Canadian Artists Bundle. Kate Braid

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      In spite of homesickness, Emily made some friends at school, but her best friend was Mrs. Redden, the aunt of Canadian friends. Marion Redden was a kind, practical Scot who had spent her married life in Canada and now lived in London with her son. She was as strong-willed and outspoken as Emily, and they often fought, but Emily soon began to spend most of her Sundays with the Redden family.

      At the beginning of her second year, Mayo Paddon, her Canadian suitor, came to visit. When Emily arranged to meet him at church one day with Mrs. Redden, Mayo and Mrs. Redden liked each other immediately, and the older woman, with many “dear me’s!” and twinkling eyes, arranged to let the two Canadians walk home together without her.

      After Mrs. Redden caught him one night on his knees in front of the fire, warming Emily’s cloak and patting the collar as if it were a kitten, she called him “The Knight of the Cloak” and liked him more than ever.

      Not Emily. Five times a week Mayo asked her to marry him, and five times a week she said “no.” As he got sadder, Emily got crosser. It made her even more angry that Mrs. Redden continually urged Mayo not to give up, and urged Emily to say “yes.”

      One of Emily’s favourite places in London, and one she must have shown Mayo, was the zoo in Kew Gardens. Here she would sit for hours watching the animals. Once they grew used to people, she thought, perhaps they did not really mind being kept in cages. Most of them seemed “merry” and all of them were “well tended.”

      Emily knew what it was like to feel caged. Since childhood she had paced, eager to escape the bars of her family and her narrow Victorian culture. She had had a taste of freedom in California, but here the cage was subtle and enticing and right in front of her: small things like changing her accent to sound less colonial, larger things like the pressure to choose marriage over art, to yield to traditional values and to be – in the end – “well tended” if not exactly “merry.”

      Mayo Paddon offered her security, companionship, and family. She truly liked him, and she was now nearly twenty-nine years old – almost an old maid. But her choice was all or nothing. If she said “yes” to Mayo, her life would be spent looking after husband and children and house, and only if she had spare time would there be a place for art.

      Emily hated London but she would not marry Mayo and let him take her away. She had come here to study painting. Finally she told him to, “Go away, Mayo; please go away!”

      And he did.

      Years after she refused Mayo’s offer of marriage, Emily mourned about “that poor love I deliberately set out to kill.” She thought it was a “dreadful thing to do,” but she didn’t regret it. “I did it in self-defence,” she said, “because it was killing me, sapping the life from me.” Once and for all she had said “no” to what was supposed to be a woman’s highest calling: marriage and family. Emily chose art, and now she committed herself to study, day and night, more intensely than ever.

      But an old injury to her toe was making it harder to walk and causing her terrible pain. At first Mrs. Redden scolded her for whining – “You homesick baby! Stop that hullabaloo! Crying over a corn or two!” – but when she saw it was serious, Mrs. Redden called in her surgeon-cousin to examine the ailing foot.

      The toe was fractured and had to be amputated, and it was very, very slow to heal. For the rest of her life Emily would carry a camp stool with her when she sketched because she couldn’t paint standing up.

      This time it was Alice who followed her from Victoria for a visit. At first Emily was excited. She pinned her best artwork on the walls of their rooms and waited eagerly for her sister to comment. But Alice didn’t even look. She didn’t ask about Emily’s work, either. Finally СКАЧАТЬ