The Girl in the Picture. Kerry Barrett
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I said. ‘Violet was five.’
‘Violet?’ Rich asked.
‘Harriet’s daughter,’ I said. ‘She was five when Harriet died. My mum died when I was five.’ I paused. ‘And I lost my baby brother too.’
The vicar put his hand on my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘You said you were a writer?’
I nodded, still looking at the entry in the records.
‘Maybe writing this story can help you make sense of your own,’ he said.
‘Maybe it can,’ I said. ‘Maybe it can.’
I thanked him and promised to come back another day to do more research. Then, with my head full of this unknown Violet who lost her mum as I’d done, and poor Harriet, I wandered home.
I’d only been back about two minutes, and I was saying hello to the boys and Margaret, when I heard the front door open. Ben walked out into the garden, a bundle cradled in his arms. A little bubble of excitement popped in my tummy as he placed the bundle gently on the grass in front of the boys.
‘Careful,’ he said to Oscar who was bouncing up and down. ‘He’s just a baby.’
‘Mummy!’ shouted Oscar, almost roaring with excitement. ‘Mummy! It’s a puppy! Come and see!’
I exchanged a look with Margaret.
‘Looks like you’re staying put then,’ she said with a smile.
I nodded. ‘Looks like it,’ I said.
1855
Violet
After I’d run away from Mr Forrest on the beach, I went into the house through the kitchen – I didn’t want to see Father asleep or awake – and went straight up to the attic. I slumped in the chair and took my hat off. I could hardly bear to look down at the bottom of the cliff, where I’d been so rude to Mr Forrest. Cutting him off, rejecting his kindness.
I flushed again, thinking of how he’d seen right into my soul. How had he known how trapped I felt? How I was looking at him to help me escape? I knew I’d been lucky so far, that Father hadn’t married me off to the first man to show an interest. But recently he’d started talking about a man called John Wallace, who worked with him on one of his projects. He mentioned how clever he was and how good with money, and how he ran a tight ship. And I knew – I just knew – that these were qualities Father admired. Qualities he thought would make a good husband.
So far I’d resisted all his efforts for me to meet Mr Wallace, but it wouldn’t be long, I thought in misery, before Father invited him down to Sussex, and that would be it.
I knew I ought to speak to my father. I should tell him how I felt, that I wanted to paint and that Mr Forrest seemed to be taking my painting seriously, because for all his talk of taking my work to London, I knew that in reality I could do nothing without Father’s approval. But what would he say if I told him? I shuddered at the thought.
On the whole, Father had been supportive of my love of art to begin with. Lots of girls like me took drawing lessons and I had been taught by a mousey-haired woman from the village who’d been very keen on technique. She’d sent me down to the beach to collect things – shells, feathers, a stick – and then made me sketch them over and over using only charcoal. Never any colour.
Despite the repetitive nature of the task, I had loved it. Loved it more than the lessons I got from my succession of elderly governesses who droned on about kings and queens and made me recite poetry. Urgh, just remembering old Mrs Pringle who had a passion for the Reformation and who liked to share it with me, made me want to curl up into a ball and go to sleep. But when I was drawing I felt like I had become who I was supposed to be.
When my lessons were over, I would shut myself in my bedroom and draw some more. First I sketched parts of myself – a foot or a hand. Then I would gaze at myself in the mirror and draw my face again and again, struggling to get my hair right.
I sketched Father then too and he exclaimed in delight that I’d got his expression ‘just so’ and patted me on the head proudly. He even took me to the Royal Academy most years, laughing as I gazed in speechless wonder at the paintings there.
But as I got older, Father’s indulgence of my art waned.
‘No more talk of painting, Violet,’ he would say if I tried to talk to him. ‘It’s not becoming for a young woman to be so focused on one thing. You need to extend your skills. Your arithmetic could do with half the attention you give to drawing.’
He would tut if he saw me with paper or pencil and refuse to answer if I asked for another visit to the Royal Academy. So I took to drawing upstairs in my bedroom, moving into the lounge – which had much better light – only when Father was on one of his frequent trips away.
The only people who knew about my work – until Edwin found me on the beach that day – were Mabel, our housekeeper, and Philips, who did everything else around the house and garden. Mabel regarded my drawings with a sense of wonder – briefly.
‘Oh look, you’ve got your father’s eyes perfect there,’ she said when I showed her a sketch. ‘Aren’t you clever? Now move out the way while I clean this floor.’
Philips was more interested. He asked me questions about my work and pointed out where things weren’t quite right – and when I’d improved. I complained to him about the lack of light in my bedroom and wished aloud that I had a place of my own in which to paint. Then one day, when Father was in Manchester, he’d taken me up the rickety stairs to the attic room, which had once been a home for old furniture, trunks, and linen.
‘Look,’ he’d declared, standing back to let me enter the room.
I’d gasped in pleasure. He’d moved all the junk out – into the outhouse in the garden he told me later – cleaned the wooden floor, and distempered the walls. A battered old chaise stood in one corner (‘Who knew that was up here?’ Philips had said with a good-natured grin.’) and there was a bowl with a jug next to it.
‘I thought this would be a good spot,’ he’d said. ‘It catches the sun, see?’
I had been overcome with gratitude and excitement. Now I could really work.
That had been nearly two years ago. The attic room remained hidden from Father. I hadn’t lied exactly but I’d never told him about it and he’d never asked, obviously just assuming it was still a storage space. Philips continued to help me. He mended the stairs and made them safer for me to run up and down. He even bought paints and brushes for me in Brighton when I asked him to, and proved to be a useful sounding board for my musings about art.
As time went on, Father seemed relieved that I had – as far as he knew – abandoned art. He began to talk about my potential as a wife and I ignored him most of the time. I knew nothing of men. In fact, I knew little of women. I had no friends, only a cousin who I’d lived with for a few years when I was younger. But he’d mostly ignored me, and anyway the family had moved away and I hadn’t seen them for years. With Father away so much we rarely had visitors and when we did, it was normally another man just like Father. I would dine with them in silence while they discussed business and then escape to my room when we’d finished eating. The idea of marriage was so odd to me that I disregarded it entirely.
But now – now the vague talk of becoming a good wife had changed to specific mentions of Mr Wallace – I knew I was at a crossroads. I knew that unless I asserted myself, I would be Mrs Wallace within a year, and I wasn’t sure I could live that way. But the alternative – the very idea of telling Father how I really felt – was horrifying.
Father and I had always rubbed along quite nicely. I knew I was loved, even if Father was strict. I missed him when he was away, which was often, but I didn’t miss my mother any