Chapter Nineteen
“Are you alright, darling?” Eustace asked as he led Melody past an impressively large wall of art. “You seem . . . how shall I say it? Distracted? Do you not like the exhibition?”
Melody glanced around L’Avenir Gallery, which was very chic, all glass and silver.
“It’s wonderful,” she said and took a sip of her champagne.
It really was a magnificent setting, but she was having a hard time focusing.
Her mind continued to drift toward the letter she had received this afternoon, and she was still fuming at Freddy’s audacity.
“There is a radiance about you tonight, ma chérie, that sparkles, even in this crowd. Like a brilliant cornflower in a field of hay, or a tender lily of the valley amongst the bracken.”
Melody smiled weakly. At first his compliments had been unexpected and welcome, but now he had showered her with so many that they were beginning to lose their meaning.
She had begun to wonder if he merely liked the sound of poetic phrases.
And, if she were being critical, she would bet a large amount of money that he had never seen a hayfield in his life!
“I have a surprise for you, you know,” he said, leaning toward her conspiratorially. He seemed in an exceptionally good mood tonight, which, sadly, was the opposite of hers.
A flicker of curiosity, however, rippled through Melody before she tempered it, remembering that Eustace’s last surprise had been a leatherbound book of Latin sonnets.
“Oh?” She took another sip.
“I wonder if you can guess?”
She twisted her lips. “Probably not.”
“I’ve had a letter from Mater and Pater!” he announced with relish.
Definitely would not have been her guess. She opened her eyes wide, feigning interest.
“They are returning early! They will arrive next week, and I must introduce you as soon as possible. I’ve been writing to them, you see, with much more frequency than usual, with the intent of procuring their blessing regarding a .
. . well, let’s just say it is in regard to something—no, someone—who is very dear to my heart. ”
He said this last part close to her ear, and as he hovered, she felt sure he might kiss her cheek. Instead, he pulled back and tapped her on the nose with one long finger.
“And I just received this very morning their consent regarding a question I have been longing to ask you for quite some time. There. That’s all I will say for now, my little blossom. Do not attempt to tempt me further!”
Melody drained her glass, not liking the sound of this. She was pretty sure she could guess what question he wanted to ask, and she prayed he would not do so tonight; she was not in the right state of mind.
“You . . . you haven’t mentioned anything about the art,” she faltered and gave a weak nod toward the exhibits, hoping to distract him.
Eustace turned on his heel. “Ah, yes! Yes, well, they have some interesting pieces, I’ll say that, but it’s certainly not Roullier’s.”
He looked at her knowingly, and she nodded, pretending she could tell the difference between the two galleries.
“Yes, a bit too heavy on the modernists.” Eustace glanced around the gallery again as if to confirm his opinion and then looked down at her. “But what do you think, my pet? Is it to your taste?”
Melody wasn’t sure what to say. Most of the paintings around her were dull and colorless, the people bent and distorted amongst cartoon-like machinery or buildings. There was emotion in them, she decided, but none of them held any joy or hope, which was what she needed.
“Well, it’s certainly . . . different.”
Eustace laughed. “You are a gem, my dear, a perfect diamond in the rough. All you need is polishing. Mother will adore you!”
Melody squirmed under this praise—if it could even be called praise. She did not, for example, appreciate being referred to as “in the rough.”
“Eustace Sinclair!” came a jovial voice.
Two tall, thin young men, each with red carnations in the buttonholes of their white suits, were making their way through the crowd.
Eustace turned, and a genuine smile erupted across his face.
He clasped one of the men’s hands. “Biggsby? What are you doing here? And you, too, Collins? I haven’t seen you in an age! ”
The two men laughed heartily.
“Darling, we sail on Tuesday on the Aquitania,” the one called Biggsby declared. “We are touring Europe for the summer. You simply must join us.”
“Alas, mes amis, if only I could, but I have duties here.”
“Don’t be beastly, Stacey. You know you have no duties,” Collins pouted. “You’re always pretending you do, but then you don’t. Not really.” He peered at Melody now. “But who is this divine creature?”
“Ah! Waldorf Biggsby, Mortimer Collins, allow me to introduce you to Miss Melody Merriweather. Miss Merriweather, Mr. Biggsby and Mr. Collins. Good friends of mine from Yale,” he said proudly. “But what are you doing here at L’Avenir?”
