“I have no doubt there are,” Cecilia said, “but perhaps your generation feels differently.”
“Twist, cross, twist, cross,” Marianne whispered until she came to the end of the row. “Richard is allowed to do whatever pleases him, and Lucy doesn’t think she has any rights at all. And then—of course!—she dies of brain fever because she is so worried about a duel Richard is fighting. It’s ridiculous.”
Sofie decided she had had enough of this talk about Lucy. “Clearly, she was too good to live,” she said with a smile she hoped was conclusive.
“I would never forgive a husband who treated me like that,” Marianne said. “Never.”
She was so occupied managing her bobbins, pins and opinions that she didn’t seem to notice that her mother and Mrs. Vogt were not very talkative.
“But seriously,” she persisted, “is Lucy the kind of woman men think is ideal?”
“Men have all kinds of silly dreams about women,” Cecilia said slowly. “And we probably have silly dreams about men, but not so many, I think. Or perhaps we let go of them sooner. And the novel is far from sensible, I agree.”
Blessed Cecilia, Sofie thought.
By the time Lars looked in, around lunchtime, Marianne’s work was starting to look like a bookmark.
“Quite a little hive of homecrafts here,” he said, bending over Marianne’s work. “Cecilia told me you want to learn to make lace. Is that Torchon?”
He tightened her last twist, then placed her pin at a sharper angle.
Sofie gave a sigh of mock exasperation. “Please don’t tell me you can make lace too.”
“Why not? It was an army doctor named Mats Pettersson who is responsible for Pettersson lace.”
“Not entirely,” Cecilia said. “Pettersson came back from service in Pomerania with his Bohemian wife, their two daughters and his stepson. They were all lacemakers, and they introduced novelties like pricked paper patterns and pins into Sweden.”
“In what ancient century did all this take place?” Marianne asked, amused.
“Just the last ancient century,” Lars said. “Around 1800. Pettersson’s stepson, Jacob Ernst, was a teacher as well as a lacemaker, and the ‘Schoolmaster Edging’ pattern is named for him. Cecilia has used it for the kitchen curtains, isn’t that right, Cecilia?”
But Cecilia was having none of his bids for attention. “That’s enough now, Lars, we have work to do. I want Marianne to settle into the proper rhythm of crossing and twisting. I’m sure you can find something to do,” nodding her head in the direction of his studio.
He wants to be part of things, Sofie mused. But then, he always does. And Marianne finds him charming, like most women. But Cecilia does not—or at least not this morning.
By the end of the second day, Marianne had made several bookmarks and was flirting with the idea of edging some guest towels. Cecilia made her a present of the pillow, a few patterns and a dozen bobbins. “Give our love to Nils,” she said, tucking carriage blankets around them before they set off for the train, “and tell him he owes us a visit. If he doesn’t bring you all back within a month, I will insist on teaching him lacemaking too.”
In the carriage, Sofie thought about Cecilia’s kindness to her children. Everything about Cecilia seemed so complete that she rarely wondered if she minded not having children. She should give that some more thought. She laid her hand on Marianne’s knee.
“What is it, Mamma?”
“Nothing. Just that you are a nice girl.”
Siljevik, 20 April 1914
Dear Sofie,
The geranium cuttings you gave me are flourishing, all over the dining room window. I wonder how many bookmarks Marianne has finished, and if she is still contemplating guest towels. She learns quickly, and it was a delight to have the two of you.
I am giving some talks on traditional embroidery at the Folk School. Lars is in Germany, where he writes that war looks inevitable. At the same time, “everyone” assures him that it will be a very short war. I don’t take much comfort from that, as even a very short war is horrible.
I take advantage of my free time in the evenings to work on some napkins with a plaited fringe. The pattern came from Mrs. Mansson in the village, and I’ve adapted it slightly. If they succeed, I will send you the pattern. Your tapestry sounds daunting—I will look forward to seeing it on my next visit.
One more piece of news. To my surprise, Lars has decided to hire Miss Gregorius, the young woman I wrote you about. She will start almost immediately. It will be strange, but I am looking forward to having a female colleague.
