Chapter 4 Geraldine
Geraldine
If there was one thing Geraldine knew about herself, it was that she had always been considered outrageous.
Her mother had said it, her grandmother had said it, and on occasion, even her dead husband, Anselm, had mentioned it.
Geraldine could not see what all the fuss was about.
Why was it perfectly acceptable for the men of the world to run around saying exactly what they thought and what they wanted without recrimination, but it wasn’t remotely the done thing for women?
No, she had decided early on that she would live as she saw fit, regardless of the consequences.
Fortunately for her, such leanings and inclinations led her straight into the life artistic.
Not only were such thoughts acceptable in the artistic world, but they were also often encouraged.
Opera singers, actresses, and artists were all known for their temperamental behavior, which suited Geraldine just fine.
Her father hadn’t even batted an eyelash when she announced her intention to travel as a young woman to Paris and study at the école des Beaux-Arts for a year.
He had given his permission wholeheartedly, with one condition: Geraldine could have her year abroad, but when she returned, she would be required to fulfill her duty as a daughter of the household and marry the man her father had chosen for her, the son of another wealthy family in their social set, and one she had never seriously considered as a match.
Her father explained that a union between the families was highly desirable to him, and if travel to Paris was important to her, she would do as he required.
She readily agreed, telling herself that perhaps her father would change his mind before the year was up.
She should have known better. Her father was famous for never changing his mind once it was made.
When she had returned home with a portfolio full of avant-garde paintings and a wardrobe that raised eyebrows in her rural Maine community, she knew she would never quite fit in again.
Fortunately for Geraldine, her husband had found her behavior endearing.
He had enjoyed his bride’s boldness and benefited from her willingness to tell things as she saw them.
Their marriage had not been one blessed with children, but it had been blessedly without difficulties.
There had been more than enough money to indulge both their joint and separate passions.
Anselm’s love of fine houses and water views had led them to purchase the house on Long Pond.
Geraldine’s skill as an artist had brought her fame throughout the country as a landscape painter.
Together, they had rubbed along quite comfortably, until his demise two years earlier.
She had done absolutely nothing outrageous since.
She still found herself depleted by grief over his passing.
It happened one evening, as a newly acquired housemaid entered the dining room with a soup tureen held aloft, a look of terror on her face as though she might drop it should the least little thing startle her.
Just as the poor girl had placed it in front of Anselm and whisked off the bone-china lid, Geraldine’s husband let out a groan and grasped both arms of his ornately carved dining room chair with his large hands.
The maid dropped the soup tureen lid and let out a gasp of her own when it shattered as soon as it struck the floor.
It was funny how one’s mind tried to make sense of incomprehensible things.
Geraldine quite distinctly remembered feeling far more annoyed at the loss of the serving dish than worried about the state of her husband.
At the time, it had seemed as though he had deliberately provoked the poor girl.
It took her far longer to realize something had been wrong with him than that property had been damaged.
She had started to chide him—after all, servants were not necessarily the easiest thing to acquire in the modern world—when she realized his eyes were bulging and his face was turning purple.
Before she could rise from her chair to investigate matters further, he had slithered underneath the table and banged his head upon the floor.
It was a spectacularly undignified end to a decorous life.
When Geraldine thought of the scene even two years on, the thing she most remembered was the fact that he was wearing mismatched socks beneath his carpet slippers at the moment of his death.
In fact, sketches of his feet had been the only works of art she had managed to produce since that evening.
Still, she had not struck such a very bad bargain in the end.
Anselm had been kind to her in his way and had demanded very little that she did not wish to give.
He had turned a blind eye to any indiscretions she might have indulged in with far more interesting men of their acquaintance, and she had done the same whenever his attentions wandered.
And her year in Paris had set her up with sufficient skills to launch her on a lifetime of artistic success.
Shortly after they had returned from their honeymoon—another trip to Europe—she informed her husband that she would require a room of her own to be set up as an art studio.
Not one to miss the chance to indulge his new bride, he had readily acquiesced, offering her the opportunity to take her pick of the rooms their new house included.
She had settled on one on the third floor looking out over the lake, its wide windows offering just the right sort of light throughout most of the year.
During the many years of their marriage, she had thrown herself into painting after painting, capturing the lake at all times of the year and almost every hour of the day.
She had luck with her reputation too. Anselm had been most willing to entertain lavishly, and they cultivated friendships with gallery owners and art critics who made it a point to indulge in the current fashion for travel to Maine during the summer months.
Before long, her works were hanging in galleries and museums throughout the country.
She had been stunned when the realization came over her that Anselm, with his predictable conversation and stolid dependability, had been—if not her muse, exactly—the presence that made it possible for works of great beauty to flow from her brush and onto the canvas.
Every day since his death, she had sat in her studio, looking out over the lake and feeling limp with emptiness.
Months had passed, and she’d produced nothing new.
A hum of panic had rumbled through her mind almost constantly.
The week before Anselm died, her agent had booked a gallery exhibit, promising never-before-seen works.
