IV

QUIETLY, URSULA TYRWHITT climbed the stairs, pausing every now and again not because she found them steep but to listen. She could hear nothing from above. It might mean that Gwen was out but she did not think so. She hoped her friend was painting, and that the intense silence was a sign of creativity. A new painting had begun. Ursula had seen it the week before. It was different from anything Gwen had ever attempted, a painting in which there were no people, only objects. She had said this to Gwen – ‘No figure? There is to be no figure?’ – and Gwen had shaken her head. ‘It is not about people,’ she had said, and shrugged, a gesture Ursula knew well. It meant ‘do not press me’.

She was carrying some primroses, bought that morning from a woman selling them in the street. They were fresh, newly picked, drops of moisture still on the delicate petals. Ursula was holding them in her gloved hands, conscious of their fragility. The stems were tied with a thin wisp of straw and would come apart any minute. Cautiously, approaching the top of the staircase, she raised the posy to her face to see if the primroses still carried their scent. They did, but only faintly, only a trace of the woodland where they had been picked remaining. Gwen’s door was slightly open. Ursula hesitated. The gap was just wide enough for her to peer round. Gwen was standing motionless in front of her easel, paintbrush in hand but not poised to touch the canvas. She was staring at it as though she did not recognise it, and was bewildered by what she saw. ‘Gwen?’ Ursula whispered, fearing to break whatever spell her friend seemed to be under. Mutely she held out the primroses.

In a sudden swift movement, Gwen put down her paintbrush and crossed the room to take the flowers. Without speaking, she took them from Ursula and turned and seized a glass tumbler which she filled with water from her sink and placed on the little wooden table in front of the window. She pushed the primroses into the tumbler, not seeking to arrange them, and stepped back. There was an open book on the table but now she removed it. The window was open, but she closed it and drew across it the fine lace curtain. Again she stepped back, and this time nodded. Ursula was afraid to speak and wondered if she ought simply to turn and tiptoe away, but Gwen spoke first. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘the flowers are just right. They say the right things.’ Ursula wondered what these right things were, but Gwen was asking if she would like tea and did not seem to want her to go.

They sat at the back of the room, on the bed. Around the window there seemed to be an aura which could not be touched. The table, and the wickerwork chair, were clearly arranged for a purpose, and so was the parasol leaning against the chair. Ursula said she hoped she had not come at an inconvenient time and spoiled Gwen’s reverie, but was assured she had not. ‘It is too late now,’ Gwen said, ‘the light has changed, the shadows are wrong.’ They sipped their tea. It felt companionable, sitting perched on the bed, but Ursula sensed the tension in Gwen. She would not insult her by stooping to pleasantries. Instead, she waited. Gwen’s question came at last: had Ursula been to Rodin’s studio that day? Yes, she had. She had continued to work on the head Rodin had thought promising. And had the maître been there? No, he had not. ‘He has not visited me for five weeks,’ Gwen said. ‘He no longer replies to my letters. What am I to think, Ursula? What am I to do?’

There was no honest answer possible to that. Gwen trembled slightly as she spoke, but whether with distress or anger Ursula did not know. Carefully, she placed a hand on Gwen’s knee, the lightest of touches, merely to acknowledge that she knew how painful any mention of Rodin had become. ‘May I look at your painting,’ she whispered, ‘or is it too soon?’ ‘Much too soon,’ Gwen said, ‘but look if you will. It is nothing yet.’ Ursula, standing in front of the canvas, saw this was true. A vague impression of the window and the wall beside it and that was all. So far as her friend could see, Gwen had not progressed beyond what she had done the week before, and yet a strange, hypnotic quality was starting to emerge. ‘I love this room,’ Gwen suddenly said. ‘It is me, you know, at last.’ ‘But you said “no figure”,’ Ursula reminded her, ‘so where are you in this room that is you? You are invisible to me.’ Gwen pointed. ‘There,’ she said, ‘coming home, leaving home. It is what I see. That corner. It is what I know, finally.’

