Clara and Mr. Tiffany

by Susan Vreeland

  “Take advantage of irregularities and happy accidents of coloring. When you find an area that satisfies you, use a narrow grease pencil to trace the paper pattern onto the glass, and give it to your cutter.”

  “What if it’s in the middle of a sheet of glass?” Alice asked.

  “That’s all right. Nothing will be wasted.”

  I showed them the traditional method of securing the pieces together with flexible lead strips called cames. “Look straight at the end of this came. See how it’s shaped like the capital letter I with a groove on both sides? That’s so it surrounds the edges of two pieces of glass at once. When all the pieces are stuck to the glass easel with wax and the cames are in place, the window will go to the Glazing Department, where the cames will be soldered and patinated.”

  “We’re not permitted to see it when it’s finished?” Minnie asked.

  “Not usually.”

  “But you can sneak into the men’s department when they’re having their beer break at three o’clock and take a look, and no one’s the wiser,” Wilhelmina said.

  I pretended exasperation, and went on to explain Mr. Tiffany’s new method for smaller pieces or complicated patterns. In those cases, narrow strips of thin copper foil were wrapped around the edges of each piece of glass. In order to make it stick, the side of the foil that would touch the glass was coated with beeswax. The outer side of the foil was treated with muriatic acid, which allowed the solder to bond the foiled edges of two pieces of glass.

  “After each piece of glass is cut and foiled, the assistants apply a spot of beeswax on the back of it and stick it onto the clear easel. That helps the selector see what she’s building up.”

  Mr. Belknap came into the studio, so I gave the girls their assignments and had them begin. He showed me a small brochure titled Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Glass Mosaics, 1895, and told me to look on the second page. There it was in black and white: “Many of the firm’s great mosaic projects have been executed by women.”

  “Wonder of wonders! It’s the first time he’s publicly acknowledged that the fifth floor exists. He didn’t waste much ink, though. Just a little more and he could have put in my name.”

  “Then what would you do with it?”

  Show it to Edwin. I wanted him to understand what I would be giving up if I married him. If. If. The big If.

  I lifted my shoulders. “It just hurts to be anonymous.”

  He offered a consoling look. “The Philharmonic is presenting a Mozart program. Are you at liberty to accompany me the Saturday after next?”

  After only a moment’s hesitation I replied, “Yes. I love Mozart.”

  “Then let’s meet at Sherry’s, Fifth Avenue at Thirty-seventh, at five o’clock for dinner first. Oh, and Mr. Tiffany wants you to come to his office.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  His precisely drawn eyebrows lifted in unison. “Something is very right!”

  Humming mysteriously, he accompanied me downstairs, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was. When I peeked in the open door little Napoléon was hopping, actually hopping from side to side, next to Mr. Nash.

  “Look, Clara! A breakthrough! Iridescence on blown glass! We’ve done it!”

  The second breakthrough: my first name. He used my first name.

  A dozen vases stood on the display table. Iridescence bathed the full bodies of some, and only glinted in decorative gesture strokes on others. He pranced around the table, and we looked at them together from all angles.

  “They’re gorgeous. I knew you would succeed.”

  He was breathing the heady ether that lingers after high moments of life, and I was inhaling his exhale. Though my department had nothing to do with blown glass, he had called me downstairs to see what was so vital to him, knowing I would rejoice with him. That had to mean something.

  “We’ve been calling it Favrile glass to make the Italian term, fabrile, for ‘handmade,’ sound more French,” Mr. Tiffany explained.

  “When do you think you’ll begin selling them?”

  “Not yet. This first year’s production will go to museums—the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs du Louvre, and the Imperial Museum of Tokyo.”

  “What about the Metropolitan? You’re leaving out your own hometown!”

  He lifted his chin, as though that would make him taller to match this success. “Henry Havemeyer has promised to purchase at least fifty to present to them. I’m setting aside the finest for him.”

