Sleep in Peace (53 page)

He advised her to return to the School of Art, now getting on
its feet again after the War, and study for one or two more of the Art Master's groups. But Laura felt that this was impossible. She was twenty-five; even if she could persuade herself to become a pupil again at the side of youngsters in their teens—and she was by no means certain that she could endure the tedium of such a course—a return to study would provoke ridicule, if not a direct prohibition, from her family. Again, she had been a wage-earner for a couple of years, and found it hard to descend from that high status. Besides, Laura felt in her secret heart that she had studied quite sufficiently; she knew quite as much about Art as people who had qualified more abundantly; after all, natural ability, originality, counted more than mere examinations, decided Laura.

So she set to work alone.

It was not easy to work alone. Sketching, for instance, was the dreariest business by oneself; when one had overcome the family's objections and conveyed oneself timidly to a suitable field, without intrusive cows, one had to choose one's site alone, work alone, criticise one's work alone. Laura found she had no confidence in her choice of subjects, and no confidence in her rendering of them when chosen. Again, it was not at all easy to work in Blackshaw House. Her room in the attic was delightfully far off from the rest of the family, and had plenty of space and a good light—if only people would leave her there alone. But in the winter such segregation was (of course) impossible, because the room was not warm enough without a fire, and Laura could not be allowed to risk her health by working in it. To expect a fire for Laura's convenience, so that she should be able to do this silly, useless drawing, was (of course) ridiculous; if it had brought in money, now, the case would (of course) be different. Not that Laura had the slightest need to earn money, to work for her living, and it was ridiculous of her to want to do so. None of the three maids had time to go fussing about lighting a fire for Laura. People did not have fires in attics; it was not customary, it was ridiculous, it was absurd. So said Gwen. In the winter, therefore, Laura worked in
the nursery, with Geoffrey and Madeline tumbling about the feet of her easel. In the summer things were a little easier, but even so her withdrawal to work alone was much resented. Why should she want to waste her time on this silly, useless drawing, instead of going about with Gwen? (Who, lacking her husband, was so neglected and alone.) It was Laura's duty to keep her sister company, and go out into society and do the Armisteads credit. It wasn't as if this drawing were any
use
.

In spite of these difficulties, which she and Grace conspired to call ironically “home encouragement”, Laura contrived to work a good deal—there was always the early morning, when all the inhabitants of Blackshaw House except herself lay asleep beneath the clear northern light. She decided to begin with a set of illustrations, or rather decorations, for Marlowe's
Dr. Faustus
, a work which had always held a deep attraction for her, for she felt she understood Dr. Faustus to the core. Faustus was
bored
by ordinary society, thought Laura sardonically; he was bored and repelled by Wittenberg as she was by Hudley, and a Mephistopheles who offered excitement, a rich, coloured, splendid, noble life, would find her, as he found Faustus, an easy prey. She therefore proceeded to plan out, make studies for, and finally execute, six pen-and-ink drawings showing the life and death of Dr. Faustus, together with various head- and tail-pieces of old volumes of magic, sprightly devils, quill pens, angels, and a decorative rendering of the Latin inscription at the end. She was not altogether satisfied with her rendering of the spirit of Helen, but
Faustus at his books
, very sombre in a gabled attic, gave her great pleasure. She mounted the drawings on deep blue paper, packed them beautifully in tissue paper and straw-board, and sent them out hopefully to a publisher in London.

