“I met Reynold Bryce several times at soirees in Boston back in the eighties,” she said. “In those days he was just making a name for himself. It was really the portraits of the young girl that put him on the map. He painted one every year for five years. Then he abandoned his whole career here and went off to Paris. He had become enamored of the Impressionist movement and the more modern style of painting that was being produced over in France, although I can’t say I favor it myself. Anyway, he just upped and left one day and hasn’t been back to the States since.” She looked up from her soup, pleased that we were all paying attention. “Of course one has to admit that he was born with talent. He is now one of the few Americans to have established himself as a leader among Impressionists. He’s a friend of Monet and, one hears, a wonderful mentor to young American artists. His salon is the place to be seen, so one is told.”
“The friend with whom I’ll be staying is an artist and has secured an introduction to him,” I said. “She hopes to be included in his upcoming exhibition.”
Miss Hetherington sniffed. “Then she must indeed be talented. It is said that he has a poor opinion of women painters. He is of the old school—that women belong in the home, raising children. Such an outdated notion, as I used to tell my students. I used to say ‘I am educating you to be more than a beautiful adornment to your husband. I am teaching you to think for yourselves and to believe that the whole world is open to you.’”
“Quite right,” Miss Pinkerton said. “I told my students the same thing. But it was usually the same outcome. They left our establishment determined to become doctors and writers and explorers and six months later they were engaged to some vacuous young man and considered themselves happy and blessed.”
“If only it were possible to be happily married and have a career,” one of the widows said and sighed.
“Of course it’s not. How can it ever be possible,” the other widow snapped. “Unless one is Madame Curie.”
I stayed silent.
“Speaking of the young girl in the Reynold Bryce paintings,” the other spinster, a Miss Schmitt, joined in the conversation for the first time, “wasn’t there some kind of scandal or rumor about her?”
They turned to Miss Hetherington, the resident expert. She nodded and leaned closer to us, lowering her voice and looking around before speaking. “I gather, although this has not been confirmed, that she is shut away, of unsound mind.”
“Shut away? In an institution, you mean?”
Miss Hetherington shook her head. “No, I understand that she is cared for at home. I am told, on good authority by someone who knew the family in Boston, that she was always a little—shall we say—strange—remote, unworldly. The person who told me said that she couldn’t put a finger on it but there was something not quite right about her. Well, one saw it in the paintings, didn’t one? As if she wasn’t quite of this world. Angelic, almost. That’s why he called her Angela, of course. I believe her real name was something quite different. However one gathers that she had some kind of brainstorm or mental collapse and now is a pathetic creature of strange fits and fantasies who needs constant care.”
“How terribly sad,” I said, thinking that the face that had looked out to sea in that painting had been full of hope and interest for what lay over the horizon.
“That must have been the reason that Bryce stopped painting her,” one of the widows said. “She was sliding into madness and her face no longer had that luminous angelic quality.”
“One gathers he was very generous to the family,” Miss Hetherington said. “Of course he was born to money. That’s how he funded his painting for many years until he made a name for himself. The Bryces are an old Bostonian family, you know.”
“We must make it our quest during this voyage to find out who this young girl is,” Miss Schmitt said with great animation. “Was she with anyone?”
“Yes, an older woman who could have been a companion,” I replied.
“Ah, then we must seek her out.” The women exchanged a glance and nodded conspiratorially.
Nine
We met at dinner that night and my table companions reported that they had had no success, except to determine that she was not traveling second class. Since a cold wind had been blowing on deck, she would probably have stayed in the first-class lounge. That cold wind was now accompanied by a decided swell.
“Oh, dear,” Miss Schmitt exclaimed as the ship crested a wave then fell again. “I do hope I’m not going to be seasick. I don’t think I’m a very good sailor and one has heard that the Atlantic can be so rough.”
“It’s all a question of mind over matter,” Miss Pinkerton said. “You simply tell yourself that you are not going to be ill. You eat hearty meals and take plenty of exercise.”
“Quite right,” one of the widows exclaimed. They were a Mrs. Bush and a Mrs. Cowper but I hadn’t worked out which was which. Then she added, “And I always bring ginger pills to suck. Most effective. I’ll give you one after dinner, Maude.”