Katherine Keenum (2 page)

“And to you?”

“Ye-ess,” said Jeanette, hesitantly. “I wanted to get out of Circleville, and I do like to read. I like history and philosophy and science and things, really I do. I loved looking through Professor Mitchell’s telescope.”

“Ah, you earnest Americans,” laughed van Ingen. “The artist in Europe, what he cares for also is music and drama and poetry and, of course, nature! Ah, well, now that you have fallen so low, you think your parents will agree to an
académie des beaux arts
, your McMicken in Cincinnati, for instance.”

“They’ll have to do something with me if they don’t disown me altogether. My father calls the McMicken a trade school; maybe he’ll think I need a trade.”

“You are an artist; you will need your art,” corrected van Ingen. “You might even make a living from it. A few women do. Look at Rosa Bonheur.”

“I wish I could,” said Jeanette, smiling with shy humor for the first time that day. “I’ve only seen engravings.”

“There you are then! You must go places where you can see paintings, real paintings—big, public canvases and not just the little studies we have upstairs, admirable though they may be. Your papa is right: They are woodcarvers at McMicken, tools of industry. The technical instruction in drawing therefore is good. Design, too—decorative florals, scrolls, and the like. But for the fine arts, no.

“What languages do you have? English obviously. You could study in London; the Slade takes women students now, though perhaps not so readily foreigners—and the English are insular.” Doubt came into van Ingen’s voice. “Their styles are not international, not current.” He was thinking out loud, and it lifted Jeanette’s heart to be treated as a serious student. “For watercolor, yes, London. For sculpture, Rome—it would not hurt you, by the way, to take instruction in modeling clay. Clay will teach you much about form and volume. And, of course, you must visit Rome—such wealth of everything in Rome: sculpture, painting, mosaic, murals. But to be trained as a painter . . .”

Van Ingen tapped a pen against his teeth and regarded her meditatively. Even with pink coming back into her cheeks, this Miss Palmer was no great beauty; but she was pretty the way all the healthy young were pretty. Her curly brown hair was twisted into an unfussy knot to be out of the way, a good sign of a workmanlike attitude; the fashionable frizzy bangs they all seemed to wear these days showed a natural enough vanity. Intelligent hazel eyes, guileless American eyes. Eager. He wondered whether she had the necessary ruthlessness. “You would like Munich, I think. You are from Ohio. Do you speak German?”

“No, sir,” said Jeanette, crestfallen. One more failure. “I did Latin and French in school.”

“Well, then, it is obvious: It must be Paris. Munich is smaller; the competition is not so cutthroat. There is real camaraderie among the students in Munich, and good beer. But if you speak French, then by all means go to the top. Go to Paris.”

Reality could reassert itself later. For the moment, Jeanette let flattered hope overwhelm incredulity, and she beamed. Van Ingen saw her pleasure, and his face took on a warning look.

“But one last sobering piece of advice, and this our good Lady Principal will approve. Learn discretion, Miss Palmer; you cannot afford mistakes. A whiff, and more than a whiff, of danger is exciting in a man, but a woman must be above reproach. It is the rich who commission portraits, and they usually know more about propriety than genius. If one more silly girl runs away with one more besotted youth, then Cupid laughs and the world changes not a jot. But when an artist throws away a career, then somewhere an angel weeps.”

“And does the world change?”

Van Ingen waved a reproving finger. “Do not be bitter, Miss Palmer; you are too young. If the sky loses a star, perhaps no one will notice, but still the night is dimmer. We must try to shine. Here, I have written you a general letter of introduction. Perhaps it will be of some help.”

*   *   *

Jeanette left elated. With the letter in hand, she almost pranced down the corridor, imagining herself in a triumphant return to Vassar, a world-famous artist, reclaimed by Alma Mater as a brilliant daughter, asked to address chapel, engaged to paint the president’s portrait. The daydream vanished as soon as she met titillated glances from a knot of seniors whom she hardly knew. She hurried past. It was four o’clock, a hungry hour; she felt hollow and woebegone again.

“Hurry up, before we get chased out,” said Becky, pulling her into the sitting room and closing the door after a quick scan of the hallway. “Irma’s brought a spread.”

“The box arrived from home today,” said Irma, looking up from where she was laying out a big pound cake and an assortment of homemade cookies on the suite’s big study table. Beside her, a third friend, Dottie, was busy boiling water for tea over an illicit spirit lamp.

Jeanette felt a deep rush of affection. She glanced through doors into empty bedrooms.

“Don’t worry. Your dear suitemates are prudently staying away,” said Becky. “They fear guilt by association.”

“They may be right,” warned Jeanette.

“Oh, we’re not afraid,” said Dottie. “
We
didn’t carry notes or anything, the way they did.”

