The Fifth Avenue Artists Society Read online

  Dedication

  To my daughter, Alevia

  Epigraph

  There are moments when a man’s imagination, so easily subdued to what it lives in, suddenly rises above its daily level and surveys the long windings of destiny.

  —EDITH WHARTON, The Age of Innocence

  The Society attracted all sorts of artists to the grand drawing room on Fifth Avenue. It wasn’t the want for fame that drew them there—though some certainly became known—or even the anticipation of improvement. Instead, it was the realization that for some, true art, great art, is not won in solitude. It must first be lived.

  —JAMES LAUGHLIN, The Society

  Contents

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . . * About the author

  About the book

  Read on

  Praise

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  JULY 4, 1876

  The Aldridge House

  BRONX, NEW YORK

  Someone’s coming.” My best friend Charlie’s lead-smudged fingers grabbed mine, stopping my pencil. A floorboard creaked beyond the door to his family’s home library. I curled my shoulders, tucking my chin into the red soutache collar trimming of my cotton dress and folding my legs further into the cabinet. The paper in my lap crinkled and Charlie’s hand clamped around my palm.

  “Ginny, Charlie, I know you’re in there. I’ve checked everywhere else.” The brass doorknob began to jiggle.

  “It’s Frank,” I hissed, as if Charlie didn’t already know we’d appointed my twin brother the designated seeker. Charlie glared at me, willing my silence. He and I had always played hide-and-seek reluctantly—until we’d discovered the vacant cabinet below one of the walls of bookshelves in his library a month ago. Since then, we’d encouraged the game. We always emerged the victors—much to the chagrin of Charlie’s younger brother, George, and my siblings—and it gave us time to work on our contribution to the Mott Haven Centennial Time Capsule without interruption. Just today, we’d played five games, buying us three hours to finish our illustrated story on Bronx history before the time capsule was interred at six.

  “Come on,” George’s five-year-old voice whined. “The rules state that you have to hide where we can find you. A locked door doesn’t count.” Our brothers had joined together to find us. One of them swiveled the door handle again. Charlie shook his head.

  “It’s not locked,” he whispered. “Sometimes the jamb sticks. And don’t they know they’re breaking the rules, too? There can’t be more than one seeker.” The smack of a bony hip pounded into the wood, followed by another. The hinge rattled, threatening to give way. Pressing my story to my chest, I flattened against the corner of the cabinet. I breathed through my mouth. Mrs. Aldridge just had the bookshelves French polished and the pungent scent of shellac stung my nostrils.

  “I give up,” George said. “I’m hungry and thirsty and my parents have already taken the sandwiches next door.”

  “I will get in,” Frank growled, unfazed by George’s surrender. His fist pounded into the door, followed by another series of bodily blows. We couldn’t let Frank find us. Our hiding place would be lost forever.

  “Come on, Frank.” George tried to dissuade him once again. “Your mother probably has your lawn all set for the picnic and I’m sure your father and sisters are starved. It isn’t polite to keep them waiting.” Frank was silent. George exhaled and I could hear him withdraw into the foyer.

  “Charlie,” I whispered. Frank slammed himself into the door and it finally gave, sputtering open in a series of resigned groans. Charlie slowly lowered his drawing pad from his lap, setting his pencil across the finished depiction of George Washington’s stay at the nearby Van Cortlandt Mansion. He pulled the cabinet doors shut, blotting out the summer sunlight and the back of Mr. Aldridge’s leather sofa.

  Frank’s footsteps came closer. Neither of us moved. I barely breathed. Finally, I heard him stop and yawn.

  “Honestly, if you’re in here, wherever you are, I give up. Everybody’s out on the lawn eating and George has likely already drunk all of Mother’s lemonade like he did on Memorial Day.” Charlie didn’t budge, though my mother’s lemonade was his favorite. We both knew Frank’s cunning. My brother sighed, waited for a moment, and retreated from the room, his boots clopping toward the foyer. The minute the front door slapped into place, Charlie flung the cabinet open.

  “Is your story finished?” he asked hurriedly. I nodded, glancing over my slanted cursive, hoping it was perfect. Charlie snatched the paper from my grasp, pressed it atop his drawing, and started to climb out of our hiding spot. “If my brother’s consumed the last of the lemonade, I’ll throttle him.”

  “Wait,” I said, catching the tail of his suit. “You haven’t read my story and we haven’t signed our names to it.” Charlie huffed and flattened the pages on a shelf below a row of Encyclopaedia Britannicas and my favorite book, Washington Irving’s A History of New York.

  “I’m sure it’s magnificent,” he said hurriedly. By Charles and Virginia, he scribbled at the conclusion of my story. Then, recalling he hadn’t written our surnames, he leaned down and scrawled Aldridge. I waited for him to realize his mistake, to add my last name, but he didn’t. Instead, he gathered our story in his hand and glanced at me. When our eyes met, his cheeks flushed, and I felt my own face burn. Had he meant to leave it off?

  “Are you coming?” His gaze broke from mine and he walked toward the door, toward our families and Mother’s lemonade.

  I allowed myself to whisper it only once before I followed him.

