Talland House

by Maggie Humm

  Feeling secure in their wordless journey, she tried to keep in step with him. “What beautifully sensible shoes,” said Mr. Bankes, looking down. Lily glanced at her shoes, at the shapes they were making, one neatly following the other, and, gratified, managed his longer strides. The town unfolded in front of them with its low abutted cottages clinging together in protection from the winter weather to come, railings covered in drying clothes, and fishing nets like thick skirts insulating the houses from the busy streets.

  “Have you noticed, Miss Briscoe, how each façade is made up of flat stones of such different sizes?” Mr. Bankes pondered. “They resemble a set of children’s building blocks.”

  “Are you interested in architecture like me?” Lily asked. “The church door is open. Could we glance inside for a moment?”

  Olsson always told the students the fisherfolk were staunch Methodists, so the church would be plain, but the simplicity of a cold, musty interior would settle her mind ready for a day’s painting. Appreciating the silence, she stood alongside Mr. Bankes in the central aisle, flanked by simple wooden benches and whitewashed walls unadorned by statues or murals; a wooden roof high above resembled the inside of an upturned boat, its ribs holding the horizontal planks together. With Mr. Bankes’s look of concentrated severity, she pictured him mourning his wife while sitting on a similar church pew somewhere else. He caught her eye and smiled.

  “We must be getting on,” she said, smiling back. “The Ramsays have a new guest arriving today, I think. I’ll need to position my easel close to Mrs. Ramsay but not in the way of visitors.”

  “You’re very considerate, Miss Briscoe,” Mr. Bankes said, offering his arm.

  They were almost at Talland House after a long row of houses—some dark red, others yellow and white. The colours didn’t work well together at all, Lily thought; red should be adjacent to green to make a stronger contrast. Everything appeared to her now in coloured shapes. Mrs. Ramsay could be purple against some white flowers or the other way around. She should talk to Louis about such ideas; soon she’d visit the studio again and have him more to herself than surrounded by students and the Olssons, holding the thought tight inside her in case Mr. Bankes wondered why she was smiling again.

  Stepping through Talland House’s gate, Mr. Bankes seemed content examining some plants, so she stood on the lawn and set up her easel facing the steps into the garden where Mrs. Ramsay sat holding a coffee cup. The white clematis surrounding her seemed alight, all with open bells, which could be reflected into her face using a delicate brush. Each flower would be distinct, but all together they’d create a vivid background behind her figure and it felt, clutching the brush, her eye had become a third hand, holding the scene, grasping the flowers massing behind Mrs. Ramsay’s head. Lost in the design, she was startled to see Mr. Ramsay, glaring, rushing in her direction, just missing the easel, and quoting, “Someone had blundered” directly at her as he passed by.

  She flinched, shielding her painting. It was a phrase she recognized. In Tennyson’s poem, the soldiers charged heroically and pointlessly to their deaths on St. Crispin’s Day, but Louis preferred Shakespeare’s version. “Painting is my fighting,” she wanted to say, but Mr. Ramsay was now looking out to sea. He thought of himself as a self-knowing man, but he didn’t know himself at all, and she kept tight hold of her easel hoping he wouldn’t look at the portrait; she couldn’t bear criticism, especially from him.

  Resting her cup on a step, Mrs. Ramsay took a deep breath and swiftly joined her husband on the terrace, standing to one side of him, holding her hands tightly together as if praying the moment would pass. Lily paused. The gesture must have caught Mr. Bankes’s eye.

  “Might we take a quick spin around the gardens?” he asked, “while you await your subject?” She took his arm, strolling over to a gap in the hedge.

  From their height above the town, the fishing boats resembled tiny toys, and the distant horizon was a misty blue line. Hearing the garden gate slam, Lily turned to see Prue and Andrew crossing the lawn towards them, carrying the bags and easel of a young woman struggling with her hat in the breeze.

  “Eliza, my dear!” Mrs. Ramsay exclaimed, moving towards them while Mr. Ramsay marched back to the house. “It’s wonderful to have you here again.”

  The visitor had a lively expression. She was wearing a satin outfit with red shoes matching a red sash at her slim waist as if she’d stepped out of a fashion magazine, and with her wide-brimmed garden hat, she resembled one of those shepherdesses the French used to paint.

