Shooting Butterflies (32 page)

‘It's the quiet ones you have to watch.'

‘Mother, will you let Jane finish.'

‘“What's the matter with you all?” That's what she kept screaming over and over again, even though there was no one in the room …'

‘Well, thank God for small mercies. Just imagine what the servants would have made of it. It would be all over the village.'

‘Mother!'

‘It was as if there were people there that only she could see. It was eerie. “What's wrong with you all?” She said it over and over again but there was no one there. I closed the door and left her, in front of the glass, stark naked, weeping like a baby.'

Arthur comes to see me. He tells me what he has heard. He is hurt, he says. He feels that I'm being most unfair. Do I not realise that he needs peace right now with the exhibition coming up? ‘Really, Louisa, does it always have to be about you? Now, I know things aren't as we had hoped between us, but you're my wife. We shall both have to make the best of things. I'm not an insensitive man, as you know. In fact, I sometimes think that I am too sensitive for my own good. I understand the burden you carry from your unfortunate early life. The ghosts of your parents haunt you still. Suicide is indeed the greatest betrayal. That's why, however distressed I myself might get at times, I would never contemplate such an action. So you need not worry on that score, I can assure you.'

I look at him, wondering if his words are calculated, if he knows the distress they cause. ‘Arthur,' I say, ‘until now I had never thought it the slightest possibility that you, of all people, should
wish to take your own life.' I look down at my quiet hands folded in my lap and then I face him again with a smile. ‘But thank you, my dear, for your assurance.'

Georgie has turned into a whiny boy, Arthur says, always clinging to his mother and glaring at the world through those ambercoloured eyes. He runs to me or Nanny whenever his father takes the trouble to pay him attention. I get cross with Arthur for complaining about our son and I tell him that people are not possessions that can be toyed with for a while and then put back in the cupboard until the next time you feel like having a game. For someone who never tires of pointing out the faults and weaknesses in others, Arthur takes these remarks of mine very much to heart. He protests. Next his eyes are full of hurt like Georgie's when he got smacked once for running out on to the road. Finally he storms from the room.

My little daughter … she is a strange one, of that there is no argument. Nanny shakes her head in wonderment. ‘It's not natural, a child that young who doesn't cry. Look at her screwing up her little face and glaring at us.'

Only rarely did she cry and then it was from rage, not pain or sorrow. Lillian is bold. You see it in the way she pulls herself up to stand, as she takes her first step at only ten months, her straight dark brows knitted together in concentration. When she falls over she labours to her feet without a whimper, her tiny mouth clamped shut. But she has a temper, that little one, banging her tiny fists on the floor as if to punish it for her tumble. I love my daughter and I'm amused by her, but there is none of the visceral closeness I have with Georgie; rather, there exists a detachment, as if we, Lillian and I, have yet to work out the connection between us. She is so much her own person, with not a trait for which to thank or rebuke me. She looks at us all with her clear-eyed gaze, as if secretly we amuse her. She is the only one in the household who is unperturbed by Arthur's rages. The only time she seems to mind is when he upsets Georgie. She adores her brother and treats him a little like her pet. And she is fond of me; I know that from the way her cross little face brightens when I hold my arms out towards her and the way she moves just a little closer when there
are strangers around. I enjoy those moments when she shows her need of me. Mostly she does not seem to need anybody, but if she does – if she is hungry or wants a toy from a high shelf or a toddle in the gardens – then Jane will do nearly as well as I, and Nanny of course, or even the stern-faced whiskery old Grandma.

Arthur tells me that I should get out of the house, have some interest outside him and the children. ‘Look at Jane,' he says. ‘She cares for us all and yet she is always out and about in her free time. It would do us good to have to manage without you now and then.'

‘He thinks I'm boring,' I tell Viola.

‘Do you think you are boring?' she asks.

‘I wonder about it,' I say. Then I smile. ‘But I think Jane, with all her activities, is duller still.'

But I resume my painting. I don't know that I'm very good at it, but I do know that when I'm at my easel I don't need to ask who and why I am.

