The Forever Horse

Anyway. I didn’t. I never boasted about these three paintings. In fact, I didn’t mention them to anyone at all. Except to Dorian. He’s the middle sibling and only a year older than me, and we’ve always been thick as thieves. We look alike too; pale and skinny, both with a dark sweep of fringe hiding our blue eyes. Dorian was eight when Mama died. I was seven and I used to cry myself to sleep every night until Papa decided that the two of us should share a room. Dorian moved into the bunk bed above mine and he would sing to me and tell me stories until I slept again.

Anyway, it was to Dorian that I turned to solve my problem with the Paris School. My brother has quite the honest face so he seemed perfect for the trick I had in mind. Together, he and I wrapped the three canvases in soft muslin to protect them, and then Dorian tucked them under his arm and with me trailing behind him we went to the apartments of the Paris School.

Being an artist is in the Bonifait blood. My papa and his father before him both attended the Paris School. So when Dorian went up to the front desk and introduced himself as a Bonifait and asked for an audience with the Directeur, the head of college admissions, Master Demarchelier, was more than willing.

Master Demarchelier didn’t so much as glance at me waiting there in my chair as he ushered Dorian into his office. That was fine by me. I sat there outside his rooms in the corridor and while I couldn’t hear what was being said behind the closed door, I knew it was going well as they were in there a long while. Eventually my brother emerged, the Directeur with his arm around his shoulder looking most pleased with himself and burbling on about his delight in finding such a gifted pupil just at the eleventh hour when new enrolments for this school year were about to close. He was about to shake hands with Dorian to seal the deal when I leapt forward and pressed my own hand into his in my brother’s stead.

“My name is Rose Bonifait,” I told him, “and I am the artist who painted these works, not my brother Dorian. So it is I, not Dorian, who will be attending your school.”

It was a scandal of course. People are so easily scandalised. That a twelve-year-old girl should be admitted to the Paris School! The master was not best pleased at being tricked. Yet even in his annoyance he had to admit my work was so good he would overlook the naughty ruse and let me in. And so, I became the first-ever girl to attend his college.

From day one at the school they all whispered about me. Nowadays they don’t even bother to whisper – they say it straight to my face. You are an impudent young girl and you do not belong here with us, the intellectual elite. It bothers them still more than I really don’t care, and I make it so obvious. Yesterday, in class, the Directeur tried to pick at the thread of my temper when he asked me what I thought I was playing at with my ridiculous costume I had taken to wearing.

“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” I said.

“You keep coming to these classes dressed as a boy,” the Directeur pointed out.

I was so sick of trying to paint in my silly lace gowns that for several mornings now, with Dorian’s permission, I had raided his wardrobe for his cast-offs. He’d given me some old boiled wool breeches in dark charcoal, a white cotton shirt and a houndstooth waistcoat. I liked the way the wool trousers and the cotton felt against my skin. And, oh, the unbelievable freedom of movement! Dorian gave me jackets too – and socks and ties and it was marvellous to be dressed at last in clothes that were comfortable.

“Mademoiselle Bonifait,” the Directeur said to me. “You must dress like a lady to attend the Paris School.”

“But, sir,” I replied. “I thought ladies weren’t allowed to attend the Paris School. And now I am dressed like a boy you do not like that either? You should make up your mind.”

Even the boys in class, most of whom hate me for being there, had to laugh at that. As for the Directeur, he huffed that I had better “change my appearance by morning”.

Well, that made me so cross I decided I certainly would change it! In the bathroom mirror that night I stared at my reflection and my long, dark ringlet curls, which I usually shaped each evening before bed by wrapping them in brown paper to keep the curl precise. Well, I thought, Monsieur Directeur, you are right. I must change. No more brown paper for me.

I got out the scissors from Mama’s old sewing kit. The blades were so sharp that when I ran my finger along to test them, I nearly sliced the tip of my finger clean off. I sheared into my long, dark ringlets and the blade cut through the hair like butter. After I’d shorn them off, I tidied up using a pudding bowl to create a shape.

The pile of hair on the floor beside me looked a bit like a rat scurrying across the floorboards. Then Dorian came in and asked me what on earth I had done.

“I look more like you now, don’t you think?” I teased him.

The short cut brings out my eyes, makes the most of my cheekbones. And it will be so practical! No more hair in my eyes when I am trying to paint. I can focus on the work. Anyway, curls never got me anywhere. The boys at the school seldom even acknowledge that I am alive, and the only other places I ever go are the auction yards and the abattoir, and curls are no use to me there either.

Back to the abattoir. As I said, I was there this morning. I had skipped my lesson at school – I suddenly didn’t feel like facing the Directeur with my new hair. His endless, painful discussions about the failings of my gender were irritating me too much for me to hold my tongue, and going instead to a place where they slaughter animals felt like a pleasant change of pace.

I’m being horrible. Truly, it is never fun to go to the abattoir. This morning, though, dealing with what I saw in that slaughter chamber upset me even more than usual, and I had a feeling of being deeply heartbroken when I emerged. As I saddled Celine, I wondered whether the stench of the place clung to me in some way because the mare skipped and danced as I tacked her up, but she settled when I mounted, and we rode out across the gravel of the forecourt of the stables and down the avenues to the park.

The Jardin de Luxembourg is still my favourite place in the world. Winding bridle paths meander between trees and around the great lake, and there is a sense of wildness to the place so that you can scarcely believe you are in the city. One day I even spied deer bounding through the forest as I rode.

Before Mama got sick, we would ride there together, and she would point out things and make me practise my English. L’oiseau is bird. L’arbre is tree. Jardin is garden. I chanted these words to myself today as I rode the bridle paths with Celine and then cantered my mare through the trees, watching the dappled late-afternoon light of Paris growing rose-pink as the evening closed in on us. By the time I returned Celine to her stall that evening, I had made my mind up about two things.

The first was that, no matter what happened to me in my life, I would always love horses.

The second thing I decided was perhaps more important. Until now, I have been quiet. I have apologised for my gender and been happy to let men consider me to be the weaker sex, have allowed them to make decisions that are unfair and unequal. But the Directeur’s silly fuss about something as pointless as my style of dress has strengthened my ambition, has turned my will to steel.

No matter what Papa says about the importance of girls being modest and demure, I know I will never be these things and I refuse to be considered less than a man. Because the second thing that I decided today when I was out riding is that I am going to be the greatest artist in the world. That is my plan – and when I make my mind up, I do not fail.

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