Chapter Six #2
As I sit for Mrs. Dawson in silence, I hear the noises from the street outside—chatter, laughter, conversations as the girls and boys my age move about the city.
It’s always Sunday when I’m posing for Mrs. Dawson, a busy day when people take their leisure and make merry, as I sit here and work.
Now that the weather is fine, the city teems with activity and, I notice, children.
Fond as I have grown of Mrs. Dawson, I do have moments when I long to get up and go.
To walk the street on a Sunday afternoon like the other youngsters my age, an ice-cream cone perched in my hands, maybe a parent offering me a few coins to go catch one of the plays or musical revues showing in the theaters.
But no, the dollar that Mrs. Dawson will press into my hand at the end of each sitting helps keep us fed.
The Sundays of leisure will have to wait, I tell myself, certain that my face shows Mrs. Dawson plenty of longing.
Some Sundays Rachel is here for part of the time.
Some days I don’t see her at all. She always bursts into the apartment in a flurry of activity, acting as though we’ve surprised her by being there when she should know by now that I’m here every week.
But then, one Sunday that autumn, she comes in with another woman in her company, and I’m the one who is caught by surprise.
It’s a notable day for me: it’s the first time Mrs. Dawson has asked me to change out of my ordinary shirt and skirt and put on a costume.
Today I’m posing as the goddess Aphrodite.
I arrived this morning with my hair in a tumble of dark curls, Mamma having braided two tight plaits for me last night, just as Mrs. Dawson requested.
And now here I am in her studio, my body swathed in a simple sheath of impossibly soft white satin, reclining on a pale sheet across the floor, a scattering of silk flower petals tossed around me.
I felt bashful at first getting into this theatrical position, but I’m so comfortable working with Mrs. Dawson at this point that I quickly settled in.
But when Rachel barges in with this new lady in her company, I feel entirely too exposed and bashful all over again.
“Oh, hello, Violet.” Mrs. Dawson, for her part, barely looks up from her canvas. She’s working in watercolors today, and she dips her paintbrush into her murky water, giving it a swirl as though she plans to carry on with her work.
I fidget in my place on the floor, the first time I’ve done that; I wonder if perhaps I ought to cover my arms, or pull back my unruly hair.
“Oh, Evelyn, don’t move…” Mrs. Dawson begins, but then, seeming to sense my unease, she shifts in her seat, throwing Rachel and this newcomer a look.
Rachel raises a hand and hurries to say: “We aren’t staying. Violet was just passing by and wanted to stop in and say hello.”
I turn to look at this other woman, Violet, and my eyes lock with hers. She stares directly at me, as though she’s been pinned in place. The intensity of her gaze startles me, causing my cheeks to grow warm. I cross my bare arms.
“Well, then, let’s say hello,” Mrs. Dawson replies.
“Violet, this is Evelyn. Evelyn, this is Violet.” Mrs. Dawson’s voice has turned formal, even a bit cold.
The woman, Violet, gives me a tight nod.
And then, as promised, Rachel ushers her out of the apartment.
Alone once more with Mrs. Dawson, I feel my body soften.
But Mrs. Dawson is scowling, holding her paintbrush across her knee as she looks at the doorway through which the two women have just left. “Now she’ll be asking you to work with her; mark my words.”
I swallow, saying nothing. Mrs. Dawson lets out a quiet sigh and turns her gaze from the doorway back to me. “Listen, Evelyn, I have a question. And it’s just you and me in here, so I want you to answer. Do you like your work at Wanamaker’s?”
“Yes,” I answer, rearranging my limbs on the sheet.
“Do you really?” Mrs. Dawson presses.
I look toward the window, my head in a bit of a spin.
I’ve never been asked that question before.
I haven’t even really bothered thinking it through.
Sure, with autumn in the air, I’ve felt undeniable stirrings.
As September began, I thought of the fact that I was so close to high school, and that had filled me with unpleasant pangs of yearning.
I’d missed a few months in the spring, but now an entirely new school year was starting, and I was officially being left behind.
But I hadn’t allowed myself to dwell too long in that brooding.
Mrs. Dawson is no longer painting. She goes on: “The reason I ask is because I’d be happy to give you more work. If you think your mother would allow it. I’d love to hire you for more than just Sundays.”