  With a pang, I thought, How could I ever think of leaving this melting pot of creativity? Or leaving him? He had mentioned my department in the brochure, a sure sign of broader recognition to come. And he had wanted to share his triumph with me—no other woman. Now, with connections to the world’s greatest museums, what might the future of my own work be? Would it ever be in a museum? What about our secret of leaded-glass lampshades?

  ON MY BED that evening lay a letter under a single creamy white rose.

  My dear Clara,

  May I call you that? I have done so in my own mind for months.

  I can see you are the archetype of an independent woman who lives singly, experiences broadly, and has a fine and satisfying vocation. I respect you for that, but I promise that you will have more adventures with me than by yourself.

  I’ve been extremely busy, which is the only thing that has kept me from your doorstep day and night. Wednesday evening I met with a group beginning to organize a Citizens Union to support governmental reform in the interests of the common citizen. J. P. Morgan was there. I made my last speech at eleven-thirty. Then last night was the meeting of the Allied Political Clubs and I was at work all afternoon and until midnight with them. The striking garment workers are having a starving time. I am doing all I can to help them, and am confident they will win. I’m scheduled to speak at another mass meeting at the Great Hall of the Cooper Union on Monday evening. There will be plenty of left-wing progressives there to hear me. They have asked me to run for the State Assembly, but it’s the wrong time if we go to Mexico. (I am using “we” even though you haven’t said yes, so you will get used to the idea. I hope I will hear it from your lips soon.) If they want me now, they’ll want me in a year or two, and then I’ll have seed money to mount a campaign. So, as I promised you, life with me will be adventurous.

  I am studying Spanish.

  Con amor,

  Tu apasianado Edwin

  Oh, sweet Edwin! How fast his thinking flew. Feverishly fast. It bedazzled me.

  Despite my admiration for his commitment to social concerns, he would have done just as well sending only the rose. One rose alone. I appreciated his restraint from Gilded Age excess, but more than that, I appreciated the reflectiveness a single bloom offers. This one, not fully open, had no blemish visible to signal a premature demise, unless one lurked unseen in the whorl of its petals. From what I could see now, the curled petals promised the joy of a full life in which, yes, there might be extraordinary adventures. Yet I longed to render roses in glass. My double-lobed heart split with a thunderous crack, Mr. Tiffany and Edwin each claiming half.

  I sat on my bed in a haze, twirling the rose between my thumb and finger until a solution presented itself. I would have to convince Mr. Tiffany to change his policy—if not for all, then just for me, if I could get him to consider me indispensable. If I couldn’t, and if I did marry Edwin, I might come to resent it as my second marriage of sacrifice. In the months ahead, I would have to be brilliant enough that Mr. Tiffany would grant me anything.

  CHAPTER 11

  CHRYSANTHEMUM

  I ARRIVED AT WORK THE NEXT DAY TO FIND WILHELMINA SITTING on my desk.

  “I will be married soon,” she said, “so I guess that means I have to leave.”

  “I won’t hear of it. You’re too young.” I gave her a backhand wave, and she hopped off.

  “I’m eighteen. Old enough. My mother married younger than that in Sweden.” />
  “You told me you were seventeen when I hired you, and that was three years ago!”

  She looked me dead in the eye. “I lied.”

  Momentary shock turned to anger that I’d been duped. “You’re a liar, then? You lied about that black eye too. Your mother did that, didn’t she?”

  “Doesn’t matter. I want what’s due me so I can set up a room for us.”

  “For you and this butcher boy? You’re serious, then.”

  “He has a name, Mrs. Driscoll. It’s Ned Steffens, and he loves me.”

  “This studio means nothing to you? The joy in the work? This is a good life, Wilhelmina, infinitely better than what you would have … otherwise. You’re a fine selector, one of the best.”

  “I’ll be a fine wife. It’s decided.”

  She picked up a chipped chunk of amber glass and held it to her ring finger. “May I have this? Mr. Tiffany told me to look for beauty.”

  “Take it. Take it. Maybe it will remind you of what you’ve left.”

