selfishness and a small income. I had never learned courtship, had never needed to; I thought that directness spoke for itself, but hadn’t realised that the English like their ritual and distrust plain speaking as somehow mendacious. Everything has a hidden meaning, does it not? And the more direct the speech, the more carefully hidden the true meaning must be, the more effort must be expended to understand what is really being said. So much for my efforts at courtship, though, come to think of it, I have just summarised your philosophy as a sage of the modern. Your criticism is merely the sensibility of the English bourgeois applied to canvas. Nothing can be without explanation.
“I will never marry,” she said, once the surprise had dissipated and she could speak again. At least she did not smile as she said it; that would have been too much. “I am not fitted for it. I do not desire children, and I believe I can look after my own needs, so I see little point in it. I can think of no man I like more than you,” she went on, “and no man whose company I enjoy more. But that is hardly sufficient. No, Henry MacAlpine. Find someone else. I would never make you happy, and you would never make me content. I’m sure someone else will do a better job for you than I ever could.”
And that was that. She discouraged any return to the subject, and even avoided me for some time, just in case I was minded to take up the matter again. So off I went to walk in the rain of the Highlands. My pride was hurt, of course, whose would not be? But I discovered that the occasional pangs of jealousy I felt whenever I saw her in the company of some man—a rare enough event—faded soon enough. It took some time before we resumed our old friendship, before she felt safe enough in my presence and was sure I was not about to go down on my knees again, but eventually calm was restored. I didn’t know what she wanted, but soon enough I accepted that I was not it. And I easily persuaded myself that she would have been quite the wrong choice for me, as well. She was, after all, a very difficult person to be around. Moody, withdrawn, quixotic. No; it took only a short while to persuade myself I had been saved from a terrible mistake.
Don’t think, by the way, that I didn’t notice the look of scorn on your face as I was talking of my beloved homeland. Oh, so poetic about Scotland, and so far away from it! If it is so wonderful what am I doing on a little island off the coast of Brittany? If so patriotic, why head south instead of north? True enough; the most rapturous Scots are the nostalgic ones. Scotland stifles me; the landscape gives you a sense of freedom, the civilisation oppresses. I cannot paint there, because I am too aware of God’s disapproval and of the impossibility of ever pleasing Him. Here I have at least persuaded myself He is a little more open to persuasion.
YOU SEE that my style has changed? Of course you have; you never miss anything. Along with the brushes, I have jettisoned the method. What were we taught? Line, line, line. And the immediacy of the impression; the two great irreconcilables that have destroyed a generation or more of English painters. There we were, slopping down great gobs of paint trying to fix something glimpsed for a moment then half forgotten. As Monet had shown us, so we did. Well and good; it produced a few pretty things, although personally there was always some little Calvinist inside me tutting away about French corruption. By all means, try and capture that brilliant flash of light on the lily pond; the play of autumn sun on the cathedral façade. But we never get much sun in Scotland, you know. Not much light, either. We have fifty-nine different shades of grey. We are a nation en grisaille , and can see all of God’s creation in the difference between an overcast dawn and a threatening, squally morning. Even the green of the hills is grey, if you study it properly. The heather and the
“I will never marry,” she said, once the surprise had dissipated and she could speak again. At least she did not smile as she said it; that would have been too much. “I am not fitted for it. I do not desire children, and I believe I can look after my own needs, so I see little point in it. I can think of no man I like more than you,” she went on, “and no man whose company I enjoy more. But that is hardly sufficient. No, Henry MacAlpine. Find someone else. I would never make you happy, and you would never make me content. I’m sure someone else will do a better job for you than I ever could.”
And that was that. She discouraged any return to the subject, and even avoided me for some time, just in case I was minded to take up the matter again. So off I went to walk in the rain of the Highlands. My pride was hurt, of course, whose would not be? But I discovered that the occasional pangs of jealousy I felt whenever I saw her in the company of some man—a rare enough event—faded soon enough. It took some time before we resumed our old friendship, before she felt safe enough in my presence and was sure I was not about to go down on my knees again, but eventually calm was restored. I didn’t know what she wanted, but soon enough I accepted that I was not it. And I easily persuaded myself that she would have been quite the wrong choice for me, as well. She was, after all, a very difficult person to be around. Moody, withdrawn, quixotic. No; it took only a short while to persuade myself I had been saved from a terrible mistake.
Don’t think, by the way, that I didn’t notice the look of scorn on your face as I was talking of my beloved homeland. Oh, so poetic about Scotland, and so far away from it! If it is so wonderful what am I doing on a little island off the coast of Brittany? If so patriotic, why head south instead of north? True enough; the most rapturous Scots are the nostalgic ones. Scotland stifles me; the landscape gives you a sense of freedom, the civilisation oppresses. I cannot paint there, because I am too aware of God’s disapproval and of the impossibility of ever pleasing Him. Here I have at least persuaded myself He is a little more open to persuasion.
YOU SEE that my style has changed? Of course you have; you never miss anything. Along with the brushes, I have jettisoned the method. What were we taught? Line, line, line. And the immediacy of the impression; the two great irreconcilables that have destroyed a generation or more of English painters. There we were, slopping down great gobs of paint trying to fix something glimpsed for a moment then half forgotten. As Monet had shown us, so we did. Well and good; it produced a few pretty things, although personally there was always some little Calvinist inside me tutting away about French corruption. By all means, try and capture that brilliant flash of light on the lily pond; the play of autumn sun on the cathedral façade. But we never get much sun in Scotland, you know. Not much light, either. We have fifty-nine different shades of grey. We are a nation en grisaille , and can see all of God’s creation in the difference between an overcast dawn and a threatening, squally morning. Even the green of the hills is grey, if you study it properly. The heather and the
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