The Invitation

by Belinda Alexandra

  If you contact Monsieur Depaul at the address enclosed, he will organise your passage and other arrangements. I will also instruct him to pay a deposit to your debtors to demonstrate good faith. The rest of the money shall be forwarded when Isadora is successfully married to a suitable companion. To that end, I anticipate you will need to stay in New York until at least May.

  During this time you will be a guest in our home and I expect you to conduct yourself with decorum. Under no circumstances are you to reveal that you are an authoress. I will give you further instructions when you arrive.

  Your Faithful Sister,

  Caroline

  I took my handkerchief from my sleeve and patted my cheeks and neck, then had to read the letter through slowly twice more to assure myself that I wasn’t dreaming.

  Caroline’s condescending tone both irritated and amused me. Conduct yourself with decorum — what did she think I was? A savage? Her insinuation that my career was shameful infuriated me, as did her assumption that I could simply drop my own life to be at her beck and call.

  But the point that most confounded me was her reference to Isadora having an ‘affliction’. The only thing wrong with Isadora that I could detect was that she was acutely shy. It could have been a family trait because Oliver’s mother and sister had also been that way. But I suspected the condition had another cause: Caroline’s formidable personality would terrify any sensitive soul. If my sister hadn’t gone away to New York while I was still young I might have ended up as tongue-tied and lacking in confidence as Isadora.

  Then I smiled. Perhaps God hadn’t deserted me after all. Two extraordinary avenues had opened up before me. Firstly, I would be able to keep my beloved home and give Paulette a decent pension. Secondly, I would have a chance to get to know my sweet niece, and perhaps to help her in some way. What potential lay behind those beautiful, sad eyes? Although I had only seen Isadora for a few fleeting moments, she had affected me greatly. The age gap between us was almost the same as the age gap between Caroline and me, but how differently I would treat Isadora from the way my sister had treated me. I would be her friend, her confidante, her protector and guide.

  ‘Tell me again your reasons for going to New York,’ asked Claude, studying me across the table. From the frown on his face it was clear he thought I was about to do something foolish. ‘Your sister seems to only use you or else completely disregard you. Why would you willingly continue with such abuse?’

  I tore off a piece of bread from the loaf in front of me and dipped it into my café au lait. We were eating our supper at the table in the corner of Claude’s studio. He had a small two-room apartment down the hall where he slept and kept his books and household items. The white-painted studio and its bare wooden floors were clear of anything except artwork and supplies. During the day the space was filled with light from the three large windows, but in the lamplight shadows danced about the walls and ceilings like magical beings.

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with Caroline and everything to do with my niece, Isadora,’ I said. ‘She’s the only blood relation I have besides my sister and I want to get to know her.’

  Claude grimaced, unconvinced.

  I stared at my hands. I hated keeping secrets from the people I loved: firstly, Grand-maman about Isadora; and now Claude about my debts. While it was true I was keen to get to know Isadora, he had no idea of my other motive. Caroline wasn’t offering me a loan as I’d requested. She was willing to pay my debts in full! I would be able to keep the apartment I loved, and Claude and I would have a more secure future. We’d never have to worry about rent, and he could focus on his painting and I could concentrate on my writing. And perhaps he wouldn’t be so reluctant then to start a family.

  Claude tried again. ‘Seeing Caroline occasionally is one thing . . . but staying in her house in New York for months? You can’t trust her. She might be trying to trap you in some way.’

  ‘Trap me?’

  It was true that Caroline’s erratic nature meant I could never trust her. Every decision she made was stacked heavily in her favour. But in reality she had nothing to gain from me except a sense of being superior. She would enjoy making me jump when she said ‘jump’ because she knew I was desperate for money.

  ‘I can bear it for a little while,’ I said. ‘Besides, I’m no longer a child. Now I can observe her with a writer’s keen eye. And being in New York might fuel some story ideas.’

