Noon at Tiffany's (48 page)

He was talking in his usual torrent of words and pacing like a tiger until I made him sit down. Next, in came Mr. Yorke, looking lonely and despondent. To get him out of himself, I made him explain the Marconi System to George. Ten minutes later, Alice came in with her face all swollen with neuralgia and looking for solace.

No sooner was the word solace uttered, than Philip, Edward and Dudley all piled in on a mad search for diversion. Alice being my main concern, I darkened the room and made everyone remain quiet. One by one, they all left except Edward, who is now quietly massaging Alice’s hands while telling her Sherlock Holmes stories from memory.

Love to all, Clara

P.S. Emily: I’m sorry you’re feeling so low. I haven’t heard of Dr. Herdman or his electric shock treatments, but it sounds painful, and you don’t know what effect it will have on your superior brain in the future. Come spend this summer at Point Pleasant with us instead. We’ll shock you without charge—no pun intended.

April 17, 1904

44 Irving Place

M
ISS OWENS HANDED
Clara the
New York Daily News.
“Did you
see
this?”

Staring up at her was a detailed sketch of her dragonfly lamp. The caption read:
‘Mrs. Driscoll’s Paris Prize Dragon Fly Lamp.’

She dropped her fork, her eyes going over words several times. There was no mistake—it was
her
name on
her
work. Trembling with excitement, she came out of her seat, and, unsure of where she was going, sat back down.

Miss Nye snatched the paper from her hands and waved it over her head. “Look everyone! It’s a picture of Clara’s lamp.”

The boarders crowded around, as the paper was passed from hand to hand.

Incredulous, Philip took the paper from Miss Nye. “How, in God’s name did you manage
that
? I thought Tiffany had everyone in his pocket. He’ll be fit to be tied when he sees this!”

Clara swiveled in her chair, wearing a puzzled smile. “In his pocket? What do you mean?”

Philip colored, fumbling for words. “I only meant that I’ve never seen any name other than his and his board of directors mentioned in association with his merchandise before, and certainly not in print.”

“But what did you mean about having everyone in his pocket?”

Before he could answer, Alice rushed into the room with another copy of the paper. “Clara, you’re famous! We’ll have to buy a dozen copies and send them to everyone in Tallmadge.”

“Better famous than infamous,” Edward said, finishing off the last of his poached eggs. “We must be careful Mrs. Driscoll doesn’t get a swelled head, or she’ll be wanting a framed copy hung in the parlor.”

“Actually, I was thinking of hanging it on the front door,” Clara said. “More people would see it that way.”

Alice took the last of the toast from the platter. “You mean more than the five hundred thousand who will see it today?”

Laughing, Clara turned back to question Philip again about his comment, just in time to see him slip out the front door. She started after him, but was stopped by the boarders’ rousing chorus of
For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow.

May 7, 1904

Manhattan

Clara was more than halfway home, when someone called her name. In the voice was a tone of desperation. She swiveled around and was startled to see Mr. Tiffany running to catch up with her.

When he finally caught up to her, he hesitated, as if he’d forgotten why he’d run after her. “I was wondering if you would accompany me?”

Her first thought was that she’d missed a meeting, and he’d come to escort her back to his office, but on closer inspection, the lined face and red-rimmed eyes gave evidence of some deep torment. “Of course,” she said, “where are we going?”

He shrugged, and, without looking at her, began walking toward Madison Square. “Talk to me, Clara. Talk to me as if I were one of your friends at the boardinghouse. Tell me about your life there.”

It was a peculiar request, but she recognized it at once as a desperate need for distraction from pain. “The Irving Place group is like my family,” she began, in the tone of a storyteller. “If we aren’t out and about on our bicycles or at the theater, you might find us at home playing Whist or discussing literature, politics, and art. Of course, you already know about our parlor plays.”

“I remember,” he said, “
Alice in Wonderland
. You were dressed as Alice.”

Both flattered and embarrassed that he’d remembered, she blushed. “Yes, well, we’ve expanded our territory and now, each spring, we all chip in and rent a cabin at Point Pleasant Seashore. One of our borders, Mr. Yorke, is teaching me how to sail, and Mr. Booth, our naturalist, taught us how to survive in the woods with nothing more than a pocketknife.”

He stopped abruptly and faced her. “How do you go on when a terrible circumstance is thrust upon you? I’ve seen you pull yourself out of grief and go on. How do you manage the pain?”

She didn’t think that explaining her theories about the uncertainty of life and death and personal introspection would help him much—his pain was too new. “You may recall that my sister Kate died last year. Her death
knocked me as low as I’ve ever been. I don’t know what I would have done without hearing the Tiffany Girls’ everyday chatter. I let myself be absorbed by it, so I wouldn’t have to swallow the pain in such large doses.

“I think talking about it helps. I’m a good and willing ear, and you know you can rely on my discretion. Won’t you tell me what’s troubling you?”

He shook his head. “The only thing that can help me now is the comfort I find in your company and hearing you speak of your everyday affairs.”

“If it’s simple talk that soothes you, Mr. Tiffany, sit in a corner of my workroom with my girls for a few hours, and I promise you your mind will be rendered numb with silliness.”

Louis laughed, and then looked startled. “My god, I was sure nothing could make me smile today.”

“That’s a relief,” she said. “I thought for sure I was going to have to tell you the story of how I once put on
King Lear
for my family, using the barn cats in the roles of Lear’s daughters and the goat as King Lear.”

When she’d worn him out with her talk, some of it bordering on the inane, she accompanied him to his car. Although she refused his offer of a lift to Irving Place, it did occur to her that she should have asked him to let her try her hand at driving.
That,
she was sure, would have been more than enough to take his mind off any troubles he thought he was having.

