The Fifth Avenue Artists Society Read online

  “If that’s the case, then he’s spineless and I hope I never see him again,” I whispered, stunned to realize that I meant it.

  “Mrs. Aldridge looked as if she were about to be showered in gold coins.” Alevia exhaled and tore her hat from her head, mashing the pluming black feather Bessie had spent weeks trying to find. “And he admires her passion. For what? Her paintings? Perhaps they’ve improved, but from what I remember they’re poor at best.” Her lips were pursed in a way that reminded me of myself as a little girl, furious I hadn’t gotten my way, but unable to do anything about it. I laughed at the recollection, and Alevia’s eyes widened in shock. “How can you possibly laugh when your heart is broken?” she asked softly. Kneeling in the dusty street, palm pressed to forehead, I could still feel Charlie’s lips on my skin and finally started to cry. My sister’s hand landed on my shoulder, her grip uncharacteristically strong.

  “He . . . I should’ve known. I . . . I thought he was proposing to me,” I said. “I was naïve.” Standing up, I smoothed the lace overlay trimming the top of my skirt, and sniffed. “I had no reason to believe he loved me beyond what I felt. He never kissed me, never actually told me he was in love with me.” I closed my eyes, but all I could see was his face. “It was my fault. My mistake,” I whispered.

  “No.” Alevia’s small voice cut through the night and her willowy frame pitched toward me. “No,” she said again. “It wasn’t. He needed you near him because you’re his support, don’t you see? It’s not that he doesn’t love you.” She sighed. “He wanted to watch you as he made the biggest mistake of his life so that when he’s miserable, when he wishes he were dead, he can recall your broken face and know that at one point, someone he loved also loved him.”

  Chapter Two

  The Loftin House

  BRONX, NEW YORK

  It looks like everyone’s asleep,” Alevia whispered. I pushed the picket fence back in place behind me and sighed, hoping she was right. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. The branches of the old chestnut tree screeched back and forth against the side of the white house, the deep red leaves of the Virginia creeper vine swinging freely from its tips. Alevia started up the porch and I followed, barely aware that I was moving. My eyes drifted toward the moon and then down to Charlie’s library window next door.

  “Oh, my good lord!” Alevia screamed. Pitching my skirt, I ran up the stairs, through the front door, and grit my jaw to avoid screaming myself. The shadow of some sort of winged creature seemed to float toward us from the drawing room. My heart jumped in my chest and I pushed Alevia forward.

  “Go,” I hissed, but she stood, frozen, as the shape loomed closer. “Alevia, move!” I shoved her, tripped over a bowed floorboard, and fell.

  “That’s not quite the reaction I was hoping for, but I suppose it’ll do,” Bessie said. I picked myself up and whirled around to find my older sister laughing, wearing a ridiculous hat adorned with white feathers and an enormous stuffed pelican.

  “What in the world were you doing in the dark—” Alevia started.

  “Are you serious, Bess?” I asked, unable to pry my eyes from the hat.

  “Quite. It’s Caroline Astor’s. She wanted something dramatic for a celebration honoring some business accomplishment of Jack’s. She’s paying fifty dollars for it, so naturally I had to go all out.” Bessie’s knack for millinery—though she’d been making hats for our family for as long as I could recall—had been discovered by mistake. She’d gone to pick up Alevia’s music for the Astors’ New Year’s tea, only to find Mrs. Astor panicked because her hat hadn’t been delivered in time. An avid student of Harper’s Bazaar, Bess created a new headpiece from Mrs. Astor’s old ones. From that evening on, she’d been one of the most requested milliners in the city.

  “It’s certainly . . . striking. I only hope people don’t run screaming when they see her in it,” I said. Bessie rolled her eyes and carefully removed the hat, letting her waves fall loose, framing her face. She ran her hands through the end of her hair, fingertips lingering on her collar lined with cut jet beads. Bess had spent thirty dollars on the “Princess Louise” dress last month—an extravagance that nearly caused our family a deficit—but the profligacy wasn’t at all uncommon. She’d been infatuated with fine clothes since before she could talk—a consequence of our late socialite great-aunt, Rose VanPelt, treating her as the granddaughter she never had—but her obsession had deepened since she’d begun purchasing all of her supplies from O’Neill’s millinery department, conveniently located on the same floor as ladies’ clothing.

