Chapter Seven #2
I am. I’m ready for a new challenge: a larger canvas, more work, more money.
It takes me only two days of persistent begging to convince Mamma.
The major point that gives her pause—and me, too—is that we would not be able to bring Kit.
If I’m going to be out all day for photography sessions and Mamma will be bearing the double load of chaperoning me by day and making a go of her sewing at night, she doesn’t like the idea of Kit being left alone all that time in a strange new city, one as foreign and massive as New York.
So with the funds we have managed to squirrel away, we enroll Kit in a small boarding school just outside of Philadelphia.
He’ll be safe there, he’ll be getting a far better education, and he won’t have to navigate and manage in the big city on his own.
As tearful as the rending is in the week before our planned departure, I know that it will be best for all of us in the end, if only we can make it through the pain of the short term.
It’s all part of a broader plan I’ve formulated in my mind: I will go to New York City, and I will get work as an artists’ model.
I’ll make enough money to help set up Mamma with a small dress shop to sell her own wares.
Then, with the money that Mamma and I bring in together, we’ll have enough for a safe and comfortable apartment in Manhattan, and we’ll bring Kit up and enroll him in a good school in a respectable neighborhood.
The grand finale of this whole plan? Once Mamma and Kit are both happily settled and situated—I will go back to school.
I’ll complete high school and then even college.
Just like Daddy wanted. “It’s only for a short time,” I tell my brother, hugging him close when he asks me why he has to go away.
I have to look away from those big brown eyes of his, those eyes that look so much like mine, holding worlds of feeling inside them and mirroring back all the pain that I, too, am holding.
“It’s for the best,” I repeat, my tone more resolute than I feel.
This is the way that our dreams will finally come true.
—
With Kit settled at his new school, Mamma and I turn our focus to our upcoming journey.
We book two tickets for a northbound train.
All our worldly belongings fit neatly into a trunk and two frayed carpetbags, and Titania will travel in my arms. It’s our dreams that are too big for any bag to hold; those we carry in our hearts.
Twin dreams, mother and daughter, headed for the island of Manhattan.
On the eve of our departure, with our small room packed up and our third-class train tickets tucked safely into Mamma’s traveling satchel, I set out at dusk toward the butcher to fetch some sandwiches for our supper. No longer do I have to scavenge in the alleyway behind Haudenshield’s.
I feel a fresh pang of longing for my little brother—it seems wrong to be getting supper for two, not three. Even though I know that this separation is what’s best for him, for all of us, that does little to numb my pain.
My eyes begin to burn with the threat of tears as I recall our goodbye.
“But why do I have to go, Ev?” he asked for the hundredth time as Mamma and I put him on his own train, bound for Chester.
I’d sighed. How could I make him, a sweet ten-year-old boy, understand?
That he was going away to school—a place where he would be able to learn, and always eat a full meal, and sleep in a warm bed, even make friends his own age.
How could I help him to see how lucky he was?
I force back the tears now. I need to stay focused and hopeful for tomorrow’s journey.
New York City! But as I troop out into the street and the evening light, I nearly bump into a lady.
“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” I mutter before I look up into a familiar face.
“Oh!” It’s Mrs. Dawson. Leah. She looks happy to see me, but not at all surprised that I’ve barreled into her.
“Just how it all began,” she says, her tone a bit wistful. “Do you remember how you nearly ran right into me in the alleyway outside of the store?”
“Of course I do,” I say, rocking on my heels. Also how I was so frightened of her, how I thought she was going to get me into trouble. It makes my mind spin to think of it—how could I have known all that would come from our acquaintance?
“I guess the fates weren’t subtle, in the matter of arranging our meeting,” Leah says, looking into my eyes intently. Then she blinks, gives a quick toss of her head, and when she speaks next, her voice is less nostalgic. “I was just going to come knock on your door.”
It’s then that I notice her hands are full of papers. “I am on my way to pick up a light supper,” I say. “But here, may I help you with your load?”
“Well, it’s for you, in fact.”
“For me? Should we go inside?”
“No, it’s all right. Let’s stay here, just for a moment.” Leah throws a glance upward, toward the second-floor windows, then looks back toward me. “I’m glad for you, Evelyn.”
“Thank you,” I say. Does she hear all that lurks behind those two simple words? The thanks I feel—for everything. Not only for her wishing me well at the outset of my journey. But for giving me my start and then each nudge along the way. And for her not begrudging me for leaving.
