City of Light (43 page)

No matter. Whatever she said, I ignored her. I closed my eyes again and nestled against the pillows, her voice rendered a distant background as I pieced together, step by step, what had happened to Millicent Talbert and why. Perhaps Franklin was right and money was at the basis of all things: Mrs. Talbert’s protests were perceived to be cutting into exposition ticket sales, therefore Mrs. Talbert’s protests must be stopped. But why use a child to accomplish this? Why not go after Mrs. Talbert herself, or threaten her husband’s business interests? Yet the more I thought about Milburn’s plan, the more logical and clever it became. With lynching so common in the South, this type of attack, if it became public knowledge, would simply be viewed as part of a pattern. Furthermore, a child is more pliant than an adult, more easily controlled, which would make the actual kidnapping simpler. And if Milburn wanted to keep his action secret, targeting a child was the obvious choice. Most likely never intending for Millicent to die, he must have sensed that the Talberts would keep the incident private; they would never turn her into a living martyr. And Milburn had achieved his goal. Mrs. Talbert had in fact stopped her protests at the Pan-American after what had happened, and the entire matter had remained private.

Now my thoughts went further. If Milburn was capable of conceiving such a plan against Millicent (and of course I had no proof, I reminded myself), was he also capable of formulating the “accidental” death of Karl Speyer or of James Fitzhugh? He had no obvious motive to do so, and yet … he was the attorney for every important business, every important person, in the city. He was the attorney for every member of my board—and for Tom and the Niagara Frontier Power Company. He straddled every center of power. Who better placed than an attorney to execute Fiske’s Henry II/Beckett scenario?
Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?

“Have you fallen asleep?” Francesca asked.

“No, I’m not asleep.” I felt lost in a maze. Every time I thought I’d discovered something and defined it for myself, it seemed to slip away.

PART IV

And so to me it seems altogether well that all the froth and hurry of Niagara at last, all of it, dying into hungry canals of intake, should rise again in light and power … in cities and palaces and the emancipated souls and hearts of men
.

“The Future in America:
The End of Niagara,”
H. G. Wells,
Harper’s Weekly
, July 21, 1906

Then there is electricity, the demon,
the angel …

The House of the Seven Gables
,
Nathaniel Hawthorne

CHAPTER XXVII

G
ood afternoon, Miss Barrett. Might I speak with you for a moment?”

Susannah Riley, safely returned from Fredonia, was flushed and breathless from climbing the stairs to my office. She gave me a flirtatious smile. She wore a light-blue corduroy suit, too heavy for the warm day, and a navy-blue bow tie, but despite this confining outfit, she managed to look charmingly pretty. She carried a well-worn leather portfolio.

“Yes, of course,” I replied. The date was Friday, August 30; close to five o’clock. I pushed aside the scheduling sheets I’d been working on, trying to balance advanced Latin with beginning botany so a certain student could take both. Every year during these weeks before the start of school, I despaired about the limitations of the curriculum and about teachers who were working by rote instead of bringing their subjects to life. I wanted my teachers to be both inspired and inspiring, to believe themselves revolutionaries forging an army of educated women. But I couldn’t always make them realize that with the little things we taught each day—and not simply what we taught but the way we taught it—we could change the girls’ lives. This year, distracting me when I could least afford it, the city itself was in an uproar: Next week, President and Mrs. McKinley would arrive. Preparations surged on every street.

From her beguiling manner, I assumed that Susannah had come to ask to be assigned an additional section of painting; to present plans for a new course, perhaps in botanical drawing (which I might propose if she didn’t); or even to request a raise in salary, which I would be willing to consider, recognizing that her salary was low.

“I hope I didn’t cause you any embarrassment last month, attending the Milburn ball as I did.” She looked down at her hands folded in her lap, glancing at me fleetingly through her eyelashes.

I studied her. “Did you cause yourself any embarrassment?”

The question flustered her.

“Well, I—I’ve been worried that you might think I’ve cast aspersions on the school. Through my too public—maybe in some people’s eyes—association with Miss Coatsworth.”

“Susannah, as I said to you some months ago regarding your politics, you must set your own priorities. The school survives us all,” I added dryly. I hoped she hadn’t disturbed me simply to discuss her reputation.

Susannah heard only that I had exonerated her. She exhaled in a happy sigh. “Thank you, Miss Barrett. Thank you very much. You see, I’m not really the kind of person people make me out to be.”

“And what kind of person is that?”

“Some people think I’m—well, a fanatic in my politics, and with an irregular way of life to boot!” She glowed with merriment. “I’ve never thought of myself that way. I can’t help what people say about me.”

“Of course not.”

“But I wanted to ask your forgiveness anyway, just in case you feel I’ve done anything at all that might have reflected badly on the school. I promise to be more careful in the future.”

“No forgiveness necessary,” I replied, impatience creeping into my voice.

As if making small talk at a garden party, she said, “I heard from a friend of mine who’s a book designer with the Roycrofters that our apprentice is doing very well.”

In an instant, she disarmed me. But she continued on, seemingly oblivious. “She was ill for several weeks with a terrible fever.”

Was there a touch of irony in Susannah’s voice? Did she know—had she guessed—the truth?

“They had to call in a doctor and hire a nurse. My friend said it was touch-and-go.” Susannah paused to give me a brilliant smile, and all at once I was wary of her. “She recovered, thank goodness. My friend said she’s still weak but her spirits are good. And she’s making wonderful strides in her work. Really focusing and applying herself. I never found much artistic inclination in her during our classes and frankly I was surprised when you gave her the apprenticeship—oh, forgive me for saying so, Miss Barrett.” Leaning forward, she touched the edge of the desk with her fingertips. “I guess that’s why you’re headmistress and I’m not: You recognize the hidden talents.”

