Noon at Tiffany's (34 page)

“I knew it!” he sobbed. “You hate me! I’m not a madman, I’m … I’m lost.”

“Oh, George,” she dropped down next to him. “I don’t hate you. I love you, but sometimes you push the limits of patience. I’m afraid one of these days you’ll fall over dead in a fit of pique over some inconsequential thing.”

“They all hate me,” he said, wiping his eyes. “Even Henry. Sometimes I catch him watching me with such an unhappy expression. It makes me shiver to think what he must be feeling.”

“No one hates you, least of all Henry. Even Mr. Booth tells everyone you’re a tiptop chap, despite your dislike of him.”

“Booth said that? That I’m a tiptop chap?”

She nodded. “You have no cause to be jealous of Mr. Booth or anyone. You’re one of a kind, darling. No one could ever replace you in our hearts. Besides, who else can we count on to expertly decorate our rooms, make us crazy and laugh all at the same time?” She handed him a handkerchief.

“I’m sorry,” he said, blowing his nose. “I don’t know what comes over me. It’s only that I never seem to get anywhere. I’m tired of wasting my life doing silly illustrations for magazines and penny romances. I’ve accomplished nothing.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. Alice, Dudley, Mr. McBride and I don’t have our work hanging in a London gallery, and none of us has ever exhibited in the Salon de Champ de Mars. For God’s sake, you took honors at the Académie Julian and studied under Jean Paul Laurens!” She took him by the shoulders. “Look at me.”

When he brought his eyes level with hers, she saw a great tiredness in him that no amount of sleep was ever going to fix. “No one can illustrate as well as you do, and few have your talent for interior decoration. For goodness sake, George, you’re decorating the Vanderbilt mansion!”

He sighed and attempted a smile. “I am, aren’t I?”

“Do you think I, or Mr. Booth, or even Alice could do that?”

He shook his head violently. “It makes me shudder just to
think
about it.” Idly, he popped a lemon candy into his mouth and stared off into the far distance. A second later, he bolted upright, visibly paled. “My God, can you imagine? You’d all be installing puce carpets and yellow drapes in no time.”

44 Irving Place

December 21, 1898

Mother and Kate, et al:

Clara is prostrate with a sick headache, so I’m commandeering the robin until she’s well. I arrived safely in NY, even though George stood in the wrong place and Clara was busy petting a cat at the baggage counter, so that I nearly missed them. Sister’s room is cozy, but she’s rarely home long enough to enjoy it.

Everyone here considers this Tiffany scheme a low trick by which the firm slides out of a lot of work and responsibility and duty to its employees by putting it off on Clara. Unlike my own fragile constitution, she is strong, and from the way she took to sliding downhill yesterday, standing up on the sled on one foot, I don’t think she’ll have nervous prostration right away. The only way she and Alice stand the strain of Tiffany’s is the good food served by Miss Owens. It’s hot and substantial and on time.

Here is Mr. McBride and Mr. Booth, come to hear me play the zither. I’ll continue at a more opportune time. E.W.

Christmas Eve, 1898

I went to Tiffany’s today. Clara’s daffodil shade is lovely. It’s as large around as our butter board and in beautiful green and yellow colors. I also saw some brass boxes covered with wavering lines, which she made with Favrile glass. I can’t bring myself to tell you the prices these things command, except to say we could live nicely for a year or longer on the sale of just one of sister’s lamps.

Emily Wolcott

Lenox Hill

December 31, 1898

Mitchell’s yearly tallies show that the sales on the lamps and deluxe individual pieces have brought us even with the expenditures. Father made it a point to remind me that the Tiffany Glass Company has never shown a profit, thus, he crows about how I have not lived up to the Tiffany
imperative. I once again explained that, unlike him, I will always put quality above profit. He went so far as to say I ran my business in effect as a mission. To this I responded: “Yes, but a mission which teaches the gospel of good taste at cost.”

We are off to the Goelets’ for the New Year festivities and midnight dinner. I understand my lamps are so well liked, there is one in every room. As in past years, we were left off the list of those invited to the Astors’ New Year’s Ball. I’ve heard that when my name came up as a possible guest, Mrs. Astor made the comment: “Just because I purchase my lamps from the man doesn’t mean I have to invite him in to enjoy them.” It is well known she hates anyone in the trades. To the Devil with her! As long as she keeps spending money in my showroom, I don’t give a damn.

I’m increasing the number of pieces for the 1900 Paris Exposition. I sent photographs of the lamps to Maison de I’Art Nouveau in Paris, so that Siegfried Bing might see for himself how beautiful they are. He wrote back immediately, calling the lampshades “glowing fantasies" and agreed to be Tiffany’s exclusive European distributor.

Julia announced at the breakfast table that she wants to become a physician. A woman doctor! Louise immediately led May-May and Hilda in giving the child words of encouragement to pursue this absurd notion. I let them all know in no uncertain terms that I would never allow any of my children to enter such a degrading profession.

Louise and her cronies at Stuyvesant Square Infirmary have filled the children’s heads with this rubbish. This is the trouble with marrying an intellectual woman. Over Louise’s objections, I sent them all to their rooms. It’s quite enough for this family that my son will soon be graduated from Yale with honors. No daughters of mine will be traipsing off to college to fill their heads with ideas that will turn them strange.

We are again fodder for the gossips in the
New York Times
. One of the servants at the Irvington-on-Hudson house saw Burnie raise his fist against Father and found it too exciting a morsel to keep to herself.

Louise has descended the stairs in her newest gown and headdress; both worth a small fortune in material alone. L.C.T.