Ursula took her teacup to the sink and set it down there, not wanting to turn on the tap and make even the slightest noise. Gwen was struggling to tell her something and she wanted to understand. It seemed to her that Gwen must be mistaken – there was nothing about that corner, with its window and table and chair, that could possibly be her. The corner was all peace and calm and serenity, whereas her friend radiated energy, the air around her crackled with it and there was always the feeling that there might be an eruption. Gwen must mean something else. ‘It is a pretty room,’ Ursula murmured, ‘but you are more than a corner in it, Gwen. It is only a tiny part of you, surely, dear? You yourself are so much more.’ Gwen shook her head violently and then put her hands up to her face. ‘No,’ she said, ‘without him, I am less than that corner.’

The rumours had hardened recently into definite information. Ursula had heard about Rodin’s new mistress but feared that Gwen had not. Should she tell her? It was not something a friend would wish to do. But Gwen would hear of it, it would come to her ears in the end and hurt all the more for her realising that her friend must have known. Hesitantly, Ursula went over to Gwen and took hold of her hands. ‘Gwen,’ she began, and then stopped. Gwen’s hands were cold, yet her face was flushed. It was not the right time to tell her. She was happy with her conviction that this corner of her room, which she was painting, signified herself – calm, peaceful, content. To tell her about Rodin would be like smashing the window, throwing the primroses to the ground, upturning the table and chair. The painting would never happen.

‘I must go,’ Ursula said, and kissed Gwen lightly on the cheek.

*

All night she lay there, her body tortured by desire for him, his eyes locking onto hers, his hands everywhere, his body a weight upon hers which crushed her, and in her head a delirium of feeling she could not release. The dawn light creeping cautiously through the window found her exhausted and weeping, every bone in her poor body aching and her throat raw and dry, her head rigid with pain. It was hard to rise from her bed at all, and she staggered when she did so, clutching on to the rail of the headboard until it bent and creaked and threatened to come loose. Slowly, she steadied herself. The light grew stronger, it was changing in colour and she had to hurry. She went to the sink and splashed her face with water and then filled a cup and drank some of it. No time, no need, to dress. She shivered, but with apprehension not cold. Suppose it was not there this morning? Suppose what she had seen had vanished?

She settled herself in front of her easel and waited. The sun was up, the flood of light now tinged with gold, bathing that corner of her room so softly. The sunlight touched the primroses and made them shine, it stroked the top of the table until the solid wood seemed to become smooth and liquid. The wall was defined strongly, a wedge near the window, sharp and pointed at the end, and then a great shadow beyond it where no colour was visible. The chair was too near the table. She crossed the room and moved it an inch or two to the left. Yesterday she had put her coat over the chair, beneath the parasol, but then removed it. She had tried, last week, a different painting, with only her coat over the chair and the curtain open, as well as the window itself. She had put an open book on the table, pleased with what this would signify. But that had been another person, one full of hope still, cheerful, confident her maître would soon knock on the door and be welcomed in. That reading of herself was finished. She saw now how far away she had been from achieving the state of mind her lover wished her to attain. This picture, this was what he wanted. It even occurred to her that his absence was deliberate. He knew she would suffer, and would have to control this suffering, and through doing so would reach a level of serenity she had not yet come near.

Two hours after dawn and the light exactly right. She painted. Carefully, slowly, building up the layers of paint, catching the strengthening radiance diffused through the lace curtain. She could hear her own heart beating, her own breath escaping. Her hand was not quite steady and she had to support her left arm, the arm she painted with, with her right. She would have to go in search of more primroses herself – Ursula’s would not last beyond another day. The flowers had become crucial to the painting, giving the corner of her room the touch of colour it needed. Without them, the scene was barren. It struck her, as she went on painting, that she could give this painting to Ursula. It was not for exhibiting, or for sale. She would keep it or give it away to someone who would understand it and treasure it for what it was – see its significance.

It was over for another day. She cleaned her brush, pulled back the curtain and opened the window. The air was still cool and she breathed it in deeply, and thought that she must eat, but to eat she would have to go and find food, which meant leaving her room. She dreaded doing so, fearing that Rodin might come and find her gone and not trouble to come again. Here, she pined for him but he would not know that if the room was empty. She doubted if he could read the scene with her eyes and see how she had striven to please him. He must see her there. She wanted to be standing in the middle of her room, looking towards the window, proud of what it conveyed about her.

