Gwendolen (29 page)

I told her I was to model for Paul Leroy. She approved and thought he would prove to be an interesting friend. There are men who do not fit the stereotype, men who are like women in their sensibilities, she said, and Paul was such a man.

I mentioned he would pay me generously for modelling. Barbara Bodichon too then offered me work raising money for Girton, a Cambridge college she had founded for women, and for a school she had started, the Westminster Infant School, where pupils wore no uniform, were never punished and where there was no segregation because of belief or gender. Barbara and her friends taught boys and girls, Christians, Jews and freethinkers. The fee was sixpence a week.

I was successful at fund-raising, with help from Sir Hugo, Lord Brackenshaw and one or two of uncle's connections. Barbara asked if I would like to teach at her school. I was emphatic I would not.

*

I went with trepidation to Mrs Lewes's next salon, for it troubled me to have my life flashed before my eyes like images in a kaleidoscope. I wondered if I would see Paul Leroy again but he had already left for Paris. I half listened to Hans and a curate John Payne talking about their doubts as to an afterlife but I could not be interested in this weighty matter of eternity. I missed Offendene and you. I had heard that Mr Payne mumbled his sermons. He wanted to talk to Mrs Lewes about a poem she had written called ‘The Spanish Gypsy'.

Mrs Lewes, though surrounded by acolytes, again sought me out. In answer to her probing questions I was able to tell her that uncle had suffered a bad attack of gout; that Mrs Glasher, or so I had heard from Sir Hugo, was now living in Italy with Giuseppe Fede, a Tivolian count about whom I knew nothing; that George Jarrett, the Pennicote carpenter, broke both his arms when he fell from a ladder while replacing a window frame for the Arrowpoints at Quetcham Hall; that Mrs Arrowpoint had recently published a long article about Tasso's insanity which had caused a small stir in certain circles; that Mrs Gadsby, who married the Yeomanry Captain and rode with the hunt, was now widowed, after the Captain suffered a fatal heart attack while tending his bees; that Joel Dagge the blacksmith's son, who found Rex in Mill Lane after Primrose fell on the day of the Brackenshaw hunt, was now unemployed and not on good terms with his father; that Mr Middleton, now a reverend, had a seat at Sudbury in Suffolk, was married to Florence, a seamstress with an out-of-wedlock child, and that the responsibilities of family life had made him more serious. ‘And what of Clintock the archdeacon's son? What had become of him?' Mrs Lewes asked.

Clintock. Oh yes, Clintock. Croquet. I looked at Hans. I stopped wondering how she knew these people and just supposed she knew everyone in the world. Clintock was to marry my sister Isabel. They planned to live in Bath.

‘And the young Henleigh?' she asked. ‘The now fortunate heir. What is he like? Is he as arrogant as his father?'

I knew nothing of him, I told her. I had seen him holding his mother's hand in Rotten Row and once before that at the Whispering Stones. He had looked cherubic and was pretending to play a toy trumpet. Perhaps Mrs Lewes thought that heralded a musical career.

‘Ah yes, the Whispering Stones.' She ignored my flippancy then said Lydia Glasher was well suited to Grandcourt. Violence and ill-treatment from her first husband, the Colonel, had hardened her. She was fearless, having been so cast out by Society. Neither she nor Grandcourt cared about being disliked.

She then said she was disappointed Herr Klesmer could not attend her salon that afternoon. He and Catherine were giving a recital at the Wigmore Hall. She so fulsomely approved of their marriage you might be forgiven for thinking she had engineered it. She told me they were much in demand for concerts in London, Europe and New York, and Klesmer's compositions seemed to her on a par with those of Franz Liszt, whom she had met in Vienna in 1839 when he was living at the Altenburg with the Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein. Liszt played one of his own compositions and she said for the first time in her life she witnessed real inspiration: his face was beautiful, the music quiet, rapturous, triumphant. Klesmer, she thought, had something of this quality too. He and Catherine now had a child, a boy, who perhaps might prove to be a musical prodigy.

‘One would expect no less,' I said drily. She looked disapproving and I returned to Hans and the Reverend Payne and their musings about the indestructibility of the human soul.

