When Westminster School closed for the long summer vacation I, with other students, joined a sketching class at Boxford down in Berkshire. The quaintness of thatched cottages in the village delighted me. The sketching master was a better teacher than painter, I learned a lot from him. It was the first time I had sketched outdoors in England. Even across one field there was soft hazy distance, distance gradations were easier here to get than in our clear Canadian atmosphere and great spaces; everything was faded, gentle here. Colour did not throb so violently. English landscape-painting was indolent seeing, ready-made compositions, needing only to be copied. I was very happy in my work, sorry when the summer ended.
The other students went home. I lingered, hating to leave woods and fields for chimney-pots and clatter. The weather grew sharp and a little wet. The master and his wife lived in another village. The man was drinking. He forgot his lesson dates, smelled beery. I stopped taking lessons from him and worked on alone.
I had given the landlady my week’s notice. She came to me in distress.
“A lady from Westminster Art School wants accommodation immediate. ’Er wants comin’ afore weather’s broke. I got no ‘sittin’ ’ till you goes!—Plenty bedrooms, no ‘sittin’s’.”
“Who is the lady?”
“Miss Compton.”
“I know her; she may share my sitting room, if it is any convenience for you and her.”
“Thanks, miss.”
Mildred Compton came. At school I knew her only slightly; she was older than I, wealthy, stand-offish, prim.
“We will have little in common, but any way I shall only be in Boxford one week,” I thought.
Mildred Compton was a society girl. I decidedly was not. We ate together, sat together, worked together—amiable, not intimate.
“I’m going back to London tomorrow,” I said one night.
Mildred looked as if I had loosed an evil upon her.
“Oh! I did want to get two whole weeks sketching here, in Boxford.”
“Does my going make any difference?”
“Of course, I could not possibly stay in a strange village all alone. Nothing but villagers!”
“They are quite tame.”
“Queer things happen in out-of-the-way places!”
Mildred had been born condensed. Space alarmed her. She was like a hot loaf that had been put immediately into too small a bread-box and got misshapen by cramping. She was unaware of being cramped, because she was unconscious of any humans except those of her own class. The outer crowd propped her, but she was unaware of them. Away from crowds Mildred flopped.
I said, “I am in no hurry; I can stay another week if you like.”
“Would you? How very kind!”
She was glad to have me. I was glad to elude London a little longer. Gladness drew us into companionship in spite of our different upbringings.
Cows and cobwebby barns terrified Mildred as history and crowds terrified me. The weather broke, there was nothing but cowbarns and sheds to shelter in against wind and rain while we worked. Smartly-dressed, lily-fair Mildred crouched on a camp-stool, set on a not too clean stable floor, hens scratching in the straw about her feet, a sow and litter penned in the corner, did seem unnatural, topsy-turvy, I’ll confess.
Mildred, hurrying her things into her sketch-sack, asking breathlessly, “Doesn’t the cow come home about this time, Motor?” Mildred saying, “I had no idea hens had such a vocabulary. The speckled thing has made six entirely different squawks in as many minutes. She makes me nervous, Motor!”
“Not as nervous as you make her.”
“Ouch! there’s a mouse!—behind that barrel—ouch, ouch!” She pinched her skirt in close.
“Mice much prefer the bran barrels to you!” I laughed.
She gathered up her things.—“Let’s go.”
“Motor, will you visit us for a week when we go back to London?”
“Me! Why, your life would scare me worse than the barn and hen scare you, Mildred. Besides . . . I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Clothes!”
“You would be inside the clothes, Motor. We don’t love our friends for their clothes. I want you to know my mother; I want my mother to know you. She is an old lady, a little lonely, a very lonely old lady sometimes!”
“Thank you, Mildred, I’d be a sparrow in a peacock house,—still—if a washed-to-bits muslin dress won’t shame your dinner-table, I’ll come. I would love to meet your mother.”
I dreaded the ordeal, but I’d see London from another side. Yes, I’d go to Mildred’s.
The Comptons lived in a dignified mansion in Belgrave Square. Every house in that square was important, wealthy, opulent. A little park was in the centre of the Square; none but residents were permitted a key to the gate in its high iron fence. Belgravians seldom walked. Very few of the Belgrave Square people were aware of having legs, all owned horses. You could not drive in the little park; there were no roads, only trees, shrubs, grass, seats, and gravel paths.
The Compton family consisted of Mrs. Compton, her companion, an elderly lady named Miss Bole, who was a family institution—began as governess, continued as secretary till Mr. Compton died and was now companion to Mrs. Compton. Mildred divided her time between being a society girl and an Art student of Westminster. A staff of twelve servants attended to the creature comforts of the three women.
The Compton mansion was enormous and not half as cosy as one of our Western homes—thousands of stairs, no elevator, no telephone, no central heating. There were roaring grate-fires in every room but the halls and passages were like ice.
There was a marble swimming bath, a glass-topped billiard room, a conservatory and a walled garden through which I longed to run, unlock an arched doorway in the wall and pass into the mews where the Compton carriages lived. I hinted to Mildred about wanting to visit the horses, but Mildred hinted back that it was not done by London ladies, and I did not want to shame Mildred before her family.
The servants ran the house like clockwork, but they upset me dreadfully. The maids were so superior, and I wanted to push the footmen out of the way to save tumbling over them, rushing to do things for me I had rather do for myself. They made me feel as stupid as a doll.
Mildred’s mother was beautiful. She was plump, with a tiny waist and great dignity, white hair, blue eyes, pink cheeks. I loved her the moment she took my hand and said, “So this is our little Motor.” I was always “our” little Motor to her.
Miss Bole was plump too, with bright brown eyes like a robin’s, black hair smoothed back. She always dressed in plain, rich black.