But she had to eat. She had allowed herself to exist on grapes and nuts and raisins and bread but now there was nothing at all left. Yesterday, she had drunk tea and now the tea was finished too. There was a pain in her belly and she felt light-headed, hardly trusting herself to dress and descend all those stairs. The noise of the street would overwhelm her but she must face it. Gathering her things together – her coat, her new black hat with its bright green ribbon, her purse, her key – she left her room and paused a moment on the landing. She looked at the shut door, the blankness of the wooden panels, and could hardly believe what lay behind it. It seemed urgent to get herself back inside as quickly as possible, and she began to run down the stairs so fast that at the bottom she almost fainted. She knew where to buy bread and cheese and more grapes, and where to get the tea she liked, but it was an ordeal to go through the necessary transactions. All the time she was peering up her street to check that Rodin was not alighting from a cab and entering her building. When she was back at the street door, she felt such relief, and yet also such disappointment. She had hoped, in an absurdly superstitious way, that by leaving her room she would be sure to make Rodin come.

She could hardly drag herself back up the stairs. Halfway up, she stopped and sat down, and broke off a piece of bread. It was newly baked, still warm, the crust golden, but in her mouth it tasted dry and threatened to choke her. A grape was better, the sharp bite of it delicious, the juice comforting. She took another, holding it for a moment on her tongue. The pleasure of the taste, when she crushed the grape this time, made her want to weep – there was so little pleasure, so little joy, in her life without her lover. Her senses were dulled and she had begun to feel all emotion extinguished. She stood up, climbed the remaining stairs, and then paused again on her landing. She wondered what she would see when she opened the door. The room might merely look sad. The corner, which she had turned into a representation of how Rodin wanted her to be, might be a mirage. Everything depended on that flash of recognition she ought to experience as she looked at her room with the eyes, for a mere second, of a stranger.

She had only been out of the room twenty minutes, but it was her first outing for a week. She had broken the spell it held her in. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open vigorously, wanting to take in the room all at once. The shock was profound – it was there! She felt dizzy with relief and had to sit down and put her head on the table. It was not an illusion. The corner of her room spoke loud and clear. It only needed her maître to come and hear its voice.

*

Winifred had written. When the concierge said that there was a letter for her, Gwen had hoped it was from Rodin and she had almost snatched it from the woman’s hand. But she saw at once the foreign stamps and recognised Winifred’s writing. It shamed her to feel such disappointment and she punished herself by not opening the letter at once. Winifred’s life seemed to her extraordinary – to take herself off like that to join Thornton in his strange wanderings through Canada, and then to go on to America, was quite bizarre. It could never have been predicted. Where was her sister’s music in all this? Once, it had seemed to drive her, as art drove Gus and Gwen, but now there was no mention of hours of devoted practice. Music was not her god.

It was a cheerful letter, amusing, full of lively descriptions of people and places. Winifred sounded happy, and Gwen was glad of it. She wondered, in this letter, if Gwen was once more working or whether she was still ‘in thrall’ to her lover. Only Winifred and Ursula knew about Rodin and sometimes Gwen regretted confessing to either of them, but there had been a great need in her to burst out to someone, to tell them what was filling her heart and her life. They had been kind, and respectful. They had not cast doubt on her passion, or uttered dire warnings of what might happen. They had, she thought, both been glad for her. She loved them for it.

But Winifred now upset her by asking if she was still ‘in thrall’ to Rodin. Of course she was, yet she did not like her feelings for him described thus. Someone ‘in thrall’ was surely blinded to reality, and on the brink of being silly. It made her sound weak and feeble, and she was neither. She tried to think how she could honestly respond to her sister’s enquiry. The attempt stopped her painting. She sat at her easel, facing the beautiful corner of her room, and she did not touch the canvas all day. Slowly, seeping through her brain, was the terrifying knowledge that she was no longer ‘in thrall’. She wanted to be, but doubt had begun to break the spell and she did not like what she glimpsed behind it. She loved her maître every bit as fiercely, but she needed him to love her as she loved him. His absences spoke for him. She had transformed herself for him, and had become his willing slave, but now he was wary of her hunger for him. He had said he was merely tired, he’d pleaded his great age, but she had seen in his eyes that it was more than that. It was like watching the moon wane, the full glory of its light weakening, the great roundness fading round the rim, and she could not bear it.

