Tiffany Girl (12 page)

“Don’t get up,” she said. “I just came to check on you.”

He glanced at his jacket, which had been draped on the back of his desk chair, and started to rise.

“Don’t get up,” she said again, then pointed to the cat. “I see you have a friend.”

He sank back down. “It’s raining.”

“Actually, I think it’s snowing now.”

He glanced at the window. “No, I mean, the cat always comes when it’s raining . . . or snowing.”

“Does he?”

“She. It’s a she. And, yes, but Mrs. Klausmeyer wouldn’t like it.”

“I won’t tell.”

He studied her, his eyes hidden, for the lantern light on the desk didn’t reach quite that far.

“I don’t let her on the bed,” he said. “I make her a little pallet on the floor. She doesn’t bother anybody. Never cries. Just purrs.”

Crossing her arms, Flossie propped herself against the doorframe. “What’s her name?”

“I don’t know.” Teasing the cat, he touched its nose, paws, and ears in quick succession while it swiped at him.

Why hadn’t he named it? she wondered. Instead of asking, she simply offered him an invitation. “Everyone’s in the parlor. We’re going to play The Board Game of Old Maid. I found it on one of Mrs. Klausmeyer’s shelves.”

Instead of responding, he rubbed his knuckles against the cat’s ear. Closing its eyes, the cat leaned in to the rub and purred.

Flossie tilted her head. “We’d like you to join us.”

“I’m afraid I can’t. I need to do some work.”

She looked again at the clean desk and capped inkwell. “But everyone’s there.”

“Perhaps next time.” He still hadn’t looked up, but kept all his attention on the cat.

“Is it because I’m a New Woman?”

Pausing, he rested his elbows on his knees. “Not at all. I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Don’t be sorry. I asked you a question and you answered.”

He studied her again. “Why did you ask it? Why was it so different from everyone else’s?”

“I don’t know.” That wasn’t completely true. “Well, okay. Perhaps it had a little something to do with your articles in the
World
.”

“Did it?” He leaned back. “Well, I have a question for you now. What kind of paintings did you surround my slip of paper with—the one Mrs. Holliday read to me, I mean?”

Looking toward the upper corner of his ceiling, she bit her lower lip. “Well, let’s see. One painting was of a man dragging a woman by a chain around her neck. Another was of a woman being turned away from a university by a pack of men in black robes. Another of a woman in sordid labor over a soap vat. And the last a father pocketing all the money his daughter earned.”

“Perhaps he needed it to help feed his family.”

“Perhaps he didn’t.”

He blew out a puff of air. “We men aren’t tyrants, you know.”

“No?”

“I’ve no desire to condemn women to imprisonment in greasy kitchens, forever debarring them from intellectual growth. It’s their best interests I have at heart. Theirs and their children’s.”

Rather than challenge him further, she decided instead to extend an olive branch. “Then there’s no reason not to join us in the parlor.”

A beat of silence. “I’m sorry.”

She supposed she could blackmail him. Tell him she’d report him for harboring a stray, but, of course, she’d never do that. Still, she’d have to think of something, but for now she’d let him off the hook.

Pushing herself off the frame, she took a step back. “Next time, then. Good night, Mr. Wilder.”

“Miss Jayne.”

The cat took a quick swipe, catching him across the hand.

He jerked it back. “Oh, ho, ho. Easy now.”

The sound of his one-sided conversation followed her back down the hall.

CHAPTER

13

M
r. Tiffany poked his head inside the storeroom. “Well, there she is.”

Flossie rose to her feet. “Mr. Tiffany! It’s so good to see you. I’ve been dying to tell you how much I love your glass. It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and such a privilege to work with.”

With an arm against his waist, he gave a bow. “Thank you very much.” He straightened. “I’ve been wanting to come by, but hadn’t been able to pull myself away from the factory in Corona.”

She couldn’t imagine that he’d been dressed like that at the factory or he’d have looked as out of place as she’d been on her first day of work. Still, she took a moment to appreciate the quality of his mixed cheviot coat, his brown worsted trousers with a thin dark stripe, and his russet shoes that had gained such popularity men were wearing them with everything but their evening dress.

“Miss Upton,” he said, acknowledging Nan.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Tiffany.” Nan picked up a sheet of glass, her owl-like eyes bluer than normal in the bright sunlight.

