My father lies in the parlor. It’s all wrong, that’s all I know. Surely in the afternoon, just before suppertime, he’ll burst through the doorway as he always does, and swoop down to lift me up, kiss my forehead. Ah, my little mistress Margery! How did you fare today? Tell me, what did you read? My father’s mantra: read, read, read. No school till you are ten . . . read anything you wish . . . expand the brain! He teaches me the names of flowers and insects and trees, and how to draw the Greek letters. He demonstrates Latin roots at every opportunity. Each Christmas, he points at the cornucopia, spilling over with fragrant pine and silver balls. From the Latin cornu, Margery—it means ‘horn’—see how it’s shaped like a horn?
I sit on my bedroom floor in my awful dress, filled with fear and unknowing. My stomach feels funny. A book lies open on my lap. Illustrated Natural History, a gift from Daddy. The book has been my steadiest companion. For hours and hours I have painstakingly traced the animals and cut them out to make a paper zoo. My favorite toys are by my side: the skin horse, the jointed wooden dog, and the soft velveteen rabbit that St. Nicholas left in my stocking.
My twelve-year-old sister, Agnes, lies sick in the next room. I’ve not been allowed to see her. In a few days, Agnes is dead.
My world now contains only my mother and my oldest sister, Cecil, who is sixteen. I wonder if they will die, too.
I find my greatest solace in the horse, the dog, the bunny. I confide in them, cry with them, hold them tight at night. They whisper promises. It’s all right, we’re here. We love you very much. We’re not going away. We won’t die.
margery
Perhaps I should go check on her.
I’ll admit I’m reluctant, afraid of what I might find. What if she’s talking to herself again? What should I do then?
But she’s not. I’m sure of it. I could hear her from here.
I mustn’t worry so much.
I wish Francesco were here. Perhaps he’ll surprise me, come home early.
It seems forever ago that I said good-bye to him, quite joyful, knowing he was happy to be off to work on the book of poems. A local poet, he says, an unknown. He’s doing just the one edition. A favor, really. Still, the book will be beautiful. Francesco is a perfectionist. The handset letters will be crisp, the sewing that no one will see will be flawless, the binding simply tooled but elegant. He says it will be ready soon. He seems eager to show it to me. Not that I’m in any hurry to have him finish his project. Hours that Francesco spends at the print shop are hours I have to myself, for my own work. And this morning I was so grateful to have a day to myself to get through my manuscript.
But now that’s all changed, I don’t feel the same.
I’d rather not be alone with Pamela.
? ? ?
Sometimes it’s hard to remember that she was such a jolly little girl. Running around in her linen dress and sturdy brown shoes. Dragging lengths of brown paper under the kitchen table where she’d lie on her stomach, legs bent up in the air, and draw for hours. Perched on a chair with a fistful of custard creams, face all serious, nibbling away ever so carefully around the diamond pattern. Laughing and laughing at the funny balloons in Paris, pressing her hands to her face, over and over like a little wind-up doll.
Even now she can be frivolous and gay, when she is flying high. Just last month, we were out at Merryall with Cecil’s girls, Agnes and Budgie, and all the children and Pamela put on quite a show. Somehow, she got on the subject of her new underpants—of all things!—and how they had roses on them. Well, the children, naturally, were very intrigued. Suddenly Pamela started dancing about the room, singing something about, Rosies, rosies, pocketsful of posies, or some such pretty nonsense, and she hitched up her skirts, flashing her underwear. The children laughed themselves silly. They were quite delighted with their crazy Aunt Pamela!
But times like that are rare, I’m afraid. She can still fly high, but it’s the landings I worry about.
I do hope Francesco gets home early. Pamela tends to be on her best behavior when her father’s around. With me, she lets down her guard.
pamela
I see them now, the large canvasses.
I’ve always seen them.
A chandelier. A girl who has grown too tall, like Alice. The many-tiered chandelier hangs from a ceiling impossibly high. The girl’s head grazes the crystal pendants. She’s stuck in place, imprisoned by beautiful patterns.
A pomegranate. Prismatic, precise. Jewel colors. Dizzying, a stilled kaleidoscope of glass shards. The pomegranate is fragmented, yet whole. A perfect geometry.
A maze. It travels out to the horizon. There is no end. A platform cuts through the middle, flanked by busts on pedestals, a boy and a girl. Behind them, a tiny girl in a white dress holds a silver hoop. A wrong step and she will fall into the sunken maze. Into the abyss.
I have to paint them.
There are so many in my head. . . .
I must paint them.
I’ll get my easel from the basement.
Tomorrow I’ll begin.
I’ll begin to sort things out at last, fix things. Put them in their proper place.
And I will talk to Lorenzo. Absolutely I will. Tonight!
I won’t put it off a moment longer.
margery
I’ll just wait a bit longer. It’s almost noon. She’ll come out when she’s hungry.
Though she’s perfectly capable of forgetting to eat. Whether it’s because she’s in one of her funks or because she’s painting, it’s all the same. Those days in London, when Diccon was visiting so often, she was as a shadow in the house—she worked constantly, appearing for meals only when she remembered to. Often I’d slip into the studio to leave her a sandwich and a thermos of tea.
As the date of her opening at Leicester Galleries neared, there was a tension in our home. Just an undercurrent, nothing like the earliest days. And, thank God, it had nothing to do with me. Francesco was nervous. It seems absurd now, but at the time I understood.
Pamela’s art had changed dramatically. Her early work, the pictures that had stunned the critics and entranced the public, were intricate and fantastic, filled with imagined flora and starry-eyed children tumbling through sylvan scenes. But now her work was quite different. The fairies and butterflies were a thing of the past. Her landscapes of Wales and of our Chelsea neighborhood were quite somber. Her still lifes were dark. There was a moodiness, a melancholy in her art. It came from within, and I suppose it was a natural thing. Pamela herself was evolving rapidly, her own moodiness was growing.
Francesco worried over everything. What would the critics say? Would the pictures sell? Would the crowds come or had they had their fill of the prodigy? I was quiet. He’d heard me tell Pamela often enough that her art should be judged only by herself, that she wasn’t to listen to critics or anyone else.
I worried only that Pamela might get hurt. I was certain that this worship of my daughter could not endure. She could hardly remain the child genius forever. Not for much longer at all. If the furor died down, if the critics were less than ecstatic, it might not be such a bad thing, I thought.
In the end, Francesco needn’t have worried at all. The crowds came, and they bought. The critics swooned. Pamela’s show was another triumph. She was still a star, burning ever brighter.