Discovering Emily (4 page)

Her eyes stroked his soft warm fur, while the charcoal stroked the paper. Emily forgot about everything else. When she was finished, she held up the drawing. Carlow looked back at her from the paper. Emily felt a warm glow inside her chest.

Later that evening, Emily showed her drawing, feeling anxious. She was sure she had done a good job, but would her family think so?

“It's very messy!” said Dede. “And you've got charcoal on your frock.”

Father spread the drawing out on his desk and looked it over. He didn't say anything at first. At last he said, “Emily, I think you should have art lessons.”

Emily waited for him to say more, but he didn't. She left the room, disappointed. She had wanted Father to tell her how good her drawing was and how much he liked it. But he hadn't. Or had he? Father had said she should have art lessons. Was that his way of telling her he thought she'd done well? Emily began to skip up the stairs. Art lessons! She was going to have art lessons!

The first art lesson was Monday after school.

Miss Woods, the art teacher, came to the school with a portfolio of pictures under her arm. These were prints, or copies, of real paintings and etchings, Miss Woods explained. A few looked like the illustrations Emily had seen in Father's
Sunday at Home
supplement, which sometimes featured fairy stories like
At the Back of the North Wind
. Occasionally Father would read one of these stories out loud to the family after reading the Bible on a Sunday evening. If there were illustrations, it was a special treat.

Miss Woods gave a picture and a piece of
paper to each student. She told everyone to try to copy his or her picture.

“We learn about art by studying the work of artists,” the teacher explained. “We learn to draw by practicing drawing.”

Emily looked at the picture in front of her, trying not to feel disappointed. The image was a bowl of fruit. She'd hoped at least for some trees or a horse grazing in a meadow, like the picture Miss Woods handed to the girl in the desk beside Emily. Still, Emily set to work eagerly. It wasn't nearly as thrilling as drawing Carlow, who had been alive and breathing right in front of her, but some of the joy she'd felt sketching the dog came back to her. It didn't matter what she drew, as long as she was drawing.

The next week Miss Woods brought in photographs for them to copy. Again, Emily set to work with enthusiasm.

“Don't press so hard on your pencil, Emily,” Miss Woods instructed as she walked by Emily's desk. When she got to the front of the room she stopped and smiled at her students.

“You are all doing very well, class,” she said. “I can already see improvement from last week.”

Had Miss Woods looked at Emily a little longer when she said this or had Emily merely imagined it? She wasn't sure, but she bent over her drawing again, feeling hopeful. Soon she was caught up in the feel of her pencil on the paper and the magic of the image taking shape under her fingers. It didn't matter what the teacher or anyone else thought. Emily loved art lessons. Finally, she had found something she liked to do, and she wanted to learn everything she could about it. The more she learned, the more excited she grew about art.

It wasn't until her drawings were finished and the feeling of magic had seeped away, that Emily worried about whether they were any good. When she looked around at the other girls' artwork doubt crept through her. She wasn't good at anything else, so how could she be good at art? She pushed the worry away and let her new love of art take over.

At home, Emily practiced drawing whenever she could. She even made an easel out of branches that Father had pruned from the old cherry tree outside her bedroom window. She took three of the straightest branches, tied them together at the top, spread them out at the bottom, and put two nails in the wood to hold a drawing board. She placed the easel in front of the dormer window in her bedroom and propped a piece of paper on the drawing board. She was beginning to feel like a real artist.

“I wish you wouldn't spend so much time drawing,” Alice grumbled as she swept the floor around the legs of the easel.

“But I have to practice if I want to be an artist,” Emily said.

“An artist?” Alice said. “Ladies don't become artists. It's good to be accomplished in drawing and painting, as well as things like embroidery and music, but you'll have no time to be an artist when you're a wife and a mother.”

“Then I won't be a wife and a mother,” Emily said.

Alice looked shocked for a moment, then she smiled and shook her head. She went back to sweeping, and Emily knew Alice was thinking that Emily was being silly again and would change her mind soon enough.

I won't change my mind, Emily said to herself. But could she do it? Could she be a real artist? Doubt crept back into her, niggling at her like an itch. She tried to put Alice's words about ladies not being artists out of her mind.

Emily continued to go to art lessons and to practice drawing at home. She even found an old set of watercolor paints and some old brushes and was thrilled when color appeared on her paper. Still, her work seemed to be nothing more than sketches with color. She still had a lot to learn.

In class, Miss Woods told them that to be a real artist you had to go to art school. At art school the students drew from statues and plaster casts, and sometimes they sketched live models. Emily saved her pocket money and bought plaster casts of hands, lips, noses and eyes from the Victoria tombstone
maker who used the casts to help him model angels for his tombstones.

At home, Emily set the plaster casts on the windowsill in front of her easel where she could look at them and draw. She filled paper after paper with hands, lips, noses and eyes. She felt satisfied with her work, but still, she felt that itch of uncertainty. Were the drawings any good? She couldn't tell.

One day, Emily stood at the window in her bedroom looking out at the bare branches of trees and the gray sky. She felt restless. Suddenly, Emily wanted to be outside. She set down her paintbrush and hurried out of the room to the top of the stairs. She paused, looking down over the glossy wood railing. No one was around. Surely no one would notice if she took one slide down the banister.

“Wait!” Alice called from behind her. She hurried after Emily.

“Dede has guests in the drawing room,” she warned Emily in a whisper. “It's Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the artists.”

“They're both artists?” Emily asked. She leaned farther over the railing, straining to catch a glimpse of the guests through the drawing room door at the bottom of the stairs.

