The Sculptress by V.S. Alexander (best books to read for women TXT) 📕

I will make my own love.

I will make my own love.

Entry: 24th June, 1907

My father’s funeral was a disaster, thanks in large part to my mother and the weather. The day started off cloudy and then what little light remained was obscured by clouds so gloomy and thunderous that the dark seemed to overtake the earth. My mother stood in black, a like-colored umbrella in her hand, rigid in her grief and anger. A sudden downpour turned the dirt she was to throw into the grave into mud. Somehow I felt this symbolic act of nature appropriate and I had little sympathy for her. Her words to me, after my father’s death, outside of a snarl, have been hateful and belittling. She’s never blamed me directly for his death (a heart condition most likely, according to the coroner), but from her looks and actions I know that I’m to take the full brunt of her rage. I’m sure she thinks his death never would have happened if my father and I hadn’t traveled to French’s home together. Knowing her propensity for anger and coldness, I doubt my mother’s forgiveness will be quick to come.

Matilda, Charlene and her parents, even Patsy and Jane who traveled with Jane’s parents, attended the funeral, but the gathering after, at the house, was so uncomfortable Charlene asked me how I could stand to live here. All of my friends were bored under the watchful eye of my mother. Of course, I have no choice but to stay here until I can make my own way. I have no money to pay rent since everything was left to my mother until I’m twenty-one, when only a small portion will come to me; thus, no money for art school. My life has been decided by ill fortune. Even Matilda agreed with me that I’d had “a streak of bad luck.”

My thoughts have often swung to Kurt and the hope that he might, like a knight in shining armor, rescue me from this miserable existence, but that is only fantasy if I’m any judge of his character and situation. Still, I think of him often.

How I wish I could escape this prison! My mother’s footsteps on the stairs, although she has no desire to enter my room or say anything to me other than to order me about, remind me that I should end this entry and lock it safely away.

Emma dropped her studies at Chesterwood, primarily because of money, although her mother found the time and funds to make several trips to see Edith Wharton. “Mr. French must be paid from funds that are now too dear,” Helen said with no hint of irony in her voice.

During those times alone, for the most part without Matilda’s company, Emma read and drew as if they were acts of revolution, tended her father’s horses, and sat with Charis on the sofa, staring at the lawn as if looking through a prison window.

Only through the urging of Charlene’s parents was Emma allowed travel to the Vermont farmhouse one weekend in mid-October. Her mother laid down strict restrictions: the family must pay for Emma’s transportation there and back; she was to be picked up on Friday afternoon and returned no later than eight on Sunday evening; no men, outside of Charlene’s father, were to be allowed in the house unless supervised. Emma gladly agreed to the rules in order to leave the confines of home. She had been nowhere except to classes.

The carriage arrived after her dismissal from school. Emma gave her unsmiling mother a peck on the cheek before the horses pulled away.

“Remember what you’ve agreed to,” Helen called out, standing stiffly on the porch like Lot’s wife turned to a pillar of salt.

Emma stuck her head out the carriage window, waved, but said nothing. A forty-mile trip lay ahead, between the mountains, through the river valleys, past Pittsfield and Williamstown, until she’d arrive at the farmhouse south of Bennington. A sudden exhaustion struck her like a blow as the team proceeded northward at a brisk pace—relief poured in as the miles between the carriage and her mother lengthened and the heavy feeling of being suffocated in a coffin lifted. She thought of pulling the shade down and sleeping, but the transformed lightness of her soul, combined with the excitement of being away for two days, kept her awake. After a change of horses halfway through the journey, she settled back in the seat and watched the dark hills and the metallic glint of the nearly full moon on black waters glide past the carriage.

Shortly after ten, she arrived at the farmhouse. The windows shone with lamplight, the wide porch held wooden rockers, pumpkins, and fall chrysanthemums—the whole appearance gave her the warm feeling of a home, in contrast to the cold starkness of her own life. She alighted from the carriage to the open and embracing arms of Charlene and her parents.

The hour late, Charlene’s mother and father excused themselves for bed, leaving her alone with her friend and the admonishment not to stay up too late for a full day of shopping lay ahead the next day in Bennington.

After hearing the door close upstairs, Charlene drew Emma aside to the farthest reaches of the living room away from her parents’ bedroom.

“I have a surprise for you,” her friend whispered, “but you must say nothing about it to anyone or we’ll both get the switch.”

“What? A surprise for me?” Emma couldn’t believe that her stay could get any better than what she’d expected.

“You can’t go to Bennington with us, tomorrow.” Charlene’s eyes sparkled in the lamplight. “You must stay here in order to receive your surprise—at noon—and you must be done by two.”

“Done?” Now she was intrigued but also somewhat frightened by Charlene’s deviousness.

“You have a cold—or don’t feel up to travel—make up an excuse. Then we’ll return later in the afternoon for dinner and afterward you can tell me all about it.” Charlene smiled