‘I was right, was I not?' Arthur says, pleased and mellow, stroking his beard, twinkling at me. ‘You just needed to get out and about and enjoy some activity of your own.'

I fear I shall never understand my husband. Our new teacher William Fenton is so pleased with our progress, Viola's and mine, that he has suggested we hold a small exhibition. A friend of his owns a gallery in Guildford. ‘It would be the ideal venue. Lewis is especially keen to help new artists.'

‘I don't think so,' I tell William at first. ‘We're just lady amateurs.'

‘Do you believe that? Is that how you feel? Like a lady amateur?'

I look up from my easel. ‘No,' I tell him. ‘When I paint I am alive.'

And Viola is game. I tell Arthur of our plans, expecting him to be proud. My dream is for him to speak to me with seriousness, to discuss and engage the way he does with his friends. If I prove myself, even in a small way, he might. That's what I hope. But unaccountably he is angry, accusing William Fenton of taking advantage of his pupils. ‘Can't you see? Can't you see that he and this friend of his are trying to gain from your connection with me? Oh, you are so naïve.'

‘I think William believes I have talent.'

Arthur shakes his head. ‘Oh, Louisa, I'm not saying you don't produce some very pleasing little pictures …'

‘It's been a while since you saw any of my work.'

‘Maybe, maybe, but I doubt there has been such progress as to justify exhibiting. No, my dear, I fear you're taken for a fool.'

But some days later he tells me he has a surprise. ‘I have asked Donald Argyll down for the weekend to look at your work. We have the business of my next show to discuss anyway. If he thinks well of it then I am prepared to admit that I was wrong and I will personally organise a small exhibition for you. Although I think that here at home, with our friends and neighbours invited, would be most suitable.'

Donald Argyll owned the fashionable gallery in London through which Arthur sold his work, and his opinion was much relied on. ‘He is a fierce critic,' I say.

‘You have nothing to fear, Louisa. What Donald abhors is pretension: callow youths with their talk of Modernism setting themselves out to be great artists. You make no such claims. You are simply a young woman keen to share her husband's world, and with a pleasing little talent of her own. He will be able to tell us – I feel I am too close to be an entirely reliable judge – if this young man is justified in raising your sights.'

‘Should you not take a look yourself first?'

‘If you wish, dear, if you wish.'

But he is busy in the next few days and there is never quite the right moment. By the time Donald Argyll arrives I feel shy and foolish for having listened to young William Fenton. Mr Argyll is charming, however. He compliments me on the children and on the excellent luncheon. Then they withdraw to the studio to look at Arthur's work in progress, his great Island canvas. Much later, when the light is fading and I believe with some relief that they have forgotten all about
me
, Jane fetches me from the nursery saying that Mr Argyll is ready to look at my work.

With the help of William Fenton and Viola I had chosen five paintings to display. I had placed them in the morning room: one on my easel and the others propped up on chairs. (I had felt it
presumptuous to replace the paintings already on the walls with my own offerings even for a day and Arthur had not suggested it.)

Mr Argyll walks around the room. Arthur is not with him. I watch him, alert to every flicker of emotion. My heart beats faster and my palms turn clammy as I await his pronouncement. He does not keep me long.

‘My dear Mrs Blackstaff, I must ask you why, when you have so many duties to which you are so eminently suitable, would you wish to pursue the difficult path of the artist?'

The heat rises in my cheeks and my eyes start itching, but I look straight at him with what I hope is an easy pleasant air. ‘I never set out to. It was just something to bring me out of the house. But gradually it began to take me over; yes, there's no other word for it. I tried to pretend otherwise, I am aware of my limitations, but this,' I gesticulate towards the easel and my picture upon it, ‘is what I am happy doing. When I paint I feel most myself. And then Mr Fenton, our teacher, told us that he thought we were ready, Viola Glastonbury and I, to put our work before an audience. He believes,' I hesitate then I push back my shoulders, ‘he believes that I have a talent.'

