“So you noticed.” Sylvie laughed. “Jozefa moves to the Palmer House Monday, and I’m sure Rose will miss her. Those two have a connection—a Polish one—that I can’t participate in.”
“Rose has been with Polish people before this. We see them every week at Hull House. What’s the difference?”
A break in the trees showed the lagoon reflecting the electric lights trimming the glass-domed Horticulture Building. Italian gondoliers in fourteenth-century costume steered couples beneath the stars.
“Jozefa brings more glamour, I suppose, being an actress,” Sylvie said. “Rose attended her lecture at the Woman’s Building this week and then joined our tour of the Fair afterwards, going to buildings and exhibits she’s seen with me before.”
“Does Jozefa seem to mind the attention?”
“Not at all.” Sylvie swallowed, still tasting the tea she’d sampled at the Japanese temple on the north end of the island. “In fact, she’s been nothing but kind to Rose, and I’m so grateful. Rose has been more interested in her ethnic heritage lately, and Jozefa has been answering questions that I can’t. They even made pierogis together.”
“Oh, really? Were they delicious?”
Laughter bubbled to the surface. “Let’s just say I think Jozefa has spent more time on stage than at a stove. Still, they had a marvelous time trying.”
Meg chuckled.
They strolled in companionable quiet, veering off the perimeter path and onto the interior walkway. With the longest strides, Nate and Walter were the farthest ahead, while the young ladies kept their pace manageable for Jozefa.
Hazel hurried back to Meg. “Our friends from church are just over there,” she said. “Walter and I will walk with them and meet you at the Rose Garden for the fireworks, all right?” She said it all at once, without leaving space for anything to follow save a nod of agreement from Meg. “Do you want to come, Rose?”
When Rose declined, her two cousins crossed a Rialto bridge and disappeared into the shadows.
“Finally!” Olive cried, claiming her father’s hand. The ribbon in her dark auburn hair matched the white sailor’s collar on her dress. “I have you all to myself at last.”
“Is that so?” Nate looked over his shoulder at Meg. Paper lanterns hanging from the tree branches highlighted the silver threads in his chestnut hair. At the age of fifty-two, the Tribune editor’s steel-blue eyes still sparked with energy. “What about your mother?”
“She has Aunt Sylvie, of course!” Olive threw out her arm in a broad gesture toward where Meg walked with Sylvie.
“That she does.” He offered Olive the crook of his arm and escorted her around the bend. A Columbian Guard stood at attention at the edge of the path. The black pompon topping his cap matched the five horizontal braids crossing his blue jacket.
Jozefa turned to Meg. “You have a lovely family, dear. It’s a pleasure to watch you enjoy each other.”
“Thank you.” Meg smiled. “I’m quite smitten with them, myself.”
Rose pointed to a stone bench framed by spears of iris foliage. Behind it was a bed of English phlox in stunning mixed colors. “Would you like to rest for a spell? I’m sure we have plenty of time before the fireworks begin.” She glanced at Sylvie. “Meet you there? At the clematis bed.”
With a grateful sigh, Jozefa limped off the path and lowered herself to the seat. “I’m not old, mind you.” Indeed, she was only a few years beyond Sylvie. “It’s these shoes. Not made for a walk in the woods, however smooth the trail. But you go on, ladies. We’ll find you in the garden before it’s time.”
Sylvie agreed.
The path circled toward the center of the island, past a variety of wildflowers in muted yellows, oranges, and purples. In a small stream nearby, she heard the splash of a turtle falling off a log. Frogs twanged.
“Do you mind at all?” Meg asked.
“Mind what?” But Sylvie knew exactly what her sister meant. “I admit I’m a little surprised at how quickly they’ve forged their friendship. But I understand.”
“We predicted this might happen. Her searching for her roots, for her family. What a miracle that Mr. Janik came forward and answered some questions for her.”
Sylvie took the empty picnic basket from Meg and looped it over her elbow. “I agree. I’m so glad for her. But she told me she wishes a long-lost relative would come forward. I should have just told her that would be wonderful, since the odds of that happening are so small. Instead, I replied that a claim like that would be difficult to prove.”
