The Fifth Avenue Artists Society

by Joy Callaway

  “Where’ve you been? I’ve circled the room at least five times looking for you.” Frank grinned at Mr. Hopper and I yawned.

  “Talking to Mr. Hopper in the study and then Mr. Blaine and another author for a bit,” I said, when my jaw finally settled back into place. Franklin’s nose scrunched.

  “I’d avoid going in there if I were you. Someone passed on in that room a few months back,” he whispered to me, eyeing Mr. Hopper out of the corner of his eye.

  “I’m well aware. It was a dear friend of Mr. Hopper’s and Lydia’s,” I said.

  Mr. Hopper crossed the room, toward Maude Adams, leaving Franklin and me to watch Lydia as she played. Her eyes were closed, brows lifting and dipping with the inflection of the notes, fingers flying along the fingerboard.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about her?” I kept my focus on Lydia, but felt Franklin’s eyes on my face. I glanced at him, realizing he was actually looking over my head at Mr. Hopper as he attempted to talk to Miss Adams.

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to,” he said. “But she’s . . . unlike any woman I’ve ever met. She is eccentric and fierce, unguarded. I didn’t know quite what our relationship would become.” He looked at me. “You are so devoted to me, to my happiness. I couldn’t introduce the possibility without knowing for sure.”

  “Are you in love?”

  “Yes,” he said simply, and turned his eyes back to Lydia, smiling as he watched her play. “Like you are in love with—” He stopped midsentence and looked at me. “I didn’t think, Gin. I’m sorry,” he said quickly. I reached to squeeze his hand, realizing that this time my heart hadn’t plunged to my stomach.

  “It’s all right,” I said, but he shook his head, draped his arm across my shoulders and took my other hand. He clutched my fingers hard and stared at me.

  “You’ll not lose the next one,” he said evenly. “I can’t imagine if I lost . . . it’s only been a short time.”

  “I’m all right, Frank,” I protested, attempting to turn away, but his arm constricted around me.

  “You’re not, but you will be and you’ll love again.” He cleared his throat and his eyes narrowed, boring into mine. His jaw locked, lips pressed together in determination. “But I swear it, Gin, you’ll not lose another on account of money. I will not let that happen.”

  Chapter Seven

  DECEMBER 1891

  Trellis Manor

  RYE, NEW YORK

  The sun shone on the coral wallpaper. I lifted my cup to my lips and swallowed, gritting my teeth at the bitter tea that had grown cold over the past hour. I was beginning to think coming to visit our former neighbor, Cherie Smith, had been a mistake. To start, it had taken several hours for all of us to get here—a lengthy carriage ride, passage on a ferry to Rye Beach, followed by another carriage ride—and we had yet to see anyone beyond the maid.

  “I can’t believe she dragged us up here. I’d like to see her, truly, but so far this is a waste of a day,” Bessie whispered from across the room. She fiddled with the peacock feather on her hat, smoothing the golden strands along the edges. “I could’ve been working on my third attempt at Consuelo Vanderbilt’s toque.” Bessie’s eyes rolled. “I certainly hope Alva’s conjecture was right—that the other families will envy Consuelo’s hat and will begin ordering pieces for their children, or all of this work is in vain.” She withdrew four scarlet ibis feathers from her bag and began to slowly bend one into the form of a Christmas rose. I’d watched her attempt to create several unsuccessfully. Scarlet ibis spines were much too rigid to make the task an easy one. Mae snorted beside me.

  “I was looking forward to seeing Cherie, too, but as I’m missing Mr. Trent’s first grammar lecture at the orphanage—a lecture Mrs. Greenwood is also attending—to be here, I’d be much obliged if she’d grace us with her presence.” I was happy for Mae. I recalled the way she and Mr. Trent had instantly been drawn to each other at the Symphony, and how seriously they both seemed to take their studies and students. I was glad she’d found such a perfect match, but the mention of her relationship stung. I’d glimpsed Charlie this morning, only for a moment as he’d walked out on his front stoop to retrieve the paper. He’d looked handsome in a gray tweed morning suit, pencil tucked behind his ear. He no longer consumed my every waking thought. I had the Society to thank for that. I’d never been so inspired, so determined to succeed. The influence of serious artists had the power to turn my soul to the page for weeks at a time. Even so, my feelings for Charlie were always present. I’d longed to run down the stairs and catch him, to ask him what he was working on, to follow him into the library and proclaim his illustrations genius, like he used to do for my pages. Instead, I remained where I was, blindly buttoning my dress, feeling my heart plummet into my stomach.

