Chapter Nine
A rush is precisely what follows. A few weeks later, I’m in Mr. Beckwith’s studio as we are finishing up an oil on canvas.
I’m seated on his elevated platform, arranged in a prim posture with hands folded in my lap.
Eventually, mercifully, he says, “I think we have it. Come take a look, dear.” I soften with relief.
It feels as though every bone in my body creaks as I ease my ramrod-straight posture and hop up from the stool, massaging my lower back.
“Yes, well, it was worth the effort, Evelyn.” Mr. Beckwith eyes me with amused approval as I glide toward his easel. With a flourish of his hands, he invites me to see the canvas that has consumed so many of our hours together. “I was thinking of calling it Girlhood,” he declares.
As I take in the image, I can’t help but let out a small gasp of stunned delight.
It’s me, and yet, it’s art. I’m in a formal dress of black velvet, its long sleeves ornamented in red trim.
My hair is pulled back in a loose braid with a matching red bow nestled just above my neck.
At Mr. Beckwith’s direction, I’d coated my lips in lard and pursed them together in just the hint of a coy smile, then I’d tipped back my head and stared directly into the eye of the beholder.
“The eyes,” he muses aloud. “What were you thinking about as you sat?”
The question catches me by surprise. I consider it for a moment, then ask, “Do you really wish to know, Mr. Beckwith?”
He hitches an eyebrow.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Nothing?” Mr. Beckwith’s expression is hard to read—I can’t tell if he is smiling or frowning.
I nod. Then I say, “That’s the key, sir. If I think, then I’ll want to move. Either my face, or my body. I keep myself entirely blank.”
“Brilliant,” he says, his voice barely a whisper. “It works, that’s for certain. You allow the beholder to see whatever he wants…. You give him his very own blank canvas. Opportunity. Power, even.”
There’s more I don’t say, in part because I don’t even know how to articulate it to myself, let alone to Mr. Beckwith.
But the truth of the matter is that I must go blank, because otherwise my mind will rebel.
I’ll think of the hunger pang in my belly, the cramp in my neck after hours of holding one pose, the memories…
. No, I’ve had to learn how to ignore it, and more than ignore—to silence it.
Forbearance, that might be the word. Or perhaps more like mastery—over my mind, my body, my very will.
Mr. Beckwith interrupts these thoughts of mine as he rises to stand. “I have to be honest: the inquiries are getting more insistent.”
“Inquiries about what?” Mamma asks, speaking for the first time from her place on the far sofa. I’d almost forgotten she was there, sitting silently with her stitching.
Mr. Beckwith throws a look in her direction, answering, “About Evelyn. A chance to work with her.” Then he turns toward his workbench, where there are papers strewn about. Are those all inquiries about me?
Mamma perks up at this. “We do need the funds,” she says, lowering her needle. “What with wintertime and the cost of fuel. Working only twice a week is not enough.”
She doesn’t mention that she has yet to gain a position as a seamstress, or even in any store.
But Mr. Beckwith thinks for a moment, then says, “Evelyn is not the sort of girl who should take work simply because it is offered.” He crosses the room to his workbench, where he riffles through the pile of papers.
He selects one note. “I would suggest you consider this interview.”
He brings the paper to Mamma, and she takes it in her hands, reading the name aloud. “Mr. Frederick S. Church.” She throws an inquisitive glance at Mr. Beckwith.
“I know him well,” Mr. Beckwith says. “Church is eminently respectable. It would make sense for Evelyn professionally…but also in regard to her personal well-being.”
With Mr. Beckwith’s letter of introduction in hand, we arrive at the studio of Mr. Frederick Church on Forty-fourth Street. The man who greets us reminds me of a good-natured grandfather, older than Mr. Beckwith, with white wispy hair and a broad, easy smile.
The artwork covering his walls delights me.
I stare at the bright images in appreciation: storks carrying rosy babies in baskets, Santa Claus riding in his sleigh through a twinkling sky.
And the animals! Bears dancing in top hats, turtles racing hares, tigers lolling about in sunny green meadows.
Mr. Church has created miniature worlds that are lively and inviting.
“Ah,” he says at my side, his voice gentle. “Aesop’s Fables. Are you familiar?”
“Yes,” I say. Daddy and I loved Aesop’s Fables.
There’s one image in particular I find impossible to stop studying: a girl lacing up ice skates beside a frozen pond as a friendly bear helps her in her task.