“My mere presence contaminates. To hear the Lyman tell it, I’m an epicenter of moral degeneration. I’m not even sure I’m allowed out here; it’s not my bedroom.”

“We’ll put a chair in the doorway,” said Becky. “Sit. See? Now you’re technically confined as ordered in your own little Bastille. Bread and water for the prisoner; or, better yet, let her eat cake. Fill up a plate, Irma, one of everything.”

“Really, much as I love you for being here, isn’t the whole suite off limits now?” asked Jeanette, settling onto the chair.

“Probably,” said Becky, “but no official ban has been pronounced yet.”

“They can’t decide whether to try to pretend to the rest of us that nothing’s happened,” said Dottie, “or to hurl anathemas.”

“Tell,” said Irma, handing her a cup and plate, “tell, tell, tell. Talk with your mouth full if you have to. We want to know everything.”

So Jeanette told; the other three listened; and then they all talked. They groaned, giggled, and commiserated. They tried to keep the noise down; but as they all suspected, Jeanette’s suite was being closely watched. When she got wind of the party, Leticia chased everyone away.

After that, Jeanette was kept isolated. Since school policy prevented close friends from rooming together, the absence of her suitemates was no great loss. Still, it hurt to be shunned by them, and it was demoralizing to be so much alone. She took her meals in the infirmary. It was suggested that during morning classes, she should do calisthenics and run laps in a wide corridor designed for that purpose. She had her own books, but the art gallery, studio, and library were off limits. She was allowed to receive mail only from outside. Friends slipped a few clandestine notes under her door; she slipped rueful cartoons back under theirs when she was allowed to go out to the bathroom or meals.

Meanwhile, letters and telegrams were rapidly crisscrossing the country between Poughkeepsie and Circleville, Circleville and Manhattan. Miss Lyman to Judge and Mrs. Palmer. Judge Palmer to Miss Lyman. Mrs. Palmer to Jeanette. Judge Palmer to his sister Maude Hendrick in New York City. Mrs. Hendrick back to her brother. On the afternoon of the third day, Jeanette was handed a yellow Western Union Telegraph Company sheet. It read,
ARRIVING TOMORROW MORNING STOP BE PACKED STOP EFFIE
.

Oh, lord, thought Jeanette, Cousin Effie.

CHAPTER TWO

Cousin Effie

I
phigenia Palmer Pendergrast—Cousin Effie—was the perfect emissary from the Palmer clan to appease Miss Lyman. She bustled with efficiency when catching trains and the like but could never threaten anyone else’s authority. For one thing, a decided overbite above a receding chin made her appear insignificant. For another, she had long since fallen into the habit of reflecting the attitudes of those around her. At thirty-seven, she was well into a respectable spinsterhood, lived in domestic subjection to her cousin Maude Palmer Hendrick, and accepted without complaint her role as general family dogsbody. She dressed in black in perpetual memory of a fiancé killed in 1862 at the battle of Antietam and largely forgotten by everyone else. On the morning she arrived to collect Jeanette, therefore, what Miss Lyman saw across her desk was a suitably distressed gentlewoman, whose oft-brushed but well-cut black cashmere coat and new kid gloves left no doubt as to her social standing and whose dismay at her cousin’s transgression was a balm to feelings lacerated by three days of the McLeods’ wrath and little sleep.

“I take it that you understand our position,” said Miss Lyman, in a tone more gracious than she had used up till now.

“Of course, of course. I cannot tell you how abashed Jeanette’s parents are. And to think, Gardiner McLeod’s daughter! How the mighty have fallen.” Effie clucked her tongue. “I trust the story of the elopement will be kept out of the papers?”

“That goes without saying. Though between you and me, I think the McLeods would do well to make a simple announcement of the marriage. The sooner the unfortunate circumstances are masked by the veils of propriety, the better for Miss McLeod—or Mrs. Calhoun, as I am thankful to say we may call her.”

“Better for Vassar, too,” agreed Effie, saying aloud what Miss Lyman would have preferred left unspoken.

“Just so. Well, Miss Pendergrast, unless you have further questions, I shall send for Miss Palmer and arrange for you to be taken to the train station.”

“No need. I’ve hired a cab for the day,” said Effie, becoming brisk and businesslike. “It’s waiting around back at your stables. If you will have Jeanette’s trunk brought down and give us luncheon, we should be able to make the two-forty back to the city; it’s only a local, but there isn’t an express until four.”

Miss Lyman had not expected to be maneuvered into providing a meal for Miss Pendergrast; but if it expedited the removal of Miss Palmer, so be it. “I shall have the college kitchen send us something in my sitting room,” she said, resigning herself to an uncomfortable party of three. She could hardly invite Miss Pendergrast to join the high table while Jeanette ate in the infirmary; she would not countenance Miss Palmer’s return to the dining hall; and the instinct to control prevented her allowing the two women extended time together in private before they were out the college gates. She rang for her secretary and gave orders.