  Alevia had mentioned her increased spending months back, when money had been so tight we’d survived on buttered bread for a week, but Bess had only reproached her, saying that she deserved to buy fine things because she was the oldest, had worked the longest, and brought in nearly as much money with her millinery as my twin brother, Franklin, did working as a salesman for J. L. Mott Iron Works—a profession he’d valiantly accepted though the demands of it had whittled his previous occupation—painting portraits—down to a hobby. Never mind that there were only six years difference between all five of us—Bess’s twenty-six years to Alevia’s twenty—and that Alevia’s playing contributed a significant amount to our well-being, bringing in ten dollars for luncheons or teas and fifteen for balls, enough to buy our groceries for the month. The truth really was that Bess bought fine things because she believed she belonged among the wealthy, among Great-aunt Rose’s people, among my mother’s, instead of the working class we’d been born into. She was tired of struggling. We all were.

  Alevia continued to stare at the pelican’s beady eyes, button nose scrunched in disgust.

  “Princess Victoria wore something very similar last month. They’ll all adore it. Caroline has invited me to stay on for the party after the fitting. Everyone will be there—the Goelets, the Delafields, the Roosevelts—so of course I accepted. I guarantee that I’ll have over fifty requests for hats exactly like it afterward. Just wait. Adelaide Frick was already asking about the other ladies’ hats when I took her measurements this evening.” Bess pursed her lips and smoothed the midnight blue silk evening dress hugging her figure. “Speaking of parties, Alevia, how was your playing tonight?”

  “It was fine,” she mumbled, looking down. Reminded of the image of Charlie down on one knee, my insides felt hollow, and I pinched my eyes together, praying when I opened them I would find the evening was just a nightmare.

  “I understand it wasn’t your ideal, Alevia,” Bess said, drawing out her name. “It wasn’t Carnegie Hall . . . but, as a consolation, I’m sure your performance caught the eye of at least one attractive artist.” I could see the short man with the beard, feel Charlie’s face against mine, and forced the thought from my mind. “Didn’t it?” Bessie winked at me and nudged Alevia softly. She wasn’t asking because she was interested. Bess had been jealous of Alevia ever since her playing had been noticed by New York’s elite five years ago and had started landing her invitations to entertain at their parties at least three times each week. Bess was handsome, well respected, and sought after by the Astors and the Carnegies when it came to fashion, but it was Alevia, young, elegant, beautiful Alevia, who sat in their ballrooms, attracting the admiration of their men.

  “Bess. Stop,” I said. It had been a little over a year since Alevia had rejected her most recent prospect, banker Robert Winthrop’s son, Frederic. Though she hadn’t fancied him in the slightest, she didn’t like to be reminded of his attention. The courtship had been a short one. He caught sight of her while she played for a small dinner party of Caroline Astor’s last fall and had written to her on several occasions before asking her to accompany him to the premiere of Joseph Arthur’s play Blue Jeans. The critics had lauded the play, and Alevia had been quite keen to see it, but Mr. Winthrop had talked through the entire performance, outlining his requirements for a wife. At the conclusion of his soliloquy he’d told Alevia that if she was fortunate enough to wed him, she’d have to relinq
uish her playing to focus on his social calendar. It wasn’t the first time an interested society man had voiced this requirement. Rather than explain her passion for music and vie for his understanding, she returned home, swore she’d never marry, and never spoke to Mr. Winthrop again. I was glad she’d rejected him. I would have done the same given the ultimatum, but Bess had thought her an imbecile and told her so. Though Alevia had forgiven her, Bess’s words had wounded their relationship.

  “Tell me,” Bess prodded with the tenacity of a novice dressmaker’s needle. “I know there was at least one.”

  “Please. Not now, Bess,” Alevia whispered. She tucked a strand back into her waved side locks that swept upward into a Newport knot. I knew Alevia was being considerate, so I braced myself and came out with it.

  “Charlie asked Rachel Kent to marry him tonight.” Bess’s brows rose and she walked toward me, but I turned, starting down the dark hallway toward the light coming from the parlor. I could hear my mother laughing, followed by Mae’s high-pitched voice, as I passed my late-father’s portrait on the wall of the study. The warmth of the fire swirled around me and wood smoke filled my lungs. Mother and Mae were folded over a book in front of the hearth. “What’re you still doing up?” I asked. Mother always retired by nine. It was well past eleven. She took one look at me, and stood from the longue.