How many times did Daddy and I ice-skate in a scene not too different from this one when I was precisely the same age as this happy little girl? Well, without the bear.
Mr. Church notices my attention to the scene. “Yes, that was a sketch I did for Harper’s Weekly. Back in ’75. Before you were born.”
He hasn’t asked about my age. And quite frankly, based on the purity and jollity of the scenes I see, I don’t suspect it much matters.
His work feels like art for children as much as for adults.
But then Mr. Church surprises me by reaching up toward the framed image and plucking it down from the wall. “You may keep it.”
I turn to him, throw him a look that must show my confusion. Mamma clears her throat.
Mr. Church repeats his kindly offer. “If you like it, you may keep it.”
“Oh, but I wouldn’t wish to take yours,” I say.
“I have others.” His pale features crease into an earnest smile, and in that moment, he doesn’t look all too different from the Santa Clauses he has rendered. “I drew it, after all.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“My pleasure, dear girl.” Next Mr. Church shows Mamma and me further around the studio, asking me, “Are you an animal lover? You seem to be.”
“Oh, yes.”
“As am I. I love painting animals. They teach us so much. They feel everything as deeply as we do. And yet, without the words to express themselves, they’ve found brilliant ways to convey it all. Studying an animal is an opportunity to study a broad range of emotions and moods.”
“I have a cat,” I say.
“Oh?”
“A tabby. I found her in an alleyway.” I am not entirely sure why I am telling Mr. Church, world-famous painter, all of this.
“What is she called?” Mr. Church asks, genuinely interested.
“I named her Titania.”
He grins. “A fine name. So then, you are a student of Shakespeare, as well as the great fables?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent.”
My cheeks grow warm; I’m happy that Mr. Church knows this about me and seems pleased. Then he tilts his head to the side and asks, “Would you do me a favor?”
Mamma scowls, but I am expectant and attentive. He asks, “Would you bring your dear Titania back here tomorrow? Perhaps we can begin by painting the pair of you together.”
The following day Mamma and I report for duty once more on Forty-fourth Street, this time with Titania in my arms. Mr. Church puts me in a white bonnet with blue ribbon and spreads a blanket across the floor.
For four hours, he captures a variety of scenes as Titania and I sprawl across that blanket—Titania playing with a spool of yellow yarn, me offering her a porcelain saucer filled with milk, even the two of us lying flat in a pose of peaceful rest.
When Mamma and I return to his studio the next Wednesday, Mr. Church tells me that we will go outside for a walk.
“To Central Park,” he says. As Mamma declares her preference to remain indoors beside Mr. Church’s fireplace, Mr. Church and I set off together, stepping out into a clear fall day that carries the scents of dry leaves and woodsmoke in the air.
We walk along the new Bridle Path that curves up the west side of the park. Mr. Church keeps a slow pace and pauses often—he is particularly interested in watching the birds. “Do you see how busy they are? They know that winter approaches.”
And it’s not just the birds. Mr. Church also takes a special delight in watching the squirrels.
“Industrious creatures,” he says, marveling in childlike delight as they scamper across the tree limbs.
I can’t help but study Mr. Church as he studies the animals—I can practically see his world-famous mind at work, watching and cataloging and enjoying.
As though his pleasure in observation and creation wafts off of him like some sort of lively glow.
In no time at all, these walks through Central Park become a regular part of our sessions.
One cold wintry afternoon finds us walking beside the edge of the pond, where a thin layer of ice has hardened the surface.
We pause our steps, looking out over the scene, and Mr. Church says, “In the spring, we shall come back and watch the tadpoles as they learn to be frogs.”
I nod, smiling, noticing how my breath is a silver mist in the chilly air between us. I am happy to think that I’ll still be working with Mr. Church in the spring.
When we return to the studio, Mr. Church calls for warm tea, and we sit down before the fireplace, the pair of us, as Mamma has stopped joining me on my days working here.
After we’ve warmed ourselves with the hot drinks and the hearth, Mr. Church leaves the room for a moment, returning with what appears to be some sort of heavy fur pelt in his hands. I glance up at him with interest.
“Tiger,” he says, unfurling the massive sprawl of orange and black across his wooden floor. I gasp, looking it over as he smooths the pelt across the ground. “I’ve painted such creatures in real life,” he explains.
“How did you get close to a real tiger?” I ask, approaching the fur, running a hand over its coarse surface.
“On my visits to the Barnum & Bailey circus. Have you been?”