This is something I’d never considered. I run my fingers along the silk of my costume, asking, “And you’d pay me…more?”
“Of course I’d pay you for your work. A dollar a day. But you see what that means, don’t you? You’d have to quit your position at Wanamaker’s.”
A dollar a day! Why, that’s more than double what I make at the store.
“It would be serious work, Evelyn. As a proper artists’ model—no more of these sittings just for study. I do believe you are ready. I believe we are both ready.”
“Ready…for what, precisely?” I ask.
Mrs. Dawson considers her words for a moment, then says, “I’d start selling the images. To the newspapers, the magazines, private companies for advertisements.”
Selling images of me? To proper companies and advertisers? My words are quiet as I voice my question: “You really think someone would pay for an image of me?”
“I don’t think it,” Mrs. Dawson says, throwing a look toward her easel, where today’s half-finished painting awaits: me as a goddess sprawled on white, surrounded by flowers. “I know it.”
—
I don’t return to work at Wanamaker’s. With Mamma’s lukewarm assent, I quit my post as a department store errand girl, and thereafter I set out each morning for Chestnut Street and Mrs. Dawson’s studio.
It’s a later start to the day, since Mrs. Dawson doesn’t want me showing up at seven in the morning like I did at Wanamaker’s.
This means that Mamma sets off first and I’m able to help Kit finish his breakfast and bundle up.
We leave the boardinghouse together, and I walk to work at the same time that the rest of the city’s children are making their ways toward their schools.
When Kit and I break apart at the corner of Arch Street, I keep my eyes lowered, pretending for all around us that I’m just heading toward a different school.
When I arrive at Mrs. Dawson’s studio, often the bed is still rumpled; sometimes Rachel is still in it. Do they share a bed? I wonder, thinking that it probably helps for the warmth, especially now that we are marching toward winter.
“Morning,” I say as I walk in, slipping out of my wool coat.
“Morning!” they both chime back. Rachel makes up the bed and dresses behind the screen, then brews us coffee.
As Mrs. Dawson and I sit at the table drinking from our warm mugs, Rachel packs herself a lunch pail and sets out for her work on Spruce Street.
Mrs. Dawson always walks Rachel to the door, and for some reason that I don’t fully understand, I keep my eyes averted when they say their farewells in the doorway.
Sometimes I see them embrace in what looks like a hug.
One time I could have sworn I heard a sound like a quick kiss.
Once it’s the pair of us alone in the studio, Mrs. Dawson sets out my costume for the day and tells me about the job.
Each day our work is different. Some days I’m in lace and jewels, feeling fancy like a queen.
Another time she drapes me in a boa of feathers and rouges my cheeks for a cigar advertisement.
True to her word, she’s begun selling our work to the newspapers and local businesses, and folks are interested in buying what we’re making.
We’ve got lots of offers. One day Mrs. Dawson tells me I’m to dress as a milkmaid for a local cheese maker off Rittenhouse Square.
Another time she puts me in a floor-length gown of rich red silk and tells me my image will go on a chocolate box.
Mrs. Dawson captures my likeness in oil, charcoal, watercolor, and pencils, slipping in and out of countless poses and expressions.
Mrs. Dawson and I make a good team; she tells me that, and I agree.
And even when swaths of my skin show, or she looks at me with every drop of her concentration, I never feel uncomfortable in her presence.
She’s not looking at me as men have looked at me.
She’s an artist and I am her subject. Sure, I’m not always entirely clear on how my outfits tie into the products we are meant to be selling.
“Why would a feather boa and rouged cheeks sell cigars to gentlemen?” I ask.
“Oh, it’ll sell,” she assures me. I trust Mrs. Dawson.
We have a good rhythm. Mrs. Dawson begins every session by helping me to find my light.
Then she tells me to settle my eyes. The eyes and the light, we can’t begin until she’s happy with both, and what she wants is always changing, depending on the work of the day.
The key is to not hold too much in my eyes, Mrs. Dawson tells me.
“They have to be expressive enough to capture someone’s attention and tell a story, but still leave enough room so that people can put whatever meaning they want into the image. ”
We take breaks every few hours and drink coffee or tea. Together we sit before her broad windows, and Mrs. Dawson shows me what we’ve done so far. She speaks to me about our work like I’m her equal, perhaps even a partner.
