Page 8 of These Violet Delights
That was what he had become: the Frenchman. Her sisters forbade her from speaking his name, and in their insistence and intensity, Violet detected embarrassment. Maggie in particular seemed angry at herself that she had let Violet fall under his spell; she was also relieved that Violet had, for the moment, put aside men to focus on herself.
“How will I improve if I am always to be observed?” Violet muttered.
“A true artist will persevere under any circumstances,” said Cristabel. “Whether on top of a mountain or under the sea, watched or alone, it should make no difference. Do you want to paint, or do you want to complain?”
Emilia, who had graciously volunteered to carry the canvases and supply case, didn’t seem too disappointed in having a tagalong, and she started down the hill. Puck bleated at her as she went. “Well!” she called over her shoulder. “She is right! We will have a jolly day no matter what, won’t we? Come! Paint me in those old ruins across the water. It will be terribly romantic.” And she raced ahead, practically floating over the grass, her burgundy skirts and the little dagger points on her spencer jacket trailing.
Violet paused briefly to tilt her head up toward the sky,taking in the quality of the light and the delicious freshness in the air. Then she stuck out her tongue at Emilia’s suggestion that the painting would be at all romantic. Moody? Perhaps. Atmospheric? Certainly. But romantic?Never.
“Hm,” said Cristabel, standing beside her. “It is a lovely day to be tolerated.”
“You know we don’t mean anything by it,” Violet replied. “We are used to ruling this little fairy kingdom of Pressmore. No chaperones, no watchers…”
“I’ve no interest in hindering you. You will come to see painting as the freedom it is and succeed, or chafe against a prison of your own making, stagnate, and fail. I know which I would prefer to see.” The painter shrugged and picked her way down the hill, Violet following.
The Arden girls had been allowed to do as they pleased as children, encouraged and enabled by their doting father. He had never scolded Violet when she stood on the dining room chairs to recite (or shriek) a monologue from Helena or Titania. Mrs. Arden found Violet’s obsession with acting out Shakespeare’s heroines concerning, but not Mr. Arden, who would kneel and listen and clap or gasp where appropriate. Whenever little Violet did something truly objectionable (hiding one of Maggie’s books in a fit of pique, stealing Winny’s ribbons before a ball, chasing the chickens too energetically in the yard), he would come roaring into the room with a mighty “Full of vexation come I, with complaint against my child, my daughter Violet!”
Instead of frightening her, it made her dissolve into giggles.
They were nearly to the water, where they would veer right along the still, blue edge until they reached the bridge that crossed the stream in the forest.
“Where did you go?” Cristabel asked, observing Violet with her alert gray eyes. She was always observing, sometimes so fiercely it made people freeze. But ever since taking up the paintbrush, Violet understood what her teacher was doing. She was studying the light, deciding if a shape on the face was gray or blue or dark brown, watching the way a wallpaper or coat changed the colors that bounced along the cheek and chin.
“I was thinking about my father,” said Violet.
“Have you ever painted him?”
“No.” Violet pressed her lips together firmly. “I don’t think I could. I would cry and spoil the whole thing.”
“Which is precisely why you should do it.”
Violet shook her head. “I’ve sworn off painting men.”
“That will somewhat narrow your available commissions,” said Miss Bilbury, laughing.
They crossed the bridge, where Emilia was waiting for them on the other side. Leaves scattered around them, blown across the path by a wind rich with the smoke of far-off burning leaves, a scent that somehow reminded Violet of being home in the fall no matter where she happened to encounter it.
“There!” Emilia pointed up a hill that rolled into another one, and at the top, a broken crown of gray stone. “The grass is wet. Watch your feet, please.”
The journey took them nearly a mile from Pressmore and painted roses on the ladies’ cheeks. By the time they climbed the slope to the ruins, Cristabel was huffing and puffing, leaning a little against Violet.
Emilia trotted into the ruins with no compunction whatsoever. Violet, however, paused at what had once been the back façade of Clafton, chilled by an imagined breeze. Yet again, Cristabel studied her.
“Should we fear the spirits that linger here?” her tutor asked.
“No…I don’t know. I haven’t been here since the fire destroyed the house. Maybe it’s pity I feel and nothing more, pity that they lost their father in the blaze. He was said to be a great and generous man, and I know what it is to lose such a person suddenly.” Violet scrunched up her face, confused. “And that will be the first and last time I feel pity for a Kerr.”
“That stupid feud,” Emilia spat bitterly, waiting in a long shard of light that speared through a missing window.
Violet grimaced at her. “It isn’t stupid. Besides, you should revel in it. ’Tis like something from one of your beloved novels.”
Emilia seemed only put out by the suggestion. Cristabel released Violet’s arm and surveyed the patchy ground and various places where one might pose a sitter, interrupting them to say, “Set up your easel, Violet. The light will slip away faster than you expect. Hurry now. Did you pack a picnic? We will starve.”
While Cristabel continued to criticize every aspect of this ill-planned adventure, Violet set out her things and began to work. Emilia posed in a pretty pool of light on a thick fallen column as Violet opened her jar of water and lined up her brushes. No sooner had she touched her pencil to the canvas to begin sketching than Cristabel had thoughts to share.
“Why do you attack the canvas so? Did it give offense? Relax your hand. Do you want to be Moncelle?” Looming over her, Cristabel pinched the knobby bone on the outer edge of Violet’s wrist.
“Certainly not,” Violet muttered. She shared a pained look with Emilia.
