by Kate Hewitt
Henry’s eyes flashed with ire. “I am a grown man, and not beholden to my parents,” he answered. “I don’t care what they think.”
“But perhaps I do.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You care about the opinions of people you’ve never met?”
“Oh, Henry, are you trying to be difficult?” Ellen exclaimed. He smiled a bit at that, but she could still tell he was both hurt and irritated by her insistent refusal. “I do not wish to embarrass myself, or be an embarrassment to a bunch of strangers. I certainly don’t want to be made a mockery of, or gain a reputation—“
“What kind of reputation?”
“I don’t even like to say!” Ellen’s cheeks warmed. She was not about to mention terms such as gold-digger or harlot to Henry. “I don’t even know why you want to ask me to such a thing—“
“Don’t you?” he said quietly, and Ellen felt as if her heart was suddenly suspended in her chest. She looked away, not wanting to answer, and perhaps make Henry declare himself even more. She could hardly believe how quickly the conversation had moved, how his intentions had moved—or had they? Had Henry felt something for her since the beginning, back in Chicago? Ellen could not credit it. They barely knew each other.
“It’s quite, quite impossible,” she said quietly. “And by speaking to me in such a manner, you are compromising my integrity at the school. If anyone thought you had recommended my acceptance because of some… some feeling on your part…“ She blushed to say the words.
“I recommended your acceptance because of your natural talent,” Henry returned with a hint of ire. “How could you ever think otherwise?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Ellen cried. She felt entirely out of sorts, the bonhomie of the pleasant afternoon quite spoiled.
“I think this has all got out of hand,” Henry said after an uncomfortable moment of silence. “I meant the invitation as a gesture of friendship, and nothing more. Please forgive me if I seemed… forward. And if it helps, you would’t be the only art student there.” He lounged back in his chair, speaking lightly, those awful moments of unexpected intensity thankfully passed.
“I won’t?” Ellen asked cautiously. She still couldn’t conceive of going to the ball, but she was curious that another art student would be in attendance. Perhaps things were more modern in Glasgow than she’d realized.
“No, of course you won’t,” Henry said with a smile. “My parents support the school, as you know I do. So it’s not nearly as inappropriate as you think.”
She felt unsettled by that, and wished he’d been forthcoming about such details when he’d first asked. Had she just embarrassed herself in front of Henry, by coming over so prissily, and implying he had feelings for her, when he may have been intimating no such thing? She’d certainly got such things wrong before, thinking Jed harbored gentler feelings when he hadn’t been.
“I… I don’t know, Henry,” she said hesitantly. “It still seems…” She could not quite put it into words.
“Think on it,” he said easily, and leaned forward to pour her more tea. “You don’t need to give me an answer now. I wanted only to mention it.”
She was no nearer an answer an hour later when Henry dropped her back off at Miss Gray’s. Ellen could still not think of her as Norah, even though she’d been asked by her landlady to call her by her Christian name. Norah Neilson Gray still seemed too imposing a person for such easy intimacies.
The house was quiet as Ellen came in; Norah was no doubt in her studio, a surprisingly comfortable shed in the back garden that afforded the artist plenty of light. Ellen tiptoed upstairs and closed the door, grateful for a moment’s peaceful solitude.
Except she did not feel very peaceful, with Henry’s invitation still rattling around in her mind like a marble. Should she accept? What if it wasn’t as wildly inappropriate as she’d first thought? The artist community, funded by local industrialists, was not bound by the same social mores and constraints that Ellen had known all her life, and yet…
Her gaze fell on the letter she’d been reading earlier, from Aunt Rose. She thought of how Louisa was adjusting to island life, even learning to churn butter. Couldn’t she, then, adapt as well? If Louisa could become a farmer’s wife, then perhaps she could become, if not a Serious Artist, than at least a little more bold and carefree, embracing this strange and wonderful new life. She could embrace all of the opportunities Glasgow gave her instead of remaining mired in the past, wondering what if or if only.
Quickly, before she could change her mind, she dashed off a letter to Henry accepting his invitation to the ball and put it downstairs on the hall table, to be taken out with the morning post.
