“No,” said Mr. Ravenel lightly, stepping back, away from her. “I think you argue like an attorney. There’s no judge in the world could stand up against you.”
He had begun moving, strolling toward the door, as though they were two sightseers at a museum. Lucy fell into step beside him, groping after her lost poise. “I’d like to see that,” she said. “A woman attorney.”
“Why not? I met a woman doctor when I was serving overseas.” Mr. Ravenel glanced down at her. “She was doing twice the work of the men and just as well.”
Lucy had never hankered after bloodstained bandages or bottles of pills, but the idea of being the one sitting behind the desk, dictating memos, making the decisions, had a powerful appeal.
Regretfully, Lucy banished the image. “Maybe my daughter will be the attorney. Or the doctor.”
“Not you?”
She might as well have sighed for the moon as for a college education. That was for other women. Women whose fathers had money to burn. “I had to fight to finish at the high school. My grandmother didn’t believe in education for women. She thought it would give me the wrong sort of ideas.”
A woman didn’t need education, her grandmother had said. She would only marry anyway. It was a waste of time when she might be helping at the bakery.
A good gugelhupf. Now, there was a way to a man’s heart.
John Ravenel looked at her thoughtfully. “But here you are, a model of the new woman.”
The new woman. Scarlet women, according to her grandmother. Lucy squirmed at the memory of the scent of gin, Philip Schuyler’s lips on hers, the high-pitched laugh of the woman in the backless dress.
“Not entirely. I like being useful. I like working. But I’m not fast,” she said fiercely. “I’m not.”
John Ravenel looked at her, puzzled. “I never thought you were.” His lips lifted in a half smile. “You can tell just from looking at you that you’re a lady.”
“Even now that you—know my background?”
“What your parents did isn’t who you are.” They were back in the front hall. Lucy could hear the sound of a gramophone from somewhere up the stairs, and a spirited argument coming from the room with the sculpture. “Aren’t I proof of that?”
Lucy looked at John Ravenel, wanting to say yes, wanting to agree with him, but she couldn’t help thinking, traitorously, that he was what his parents did. “Would you have found art if your father hadn’t been a painter?”
“I don’t know. But I do know that I love art for its own sake, not my father’s. He gave me my start, but—” John Ravenel shook his head. “I guess we can’t get away from them entirely, but we can pick and choose what we want our legacies to be. What do you want your legacy to be, Miss Young?”
The words came out in a rush, out of nowhere. “If I have children, I want them to feel like they belong to something.” She had never felt as though she belonged. Not in Brooklyn. Not in Manhattan. Not with the Jungmanns. Not with the Pratts. She was betwixt and between and adrift. She took a deep breath. “I want them to know where they come from. No mysteries, no secrets. I want something solid, stable. It sounds pretty petty, doesn’t it? Here you are, planning to change the world one painting at a time—and all I want is a safe home.”
John Ravenel didn’t mock her. “My mother was an artist’s model.” A rueful smile creased his lips. “Well, my father’s model. She made pictures that made history. And, in the end, she claims her greatest success was making a home for us. She made order out of chaos. She kept us all safe and fed. She kept my father—and me—alive. She’s the strongest woman I know. She wouldn’t find your ambition petty at all. She would admire you for it.” His eyes met hers. “I admire you for it.”
It was like staring at the sun. Lucy looked away, down at her shoes. Such sensible, workaday shoes. “You’re a kind man, Mr. Ravenel.”
His brown eyes crinkled at the corners. “My mama tried to raise me right. Whether she succeeded . . . not everyone would agree.” There was something grim about the way he said it. But before Lucy could inquire further, he said, “Shall we see if we can find something to eat? All this soul baring is making me hungry.”
Astonishingly, so was she. They said confession was good for the soul, but she’d never realized it also stimulated the stomach. “I wouldn’t mind an ice-cream sandwich,” Lucy admitted, adding shyly, “Thank you for taking me here. I never knew this was here.”
John Ravenel stepped out into the sunshine, holding the door open for her. “It hasn’t been here long. Mrs. Whitney only opened the studio club two years ago.” Letting the door swing shut, he offered Lucy his arm. “One of these days, I’d love to do something similar in Charleston.”
Charleston. The name hit Lucy like a slap. It felt like Mr. Ravenel had always been here, would always be here.
Trying to sound casual, she said, “Are you going back to Charleston soon?”
There was a pause before he answered. “I’ve booked my berth on the train for Tuesday.”