  Claude didn’t answer. Instead, he picked up our cups and saucers and took them to the sink. While he washed them, I leaned back in my chair and cast my eyes over the series of paintings he was completing. They showed milliners and their beaus picnicking in the forest of Fontainebleau. The setting and the people were so alive and natural it was as if I could reach out and touch them and laugh along with them. How I longed to share their carefree spontaneity.

  ‘If I end up staying in New York longer than planned, you will have to come and join me,’ I told Claude. ‘The city might offer artistic inspiration for both of us. Besides, the only thing that I’m truly concerned about regarding this trip is being away from you.’

  He laughed. ‘If you aren’t back by spring, I will come and rescue you! I’m worried about you, Emma. I don’t like this situation at all. You will be in a city where you have no friends and with someone who doesn’t have your best interests in mind.’

  It warmed my heart when Claude was caring and protective of me. I stood up and put my arms around his waist. He pressed my head to his chest and kissed my hair.

  ‘Let’s sleep on it,’ I said. ‘And see what answers we find in the morning.’

  The following afternoon, I stepped off the omnibus in Montmartre to find Claude waiting for me at the stop.

  ‘I have someone I want you to meet,’ he said. ‘She’s an American artist and something of a radical.’

  Curious, I walked with him uphill to Rue Rodier, past the vegetable-sellers with their cane baskets overflowing with cauliflowers and potatoes, and past a rag-and-bone man hauling a cart stinking of fatty grease from the scraps he’d collected. Claude stopped in front of a ramshackle building above a cane furniture store. One of the windows upstairs was open and somebody was whistling ‘J’ai du bon tabac’.

  ‘Don’t be deceived by appearances,’ said Claude with a grin. ‘Florence Garrett is the daughter of a wealthy congressman but she has lived in Paris for the past ten years as an independent woman. She has made a great success with her art.’

  He directed me up the building’s narrow staircase ahead of him, and when we reached the second floor he knocked on the bright blue door of an apartment. A pair of cat’s eyes and whiskers had been painted on it. The sharp odours of linseed oil and turpentine from a painter’s studio wafted in the air.

  ‘The door’s open,’ called a female voice from inside. ‘Come in.’

  We entered a room that was the opposite of the monastic atmosphere of Claude’s studio. Every wall was covered in canvases from the ceiling to the floor. Stacks of books were piled on a faded Persian rug, a chaise longue and an upright piano. Near the window a painting of a King Charles spaniel leaned against a potted red hypericum, over which were draped a dog leash and collar. But the most extraordinary feature was a washing line strung wall to wall, with used envelopes, leaflets and torn pieces of newspaper pegged to it instead of clothes.

  In the middle of this muddle sat a woman at an easel, applying the finishing touches to a painting of street musicians. A white cat was asleep in her lap. The woman wore a tailored dress with skilfully placed darts and seams that gave shape to her tall, narrow body. Her dark blonde hair was neatly pinned, and her skin was smooth and unblemished. Despite the fact she was working, there wasn’t a smear of paint anywhere on her clothing. As for the cat, its coat had been brushed to silky smoothness and around its neck was a pink velvet ribbon with three bells. An elastic glove-fastener had been ingeniously added to create an expandable clasp.

  ‘Claude!’ the woman cried, standing
and placing the cat on top of the piano stool. She quickly cleaned her brush, then came over to greet us.

  After kissing Claude’s cheeks in greeting, she took my hand. ‘You must be the talented Mademoiselle Emma Lacasse that Claude has been telling me about.’ She stared deeply into my eyes with her intense blue ones, giving me the impression she was trying to assess what kind of person I was. Then she smiled as if she had found something remarkable in me. ‘I’m Florence Garrett.’

  She was perhaps thirty-five years of age, and on the collar of her dress I noticed the pin of the Société Protectrice des Animaux. Its symbol was an angel preventing a man from beating a fallen horse.

  ‘You know, I read your short story collection in one night and didn’t sleep a wink,’ she added. ‘It was very atmospheric and breathtakingly original.’

  I blushed at her compliment and turned to her paintings to hide my embarrassment. ‘These are magnificent!’

