The Artist Colony Page 3

  How ironic, thought Sarah, staring at the bobbing heads in front of her, that she and Ada had also been tourists at the Del Monte, but with their parents. Their father, an avid golfer, had played the golf circuit from San Diego to San Francisco to the Del Monte in Monterey with his two daughters tagging along. She had only been four years old, but she still held a sweet memory of their family holiday.

  Ada had often told Sarah that because she was such a wee thing, as light as a doll, she could carry her across the hotel grounds to play in the Arizona Gardens and the Mazes. That’s when Ada had started calling her “Little Sis.”

  Ada would always start the story by saying, “I’m sure you don’t remember—” which irritated Sarah, even now, because she did remember. She also remembered what happened the following year after their idyllic summer in California.

  Sarah lay her head back on the bus seat and let Ada tell her again as if she was sitting next to her, still alive:

  You were only five, but because I was eleven I got to go to New York City with our parents to watch the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

  We were watching the Fifth Avenue parade from the fourth-floor balcony of the Windsor Hotel when we first smelled smoke and then there were flames climbing up the building.

  It was before the law that required fire escapes on all tall buildings, and the only way out of the Windsor Hotel was to slide down ropes, which hung outside the windows for such emergencies. Ada would always explain these facts first as if that would make the story less horrible. It never did.

  Father helped me over the ledge and told me to grab the rope and slide down. My hands got burnt by the chafing rope and were bleeding when I dropped to the pavement below. Mother started down next, but the rope snapped under her weight and she fell several floors. There were no ropes left so Father leapt into the waiting arms of the firemen.

  Horse-driven ambulances rushed them to Bellevue Hospital but they were dead on arrival. The last time I saw our parents was through the front display window at Bellevue where corpses had been laid out for identification by their families.

  I would trace the scarred burns on your hands, Sarah interjected, taking over their story. I’d predict a happy future for both of us, but you would press your hands together and shake your head solemnly. You began spending days at your easel. I gave up trying to get you to play card games like we used to, or having make-believe tea parties. Desperate for your company, I’d prop up my own easel and paint alongside you.

  Our grandparents became our guardians, but it was you who mothered me. And it was you who made sure I continued my art studies, our mother’s cherished desire for both of us. When you were accepted at the Art Institute of Chicago, I went with you, carrying our lunch bags. I’d sit cross-legged on the cold studio floor and sketch along with you and the other older students.

  How different you were after the fire, Sarah added, lifting her teary eyes to the white clouds hovering over the bus. It wasn’t just the wounded hands. There was a yearning in your eyes when you looked off in the distance, as if expecting someone who was just out of reach. I hope you are no longer yearning for our parents and are with them now.

  The Monterey autobus came to a sudden stop, bringing Sarah back into the present. The view before her was identical to Ada’s seascape hanging on her wall in Paris; it brought continuous sunshine into her dimly lit fourth-floor garret. Ada had discovered a painterly paradise in Carmel and she shared it with Sarah and everyone else who viewed her landscapes.

  What could have happened, wondered Sarah, to change this paradise into an early grave?

  “Last stop!” shouted José. “Carmel-by-the-Sea!” The passengers climbed down and started off in different directions.

  Sarah stepped onto a wooden boardwalk and scanned the deep blue waters that spread out beyond the end of the road. Is that where they found you? Under the cobalt blue sky? The cypresses? The waves crashing against jagged rocks? That white pristine beach?

  The brilliant colors faded to black when she lowered her head and whispered, I’m so sorry, Ada. I’ve come too late. Will you ever forgive me?

  Ada’s silence was deafening.

  José had put her valise on the boardwalk and was climbing back onto the bus when she cried out, “Stop. Please don’t go!”

  He turned around and pushed back his wide-brimmed sombrero. “Is something wrong, Señorita?”

  “I have lodgings, but I don’t have an address.”

  “People living here don’t want to be found. There aren’t any street addresses in Carmel, Señorita. Does it have a name?”

  “McCann’s Lodge.”

  “Oh.” He smiled. “That’s easy.” He pointed toward the sea. “Head straight down. Turn left on Camino Real. Three blocks up from the ocean. Big white house with green shutters. If you step onto the beach, you’ve gone too far.”

  She looked down the deserted street. On a Saturday afternoon in Paris there would be a dozen taxicabs competing for fares. She felt ridiculous but asked, hopefully, “Taxi service?”

