Gillespie and I (12 page)

June—August 1888
GLASGOW

5

Perhaps here is as good a place as any to say something of Ned Gillespie's early life, about which I learned as I became acquainted with his family. The artist was born in 1856, and grew up in a tiny cottage in the village of Maryhill. His childhood was dominated by the financial problems of his father, Cecil, the son of a tenant farmer, who struggled for many years to pay off debtors while he established his store on Great Western Road: ‘Gillespie's Wool and Hosiery'. As a small boy, Ned shared a cramped bedroom with his siblings, and although he demonstrated an early talent for drawing and painting, there was no money for him to study art, or to enrol in an
atelier
; indeed, I suspect that such a thing would have been unthinkable, back then, to his penny-plain parents—simple folk, with (it must be said) conventional opinions about what might be a fitting occupation for their son. Thus, Ned began his working life at the age of fifteen, in the shop, as his father's assistant. Once Cecil's debts were finally paid off, he was able to move his family out of the cottage (which was soon to be demolished), and into a main-door house in Stanley Street.

With a room of his own for the first time (albeit in a dingy basement), Ned started to paint in earnest, whenever he could, and later, aged twenty-one, he enrolled at the School of Art, in early-morning classes that had been laid on for working men who were unable to study full-time. On six days a week, this courageous young man would rise before dawn to attend the Art School, after which he would put in a full day's work, lugging crates, and selling pincushions and hose. A few years later, he met Annie when she sat for one of his classes (having been orphaned at the age of sixteen, she had been obliged to seek work as a life model). They married when Ned was twenty-five, and she was eighteen. Annie gave up modelling, and they set up home at number 11, just across the street from Ned's family. The following year, Sibyl was born, and a year after that, Cecil Gillespie passed away. By this time, Kenneth was at work in the store, alongside Ned. After their father's death, the brothers decided to diversify, and began to sell a wider range of stock: alongside the wool and hose, they introduced fancy goods, small tools, and a few gardening implements.

In the interim, Ned painted and worked, and worked and painted. At last, in the mid-1880s, at about the time of Rose's birth, he had a minor artistic breakthrough: a few of his canvases were chosen for local exhibitions, and one or two were sold. Having accumulated a modicum of savings, in case of emergencies, he decided to risk surviving by his art alone; and so, in early 1887, Ned Gillespie employed an assistant, Miss MacHaffie, to take his place, and he quit working in the family shop—although he maintained control of the finances. Thus, when we first met, he had been a full-time artist for scarcely a year.

Ned's background could scarcely have been more different from mine, and yet he and I had an enormous amount in common, in matters of Taste and Aesthetics, and in our outlook on Society. He and I were nearly the same age; only a few years separated us: moreover, I was born on the 20th of April, and he on the 21st of May, and the relationship of these numbers has always appealed to me, since I feel that there is something significant in the progression of both day and month of our births.

Initially, it was from Elspeth and Mabel that I learned about Ned and the rest of the family, since Annie was, by nature, less forthcoming. In the early days of my portrait sittings with her, I did attempt to pass the time by making conversation. However, her monosyllabic replies to my questions, and her apparent lack of desire to initiate any discussion, soon deterred me.

Having decided to extend my stay in Glasgow, I had made various arrangements, opening an account with the National Bank of Scotland, and committing to rent my rooms for a further three months, with the option to remain for longer, should I choose so to do. I ended up spending a good deal of time at the Gillespie residence over the course of that summer, sitting for my portrait once or twice a week, provided that Annie's other commitments would allow. The area in front of the parlour windows was fairly bright, and so that is where we set up our little makeshift studio. Annie's husband could usually be found upstairs, working on his paintings for presentation to the Committee members who would award the Royal Commission. Apparently, these gentlemen wished to see three canvases from each of the artists under consideration, and would make their decision after a private view, some time in August. Ned was concentrating on a large-scale picture of the Eastern Palace, which he hoped to finish in time. There was something cosy about having him so close at hand, painting away, whilst Annie and I were similarly engaged, down in the parlour, as she made some early sketches of me: we were quite the little Fine Art factory. However, I never felt entirely at ease, particularly since Annie worked in silence, with a scowl on her face, and her charcoal often made angry, scratching noises against the paper.