  Her style was impressionist, but her women weren’t sitting in gardens or at the piano or taking tea. Florence’s women were working with their sleeves rolled up — laundresses, merchants, grape-pickers. There were also many paintings of dogs, cats, chickens and horses.

  I turned my attention to the washing line with the pieces of paper pegged to it. There were sentences scribbled over them.

  Florence let out a bright, crystal-clear laugh when she caught me looking at them. ‘I wish my ideas for articles or a painting would come when I’m ready to receive them. But I never seem to be near my desk or my notebook when my muse starts talking, so I jot my ideas down on whatever I find, then try to put them in some order.’

  ‘So you are a writer too?’ I asked her.

  ‘Not of novels, but I do write for several journals here in Paris and New York. My topic is social reform.’

  ‘It certainly is an exciting time in France,’ I told her, ‘with the government about to pass legislation to limit the working day and to make arbitration of labour disputes compulsory.’

  Claude picked up the cat and cradled it in his arms. ‘Florence is planning to return to New York soon,’ he told me. ‘She’s giving an exhibition to raise funds for a school for immigrant children. She’s also been commissioned to paint a mural.’

  ‘I’ve enjoyed my stay in Paris,’ Florence explained, ‘but it’s time for me to return home. Claude tells me you are intending to go to New York for a while? He asked me to travel across with you on the ship. If you have to be in New York by 1 October, that means taking the French line from Le Havre on 22 September.’

  I glanced at Claude and the penny dropped. This was why he was introducing me to Florence: so I would have a companion to travel with. Part of me was touched that he cared enough to find someone for me to travel with to New York; the other part wished he wasn’t quite so understanding about being separated from me for several months.

  ‘I am visiting my sister and niece,’ I said, feeling too self-conscious to elaborate. ‘My sister is paying my fare as a gift.’

  ‘You’ll like New York,’ Florence said. ‘It will give you a fresh eye on things. I’m tired of not being able to walk around in Paris on my own without being harassed by someone of the male sex. I’m sure that’s why women have traditionally painted flowers and fruit — so they don’t have to deal with all the obstacles of leaving the house.’

  Claude lowered the cat to the floor and it scampered off to drink from a bowl of water with the name Minette painted on the side. ‘If you go to New York to develop yourself as a writer, I can feel better about it,’ he said, but he had trouble meeting my eye. ‘Knowing that Florence will be there if you need a friend reassures me that you will be fine.’

  ‘Of course she’ll be fine,’ said Florence. ‘She’s not a child, Claude!’ Turning to me she added, ‘American readers are having a love affair with Gothic and fantastic fiction. Europe has its history, but New York will soon be the cultural capital of the world. Everything is happening there. It’s an exciting place to be.’

  Florence offered us some tea and we accepted. She put the kettle on the stove, and cleared the chaise longue and an armchair of books so we had somewhere to sit. As we sipped our tea, she chatted about the shows and plays we could see together on Broadway.

  Claude interrupted her to ask if she was staying in New York for a while or whether she intended to travel around.

  ‘No, my exhibition and the mural will keep me in the city,’ she said, and smiled at me over the rim of her teacup. ‘It sounds to me, Emma, that Claude is nervous you might find somebody else and he wants me to keep an eye on you. Well, do you remember what the serpent tempted Eve with? It wasn’t fine jewels or fancy clothes. It was knowledge. For centuries men have been terrified of what might happen to women if they gain the knowledge that comes with freedom.’

  Florence was wrong about what was really bothering Claude, but he smiled good-naturedly at her. ‘Yes, you are right, Florence. Goodness knows what Emma will get up to if I let her go free.’

  Monsieur Depaul, the lawyer who was to organise my passage to New York and pay a goodwill bond to my debtors, had an office on the Île de la Cité. When I entered it the air was heavy with the spiciness of tobacco, although no one was smoking.

  A clerk directed me to Monsieur Depaul’s desk and introduced me, but the lawyer — a small man with a receding hairline and a salt-and-pepper beard — gave me only a cursory glance through his rimless glasses. He indicated for me to sit down, and took a sheet of blank paper from a pile on his desk and began to write a note.

