Chapter Eleven
Charles Dana Gibson. I know the name, of course.
And I can see from Mamma’s blazing eyes that she’s just as tickled as I am that the famed sketch artist has written to her, explaining that he wants me to be his next Gibson girl.
“Why, Mr. Gibson’s work is everywhere,” she says.
“Life magazine, Collier’s, Harper’s Weekly. ”
“Oh, yes,” I say, agreeing with Mamma. Every girl in America—and abroad—knows about the Gibson girl. In my solitary moments when I sneak a look in the mirror, I do my best to pile my hair high atop my head like the desirable Gibson girl, the symbol of sophistication and elegance.
Mamma and I promptly accept Mr. Gibson’s invitation to a meeting at his gracious brownstone on Thirty-fifth Street.
When we arrive on the appointed Monday that winter, we are shown by a gloved footman into a quiet, tastefully furnished drawing room.
There we are greeted not only by our host, Mr. Gibson, but also his friend, a Mr. Condé Nast, who will oversee the pictorial for Collier’s showcasing its newest Gibson girl: me.
Once Mr. Gibson has offered us all tea and cookies, the four of us take our seats on a pair of sofas arranged before the fireplace, and our host jumps right in. “Miss Talbot, Mrs. Talbot, I thank you both for coming.”
“Our pleasure,” Mamma says, polite yet reserved.
Mr. Gibson looks from Mamma to me, and I meet his gaze.
But I’m quickly distracted, because behind him on the wall are orderly rows of dozens—no, hundreds—of images.
Each drawing is done in the ink and paper style that Mr. Gibson is so famous for, the unique black and white technique that has made him such an international sensation.
I force myself to look back toward my host, my eyes settling on him.
He appears younger than most of the artists I’ve worked with—I’m guessing Mr. Gibson must be in his thirties.
His face is pleasant and clean-shaven, without the shadow of a whisker, and he wears a tailored suit of dark charcoal with a black necktie.
In fact, he looks a fair bit as though he’s just stepped out of one of his dapper pen drawings, all crisp straight lines and shades of black and white.
At his side, Condé Nast appears even younger, perhaps in his twenties. He is also handsome and well turned out, sporting a three-piece suit of pale gray, but his face wears an impish smirk. And like Mr. Gibson’s, his stare is fixed only on me.
It’s Mr. Gibson who takes the lead in the conversation as he declares, “I need a fresh face for the new century.”
I nod but remain silent, having heard this before. When Mr. Gibson continues, I am delighted to hear him add, “I’d like it to be yours, Miss Talbot.”
Mamma nods her quick assent; there’s little use in our acting as though we aren’t already won over. But Mr. Gibson’s next question catches me a bit by surprise. “Miss Talbot, may I ask you to step with me toward this window?”
I rise slowly and follow Mr. Gibson across the drawing room, with Mr. Nast trailing a step behind.
Mamma remains on the sofa, but her eyes follow us.
We pause a pace away from the broad window, and I look up at my host, who says, “Now turn to the side.” I do as he says, as the gentle winter sunlight streams through the glass, grazing my cheek.
“May I?” Mr. Gibson asks. I offer a small nod, and he adjusts my chin, tilting my face with just his pointer finger until I’m peering slightly upward.
I remind myself to breathe, to keep my features steady, even as I can feel the famed artist’s eyes boring into my profile, far more intense than the winter light that seeps in from the opposite direction.
I’ve fashioned my hair like a Gibson girl, a high chignon, hoping Mr. Gibson would like it since it was he who first made the style a sensation.
But to my surprise, he says, “It’s the hair. Something’s not right.”
I feel my shoulders droop in disappointment. But Mr. Gibson’s voice sounds animated, and he asks again, “May I?”
Once more I nod my willing assent, and now Charles Gibson is touching my hair. “No,” he says, turning to Nast a beat later. “I am no use with these matters.”
“Here, I have an idea.” Mr. Nast steps forward. “Miss Talbot, may I touch your hair for a moment?”
“All right.”
Condé Nast’s hands are soft yet skillful as he pulls half a dozen pins from the bottom of my thick chignon.
A moment later I feel the rope of my long hair fly loose, though the top remains fixed in place, so now it’s like a pony’s tail, with just ringlets of my chestnut curls winding down my back.
Mr. Nast takes the loose tresses in his hands with a gentle grip, and then he settles them into place so that my hair tumbles over just my left shoulder.
“That’s it,” Mr. Nast says, his voice soft as a whisper.
“Please, don’t move,” Mr. Gibson adds. He dashes across the room in just a few strides as I remain motionless before the window.
And then, an instant later, I hear the scratch of pen on paper, and I know that Mr. Gibson is sketching.
I hadn’t realized we’d be starting right away, but from the feverish sound of his strokes and the quiet hum of concentration that pulses through the room, I can tell that Mr. Gibson has seen something he likes and we’ve gotten to work.
“I made this for you, Evelyn. As a keepsake. To remember our work together.” Mr. Gibson raises a hand toward me, and I see a flash of white in his grip.
It’s not one of his famous black and white ink sketches, but instead it’s a paper silhouette.
“I’ve always loved to cut silhouettes,” he says.
“Ever since I was a boy. Of course, they don’t bring in what my sketches do. But I love making them.”
“For me?” I smile, touched, as I look down at the delicate handiwork.
It looks like a fish swimming through a series of waves.
“Thank you,” I say, meeting his eyes. It’s our last day of work together—Mr. Gibson told me this morning that he’s gotten everything he needs in order to get to work on the pictorial for Condé Nast and Collier’s.
And I’m happy to have this keepsake. I can’t wait to see how our work turns out.
“Miss Talbot, may I ask you a question?” Mr. Gibson offers me his arm and begins to guide me slowly toward his front door.
“Of course.”
“What is the most powerful force in the world?”
My first thought is hunger. It could drive a person to desperation.
Or perhaps heartache? But I don’t think Mr. Gibson means something as abstract as that.
And then my mind turns back to the morning’s news, the article I read on the front page over breakfast: a tragedy in the Five Points slum, a building turned to a hellscape inferno, the flames consuming the entire structure in mere minutes, killing seventeen of the poor people who lived inside, including two babies.
A grisly reminder of how close to death Mamma and I could be at any time if my work were to stop and we were to move into a shabbier building.
“Fire,” I venture. “It can destroy anything.”
Mr. Gibson chews his lower lip. “It’s a clever answer,” he says, surely having seen the headlines for himself. “Fire is powerful indeed. And yet”—Mr. Gibson raises his ink-smudged finger—“fire doesn’t stand a chance before…?”
“Water?” I offer.
“That’s it!” He snaps his fingers excitedly.
Mr. Gibson continues on, deep in his thoughts: “What’s more, Miss Talbot, fire burns itself out, eventually, does it not?
But water, why, it can never be overpowered.
Water can and will change its shape to survive in any setting.
It can carve rock, move mountains, change the entire face of the earth.
” A moment of silence stretches between us; the only sound I can hear is the clicking of the clock on the nearby mantel.
And then Mr. Gibson goes on. “Think of the creatures that have learned not only to survive where fire can’t, but to use it for their own good. ”
I look down at the cut-paper silhouette in my hands. “Like fish.”
“Precisely, Miss Talbot.” Mr. Gibson nods heartily.
Then he leans close and presses his hand on top of mine, a gentle grip as he closes my fingers around the small paper fish in my palm.
And when he speaks again, it’s with a kind, almost paternal tone.
“Learn to move, to adapt. Like water. In short, learn to swim. And then you’ll survive. ”