  “I say, Mother,” Prue said, “Eliza has brought a Frena like mine and Andrew’s. We’ll photograph everyone who comes to the house for your visitors’ book in the hallway.”

  Mrs. Ramsay kissed her guest on both cheeks, scanning her face. “All in good time,” she murmured. “Eliza, my dear, the climb from the station, after such a long train journey from London, must have tired you. We’re having tea in the garden. Come and sit with us.”

  “Tea’s just what I need, Mrs. Ramsay,” Eliza replied. “Thank you.”

  “Sophie has baked your favourite marble cake, but first I must introduce you to Miss Briscoe, and this is Mr. Bankes,” Mrs. Ramsay said, beckoning them over. “My husband will be busy with his papers, but I’m sure he will join us later.”

  Removing her hat, Eliza gave Lily a wide smile as they all shook hands, exchanging greetings.

  “Trooping up the hill,” Eliza said, turning to Mrs. Ramsay, “we all agreed the staff should be included in our photography to create a full picture of lovely Talland House.”

  The maid blushed as she put extra cups onto the tea tray next to Mrs. Ramsay.

  “Delightful!” Mrs. Ramsay replied. “I’m sure Mildred won’t mind greatly having a print made of her—will you, Mildred?”

  No one refused Mrs. Ramsay, it seemed to Lily, and the maid curtsied.

  “Miss Briscoe, you and Miss Stillman are artists of great talent,” Mrs. Ramsay declared. “Although Eliza has not been blessed with your year alone in Paris, she has toured throughout Europe.”

  Glad she’d been handed a conversational entrée, Lily gazed at the young artist. Her clothes were certainly elegant. Eliza’s skirt flowed to her feet; a red velvet bow, holding up her coiled hair, matched the red silk around her waist like the mannequins in Fortnum & Mason.

  “Eliza studied in Rome when her father was the Times correspondent there, and later with William Morris’s family at Kelmscott,” Mrs. Ramsay continued. “You will have so many stories to share.”

  Lily’s London mews home seemed immediately too Victorian and even smaller.

  “Paris was my one overseas trip,” Lily said, struggling to remember some fascinating event to recount.

  “I’ve travelled through the Alps to Italy, Miss Briscoe,” Eliza said, “but with my family. I envy you the freedom of a year by yourself in Paris. We work much better when we’re alone.”

  “I agree,” Lily said, smiling. “Sketching the Louvre’s façade, sitting on my little camp stool day after day seemed the calmest week of the whole year. But I wish I’d had more time to travel.”

  Lily imagined herself floating into a wave of social ease as if her life would expand in an instant, sharing art and ideas with this interesting woman. The triangle of exchange came from Mrs. Ramsay; three women who cared for art sat together in a female triptych in the golden light of the late afternoon. She was about to describe Mrs. Ramsay’s portrait when Prue said, “Don’t move,” holding her box camera tight against her waist so that it didn’t budge.

  “I’ll walk down to the Porthminster Hotel, Mother,” Prue added. “The darkroom is free this afternoon, I believe.”

  As Lily sat motionless in the centre of the group, listening to the conversation, the bees hummed from flower to flower in the restful air, and her future life seemed to ripple towards the edge of Talland’s gardens and spread down to the sea. Light flickered on the waves; Lily leaned back in her chair, serene, watching the
wave tips as they flicked over one on another, and the silver lines of brightness changed their shape as they moved over the ruffled sea. A white seagull hovered over, and while she stared, it swept across the water as if its wings were smoothing out any turbulence.

  “It was Eliza who first showed me the print of Vesuvius which is now in the drawing room, Miss Briscoe,” Mrs. Ramsay added. “She kindled my interest in Italy.”

  “All artists must know Italy!” Eliza said. “We have to learn the difference between the dazzling light of Venice and the darker light in Florence, and about Roman statuary. My delight was seeing the Colosseum at night and imagining the old Romans sitting in togas in the Forum.”