Your friend,
Cecilia
Chapter Twenty
JUNE 1914
MARTINA AND FRANCIS were celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary in the summer of 1914, and Sofie decided she would take Marianne and Markus with her to London for the party. Her oldest children, like Martina’s, were in their early twenties, and the cousins got along well—the days when the English young people had snickered at their cousins’ Swedish accents were long past.
The party itself was a rather stiff affair, filled with Francis’s suffragist connections and his colleagues from the Natural History Museum. One group did not mingle much with the other, and the guests seemed to expect very little of Martina’s sister, whose English they assumed was inadequate.
Trying to make conversation, one of Francis’s colleagues asked Sofie about Falun’s copper mine and the worry that the ore was running out. She confessed that she knew very little about that. He assured her that the bigger the crater—and the Falun crater was now very large—the less they were able to extract from it. She nodded, trying to look intelligent. It was rather a relief when the guests left, and she and Martina could gossip about them on her bed in the guest room.
Happily, Lars and Cecilia were also in London with their new assistant, Miss Gregorius. They were looking at private collections of art that had become museums, with a view to setting up their own, and suggested meeting Sofie at Lord and Lady Wallace’s museum. Now open to the public on a quiet square in Marylebone, it was a cache of treasures collected by the third and fourth marquesses of Hertford and Richard Wallace, the illegitimate son of the fourth marquess. When Sofie mentioned that Mr. Lawrie too had business in London—he was always happy to schedule a visit when Sofie was visiting her sister—Cecilia insisted that she bring him along.
Sofie agreed to meet the Vogts in the afternoon, but she and Mr. Lawrie arrived at the museum earlier, to see more of the collection. She wore a new dress from Liberty’s that Martina had convinced her to buy, a soft green-and-yellow print, with Grecian ribbons criss-crossed closely over the breast. It was different from her usual embroidered yokes, where the fullness began above the breast, and she felt almost shy when she took off her light wrap.
The museum’s first floor bristled with weapons and armour. It reminded her of the newspapers, filled with angry threats of war.
“Why do men love these instruments of violence so much?” she asked, sighing at yet another room lined with dully gleaming breastplates, helmets and swords.
“No doubt the sight of all this weaponry rouses something in us,” Mr. Lawrie agreed, peaceably. “But look at how beautiful the acid-etching of pomegranates is on this visor, or the inlay on this breastplate.”
He showed her how the rings in a piece of mail were so tightly interlaced that not even the smallest, sharpest knife could penetrate them.
“You work with fabrics,” he said, taking her elbow for the briefest of moments and turning her in the direction of a dowdy piece of mail that went over the shoulders. “This is a cloth. You can imagine how supple it is.” His warm hand cupping her elbow confused her, and she retreated into flippancy.
“It looks like a bed-jacket,” she said and immediately regretted it. Men did not like it when you belittled their enthusiasms. But he laughed.
“Yes, it does. But far more useful.”
A suit of armour, he told her, was an extr
a skin, thin but impenetrable and as flexible as the body underneath it. He pointed out couters, elbow plates, cuisses, thigh plates, and pauldrons, shoulder protectors. The armour for shoulders, hands, knees and feet was made in thin plates called lames, which slid over each other as the body moved. This simple, flawless suit, he said, pointing to a glass case, was made for the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I by his court armourer, Konrad Seusenhofer.
“However did you learn all this?”
“My grandfather had a forge in Ayr, and he loved metalwork of all kinds. I spent hundreds of hours with him in the forge, and when he died I inherited his armoury books.”
She looked at the visors, shaped variously like dogs, birds and gravy boats, the puffed-out breastplates, the braggingly narrow waists and the calf-guards as tight as hose. There was, as Mr. Lawrie said, something rousing about armour. She did not want to be roused. But when she took a deep breath, she was conscious of the ribbons that emphasized her breasts and she wondered fleetingly if he would find it necessary to guide her again by the elbow.