  I sat awkwardly, listening to his pen creak and his noisy breathing. It hissed in and out of his body with a sound that reminded me of fire bellows.

  ‘I’ve never been to New York,’ I said. ‘Have you ever visited the city, Monsieur Depaul?’

  He ignored my remark, folded the note and placed it in a box behind him. Then he pushed a piece of ledger paper in front of me and pointed to some figures. ‘Fifteen per cent of your debts will be paid to Roche & Associates upon your departure for the United States. The firm has agreed to accept the final amount, plus interest, by 30 May 1900. If for any reason you cancel your agreement with Mrs Oliver Hopper, you will be responsible for the full amount immediately, including the initial deposit.’ He indicated a line at the bottom of the page. ‘Sign here if you agree.’

  A stirring of anxiety tingled in my veins. The ledger paper brought home how much Caroline viewed my visit as a business transaction. It didn’t seem that Monsieur Depaul was even aware that I was her sister. But what choice did I have? I signed the paper and passed it back to him.

  Monsieur Depaul opened the drawer of his desk, took out an envelope and handed it to me.

  ‘I wish you a safe voyage, Mademoiselle Lacasse.’

  It was an abrupt dismissal. I stood and waited for him to see me to the door but he showed no sign of moving. I might be an independent woman but that didn’t mean I couldn’t give and receive common courtesies.

  ‘Well,’ I said to the clerk on my way out, ‘I hope the men in New York have better manners.’

  Outside on the street, I took a couple of breaths to regain my composure before checking inside the envelope that Monsieur Depaul had given me. I took out the one-way ticket for my journey by steamship and perused the cursive script.

  This ticket entitles the bearer, Emma Virginie Lacasse, passage from Le Havre to New York on 22 September 1899 on board the . . .

  Despite my trepidation about leaving Paris, my blood began to stir with a sense of adventure. Weren’t the steamships that crossed the Atlantic beautifully appointed? Did elegant dinners in a saloon with a domed skylight and walls papered in white and gold lincrusta await me? Would I be writing about my journey at a mahogany desk in a cabin furnished with velvet carpet and a canopied bed?

  I was lost in my visions of a luxurious ocean voyage until my eyes fell on the last words on the ticket: second-class passage.

  ‘Well, at least we can say that a leopard doesn’t change its spot
s,’ said Claude when I showed him the ticket at his studio later.

  I leaned against the wall and stared out the window at the treetops. ‘I can’t believe my sister, one of the richest women in New York, would send me a second-class fare when she herself always travels first class. If I was going to New York of my own volition of course I would travel second class. But when she summons me to New York and buys me a second-class passage it is an insult. Does she think I’m going to be a governess to my niece?’

  Claude tossed the ticket onto the table and put his arm around me. ‘Second class on the French line is still going to be very comfortable,’ he said, a grin on his face. ‘Now if she was sending you steerage on an immigrant ship, I would not let you go.’

  My mouth twitched and I tried to suppress a smile. ‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. She’s outrageous!’

  Claude’s eyes darkened and he turned serious again. ‘You’d better keep a sense of humour about your sister — I believe she will have plenty more slights for you yet. But if you’re still determined to go, you must stick to your intention of viewing everything from a writer’s perspective.’

  ‘How will I tell Florence I’m travelling second class?’ I asked him. ‘It will be humiliating. I won’t see her on the ship at all.’

  Claude picked up the ticket and handed it to me. ‘I think you’ll find Florence much more accommodating than you give her credit for. Why don’t you go and tell her now?’

  SEVEN

  On my way to Florence’s studio, I pondered all the ways I could explain my situation to her. The best I could come up with was that the booking agent had made a mistake and it was too late for me to change it now. I was too embarrassed to explain that my wealthy sister was a penny-pincher when it came to me.

  When I arrived at the apartment on Rue Rodier, I found Florence on her way out. She was carrying a basket filled with an assortment of yellow flowers: sunflowers, chrysanthemums and daisies. When I showed her my ticket and gave her my excuse, she was unperturbed.