Noon at Tiffany's

by Echo Heron

  “You’re staying for dinner?” Alice asked, eyebrows raised. “How did you manage to talk Miss Todd into that again? It must be the third time this week.”

  George moved about the room compulsively touching or rearranging things while he spoke. “I have a commission to do an illustration for a story about the suffragist movement, and when I arrived, I couldn’t help but notice how closely Miss Todd resembles Susan B. Anthony. Seizing the opportunity, I asked if she’d sit for me. She was so pleased about having her likeness in Scribner’s she convinced me to stay for dinner.”

  Though accustomed to George’s inability to remain still or quiet for any length of time, Clara regarded him with a certain amount of fascination. She picked up his hat and hung it on the coat rack. “So what other secrets do you know about Mr. Tiffany that you haven’t already told us?”

  George thought for a moment. “You should be aware that he was born with a lazy tongue and has a tendency to lisp at times.”

  Doubtful, Clara gave him a look. “How is it possible that a family as wealthy as the Tiffanys didn’t hire a speech coach for him?”

  “I believe Charles Tiffany had his own ideas about how to rid his son of the impediment. From what I’ve heard, he thought speech training was a form of mollycoddling. He employed much harsher forms of treatment for Louis—namely, his fists and a rod.”

  Her eyes flickered up to his. “Surely that’s just malicious hearsay?”

  “I’m afraid not. The old man is supposedly quite the tyrant. Evidently, Louis eventually gained enough control over his lisp, that you never hear it—unless he’s nervous or in an ill-temper.”

  George wandered over to the desk and began going through Clara’s portfolio, rocking on his heels. “Why didn’t you ask me to go over your work before you took it to Tiffany?” He held one of her butterfly watercolors to the light.

  Taking the painting from him, Clara returned it to her case. “I did. You said you were too busy.”

  “You should have asked Mr. McBride; he’s the one with the keenest eye.”

  “Actually, he was the first person I asked, but he was too busy with his art classes. I then appealed to Dudley Carpenter, but he was rushing to finish a commissioned portrait for a woman in Queens, and Alice and Josie are much too biased.”

  Incredulous, George stopped preening before the mirror. “You asked Dudley to peruse your work before you asked me? Why, Dud is only a child! He wouldn’t know something good if it hit him in the nose.”

  “Dudley is only two years younger than you are,” Josie pointed out.

  “True enough,” Alice said, “although I agree Dudley does look younger, due to his slender build.”

  George glanced down at his paunch and frowned. “In a good wind, that boy would blow over to New Jersey and never be seen again. At least I have some substance.”

  “Quite a bit, I’d say,” Clara gave a quick glance at the strained buttons of his waistcoat and turned her attention to Mr. Driscoll. “Since we won’t be obliged to entertain Mr. Waldo this evening, we were hoping you might indulge us by reading a chapter or two from The Bostonians?”

  Making as deep a bow as his arthritic hips would allow, Francis Driscoll winked. “At your service, Mademoiselles.”

  27 East Seventy-second Street

  Lenox Hill, Manhattan

  Henry Belknap and Louis Tiffany emptied their brandy snifters as they gazed out over East Seventy-second Street from the turret window of Tiffany’s Lenox Hill mansion. Below, the last horsecars of the night rolled by, harnesses creaking as the horses strained against their breastcollars.

  Over Henry’s protests, Louis handed him a cigar and refilled his brandy snifter. “Have a seat.”

  Reluctantly giving up the night air, Henry sank into a chair opposite his host and surveyed the room. With Persian carpets, potted palms, hanging baskets, copper vats, stuffed peacocks, ceramic elephants and iridescent dragon tiles crammed in every available space, not one clear inch of floor, wall or ceiling was visible. He found the random assortment of clutter suffocating.

  “I’ve had a letter from Sam Clemens,” Louis said. “He’d like us to finish the transom window for the Hartford house before he and his wife leave to go abroad. I thought perhaps the new girl, Miss … Miss …” He waved his cigar, struggling to recall the name.