In the next few months she sent them out, with decreasing hope, to every publisher in London. Some returned the drawings with a printed rejected form, others sent a polite but brief typed letter, saying that for illustrations to Marlowe there was “no demand”.
Some quite plainly did not know who Marlowe was at all One replied that if Laura cared to send in an anthology of some kind, suitably decorated, he would be pleased to consider it. Highly excited, Laura decided to make an anthology on the anthropomorphic idea of God—there was Rupert Brooke's
Fish
poem, for instance. But Grace thought this too obscure. Or on dreams; but Grace thought this morbid. Or on definitions of Life, suggested Laura. Grace thought this pretentious; something about children or animals, she said, would be more acceptable. Laura repudiated children and animals with disgust, and presently had, as she thought, a splendid inspiration; why not an anthology of passages about the sea? Grace approved; Laura made a few selections, decorated them suitably and sent them off. A long delay ensued; meanwhile Laura completed two water-colours and sent them in to an exhibition of Yorkshire artists' work to be held in Leeds. One was of the Carr Vale waterfalls, a noted local beauty spot, indeed almost the only place Laura knew near Hudley where there were “pretty” trees. The other was a still life: Ludo's gloves and pipe, a box of matches and a folded newspaper.

By one of those small tragic coincidences so embittering when one is young, the Sea Anthology and the exhibition water-colours were both refused on the same day. The anthology returned in the morning, by post, at the breakfast-table, with a mere printed notice; Laura wept, and her family consoled her sympathetically. The water-colours returned in a large railway package in the afternoon; the waterfall bore no comment, the still life a slip marked:
Too photographic
. The amount of sympathy which Gwen and Mr. Armistead had at call for art in one day was exhausted, and a general feeling arose in the air that Laura's attempts at art were really rather tiresome. Ludo, of course, was kind, but he always regretted Laura's art; he thought that it was all a waste of time and would bring her nothing but misery; it would be much better if she gave it all up and settled down to enjoy herself as an ordinary girl, thought Ludo. He offered to take
her to the pictures to cheer her up; Laura accepted gratefully, and by dint of making cheerful replies to his jokes in order not to depress him, grew more cheerful herself.

Next morning the Marlowe drawings were once again returned.

After this Laura could hardly hold up her head. It began to seem to her, to dawn on her with a dim wan light, that perhaps her family was right after all, perhaps she was “not any good” at art. Could that really be true? Was she not an artist after all? “Oh, I am, I
am,”
thought Laura passionately: “I
will
be an artist. I will
not
give up.” She poured out her heart to Grace, who replied in guarded terms; it was not everyone, said Grace, who could be an original creative artist; but there was teaching, there was commercial art, or so she understood. “Grace doesn't believe in me either,” thought Laura wretchedly, “but I shall continue to believe in myself.” “All right!” she argued as she mooned about the Hudley streets: “I'll take Grace's advice, I'll try teaching, I'll try commercial art.”

She began to send drawings to magazines. They returned with a regularity quite monotonous; the various arrivals of the postman were the tragic peaks of Laura's day. How many times she entered the Blackshaw hall, from a walk in town with Gwen, to see a large flat envelope or parcel lying on the table, addressed to herself—a fatal sight! She had steeled herself to pick these up with a casual air, continuing a brisk conversation the while as if the rejection of a drawing were a trifle, while successive stabs of agony lanced her heart. Sometimes, to add injury to insult, the drawing was cracked across, the postman having bent it to insert it into the Blackshaw letter-box; sometimes its corners were so lamentably dog-eared that it was not fit to face the world again. To cut off its corners and re-mount the drawing was Laura's immediate care; but mounts, and indeed materials in general, and postage, all cost money, and Laura had scruples about spending her dress allowance, given her by Mr. Armistead so that she might do him credit, upon her art. Her “spending money”, properly so allotted, came
to only a few shillings a week, and was eaten up by cartridge paper: “If only I could earn something,” thought Laura, “so that I could buy what I liked. If only I had a hand-press!” When she thought thus, she would seize her portfolio at once, and look through all the drawings in order to choose some out for prompt despatch. The clash of feelings as she turned them over almost stifled her; how many there are, all unsold; surely some of them are good; they look good but they must be rotten; surely I have something new to contribute; how could I ever have thought I was any good!

A piece of good fortune presently befell her; she was asked to invigilate at a drawing examination at the Hudley Girls' High School. Laura was overjoyed.

“They've asked me on account of my Art Master's Group I, of course,” she babbled happily. “This is due to my Art Master's Group I.”

“Yes—ten-and-six for three years' work,” snapped Mr. Armistead, vexed by his daughter's conceit and lack of proportion.