Belgrave food was marvellous, each help faded into your appetite without effort, like a tiny dream, not like the boarding-house stuff. This was food which, somehow, you never connected with a kitchen or a cook. The butler juggled it off the sideboard like a magician. A footman slid the silver dishes noiselessly to your elbow. Sometimes I remembered the heavy plates of heaped monotony slapped down in front of us by a frowsy maid at Mrs. Dodds’ student home and laughed to myself.
Besides three table-meals a day we ate snacks in other rooms—wine and biscuits in the library at eleven in the morning, afternoon tea in the drawing room, a little something in the library before going to bed, the early morning tea in bed that destroyed your loveliest sleep and from which I begged to be excused.
When I asked, “Must I have that early tea, Mildred?” she exclaimed, “No early morning tea, Motor! Oh, you’d better.”
So a prettiness in frilly cap and apron stole into my room very early. She pulled back the heavy silk curtains, lit a fire in the grate, laid a downy pink rug before it; on that she set a white bath, half pudding-basin and half arm-chair. On either side of the tub she stood a great covered can of hot water, draped over the top with a snowy bath towel. Then she fetched a dainty tea tray, put it on a little table at the bedside, and, bending close, whispered, “Tea, Miss,” and was gone. At Bulstrode Street yawns and groans would that minute be filtering through the cubicle curtains. The dressing bell—we called it the distressing bell—would clang, there would be pandemonium. And yet this wealth of luxury weighted me, not being born to it.
I had not dreamt that social obligations could be so arduous. After breakfast we marched soberly into the library to write notes, notes of inviting or of accepting. Every dinner, tea, house-party, call, must be punctiliously returned. I was rather sorry for these rich, they could so seldom be themselves; even their smiles were set, wound up to so many degrees of grin for so much intimacy. Their pleasures seemed kept in glass cases just out of reach. They saw but could not quite handle or feel their fun, it was so overhung with convention.
When later I told Mrs. Radcliffe where I had been staying, her eyes popped. She said, “dear me!” six times, then she exclaimed, “Fred, Klee Wyck in Belgravia!” and again, “dear me!” After that she had nothing more to say.
While the ladies attended to the answering of the morning notes, Miss Bole took me and the key and went into the Park in the centre of the Square. This was the time I felt I really had got ahead of London. In the middle of the little park, among the trees and bushes, you were quite hidden from London and London was quite hidden from you. There was no traffic in Belgrave Square, only the purring roll of carriages and the smart step of dainty horses outside the railing of the little park. Even London’s roar was quite cut off by great, high mansions all round. Every house-front was gay with flower-boxes. There was no grime, scarcely any sparrows—only a few very elegant pigeons who strutted in the park cooing. Miss Bole and I watched them, we did not talk much but we liked each other.
Mildred had a married sister who despised me for one of Mildred’s “low-down student friends”. When she came to the house I was unhappy. She talked over my head and made me feel so awfully naked, as if I had no clothes on at all. I felt ugly, shy, shabby and nervous the moment she came into the house, and feeling that way made me so.
One night Mrs. Compton gave a dinner party. The married daughter came. I slunk from my bedroom in the old white muslin, to find Mildred waiting for me on the stairs. She looked lovely, dressed in a gown all colours yet no colour at all, just shimmer. She held her hand to me. “Come, my poppet!”
“Oh, Mildred, I am so shabby in this wretched old muslin!”
“Motor, you are Spring.”
She caught me up and kissed me. Suddenly I did not care about the old muslin any more. Mildred had sent Spring bubbling up into my heart, I knew she loved me for me, not for my clothes.
We “Noah-arked” into the dining room. The men’s coat tails swished so elegantly, the silks of the women rustled and billowed. Then came Miss Bole in her rich black, very quiet and clinging to her arm was me, just a little cotton rattle. Mrs. Compton placed me close to her. I watched, shy and very quiet till Mrs. Compton said, “Tell that little Indian story you told us at lunch, Motor.” My face burned—I thought I should have died, but to please her I tried. It went all right till a beastly footman slithered a dish of peas close to my elbow and made me jump—the peas upset. The married daughter began to talk and laugh very loud. I wanted to hurl the peas, along with a frightful face, at her. I wish now that I had.
“Look at my face, Mildred.”
“It is rather greeny white, isn’t it? It’s those stuffy rooms in the Westminster Art School, Motor.”
“Is there any part of England where one can work outdoors all the year round?”
“At St. Ives there is an Art Colony who work outdoors nearly all the year.”
“I’m going there.”
Mrs. Compton ordered a great hamper to be packed for me. In it were four bottles of wine, a great plum cake, biscuits, nuts and fruit—the kind she knew I liked. I was to stay at the Temperance Hotel in St. Ives until I found rooms.
I went to say good-bye to Mrs. Radcliffe and to Mrs. Denny. Mrs. Radcliffe was a little glad; I think she resented the Comptons having me. Perhaps she thought Mrs. Compton would make me soft with too much petting. I did love Mrs. Compton, but I could not have got along without Mrs. Radcliffe’s bullying and strength.
Mrs. Denny shook her head. “My dear,” she said, “the R.C.’s are strong in Cornwall, beware!” She frowned at the little cornelian cross I still wore in spite of her protests. The next day Ed staggered to Belgrave Square carrying two huge books, one under each arm—Roman Catholicism Exposed, Volumes I and II!
“Mother wants you to take these with you to read in your spare time.”
“I shan’t have any spare time, I am going to St. Ives to work like blazes, Ed. I have more luggage now—work things and food—than I can manage.”
Kind Ed tucked the volumes under his arms again saying, “I understand.” I liked Ed better that moment than I ever had before, loyal to his mother—understanding both to his mother and to me.
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