Now and again, the artist would call his wife upstairs to consult her opinion on some aspect of his work and, whenever—on his way in or out of the apartment—he happened to pop his head around the door to ask a question, or to let us know the hour of his return, he was always kind and encouraging about her progress with my portrait. He would give me a cheerful ‘good afternoon', and, on occasion, pause to chat with us, and with whoever else happened to be in the parlour at the time. As the weeks progressed, I became familiar with his various quirks of character. His little sniff, for instance (he always forgot his handkerchief); his full-throated laugh; and his lack of personal vanity. I do believe that every single cuff in his possession was scribbled upon, as a result of those occasions when he had found himself without a notebook; he was always paint-speckled, of course, and the children left their sticky traces on him, on his clothes, in the form of various unsavoury smears and stains.

I suspect that Ned would never have shaved or trimmed his moustaches, or even eaten a meal, were he not prompted to do so by one or other of the Gillespie women. Such worldly matters hardly seemed to occur to him. Like many men, he had an enviable ability to become absorbed in his work, to the exclusion of all else. Usually, he was so involved in painting that he forgot to notice the passage of time, with the result that he was rarely punctual for engagements. He would, absent-mindedly, set out to walk to his destination at the very hour when he was meant to
arrive
there, and yet he always expressed astonishment at being late.

Number 11 was, without doubt, a very lively home, and we were not often left to our own devices. Several front-door keys were in circulation, which meant that the rest of the family—who resided across the street—were constantly breezing in and out, unannounced. Elspeth seemed to treat the apartment as an annexe of her own parlour, and would descend upon us, full of chatter, after church or en route to Duke Street gaol, where she was a member of the Visit Committee. Mabel's visits to see her brother were also frequent. That summer, she was at a loose end, tormented by the dissolution of her engagement, and needy, which meant that Ned—a sympathetic listener—would have to put aside his work to hear her tales of woe. Ned's brother Kenneth tended to call in on his way back from the Wool and Hosiery—expressly, it seemed, to over-stimulate his nieces before bedtime—and Walter Peden was a regular afternoon guest, scuttling upstairs to the studio with such frequency that he might as well have built himself a nest in the linen cupboard.

Of course, Annie was required to accommodate these callers, in the parlour, if necessary, and she had to set aside her paint-brush in order to provide refreshments, whenever her maid was nowhere to be found: an all-too-frequent occurrence. Christina usually claimed, upon return, to have ‘just dashed out to the grocer's'. However, a moment's observation of the girl's conduct was enough to confirm that she never ‘dashed' anywhere. On the contrary, she was frequently to be seen dawdling about the neighbourhood, talking with other women in the street, and—although I made no mention of it to Annie—I myself had witnessed her, on more than one occasion, emerging from a squalid public house on St George's Road. Annie was afraid of Christina, I believe, which is why the girl had never been taken to task or dismissed.

With this feckless maid, and a demanding, extended family, it was small wonder that Annie made slow progress on my portrait. Indeed, for the first few weeks, she did nothing more than make sketches of me in different poses until she found one that she liked. Only then—and only gradually—did she progress to painting on canvas. Mercifully, we took frequent breaks, and the pose was not too difficult to maintain: I was seated, with my elbows resting on the arms of the chair, and my hands clasped together in my lap. Annie positioned herself so that I was in three-quarter profile. She asked me to refrain from smiling, and requested that, so far as possible, I think of nothing. Of course, I have an active mind—even now! But I tried not to let my thoughts affect my expression, and I believe that I became quite skilled at this. Annie had no qualms about showing me her work and, as the weeks went by, I found it intriguing to watch the progress of the portrait, from charcoal sketch, to vague blocks of colour, until a recognisable figure finally began to emerge from the shadows.