Clara rested her forehead against the ferry window as threads of rain slid across the glass. In the distance, the Manhattan shore slithered by like
a long, spiny snake. She smoothed a piece of writing paper over the top of her sketchpad and began her New Year’s round robin.

December 31, 1898

Dearest family,

I’m on the return ferry from escorting Emily as far as the Jersey City station, and have just finished reading the last robin. It nearly made me weep to think of how nice my own family thinks I am. I only hope that when you are undeceived, you will love me just the same. I do not recognize myself at all in this person you praise as going on from strength to strength.

To myself, I seem an ineffective creature, who always falls short of doing what another in my place, with a little more gray matter and strength of will, would easily accomplish. I’m always having opportunities that I’m not quite agile enough to catch and take advantage of.

She absently tapped her pencil against the paper, debating whether or not to include the incident of a drunken Stanford White coming to Irving Place and forcing himself on her in full view of Emily. Her grandmother would enjoy her description of how Mr. Booth picked the miscreant off his feet and pitched him headlong down the steps. She decided against it since Emily would most assuredly describe the whole incident in lurid detail, complete with illustrations, the moment she arrived in Tallmadge.

She wet the tip of her pencil and resumed writing.

After this last barrage of work at Tiffany’s, I feel a great need to restore myself.

I must stop here. Chambers Street is the next stop, and with the New Year’s crush, I must be ready to disembark. I will then hurry home, where I shall take a hot bath and fall into a deep, Rip VanWinkleian sleep, from which I shall emerge sometime in 1899.

Love to all, Clara

P.S. My flock gave me a Tiffany vase made of Mr. Nash’s Favrile glass. I’m going to place it under Josie’s photograph and make sure it’s always filled with flowers.

January 3, 1899

C
LARA READ OVER
the list of Mr. Tiffany’s orders for a third time. Whether from disappointment or exhaustion, she didn’t feel tied to her body, but rather trapped inside a recurring nightmare.

“You want to
increase
production of the lamps,” she said flatly, “make more of the individual deluxe items, plus design two or three windows for the Paris Exposition, plus make fancy mantle clocks for our showroom and your father’s store, and design lamps for the London galleries exhibit this June? All this on top of our regular orders for windows and mosaics?”

Without bothering to reply, Louis continued writing in his notebook. She imagined he was busy planning how he was going to fill her life with unending work.

He snapped the notebook shut with a theatrical conclusion, and sat back in his chair. “That’s exactly what I want. The six clocks should be finished by the middle of March—three for me, three for my father’s studio. As far as the lamps go, I want at least six new designs. Don’t be afraid to abandon conventionality. People prefer the art nouveau style now. Expand on that. Invent an exotic and unique Tiffany style. At least three of the new lamps must leave for the London Grafton Galleries exhibit no later than May.”

He tapped his pen on the blotter. “The lamps and windows for the Paris Exposition will be your first priority. I’ve already provided you with the Four Seasons design; I leave it to you to design a companion window, but it has to be submitted before the end of this month, let’s say no later than January
twentieth. For every piece you design, you need to be thinking not only of the London exhibit and the Paris jury, but of the entire European market.”

Clara felt the walls close in around her like a prison. “You ask too much. We’ll never get all this finished in time.”

His eyes fixed on her with an easy, approving familiarity that, while meant to convey assurance, only added to her frustration. “No excuses. How many girls do you have at present?”

“Thirty-one. It’s not enough.”

“Nonsense. I would think that’s more than a sufficient number of workers, considering that you know how to rally them to the cause. You’ve done it before, and you will do it now.”

“But I have all the bookkeeping, all the designing, all the managerial duties, and …” She trailed off. “I must speak plainly. I’m tired, and my department is tired. We’ve run ourselves ragged over the last five months trying to meet your demands for the Christmas rush. I didn’t ask to meet with you this morning so that you could heap more work onto the department. I came here to tell you that I need time away. I need rest.”

“Don’t be foolish,” Louis chided in a tone one might use with a petulant child. “You’ve got more pluck than that. I have it on good authority that you work twice as efficiently and three times as fast as the men.”

“Which is precisely why I need time to rest. I’ve worked twelve hours a day for months. Getting ready for the season and having to do all the bookkeeping has brought me to the brink of physical prostration.”

He heaved a weary sigh. “Oh, very well. How much time do you require?”

“One week to visit my family in Tallmadge, plus two extra days for travel. My last visit to my mother was so long ago that I don’t even remember what she looks like.”

Louis shook his head. “Out of the question. You may have the next two Saturdays off. That’s all I can spare you. You have to get these things started. I can’t have you going off on vacation every time you feel a bit weary. Can you imagine the men taking time off whenever they felt like it? My business would fail inside a month.”

She regarded the man who sat in constant judgment of her—a man who more than likely had never known a hard day of work in his life—and wanted to scream out of sheer frustration and resentment. With his
increasing edicts and demands, he was becoming more like a draconian workhouse overseer than a purveyor of fine art glass.

Anger boiled up inside her. His refusal to let her go felt as though he were locking a prison gate, closing out everything she found bright and joyful.

“No,” she said resolutely, “I can’t do it again, not without rest. Give the designs to Miss Northrop or Miss Griffin, if you’re so eager to enter into another anxiety-ridden rush. You can’t push my department and me again and expect us to produce anything of value. None of us can continue working at such a pace. It’s inhumane.”

Wearily, she got to her feet. “If this makes me somehow faulty in your estimate, then do as you wish. I’ll return on January twelfth. In the meantime, my girls have plenty to work on with finishing the deluxe orders and the last two primrose lamps. Mr. Bracey and Miss Northrop can give them guidance should they need it, though I doubt they’ll need much.