  “We were discussing Horace Mann’s On the Art of Teaching. Mother was telling me old tales about her most challenging pupils—beyond us, of course—and warning me that my longing to become a mother might award me my most difficult trial as an educator as our children are often . . .” Mae stopped when she glanced up from the book.

  “Ginny? What’s wrong? What’s happened?” Mother asked. Both of them stared at me, nearly identical blue eyes slanted in concern. I opened my mouth to reply, but found that I could neither answer nor cry.

  “Charlie . . . he asked Rachel Kent to marry him tonight,” Alevia said quietly, materializing behind me. My mother’s face paled for a moment, then turned an unearthly shade of red. Mae gathered me in a hug, and I wrapped my arms around her, suppressing the urge to run off to my room. Mae was my confidante, my best friend, but her sympathy made me feel pathetic, as though I’d been the only one to confuse Charlie’s and my intimacy for love.

  “I’ll never speak to Ruth Aldridge again as long as I live,” Mother said evenly. “She’s put him up to this match. How dare she.”

  Bessie made a noise in the back of her throat and shook her head. I backed away from Mae to look at her. Bess skirted around Grandmother Loftin’s Steinway grand piano to pluck a dead rose from a vase on the windowsill and twirl it between her fingers. The gold lining the green glass stone on her pinkie caught the moonlight. “Sorry,” she said, and shrugged. “I’m sorry for Ginny, I am, but can you blame Mrs. Aldridge, Mother? She lost her little girl at birth, George as a child of five, and Mr. Aldridge just last year, leaving only Charlie and his dismal inheritance. You know as well as I do that she can’t possibly survive on what little Charlie has left. It’s only the two of them. We’ve barely been able to keep our bills paid since pneumonia took Father and there are six of us to help with work. In any case, it’s not as if Ginny’s writing would’ve saved them. She hardly makes enough to pay the monthly ice charge.”

  I froze, staring at my sister, who continued to twirl the dead rose between her fingers as dried petals fell to the floor. Bess and I had never been very close, but no one, not even she, had ever spoken of my dismal salary, or chastised me for my profession. I’d worked hard to earn a place at the Review, applying eight times before its publisher, Mr. Robert O’Neal, agreed to hire a woman. His selecting me had been mostly out of desperation—he’d run out of competent male applicants who would work for the minimal wage he offered—but I didn’t care. I immediately resigned my post as a ticket secretary at the Mott Haven Canal. My father had been proud of me, of all of us, and had made it clear when he was still alive that our talents weren’t to be cast aside.

  We were all artists of some kind, save Mae and Mother, though their fervor for teaching was an inspired endeavor in its own right. The Loftins, my father’s family, had all been creative. They’d never been famous or renowned, only common Irish folk who wrote and played and sang and painted to carry on the heritage of their small village, Ennistymon, and to provide tutors for the castle’s children. Like their ancestors before them, my grandparents and my father had never focused on one particular form of art and had thus never relied on their talents for their livelihood. Father had always said he regretted it, but his job at J. L. Mott had afforded our family a decent living of $2,500 each year—a living that we had yet to meet since his death three years ago. So perhaps his path was as it should’ve been. Perhaps the pursuit of art could only result in poverty and grief.

  “That’s enough, Bess,” Mother said. Her voice startled me. “Of course I blame Ruth. We’ve been friends and neighbors for eighteen years. We’ve shared everything—joys, disappointments, heartaches. We’ve watched all of you grow, and watched you and Charlie grow toward one another . . . I . . . I didn’t think her capable of such selfishness.” Burying her hands in her brown tweed skirt, Mother closed her eyes, no doubt trying to make sense of it all. In spite of my pain, I was thankful I wasn’t alone in my confusion.

  “Bess, why would you . . . how could you say that?” Alevia picked up where Mother left off. Her eyes were wide as she looked from my wrecked face to Bessie’s empty stare. Alevia and I shared the same ardor for our art. She knew how hard I’d worked to obtain a position at the Review, and though it only awarded me a meager twenty-five dollars each month, it meant my writing had been given a chance.