His voice had changed somehow. It was more entreating, and pitched higher to match Biggsby’s own somewhat effeminate tone.
“Thought we might as well come for the opening, seeing as we’re in town. Rather a waste of time, as it turns out, except for the happy chance of meeting you, dear Stace.”
“Yes, it is rather a disappointment,” Eustace agreed, gesturing weakly at the paintings.
“Pitiful, is it not?” Biggsby added.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Collins drawled. “I rather like it.” He looked around appreciatively.
“But they’ve got it all wrong, Morty,” Eustace exclaimed. “The balance is off. A whole wall of Sheerer? One, maybe. But a whole wall? It’s positively obnoxious.”
“Steady on, old dog. I rather like Sheerer.”
“I’m not saying I don’t like him. I appreciate his intellectual precepts—his attempt to enshrine the mundane of the current era and yet still ensconce universal truth.
Though, personally, I think Albright does a better job of that.
But what I object to is not having any classical pieces, at least for context.
One cannot truly appreciate modernism without understanding what it’s responding to.
It strikes me as, well, a little too unbalanced for my liking. ”
“Agreed,” Biggsby added. “But then it’s symptomatic of everything that’s wrong with the current art scene in Chicago. Art has become a commodity, like everything else, and this, apparently”—he gave his head a languid tilt backward—“is what the market wants.”
Melody set down her empty glass. She was trying to follow the conversation but found it horribly dull.
What struck her more, however, was the realization that Eustace rarely ever spoke to her in this way.
Seriously, or intellectually. It was all fluff and metaphors and poetic verses.
It was suddenly becoming clear that despite his worshipful compliments, he did not regard her as his intellectual equal.
She was more like a statue he wished to possess for his statuary, something he could worship or adore, not love or respect.
But why was this surprising? Most men did not regard their wives equal to them, she knew, and yet her father had seemed to. Well, in most things . . .
“You’re much too reactionary,” Mortimer argued. “There has ever been a chase after the new at the expense of tradition throughout all of history. You’re confusing—”
“Excuse me,” Melody murmured to no one in particular, “while I powder my nose.”
Eustace abruptly turned his attention to her. “But of course, ma petite muse. Shall I escort you?” he asked, as if she were a child who needed her hand held to find the ladies’ lounge.
“Thank you, no. Excuse me, won’t you?” she said to Biggsby and Mortimer.
The two men each gave a slight bow. As Melody retreated, she heard Biggsby’s voice.
“She’s quite pretty, Stace. A little young perhaps. Surely you haven’t professed yourself in love, have you?”
“As a matter of fact—”
Melody increased her pace, not wanting to hear anymore, though she imagined Eustace’s smug face as he answered his friends. She thought she heard laughter.
Once out of earshot, she slowed, stopping in front of a piece she hadn’t yet seen.
She peered at the tiny brass plaque: Winslow Homer.
She had never heard of Homer, but several of the paintings in this corner were his.
They were of a more pastoral nature than the other exhibits, filled with light and color and a certain raw innocence.
The people in them seemed very real, and yet the scenes had a sort of gauze over them, as if they were memories, fuzzy, from the past.
The piece in front of her, Hills of Pennsylvania, was a landscape of rolling hills with poppies in the foreground. It could easily be a painting of the hills of southwest Wisconsin, she decided, despite the title.
It made her suddenly want to cry. She moved to the next one, transfixed.
It was of three children lying, carefree, in a field, and she felt another tug.
The next was of a girl on a tree swing. Out of nowhere, her grief rose up and pierced her.
The painting reminded her of the swing in the backyard of the Willows and how her father had pushed her on it when she was a little girl.
Melody’s eyes bounced between all of the paintings, and she felt somehow in the presence of what could only be described as .
. . well . . . as the Divine, as corny as that sounded.
For an artist to be able to capture what was in her heart was extraordinary.
But it wasn’t just the composition (she had learned that word from Eustace) that evoked such emotion, it was the sense of place.
She flicked her eyes to the big windows at the front of the gallery and watched the motorcars rumbling by, the city illuminated beyond it.
Suddenly, she felt an ache that nearly stopped her breath.
It was no use denying it anymore. She missed home. She needed to go back. She didn’t belong here anymore.