He returned his attention to Flossie. “I wish you could have seen the glass we made yesterday. It was the purest of yellows with
just enough red added to turn parts of it the exact orange of the sun the moment before it disappears behind the horizon.”

Flossie rested a hand against her chest. “Oh, I wish I could have seen it, too. It sounds like it would be the perfect thing to use for flames. Too bad we aren’t making any windows about the fiery furnace Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into.”

He laughed. “Perhaps I can talk someone into commissioning one, but what I’d really like to use it for is daffodils.”

“Daffodils?”

With a sheepish expression, he shrugged. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m growing a bit weary of always making windows for churches. All they ever want are traditional religious figural pieces. It doesn’t leave a lot of room for creativity. For quite some time, I’ve been wanting to try some nature-inspired still lifes or even a panorama of a pastoral scene.”

“Like your paintings,” she said.

“Like my paintings.” He smiled at her, then glanced at Nan as she held up a section of aquamarine glass to the window.

“Ah, look at that one, Miss Jayne.”

“Wouldn’t it make the perfect scales for a mermaid?”

“A mermaid.” Shaking his head, he chuckled. “It would indeed. Now, is this the glass you’ve selected so far?”

“Miss Upton has. I just do the restocking, but wait until you see what she’s selected.”

With a lift of her chin, Nan proceeded to show him each piece, then pointed to its corresponding color on the cartoon.

With hands in his pockets, Mr. Tiffany listened and watched. When she was finished, he looked at Flossie. “What do you think?”

Biting her lip, she glanced at Nan. The girl’s eyes turned steely, her posture stiff.

“For the most part I loved what she picked,” Flossie said, keeping her tone neutral.

“You’d make no changes, then?” he asked.

She shifted her weight. “Well, perhaps, but only a couple.”

“Which ones?”

Without looking Nan’s way, Flossie walked to a pile of glass the girl had deemed unworthy, flipped through it, then removed a piece the deep color of a ginger plant. She held it up to the light. “I’d have used this for the section of fabric that runs along the Virgin Mary’s lap—right here.” She pointed to the corresponding part on the cartoon. “I think that piece needs to be fairly dark in order to add a bit more shadow and dimension.”

He nodded. “Since you are doing the preliminary selecting and the final decision will occur later, you need to give your selector as many choices as you can without including the entire storeroom. That’s the first thing to keep in mind. So from now on, Miss Upton, I recommend you choose a few more options for your selector. Second, you were right, Miss Jayne, to note the piece Miss Upton chose for the Virgin’s lap wasn’t quite right, but I’m afraid yours isn’t, either.”

“No?” she asked.

“No, the color is good, but you need a piece of heavily wrinkled glass. That will give the illusion of the fabric being gathered in her lap, and will also give the dimension you were missing before. Let me see if I can find one.”

For the next thirty minutes Mr. Tiffany critiqued Nan’s selections, giving both the girls a chance to find different pieces before selecting even better ones himself. A couple of times Flossie felt like her selections were just as good as his, but she savored every moment of the time he spent with them. His vast wealth had not overly impressed her, but his vast talent had.

By the time he left, she had learned more about color, texture, and design than she had in a month of classes at the design school. “Oh, Nan, isn’t he wonderful?”

“I could hardly understand him with that lisp.” With little
regard to their fragility, she stacked the pieces they’d decided upon onto a tray.

“Goodness, I hardly even notice his lisp anymore.”

“You two are certainly very friendly.”

Flossie began to return the unused pieces to their trunks and barrels. “We became acquainted the day he and Mrs. Driscoll came to the School of Applied Design.”

Picking up the tray of glass, Nan gave her a hard look. “Well, don’t think that just because he gave you a little attention today means he’s grooming you to be a selector. That position requires a great deal of experience and talent—neither of which you have. I suggest you don’t get ahead of yourself.”

Nan flounced out the door before Flossie had the opportunity to formulate a response. It was just as well. By the time a response did come to mind, it wasn’t exactly one that would promote camaraderie, and she had no wish to make an enemy of Nan—or any of the Tiffany Girls. Now, more than ever, women needed to stick together.

GAME CARD 
¹⁰

“Clearly, she was not going to give him the kind of questions she gave everyone else, such as: when did you last climb a tree?”

CHAPTER

14