  “Because it’s the truth,” she said. “If he’d chosen Ginny he would’ve thrown away everything—his reputation, his lifestyle, his mother’s well-being.” My mind spun, unable to process her words. I’d never thought of writing as an obstruction to my happiness. I’d never considered anything beyond the fact that I loved Charlie, and I suddenly felt naïve, embarrassed that I’d ever thought it could be so simple. Mae squeezed my hand, then disappeared from my side, crossed the room, and snatched the stem from Bessie’s fingers.

  “You’re a fool.” Mae’s words were pointed, but her voice was calm. “Is love worth nothing? Does it count for nothing? Charlie’s just as shallow as you are.”

  “Girls!” Mother shouted, silencing Bessie’s rebuttal.

  “It’s all right.” I closed my eyes and forced composure. They were all looking at me. I could feel their stares. “Really it is,” I said, wishing they would disappear. “It’s not as if someone died.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” a deep voice muttered from the door behind me. “Now, let’s have a glass of wine to celebrate the fact that I’ve finished traveling for a spell and don’t have to work tomorrow.” I turned to find Franklin, clutching a bottle of Madeira under his arm, Grandmother’s emerald green wineglasses strewn between his fingers. His hair was disheveled, sticking up in the front where he always ran his fingers through it. I was surprised to see him and wondered how long he’d been home. Though it wasn’t uncommon for him to travel week after week, he’d been in and out of the house for nearly a month this time, traveling through Connecticut from iron plant to iron plant selling parts for J. L. Mott, like my father before him.

  Making his way through the room, his eyes met mine and he rolled them toward the ceiling, mouthing “sorry” over Alevia’s head, apologizing for taking so long to save me. He knew well enough that even though my mother and sisters—save Bessie—meant well with their coddling, their sympathy would only make it worse.

  Franklin set the bottle and glasses down on the marble tabletop between Mother’s chaise and a small easy chair we’d inherited from my grandparents. An early sketch of Charlie’s hung on the wall behind it, a pencil and watercolor interpretation of my ancestors’ homeland in Ennistymon. He’d given it to Mae for her fifteenth birthday, after she’d told him how much she loved l
andscapes.

  I watched as Franklin took the knife from the leather sheath at his side, plunged the tip into the cork, and pulled it out. He poured himself a tall glass and set the bottle back down on the table. Then he stepped over Mae and leaned languidly against the oak mantel, sipping and looking at us.

  “Are you going to pour us a glass, Frank, or are we just going to stand here all evening mourning with Ginny and staring at each other?” Bessie asked, lips pursed at Franklin who shrugged, then grinned.

  “Bessie, that’s enough,” Mother said evenly.

  “For once I might agree with you, Bess. We should move on,” my brother said, drumming his fingers along the mantel. I glared at him, but he winked. Sighing, he sat down beside Mother, long, lanky legs nearly reaching his chest. “I can’t say that I’m sorry for Virginia, though. I like Charlie fine, hell, he’s like a brother, but I have plenty of handsome friends who would love a chance with Ginny.” The thought of another man struck me through. There could never be anyone else. How could there be? Charlie had held my heart for as long as I could remember. Bessie pursed her lips in disagreement and Franklin looked at her sharply, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Gin and I are only twenty-two. Aldridge losing his balls doesn’t confine Gin to the nunnery, Bess, but your being a proper bitch might send you there.” Frank and Bess had always been at odds. I looked away, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing despite my heartache.

  “You miserable—” Bessie started, but Mother cut her off.

  “I’ll not tolerate that language in my house, Frank. And Bess, I’ve already told you twice and I meant it. You’ll never speak of your sister that way again. Do you understand?” Mother leaned forward and poured herself a substantial glass of wine. “Help yourselves,” she said, looking around at us. “Last I checked, we don’t have a maid and all of you have two hands.” Something about the way she said it reminded me of my father, of the tone he used to knock us back into place when we acted pretentiously. I tried to remember the sound of his boots on the wood floor and the boom of his voice echoing through the house upon his return from work. I couldn’t believe he’d been gone three years. The cool rim of a glass pressed into my hand and I took it from Mae. “Don’t listen to Bessie,” she whispered, straightening the collar of her white shirtwaist. “She’s jealous of you, even now.”