  Eliza was making conversation as if giving it her whole attention. Touched by these tiny pieces of autobiography, Lily had the sense that by talking about herself, she could learn to chatter as easily. Where did Eliza find all her self-confidence? She belonged to a social group who could keep going with clever anecdotes, and Lily sat back in her chair smiling at them all, and at Mr. Bankes sitting patiently to one side, as Eliza pointed out the varied colours of the flowers.

  “Mr. Ramsay once asked a painter at the Arts Club,” Mrs. Ramsay said, laughing, “‘Why has all painting gone lumpy nowadays?’ I’m afraid he has no feeling for art. My daughter Rose is the artist.”

  “Understanding art takes time,” Lily acknowledged. “I spent a whole afternoon once at the National Gallery sitting in front of a pietà, puzzling about the relative sizes of the Virgin and the infant Christ, why his body was so huge, and what brushes the painter used.”

  Whenever she’d imagined telling someone about her thoughts, her views on art, she’d never been able to picture an interested listener, and now, for a minute or two, she was growing into the conversation, relishing the effortlessness of it all, knowing she’d never spoken so freely before except to Louis.

  Eliza nodded. “I was so glad Father took us to Rome,” she replied. “I saw as much Renaissance art as I could.”

  “Do you admire Giulio Romano?” Lily asked. “I’d love to go to the Vatican and see his frescoes.”

  “I’ve never heard of him,” Eliza said, a little frown appearing between her eyebrows. “I must look out for his work.”

  The artists’ names seemed to appear in front of Lily like a roll call of greatness in gold paint, shimmering over the garden shrubs, and she felt a little surge of relief inside herself because here it was, what she’d been missing since Emily—the possibility of another artist friend. At Mrs. Ramsay’s, women wouldn’t any longer feed on scraps of male conversation as usual but create their own, and she felt like casting herself gratefully into their arms. Smiling, she turned back to the tea table to find Mrs. Ramsay inclining her head towards Mr. Bankes sitting outside the artists’ circle.

  “The children call their Frenas the ‘Frends,’ Mr. Bankes,” she said. “Cam and James cannot spell at all correctly in spite of my word lists and little spelling games. It annoys Mr. Ramsay tremendously.” Offering him more tea, she continued. “They photograph every day. I think their cameras are more companionable than real friends.”

  “‘Frend’ is perfectly acceptable,” Mr. Bankes said, placing his cup on the tray. “Everyone would know what they meant.”

  With Mr. Bankes absorbing Mrs. Ramsay’s attention, Eliza and Lily nodded at each other as if in unspoken agreement and wandered into the house to a piano in a corner of the drawing room.

  “What shall I play, Miss Briscoe?” Eliza asked, sitting at the piano, swishing her skirt from the pedals. “I’m sure we’ll share the same tastes.” She smiled up at Lily. “Would you prefer Schubert or Schumann? Beethoven is too solemn for this time of day.”

  Lily sorted through a pile of music sheets on the stand, remembering her mother in the back room at home hunched over the piano keys. “Before I start each painting,” she used to say, “I always seek inspiration from Chopin or Brahms. Music offers strength in difficult moments.”

  “Could you play a Chopin piece? My mother loved Chopin,” Lily asked, wishing she’d learned to play as well as her mother. Eliza rippled through a waltz, her hands stretching the length of the keyboard. The music flowed in rhythm with Lily’s memories; Eliza’s technique was better than Mother’s, but the tempo wasn’t as passionate. Gradually the garden emptied of people, filling the drawing room, which became warmer now. Cam and Nancy tapped their feet, matching Eliza, and she swept into a simple tune, smiling at their pleasure, encouraging them to dance, the music holding them all in a dream.

  Louis played fortissimo, Lily remembered. His music was spirited, sometimes raucous, and the words he sang were certainly not for children’s ears. She wanted to hear his flamboyant singing again, almost sensing his hand in hers and his whisky breath on her face. It was the heat of the drawing room after the chill of the late afternoon in the garden—nothing more. Everything was changing now at Talland House, with the family’s friendship and Eliza’s arrival, but Lily felt confused. She knew, as she thought it over, all her life had been taken up with worrying about other people, and now, here, was a different future.

