The headlines in the newspapers were startling. Art critics gushed over our daughter, the wunderkind, the amazing child prodigy from across the sea. Stories about Pamela found their way into papers all across America, in towns I couldn’t imagine, like Austin and Chattanooga and Indianapolis. Accolades poured nonstop from the heavens. Francesco ran around collecting them as rain in a bucket.
The pattern was now set. Francesco would manage Pamela’s career. My job, as I saw it, was to counterbalance his wild ecstasies over her success, see that it didn’t go to her head, ruin the girl. I’d steer her far away from the seduction of fame. In quite mundane, trivial ways. Teasing her if she did something silly or absentminded. Our little miss genius has left her jumper in the alley again, has she? Or, I wonder if Rembrandt spent such a lot of time choosing which biscuit to have with his tea. . . .
I’d remind her that she would be an artist forever, but perhaps not always a famous one. It was hard to tell what she thought. She always agreed with me. She seemed unaffected by it all.
But then the spark flew. Just one sentence.
One sentence from a review in the Evening Telegram incensed Francesco, ignited the old trouble.
We were having such a nice, quiet evening in our new home in Macdougal Alley. Francesco was reading the paper, and Pamela and I sat on the sofa opposite. Pamela was reading a book. I was tatting, finishing up a lace collar. The cozy silence was broken only by the clicking of shuttles and Francesco’s contented hmmms as he approved what he read. Occasionally he’d call out to us, chortling, and read a bit of praise—“instinctively chooses the right medium” . . . “colors of the most daring kind” . . . “a marvel of modeling” . . . “arresting good judgment and harmony. . . .”
Then, “Listen to this, Margery!” I looked up. I could see he was furious.
It was a mistake, I’m sure, it must have burst right out of him without a thought. For if he’d given it any thought at all, he never would have read those words out loud to me.
It is apparent to any one that Pamela is a genius. Naturally the question in all minds is what will be the result of this premature exploiting of her work?
Francesco ripped out the offending page, crumpling it into a tight ball.
“How dare that idiot talk about ‘premature exploiting’? And now, for God’s sake. She’s not a child, she’s fourteen! What do these people want? Do they think a girl with a talent as extraordinary as Pamela’s should be hidden away until she’s . . . what? Of marriageable age? On her deathbed?”
He ranted on and on.
“Pamela’s old enough to think for herself now, she could decide not to exhibit if that’s what she wanted, couldn’t she? Nobody’s making her do anything she doesn’t want to do. That’s right, isn’t it, Pamela?”
Pamela look startled, blank, when he looked at her for assurance. She nodded her head dumbly. Then Francesco looked at me and in that instant realized his great mistake.
I was silent. I set down my lacework, behaved as if Francesco’s outburst had never occurred at all. Spoke almost cheerfully.
“Francesco, Pamela and I are going out for a bit of a walk . . . we’ll pick up a chicken for supper, I think.”
By the time we’d put on our coats, Francesco was already bending over the Victrola. As the door shut behind us we could hear the opening notes of “Celeste Aida.”
pamela
News of my great success at the Anderson Galleries traveled back across the Atlantic. Stories were printed in the London papers.
Diccon wrote to me.
I read about your American debut—I am terribly proud of my little friend who hikes in the rain and swims like a sand eel in the cold waters of Wales and draws and paints like Botticelli. . . .
I cried when I read his letter.
And I was back in the miner’s cave in Wales, while the storm raged.
I felt him beside me, then, his arm around me, his hand hot on my skin.
I should be over there, not here. I should be with Diccon.
Well, he’d be here before long. In summer.
Summer. Summer. Summer.
It’s all I could think about.
But I kept busy. Working, mainly—I was practically living in my studio. If I had free time, I’d head over to the Whitney Studio Club on West Fourth Street. Gertrude had started the club a few years earlier as a gathering place for artists. There was a billiard room and art library on the lower level. On the main floor, there were two galleries and a parlor where one could read or play cards or Parcheesi or just talk. The parlor was painted in brilliant colors, with floor-length curtains of deep sapphire, lined with chartreuse silk and tied with a scarlet cord. I thought it was rather like a gorgeous dress-up box.
Although I flew over to the club at every opportunity, I was mostly just an observer. I was shy, and the youngest member by far. The others regarded me as a child. At first, some of the artists teased me, bowing and brushing the floor with imaginary hats. Hail to the little queen of the art world! Let me kiss your feet, I beg of you, that I may taste of your genius! But they soon grew tired of that, and before long I was nothing special, just a girl with braids who sat in the corner with a book and might be listening in but who cared? Everyone seemed so jolly, so full of ideas, so interesting. There were hundreds of members, not just painters and sculptors, but also printmakers, illustrators, art students, and cartoonists—and even if I didn’t join in, I felt like one of them.
There was a sculptress, Sara, who befriended me. She was nineteen; she said that before I arrived she’d felt like the baby in the group. To me she seemed the picture of sophistication as she darted airily about like a dragonfly in her slouchy gaucho pants, her flowing peasant blouses, and her ever-changing array of seductive little cloches that called attention to her fantastically green eyes. I felt the dullest housefly in comparison.
Still, it was all just a diversion. I was counting the days until Diccon would arrive.
At last, spring blossomed in the Village. Washington Square Park burst into beautiful blooms, all snowy-white magnolias and leafy elms and lindens a brilliant yellow-green. My fondness for our new neighborhood increased every time I took a walk. Even so, I couldn’t wait to get out of the city, to be off on our seaside holiday at the New Jersey shore.
April. May. June. Summer.
Forever.
margery
Pamela and I walked out into the night.
A strong March wind pummeled our backs, blowing my hair across my face. We turned up our coat collars and headed south, flinching from the beastly screech of the Sixth Avenue el train careening over West Third Street.