At the time, she had been delighted. After Anselm died, she had to ask for the show to be rescheduled again and again.
Producing any new work without her husband’s steady presence had proved impossible.
The show was now scheduled for November, which still felt too soon.
But finally, time and the warming weather seemed to be working their magic on her.
The fog of her grief was ebbing away, slowly but noticeably.
As she lay in bed listening to a jay calling out the latest gossip to its neighbors, she pictured the blue of its feathers and how they would compare to the color of the lake beyond.
She could almost smell the familiar scent of linseed oil and mineral spirits as she remembered the joy of squeezing bright blobs of pigment onto her well-worn wooden palette.
She felt a slight stirring in her heart that she had almost forgotten could be there.
Could it be that she was ready to return to her work?
She swung her legs from her bed and hurriedly pulled on a pair of dungarees and a cotton blouse that had seen better days.
Arriving in the breakfast room, she astonished and delighted Mrs. Burns, her long-suffering cook/housekeeper, by asking for an omelet instead of waving away any suggestion of food.
She managed several forkfuls before the housemaid placed a stack of mail at her elbow.
Her stomach soured as she spotted Louise’s elegant script on the topmost letter.
Geraldine slit the envelope with her butter knife and plucked out a thick sheet of stationery.
She should have known better than to read correspondence at the table, especially when it came from her in-laws.
Both her appetite and improved mood abandoned her as she skimmed the missive: Louise cheerily announced that the whole lot of them planned to arrive that very afternoon.
The sprawling estate on the lake had been part and parcel of her large inheritance from her husband.
Unfortunately, so had his extended family, who had taken to visiting just as soon as the Maine spring had given way to summer.
Since her title had changed from wife to widow, the whole troupe of them had generally confined their unwelcome presence to frequent letters and occasional telephone calls.
But come the mildest months, they seemingly could not resist the lure of the motto on the state’s license plates: Vacationland.
Despite the fact that she had never proffered anything remotely resembling an invitation, she’d made an effort to be the sort of hostess everyone expected her to be each time they appeared on her doorstep.
Without a word of recrimination, she had put up with innumerable toddlers grasping every surface of her immaculate house with their sticky little hands.
She had graciously endured condescending inquiries after her health by members of the younger generation as their predatory gazes roamed over her home, silently toting up the value of the art hanging on the walls and the antique rugs spread across the gleaming hardwood floors.
She had smiled at his ne’er-do-well younger brothers when they pressed her for loans or offered to relieve her of the burden of managing her own finances.
But of all of them, Louise was the most repellant.
Not only had she made a habit of treating Geraldine’s house as her own, but she was also an indefatigable social climber.
Geraldine wondered how the woman managed not to bloody her own nose with the lofty social heights she seemed determined to scale.
Incredibly, Louise had proved remarkably adept at making friends with prominent families all around the lake.
Geraldine suspected it was the younger woman’s habit of dropping the Putnam name into conversation early and often.
Just as a dark mood threatened to envelop her once again, she remembered that she was considered outrageous. Chin up, she chided herself. A change was as good as a rest. Geraldine Putnam was not the sort to allow herself to be bested, even by her own dark thoughts and certainly not by other people.
She pushed back her chair and crossed the room, passing through the wide hallway and into the morning room.
Settling into the seat of the telephone table, she opened a small drawer and removed her address book.
Within a few moments’ time, her outlook had brightened once more, and she returned to the breakfast table.
She reached for the bell placed conveniently at hand, and the housemaid appeared so swiftly Geraldine wondered if she had been hovering just outside the door.
“Yes, madame?” she asked.
“I have decided to go away for a bit and shall need you to pack enough items for at least a month. I will need several formal gowns, in addition to day dresses and painting clothes. You know the sort of things I mean. Please be sure to include my jewel case with suitable items as well. I will have Mrs. Burns deposit the rest of my jewelry in the safety-deposit box at the bank. I’ll be leaving shortly. ”
The girl’s eyes widened before she bobbed her head and hurried out the door.
Geraldine nodded to herself. The maid had been the very same one who had dropped the soup tureen, but she had turned out to be a remarkably good hire in the end.
She might still be a bit skittish, but she knew her place and how to hold her tongue.
Geraldine hummed to herself as she polished off the rest of the omelet and drained her bracingly bitter cup of coffee before mounting the stairs to the studio.
She strode to one of the cupboards tucked in under the eaves and wrenched open the door.
Bending over, while reminding herself not to twitch in any direction too suddenly and risk throwing out her back, she extracted a wooden case by its handle.
Her heart lifted as she was transformed almost instantly back to the young girl who had bought that same French easel on her first trip to Paris.
It would be the perfect thing to take with her.
As she glanced around the room, she realized she was almost looking forward to a change of scenery.
While she had no intention of giving up a view of the lake, especially not once the weather had become so heartbreakingly delicious, she could not say that she was unhappy to enjoy a slightly different angle on it.
She hoisted the strap on the easel to her shoulder.
After one last glance around the studio, she walked out the door.