  Virginia Aldridge.

  Chapter One

  OCTOBER 1891

  The Aldridge House

  BRONX, NEW YORK

  Staring at Alevia was pointless, but men always did. I snorted as this evening’s gawker—a short fellow with a scraggly beard—gestured toward her so heartily he sloshed his punch down the corded silk collar of a golden-haired man in front of him. Forcing my eyes away from the shocked gentleman and the rest of the partygoers, I glanced at my younger sister’s profile through the crack in the pocket door and prayed she hadn’t heard me. The one time I’d mentioned a man noticing her, she’d blushed so severely I thought she’d literally burst into flames, and vowed never to play in public again. Thankfully, she was still playing her favorite piece, Tristesse by Chopin. Her deep brown eyes were closed to the music, a slight smile on her lips, oblivious to everything but the movement of her fingers on the piano keys. I looked out into the room and found the gawker still staring at Alevia, completely unaware that the gentleman he’d just doused had extracted his unbecoming silk flower from his buttonhole and was dabbing his collar with it. Taking a step back from the door,
I buried my face in the crook of my arm and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  I hadn’t even heard the door to the library open, and didn’t dare turn around lest I miss another effort by Alevia’s admirer.

  “One of your party guests has . . . noticed my sister.” I could feel him behind me and leaned back against his chest, crushing his bow tie. I nodded toward the slight view, watching as the short man’s attention snapped to his friend’s glare and the wilted fabric in his hand.

  “Oh,” Charlie said, and laughed softly. “That’s John Hopper—he’s a writer, like you. Doesn’t surprise me, he’s painfully rakish when it comes to ladies. Perhaps I could use some of his nerve . . . Ginny, I have to ask you—”

  “Why would you need it?” I cut him off, elbowing him in the ribs.

  “In case I’m shamefully rejected by the object of my affection, of course.” He pulled away from me and looked down, brows furrowing. I rolled my eyes and laughed at his dramatics. Charlie was charismatic and handsome. He could attract anyone he wanted. Even me.

  “Your drawing is getting better,” I noted, crossing the room. His sketchbook lay open on a table beneath the window, the only bit of wall unoccupied by ornate mahogany bookshelves. I looked down at the pencil sketch of my home, and then out the window to the real thing next door. “You got the color wash right this time, and the dimensions of the shed, though if the roof were drawn any steeper one could mistake it for Trinity Church.”

  I could see his reflection in the window. He was still looking down at his shoes, likely absorbed by some image in his head. I didn’t bother to ask him what it was; a similar haze came over me when I wrote, so I ignored his silence and leaned down to grab my notebook and the old copy of Washington Irving’s A History of New York from the arm of the leather sofa. Scanning the page I’d left off on, I shoved it back between the rows of other antique books lining the walls.

  “Haven’t you memorized that by now?” he asked. I stared at Charlie for a moment, past the sincerity of his smile to the green eyes holding a strange melancholy I couldn’t place.

  “Of course,” I said, glancing away. “But there’s something about seeing our families’ names on the page.” I didn’t know how many times I’d read the book, though I knew it had to be over one hundred. Mother said I’d plucked it randomly from the shelves when we had first called on Charlie’s family eighteen years ago, the day after our move into my father’s childhood home. I’d been captivated by Irving’s prose ever since—that, and his coincidental mention of both Charlie’s and my family’s ancestors, the Stuyvesants and Van Pelts, respectively, both old Dutch settlers who’d laid claim to the city long before the Vanderbilts or Astors built their palaces.

  “Ginny, I tried to call on you earlier today, but you were still in the city. I need to speak with you.” He pulled at one of his sideburns.

  “I suppose I can listen. So long as I can blame the dullness of this story I’m writing for The Review on your interruption.” A child’s English primer read with more eloquence than the two paragraphs I’d penciled into the notebook I was holding. “Is everything all right?” His face paled, but he nodded. He was lying, clearly. “Tell me.”

  “Everything’s fine, Virginia,” he said. But Charlie’s lips met my forehead and lingered there. Then his fingers clutched the back of my head, holding me as if it were the last time he’d ever see me up close. The only time I’d ever seen Charlie this troubled was at his younger brother’s funeral fifteen years before.

  “Mr. Aldridge?” I jerked from his grasp to find an older man I didn’t know in the doorway. I felt Charlie step away from me. “Excuse me. It’s only . . .” The man coughed, looking from Charlie to me and back again. “Your mother asked me to summon you. It’s time.” Charlie forced a smile and passed me without a glance.

  “Yes,” he said, stumbling over the word. “I-I suppose it is.” What hadn’t he told me? The last few days played out in my mind—our afternoon strolling on the High Bridge, my trek into the city this morning to purchase a notepad, seeing Mrs. Aldridge and Charlie deep in conversation on the front porch this afternoon. Mrs. Aldridge. She seemed in good health. Surely she hadn’t taken ill. Not so soon after Mr. Aldridge’s death. I followed after Charlie, despite my having planned to avoid the party tonight and enjoy the quiet company of the Aldridges’ books.