  “Wolcott,” Henry said. “Clara and Josephine.”

  “Oh, right. I thought I’d have the elder girl, Clara, work on the transom. It shouldn’t be too difficult a project. She seems capable enough, don’t you think?” He lit his cigar and held out the match.

  Henry declined, glancing warily at the cigar that Tiffany had forced on him. The smell alone made him sick. “Capable? My God man, from what I saw of her work, she’s miles beyond capable, she’s positively gifted. You’ve struck gold in hiring the woman, but I expect you already know that.”

  Louis blew smoke rings into the air between them. “I admit her work was intriguing, but then again, women naturally have a superior sense of color and design. I hope Miss Wolcott will follow through and stick with it. I’ve hired other promising girls, but in the end they’re all the same, running off to get married or to have their illegitimate babies.”

  Henry sensed that Clara Wolcott was different—intelligent and fully alive, completely unlike the crowds of pallid, tightly corseted women who regularly infested his mother’s parlor. He thought of those women as flocks of puffy-winged birds, who flitted from one overheated parlor to another, engaging in insipid gossip, every last one of them topped with preposterously large hats that always reminded him of festooned ships on seas of hair. Forsaking any kind of higher education, the lot of them had had nothing but marriage fed to them starting with their mother’s milk, as if the getting of husbands was their only purpose in life.

  “But don’t you get the feeling that this woman is somehow …” Henry paused to think of the right word, “remarkable?”

  Louis shifted his gaze from the window back to Henry. “How do you mean?”

  “Talent and maturity aside, she has a sense of purpose about her, as if she’s determined to be successful. There’s not a hint of artifice about her, and she says what she means.”

  “Yes, well, she certainly has her own ideas about things.” Tiffany drained his glass and, before the residue could gather at the bottom, poured another measure. “As long as she doesn’t allow her own purposes to interfere with mine, she’ll get on all right.”

  Growing up next door to the Tiffanys, Henry had circulated within Louis’s world long enough to have witnessed a man who could, when it suited his ego, be kind and generous. By the same token, he’d also seen the cold-blooded and destructive scoundrel, who seemed devoid of both principle and conscience. Time and again, he’d watched the man sign his own name to what others created without thinking twice. Henry looked down at his hands. “Perhaps you should allow her that.”

  Louis took the cigar from his mouth. “Allow her what?”

  “To explore her own depth instead of being kept within the strict confines of what Tiffany’s requires of her. She just might surprise you.”

  “I’ll be the one to determine when and if she is to be given more responsibility. For now, she’ll do as I tell her. I detected a trace of insolence about her.”

  A smile came to Henry’s lips as he recalled the manner in which Miss Wolcott had maintained her purpose, despite Tiffany’s offensive habit of interrupting and then wandering off the subject at hand. It was a rare few who were ever successful in getting their own views across when disagreeing with him. “I doubt Miss Wolcott has ever had an insolent thought in her life.”

  “If you truly believe that, you are a fool,” Louis scoffed. “If the women of your generation aren’t kept in check, they’ll soon be wearing pants and voting. The very idea is perverse. The next thing we know, women will be running for political office.”

  “That might not be a bad thing. At least we’d be free of war.”

  “In
that case, you are not only politically naive, my friend, but it’s obvious you have never been married. If you had, you would know that the old proverb about women being the gentler sex is a complete myth.

  “She is a fine-looking woman, I’ll admit to that. Too tall, but not without allure.”

  Henry nodded in agreement. “She has a graceful charm about her that makes her seem beautiful.”

  “A graceful charm,” Louis repeated, his face reflecting a sudden sadness. “Do you know, Henry, that when I opened my office door today, I thought for a moment she was May. The resemblance is astonishing, don’t you think?”

  Mildly surprised, Henry shook his head. Louis rarely mentioned the first Mrs. Tiffany or the grim circumstances surrounding her and their son’s untimely deaths. “I remember seeing her at Mother’s afternoon teas, but I was only twelve.”