  I yawned and resumed my slow inspection of the enormous room into which we had been ushered in an attempt to erase Charlie from my mind. At one point the decor had been quite lovely, but it was obvious that the doors hadn’t been opened for months, maybe years. Dust dulled the gold-leaf crown molding along the ceiling and was stacked at least an inch thick around the frame holding a portrait of Cherie’s mother and in the basin of an ornate pewter vase on the tea table beside me. The room would be a perfect metaphor for love lost—beauty built with painstaking care only to be abandoned. I had no idea why the maid had brought us in here instead of the drawing room, which I’d noticed was in much better condition.

  Alevia rubbed her eyes, stood, and walked around Mae and me to the piano behind us. I heard the fall screech open, followed by what I assumed were the wildly out of tune opening measures of one of Mozart’s concertos. It sounded horrendous, even to my relatively untrained ears, and Alevia stopped suddenly, likely unable to bear the grating disparity between the notes in her head and the awful noise coming from the piano.

  “The notes are at least a half step sharp,” Alevia whispered. “Grotrian-Steinweg is a fine make, however, and with a bit of tuning it would be lovely,” she amended quickly, before any of us could deem her earlier comment snide.

  “I certainly hope they don’t entertain in here,” Bess said, fiddling with the blue cut-glass stones circling her lace and ribbon–lined wrist. A tendril of auburn escaped the low braided coiffure at her nape and she hastily pinned it back.

  “You’d assume, but then again, here we are,” I said. “Perhaps the filthiness of the room is a new-fashioned manner of hospitality. It does bring out the gold and maroon in my new dress.” I laughed, situating the mixed wool and silk skirt across my legs. In a rare gesture of selflessness, Bess had offered to lend me the money to order fabric for a new dress after noticing the threadbare sleeves on my other visiting costumes.

  “I don’t fully understand why in the world she’d ask Ginny to paint her,” Bess said, propping both elbows on the table next to her. “I’m sure there are at least a few portrait artists around here, and she knows as well as we all do that Virginia’s attempts end up looking like caricatures. Sorry.” I shrugged.

  “It’s the truth, after all. I’m sure she only wanted company. We’re her oldest friends.” I inhaled the musty scent of moth-eaten upholstery, and sneezed. Mother had been adamant that we make the trip to see Cherie, though none of us had argued against it in the first place. She was good friends with Cherie’s mother, Mrs. Norton, and thought the Nortons to be a fine family. Both Mother and Mrs. Norton had mentioned visiting Cherie with us before they realized that the annual Mott Haven Ladies’ Christmas Tea had been planned for the same day.

  “I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t ask Franklin to do the portrait,” Mae said. “Maybe she was mistaken and wrote the wrong name in the letter.” Cherie had lived across the street from us growing up, and though she was older than Franklin, they’d developed a friendly rivalry of sorts. They were both accomplished painters and had enjoyed jeering and bragging to each other about who they were painting. In actuality, it wasn’t really a competition. Their styles were so different they couldn’t b
e compared. Patrons hired Franklin for his honesty, his knack for capturing the very realistic feel of a person in dark and jewel-toned oil paints, while they sought Cherie for her optimistic tendency to portray not who the subject was at present, but who she thought they could be, using light pastels.

  “That’s what I thought at first,” I said, sneezing again. “But in the letter she mentioned all of us by name, including Frank, and asked that I do it.” I glanced down at the small trunk of paints I’d lugged from the Bronx and laughed, thinking of the lopsided mouth and uneven, melting eyes that usually characterized my attempts at painting people.

  “I wonder if Cherie is accepting many commissions here,” Alevia commented. “It seems such a shame that she had to move away from her friends and her patrons, her mother, all the people that love her . . . except for Mr. Smith, of course.” Alevia had always been sentimental. If it was up to her, time would stop and our lives would remain as they were—save our artistic careers advancing. “It really is too bad that Frank is in New Jersey this week. Remember the contests they used to create? Both painting the same subject to see whose style the person preferred.” She looked at us, then diverted her gaze back to the piano, staring at it as though she felt sorry for it.