Again, the brilliant, beaming smile.

“Why have you come to see me, Susannah?”

Although I spoke gently, the question surprised her. Her cheeks reddened.

“You haven’t come here on a summer afternoon simply to engage in flattery, I hope.”

“No, no, of course not,” she said nervously. She reached for her portfolio, seeming very young, and I remembered that she was indeed young, only in her early twenties, and probably still ill at ease when challenged, her every reaction out of proportion to the situation. She propped her portfolio on her lap.

“I wanted to see you because … well, I’m worried about one of the girls in the lower school.” She stopped, looking a bit lost, as if expecting me to guide her. I said nothing.

“Well,” she mumbled, “you know I tutor a few of the girls privately. Their mothers too, sometimes.”

“Yes.”

She opened the portfolio and took out a stack of papers which she shuffled through distractedly, more to avoid looking at me than to find anything, I sensed.

“Last week I went to one particular girl’s home for my regular visit. I had set her some work to do during the week. Figure drawing. And since she’s young I told her to draw her cat, or the carriage horses. But when I asked to see what she’d done … well, it wasn’t what I expected.”

Biting her lower lip, Susannah glanced at the window. Then she offered me a sheaf of pictures drawn on standard student art paper; it looked like an assignment ready to be turned in.

“I didn’t feel I could mention it to her family,” Susannah said too quickly, “and I didn’t know who to turn to. You seemed like the proper person, because the girl
is
a Macaulay girl, and—”

Abruptly she stopped. She must have realized that I was looking at the pictures.

I readily admit that in certain ways I am a person of limited experience. My knowledge of the human body for example, especially the male body, is based more on Greek statuary than on living human beings. At that particular moment in my life, I had seen only one man naked—partially naked, that is—and he possibly not the best specimen.

But even I could tell that these drawings were perfectly rendered, with remarkable technical facility. They showed an adult man, muscular but lithe. The face was shaded; no identification could be made. Only the body was articulated. In different positions. Not poses precisely, not in the sense of Greek art—there was no sense of a person arranging himself for the artist. The sense was more of a figure in relaxation, a man drawn as he rested or slept, unaware or unconcerned that his body was exposed to the artist. On some of the sheets there was a second figure, intertwined with the first: this a female, though not a woman’s body; in its simple lines, the figure could only be a young girl, the face also shaded, and much made of the contrast between the smoothness of her limbs and the muscularity of his. The drawings weren’t lewd; they had a certain classical purity about them—except for the reality of what they showed.

I looked up at Susannah. She reddened once more. “What did you say when the girl showed these to you?”

“Well, I—I tried to be sweet and not at all surprised and told her they were beautifully done and I asked her if she’d done them from life.”

“And?”

“She said she didn’t do them from life, not from people posing, but from memory. She’s a fine draftsman and I know she could do this from memory, especially since the faces are shaded. And so I asked her who the people were. She giggled and said she couldn’t tell me, it was an ‘artistic secret.’”

“Did you ask her what she thought the people were doing?”

“Yes. She said they were tired and they were resting. ‘Just resting.’” Susannah imitated the disparaging tone of youth. “With that look they get when they think adults are too stupid for words. I kept thinking she had made it up—at that age they still don’t always know the difference between what’s really happened and what they’re dreaming about or hoping about. But then she said something that was so upsetting, Miss Barrett. She said, ‘It was a rainy day.’ It was a rainy day! That made it all seem real; it made me know that she was the one in the pictures. Then she brought out some drawings of her cat, as if there was no difference between them. ‘This is my cat, cleaning her face,’ she said. ‘I drew her from life—does it make a difference? Can you tell? Is it better from life?’ She said things like that. She kept asking me questions and I didn’t know what to say to her. But she didn’t even notice that I wasn’t answering. She just went through the pictures one by one explaining what they were and asking if I liked them—when all I could think was, ‘It was a rainy day.’”

“How did the girl seem, in general?”

“Fine. Happy. Flighty, but they all are, at that age. Normal. For her age.”

“How do you come to have these pictures?”

“Well, I am sorry, Miss Barrett. I took them. She went down to the kitchen to get some cookies the housekeeper had promised, and while she was gone I put the drawings in my portfolio without telling her.”

“Don’t you think she’ll wonder, if she looks for them?”

“I know it was wrong, but I didn’t know what else to do. She had such a pile of pictures, I didn’t think she’d notice a few missing.” She became terribly nervous. “I’ll—I’ll return them when I go back next week, if you think I should. But why should she even—” She broke off and began to smooth her skirt, over and over.

“It’s all right, Susannah. You did the best you could. You were very brave.”

Calming, she gazed at me in gratitude. “Thank you, Miss Barrett. Thank you. What should we do now?”

“I don’t know, Susannah. Truly, I don’t. I have to think about it. You can leave the drawings with me, while I decide; I’ll take responsibility for them. This is very serious, but we must proceed cautiously. After all, the girl is not the one at fault. You were wise, the way you took it all in stride while you were with her.”

She grinned, then quickly repressed her smile, no doubt thinking it unseemly.

“And tell me, who is the girl who drew these pictures?”

At my question, a sudden, radiant beauty transformed her face. “You know her, of course. Your goddaughter, Grace. Grace Sinclair.”