All night long Ellen tossed and turned, unable to sleep for the thought of the letter she’d left downstairs. She wondered if Henry would read more into it than she meant, and if she were being dangerously forward in agreeing to attend the ball, even if not as his guest.
A ball… what on earth would she wear? Even her best dress, the one she bought in New York for dinner on the S.S. Furnessia, was not the sort of thing one wore to a society ball, surely.
Sometime near dawn she fell into an uneasy, dreamless sleep, only to wake suddenly to a rapping on her door.
“Ellen?” Norah called. “Breakfast is on the table. You’ll be late if you don’t hurry.”
Blearily Ellen rose from the bed and quickly washed and dressed. The sun was streaming through the window and a glance at the timepiece she wore pinned to her shirtwaist showed her that she was indeed very late. She hurried downstairs, resolving to take the letter from the hall table and consign it to the fire. She’d accepted Henry’s invitation in a moment of foolish pique and reckless daring, but in the cold, bright light of morning, she knew it wasn’t sensible to attend. She wasn’t that sort of person, no matter how hard she tried or wished for it.
As she came into the hall, however, she saw the silver salver that held the post was empty. The letter was gone.
“Has the post already gone?” she asked Norah as she came into the breakfast room, trying to sound light. Norah, of course, wasn’t fooled.
“Yes, Elsa took it out a short while ago.” Elsa was Norah’s cook and maid of all work who seemed to turn her hand to anything, and then melt into the background. Her gaze narrowed as she took in Ellen’s discomfiture. “If you did not want to send the letter, Ellen, perhaps you should not have put it out on the hall table.”
Ellen tried not to squirm under Norah’s knowing gaze. “It’s fine,” she said airily as she stirred jam into her porridge. “I was just wondering, that was all.”
All morning, Ellen could not settle to anything in her lessons, and was given a dressing down by the intimidating Grieffenhagen in her painting class, which left Ellen burning with shame.
“You must commit to your subject, Miss Copley,” he said, his voice ringing out through the classroom, so all the other pupils perched on their stools could hear. Ellen stared down at her lap, her cheeks flaming, as Grieffenhagen continued his diatribe.
“An artist feels and believes in what he—or she—is doing. We are not making pretty pictures. We are breathing life.”
She bit her lip and managed to murmur her apology and with a huff Grieffenhagen moved on. Ellen stared at her half-finished painting of a copper jug and a few oranges and sighed inwardly. Such a bland scene hardly seemed as if she were breathing life.
And yet even though she hated being humiliated in a class, she knew Grieffenhagen had a point. She was not entering fully into the spirit of the school because she was afraid. Afraid she didn’t fit in, afraid she was in the wrong place. Afraid she’d be exposed as a fraud.
She’d spent so much of her life in fear, Ellen reflected morosely during the afternoon tea break. Most of the other students were chatting in little knots of people but Ellen had chosen to sit alone; Amy was chatting with another ‘dilettante’, a young society lady with artistic pretensions.
Sipping her tea alone, Ellen fel
t almost as she had when she’d first moved to Seaton, and had stood by herself in the schoolyard while all the other pupils walked smugly past her, ignoring the new girl who had the wrong accent and too much hair.
“Why so glum?” Amy McPhee plopped herself down next to Ellen, adjusting her voluminous skirts. Unlike many of the female students at the school, who preferred the new, less formal and uncorseted style of dressing, Amy McPhee was a regular Gibson Girl, with her hair pinned up in an elaborate style and her dress, underneath her smock, trimmed with ribbon and lace and far from practical.
“Do I look as glum as all that?” Ellen asked and Amy inspected her, her lips pursed.
“You have an expression like curdled milk. You aren’t taking old Griffy to heart, are you?”
“Griffy?” Ellen repeated with a choked laugh. “Amy, how do you dare…?”
“He can’t hear,” Amy replied with a wink and a grin. “And in any case, I’m not studying for a certificate. What can they do to me? Fra Newbery wants my money, or rather my father’s money, and so he’ll let me stay and sit in on lessons.”