*

Paul Leroy sent a carriage to take me to his studio in Chelsea. He greeted me at the door wearing an artist's smock and declared himself delighted that I had agreed to be his model; more than his model, his muse. A young man with oriental features, pretty and delicate-looking, shorter than I, took my cloak and hat. I was sure his eyes were lined with kohl and his cheeks rouged. Paul introduced him as Antoine.

The studio was grand with vaulted ceilings and light that flooded in from high windows. There was minimal adornment and a sense of order and calm: canvases stacked around the walls, easels and paints carefully positioned, a chaise where I was to recline, a curtained recess where I would dress for whatever part I was to play. It was quite unlike the chaos and mess of Hans's studio.

I had become accustomed to coincidence and strange insights. For our first session Paul Leroy wanted me to model as Hermione from
The Winter's Tale
. He wanted to capture the look in my eyes of the statue who comes alive. Here was the perfect charade. No Klesmer to crash the piano keys. No death's head in the wainscot. No fear. When Paul walked across to adjust the set of my head, the turn of my hands, his touch was easy.

I liked looking at him and thought him as beautiful as perhaps was I. I liked the silence and ease of the afternoon, the calm and peacefulness, the attention accorded me. Paul Leroy turned me into art but did not seek possession. He did not invade me. His gaze did not disturb or unsettle me. Antoine arranged the set, brought water, fruit and cake. He wore soft slippers, moved silently, did not knock before entering the room, take orders or wait for instruction. He seemed to anticipate whatever might be wanted, so there was no sense of master and servant or of fawning and scheming as with Lush and Grandcourt.

I was curious at their relationship, which was unlike any I knew. The ease between them was of the sort that comes from long habit. They needed each other equally; the roles were defined, as with Mr and Mrs Lewes. Paul had money and talent, but Antoine was the impresario. Antoine made me think of Julian, the same desire to be beautiful, the same fascination with the performance of life.

Paul worked for two hours, then said he had made a good beginning but did not want to tire me more. He would not let me look at his work until it was completed. We talked, ate food Antoine had prepared and drank a glass of wine. Paul insisted he pay me a retaining fee and hoped £50 a month was acceptable. I thought it excessive for what was expected of me but he was adamant those were the terms.

*

I spoke of Barbara Bodichon and my desire to travel and see something of the world: the Moorish architecture of North Africa, the sands of Egypt. ‘You must come with us,' Paul said. In spring he and Antoine planned a three-month tour across Algeria, Egypt, Arabia. Everything would be arranged. I need bring only smelling salts, a fly swat and a sketch pad, he said. I would be Princess Gwendolen and he and Antoine my retinue. With me heading the party they could be assured of the best rooms in all hotels, the front of the queue at the watering holes, the liveliest camels across the desert.

My heart leapt with hope at such a prospect, but I felt compelled to jest. Did he not think it a problem, I asked, that he and Antoine had spent mere hours in my company? Given three days they might despise me. Three months and they might choose to sell me as a slave. Paul said that could not happen, he had observed me closely, he and Antoine were experienced travellers, I would enhance any journey.

And anyway, he said, the proposed grand tour was six months away. Before it I would have modelled countless times; we would have visited Paris and Florence, had days of adventures on bicycles and river boats and know all too well each other's peccadilloes and charms. I asked if Hans might come on some of these adventures. Of course, Paul said. To start we must all go on horseback to the Lake of Landewin and bathe with no clothes on in green water under a blue sky with only sheep to watch and criticise. I said I thought the weather might be a little cold for that and Antoine laughed and agreed.

*

On my second or third visit to Scalands Barbara's husband, Dr Eugene Bodichon, was there. She had described him to me as the handsomest man ever, but I was not sure. I thought he looked like Moses. He had black hair and brown skin, his clothes were eccentric, he never wore a hat and his English was scarcely comprehensible even though he did not have much to say. Violet Greene told me that in Algiers he walked naked in the forest with a jackal. I found him more than strange, most eccentric, but I supposed had the marriage been of a conventional sort Barbara would not have made it.