‘Does he, now? Then let it rest there.' Donald Argyll turned on his heels, about to leave the room. ‘I shall make no further comment.'

Arthur had come in and now he too was inspecting my work. I tried to read his expression; he noticed and turned away, but in the short moment when his eyes met mine, I saw it: dislike. I felt close to tears and tried to compose myself, turning to the window, looking out across the garden.

‘No, Donald,' my husband's voice was even. ‘We asked you here to give your honest view. You would not do Louisa any favours allowing her to labour under false illusions or allowing her to make a fool of herself.'

I blanch at his choice of words and dread what will follow, but all I can do is wait.

‘Very well. I would not go as far as to say that what I have seen is entirely without merit, Mrs Blackstaff. There is a naïvety that can be quite charming in its place. However, were I to judge your work against that of true artists, your husband being one …' here Arthur
inclined his head in recognition of the tribute ‘… then I would have to say that everything about it speaks of a negation of the skill and care that is the hallmark of the professional artist. May I also add that I find some of your work, mainly the canvas entitled
Mother and Child
, lacking in good taste as well as the basic skills in drawing, composition, perspective and colour.'

‘It was for the best.' Arthur wants to comfort me. There is no sign now of the anger I had seen in his eyes when he first saw my pictures. Maybe I had been mistaken; I was upset. ‘I fear you would not have taken my word alone but that you would have suspected me of some underhand motive in wishing to keep your work from a wider audience. This is why I called on Donald to give his opinion. Surely it is better we are spared the humiliation of a public exhibition? And don't forget, there would have been far more interest paid than is usual for the efforts of an unknown lady artist because of who I am. Believe me, he did us both a kindness. Now, no one is suggesting you should not go on enjoying your lessons, only that you should see it for what it is: a pleasant pastime. And can I also say that you have been a little neglectful of your duties at home of late.'

I stop going to my classes. I try to explain to William Fenton and Viola. William's jaw clenches and his dark eyes flash with anger; how young he is, I think. ‘That pompous old fraud. That …' I put my hand on his arm and as he glances down I wonder if he thinks, as I do, what a large strong hand mine is, what an unladylike hand. ‘Louisa, I implore you to take no notice. Don't let them take this away from you.'

I smile at him. ‘You speak as if there is a conspiracy. I don't think I'm important enough for that. No, this is my choice. I simply respect the work of real artists too much to wish to waste time and paint and canvas playing at art. Mr Argyll would have said if he had seen anything of real merit in my work.'

‘He is one man.'

‘One who happens to be our foremost critic. And don't forget my husband. He did not disagree.'

‘Your husband …' William paces the small studio, a frown on his
handsome young face. I wonder if maybe his mother was Italian, Spanish perhaps; he has the colouring: olive skin, and those fine dark eyes. He turns and looks at me and I can see that he is trying hard to remain calm. ‘All I can say is that they are wrong.'

‘Oh, William, you are very kind, but I can't dismiss their opinions like that. I respect yours, of course I do …'

‘But not enough to trust it above theirs?'

I pause. ‘No. No, maybe not.'

‘You love your painting,' Viola says. ‘Does that not count for anything?'

‘I told you; it counts for everything. I have too much respect for art itself, I love it too much to keep on producing inferior work.'

William looks surprised. He is not used to me speaking like this, my voice raised. Viola knows me better by now, but she does not agree with my sentiments. ‘I think you are wrong. I think that in every sense you are wrong.'

‘What would you say if I told you that I do not find your husband's work all it's made out to be?' William's look of sullen defiance makes me think of Georgie and I can't help smiling.

‘I would say that you are entitled to your opinion,' I tell him.

‘And you, what do you really think of it? If you tell me you think him a great artist then I shall not try to persuade you further.' William takes a step back, a look in his eyes as if he had won the argument.

I look back at him, keeping my gaze steady as my heart beats faster. ‘I believe my husband is a fine artist,' I say.

William does not take my hand when I offer it to him. Young men break my heart with their earnestness and their futile passions.