Tiffany Girl (3 page)

Mother stood stiff, her lips drawn.

“I’ve heard you crying, Mother.” She looked down, picking a loose thread from the muslin. “I’m not a young girl anymore. I’m one-and-twenty. Old enough to see that something is very, very wrong.”

“We’re just going through a bad spell right now. Everyone is.” Her voice wavered.

Setting her sewing aside, Flossie stood. “But we shouldn’t be. Your business is booming and so was his, but he hardly ever opens his doors anymore. He simply takes the money we make and spends it.”

“He enrolled you in the School of Applied Design.”

“Only because you made him. And the reason I didn’t feel guilty about it was because I earned every penny of the tuition.” She bit her lip. “But as sure as the sun rises, I know that as long as we keep handing everything over to him, he’ll never change his ways. Why would he?”

“Your father’s a wonderful man.”

“He is. And I love him—very, very much. But what he’s doing to you—to us—is wrong and I’ll—I’ll not be party to it. If you want to work yourself to death and give it all to him, you are
certainly free to do so, but not me. If I do the work, then I’m going to keep a portion of the wages.”

Mother closed the distance between them and lowered her voice. “You will not.”

“It’s time, Mother,” she said, matching her quiet tone. “Well past time.”

Mother slapped her.

Gasping, Flossie fell back, covering her stinging cheek. Tears sprung to her eyes. Never in her entire life had either of her parents raised a hand to her.

“We are women.” Mother’s hands trembled. “You can read all you want about unfeminine women who want to be treated like men, but no matter how hard we try, nothing will change the facts. We aren’t men. Not now, not ever. And if those women aren’t careful, they just might get what they are asking for, and then where will we be? Do you wish to load your own steamer trunks onto a wagon? To shovel snow from the sidewalk? To drive six horses? To fight in wars? To wear trousers? Well, I don’t, and I will have no such talk in this house. Have I made myself clear?”

Still cradling her cheek, Flossie ignored the tears spilling onto her fingers. “Crystal clear.”

Turning, she fled from the room and up the stairs. Flinging herself onto her bed, she buried her face into her pillow and sobbed. Not just for herself, but for her mother and all the other women who didn’t see that men—even the ones who loved them—were very careful to keep the fair sex in a state of subjection and complete subservience.

CHAPTER

2

F
lossie squinted her eyes, blurring the woman at the front of the room to nothing but shadows, highlights, and midtones. The model was young and sat extremely still in a stout oak armchair, her ankles crossed, her hands folded atop her lap. Her simple green gown and white lacy collar offered a wonderful contrast to her rich, dark hair.

Swishing her brush in turpentine, Flossie glanced at the other art students, some of them men, most of them women. They’d covered their clothing with paint-smudged smocks and worked quietly while the instructor, a master whose paintings were sold in galleries all over New York, circulated throughout the room and offered quiet suggestions.

She dabbed her brush on a rag, then picked up some sapphire blue from her palette and mixed it with crimson. She still couldn’t believe Papa wasn’t going to allow her to return after the new year. She’d secretly hoped he’d change his mind come Christmas, but that morning had come and gone with strained politeness as she’d unwrapped the paints and canvas he’d given her. She loved the gifts, of course, but nothing had been the same since Mother had struck her. In that one moment her entire childhood had fallen from her like a snake casting off its skin. Mother had made up
with her almost immediately, for she’d been horrified with herself and followed Flossie to her room after only a few moments. They’d held each other, both of them apologizing, both of them stricken. It had made them closer than ever before, but in a completely different way—a more grown up, woman-to-woman way.

Still, she’d decided it was time to make a break. With quick brushstrokes, she swiped dark lines of shadow along the upper edge of the arm she’d sketched, then dabbed at the hairline and gave a squiggle beneath the jaw. It was one thing to determine she wanted to be on her own. It was quite another to go about finding a job, especially when she couldn’t seek the advice of her parents. She wondered how much the model on the platform made.

A murmur rippled throughout the room. She glanced toward the door where their instructor, Mr. Cox, hustled to greet a couple who’d entered.

“Tiffany,” he said. “Great Scott, what a surprise. I didn’t know you were coming.”

Tiffany? Surely not
the
Tiffany of the jewelry empire? But no, this man looked to be in his forties. He wasn’t nearly old enough to be the real one. And the woman with him didn’t dress in the manner Tiffany’s wife would. Although her organdy waist and black silk skirt were nice enough, they were nothing like what Flossie’s mother would make.

“Forgive our intrusion.” Tiffany’s headful of brown hair expanded as it was released from his derby hat.