  Louis’s gaze wandered to the window. “I was sure it was May come back from the grave to take me to task for … everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “My son’s death, her illness, her death. My behavior was …” Tiffany sighed. “I was young and selfish. I didn’t have enough sense to realize how much she meant to me or how much I would miss her. She had a frail constitution; I should never have insisted on dragging her halfway around the world while she was with child.”

  He let his head fall back. “My father blamed me for their deaths, of course; to this day he never misses an opportunity to throw it in my face.” He waved a hand. “I shouldn’t dwell on it—it’s much too maudlin.”

  In the ensuing silence, Henry searched for words of solace. Finding none, he rose to leave. “I’d better be getting home. Mother will be sending out the militia if I’m not there to bid her goodnight and bring her her valerian. It seems the tisane is never so effective as when made by my own hands.”

  Louis squinted, as if sizing him up. “How is it you aren’t married yet, Henry? When I was your age, I was long married and awaiting the birth of my second child.”

  “I’m particular when it comes to women,” Henry said, suddenly uneasy. “I’ve not met many who interest me.”

  “And,” Louis added smugly, “I suspect there are even fewer of whom your mother approves. I wouldn’t call that particular.” Louis studied the end of his cigar. “Peculiar is more like it.”

  Ignoring the jibe, Henry picked up his coat and bid his host goodnight. He’d grown accustomed to Tiffany’s galling nature long ago. It was just one of the many things he would have to warn Miss Wolcott about.

  By the time she burrowed under the covers next to Josie, Clara was too excited to sleep. A light breeze, heavy with the scent of blooming peonies, set the lace curtains moving in a fairy dance that held her mesmerized.

  “If Mr. Driscoll proposed, would you accept?” Josie asked.

  Clara plumped her pillow. “Just because he reads to us and sometimes treats us to an ice cream doesn’t mean he wants to marry me, Josie. Mr. Driscoll is an affable and agreeable companion, who has friendly affections toward both of us, and that’s all there is to the matter.”

  “There’s more to it than that. You seem to have forgotten that when you and Alice moved in, Mr. Driscoll was here only temporarily while his Manhattan flat was being renovated. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that he has continued on here long after the renovations were completed?”

  “Mr. Driscoll is financially prudent. I’m sure he rents out his flat for five times what he pays here.”

  “You aren’t looking at the facts, Clara. He spends all his free time with us, and he’s always happy when he sees you. Now that I think about it, you seem particularly cheerful when he’s around.”

  “You could also say that I’m particularly cheerful when I’m in the company of George, Dudley, or Mr. McBride. That doesn’t mean I want to marry any of them. I’m twenty-six years old, Jo. Mr. Driscoll is a lovely gentleman, but marriage to a widower thirty-one years older than I, and one whom I know very little about?” She gave Josie a disparaging look. “I don’t waste my time thinking of things that will never happen.”

  “But you’re so well suited to each other,” Josie insisted, “Like Mama’s glass mantel clock.”

  “What, pray tell, does that mean?”

  “When you look at the back of the clock you can see the gears and intricate parts working; each piece balances another to produce perfect time without effort.” Josie looked at her, as if the answer were obvious. “Don’t you see? That’s how you and Mr. Driscoll are together.”

  Clara got out of bed and perched on the edge of the windowsill. “It’s a charming image, and for all I know, it might be true, but you’ve ignored the most important factor.”

  “You mean that he hasn’t asked for your hand yet?”

  She rolled her eyes. “No, I mean that married women aren’t allowed to work at Tiffany’s.”

  Outside, a light rain fell, bringing with it a cool breeze. Below, she could hear water trickling from the eaves into the rain barrel. “I’ve worked hard to get to where I am now, let alone how much Mama had to sacrifice to send me to art school.”

  “I suppose,” Josie stared up at the ceiling, “but if something happens to me, I don’t want you to be alone here without family.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to you. You mustn’t think that way.”