May 8, 1904

Miss Owens leaned close to Clara’s ear and whispered, “A young lady wishes to speak to you in the parlor. She’s quite upset.”

Young Miss Barnes immediately jumped to mind. The girl had gotten herself mixed up in a tempestuous romance with a French sailor, whom she foolishly intended on marrying—a union that could only end badly. All her girls came to her for advice or a comforting word when their romances went astray. She was becoming so proficient at providing guidance, she was sorry there wasn’t some sort of salaried position where all she had to do was to look understanding while she listened to people’s sad tales about their entanglements.

She was barely into the room when the girl launched off the settee and threw herself into her arms, sobbing.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Driscoll, I don’t mean to disturb your Sunday
morning, but I had to see you.”

Clara held the girl away and looked into the face of a pretty, brown-eyed version of Louis Tiffany. “Dorothy! What’s happened?”

“Mother died this morning, and Father has locked himself in his study to drink. No one would talk to me. You told me I could always call on you. I didn’t have anyone else to go to, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you’ve come to me. Does your father know where you are?”

“He doesn’t care where I am. He’s too drunk. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.” The words were so filled with hate that Clara flinched.

She held Dorothy, rocking her until she felt her calm down. “All right, let’s go to my room. I’ll make tea, and we can talk in private without being disturbed.”

She made the girl drink a cup of chamomile tea, though it did nothing to calm her.

“Mama endured!” Dorothy wept. “She endured
him.
When she got sick, he didn’t stay with her; he spent all his time at work. All he cared about was making more money! My mother was the one who made him be nice to us, and now she’s dead and I’m afraid, because I don’t have anyone who really cares about me.”

She looked up, pleading. “My father thinks just because I’ll be thirteen, I should be able to take this in stride. He doesn’t care that my mother meant everything to me. He doesn’t even care she’s dead!” Her last word was drawn out on a wail of pain.

Clara rocked her, letting her cry herself out until the girl fell into an exhausted sleep. For a long time, she watched Dorothy sleeping, hoping that when the girl woke it might be possible to give her the same nourishing meal of compassion that Fannie Wolcott had so often served.

Tiffany’s

June 15, 1904

Dearest Mama and sister Emily,

Today all of New York is under a funeral pall with this morning’s news of the General Slocum Ferry disaster in the East River. Of the 1,300 women and children aboard, over 1,020 perished when the boat caught
fire. Many succumbed to fire, some were crushed when the floors of the overloaded ferry collapsed. Because of their long skirts and the social dictates against women learning how to swim, most of the women drowned along with their children.

Philip Allen came to say that the shores of North Brother Island
were
three deep in bodies. He said that when the mothers threw the faulty life preservers to their children, the preservers crumbled like crackers.

Following this news, hysteria broke out in the workroom, and it fell to me and Mr. Bracey to escort all the Tiffany Girls who had friends or relatives on the boat to the morgues.

When I returned to Irving Place, I sat for a long time thinking of death and of how my own life is passing rapidly enough. Because this day has shown us once again that life is fragile, it seems urgent that I should tell you again how much I love you. In truth, when all is said and done, it is our ability to give and accept love that matters most in life. It is what makes us human.

Love, Clara

July 8, 1904

Pt. Pleasant, N.J.

Luckily for Clara, Mr. Yorke proved to be a patient instructor, since she found learning to sail similar to patting her head and rubbing her stomach at the same time. With the aid of diagrams and long hours of trial and error, she eventually got the hang of it. On the days she needed solitude, she took the dinghy to Gull Island or Fisherman’s Cove, where she could lose herself for hours in a book or in making sketches of the wildlife that surrounded her.

With a sandwich and a jug of water secured in her knapsack, Clara removed her shoes, tied her wide straw hat to her head, and set about pushing the beached dinghy toward the water.

“May I offer assistance?” Philip came into view, his shirtsleeves rolled part way up to reveal tanned and muscular forearms. Just the sight of him made it impossible for her to move with any grace at all. “I can manage all right, thank you,” she said. “I’ve done this hundreds of times on my own.”

He stepped away, watching as she struggled at pulling the deceptively heavy craft across the wet sand. Only inches from the water, her foot came down on a broken shell. Yelping in pain, she hopped about in a circle.

At once he was kneeling, inspecting the bottom of her foot, his hand around her ankle. Every nerve in her body came alive as he kissed the arch of her foot then rose to embrace her, holding her tight against him.

“Let me go with you,” he whispered urgently. “We’ll go to Gull Island and have the whole day alone.”

She nodded and together they quickly pushed the boat into the water.

They weren’t a hundred yards out, when she heard the cries. On the shore, Edward waved his arms, motioning them back in, shouting words that were lost on the wind.

“Ignore him and keep on course,” Philip directed. “It’s probably Tiffany on the telephone wanting you to come in to work on some infernal project. He can wait.”

She slacked off the sails, unsure of what to do. There was something about the way Edward waved and the timbre of his cries that spoke of something far more serious than a summons from Tiffany’s. She forced the images of her dying mother or a mortally ill Emily from her mind and strained to hear what he was saying.

“What if it isn’t Tiffany?” she said. “What if something awful has happened?”

“Bad news doesn’t spoil, Clara. It will keep no matter how bad it is.”

She looked into the deep blue eyes that captivated her, and back at Edward who now stood silent, watching them, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. “You’re only half right, Philip,” she sighed, pushing the helm over and slacking the sheet. “Bad news may keep, but it can’t be ignored.”