“Nonsense. You’re welcome any time.” Mr. Cox wiped a beefy hand on his apron, then held it out, his wiry black mustache crinkling when he smiled.

Tiffany clasped the offered hand. “Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Driscoll. She’s head of my Women’s Department.” He turned to her. “This is Mr. Kenyon Cox. We painted together at the National Academy of Design.”

Women’s Department?
Department of what? And Mr. Cox had painted with a member of the Tiffany family? For though this man was too young to be the jeweler and though he lisped with every
s
he pronounced, the cut of his coat and the fine cloth it was made from left no doubt that he was somehow related.

“A pleasure.” Mrs. Driscoll gave a slight bow, the greenish-black rooster-tail feathers in her hat trembling. The woman was no wilting flower, but she was a single-stemmed bloom to Mr. Cox’s solid oak trunk. It had always amazed Flossie that a man of such proportions could paint with the delicacy of Michelangelo.

“To what do we owe this honor?” Mr. Cox asked.

Tiffany draped their coats across the back of an old wooden chair. “We’d like to have a look at your students’ work, if you wouldn’t mind.”

His eyes widened a bit. “Certainly. Are you interested in anything in particular?”

Mrs. Driscoll moved to one end of the room while Tiffany and Cox began to make a slow circuit around the other. They glanced at the men’s work, but stopped and studied the women’s.

“I am,” Tiffany said. “I’m sure you heard the lead glaziers and glass cutters went on strike?”

Mr. Cox pulled a face. “I saw that in the papers and thought of you immediately. I’m assuming it has brought everything to a halt?”

“Indeed it has, but that’s not the worst of it. The Chicago World’s Fair starts just five months from now and I am in the middle of preparing an exhibit for it—a chapel using every type of glass known to man.”

Mr. Cox gave him a sharp look. “There’s going to be a display of American stained glass?”

“Not officially, but when the fair executives realized they’d overlooked provisions for an ecclesiastical art display, they told my father about it. He agreed to portion off a section of his exhibit
space so it could be devoted to such. Naturally, Father approached me for the execution of it.”

Flossie dipped her brush in the turpentine. So he was the heir apparent, Louis Comfort Tiffany. His windows graced her church, and she’d spent more than one Sunday admiring their vibrant colors and luminosity.

“I hadn’t heard that.” Mr. Cox clapped Tiffany on the back. “That’s marvelous. Congratulations.”

A lovely smile flashed across his face, then dimmed. “It will all be for naught if I don’t get myself some glaziers and glass cutters—and quick.”

Across the room, Mrs. Driscoll chatted with Aggie Wilhemson, one of Flossie’s favorites here at school. Aggie stood six feet tall, her blond Swedish heritage evident not just in her bearing, but in the lilt of her voice.

“Are you going to give into the workers’ demands, then?” Mr. Cox asked, recapturing Flossie’s attention.

Mr. Tiffany shook his head. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to convince all the other glass manufacturers to do so. No, these things take time and I don’t have any time. That’s why I’m here.”

“I can’t imagine how I can help, but I’m willing to do what I can.”

Slipping his hands in his pockets, Mr. Tiffany tilted his head to the side and studied Elizabeth Comyns’s painting. She’d illustrated some books, and though Flossie had never seen them, three of her designs for china painting had been published in this year’s
The Art Amateur
.

“I was thinking of hiring some women to do the work,” Mr. Tiffany said.

Flossie froze.

Mr. Cox’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “Women? To do
glass cutting
?”

“To do it all.”

“
Do you think they can?”

“Mrs. Driscoll seems to think so, and I put a great deal of stock in her opinions.”

Mr. Cox’s gaze drifted to Mrs. Driscoll, who now conversed with Louise King. The quiet, unassuming girl was Mr. Cox’s star pupil, not just because of her extraordinary talent, but because of a growing attraction between the two.

“Wouldn’t hiring them get you into trouble with the unions?” he asked.

“I don’t see how.” Tiffany shot him a conspiratorial look. “Women aren’t allowed to be members of unions.”

Throwing back his head, Mr. Cox gave a bark of laughter, then swept his arm in a half circle that encompassed the room. “Look all you want, then. There isn’t a student in the room that I wouldn’t recommend.”

CHAPTER

3

F
rom the time Flossie was twelve, she’d watched over the children of Mother’s clients during fittings and design sessions. She’d diapered Eleanor Roosevelt, burped Harold Vanderbilt, and bottle-fed Henry Du Pont. To her, Mr. Tiffany was nothing more than an ordinary man who happened to have a lot of money. And though the Tiffany women had never sought out Mother for their clothing needs, she knew this man ate, worked, and slept just like the rest of them.