  I was stricken by her shortsighted decision. I imagined the narrow steps to the cramped room she would share with Ned, a mere crevice between dingy, windowless walls without so much as room enough to swing her arms, the stairway leading only to the blind alleys of her life. I insisted on having her address even if it was temporary, and her aunt’s as well, so that I could keep track of her and send her something, which I did, two sets of towels, with a note wishing her well.

  She responded a few weeks later to thank me and tell me that her butcher had a chance as a foreman at a Chicago slaughterhouse, so the wedding was put off for a while. I wrote her a note saying I would take her on again at the studio, even for a short time. I never heard back from her.

  GLUM MR. BAINBRIDGE, the portly actor with an expensive toupee well worn, I mean worn well, had written a play, and most of the boarders plus Edwin and George were going to see him perform in it.

  “What kind of a role do you play?” asked Edwin, whom I had invited to dinner.

  Mr. Bainbridge stared solemnly at his meat pie. “A rollicking young man of twenty-three who is very funny.”

  Him? I had to control a snicker.

  The buzzer sounded, and Merry excused herself to answer it. She came back ashen-faced.

  “Clara, there’s an Officer O’Malley wants to speak with you.”

  Edwin, George, and Bernard all raised their heads.

  Mrs. Hackley poked the air with her fork. “See? I told you, Mr. Hackley. The morals of women who work in factories eventually decline.”

  “Shush, Maggie,” Mr. Hackley snapped.

  I felt all eyes following me through the arch into the parlor. Not a single teacup clattered in a saucer. The stocky, sandy-haired policeman stood with his hands behind his back, looking tired and bored.

  “Evenin’ to you. Might you be Clara?”

  “I am. Clara Driscoll.”

  He pulled a letter from his pocket. “This be your hand?”

  “Yes, I wrote this. How did you get it, if I may ask?”

  “Her complete name.”

  “Wilhelmina Agnes Wilhelmson. She used to work at Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company. I was her immediate superior.” Queasiness washed over me. “What happened?”

  “Recognize this?” He pulled from his pocket the amber chunk of chipped glass. It was encased in rusty wire, which had been formed into a ring.

  “Yes. I gave it to her. Tell me what happened.”

  “Worth anything?”

  “No. It’s only glass.”

  “A girl was found in Blind Man’s Alley in the Fourth Ward just before six this morning, writhing and groaning but unable to speak. An empty bottle labeled CARBOLIC ACID was found next to her. Your letter and this piece of glass were in her pocket. She died in hospital an hour after they got her there.”

  A small, shrill sound came out of my mouth as I sank onto the settee. Edwin and George rushed into the parlor and surrounded me, holding me from both sides, and Bernard and Merry stood by helplessly.

  “Will you kindly come with me to identify the body?”

  I agreed, numb at the thought.

  “I’m going with you,” Edwin said.

  “There was no envelope,” the officer said, “only this address written on your letter. Do you know where she lived?”

  “I can’t be sure. I have three addresses for her.”

  “Bring them.”

  CLIMBING INTO THE POLICE WAGON, I glanced back at George and Bernard and Merry watching from the stoop, and I missed the running board. Edwin caught me. Inside, he drew my head to his shoulder and held it there.

  “I’m sorry. I know she meant a lot to you,” he said.

  It was all too much like a seduced-and-abandoned tale in a cheap novel.

  “Why didn’t she come to me? I could have told her that she would live through it, whatever it was. We could have had her back working in the studio. Her love for the work would have saved her.”

  “Don’t take it on yourself.”

  The foyer of the morgue in the Fourth Ward was a New World Bedlam, packed with weeping immigrants. Languages didn’t divide people here. Crying was universal. Officer O’Malley pushed his way through to the coroner’s desk, and I followed, my legs untrustworthy. I held on to Edwin.

  The coroner led us through a cold hallway where small bodies lay shoulder to shoulder under a filthy cloth. In the women’s hall, he found number 2487 and peeled back the gray covering down to her shoulders. Her face was grotesquely contorted. I nodded yes and buried my face in Edwin’s chest.

  Back in the corridor, the policeman spoke to two reporters, and then asked me, “Do you know of anyone who had reason to kill her?”