“She didn’t like that?” Meg’s glance swept over plantings of coreopsis and goldenrod.
Sylvie sent her sister a wry smile. “She said I was the one being difficult. So of course I felt compelled to point out that a man could approach her claiming to be kin, ask to take her out for a soda or ice cream, and never bring her home again. At least Jozefa agreed with me. Girls go missing in Chicago all the time, even more so at the Fair.”
“It’s terrible. You’re right to be careful, even if Rose doesn’t see it that way.”
Their steps took them around the pavilion where the John Philip Sousa Band had been playing an hour ago. In the open space surrounding it, paper cups, napkins, apple cores, and popcorn littered the grass.
“Do you feel, in any way . . .”—Meg waited until she had Sylvie’s full attention—“rejected?”
“I don’t mind her wanting to find her family history,” Sylvie replied.
“Then, what troubles you?”
Sylvie caught a firefly in her palm, closing her fingers over the pulsing yellow glow. “Rose is practically lunging to launch herself out of the safe little nest I’ve worked so hard to provide. I’m doing my best to prepare for when she leaves for good.” She released the firefly and watched it fly away. “You know how it is. They grow up so fast.”
“Yes.” Her sister’s voice was suddenly thick. “If we’re lucky, they do grow up.”
“Oh, Meg,” Sylvie murmured. “I’m sorry. With all the activity with Jozefa and the Fair, I forgot that we’re approaching the anniversary of Louise’s death. Forgive me.”
“I can’t imagine forgetting.” Her tone was flat and held no judgment or accusation. Her steps slowed, and a couple passed them on the walkway. “Louise would be close to Rose’s age, had she lived.”
Sylvie knew. She ought to have been more mindful of that before confessing her dread over the day Rose would leave home. Rose was only doing the right and natural thing, exerting her independence. When she left, it would only be a change of address. There was simply no comparing that to when Meg lost Louise to typhoid.
Meg, who had been large with child in the waning summer of 1885, had been with Nate and eight-year-old Louise in the child’s room. Sylvie had stayed with Walter, Hazel, and Rose elsewhere in the house. Nate’s sister, Edith, had been there, too, and so had Father, bless him. Stephen had paced a path on the parlor rug until she thought he’d wear a track into it, a prayer for his youngest grandchild ever on his lips. “Take me instead, God. Spare the child and call me home.”
Then came the scream. Everything stopped in the house except for Meg’s keening. Frightened, wide-eyed children looked to Edith and Sylvie, and Father’s footsteps finally ceased in front of the mantel, where he stopped the clock from ticking, then sank to his knees.
No one knew then that he would follow Louise to heaven two weeks later.
Olive was born two days after Louise died. She came early, as if rushing to fill her grieving mother’s arms. Meg was so distraught over Louise, and the birth was so difficult, that she’d barely had strength for the labor.
Meg never spoke of Louise’s final hours or what it had been like to bring new life in the wake of death. Perhaps it was too sacred, or too awful. Perhaps both.
“Are—are you painting much these days?” Over the years, Sylvie had been able to gauge Meg’s frame of mind by the answer to this question. Her art shows drew a crowd whenever she held them. Even more importan
t than the income it provided, it served as a creative outlet that both soothed and filled her spirit. Meg needed to paint as much as Sylvie needed books.
“It’s been a few weeks.”
Sylvie tried to hide her concern. “Then, I take it, it’s been hard for you this year.” The anniversary of Louise’s death, she meant, but didn’t say again.
“It’s hard for me every year, Sylvie.” Meg stretched her fingers away from her palms, a practice she’d maintained to combat the relentless pull of scar tissue after her hands had been burned during the Great Fire. Surely the scars on her heart contracted no less. “One does not simply get over the death of one’s child.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Crickets chirped. An electric lamppost illuminated the palette of plants and trees behind it. Pine trees released their spicy scent into the air.
“I know.” Meg sighed. “Thank goodness for Olive Louise. God granted me another daughter when I needed her most. The Lord takes away, and He gives.”