  She had to ask herself whether she cared for Louis as before or for the certainty of art. There was no inevitability about it. She’d always thought that paintings, when she created them, were a form of loving, keeping beloved people alive, or more, giving life a meaning. Was anyone in the world as enthralling as a painting? So why couldn’t she stop thinking about Louis? She certainly wasn’t a fresh-faced student any more. Lily pushed back her chair and went over to the drawing room windows. Outside, a fresh breeze was fluttering loose leaves in the escallonia hedge. A light drizzle had begun. There were grey clouds in the sky, and the gardener was collecting up a rake and brush. Bewildered by the blur of reflections, she closed her eyes and found herself floating into the music.

  Leaving the next morning before Mr. Bankes appeared downstairs, Lily made her way up the high street past storekeepers hooking shutters open. She’d told him last night she needed to start painting in good time and she wouldn’t wait. Breathing in the scent of fresh dew on the cobbles, she nodded when men in leather aprons doffed their caps while arranging pallets full of fishing tackle, strange-shaped hooks, and multicoloured lures. The shops were launching themselves into the morning. From Bethesda Hill with its houses half-clad in shingles, the tops of the sails in the narrow view of the harbour were overlapping triangles pushing up into the sky.

  She wanted to gaze all day. Cézanne did. Last night, half-asleep in bed, she’d resolved to try, although nothing was calm for any length of time in Talland House. The Ramsays were so busy. Mrs. Ramsay had her charity work in the town and the house to run. The children demand endless diversions, and Mr. Ramsay rushed about, spouting poetry, ignoring everything, talking continually about his writing.

  When she arrived, Eliza and Prue were at breakfast. Mr. Carmichael was snoozing in a basket chair on the lawn, his fat face and body matched by a bushy beard stained yellow. On the breakfast table there were teapots with mismatched cosies and a plate of thick bread and butter next to jars of strawberry jam and marmalade.

  “We’ve polished off the kippers, I’m afraid,” Eliza said. “I could ask Sophie for more?”

  “Bread and jam will be plenty,” Lily replied with relief, thinking of all the dried fish hanging in the town.

  “Eliza is going to sketch me,” Prue said enthusiastically. “Mama and I can enjoy parallel portraits.”

  Prue’s straight nose and deep-set eyes were identical to her mother’s, and her high brow and long neck made her graceful as a gazelle.

  “You’re a Pre-Raphaelite lady,” Lily said, “especially with your red hair.” Prue’s pale skin and luxurious tresses would look striking in a painting.

  Prue smiled and flushed. Lily wanted Prue to see herself, not as she must appear to her parents, but as the young independent, elegant woman she might become.

  “Mr. Hunt arrives today,” Prue said. “Andrew and Jasper ar
e going to the station to meet him from the train. He’s the exact same age as you, Miss Briscoe, I’ve been told.”

  “You’re as old as you feel,” Mother used to say. Sometimes she felt the same age as Prue. What age would Hunt think her? She recognized the name. Was he the handsome man who’d batted against Louis in the cricket match almost a decade earlier? Buoying up another unforthcoming man at dinner would be intolerable. Charles Tansley was enough, and dull men seemed to be Mrs. Ramsay’s speciality.

  “We’ll be photographing you and Hilary—Mr. Hunt, that is—and Eliza, if you permit us to, of course,” Prue said, picking up her Frena.

  Lily felt wary of cameras, fearful they might supplant art, although the Times did say photography was a force for good, giving women the freedom to stare at the world. But she was content to stand next to Eliza for the photograph, their bodies turned slightly towards each other, and, as if to greet them, the sun came out, its light falling full on their faces.

  “We’ll probably be like figures in a Julia Margaret Cameron photograph,” Eliza whispered to Lily, “out of focus.”

  Lily laughed, and Prue glared, placing her hand above the Frena’s lens, and held tight.

  “May I take two snaps?” she asked. “No, don’t move. I prefer to photograph people in a tableau.”

  Lily smiled at Eliza.

  “Andrew insists on photographing all the visitors and servants individually,” Prue explained, “as specimens to be catalogued. He made the servants carry the tools of their trades. He would only photograph Amy, the seamstress, if she sewed.”

  Prue pointed her Frena at Mr. Carmichael.

  “You should wait for him to wake up to ask for his consent, Prue,” Eliza said, glancing at Lily.