She first met him in Algiers, where he had worked as an army surgeon and anthropologist. I was unclear what he was doing now. Barbara called him a lover of nature. ‘He is a man who gathers flowers daily for his own pleasure and walks twenty miles to hear the hyenas laugh,' she said.

Their relationship had problems. Barbara had hoped for children but that had not happened. Dr Bodichon hated England and the rain and wanted her to settle in Algiers, which she would not do, so they lived apart for months at a time. I thought of how I used to long for an hour away from Grandcourt, who spied on me every second of the day.

*

At Scalands Dr Bodichon did not appear before eleven in the morning, then breakfasted wearing a long white flannel burnous. He passed his days wandering in the woods alone, with an umbrella under his arm, and he liked to walk miles to see the sun set in the same place each day. At night when we dined he wore a grey garment like the white one, drank eight or nine glasses of wine and fed the dogs crackers and cheese, which made them excited and quarrelsome.

After observing him for a few days I found it hard to think of him as sane. He would walk naked around the house to the alarm of many of us. Violet told me his bank had declared him incompetent to deal with his own finances for he gave all his money away.

*

I modelled each week for Paul. Antoine attended to every detail of setting, dress and comfort. The mood in the studio was always calm; both men praised me and made me welcome, Paul calling me a godsend and Antoine saying I illumined their days. Their life was harmonious and ordered, I saw no discord between them, none was directed at me and I did not question their relationship. Once when Antoine brought in a lavish display of flowers and fruit as adornment for a scene, Paul kissed his neck below the ear.

An occupation evolved for which I was paid and which I enjoyed. Within a few months my work extended to instructing galleries, purchasers and framers. I talked to customers and arranged the carriage of paintings. Paul was sensitive to my uncertainty and concerned to spare me pain. He said I enhanced his life with Antoine. He did not make love to me or seek to control me. He wanted to hear what I had to say and to see through my eyes yet not intrude. Antoine cooked delicate food. Every meal with them seemed like a celebration. Each time I left I knew they wanted me to return.

We went, Paul, Antoine and I, to gallery viewings in Paris and Florence and for working visits to Port Madoc, Normandy and Land's End. Paul seemed almost as doting as mamma and always wanted to hear what I had to say. Antoine showed no resentment. I was always accorded the most comfortable chair with the best view. If there was a thorn in my finger it was Paul's care to remove it. Nothing was too good for me. Both men spoiled me. One night by a fire of applewood logs I told them something of my wedding night.

*

In London I went often to Barbara Bodichon's rooms at Langham Place. Her paintings were on the walls. The Ladies' Reading Room there was open from eleven in the morning until ten at night. I paid my subscription of a guinea a year. One could read all the daily and weekly papers, there was a luncheon room attached, and it was a convenient and pleasant place to meet mamma, my sisters, Anna, or the Mallinger girls when they were in town for shopping. At the rooms women met to discuss and plan how to have proper schools, and the right to go to university and to vote. I heard the appeal of Emily Davies, who co-founded Girton College with Barbara. I heard of the views of John Stuart Mill, who had argued for universal suffrage.

I listened, though did not offer views of my own, or read the myriad publications, go on marches or distribute leaflets – I preferred the opera, theatre, shopping, walking in the forest, bowling and horse riding. None the less the spirit of such freedoms settled in me. I was one of the cracked. I became unashamed.

*

One afternoon at Scalands, Violet Greene cut my hair. I was apprehensive but laughed as I shed my curls like the chains of the past. The shorter my hair the freer I felt. Cropped, I looked young and daring. I rejoiced to think of my erstwhile husband's response: his horror at the gossip provoked in the clubs, his wife consorting with feminists and suffragists, discarding her diamonds, shearing her hair. With my short hair and my name restored I felt reborn.

*

Paul told me he had a special request which I must refuse if it caused me discomfort. He had accepted a commission to design a sculpture for a square in Toulouse. It was of Marianne, symbol of Liberty in France. Liberty, Reason, France, Truth, the Republic are all feminine nouns, he told me. He asked if I would model for him, with my breasts bare, holding the beacon of Truth in my right hand. He said I would symbolise the breaking with the old monarchy, headed by hereditary kings, and the heralding of the new enlightenment.