by Sarah Lark
“You want to leave me?” Svetlana asked.
Heather shook her head. “Why don’t you come with me? It’s going to be summer, Lana. Nothing will be happening here. Close the studio for a few months and travel with me.”
“And then will paint my pictures who? Who supposed to earn living?”
Heather was silent. The last few months, she had been shopping for them. Lana earned only just enough to pay for the studio.
“I came with you once,” Heather said. “Now you come with me.”
“That was very different,” Svetlana declared. “You should prefer to stay here, work still a bit on your portraits.” It sounded patronizing.
“I’m leaving in a week.”
“All alone?” asked Svetlana. It almost sounded malicious.
Heather squared herself. “All alone,” she said.
Heather would not remain alone. She was prepared to gather together all her courage to go alone, but her friends advised her against it.
“All alone, you’d fall into disrepute. They won’t rent you a hotel room,” Mary said.
The other women confirmed this.
“It’s madness,” said Alicia. “You can occupy any wedding suite in the best hotels with your lover and no one looks at you askance. Yet a woman traveling alone isn’t acceptable.”
“What am I supposed to do now?” Heather asked indecisively.
Alicia smiled. “We’ll find you a companion. I have two suggestions right off: Mademoiselle Patout, a daughter by profession. Her father is a well-off merchant who caters to his favorite child’s every whim. She’s a student of mine, but I really would be happy to be rid of her. Now and again I do simply need some sleep. The second is Madame Mireille de Lys, high nobility, very, very unhappily married, and very interested in art. Still a bit prudish in bed. You really have to arouse her.”
Heather had stopped marveling at Alicia’s extravagant conquests. She decided on Madame de Lys—precisely because she hoped not to have to arouse her. She did not want to cheat on Svetlana. Though it did annoy her that Svetlana had remained away for several nights since Heather had announced her trip, and Mireille de Lys was a delicate beauty.
Heather’s good intentions did not last long, particularly as Mireille was out for an adventure that went far beyond art. The first night she came to Heather’s hotel room, and after that they booked a shared room. Mireille was desperate for love but completely inexperienced, and, for the first time, Heather was in the role of seductress. She quickly realized it was fun to carry Svetlana’s techniques over to Mireille. She learned quickly—too quickly perhaps. By Verona, Heather was already too tame for the hot-blooded lady. At the very first studio party to which the women were invited—Mary, Berthe, and Alicia had given Heather a whole list of friendly artists who would be excited to meet her—Mireille disappeared with a blonde American woman, never to be seen again.
In the Castelvecchio, Heather ran into an “English rose” who did not speak a word of Italian and was completely lost in Verona; but she quoted Shakespeare wonderfully and wanted to study art. The girl was named Emma, but she hated the name, so Heather called her Juliet. Emma in turn called her Romea, and the two explored Verona on the trail of the famous lovers. Finally, they traveled on to Florence, rented a studio, and began to work seriously.
Unfortunately, Emma proved completely untalented artistically. Heather was almost relieved when, after three months together, Svetlana appeared, made a monstrous scene, and threw Juliet out. Heather protested but quickly fell back under the spell of the Russian, who now had a very short haircut. Their reconciliation went spectacularly. Heather and Svetlana celebrated with their new friends and enjoyed having Heather walk around in a suit with trousers but with her hair worn down and long while Svetlana put on a corset.
“You look like a whore in the Middle Ages whom they caught, then tarred and feathered,” one of their new male acquaintances teased. “Afterward, they cut her hair.”
Svetlana found the idea fascinating and did not leave the young painter’s side all evening. She was kicked to the curb by Heather the next day when she returned after a night in his arms. Once again there were apologies, anger, tears, and reconciliation—but then it was fall again, and Svetlana had to return to Paris. She had taken a post as an instructor at an art school, another sign her artistic career was headed downhill.