  “No one.”

  He flattened a crumpled piece of paper for me to read.

  Wilhelmina,

  I’m staying at Chicago. The slotterhouse work is stedy. Don’t try to find me. The place will make you sick. I never ment to marry you any how. That was all your fansy idea. Stay with your pretty peeple and pretty little glass things and forgit I ever lived.

  Ned

  Fury exploded in my chest.

  When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes leapt to mind.

  “Those addresses, ma’am. I have to notify next of kin.”

  I pictured the crazed mother raving at the news in that steamy room, flinging out her heavy arm, shame making her unhinged, afraid of me, of the police, the landlord, the sweatshop boss. Dread threatened to sink me.

  “May I come with you?” I blurted.

  Edwin grabbed my shoulders. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I loved her, Edwin.”

  The officer put the letter into his coat pocket. “Suit yourself.”

  …

  NO ONE ANSWERED the knock at her parents’ apartment, where the sewing machines were still going even in the evening. We checked in the rooms next door to no avail, so we went to the aunt’s address. Wretched smells assaulted us at each dark landing. Wilhelmina’s mother and aunt and three small children huddled together, terrified at the sight of the policeman. I identified myself to try to make them less fearful.

  “What happened?” Her mother’s face was drawn tight to steel herself.

  The officer’s explanation brought wails and sobbing from the aunt but stony silence from the mother. It was her eyes that wrenched me—dark bubbles floating in watery milk, defeated eyes that saw the new country the way it would always be for her—unjust and barren.

  “She lied to us.” The aunt turned to me as though it were my fault. “She told us she was working as a laundress in Connecticut.”

  The officer showed Ned’s letter to Wilhelmina’s mother.

  “She was a fool!” the mother said.

  “Whatever else you might think of her, Mrs. Wilhelmson, she was a good girl and a fine worker, well liked by the other girls. I looked forward to seeing her every day. Please try not to harden your heart against her.”

  FIRST THING THE NEXT MORNI
NG I went to Mr. Tiffany’s office and told him, holding myself together while I spoke.

  “Oh, no, no, no,” he murmured, shaking his head slowly. “Was she the big girl who told me flamingoes don’t eat out of a person’s hand?”

  “Yes.” The memory gave us a moment’s respite. “She had cheek.”

  “I’m so sorry. I know how you care for all your girls.” The lines in his forehead deepened. “Did she have a father?”

  “Yes, and a mother.”

  The thought of Wilhelmina’s hardened mother brought on embarrassing tears. I should never have gone to their house when Wilhelmina told me not to. Instantly Mr. Tiffany offered me his crisp white handkerchief, and I sobbed into its embroidered LCT.

  After I got control of myself, he asked softly, “Would you like me to tell the girls?”

  “No. Thank you. I will, but it would be nice if you came upstairs later and said something to them.”

  At that moment, I didn’t know what to do with his handkerchief.

  “You keep it, Clara.”

  IN THE BIG STUDIO, the morning started the same as any other morning, and I realized that the younger girls did not read newspapers. It would be the hardest thing I would ever have to do in this room, I hoped. I could tell by Alice’s face that she already knew and was waiting for me to tell the others. Agnes came out of her separate studio at the opposite end of the workroom from mine, given to her recently because of her privileged position as a window designer. I could see that the three older women—Miss Stoney, Miss Byrne, and Miss Judd—also knew. All five must have read it in the Times. It had to be now.

  “I regret that I have something very sad to tell you.” I paused for their attention, squeezing his handkerchief. “Our friend and co-worker, Wilhelmina, has taken her life.”

  Stunned silence, and then a barrage of questions and a flood of tears. Alice, Agnes, the three older misses, and I tried to comfort the younger girls, making the rounds, holding those who needed it, lending handkerchiefs.

  Mr. Tiffany appeared in the doorway with a bouquet of white chrysanthemums. His mere presence made the girls draw away from one another, blow their noses, and turn toward him. He set the vase on a worktable in the center of the studio.