Chapter 8 #2
‘Yes, I see that,’ Jenny said longingly.
She thought of the women whose company she had shared earlier, and how they spoke of and paid mind to their husbands and families.
Of poor Mrs Browne, beaten for sleeping while her children played.
She clutched onto her own situation through the frustration it caused her.
What would Mrs Walters or Mrs McAllister think of hearing Miriam so carelessly dismiss polite society?
What did she think of it herself, for that matter?
‘Don’t move,’ Miriam murmured. ‘Don’t stop thinking whatever you are thinking. Your expression is perfect.’
As anyone issued such a command would, Jenny felt the instinct to look around to see the speaker.
She began to turn her head, then caught herself and obeyed.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Miriam dash to the easel.
It was almost impossible to keep still now that she’d been told not to move.
The urge to look round and see what Miriam was doing was overpowering, but Jenny fixed her thoughts back and held her face as still as she could.
She thought of Gwen again and then, inevitably, of Selina Salisbury.
She was starting to feel more lethargic, and the chair looked inviting.
Eventually Miriam told her she could move. She was holding a piece of thin paper and a stub of charcoal.
‘Can I see it?’ Jenny asked.
‘Of course.’ Miriam held out the paper. It was a sketch in charcoal and was the work of maybe ten minutes, but Jenny recognised herself. Plainer as a woman, she looked less attractive in her eyes than the young man on the wall, but it was her eyes that hollowed out her stomach with sadness.
‘Did I really look that sad?’
‘You looked thoughtful,’ Miriam said quietly. ‘I couldn’t resist. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘No. It’s very good,’ Jenny assured her. ‘I’m just surprised at my expression. I was thinking how lucky you were to have your independence and wondering if I’d ever be brave enough to take my own.’
Miriam walked to the wall and pinned the sketch of Jenny beside the previous one.
‘It gets lonely sometimes,’ Jenny said quietly. She sipped her cordial then continued, ‘Not having family. I mean, I do have family – there’s my uncle – but it’s not the same as parents or siblings.’
‘I am one of four siblings, but they have all disowned me.’
‘Because you’re an artist?’
Miriam hesitated. She walked over to the spirit stove and lit it, then put the coffee pot onto the top and spooned grounds into it before answering.
‘Because I chose an artist’s lifestyle, and other unconventionalities, shortly after my father’s death.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ Jenny said. ‘I lost both my parents, too. I was quite young and don’t really remember much about the circumstances.’
‘Tell me about your family,’ Miriam asked. She walked to the chaise longue and sat down, patting the seat beside her.
Jenny joined her and sighed. ‘There isn’t much to tell, really. I thought we were in quite comfortable circumstances, but it seems that that wasn’t the case.’
She tailed off into fuzzy memories. Her family hadn’t felt poor.
They’d kept servants, and as a child, Jenny had a nursemaid and a nursery full of toys, but the inheritance of three hundred pounds she had received apparently gave her such a poor income that she would barely survive on it without Uncle Conrad’s charity.
‘Fortunately, my aunt and uncle took me in. If it hadn’t been for their kindness, I might have been a pauper.’
‘Yes, that is fortunate,’ Miriam said. ‘And now, of course, you live with your uncle as his housekeeper and paid companion?’
Paid! That would be a thing! Board and lodging was about all she received.
‘Yes, and I think I probably will forever, because I cannot see what would change that.’
‘Do you want it to?’ Miriam asked. She tilted her head and gave Jenny a serious look. Miriam’s hair was lustrous and black, simply tied back in its ribbons, and Jenny was so tempted to run her fingers through it. She closed her hand into a fist and withdrew it into her skirt.
‘Sometimes I do,’ Jenny said. ‘When I look at how you live, I’m quite envious.’
‘Of cold-water washes and not knowing where your next meal will come from?’ Miriam asked, grinning. ‘A cold bed with nothing to warm your feet on if you don’t put the brick on the hearth?’
‘Perhaps not that,’ Jenny admitted with a smile. ‘Though my uncle is quite mean when it comes to the coal allowance for heating the water. You should come and meet Uncle Conrad. He would be more interested in your art than your sex.’
‘I’m not sure about that,’ Miriam said. ‘I’ve met a lot of men, and even those within the world of art who claim to be unconventional and free-thinking, don’t welcome women as creators, only as subjects of paintings.’
‘Well, I think it’s very unfair,’ Jenny said.
‘The world is the world,’ Miriam said with a shrug. ‘But yes, it does get lonely. I’ve had friends, but now I’m on my own.’
‘I’d like to be friends with you.’ Jenny blurted the thought out.
She hoped that the intense longing for Miriam’s company wasn’t too obvious.
She felt little flickers of heat rising to her throat.
She didn’t dare go as far as to ask if Miriam would like another roommate, but it was on the tip of her tongue to do so.
Jenny looked around, then turned her head back sharply as Miriam rested her hand lightly on her shoulder.
‘You have the most astonishing contours,’ Miriam breathed. ‘You must let me paint you properly soon.’
Small flames danced in Jenny’s belly. ‘I’d like that. I’d like to come back here.’
Miriam tilted her head to the left and looked into Jenny’s eyes. ‘I am looking for another roommate, if you know of anyone who happens to be looking for a home.’
‘If I hear of anyone, I shall tell you,’ Jenny replied.
Miriam cocked her head. ‘I mean you, Jenny. If you’d like it. If you could manage it.’
Jenny’s stomach flipped over. She stared around the room again. This simplicity was what she aspired to in some ways, but could she really give up her comfortable life and spacious house for subsisting on shop-bought pies, and hanging stockings to dry on the end of the bed?
But to be with Miriam…
Her imagination filled with visions of sharing the room in the boarding house with Miriam.
How many salons would she need to have before she could afford the rent on a room such as this one?
She had no idea how many doses of tincture she’d have to sell, but it was a goal that she’d very much like to achieve.