At the appointed hour, they met the Vogts and Miss Gregorius in front of the main staircase. Introductions were made: not only was it Sofie’s first encounter with Miss Gregorius, but Mr. Lawrie was new to the Vogts as well as Miss Gregorius. Cecilia took in Sofie’s dress and gave her a half nod, half smile that meant she approved. Miss Gregorius, who was blonde and more attractive than Cecilia’s description had suggested, was agreeable but quiet. At first Sofie thought she might be subdued by the company of four older people. Then she realized that Miss Gregorius was here on business. The museum had been the Wallaces’ London house before the widowed Lady Wallace willed it to the nation, and Miss Gregorius was intent on the way everything, down to the stables and the coach houses, had been converted into galleries.
Someone from the museum, a Mr. Holcross, had been assigned to tour Mr. Vogt and his party through the museum and answer any of their questions. He pointed out the changes made in the private rooms to accommodate the art. The billiard room, now devoted to furniture by Boulle in turtleshell and brass marquetry, had been dominated in Lord Wallace’s day by a vast billiard table. No admirer of Boulle’s obsessively elaborate armoires and desks, Lars sighed over the removal of the table: “What a shame!”
Sofie wandered through the galleries with Miss Gregorius and Mr. Lawrie, listening as he asked Miss Gregorius about her time in Berlin, and what it had been like working with Max Friedlander at the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum. Sofie noticed that she answered his questions amiably enough, but her real attention remained fixed on the galleries and their adjustments. Mr. Lawrie changed the subject, asking Miss Gregorius about the dissertation she had written at Uppsala on the ancient log buildings of Sweden. Sofie’s dress with the Grecian ribbons no longer seemed so remarkable to her, which at least allowed her to stand and walk more naturally. After a while, she found their conversation a little tedious, so she joined Cecilia and Mr. Holcross.
Mr. Holcross was pointing out the adaptations made to the smoking room, which now held medieval and Renaissance pieces. When Lord Wallace’s male guests had repaired there after dinner to smoke cigars and pipes, the walls and floor had been covered with Minton tiles. They had not survived the house’s refashioning, Mr. Holcross explained, except in an alcove lined with Turkish-inspired tiles.
The alcove was small, so it was not surprising that Cecilia was standing quite close to Mr. Holcross. What did surprise Sofie was Cecilia’s bright, unwavering smile.
“I’m so glad you preserved this,” Cecilia said. “Such a perfect example of the period when exotic decoration was all the rage. Very glamorous.”
“The tiles were practical in a room for smoking,” Mr. Holcross said, “because they could be washed with soap and water.”
“And they are so decorative that I suppose no one missed the curtains and rugs that would have harboured the smell of smoke,” Cecilia added, like a student who wanted to please her teacher.
“That’s right,” Mr. Holcross said, and smiled back at her. Cecilia gave a small laugh of pleasure.
Really, Sofie thought. Why is everyone flirting today? What is Cecilia thinking? Mr. Holcross is probably twenty years younger than she is.
Mr. Lawrie and Miss Gregorius joined them, as did Lars, who had wandered off to see the Fragonards. Mr. Holcross must not have heard all their names properly. Encouraging them into the Boudoir Cabinet, he suggested to Mr. Lawrie, “Your wife may enjoy the miniatures and snuffboxes.” He aimed a slight bow in Miss Gregorius’s direction. Mr. Lawrie blushed his most violent red, but Miss Gregorius only smiled slightly and did not seem at all bothered. The others laughed, and Lars explained that Miss Gregorius was the Vogts’ assistant.
“You should have realized they aren’t married,” he teased an embarrassed Mr. Holcross. “Mr. Lawrie is clearly enjoying Miss Gregorius’s company too much for them to be man and wife.”
Mr. Lawrie’s scarlet face, which had begun to fade, blazed up again.
“Lars, you are quite horrible,” Cecilia said. “Stop it, please.”
On the second floor, Sofie and Cecilia stopped in front of a portrait of a Dutch family. Lars and Miss Gregorius had gone ahead, and Mr. Lawrie was nowhere to be seen.
“Isn’t Miss Gregorius a find?” Cecilia asked happily.