The next morning found her back behind her easel, still staring at the corner of her room but seeing it differently. It was a cheat. It was full of hope, yet she was losing hope. But instead of discouraging her, instead of breaking her heart, this revelation strengthened her sense of purpose. She knew what she saw in the corner of her room and she had to make sure that others saw it too. She wanted to record how things might have been and so nearly were. Contentment, peace, a life lived sweetly and quietly. No mess, no trouble, no agonising. The person who lived in this room was in perfect control of her emotions. She had been out for a walk and picked the flowers and had come home to it well satisfied. She might seem invisible, but she was across the room, pouring a glass of wine, putting bread and grapes for her supper on a plate. Soon, she would come to the chair and sit down, and put her glass and her plate on the table, and perhaps draw the curtain back and look out of the window. She wanted for nothing.

But I, thought Gwen, still want so much. I may not be quite ‘in thrall’ to my lover, but I am not free and I do not think I can bear to be free.

*

She had worked long enough on the painting. Day after day she had gone out and bought primroses and when primroses were no longer obtainable any other small flowers she could find. Sometimes, in order to get a posy of the matching size, she had to accept some tiny pink primulas too, and a few blue ones, though it meant changing what she had already painted. But now, on her thirty-first birthday, she had done as much as she could and it was not enough. She took the small canvas off the easel and turned it to the wall. She would try again, and meanwhile give this one to Ursula. Already she had the version with the open window and the book hidden away. It worked better but still did not say what she wanted it to say. She would keep that one.

The 22nd June, her birthday, was a lovely sunny day, but she was not happy. How could she be? No letter, no card, from her maître, and she had no hope that he was about to surprise her with a sudden visit. She went out in the afternoon and walked first by the river and then took a tram to Rodin’s studio. She would confront him. She would remind him that it was her birthday and hope to witness his guilt at having forgotten. She wanted him to take her in his arms and see him contrite and concerned and eager to make up for his neglect. Her heart beat more quickly as she neared the studio but she did not falter – she was tired of waiting, of being humble. A birthday was a good day to make a stand. But his studio was empty of people. No one at all working there, only half-completed works shrouded in sheets. She had an insane desire to slip the sheets off and smash to bits what was underneath but instead she went into the adjoining studio in search of Hilda Flodin, who would know where Rodin was.

He was in Oxford, it seemed, attending a ceremony admitting him to the university. Hilda smiled when she gave this information, an annoying smile, malicious. ‘He did not tell you?’ she asked Gwen. Gwen did not reply. Why would she be asking if she already knew? And she would not pretend that she had been told and had forgotten. She turned, without saying anything to Hilda, though Hilda was saying something else, and left the studios. It was unendurable to think that Rodin had actually left the country and had not thought to tell her. Tears blinded her as she stumbled home and when she got back to her room she flung herself on her bed and wept and wept. Eventually, through sheer exhaustion, she fell into a half-sleep in which she was calling out to Rodin to come to her but was conscious enough to realise this was not a dream but a hallucination. She could see him coming towards her, arms outstretched, and she tried to rouse herself enough to stand up and embrace him. The effort was too much. She sank back onto the bed, and this time truly slept.

The light, when she woke, had changed. It was late evening, she knew. No need to consult a clock when the setting sun told the time so obligingly. She rolled onto her side, her head throbbing, her eyes hurting from all the tears. How sad the empty chair looked, how pathetic the little posy of flowers wilting on the plain wooden table. They spoke of loneliness and blankness. There was no life there, or no life worth having. The parasol did not fool her. It had not been opened, had not been taken on a walk. Why had she been so proud of this corner? Why had she been so sure her maître would approve of what it represented? It was an interior like any other. The props were universal – the cheap chair, the cheap table, the poverty of it all. And she had wanted it to prove her own triumph. She had wanted to show Rodin that this was evidence of her transformation. She had imagined him walking into her room and being transfixed, overcome with admiration for what she had achieved.

