“Have you talked to your sister about this?” he asked.
“She won’t talk about it,” Emily said.
Mr. Lawson frowned.
“Is this something you are serious about, Emily? You’re sure it isn’t just a passing whim?”
“Yes, very sure,” Emily said, meeting his eyes. He seemed to sense her determination, and he nodded.
“Very well. I’ll see what I can do,” he said. Then, he returned his glasses to their perch on his nose and looked down at the stack of papers on his desk. She was dismissed.
A few days later, Dede stopped Emily as she came in the front door. Her hands were on her hips, and her look was dark.
“So, you went behind my back, did you?” she said. She must have spoken with Mr. Lawson.
For a moment, Emily felt a twinge of guilt. Dede looked angry but also something else. Could Emily have hurt her feelings?
“I tried to talk to you about it,” Emily explained, but her voice sounded defensive, angry, and she didn’t want it to. She hadn’t gone to Mr. Lawson to go behind Dede’s back or to spite Dede; she’d done it because she loved art, and she wanted to go to art school.
Emily took a deep breath. She did not want to fight with Dede. She wanted Dede to understand.
“I want to be an artist,” she said.
Dede sighed. Her eyes seemed to soften slightly.
“Very well,” she said. “If you want to go to San Francisco to study art, you shall go.”
Dede’s mouth formed into a small thin smile. “And you shall stay with the Piddingtons, under their supervision,” she added.
The Piddingtons! Emily had been so glad to be rid of them, she hadn’t paid any attention to where she’d been told they were going. She’d completely forgotten they were staying in San Francisco.
Oh, well. It didn’t matter. Once she was away from Dede’s rule, she could do what she wanted. Not even the Piddingtons could dampen her joy. She was going to study art.
“I’m going to San Francisco!” Emily told Dick and Alice that night. She sprawled on her back on top of her bed, her arms spread wide.
“Oh Emily!” Alice was horrified. “That’s such a big, wicked city.”
“I’ll be safe with the Piddingtons,” Emily said with a wry smile. She explained what Dede was arranging, and Dick couldn’t help laughing. Alice shook her head, relieved.
“You and Dede are so much alike,” she said.
Emily sat up. “No, we’re not!” she said. Alice laughed.
“For one thing, you’re both stubborn,” she said.
“And you both want to have the last word,” Dick added as he plunked down on the foot of the bed
“You’re both talented,” Alice added.
Emily opened her mouth to object further, then closed it. It was true that their older sister was a talented artist in her own way–in the womanly arts of needlework and painting on china. But she had not chosen art as Emily had–or maybe it was more accurate to say art had not chosen her the way it had chosen Emily.
“And you love each other,” Alice said, looking at Emily.
“Huh!” Emily scoffed. “She has a fine way of showing it.”
“She’s just trying to take care of us the best way she knows how,” Alice said softly. “She worries about you … We all do.”
Emily rolled her eyes, but inside she was quiet. She was glad to be going away, but she was also a bit worried. And she would miss everyone. Dick too was silent– perhaps thinking about how he would feel when he was gone.
“Enough melodrama!” Emily announced suddenly, springing to her feet. She stepped over to the canary’s cage and whistled. The canary cocked his head, and Emily whistled again. Then Emily cocked her head to one side to show she was waiting for his answer. Alice made an impatient sound.
“Shh,” Emily whispered. “Listen …”
A moment later, the little bird’s song filled the room.
“See?” Emily said. “He agrees.”
“About what?” Alice asked.
“About coming with me to California and about his name,” Emily told them.
“What name?” Dick asked.
“I’ve decided to call him Dick, and whenever I hear him sing, I’ll think of home.”
Alice smiled and Dick grinned broadly.
Emily smiled with them. She’d have her bird to remind her of family, and she’d have the memory of rides with Johnny to keep the wild places close. And she’d be back.
Afterword
Emily Carr was born in Victoria, British Columbia in 1871, the same year British Columbia stopped being a colony of the British Empire and joined the Canadian Federation. In later years Emily wrote about her life as an artist, giving us glimpses of her Victoria childhood in The Book of Small (Irwin, 1942) and Growing Pains: an Autobiography (Irwin, 1946). From these small glimpses, I developed my fictional story to try to fill in the gaps and imagine what kind of girl Emily was and what it was like for her to struggle to follow her dream.
In Growing Pains, Emily says she was almost sixteen when she approached the family lawyer to ask if she could go away to art school. Records show that she was actually closer to nineteen when she left for San Francisco in 1890. In this book, I have stayed true to Emily’s own memory of how old she was, even though it is not accurate, strictly speaking.
She studied art at the California School of Design in San Francisco for three years before returning to Victoria. Once at home again, Emily had the old cow barn loft converted into a studio where she taught art to local children. She also made her first visit to a First Nations village near Ucluelet on the west coast of Vancouver Island, where she was deeply moved by the people and their carvings.
Emily saved the money she earned from teaching art, storing it in a pair of old shoes tied from a rafter in the cow loft studio. When she had enough saved she went to England to study further. She also spent time in France studying art and learning a new style of painting that used color in a less realistic, more emotional way. On her return to Canada, she taught art in Victoria and Vancouver and saved money to travel up the British Columbia coast, visiting and painting First Nations villages and totem poles, as well as the surrounding forest. Eventually she focused her painting on the trees themselves, developing a unique style that captures the living spirit of the wild West Coast forests.
Being a female artist at a time when women were expected to be wives and mothers and nothing more, and painting in a new style that many people did not appreciate often made life difficult for Emily. Although her paintings were exhibited in well-known art galleries, and many important people praised Emily’s work, Emily never felt totally accepted and understood. Yet, even in the face of disappointment and discouragement, she continued to stay true to her dream. Today, Emily Carr is one of Canada’s best loved and best known artists.
When Jacqueline Pearce was a child, her grandmother lived right around the corner from Emily Carr’s house. Jacqueline used to wish that she had a pair of magic glasses that would show her what Victoria was like when Emily Carr was young. Now she has created a pair of books that provide child readers with more than a glimpse. Jacqueline is the author of several other books, including Discovering Emily and The Reunion. She lives in Burnaby, British Columbia.
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