  “It’s probably best Franklin didn’t come,” Bessie said. She swiped a finger across the table in front of her, leaving a clean line across the dusty wood. “You know there was always speculation that Cherie was sweet on him, and whether Frank knew it or not, I know Mr. Smith wasn’t keen on the attention Cherie gave him during our last visit.” Mae laughed beside me and shook her head. Cherie’s husband, Mr. William Smith, a boring but wealthy financier, rarely attempted to disguise his feelings.

  “I doubt that’s it. He was probably just cross because Franklin swept him under the rug at cards,” she said. I kept my mouth shut. Franklin had told me that Cherie had tried to kiss him the night before her wedding and that he’d refused. To Franklin, Cherie was like an older sister, and I knew he’d be relieved to hear that we’d gone to visit without him.

  Cherie’s letter had arrived last week, begging us to come see her as soon as possible. She mentioned that she was expecting a child and hadn’t had friends from home visit since we’d been up to see her the last time—which had been nearly two years ago when we’d come up for a military ball. Although she was Bessie’s age, she’d always gotten along with all of us. We’d been excited to visit again—that is, until now. Mae slumped down on the couch beside me, disturbing a bit of dust that settled on her white shirtwaist. She sneezed, too, tilted her head back, and shut her eyes. “I stayed up all night knitting a blanket for a little girl at the orphanage,” she mumbled. “Wake me when she gets here.” In a matter of seconds, Mae’s body went slack. Three years ago, one of Mae’s most promising students at the orphanage—the first she’d taught to read—had fallen ill and died of scarlet fever. Mae had thought of the girl as a daughter, a child she’d always longed for. Since then, every moment away from school had been occupied by the girls, as though if she visited and taught often enough she could spare the rest a similar fate.

  Everyone fell silent. As I listened to the rhythmic ticking of an old grandfather clock behind me, my eyelids started to droop—until someone snored loudly and I shot up from my slouched position.

  “Good lord, that’s embarrassing,” Bessie said. I glanced at Mae’s open mouth. “It wasn’t her.” Bessie tipped her head at Alevia whose chin hung limply against her chest, one dark curl fluttering against her mouth as she breathed. “I wouldn’t be caught dead sleeping.” I lifted an eyebrow at Bessie.

  “Really? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about the opera last year.” Bessie had fallen asleep in the middle of Carmen and woken at intermission with a drool stain on her chest. I laughed, remembering it.

  “That was an accident,” she said. She tried to glare at me, but couldn’t keep it up and laughed under her breath instead. “Though I imagine I looked ridiculous regardless. I’d been up all night the night before working on Adelaide Frick’s hat.”

  “A proper lady never allows the demands of the body to compromise her conduct.” I quoted our great-aunt Rose, Bess’s heroine—a woman who’d married rich and profited greatly, until both of her sons squandered her wealth after her husband’s death—and smiled thinly, wagging a finger at Bess. “But truly, Bess, perhaps you should allow yourself a break now and again.” She looked up from the end of the feather that she’d begun to curl between her fingertips. “You’ve been working until nearly dawn every day for weeks on that toque, on the hat for Katherine Delafield, and on our dresses.”

  “I know.” She stared down at the feather. “I know I need to, but I cannot. If I fail, if my income falters . . . I can’t bear the thought of us wearing rags. We were bred for more, Virginia. Until art or marriage affords us luxury, I will not rest.” Standing up, I walked over to her and clutched her shoulder.

  “You have to stop worrying about the rest of us. We’re all capable of making our own way.” Bess nodded, but I knew she hadn’t really heard me. I crossed to the window, unable to sit any longer without falling asleep. Cobwebs occupied the corners, stray strands fluttering in the frigid draft. The grass outside was winter brown and the bare trees rocked back and forth in the wind.

  The door creaked open behind me, startling my view of the lawn, and I spun around in time to see Mr. Smith wheel Cherie into the room. Mae and Alevia’s heads jerked up at once. Alevia yawned, quickly covering her mouth with her hand. Cherie was hugely pregnant. Her normally prominent cheekbones had been eclipsed by swelling, but she smiled at us and rolled her eyes at her husband. Apparently the wheelchair hadn’t been her idea.