But now she doubted if she had achieved anything. Was the painting good? She did not know. She wanted to be rid of that first version, the one painted with such joy. The next she would complete in a different mood, and then hide. Then she would be done with trying to make herself into what her lover wanted.

*

This time, Ursula came by arrangement, to say goodbye. How her friend could leave Paris, Gwen did not know, but the answer was simple: Ursula’s father wanted her home. ‘You listen to your father?’ Gwen asked. ‘Still?’ Ursula smiled, but felt her face flush. She loved both her parents but especially her father, who had always championed her cause. If it had not been for him, she would never have gone to the Slade. Were it not for his indulgence, she could not have come to Paris at all. Like Gwen, she was in her thirties and unmarried – she had no means of support other than her clergyman father’s allowance. ‘I did without any allowance from my father,’ Gwen told her, ‘and so could you.’ Ursula shook her head. It seemed unnecessary to point out the difference to her friend, who knew perfectly well that she loved her father and would not for the world disobey or offend him. Art was not important enough to contemplate a rupture with her parents.

Gwen was ready for her. She had bought delicious pastries and had the table set with pretty pink teacups and teapot. They sat by the window, listening to the canary singing in its cage on the balcony below and watching the tree-tops shiver in the breeze. ‘I love your room,’ Ursula said. Gwen nodded, and said that she loved it too, but that lately she had experienced a yearning for the country. ‘The country?’ Ursula queried, surprised. ‘Meudon,’ Gwen said. ‘Oh, Gwen,’ Ursula said, ‘is that wise?’ Gwen shrugged. They sat in silence for a while. A child laughed somewhere below them and they could hear a ball bouncing against a wall. ‘Come and live with me,’ Gwen said. ‘We will take a cottage together. It will not cost much.’ Did she mean it? Ursula was not sure. Her friend could be impulsive and then regret it. And she did not know if she could live harmoniously with Gwen. Often, after a mere hour in her company she felt drained by the emotional demands made on her, that urgent need for constant sympathy which was so exhausting to give. And Gwen, in that respect, gave little in return.

They ate the pastries and drank the tea and it felt comfortable and companionable, so much so that Ursula wondered what had happened to make Gwen seem relaxed and cheerful when for the last few months she had been tense and depressed. Had Rodin come to her? From what she had heard said in and around the studios of the Dépôt des Marbres, she did not think so. Or was this change of mood in Gwen due to her acceptance that Rodin had found someone new? Again, Ursula did not think so. Gwen did not accept unpalatable truths – she denied them, fought them and could only be bludgeoned into defeat. Then it occurred to Ursula that there could be another reason for her friend’s apparent contentment. Perhaps her work was giving her pleasure again? Perhaps she had completed a painting, or even more than one, to her satisfaction? That would be something.

‘I have a present to give you,’ Gwen said, rising and brushing crumbs off her skirt. ‘Take it, look at it when you reach home, and think of me.’ She handed Ursula a package, clearly a small canvas, framed, already wrapped in calico and tied with string. She made to undo the knots but Gwen stopped her. ‘No,’ she said, ‘don’t look at it now. Wait. Look at it when you are home, alone, in your own room.’ Ursula felt overwhelmed. She clutched the package to her, embraced it tightly, feeling the sharp corners of the frame with her fingers. ‘Is it this room, this corner?’ Gwen nodded. ‘Your primroses,’ she said. ‘But Gwen …’ Ursula began, and was stopped. Gwen put a finger to her lips. ‘Say nothing,’ she commanded. ‘I want you to have it. It was the first. I have another, which will be better. But this one has your primroses. Show it to no one, promise?’ Ursula rose, and kissed her on the cheek. They held each other for a moment. ‘Thank you,’ Ursula whispered. ‘I shall treasure it.’ ‘There is treasure there, for you to find,’ Gwen said, but smiling, laughing at herself.