Heather continued working in Florence through the winter. In the spring, she met an Italian woman whose face resembled a Madonna by Titian. Gianna looked delicate at first sight, but she had dedicated herself to sculpture and had muscles like a man from the hard work. She accompanied Heather to Rome in the summer, and the city kept them breathless for months. Then Gianna fell in love with a stonecutter. Heather had gotten used to women changing their preferences for men or women, or loving men and women at the same time. Gradually she ceased holding a grudge against Chloe for that. She had not betrayed Heather by preferring first Terrence and then Colin. She could just as well have had a Svetlana.
Heather was now experienced enough to be able to keep her lovers. Even Svetlana was surprised by her skill at lovemaking when she appeared the next spring—again unannounced.
“This time I did not catch you, but I know you were not true, little kiwi.”
Heather did not answer. Svetlana was surely unfaithful. Were they even still a couple?
Svetlana convinced Heather for a few weeks that summer that she needed her more than anyone else. She was possessed by a new drive to create, and during this time, she was faithful to Heather. She occupied their tiny studio day and night, smearing giant canvases with her impressions of Rome and wanting praise. Heather was happy when fall came and the Russian returned to Paris, along with her artwork. The farewell was tearful.
“You must soon come back. Without you, I not can live, not can work.”
Heather assured her she would think about returning home soon, but first, she went to Madrid, alone. She was no longer afraid of traveling without accompaniment. In general, the bloomers she had since grown fond of protected her from unwanted advances. They identified Heather as a bluestocking and a suffragette—no respectable man and certainly no good, modest woman came too close to her. Heather did not care. She no longer looked shyly at the ground when someone addressed her, and she no longer surrendered sheepishly when she was issued the worst room in the hotel or the table next to the kitchen door in a restaurant. Heather Coltrane remained polite and ladylike, but she knew how to assert herself.
Madrid was giant and exciting. Heather joined an art class for women to practice drawing nudes. She laughed at herself when she thought that even three years before she had blushed just thinking about it.
At school, she met Ana, a graceful little thing, lithe as a dancer and cuddly as a kitten.
“Gatita,” Heather said, tenderly testing her freshly acquired knowledge of a bit of Spanish.
At that, Ana dug her claws into Heather’s back. “Never call a tigress kitten.”
Heather did not return to Paris until the spring of 1891. She was alone but with a contract for a solo exhibition in one of the best galleries in the city. She had sent a few of her last works to Svetlana’s gallerist, who ordered her to come back right away.
“Simply fantastic,” Mary, Berthe, and her friends pronounced.
Alicia stood speechless in front of Heather’s portraits of Mireille and Juliet, Gianna and Ana. She brought one after another of her friends to the gallery to interpret the pictures.
Only Svetlana seemed hardly to look at Heather’s work. She still had their studio but shared it with a parade of students—mostly women from the art academy where she taught, but also occasionally young men. Heather started a fight when she found one of them in their bath, though Svetlana had assured her the young man came only to paint. In truth, the relationship in this case was innocent, but Heather took over the rent for the studio and forbade Svetlana any more private students. Svetlana felt she was being bossed around and now r
an riot. Heather painted Lana anew—this time as a woman burning up in her own fire.
“Well,” Mary said when Heather uncovered the picture to reveal it to the circle of indépendants, “are we celebrating the eyes of the artist or mourning the eyes of the lover?”
The next evening, Heather told Svetlana that she intended to leave her.
“I’ve paid three months’ rent on the studio, Lana, but I’m going to London in a week to show my work, and then I’m taking the next ship home. It’s better this way. It’s over.”
She had hoped that Svetlana would accept the matter calmly, but she reacted with her usual hysteria. “You not can me leave, little kiwi. You cannot. I not can live without you, and you not can live without me. Do you not understand? Kiwi!”
Svetlana clung to Heather like a woman drowning. Heather knew this was for show. Lana might need someone, but most assuredly not the woman Heather had become.
Heather spent her last week in Paris in a hotel. She packed her things when she knew Svetlana was at the academy. On the last day, she found the rooms empty. Svetlana, too, had gone.