  She was distracted by a small spotted skipper moth that landed on a fold of the curtain. “Come for your portrait, have you?” As if it understood, the moth fluttered its wings, giving her a close-up view of forewings banded with bright orange, and the patch of silver that marked each hindwing. She took up her sketchpad and drew the moth in detail, down to the clubbed ends of its antennae, leaving off only when the breeze turned chilly.

  Crawling in next to Josie’s warmth, she watched a spot of cream moonlight creep across the floor until her eyes grew heavy. First thing in the morning she would send word to her mother that her life as an artist was about to blossom.

  Louis unclipped the small key from his watch chain and unlocked the compartment hidden at the back of the top drawer in his desk. He withdrew a leather-bound diary and sat down to write.

  Lenox Hill

  May 7, 1888

  Louise with child. December confinement. I feel it is too soon after the twins’ birth, but I leave that side of women’s business to her physician. I told Louise this one had best be a son for my father’s sake. Four girls and a son, who is likely sterile from mumps, is certain to send the Tiffany name into extinction.

  There will be no sons from brother Burnie, to be sure. I doubt the drunken lout could stay sober long enough to get a woman with child. The only good thing about Burnie is that he is the one subject on which Father and I agree.

  Belknap here tonight to discuss company matters, but left early to attend his mother. He is in dire need of distance from that suffocating grasp. I don’t put stock in this brand of filthy gossip, but, as of late, I’ve heard his name bandied about at the club. He possesses a flawless sense of what will sell, but no matter—such loathsome behavior, if true, or if made common knowledge, would not be tolerated.

  Father regularly reminds me that sales are slow, even though Stanford White brought in a contract for ten large windows to install in his latest architectural feat. I must remember to send him a gold and emerald cravat pin from Father’s shop.

  I’ve hired a new artisan, Miss Clara Wolcott. I suspect she is a diamond of the first water. An excellent eye for color, and her sense of balance and rhythm unusually good. Superb lines and shading. Her sample rendering of a butterfly with its wings pushed backward by the wind stays with me. It was so lifelike I dared not touch it, lest the creature fly off the paper. She will learn leaded glass, and then we’ll see about designing. She lingers in my thoughts, though I dare say that is due to her strong likeness to May.

  I hear the nurse attending to the wailing twins, who are suffering with summer colds. Little Charles has sneaked away from the nursery to beg me once again for a pony, Simpkins
interrupts to ask if I want a bath drawn, and Louise is insisting I come to bed.

  Dear God, how I wish I were in Morocco out on the dunes with nothing more than water, brandy, canvas and paint.

  Louise is on the stair. (I’m hunted down like a beast!) L.C.T.

  ~ 2 ~

  HAD SHE FORESEEN what her life would become in the nine months since she’d taken the position at Tiffany’s, Clara would have dismissed it as fantasy. In a matter of weeks after she had designed her first windows, Mr. Tiffany put her in charge of the women’s glass cutting department. Almost, immediately, there began a never-ending stream of orders for her work.

  By the end of the day, it was all she could do to find her way home and fall into bed. The only time she had to write her letter for the round robin was while she ate her lunch. Clearing a place on her worktable, she put her sandwich and coffee to one side and carefully dipped her pen.

  Noon at Tiffany’s

  March 8, 1889

  Dearest Mama and sisters Kate and Emily,

  The round robin arrived this morning. I couldn’t wait until this evening, so read it as I walked to work, depending on luck to keep me from falling off curbs or bumping into lampposts. I will try to get this written and posted before I return to the madness awaiting me in the workroom. There’s been a flurry of chaos here, with the getting up of four large windows for a rush order and finishing the windows Mr. Tiffany took away from the men’s department. In some ways the work seems to be a mountainous undertaking, but I try to look at it in detail and only with reference to the next minute, perhaps the next hour. When it seems overwhelming and I’m about to jump into the Hudson, I think of the long years I’ve struggled to get to this place, and my confidence is restored.