All the way down the staircase Ursula puzzled over what such an odd statement could mean.

*

The temptation was too strong. Before she left Paris, Ursula looked at the painting Gwen had given her, justifying this disobedience by persuading herself that to open the package in absolute privacy fulfilled the spirit of her friend’s command. And, besides, she needed to wrap it more securely for it to be better protected during the Channel crossing. She carried the package over to the window where a small desk stood, and searched in one of the cubbyholes for scissors. Outside, it was raining slightly but the sky was not completely grey. There were patches of blue visible and the clouds were white, not black. It was just a shower which would soon stop.

The calico was just the outer wrapping. Underneath, the painting was swathed in several layers of cotton muslin and she removed each one with exquisite care, folding them as she went to prolong the delicious anticipation. She guessed that the canvas underneath was about twelve inches by ten, small indeed, like most of Gwen’s paintings. Every single one she had seen could hang comfortably in an ordinary-sized room – there would be no difficulty in hanging it. At home she had a dressing room opening off her bedroom and no one went into it except Mary, the maid, who, if she noticed a new painting on the wall would hardly remark on it. After all, Gwen would not have expected her to keep her gift literally hidden – it was to be enjoyed, gazed upon often, but not shown off, that was the difference.

No figure. She remembered saying that to Gwen. An empty room, a mere corner of an empty room, with no one in it, and yet Gwen’s presence so powerfully there. Ursula held the unwrapped painting in her hands and stared at it. There was such longing there, she thought. For the quiet pleasures of a walk in the sun and the picking of primroses. A life outside which had been brought inside and held there? But then she held the small canvas at arm’s length and looked again. It was in fact the opposite: a life inside which had been brought outside. The empty chair, the parasol leaning against it, the table bare except for the flowers – they were all disguises. But what lay underneath? She seemed to see the parasol trembling in Gwen’s hands as she walked to Rodin’s studio and found him absent, and then it would be furled up and held tightly to stop the rage this absence provoked. The empty chair would not be empty long – she saw Gwen hurl herself into it, slump down against its uncomfortable back and weep. The corner of the room was soon invaded by the real Gwen, the distraught Gwen longing for her maître who no longer deigned to visit her. He would not be fooled. Indeed, Ursula found herself thinking, in all probability he had never been fooled. Gwen had intrigued him, and he had undoubtedly felt passion for her, but he had always been wary of being consumed by her, and when that became too great a danger he had extricated himself. Ursula felt such pain for her friend. She walked around the room, cradling the painting in her arms, and there were tears in her eyes.

The frame was old and cracked and did not fit the canvas exactly. Ursula hesitated. She knew that Gwen searched out used frames, preferring them, and that this one would not have cost much. It seemed wicked to discard it but if she did so the painting would fit into the special compartment in her largest valise and be very well protected during the journey. This compartment was like a second case within the valise and she had used it to transport her own work. Carefully, she detached the battered frame and wrapped the canvas in a length of gauze she had bought that day, intending to make a veil for a hat, and then in the layers of cotton muslin Gwen had provided. She put the parcel between two sheets of cardboard and wrapped the whole thing in a woollen scarf. There was still plenty of room in the compartment so she further padded the package all round with her silk underwear before closing it. The valise was clearly labelled with the Pimlico address where she would stay before going on to her father’s vicarage. Once there, she would take the painting out of its hiding place and carry it in her bag the rest of the way. The painting would be quite safe. The valise, purchased at Harrod’s some years ago, was strong and had good locks.

At the last minute, she almost took it out and put it in her travelling bag there and then, but stopped herself with the memory of having mislaid two such bags on other travels through sheer carelessness – she was always putting her bag down and forgetting it and moving away only to realise, far too late, that she did not have it with her and could not remember when she last had it. She did the same with her purse, and her clasp bag, and had had to teach herself always to wear some garment with capacious pockets so that her money and passport could be kept within them. If only Gwen’s little canvas had been just an inch or two smaller then, even well wrapped, it could have gone into such a pocket on the inside of her long coat. But it stayed in the big, secure valise.

Ursula was to regret this for the rest of her life.