On the easel in the middle of the studio stood a single, not very large picture, a watercolor. Heather gasped when she saw her portrait. Svetlana had kept her promise; she had painted Heather. The picture showed a young woman, stepping through a veil. She emerged from a dreamland formed from the beaches at Cape Reinga, the volcanoes of King Country, the massive kauri trees in the north, and she laughed at the wind that blew against her. Heather wore her hair loose. Her face looked radiant and young, determined and strong. Completely beautiful, completely free.
Touched, Heather opened the letter that lay beside it. It consisted of only five words:
Give my regards to Chloe!
Chapter 7
Heather Coltrane reached Dunedin in December 1891 after a calm crossing. She held her face into the summer wind of her homeland, enjoying the crystal-clear air and the beauty of the mountains that rose up behind the city, seemingly close enough to touch. Already from the ship she had felt a rush from the long, empty beaches, the cliffs, and forested hills.
“I’m no longer used to so much lonesomeness,” she admitted to another traveler, a merchant from Christchurch, “after so many years in Europe, densely populated as it is.”
“It’s not all that lonesome here anymore.” The man smiled. “The population’s growing every day, new towns are being founded, and the railroad is being built up. The male population is still much bigger than the female. You won’t be lonely here, Miss Coltrane.”
He did not understand what Heather found so amusing about this remark.
In Dunedin, not much had changed—compared to Rome, Madrid, and Paris, all of New Zealand seemed a bit sleepy and backward.
“Not when it comes to politics,” said Kathleen, who was celebrating the return of two of her children in two days. The next day, Sean would arrive from Wellington for a massive election campaign in Canterbury and Otago. “We have the most progressive social laws in the world since the Liberal Party took power. And now we’re hoping for women’s suffrage. Kate Sheppard is mobilizing everything. There are more than seven hundred petitions to date. Unfortunately, it’s so far run aground in the upper chamber, and that’s full of conservatives. But Sean is optimistic that it’ll finally pass next year. The day after tomorrow, there’s a rally in Dunedin. You’ll see what’s going on here. Backward? I mean, really.”
Seemingly as proof, Kathleen showed her Gold Mine Boutique’s new collection. Even in New Zealand, they seemed about to banish the corset to the back of the wardrobe.
“Claire is having some trouble adjusting.” She smiled. “She has put on just a little weight in the past few years and maintains she can make it disappear with a corset while clothes now show every little pound. Complete nonsense, but she’s conservative on that point.”
Heather used the mention of Claire to ask about Chloe. Kathleen’s face clouded over.
“Dear, I don’t know.” Kathleen shrugged. “We see her so rarely. Invercargill isn’t all that far away. Colin had horses run in Christchurch, but he never comes to visit us alone. Chloe brings him by once a year at most. They come for tea—always in haste, they’re just passing through, you see. We talk a bit, everyone’s polite, but what’s really going on, no one knows. Claire and Jimmy drive to Invercargill now and again on race days. But I can’t convince Peter to go. I’ve never even seen the house, but Claire says the whole estate is dreamy. Yet Chloe runs around in her riding dress, constantly concerned about the horses. Claire says the atmosphere is strange. Indifferent, as she put it. But that’s all I know.”
Heather found this information alarming. “She still doesn’t have any children?” she asked, although she was sure that Chloe would have written her about a birth.
Kathleen shook her head. “No. And I think that burdens the marriage. She wanted children. Anyway, she pours that energy into horse breeding, and she mothers little Rosie.”
“Well, she can’t be all that little anymore,” said Heather. Violet’s sister had been five when she came to New Zealand. Now she must have been around eighteen.
“Are you going to pay Chloe a visit? Perhaps you’ll get more out of her.”
Heather nodded. “That’s why I’m here,” she said calmly.
She would have most liked to depart the next day, but she was also compelled by the rally at which Sean was expected. Aside from the fact that her brother would have been terribly disappointed, she wouldn’t have missed hearing him speak.