Laura subsided; put thus, her half-guinea—the first money she had ever earned by her art—certainly seemed of small account. The invigilation was a great joy to her, however; it was delightful to get back into the atmosphere where “drawing from common objects” meant something serious and important. The money, after much careful thought, she secretly expended on some printed forms to send out with her drawings:
“Dear Sir,”
these began,
“I am sending herewith
…
drawings, which I feel sure will interest you”;
and they ended:
“In the event of the drawings not being to your requirements, I enclose stamps sufficient for return of same.”
Laura thought this sounded very business-like, not amateurish.… The drawings, however, came back as before.

A kindly editor having mentioned that he was always ready to look at drawings which were humorous, Laura drew a famous Yorkshire joke, and sent it off to
Punch
. Laura had set the incident in the boiler pit, and made two drawings of a firer and his new
assistant. The lad, opening one of the huge doors, cried: “It's as hot as hell!” and was duly rebuked by his pious superior. He swung open the second door—and exclaimed: “It's as hot as t'other!” This drawing was returned like the rest, with the comment, however, that the editor “liked the background”. Glowing with excitement, Laura ran about to each inhabitant of Blackshaw House, showing them the letter and the sketch; their calm reception of this forward step in her career chilled her to the core.

“But from
Punch!”
she argued;
“Punch
has such a high standard, after all! It's a great thing to be accepted by
Punch!”

“But they haven't accepted it, you see,” said Ludo.

“They wouldn't understand what it was about,” was Gwen's shrewd comment. “A Yorkshire joke like that is simple nonsense in London.”

Laura thought there was some truth in this, so she carefully drew one of Ludo's jokes, and sent it off to
Punch
with eager hope. It was a jolly joke; Mildred one Sunday dinner-time having brought in a jelly which had not “set” in its proper shape, but had fallen into a tumbled mass, Geoffrey exclaimed: “Well, that's not a Rock of Ages!” Ludo at once remarked: “Yes, it is: it's Cleft for Me.” This neat adaptation of the hymn convulsed the Armisteads, but apparently left the editor of
Punch
cold, for the drawing was returned at once, without even a comment; and when Grace was told of it she wrote back hastily, urging Laura not to waste time on humorous drawings.
I don't think
, said Grace,
to be candid, that you have much sense of humour, Laura
.

Christmas was approaching, so Laura thought of Christmas cards and calendars. She did some water-colours of flower subjects, studying the petals and the stem structure first, very carefully. But Tuck and the Medici Society were not interested. So Laura, blushing and trembling, timidly entered a Hudley shop, and in a voice choking with embarrassment and fear, explained her errand. The proprietor picked up her specimens and eyed them distastefully.

“People like something a bit more cheerful—holly and robins and so on,” he said. “Still, we might take a few to oblige, Miss Armistead.”

“Oh, don't take them if you don't want them!” cried Laura in shocked pride. She fled from the shop, and could not persuade herself to enter it again.

Next Laura tried the advertising world. Secretly—for by now her art was such a sore point with Laura that she could not bear the kindest allusion to the subject in Blackshaw House—secretly she wrote to several advertising agencies, in Hudley, Leeds and London. They all promptly stated that they had no vacancy, but only a few remembered to return her specimens of work. Then she wrote to a large firm of cheap wholesale dressmakers in Manchester of whom she heard by chance. To her overwhelming joy they replied, in a somewhat ungrammatical letter, suggesting that she should send them a design suitable for advertising one of their lines. With infinite care Laura drew Madeline in a charming smocked frock of Gwen's design. Since this was necessarily a public proceeding, all at Blackshaw House became interested in the project; and though Mr. Armistead grumbled about the loss of dignity which the family would incur if Laura became a paid advertisement designer, yet he was not unimpressed by his daughter's tenacity of purpose, and since the firm was not in Hudley, and provided Laura could do the work at home, if it would make Laura happy—in fine, he thought the loss of dignity might be concealed and therefore waived.