Sofie nodded, although she was not sure how she felt about Miss Gregorius, at least not yet. The young woman was no doubt very competent and organized, two things that Cecilia would appreciate. She was self-contained but not at all timid, and there was nothing wrong with that. Sofie was not suspicious of anything in particular, but she would wait and see. Perhaps Cecilia felt motherly toward her. And no doubt Lars enjoyed having a young woman around the house. Sofie trusted there would be no problems in that direction.
“Mmmm,” she said, hoping this would pass for assent.
Mr. Lawrie joined them, and all three turned their attention to the painting of the Dutch family, who were seated at the edge of a forest. The father wore a red velvet coat and was hemmed in by two greyhounds. His small daughter held a platter of green peaches just touched with pink. Seated between her husband and child, the wife wore feathers and pearls, and a white satin dress. The odd thing was what she held at the centre of the painting, over her immaculate satin lap—an upside-down dead hare, with a wound in his lower belly. She grasped his two hind feet with one hand, letting his head and front legs fall free. The woman looked straight ahead, apparently unworried about getting blood on her beautifully painted skirt.
“She’s not sure what expression to wear,” Mr. Lawrie said. “There’s something half-proud and half-ashamed in that plain Dutch face.”
“But what does it mean,” Sofie asked, “this woman in evening dress holding a dead animal?”
“Hunting was fashionable, something you had to be rich to do,” Mr. Lawrie said. “So this shows their wealth and their power.”
Sofie was not convinced. The woman’s face had resignation mixed in with the pride and awkwardness. Did domestic tranquility always come with a price?
“At least this time it is the hare that has been sacrificed,” she said dryly.
“You mean, instead of the woman,” Cecilia said.
Mr. Lawrie looked bewildered. Sofie smiled. Sometimes the way she and Cecilia could read each other’s thoughts was uncanny.
* * *
—
“Well, their holdings are astonishing,” Miss Gregorius said to Lars and Cecilia in the cloakroom, after Mr. Holcross had said his farewells, “but so was the marquesses’ wealth. In any case, it’s not what you have in mind, I think—a private house turned into a gallery, with all the personal elements erased.”
“No, I suppose we are thinking of two buildings,” Lars agreed. “A new one for the art, on the opposite side of the house from the churchyard, and then leaving the house as it is, as its own museum.”
The Vogts and Miss Gregorius were going back to Durrant’s Hotel, just across from the Wallac
e Collection. Mr. Lawrie offered to accompany Sofie back to Martina’s house. As they said their goodbyes, Mr. Lawrie suggested some galleries in Glasgow and Edinburgh that might furnish Miss Gregorius with other models. He wrote down the Vogts’ address and promised to send her the names. Sofie doubted that the Vogts would find it necessary to extend their research to Scotland, but Mr. Lawrie was always so helpful.
* * *
—
In the second week of her visit, a letter came from Nils. It was a catalogue of his problems. He needed her advice about the fresco for the Opera House, there was something wrong with it that only she would spot, he couldn’t bear to show it to the artistic director until she had seen it. The children missed her, and quarrelled all the time, which meant he could get no work done. Since the party was over, when was she coming home?
Sofie thought back to the Falun mine, which was running out of ore. In a marriage too, you could mine and mine until the ore ran out. And then what? It was tiring, humouring his pretense that she was his idol while really being his mother. She had too many children as it was. At the same time, she missed him.
Later that morning, Mr. Lawrie visited her in Martina’s rose-and-green parlour. He chose an armchair upholstered in a tired-looking rose linen; she sat on the chaise longue. Big cloisonné urns held grasses, and Japanese fans stood open along the mantel. The Morris paper was a success, but Sofie still thought the room had too many bits and pieces. She showed Mr. Lawrie sketches of her latest work: curtains for Marianne’s room and a tapestry for the village church. Markus had taken some photographs, which were not very clear, but gave an idea of the scale. Every once in a while, Mr. Lawrie would temper his admiration with some small suggestion and she would smile at him and say, “That is a fine Glasgow idea, Mr. Lawrie, but not very Askebo.” He would laugh, and agree.
When he had seen everything, he turned serious and said, “Mrs. Olsson, there you are, in a village deep in the Swedish countryside, and your work is as new as anything in Vienna or Paris.”
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