  “I apologize. I’ve kept you all waiting so long. William refused to wake me from my nap even though I asked that he do so.” Her lips pursed, brown eyes squinting in annoyance.

  “You need all the rest you can get,” he said softly. Mr. Smith smiled apologetically at us, but his blue eyes were cold. “Miss Virginia, do you have everything you need to paint my lovely wife?” I nodded, and Cherie ducked her head away from her husband to grin slyly at me. Perhaps she didn’t want me to paint her after all.

  “I’m honestly shocked that you didn’t paint yourself, Cherie. You’re so talented,” I said, and she looked at me sharply. Mr. Smith laughed and shook his head.

  “She did make quite an impression with that little hobby of hers once upon a time, didn’t she?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Alevia’s mouth drop open and then close just as quickly. “I can’t remember the last time she’s had time to paint with the baby coming and all of the entertaining.” He shrugged and Cherie’s face paled as she turned her eyes away, refusing to look at us and our wide stares. The fact that such an amazing gift had been shut away stunned us all. He’d undoubtedly discouraged her work. She loved it too much to discard it voluntarily. No one said anything, so Mr. Smith clapped his hands together and started toward the door. “I’ll let you get to it.” He turned at the doorframe. “And Miss Virginia, please watch Cherie’s proximity to the fumes. I’ll not have our son exposed to toxins.” I forced a smile and nodded. He shut the door and Cherie exhaled loudly as though her stays had just been loosened.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She shut her eyes for a moment before bracing herself on the handles of the chair and standing up, hands clasped to her back for support.

  “You haven’t been painting at . . . at all?” Alevia glanced at the piano and then down at the wide panels of pearls and gold spangles along her skirt. I knew what she was thinking, that marriage was a sure way to lose the ability to do what you loved. Perhaps she was right. I’d never thought of the implications when I’d considered marrying Charlie. Primarily because I knew he’d never ask me to forfeit my writing, and secondarily because a profession wasn’t an option for a marriage between two struggling artists, it was a necessity.

  “You heard Mr. Smith. She’s been busy, Alevia,” Mae said softly, narrowing her eyes at our
youngest sister, whose face flamed red at the insinuation that she’d spoken out of turn. Cherie walked past me and stopped at the window. I followed her, unsure if I should tell her where to sit or wait for instruction.

  “No, I haven’t. I either sit in the drawing room and read or take naps. I’d hardly consider that busy.” Cherie’s brown eyes were stony with anger and her lips pressed together. “He just doesn’t want me to do it. It distracts—” She stopped midsentence, pinched her eyes together, and shook her head. “It distracts from the attention I give him and my need to tend to our social obligations and the house. Why the hell are we in here?” As if she hadn’t realized where she was before, she swept her palm along the top of the piano, scattering dust on the floor. “If hosting in this filthy lounge is his attempt at encouraging you to leave quickly, I—”

  “Cherie, I’m sure that’s not the case,” Mae said, interrupting. Bessie coughed and picked at the feather on her hat.

  “I understand your frustration,” Bess said carefully. “I love millinery and would be quite forlorn to give it up. But you have a lovely home and a husband with a respected last name—two blessings most of us aren’t fortunate enough to have. He cares for you.”

  “No, he doesn’t. He cares for the child.” She pointed at her belly to enunciate her point. “He keeps referring to it as his son, as if he knows somehow.” Cherie sank down onto the piano bench, head in her hands. “I’m half relieved Franklin didn’t come. William knows his paintings. It’ll be more believable this way,” she whispered to herself. I crossed the room and knelt down in front of her, pulling her hands from her face.

  “It’s going to be okay, Cherie,” I said. “Come and sit on the longue. I’ll paint you.” Cherie’s eyes met mine and she laughed out loud.

  “Ginny, you couldn’t have thought I was serious. Don’t you remember the one time you tried to paint me when we were children? My head was the shape of a potato and my eyes looked like they were running away from my face.” She stood up, clutching the edge of the piano. “The truth is that I wanted to see you all, but I was absolutely going to die if I couldn’t paint. Ever since that pretentious physician from the city found that William’s closest friend died from heart strain after losing his wife and child, his smothering has been worse. I knew if you came, he’d leave me alone. Gin, how many canvases did you bring?”