“Miss Palmer, your cousin has arrived to take you home,” she said, a short time later when Jeanette entered.

“Yes, Miss Lyman.”

Any inclination Effie might have had to scold her on behalf of the family melted away at sight of the child. To the inevitable pallor brought on by a lack of sunlight and fresh air in February, three days of being cooped up with her thoughts had added a pall to Jeanette’s complexion; her eyes were shadowed by dark circles. Effie’s weak mouth worked soundlessly.

Jeanette regarded her cautiously. “Hullo, Cousin Effie. It . . . it was good of you to come.”

At even so slight an appeal, Effie’s face was suffused by a flood of feeling. She rose, flung her arms around Jeanette, planted a kiss on either cheek, hugged her again, and stood back, shaking her head in disapproving regrets. It was the sort of confused emotional display that young Palmers, Hendricks, and Pendergrasts all over New York and Ohio dreaded in Cousin Effie.

“There now.” Effie dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief and brought herself to order. “And what do you think? Miss Lyman has asked us to luncheon. I call that most hospitable in the circumstances, don’t you?”

Jeanette would have called it gruesome if she had dared. She smiled wanly. Miss Lyman did not smile back.

Somehow, Cousin Effie found the conversational resources to prattle meaninglessly through soup, a cutlet, a salad, and pie. Miss Lyman made aloof, polite replies or generalized observations of unimpeachable banality. And then, mercifully, it was time to go.

*   *   *

On the train, Jeanette and Cousin Effie found seats on the scenic, western side of the car. New Hamburg, Fishkill, Cold Spring, Garrison: Passengers getting on and off were a distraction. Cousin Effie too obviously watched and categorized them, whispering comments to Jeanette on their appearance or hazarding guesses about their errands. Shrinking into herself, Jeanette answered in monosyllables or tried to discourage the older woman by staring out the window at the handsome bluffs and fine expanse of the Hudson River. On other visits to New York City, the view from the train had delighted her. Today its beauty, depicted in paintings she would never see again, kept her tears close to the surface.

In the echoing bustle of Grand Central Station, the need to keep up with Cousin Effie drove everything else from Jeanette’s mind. Effie became like some small animal on the alert, a squirrel or a rabbit, cutting through the crowd in a series of swift darts and zigzags. She engaged a porter, retrieved Jeanette’s checked luggage, and tipped the man for delivering them to a hansom cab. Jeanette stumbled behind, banging a shawlstrap against her shins. By five, they were on their way to Twelfth Street, where Effie lived with Maude and Matthew Hendrick.

Outside the house, Effie deftly avoided mud and snow heaps at the curb while she paid the driver and directed him to deliver the luggage to the service entrance. Jeanette was attentive too late. She looked down to see dirty slush creep up into the hem of her dress; she was going to enter the house bedraggled as well as disgraced.

“Well, here we are,” said Effie, superfluously, as she led the way up steep steps to the front door.

She rang the bell and pulled one of the double outer doors open to admit them into a vestibule. Almost simultaneously, inner doors were opened wide by Simms, the butler, who admitted them into a hallway that ran all the way to the back of the house. Its many-globed, gas chandeliers were inauspiciously dark. Only a few wall sconces gleamed feebly.

“Good evening, Miss Pendergrast, Miss Palmer,” said Simms.

While Effie slipped easily out of her coat and handed it to him, Jeanette held the shawlstrap against her knees, hoping that he would not notice her wet skirt. Semidarkness was good for hiding dirt, at least, and the house was warm even if she was unwanted—warmer than anything at Vassar or in Circleville. Aunt Maude must burn coal at a furious rate.

“Miss, your hand luggage,” said Simms.

“It’s my portfolio,” said Jeanette, holding back, but aware even as she spoke that her protective reluctance to let it go was ridiculous.

“I shall see that it is taken to your room,” said Simms. “Miss Pendergrast, Mrs. Hendrick is in the upstairs parlor with Mrs. Vann.”

Jeanette stiffened.

“We’ll show ourselves up,” said Effie. At the first landing, Jeanette paused briefly at a tall mirror to adjust her hat. How she wished her clothes were cleaner and better ironed! Ordinarily, any visit with her fashionable, married cousin Adeline, Mrs. Harold Vann, held a kind of glamour. Adeline had been and, after two children, remained a great beauty who dressed handsomely and was not above indulging in racy gossip. Her talk had always made Jeanette and the two younger Palmer girls, Sallie and Mattie, feel very grown-up or very small-town, depending on Adeline’s mood. Jeanette did not relish coming under her scrutiny tonight, not as the topic of gossip herself.

