What a Lark!

The thing that struck her was how at ease she felt among these people, how they accepted her. They didn’t appear to find it unusual:  a woman on her own in an elaborate white dress walking along the crowded street with her little dog. It was as if her inner mood manifested itself in the noisy laughter and waving of flags.  Their arms about each other seemed to embrace her, too. .  If she met someone’s eye they just smiled or said “Lovely weather for the Fete Day, isn’t it?” And she smiled and nodded although she normally wouldn’t do that with strangers. Even the weather seemed to conspire with her frame of mind:  clouds racing across the blue, driven by a breeze that never really died here. It just seemed right to be in this time and place, out on a spree. 

In London the sensation was quite different, always a conflict between the life she and James had chosen to lead and the disapproval of society. It reined in her outgoing nature; she never went out without him, fearful of malicious stares or, worse, people she knew crossing to the other side of the street if they saw her. In their eyes she was the fallen woman ‘Tissot’s girlfriend’. 

Their world was enclosed, isolated and inward looking. At first it had been exhilarating:  his obsession with painting her, in the garden, in the house, dressing her in wonderful clothes, but lately she sensed an intensity becoming neurotic and then tormented as her illness began to claim her... 

How she hated the social customs of the capital, which James ignored or pretended to ignore. Sometimes during one of their stormy episodes, she accused him of caring only if his models still posed for him, if the Windsor and Newton artists’ supplies shop was prepared to sell him a tube of yellow ochre  - everyone else could go hang. ‘No my love,’ he always replied, ‘It is the bourgeois mentality, that narrow minded invidious nature I hate’ They began to spend an increasing amount of time at seaside resorts like Brighton where she could escape his vigilance for spots of blood on a handkerchief, a swooning fall or just his adoring contemplation of her, to wander the streets alone.  

Today, for example, he had raised no objection when she peeked round his studio door and announced she was going ‘shopping’ He was working on a new picture, had scarcely looked round from his canvas. But that was not unusual, it was what it was like, living with a painter as she explained to those who asked. 

 It might sound thrilling or even decadent but in reality it was like living with a man who possessed a demanding unforgiving mistress, one who scarcely let him out of her arms. . ‘He never really notices except if he’s painting me’ she would say knowing it was untrue. Knowing he watched and photographed and painted her incessantly as if committing her to memory. 

Kathleen felt certain he had noticed the dress she was wearing; he had not possessed a mother and father in the drapery trade for nothing. His gaze appreciated her elegance even if he hadn’t commented.  She had designed this outfit herself and Mrs Webb made it up: a two piece in white muslin, the jacket flounced and semi fitted, flowing softly over her hips; there were five tiers of frills on the skirt and she wore a long tie of blue ribbon. It was an elaborate dress to wear for shopping but something had urged her to put it on this morning, not to leave it hanging in the wardrobe a day longer. 

Kathleen strolled through The Lanes. She noticed things in the shop windows: a roll of striped taffeta caught her eye, some dainty bonnets, a copper kettle, rows of gingerbread, and a basket of green apples. She wondered which if any of these things she should buy simply to demonstrate to James she had done some shopping. She hesitated over the bonnets but then decided they were for more sedate women without urgency to live who stayed at home and received visitors for tea. Finally she arrived at a flower shop and bought a potted plant which the florist assured her would be ‘covered in flowers’ within a week. It was rather a foolish purchase as now she must carry it about with her and be careful it didn’t soil her dress. But at least she would have something to take home. 

Once she reached the seafront and saw all the flags a flutter, passed a booth selling ices she realised this was a special day and it had been right to wear the dress. . Its flying blue ribbons, she thought, made her look like a girl.  

She was not really that young of course, she was nearly twenty-four and a divorcee.  People still called her Mrs Newton, even James when he was being facetious   “Well Mrs Newton,” he would say, “what are your plans today? And she would click her tongue: “Kathleen, James, Kathleen.  Or perhaps you would like to make me Mrs Tissot before I die.” 

 James considered this a bad joke. He didn’t approve of marriage. None of his artistic circle did except perhaps Monet who seemed to live an idyllic family life in that chateau of his at Giverny.  But in this year 1878 she was aware a wedding ring was still the standard of respectability required by London society, its absence created the scandal.