“Yes, Olive is a gift, indeed.”
Music floated toward her as they approached the entrance to the Rose Garden. “Have you been here yet?” Sylvie asked.
Meg’s smile, though forced, showed a valiant effort. “I haven’t. Please, Miss Tour Guide, tell me all about it.”
Sylvie squeezed her arm in understanding. If her brave sister was willing to find relief—or at least distraction—in roses, Sylvie was happy to share. As she led her sister beneath a gigantic burr oak tree and through the north gate into the garden, she told her that this one-acre rectangle held two thousand varieties of roses on fifty thousand bushes, but that wasn’t all. Bordering the entire space were pink and yellow hollyhocks, blue larkspur, and purple-speckled foxgloves.
A violin duet accompanied their stroll between beds of flowers from California, Germany, the Netherlands, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Chicago. Sylvie pointed out favorite varieties she thought would catch her sister’s beauty-loving fancy, from the light yellow tea rose Perle des Jardins to a creamy pink one called Grace Darling.
Smiling, Meg bent to smell each one, lingering over a bright pink hybrid perpetual called American Beauty. “How charming,” she said. “This color is incredibly rich.”
Sylvie watched her study the petals without touching them, though she could tell Meg itched to do so. “Why don’t you try capturing that color on canvas?”
“I’m not a botanical artist.” Meg straightened. “I paint people. Life.”
“Then paint life. You’re surrounded by it, you know.” Sylvie extended her arm, palm raised. People of all walks of life, ages, and ethnicities had gathered in a rose garden for the promise of fireworks on a summer night.
“Real life,” Meg said. “Not artificially orchestrated displays.”
She’d made a name for herself in the Chicago art world with her first art show twenty-two years ago, depicting scenes from the aftermath of the Great Fire. The next show displayed the Great Rebuilding of the city. Ever since then, she’d been painting humanity in all its beauty and frailty. Her series on the Hull House neighborhoods was hanging in the Woman’s Building right now. Meg painted what she cared about, and in turn, the painting cared for her, too.
Which was why Sylvie wouldn’t back down. “The setting may be artificial. The people here are not.”
Meg pressed her lips flat, and Sylvie gently guided her toward the four beds of clematis in the center of the garden.
“There you are.” Threading their way between other fairgoers, Nate and Olive joined them. “You look thoughtful, Meg. What did I miss?”
Sylvie prayed she’d just found an ally. “I was just telling Meg she ought to bring her paints to the Fair and capture some of the scenes here. What do you think?”
Nate raised his eyebrows. “There would be no end to the possibilities here, that’s certain.”
“And can you imagine how popular your paintings will be?” Sylvie pressed. “Photographers need to pay for a special license to take pictures, but there’s no restriction on painting.”
“Let’s be practical, Sylvie,” Meg replied. “Not all of us have a season pass like you and Rose do. Outside the White City, times are hard.”
Nate slipped his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Times are not so hard as that. We can pay your entrance fees if this is what you want to do. With Walter, Hazel, and me working all day, it would do you good.”
Sylvie heartily agreed.
Olive touched her mother’s elbow, dismay written in her expression. “Do I have to come and watch you paint?”
Sylvie jumped in before Meg could use Olive as an excuse. “Just come on the days I’m here, and I’ll make sure you have fun, Olive. I know all the best places to see. Have you ever heard of a knight on horseback—made solely of prunes? I can show that to you in the California building. What about a castle made of soap? That’s in Manufactures. In the Agriculture building, you can find a building made from corn, a chocolate statue of Christopher Columbus, and a map of the United States made entirely of pickles!”
Nate laughed. “And here I thought you might show her something educational. Not that a map doesn’t have value.”
Olive wrinkled her nose. “But it’s summer!”
Sylvie bent. “It’s all right, honey. Tell me what you learned about this year.”
“George Washington.”
“Perfect. The Virginia Building is an exact replica of his home, Mount Vernon. What else?”
“Well, Christopher Columbus, of course.”