“You sound terribly cynical.”
Amy smiled. “Merely pragmatic, my dear. But what’s wrong, really?”
Ellen sighed. “I just wonder if I really belong here.”
“Because you’re not taking yourself seriously all the time?” Amy answered, her hazel eyes glinting with humor and Ellen let out another reluctant laugh and shook her head.
“You really are irreverent.”
“Look, Ellen, I’ve seen some of your drawings and paintings, and I wish I had that kind of talent. You’ve got more raw talent in your little finger than I’ll ever have in my whole body. Maybe you don’t swan about and consider yourself an artist with a capital A, but you have the real thing and that’s what matters.”
“You’re kind to say so.”
“What do you want out of life?” Amy asked frankly, and Ellen blinked, surprised and rather discomfited by the blunt question.
“What do you mean?” she asked, mainly to stall for time.
“I mean, what are you here for? To get the certificate and be a professional artist? To better your skill? To make friends? Decide why you’re here and go after that ambition. Then perhaps you’ll start to feel as if you fit in.”
Why was she here? Because she’d wanted to leave Amherst Island. Because her life had been at a crossroads and she’d thought it was time to pursue her dream. But she wasn’t pursuing her dream, even though she’d come this far. She was still holding back, hiding in the shadows. She had done so for so long that she wasn’t sure she knew how to be any different.
But she knew she wanted to be.
“Thank you,” she said to Amy. “That’s sound advice. I will think on it.”
“Good. And in the meantime, you can join the Glasgow Society of Lady Artists. They have a house on Blythewood Square, and plenty of the female pupils here are members. They do exhibitions and parties and all sorts of things—you’d be most welcome, and you might make some friends as well.”
“That’s very kind—“
Amy held up a hand. “I warn you, I won’t take no for an answer. We have a meeting next week.”
“All right, I’ll come,” Ellen said, smiling, her heart lightening, and Amy smiled back.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Society for Lady Artists was housed in an impressive building on Blythewood Square, with a door of square glass panes designed by Charles Rennie Macintosh himself. Inside there was a large room for lectures, studio space, and a long gallery with sofas and chairs where women came to mingle, chat, and laugh together.
One blustery Wednesday evening in late October, Amy swept in with Ellen, and after a listening to a lecture by an imposing lady sculptress from Edinburgh, she moved around the gallery with Ellen, introducing her to everyone. Ellen was surprised to see Norah there, chatting with a few other artists she recognized: Jessie King and De Courcy Lewthwaite Dewar. Veritable icons in the Glasgow art world, but Ellen’s initial sense of intimidation soon dissolved in the face of all the easy conversation and laughter.
Norah introduced her to some of her friends, and Ellen glowed when she mentioned that she was her boarder, and ‘a student of considerable talent.” Amy, overhearing, raised her eyebrows as if to say ‘see?’ and Ellen couldn’t keep from smiling. ‘Considerable talent’ was high praise indeed, coming from Norah.
By the end of the evening, she actually felt a part of things, shyly offering a few of her own opinions, for the women were forthright, expostulating on everything from the Scottish Exhibition of National History, Art, and Industry that had just finished, to the recent news of two shipbrokers who had been arrested for defrauding the Union Bank of Scotland.
As she and Amy were leaving, far later than Ellen had anticipated, she worked up the courage to tell her friend about Henry’s invitation.
“The McCallister ball?” Amy said, her eyebrows raised. “Oh, it’s a splendid event. My family goes every year.”
“You’ll be there?” Ellen felt a ripple of relief. “I’m glad I’ll know at least one person. Henry, that is, Mr McCallister, said there would be a few lady artists in attendance, but I wasn’t entirely sure…”
“I suspect so,” Amy said after a moment, but her expression had turned gleefully shrewd and Ellen could feel herself starting to blush. “I have heard a rumor,” she continued, her voice light although her eyes were narrowed, “that Mr. McCallister called for you for tea last Saturday.”
“We’re friends,” Ellen said. Her face felt fiery now. “We met in Chicago you know, last year. How did you hear that, anyway?”