Kathleen strolled along by the sea hearing the scream of gulls, the waves drawing back from the pebbles and then throwing themselves onto the shore.  There was a fresh salty scent to the air; the feeling of correspondence between her inner mood and surroundings returned. She recognised the old symptoms of wilfulness, which had led her to betray Mr. Newton. She remembered that voyage to India where he waited for her, seventeen years old and never been kissed, the dashing Captain 

Palliser; and then there had been that other she would never identify.

I am not cut out to be a constant wife, she thought, it is not I, Kathleen Kelly, and Brighton does not encourage fidelity. It is a capricious place. She arrived at the pier and turned away to walk up West Street, the breeze behind her, pushing at her skirts, propelling her along. Bobo had stopped to cock his leg against a lamppost, now he was straining at his lead and she had to quicken her step to keep up with him. At this moment a young man turned down from Western Road and almost bumped into her

“Oh, I’m sorry!” he said but he didn’t sound it one bit. He was laughing, he looked as if he was having a marvellous time. “I didn’t see you”

He was young and very good-looking, a blue peaked cap atop his springy brown hair. His teeth gleamed in his tanned face. Her mood changed swiftly from annoyance to laughing with him

“It was my little dog’s fault”

“Nice little chap,” the young man bent to stroke him. 

“Come on Bobo,” she said.

“Where are you going?”

“Home.” 

“Oh don’t go…not yet. The fun is just beginning.”

  She had told James she would be back in time for the children’s tea. But why should she? Violet and Cecil would drag him into the garden and they would play 

croquet on the lawn. Mary would spread a cloth on the grass and they would have lemonade and cake. He would take the interminable photographs Kathleen loathed. What was the point? They would do it all again tomorrow.  She saw him glance at the clock and shrug his shoulders. They both knew her time was precious. 

            “My friends are waiting in St Ann’s Well gardens. Come and meet them. There is music and we shall drink some beer. The name’s Leonard, by the way.” 

            “Kathleen”

            She had to hurry to keep up with him, was short of breath, her cheeks burning by the time they stepped through the gates. But she felt caught up in this chance encounter with a young stranger, not wanting to think beyond this moment. 

Men and women sprawled on the grass drinking beer, someone was playing the accordion, people were dancing, linking arms and whirling about. She sank down onto the grass and sipped from the glass Leonard handed her. 

“You’re not from round here, are you?” someone asked. 

Kathleen heard herself say she was on holiday with her husband.

“And where is he?”

“Painting. He is French and worships Art.”

 “But you do not?”

“I worship life,” she said, “and the living of it”

Leonard laughed, ”Well we shall have to set up a new religion to the worship of Bobo.”

“Bobo!” they raised their tankards and drank, they leaned back on the grass. Someone tried to take hold of her dog and he whined.

“Leave him alone.”

“Sorry!” 

Time passed. The blue day stretched out over the trees as if it never wanted to end, then the sky became livid ….red and purple. Leonard had gone for a stroll and came back with a buttercup, which he held under her chin.

“She likes butter’ he told the others.

“I don’t!” she protested “Or milk or cream. But I have to eat them.”

“Build you up,” said the fat woman, “I have to say, you are rather skinny” 

 Leonard picked a daisy and played the children’s game, tearing off its petals: ‘She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me…loves me not….’

“I love nobody,” Kathleen said “except Bobo.”

“A dog!”

“Yes.” 

They seemed to find this amusing. “What about your husband?” 

“Try living with a painter! It may sound romantic but it isn’t.”. 

Oh well ….a painter!” the fat woman said. “Painters grow on trees.”

“He is not any painter. His name is Tissot.”

“Who?”

“James Jacques Joseph Tissot.  Surely you’ve heard of him?”

There were a few raised eyebrows, a few shrugs. She had forgotten that outside the artistic set a painter is regarded as a lazybones if not immoral

“He’s still one of them artist fellows, absinthe and sleeping all day”.

“It is nothing like that,” she replied,  “my husband is a great worker.  You wouldn’t catch him out today on a spree.”

“More’s the pity!” said the woman, “lovely day like this.” She picked up a bunch of cherries, bit, black juice stained her lips.

Kathleen sipped her beer. She was feeling tipsy. A man in a checked jacket tried to tempt Bobo with a piece of sausage and he gagged. 

“Please don’t feed my dog he’s used to a certain diet.”

“Pardon me, I’m sure.”