Some evenings when we complete our work early, Rachel cooks for us, and each meal is more delicious than the last: tender pork filet, steaming fish stew, beef bourguignon so flavorful that the meat melts on my tongue.
That map of France hangs near their kitchen table, and Rachel loves to point out from where in the country each meal comes.
Both women speak regularly of their dreams of traveling to France—Rachel to study the cuisine and Mrs. Dawson to see the great artistic masterpieces.
Other evenings, I skip dinner at their place and stop at the library on my walk home. I love that time, picking up books for myself and Kit. I still cherish an ember in my heart, the dream from Daddy that someday I’ll go back to school. Finish high school, maybe even apply to college.
Mrs. Dawson likes that I make these trips to the library, and she tells me to read as much as I can.
“Reading is one of the only things in life that can take you out of yourself,” she declares one afternoon when she sees my bundle of books that I tote to and from the library.
“Art does, of course. And travel. And falling in love.” She smiles, then carries on.
“But reading will be good. It will stir your soul. It will enrich your imagination. Consider it your homework, Evelyn. Read for me and for your work—and most of all, for yourself.”
So I do. When I read Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables that winter, I imagine myself as the fatherless girl Cosette, who stays kind and good, even when faced with malice.
Or bold, brave éponine, who learns how to survive with nothing so that she need not compromise everything.
And even Fantine, desperate to know every kind of love when instead she gets every kind of betrayal.
Without school or friends my age, I use these books as my tools to learn and live beyond the boardinghouse and the artist’s studio.
Another blessing to come out of my new work—I get long evenings with Kit.
After I fix supper, we curl into bed beside Titania, and I read Arthurian legends for my brother just as Daddy once did for me.
I tell Kit that someday soon we’ll have enough money for a nicer room, maybe a little house with a yard.
At night I go to sleep satisfied, knowing that I’m helping Mamma and providing for Kit. Knowing that Daddy would be proud.
And then one chilly afternoon that winter, the other woman comes back to the studio.
Violet. She’s with Rachel again, walking in as Mrs. Dawson and I are taking a break.
We’ve just brewed some tea, and I’m savoring the warmth of the mug between my cold fingers.
Mrs. Dawson gets up and greets them both at the doorway, giving both Rachel and this other woman quick hugs.
Then all three of them turn toward me where I sit beside the window, done up in a yellow dress with a broad sailor’s collar for a cookie tin advertisement.
“I’m Violet,” the woman says, removing her coat as she takes a tenuous step closer.
I nod. I remember. “I’m Evelyn,” I reply, unsure of what she wants. Or why she’s staring at me like that. I throw a searching look toward Mrs. Dawson.
Mrs. Dawson folds her paint-stained hands before her waist, turning from me toward her company, and then back to me as she says, “Violet has been waiting patiently, and I was starting to feel like a greedy friend, keeping you all to myself.”
And then Mrs. Dawson walks back toward me, sits down at my side. “Now Violet has come to us with such a golden opportunity, even greedy old I couldn’t tell her no.”
I still don’t understand what this is about. Violet takes another step toward us. When she speaks, her voice is quiet. “Evelyn, I am also an artist. I work in stained glass, with a gentleman named Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Louis Comfort Tiffany. Does the name sound familiar?”
I nod again. Of course I know the name Tiffany. I worked in a department store—we all knew of Mr. Tiffany and his family’s famous lamps, desired in New York City, London, Paris.
Violet braids her gloved hands before her midsection, and when she speaks next, it’s with a tone like the one I use when I’m trying to coax a timid Titania out from under the bed.
“Mr. Tiffany is working on a new church here in town, and he’s hired me to cut the stained-glass windows.
There are several scenes where I need an angel.
I’ve been looking everywhere for the right artists’ model.
I’ve gone to New York, Boston, even Chicago.
But I think I’ve finally found what I was seeking.
And when I shared my idea with Mr. Tiffany, he agreed. ”
My heart has picked up its pace in my rib cage. Then Violet asks, “Evelyn, will you be Mr. Tiffany’s angel?”