Although she would never have admitted it, I could tell that Ned's wife longed to be an artist of merit. She was always disappointed if forced, for some domestic reason, to miss her drawing class, and I believe that she would have attended more lessons, had she not been so busy looking after house and home. I am a great supporter of females who try to do something out of the ordinary, and felt nothing but sympathy for Annie in her artistic ambitions. However, I do not scruple to say that, at times, she was abrupt with me; not to mention all that scowling while she worked, and the way that she sometimes slashed at the canvas with her brush. I did wonder, for a while, whether there was some unflattering explanation for her lack of warmth: was I proving to be too difficult a subject, for instance? However, in the end, I came to the conclusion that Annie simply preferred to be quiet while she worked, and thereafter, I gave up trying to engage her interest and contented myself with observing the comings and goings of the household.

On the surface, the Gillespies did seem like a fairly stable family. However, ere long, I began to see beneath the façade, and to realise that, particularly with regard to Sibyl, cracks were beginning to show.

Perhaps it should be no surprise that the children were the cause of most disruption in the household. Unless Elspeth or Mabel had been kind enough to take the girls for the afternoon, their mother and I were obliged to watch over them during our sittings. I believe that Annie would have been quite happy to send her daughters out every day, to roam around the neighbourhood, as all the local children did, and much as she herself had done, as a child. Given what happened, in the end, I am ashamed to say that I was always rather grateful when, patience exhausted, she shooed the girls outside. However, Ned was never very keen on sending his daughters into the street, unsupervised. He preferred that his wife (or someone else) accompany them if they ever ventured into the back green, or around the corner, to their favourite spot, the little gardens in front of my lodgings in Queen's Crescent, the gates of which were usually left open. Annie did not always have time to set aside her housework in order to take the children out to play, with the result that her husband's wishes were only infrequently carried out.

Besides, the little girls were a nosy pair, and whenever visitors such as myself were present, they showed scant inclination to leave the apartment for fear that they might miss something. Annie usually tried to persuade them to play in other rooms, or asked Christina to keep an eye on them, but they never stayed away for long. All too soon, Sibyl would come mincing back into the parlour, and I confess that my heart would sink as she slid onto the piano stool. For a moment or two, she would make a pretence of idly tinkling at the keys, but this was only ever a preamble to a prolonged session of showing off. Alas, Elspeth kept discovering more Spirituals with which to impress her American pastor, and so—trapped, immobile, in my seated pose, a few feet away from the piano—I became very familiar with these never-ending hymns and others, such as ‘I Wish I Were an Angel' and ‘Where is Now the Prophet Daniel?' I am not sure which I grew to dread more: the disquieting, gloomy looks that Sibyl would cast at me, intermittently, over her shoulder, or the requirement, every so often, to make appreciative noises in response to her playing.

At some point, Rose would come tottering back to the parlour in her sister's wake, and—since the two children could not be together for long without ending up at loggerheads—the squabbling would soon commence. Despite being the older child, Sibyl was usually the initiator of trouble. I soon grew to realise that Rose was, in many ways, a more lovable, less troublesome child. Sadly, the fact that her sister had a sunnier disposition only made Sibyl's antics worse.

Plainly, the Gillespies' elder daughter had always been a problem, but as the summer weeks drew on, it became evident that her behaviour was beginning to escalate beyond control. Back in May, there had been signs of this—for example, in the incident with the broken plant pot. Then, one day, Annie mislaid her straw hat, which reappeared the following morning, shredded, in the coal scuttle. A few days later, several pieces of Rose's miniature china tea service turned up, under the parlour sofa, smashed to bits. And, a week after that, when the water closet flooded, Annie's apron was found, stuffed down the trap of the lavatory.

Pity the poor parents of such a wayward child! Admittedly, Sibyl's outrages were usually directed against the females of the household, and—although Rose's and Christina's belongings sometimes came under attack—thus far, it was Annie who had borne the brunt of her daughter's wickedness. Perhaps some feminine Oedipus attitude was in operation. Sibyl envied her mother's relationship with dear Papa, of that I have no doubt: Mama slept in his bed, and carried out the wifely duties, and brought him his slippers, and was his everyday companion, and so on—and this, I imagine, drove the little girl mad with jealousy.