  Alevia was still playing. I could vaguely hear the slow notes of “Oh Promise Me,” and the guests’ laughter as I shoved past feathered hats and black-jacketed arms to follow Charlie. He stopped in the middle of the room, brought his fingers to his mouth, and whistled. I heard my sister’s hands lift from the piano, leaving notes hanging unfinished on the air. Everyone turned to look at him. I took a deep breath, inhaled the sweet scent of someone’s lavender cologne, and looked around for anyone I knew. Finding no one beyond Rachel Kent, one of Charlie’s distant cousins, over his shoulder, her locks pinned under a purple cap adorned with a stuffed hummingbird, I fleetingly wondered if it was one of my sister Bessie’s creations. Miss Kent nodded at me and I grinned back, relieved to find a familiar face besides Alevia’s. The reception had been held in Miss Kent’s honor, a reunion of sorts with her family acquaintances that she’d lost touch with since moving from the Bronx to White Plains years back. Mrs. Aldridge had begged Alevia to play for the party, and I’d come along hoping to write something profound. Ever since Charlie and I were young, the Aldridges’ library had been one of our sanctuaries, the only place beyond our rooms where we could shut out the world and create.

  “If I could have your attention,” Charlie shouted, silencing the party’s rumble. He glanced at me for a moment before he turned his gaze to the rest of the guests. “For quite some time I’ve wanted to share something with all of you and now, it turns out, is precisely the time to do it.” Charlie cleared his throat and looked up, staring above the crowd to the windows in front of him. I followed his gaze, finding his mother looking the picture of health, grinning, hands clasped together in anticipation. I balked at my reflection in the glass and tucked a few unruly light brown strands back in their pins. “See, there’s a particular woman I love and I cannot go on living without knowing she’s mine,” he said. “I’ve known her for as long as I can remember. As a young boy I admired her poise and beauty, and as a man, though I still love her for those things, I think I find the most joy in her passion—in her love of the arts that have been so important to both of our families. She is, quite simply, a reflection of what I’ve always dreamed.” His words sounded in my ears, but I barely believed them. I’d longed for this moment for so many years. I glanced at the faces of the strangers around me, their smiles confirmation that they’d heard him, too, that this wasn’t a delusion. He was finally going to ask me to marry him. My hands were sweating, balled in my skirt, and as his eyes scanned mine, I released the fabric abruptly, the striped gold and white satin falling back to the ground.

  “Charlie,” I whispered, but he turned and dropped to his knees.

  “Miss Rachel Kent, will you be my wife?”

  I took a step back, but stumbled, unable to move.

  “Come with me.” Alevia appeared from nowhere and pulled me through the crowd. Before I knew it, I was on the Aldridges’ front porch, hearing the door click shut behind me. I couldn’t register anything about the last minutes beyond Alevia’s long fingers around my wrist and the faraway cheers of the guests.

  Alevia turned right, toward our home. Her dress was a red blur, but I didn’t follow. Nothing made sense. Surely I’d heard him wrong.

  “I’m sorry,” Alevia’s voice came quietly behind me, bringing me back to reality. I could feel his breath on my face, his arm wrapped around my body. I believed that he loved me. Yet he hadn’t chosen me.

  “He came to me in the library. He . . . he asked to speak with me and then he held me and kissed my forehead as though he’d never see me again. I suppose now he won’t. I’ve never heard him mention her name, let alone insinuate lov
e for her. How dare he! Doesn’t he know how I feel?” I was trembling, hands jammed into fists at my sides.

  “Perhaps he doesn’t. Know, I mean.” Alevia’s eyes were full of sorrow for me, and I stepped away from her, unwilling to see my pain reflected in her face. Less than an hour ago I’d leaned into his embrace as I had every time he’d ever reached for me. I’d never given him any reason to think me indifferent. If he didn’t know I loved him, he was a fool. I suddenly yearned for Mae, my younger collected sister who always said the right thing, and cursed Hunter College for scheduling courses in the evening.

  I kept walking in the wrong direction, past home after clapboard home, hearing the shuffle of Alevia’s crimson brocade skirt behind me, but I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t go back home and face my family. The moon was round and bright red, appropriately hellish, and I shuddered as wind swept through the creaking trees.

  “It’s the money. You know her father inherited millions from his bachelor brother in Georgia and that the Aldridges are near penniless. Surely you recall Mrs. Aldridge asking Mother to loan her money last month.” Alevia’s voice was strange and I turned around to find her arms clasped tightly across her chest, anger apparently conquering her timidity. I’d forgotten the conversation. Alevia and I had been reading in the drawing room—only a room over—when she’d come to speak to Mother. Even though Mrs. Aldridge had spoken in a whisper, we’d heard. It had been such a shocking, desperate request, that Alevia and I had promised each other we’d never speak of it. After all, Mother hadn’t had the money to give Mrs. Aldridge.

  Alevia cleared her throat. “Family name only goes so far. You know that. We’re all well respected, sure—The Intellectuals, as they call us—and history demands that the wealthy see us as important and invite us to some of their soirees, but that’s not enough if your mother can’t afford to outfit herself or entertain at her home.” Her contempt was palpable.