back of her hand, he seemed to promise that he would. He was a business necessity, she’d tell Dede in case she rapped her knuckles with the bank book.
    She picked up the drawing. It wasn’t so bad after all.
    â€œMademoiselle!” The man smiled as he came out of his tent.
    â€œEmily. My name is Emily.”
    â€œ Une dame courageuse to climb down that steep hill.” He waved a rag in a flourish and executed a low bow. “Claude Serreau, fur trader. One of the last, and best. From Poitiers, where all the good ones came from. You may call me Claude du Bois, considering where I live.” His lips poked out of his beard in a funny grin and he gesticulated toward the woods behind his camp. “You came to