It seems that she does hear it, because she goes on, “I knew you’d outgrow me, and Philadelphia. I’m just happy we did as much work together as we did. And speaking of work”—Leah looks back down at her hands—“you’ll need your portfolio up north. Hope you saved some room in your trunk.”
Leah leans toward me and transfers the folder of papers into my hands. I look down, then back up at her, confused. “What’s all this?”
“Have a look. Go on,” Leah urges me, gesturing toward my hands.
I tear back the cover and take a peek. I see an image—it’s me.
I riffle through to the next drawing and the one after that.
Page after page of me: my face, my silhouette, my entire frame in a multitude of scenes and costumes and mediums. All the days we worked together in her studio.
I’m a milkmaid, a goddess, a schoolgirl smelling flowers.
Scenes and clippings from advertisements and journals and magazines.
But what catches me most off guard are the press clippings from the newspapers.
I look at just the top one, which declares in large black font above my likeness:
Miss Talbot, the Peach from Pittsburgh!
But there’s more.
Rare and Enchanting Beauty
A Face as Fresh as a Morning Rose
The Allure of This Creature Will Stun
They go on and on, the words and the different renderings of my face, my hair, my body.
I’m struck by the volume, by the variety.
At how far and wide my image has flown when my own real world has felt so narrow.
I swallow, my heartbeat in my throat. Breaking the silence, Leah says: “My dear girl, did you never know?”
I shake my head, letting out a quiet puff of breath. I’ve never seen these pages before—at least, not all together like this. Not this many of them.
“Evelyn, you’re a sensation.”
A sensation? Me?
“Do you know that I saw you, even before we bumped into each other in that alleyway?” she asks, her eyes holding mine.
“Oh, yes. Inside the department store. You were looking at a hat—or pretending to. But the whole time I was nervous you were really looking at me.”
“You were right, Evelyn. I was looking at you. Couldn’t pull my eyes away. I’d never seen your equal. I…doubt I ever will.”
Her words are slow, heavy with meaning. I shift on my feet and say, “But the hat you were looking at was ugly as sin.”
She laughs at this. How I will miss her laugh. “It was green silk, if I recall.”
“With a big snake weaving around it,” I add.
She nods. “I regret I didn’t buy that hat. Would have been good fun to play around with images of your face beneath that serpent. Like the other Eve.”
I smile, but my eyes slide downward, breaking from her gaze.
We both know our time together is over. Leah puts her hand gently on top of mine; it feels warm and steadying.
And when she speaks, her voice is also full of warmth.
“It’ll help you so much if you bring these clippings of your work to New York.
So they see how much you’ve done. Don’t be intimidated by the big city—this is excellent work.
But here.” She slips another package into my hands, this one much smaller, a thin envelope.
“Hold tight to this. It will be every bit as important.”
“What is it?” I ask, looking up into her kind eyes.
“It’s a letter of introduction. For a Mr. Carroll Beckwith. Do you know the name?”
I shake my head, reminded once more of how provincial I am, how na?ve.
But Leah’s words bolster me as she goes on: “He’s one of the most in-demand artists in New York.
Or anywhere, for that matter. His studio is on Fifty-fifth Street.
Mr. Beckwith does work for the Roosevelts, the Morgans.
He even did a portrait for Mark Twain. He’s a living legend.
If you get a commission with Beckwith, you’ll have every artist on the island of Manhattan knocking on your door. ”
My heart hitches in my chest. “My word, Mrs. Dawson, er, Leah…this is, well, I don’t even know what to say.”
“Just…be careful, all right? Or I suppose I should say, be clever.”
I nod, even though I don’t fully understand what she means by this. But instead of asking about that, I ask the other question that pops into my mind: “Why?”
Leah arcs an eyebrow, confused. So I go on: “Why did you do all this for me?”
Leah flashes me a lopsided smile, and as I stare into her open, familiar face, it hits me again: How much I’m going to miss her.
The way she made me feel safe—and worthy.
As though she actually cared. Then, with a quick wink, Leah leans toward me and answers, “Someday I’ll be able to say that I knew you first, and taught you how to find your light. Now go find more light.”
“Thank you.”
“I hope so,” she says, her voice suddenly quiet.
I find it an odd response, so I let my face show that, and Leah adds: “I hope you’ll thank me. And not curse me.”