“You’ll also enrich the event,” Sean said, looking at her appreciatively. “You look grand, little sister. And it’s not just the new clothes. It’s your whole aura. I’d like to pull you up to the podium with me. Voilà, New Zealand: the modern woman.”
Heather smiled. “You’d scare away half the people with that,” she noted. “But what’s with you, my dear brother? Aside from your hair’s being a little thinner, you haven’t changed a bit. Do you still spend half the night in your office? With your secretary?” She winked at her brother. “Do you still keep that handsome Maori?”
Sean rolled his eyes. “Don’t bring me into disrepute, Heather. Kupe and I have a collegial relationship. He hopes to be elected to Parliament soon. He campaigns actively for Maori universal suffrage, and the chances don’t look bad. If he makes it, then perhaps they’ll soon have more seats than the two that the pakeha graciously allow them.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Heather chided. “I don’t want a lecture on the situation in Parliament. I want a glimpse into your heart. What’s going on with Violet?”
Sean’s face darkened. “I haven’t heard anything from her in all these years. She used to go to the Temperance Union gatherings, so I had hoped to learn something about her through Kate. But Invercargill seems to be the last holdout, or, to take a more charitable view, extremely peaceful. Rural area, a single pub in which apparently no one drinks too much, or at least no one has had the idea of demonstrating in front of it. There isn’t even a local group of the union yet, so at most, I hear about Violet from Mother when Chloe wanders into Dunedin once a year. According to her, she’s doing well. So.” Sean lowered his gaze.
Heather observed him searchingly. “But you still think about her?”
“I can picture her like it was yesterday,” Sean admitted. “But it’s nonsense. After all these years.”
“I’m driving there tomorrow,” Heather said. “Why don’t you just come with me? We had planned that once, and now we’ve just put it off a few years.”
Sean shook his head. “The day after tomorrow I have to go to Christchurch. This rally in Dunedin is just the start. We have a massive campaign in Canterbury. New petitions, new signature collections, and all the important people will be there. John Ballance is coming.”
“The premier?” Heather asked, impressed.
Sean nodded. “Yes, Canterbury is our center. It’s where Kate started, and Sir John Hall likewise comes from the
area. Now we’re concentrating there—also to regroup for the final push. We really need to work together, with the Maori too. Kupe’s staying there already. Hopefully he doesn’t bump into Matariki, or all hell will break loose.”
“Are they still on the rocks?” asked Heather.
Sean sighed. “Not a word between them.”
Heather yawned and stretched—a gesture she would never have made in a man’s presence before. “I stand by it: this country is sleepy. Sure, you yell into your microphones at demonstrations. But otherwise, not a word between Claire and Chloe, not a word between you and Violet, not a word between Riki and Kupe. It’s time someone made some noise.”
At the rally in Dunedin, there was plenty of noise. Hundreds of women—and a few men too—sang the movement’s hymns, waved banners, and marched through the streets. Kate Sheppard read her “Ten Reasons Why the Women of New Zealand Should Vote” and was cheered. Meri Te Tai Mangakahia, an attractive and highly educated young Maori, spoke about the rights of women in her culture and expressed her hope that all issues in Aotearoa would be better represented, even to the queen, if women could work as ambassadors.
“She is, after all, a woman. She will listen to her sisters.”
Sean Coltrane explained calmly and clearly what had caused the women’s suffrage campaign to fail so far. The legislation had fallen just short of being ratified several times—and Heather was astonished at Sean’s explanation.
“The question is no longer whether Parliament thinks women are intelligent and educated enough to vote. Apart from a few ignoramuses living in the past, people have accepted that women like Kate Sheppard, Meri Te Tai Mangakahia, Ada Wells, and Harriet Morison”—Heather noticed that he purposefully named women who were present, and the audience cheered for them—“can represent this country as well as any male politician. No one doubts their integrity or their public spirit. The question in the parties is this: For whom and what will women vote? What party would they support, what governmental program? In sum: Is women’s suffrage useful for us or not?”