“Well, Maude!” said Effie, brightly, as they entered the stuffy second-story parlor where Mrs. Hendrick spent most of her time in the colder months. “Here we are! And I hope you’ll ring for a fresh pot of tea—we’re both cold and famished, aren’t we, Jeanette?”

Jeanette did not reply. Not only was it hopeless to treat this as a normal visit, but Cousin Effie was already fading into utter irrelevance, a shadow among the shadows on the edge of the room.

By contrast, the light of a well-placed oil lamp shone on Adeline, on her pearly complexion, on the complicated coils of her golden hair, on the small green hat over which she could swathe a scarf when she went outdoors. Her voluminous striped skirts spread theatrically over a green-and-salmon-striped love seat. They match, thought Jeanette with a peripheral part of her mind, and ever afterward thought of Adeline as a piece of handsome rosewood furniture with tautly pulled upholstery. But mainly she was forced to meet Aunt Maude’s stern stare.

Mrs. Hendrick, with her bulk held rigidly by whalebone stays, sat imperiously in a high, wingbacked chair, facing the door. “So, Jeanette,” she said, “you have humiliated your family and brought destruction down upon your own head.”

“I—”

“Don’t argue. You have.” Mrs. Hendrick tugged hard at a bell pull as though that closed the case. “Your mother is on her way, as I assume she has written you.”

“Yes, ma’am, she—”

“Then you understand it will be Sarah Palmer’s duty, not mine, to make clear to you the anguish you have inflicted upon her and my brother. My duty is to Matthew Hendrick, and it requires me to protest your having dragged the house of Hendrick into scandal.”

“Oh, be fair, Mother, how?” said Adeline.

“Did she not request that Beaufort Calhoun be included in the guest list for our Christmas soirée when she knew that the McLeods were invited and would bring Abigail?”

“Mother, there were three hundred people invited to that soirée, or you would never have included the McLeods in the first place. Beau Calhoun was a perfectly eligible young man, and if Abigail’s own parents were present to chaperon, I hardly see—”

“Don’t obscure the issue, Adeline. Whether or not it was under the McLeods’ very noses that Jeanette aided the lovers, it was still under your father’s roof.”

“Honestly, Aunt Maude, I don’t think they were planning anything yet when they met here,” said Jeanette.

“They no doubt canoodled in the corners. That was the point of your invitation, wasn’t it?”

“Well, at least to enable them to see each other.”

“And you knew the McLeods disapproved.”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s why they had to seek out occasions—”

“Convicted by your own tongue, missy. Now, as you very well know, I have no use for bluestockings—Rachel McLeod included—and I can’t think why anyone would waste a varsity education on a young woman in the first place. But since it was what your misguided mother and my equally misguided brother wanted for you, Jeanette, it was your filial duty to let yourself
be
educated and not to throw away the future provided for you—certainly not for the insipid daughter of two crackpot reformers. They tell me Rachel McLeod wants the vote for women.”

“If she wins it for us, Mother, we’ll all need to be educated,” said Adeline.

Mrs. Hendrick snorted and returned to her main concern: “Jeanette, you have placed me in the position of having to drive over to those odious people’s house to apologize, and I hope you are ashamed.”

“Mother, do you think that’s wise? We don’t yet know what fiction the McLeods are trying to maintain.”

“Gardiner McLeod will never keep his mouth shut on any topic, Adeline. Take it from me, the minute he heard they had run off, he sent after the guilty pair to retrieve Abigail before they could be married. He’ll cane that young man from one end of New York to the other when he catches them.”

“Oh, no, Maude,” spoke up Effie, “the young people
are
married. Miss Lyman told me so.”

“Then he’ll seek to annul the marriage and cane the young man anyway.”

“He’d better not,” laughed Adeline. “A South Carolinian’s sense of honor will end in pistols if he tries. But anyway, Mother, don’t go. Mrs. McLeod will only think you are prying or gloating, which, of course, you will be.”

“Nonsense. If I harbor the young lady who might have averted this tragedy and who may even now know where the runaways are . . .” Mrs. Hendrick paused inquisitively.

“I don’t know, Aunt Maude, truly I don’t.”

“It had better be Europe or at least San Francisco,” said Adeline. “They’ll never be received in Charleston, much less New York.”

Just then Simms entered, bringing in a portable table laden with a jug of hot water, more china, and plates of fish sandwiches and cakes. He set it down in front of Mrs. Hendrick.

“Jeanette, here, come sit by me,” ordered Aunt Maude, patting a chair at right angles to her own. “No, no, Simms, no need for fresh tea leaves. Take the caddy away; you may go.” She added water to the pot she and Adeline had already shared. Effie sighed.

Jeanette was grateful for any interruption and she was hungry, but a seat next to the Gorgon offered little hope of cake or sandwiches and no hope of escape.

“Well,” said Mrs. Hendrick, “if you don’t know where the fugitives are, what
do
you know?”