Carlisle to London, from town to country house and back, and these journeys to the Cumbrian coast were always taken
at much the same time of the year in much the same company. Until twenty she had led, she now realised, a well-guarded life.
To her, each page of the Atlas now seemed an open road, a possibility if not a temptation. She had money, and withPapa’s generous allowance where could she not go and what could she not do?
She stroked the map. Her fingers soon found the southwest tip of Cornwall, then traced a line down the map south from Penzance,
along Mount’s Bay, to Newlyn, and then on to Paul and Mousehole, where die road seemed to wind and twist and turn. Mouse-hole?
That sounded a strange place. It made her laugh. As for Lamorna, that did not sound English at all. La-mor-na could easily
be a beach in the Bahamas, which Mousehole could not. But it was in Lamorna, Joey said, that the most wonderful and the most
extraordinary people in the world were living.
‘Where did you say this painting school was, my dear, Mouse-hole or Newlyn?’
‘Newlyn, Mother.’
‘Oh good, that sounds so much better, much more congenial, though I fail to see why you have to travel quite so far to sketch
something.’
‘Why does she have to sketch anything at all?’ her father said, forking a kidney.
This was familiar territory for Florence. Embroidery and quilts her father could understand, that was the right kind of thing
for a woman. But daubing! Facing her father and his kidney, Florence spoke with icy control.
‘Because Mr Stanhope Forbes – oh, we have discussed this
so
often – because Mr Stanhope Forbes teaches in Newlyn and because Mr Wilks who is teaching me here at home cannot teach.’
Mother and daughter listened to Mr Carter-Wood crunch his kidney. This took some time. Mr Carter-Wood ate slowly. What Florence
could not understand was how a man who ate so much and so often could remain so thin. He wiped his mouth and spoke as he slowly
lowered his napkin.
‘Mr Wilks is considered a good enough painting master for most families. Don’t get too many fancy notions, my girl, or you’ll
soon be brought back here.’ He pushed back his chair to curtail the conversation. Even as he did so, even as the maid cleared
the plates, Florence fancied she could smell the longed-for Atlantic. Her face took on a fresh, childlike excitement, she
felt the wind on her cheeks, the excitement you feel when you come round a bend in the road and for the first time on your
journey your eye hits a sunburst on the sea or you lean over a gate and admire the view and talk freely or walk arm in arm
with brilliant and unconventional artists.
So she was not as sad as she might have been when she said goodbye to Papa (kissing his dry cheek at Paddington) and boarded
the Cornish Riviera Express, nor quite as sad as she might have been when she said goodbye to her mother in the drawing-room,
her mother in tears and holding Florence’s hands a little longer than Florence wished them to be held. Certainly Lucy, her
elder cousin who had kindly agreed to accompany her on the journey, thought she might have made rather more of an effort all
round. After all, she was leaving home for the first time.
‘Exactly,’ Florence said, as she settled into her carriage and took out her new sketchbook. And did this other England, did
the West, look as she imagined it would when she sat in the library with the Atlas in front of her? In something of a trance
she sketched these swift intrusions, glancing out of the window, looking up and down from passing landscape to the pad on
her knees, listening to the tiresomely voluble Lucy as she had to do, but the landscape went past all too quickly for her
to form impressions beyond Elizabethan gables, oaks and elms, pillared porticos, slow rivers, warm and trim red-brick towns,
calves at the edge of a pond and horses in a field… and the further west she went (no,
at much the same time of the year in much the same company. Until twenty she had led, she now realised, a well-guarded life.
To her, each page of the Atlas now seemed an open road, a possibility if not a temptation. She had money, and withPapa’s generous allowance where could she not go and what could she not do?
She stroked the map. Her fingers soon found the southwest tip of Cornwall, then traced a line down the map south from Penzance,
along Mount’s Bay, to Newlyn, and then on to Paul and Mousehole, where die road seemed to wind and twist and turn. Mouse-hole?
That sounded a strange place. It made her laugh. As for Lamorna, that did not sound English at all. La-mor-na could easily
be a beach in the Bahamas, which Mousehole could not. But it was in Lamorna, Joey said, that the most wonderful and the most
extraordinary people in the world were living.
‘Where did you say this painting school was, my dear, Mouse-hole or Newlyn?’
‘Newlyn, Mother.’
‘Oh good, that sounds so much better, much more congenial, though I fail to see why you have to travel quite so far to sketch
something.’
‘Why does she have to sketch anything at all?’ her father said, forking a kidney.
This was familiar territory for Florence. Embroidery and quilts her father could understand, that was the right kind of thing
for a woman. But daubing! Facing her father and his kidney, Florence spoke with icy control.
‘Because Mr Stanhope Forbes – oh, we have discussed this
so
often – because Mr Stanhope Forbes teaches in Newlyn and because Mr Wilks who is teaching me here at home cannot teach.’
Mother and daughter listened to Mr Carter-Wood crunch his kidney. This took some time. Mr Carter-Wood ate slowly. What Florence
could not understand was how a man who ate so much and so often could remain so thin. He wiped his mouth and spoke as he slowly
lowered his napkin.
‘Mr Wilks is considered a good enough painting master for most families. Don’t get too many fancy notions, my girl, or you’ll
soon be brought back here.’ He pushed back his chair to curtail the conversation. Even as he did so, even as the maid cleared
the plates, Florence fancied she could smell the longed-for Atlantic. Her face took on a fresh, childlike excitement, she
felt the wind on her cheeks, the excitement you feel when you come round a bend in the road and for the first time on your
journey your eye hits a sunburst on the sea or you lean over a gate and admire the view and talk freely or walk arm in arm
with brilliant and unconventional artists.
So she was not as sad as she might have been when she said goodbye to Papa (kissing his dry cheek at Paddington) and boarded
the Cornish Riviera Express, nor quite as sad as she might have been when she said goodbye to her mother in the drawing-room,
her mother in tears and holding Florence’s hands a little longer than Florence wished them to be held. Certainly Lucy, her
elder cousin who had kindly agreed to accompany her on the journey, thought she might have made rather more of an effort all
round. After all, she was leaving home for the first time.
‘Exactly,’ Florence said, as she settled into her carriage and took out her new sketchbook. And did this other England, did
the West, look as she imagined it would when she sat in the library with the Atlas in front of her? In something of a trance
she sketched these swift intrusions, glancing out of the window, looking up and down from passing landscape to the pad on
her knees, listening to the tiresomely voluble Lucy as she had to do, but the landscape went past all too quickly for her
to form impressions beyond Elizabethan gables, oaks and elms, pillared porticos, slow rivers, warm and trim red-brick towns,
calves at the edge of a pond and horses in a field… and the further west she went (no,
Similar Books
