shall stop eating entirely,” she proclaimed, pushing aside the tempting plate of biscuits and sandwiches. “Not a bite will pass my lips until I’m allowed to attend art school. If I am to become a professional artist, I must have a proper education.”
Her mother looked toward one of her elder daughters, Lenchen, for support. “Tell your sister how ridiculous she’s being.”
“How can you even think of walking out among ordinary people, mixing with men and women off the street, uneducated, working-class commoners?” Her sister actually shuddered, or pretended to for their mother’s benefit.
“It’s dangerous, Loosie,” her brother Arthur said, more intent upon his newspaper and choosing a delicate pastry from the tray than on the conversation. “You must be reasonable and confine your socializing to the appropriate class of people.”
Louise lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “Don’t you see that talent doesn’t depend upon who an artist’s parents might be and whether or not they have a title? And I hardly think people wander in off the street to register for art classes.” She huffed. “This is utterly ridiculous. The National Art Training School is a highly respected institution of learning and within walking distance of Buckingham. Yet you deny me a proper education, Mama.”
“For your own protection, yes.” Victoria observed her, lips pinched. “Experiment all you like with your paintings and sculpture here in the palace. Listen to your tutors. They are more than sufficient for teaching you all you need to know. When you marry, your husband will want a wife, a mistress over his household, and mother for his children, not a vagabond artiste.”
“Oh!” Louise screeched in protest, pushing herself up and out of her chair. She let her cup and saucer clatter carelessly onto the silver tray. “You are all impossible.”
She ran in tears from the room but didn’t give up pleading her case. When hunger strikes didn’t work, she tried formal letters of petition to her mother. When that didn’t work, she enlisted Mr. Brown’s influence and, finally, threats of running away to Paris. In the end, exhausted by her daughter’s hysterical pleading, Victoria gave in.
Louise arrived victorious by carriage on her first day at the school, positively thrilled with her new and hard-won freedom. But when she stood before the registrar’s desk that most perfect of all mornings, she was shocked by her reception.
“We are most honored to have you join us at NATS, Your Royal Highness.” The registrar gave her a fatherly smile. “Let me show you to where our young ladies take their lessons.”
Louise turned with confusion to her chaperone. On entering the building they’d passed a room where she’d seen several young men in smocks setting up their easels. “Are you saying I won’t be with those students across the hallway? The girls have separate classes?”
“Of course, Princess.” He gave her an impatient scowl and moved toward the door, as if wanting her to follow him and stop asking questions.
She stood her ground, suspicious of the separation of the sexes. Was this another way to control her, to take away from her what by rights should be hers? “Why? Why should we be separated if we are to learn the same skills?”
He let out a breath of exasperation. “Because young men and young women study and learn in different ways. It’s not healthy for girls to be exposed to the same rigorous demands as boys.” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him. He shook his head, as if amused by her reaction. “You’ll be with the other young ladies in a very nice building all your own. I’m certain you will enjoy yourself, Your Highness.”
This did not sound good at all. “Which building?”
“The Female School of Art, just across the way there.” He pointed toward the door she’d just come in.
And so Louise, accompanied by the elderly Lady Vail, who had been appointed by her mother to watch over Louise whenever she left the palace for school, turned around and followed the registrar back into South Kensington’s streets, overlooking Hyde Park, and walked the few hundred feet down the brick walkway to classrooms kept solely for students of the “fragile” sex. At the end of that day, and each one after, Louise and Vail were retrieved like loaned pieces of furniture by the same carriage, driver, and footman that had brought them.
Louise felt robbed. The lessons at the Female School were little more than the same tedious instruction she’d received at home. Her one pleasure was carrying back