“You can’t go to Miss Cranston’s tearooms and not be noticed! Just be careful, Ellen. Mr. McCallister is a gentleman, but he’s always been one to defy convention. Whether he should or not is another matter.” Amy rested one gloved hand on Ellen’s arm, her expression turned compassionate and a little worried. “Please forgive me if I am speaking out of turn, but it’s just that I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
“I have no intention of getting hurt, or encouraging Hen—Mr McCallister in any way,” Ellen said, her voice sounding stiff. She felt wrong-footed again, thinking one moment that her appearance at the ball was not as risqué as she feared, and the next certain that it was.
Amy nodded, her lips pursed. “And yet you accepted his invitation.”
Ellen tried not to bristle. “Do you think I shouldn’t have?”
“I don’t know.” Amy sighed, a frown now furrowing her forehead. “I think you could have a lovely time at the ball, and I shall certainly be glad to have you there. But if… if Mr. McCallister has developed an affection for you, you must be sure his intentions are honorable.”
Ellen drew back, horrified. “I wouldn’t return Mr. McCallister’s affections in any case,” she answered. “I do not hold him in that kind of regard, and I cannot imagine ever doing so.” She shook her head. “In any case, he has asked me as a gesture of friendship, nothing more.”
Amy cocked her head, her gaze sweeping over her thoughtfully. “You do protest quite vociferously! He’s a handsome man, and more than charming. And of course, he has his family fortune to inherit.”
“I’m not of his class, Amy,” Ellen said, her voice coming out more stiffly than ever. “Surely you realize that.”
“If Mr. McCallister does not find that an impediment, why should you?”
Ellen shook her head. “You were warning me off him a moment ago.”
“As I said, I don’t want to see you hurt. But if Mr. McCallister’s intentions are honorable…”
“I don’t want him to have any intentions at all. And in any case, I’m not…” Ellen took a deep breath, realizing why Henry’s possible interest held no excitement or appeal for her, only alarm. “I’m in love with someone else,” she admitted, her voice flat now. “Back in Canada.”
“Oh, are you?” Amy’s gaze brightened with curiosity. “And yet you came all the way here?
Will he wait for you?”
“Certainly not.” Too late Ellen realized how it sounded, like some romantic love affair. “He’s married to someone else.”
“Oh.” Amy sat back, clearly scandalized, and Ellen hurried to explain.
“Nothing ever happened between us, of course. He was—is—a family friend. But I fell in love with him, and he fell in love with someone else.”
“Well, if nothing happened, I hardly think you should keep a candle burning for him!” Amy shook her head. “No, no languishing allowed. Go to the ball, Ellen, and see if it can’t distract you from moping after this Yankee.” Her eyes danced and she leaned forward. “Now onto far more important matters. Have you got a dress?”
A few days before the McCallister Ball, Ellen called on Amy at her home in Dowanhill, a neighorhood of impressive villas and private homes that was as far from Springburn as could possibly be. Ellen had worn her Sunday dress and her best hat, and she nearly curtsied to the parlormaid who opened the door before remembering herself.
Amy flew down the stairs, her arms outstretched. “Ellen! I’m so glad you’ve come. Now I’ve got the best gowns out. Come have a look at Madame Amy’s Couture!” She laughed merrily and led Ellen up the stairs; the carpet was thick and plush, the brass stair rods gleaming. The air smelled of expensive leather and lemon furniture polish. It made Ellen’s head spin. She’d never been in such a posh house before, and it made her regard Amy in a whole new light. Louisa’s family home back in Seaton, elegant as it had seemed, positively paled in comparison.
Amy’s bedroom was enormous, with a separate seating area, and a fire burning merrily in the grate. A lady’s maid was smoothing the flounces of one of the gowns laid across the canopied bed, but she stepped back smartly as Amy entered.
“Oh, Metcalfe, you can go now. Miss Copley and I will fend for ourselves most admirably, I assure you.”
The maid bobbed a curtsey. “Very good, miss.”
“But do tell Cook to make us a plate of something delicious, and a pot of tea as well. Fashion is thirsty work. You may bring it up in a few minutes.”