Of course. Sylvie expected all schoolchildren in Chicago had studied the explorer in honor of the World’s Columbian Exposition. “We could see a replica of the Santa Maria. It sailed across the Atlantic to get here from Spain.”
Olive raised a delicate eyebrow. “We also learned about the six days of creation and the animal kingdom.”
“The birds of the air, the fish of the sea? We can visit the Ostrich Farm and Hagenback’s Animal Show on the Midway, and the Fisheries Building has all kinds of fish, plus a shark and octopus and electric eels. Perhaps a camel ride would be in order, too?”
Green eyes rounding, Olive spun toward Meg. A tendril of hair blew across her face and she tucked it behind her ear. “Can we? The World’s Fair in our own city is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, after all. For both of us!” She grinned.
“Well! When you put it that way, how could I resist?” Meg said. To Sylvie, she whispered, “Are you sure you have time to entertain Olive?”
“I have no tours scheduled for Monday, and the store is always closed that day. Why don’t we plan for then?”
The violin music stopped, which meant the fireworks would be starting soon. White moths fluttered near the evenly spaced lanterns, and fireflies blinked above the blooms.
“Over here!” Olive waved, and Sylvie followed her line of sight, smiling when she spotted Rose and Jozefa making their way toward them. Olive sprang forward and clasped Rose’s hand. “My mother and I are coming back to the Fair soon. While she paints, Aunt Sylvie is going to show me a castle made of soap and a map of pickles.”
“She is?” Rose straightened the bow on Olive’s collar. “That sounds like a lot more fun than the tours I’ve been on with her.”
“Do you want to come?” Olive asked. “My father says I have to see something educational, too, but we might also ride the camels, so it would be worth it. You can come with us if you want.”
“Only if I can ride a camel, too. Would you make room for me on yours if I asked you nicely?” Rose waggled her eyebrows, eliciting laughing agreement from Olive.
“If you come with us, sweetheart, we’ll even ride Mr. Ferris’s wheel,” Sylvie promised.
Rose drew herself up tall, propping one hand on her hip. “Deal! It’s high time, after all.” She grinned at her own play on words, then squeezed Olive’s hand. “You won’t be scared, will you, Olive?”
This was the Rose Sylvie was accustomed to. Warm, engaging, ready for adventure
but still looking out for others. Taking a cue from the young woman, Sylvie approached Jozefa, who was admiring a waterfall of mauve clematis blooms tumbling over a trellis. “How are your feet holding up?”
“They’re protesting.” Jozefa chuckled. “But I’m ignoring them. This garden alone is worth any discomfort. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Sylvie supposed no one had. “I’m so glad you’re enjoying it. I know Rose has especially enjoyed your company this last week.” She added, “I appreciate it, too. I’ve done my best with her, but—”
Jozefa raised her hand, lantern light catching on a garnet ring that matched the jewels in her ears. The burgundy jacket she wore shimmered over a white shirtwaist ruffled at the neck. “You’ve done your best, period. That’s all anyone can do. She’s lucky to have you, and no matter how it may seem, she knows it.”
Sylvie smiled her heartfelt thanks.
A boom cracked through the night, commanding everyone’s attention. Applause accompanied the starburst of red embers. Inhaling the overwhelming sweetness of this place, Sylvie watched her family take it in. Nate held Meg close, his spectacles reflecting the light. Heedless of getting her skirt dirty, Rose knelt beside an awestruck Olive, her puffed sleeve pressed into her cousin’s shoulder as she pointed up.
But not everyone was looking skyward. One man was riveted by—Rose. When his gaze met Sylvie’s, he looked away with such sharpness that she wondered at it. There was something about him that registered. Ivan?
Sylvie stepped around Nate and Meg to get a better view of him. He was walking away from her now, ignoring the second burst of fireworks in the sky.
She heard Nate hailing Walter and Hazel, then guiding Meg and Olive toward them. She didn’t follow. Instead, she maneuvered between clusters of people, moving tentatively after the man who had been watching Rose.
Shadows of the White City Page 6