“Yes,” Alice answered. “That's what Dede said. They're visiting from England. Please don't lean so far out, Milly.”

For Alice's sake, Emily stopped leaning. She couldn't see anything, anyway.

“But I thought you said ladies couldn't be artists?” Emily said.

“Well, the Smiths have no children, and perhaps Mrs. Smith is wealthy enough to do as she wishes,” Alice suggested.

Emily wasn't listening. Whatever the reason, a real artist was a real artist. She wanted to get a closer look. Step by step, she tiptoed down the stairs. Maybe they would talk about art. Maybe she could pick up some clues that would help her become a real artist.

Voices drifted up to her from the drawing room. One was Dede's voice, politely inquiring. A male voice with an English accent
answered. Emily got to the bottom of the steps and crept to the side of the drawing room door.

“How are you enjoying sketching our Canadian landscape?” Dede's voice asked.

“I'm afraid it is too wild for my taste,” drawled the man's voice. Emily bristled. Too wild? What did he mean? She loved the forests and ocean around Victoria. How could anyone think they weren't beautiful?

“Why, yes,” a high pitched woman's voice added. “In England and France the elements in a landscape arrange themselves into a composition. Here, nature is so vast and unruly, one does not know where to look.”

“I do know what you mean,” said Dede's careful voice. “Wildness is one of the drawbacks of living in the colonies, but I do think we have done very well with what we have here.”

“Indeed,” the man's voice agreed, though he sounded unconvinced.

Emily could stand it no longer. She leapt into the doorway, her fists balled at her sides, her face red with outrage.

“Snobs!” The word burst from her. “If you can't see what is in front of you, you're both blind!”

“Emily!” Dede's face was dark with shock and anger. “That is enough.”

Emily clamped her mouth shut. Suddenly, she felt shocked herself. She hadn't meant to burst in. She hadn't meant to say anything. She stared into the faces of Dede's well-dressed guests. The man leaned back in his chair, his hand holding a teacup, frozen on its way to his mouth. His face had a twisted look as if he couldn't decide whether he should be angry or amused. The woman's eyes had narrowed from surprise to disapproval.

“Emily, you must apologize to our guests at once!” Dede said.

Emily was silent.

“Emily,” Dede repeated. Emily heard the cold warning in her voice.

Emily looked down at the floor. “I am sorry for speaking rudely to you,” she said. Then she added, “And I'm sorry for you.”

“Sorry for us?” asked the man with a laugh.

Emily wanted to say she was sorry that they were such stupid snobs, but Dede glared at her. “I mean only that I am sorry you can't appreciate the beauty of Canada,” she said.

The man made a “humph” sound, and the woman looked shocked again. Dede darkened even further.

“You must excuse me for a moment,” she said to her guests as she got up from her seat and marched toward Emily. She took hold of Emily's elbow, pinching tightly, and led her from the room. Emily knew she was in trouble now. But she didn't care. What horrible people! If that's what real artists were like, how could she ever be one?

When Dede told Father about Emily's rudeness, he decided she should go without supper again. If she missed many more suppers she would not need the corset to have a tiny middle, Emily thought to herself. Still, she did not regret her words to the horrible artists. If they were what art was about, she didn't want to have anything to do with it.

Several days later, Emily was still smoldering from the memory of the snobby artists. Dede noticed her dark looks.

“For heaven's sake, Emily. You aren't still mad about the Smiths, are you?” Dede asked, her hands on her hips.

“They didn't know what they were talking about,” Emily complained.

“Oh, they didn't, did they?” Dede's face set into firm lines of decision. “You wait until Saturday, and you will see.”

Emily wondered what Dede could mean. The look on Dede's face made Emily feel a sense of dread as she waited for the weekend to come.

“I'm taking Mrs. Lewis for a drive,” Dede announced Saturday morning. Dede was always visiting elderly or invalid people like old Mrs. Lewis. Often, in warmer weather, she hitched up the horse and buggy and took them for drives along country roads, but Emily wasn't sure where Dede would be taking Mrs. Lewis on a cold November day.

“And Emily is coming too,” Dede added. Emily's insides felt suddenly heavy. She had been hoping that Dede had forgotten about her and whatever she'd said would happen on Saturday. Now what? Perhaps Dede was planning to bore Emily to death, as a long ride with old Mrs. Lewis and her many ailments was sure to do.

Dede packed an extra warm blanket in the buggy to put over Mrs. Lewis's legs, and they were off. They drove along Carr Road, which was named after Father because he had donated a strip at the front of his property for the widening of the road. The road became Government Street at the James Bay Bridge. It was still narrow, but wider than the meandering cart trail it had once been. Many of the roads in Victoria had started off as trails or cow paths.

When they reached Mrs. Lewis's house, Dede helped the old woman into the buggy and bundled blankets around her.

“This is so kind of you, Miss Carr,” said Mrs. Lewis, her round wrinkled face pink with excitement. “I haven't been to an exhibition in years.”

An exhibition of what, Emily wondered.

“It's not really an exhibition,” said Dede. “It's just a few pieces of art on display at the home of the Bellevilles.”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Lewis. “But it's more than I've enjoyed since I was last in England.”

Emily squirmed with excitement. Was Dede actually taking her to see an exhibition of art? There were a few dusty old portraits and naval scenes in some of the homes Emily had visited, but these were the only paintings Emily had seen. Surely an exhibition of real art would be more exciting — wonderful even.

Dede drove the buggy through town and stopped in front of a large new house. She helped Mrs. Lewis up the wide front stairs and knocked on the door. A servant girl let them in.