She mused that Bobo was more discriminating than his mistress who had taken up a chicken leg and gnawed it, drunk two tankards of beer and whose beautiful dress was now crumpled with sitting on the grass. She wondered what James would think, maybe want to paint her like this. What would he call the picture ‘In The Sunshine'?  He flaunted their domesticity, its indolence, its insolence which annoyed his critics: ‘The Gardener’ ‘The Hammock’ ‘Reading a Story’ while she was content to live quietly and unseen. She did not want to think beyond their sequence of days picnicking, gossiping and playing with the children.  

. Kathleen took another chicken leg, a sip of beer. Bobo was whining and pawing at her skirt. It was almost dark. She got to her feet and said she had better leave.

“Oh stay Kathleen, stay” Leonard pleaded "We’ll be going to the chop house soon to eat.”

She hesitated. He was extremely good-looking, golden to James’ darkness, sunny natured whereas her lover could be moody. Into her mind came an image of the other, his thin solemn face, his dark eyes as he gazed at her. She would not deliberately hurt him but couldn’t help her contrariness, her rage to live. 

            “Maybe tomorrow” she murmured, “Yes, tomorrow.”

            “Where shall I meet you?”

            “By the pier.”

She hurried away with their hollers in her ears “See you tomorrow, Kath”

Little Bobo tugged at his lead, glad to be going home. 

Matilda opened the door: “Oh Madame!”

“What is it Matilda?”

She turned to look at herself in the hall mirror, her cheeks were hectic with beer and sun. 

“You’ve got green stains all down the back of your skirt.  Oh what a shame! Such a lovely dress!”

        She slept badly. The night was humid and her nightgown damp with sweat. Now and then came the distant crackle of thunder. James snored beside her. She lay staring into the darkness and conjured up an image of the young man’s face, his blue cap and curly brown hair as he leaned over to hold the buttercup under her chin, laughing down at her. I shall go back there tomorrow, she told herself. 

But already it seemed to have turned into a picture, the gesture arrested as if in an eternal present, one you could not enter again. She began to understand why James painted.  

Kathleen’s cough started, the harsh dry cough that racked her body and seemed to be tearing her chest apart. She coughed and coughed, could not get her breath. James was awake and at her side, propping her high against the pillows, holding her hand until it subsided. Matilda brought warm milk but she could scarcely bring the cup to her mouth she felt so weak. 

In the morning he spoke to her sternly saying that the outing had taken too much out of her. She must spend today quietly with him and the children. She thought of Leonard waiting for her by the pier and tears came to her eyes because she would let him down. She saw herself walking towards him in the white dress with Bobo on his lead.  But it was no more than a dream; she knew she hadn’t the strength to go anywhere today.

She held James eye. They were in this together his concern, her apparent insouciance: a complicity that was gradually replacing any more physical involvement as her illness advanced. 

“Mavourneen” he said using the Irish name her mother had used  “I do understand, you know.”

And he did and accepted all her shenanigans, yesterday for example when she’d returned without anything to show for her day’s shopping leaving the potted plant behind.  Just as his true mistress was his painting so he understood her foible.

“Love of my life, you know I’d deny you nothing but I have to put my foot down. Cherie, you have had your jour de fete! Be satisfied with that.”

And now when she thought about them, her companions of yesterday became not the lovely friendly people she had believed them to be. Their expressions leered at her, their faces like blotched masks laughing at her little dog. 

She was curious to see what he was working on. Yesterday he had seemed so intent but he was reluctant to show her.

“Please James”

He turned the canvas round. She recognised their garden in London, the man with the thin solemn face, the little girl he held shoulder high

“What shall you call it?”

“The Widower”

 A chill ran through her. “Not for a long time yet,” he said. 

She didn’t want to die, she was too young, had so much more living to do. She clung to him, felt his arms supporting, protecting her. Paint me, paint me she wanted to say. Keep me in this present moment.

Sunlight streaming through the lilac tree, lay in a dappled pattern on the conservatory floor, the arms of the cane chaise longue. James helped her over to sit in it. 

“Voila! With your arm so, your head so….”

Kathleen lay back and closed her eyes while he moved about preparing to paint her.  A great weariness came over her, she allowed herself to be posed with such a sense of relief as if she had been salvaged. She felt the sun warming her face, reviving her and she smiled at the man who understood without need for words.  

The image of Leonard waiting by the pier diminished in her mind as if she were seeing him through the wrong end of a telescope. 

                                    ENDS