  “Nope. Just Critter,” José replied, motioning toward a two-story wooden building. A lanky young cowboy leaned against one of the porch posts underneath a wooden sign: CARMEL HOTEL - STAGE AND TRANSFER AUTOS FOR HIRE TO ALL POINTS.

  “Hey, Critter,” yelled José. “Can’t you see this fine lady needs your help? Show her the way to that boarding house. You know, where all those pretty paintin’ gals live.” Critter pinched the lit end of his cigarette and dropped it in his shirt pocket. The spurs on his muddy boots jingled as he strolled over to Sarah.

  “Howdy, ma’am,” he said, tipping his broad-brimmed hat. “This way.”

  Without another word, he picked up her valise with ease and strode down the hill. Sarah slung her sketch box over her shoulder, gripped her satchel, and did her best to keep up with him. Her Parisian pumps—often silenced by the crowded, noisy boulevards in Paris—banged loudly against the hollow, wood-planked boardwalk. The few passersby glanced suspiciously at the new arrival in a red Chanel suit.

  —2—

  In the entryway of McCann’s Lodge, a short, buxom woman welcomed Sarah with a most agreeable round face framed by silver-white hair pulled up loosely into a bun on top of her head. A gingham apron hung around her ample waist. Her eyes were like dabs of ultramarine pigment and she had full, pink cheeks that dimpled when she smiled—just like Ada had described her.

  Rosie McCann asked Critter to put Sarah’s valise down next to the staircase and after handing him a few coins, he sauntered off and she gave Sarah her full attention.

  “Oh my,” she said with a gentle Irish brogue, “you are a blessing for my sore eyes. And the spittin’ image of your lovely sister. May she rest in peace.”

  “You’re very kind, Miss McCann,” said Sarah, relaxing in the presence of a sympathetic soul after her long journey.

  “It’d please me if you’d call me Rosie. Now come into the parlor and take the weight off your feet while I put the kettle on.”

  Sarah followed Rosie into an old-fashioned pale yellow room. A bouquet of burnt-orange marigolds posed in a ceramic vase on a green tablecloth. The fresh oranges and apples stacked in a bowl next to it reminded her of a Paul Cézanne still life that she’d copied in the Musée de l’Orangerie. She’d made studies of its every stroke, shadow, and hue.

  Rosie disappeared behind a swinging door into the kitchen.

  Sarah’s curiosity was drawn to the crowded bookshelves. What an impressive collection, she thought, recognizing the works of Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Dorothy Sayers. There were also many lesser-known mystery writers.

  The next shelf down was a Who’s Who of modern literature: Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, which Sarah hadn’t been able to put down until she found out what happened to Countess Olenska. And there were other memorable authors who had inspired her to seek her own independent path: Rebecca West, Virginia Woolf, Willa Cather, Kate Chopin.

  Ada had preferred the roman
tic poets so they never had to argue over sharing books. They argued over more serious things, like “I didn’t say you could use my sable paintbrush” or “You stole my tube of cerulean blue.”

  There was an A–Z Encyclopedia Britannica, a World Atlas, and many history books, including Becoming American; The Asian Experience. If Rosie had read all these books, she was a well-educated woman and her opinions should not be taken lightly.

  Sarah picked out California Impressionism from a stack of art books and brought it over to a comfy couch upholstered in yellow roses. She’d just sat down when a small dog ran in and made an incredible leap into her lap.

  “Behave yourself, Albert!” said Rosie returning from the kitchen to find the dog jumping up and down on her guest’s lap and sniffing her neck and face. Sarah cupped his head in her hands and looked into his black agate eyes, “So you’re Ada’s Albert,” she exclaimed.

  He was just like the watercolor her sister had sent. A barrel-chested, short-legged, tri-colored Jack Russell terrier. He had a frisky white face with a brown patch that spread down over his furrowed brows. Wrapped around his white torso like a saddle was a black patch, and on his rump a black inkblot. She scratched behind his floppy chocolate-brown ears. He looked so pleased she could’ve sworn he was grinning when he exposed a row of teeth that she knew were designed to be sharp enough to pull a fox out of a deep hole.

  “Usually he’s suspicious of strangers,” said Rosie, “but your voice is so like Ada’s.”

  Albert tilted his head at Rosie and then curled up in Sarah’s lap.

  The kettle whistled and Rosie bustled into the kitchen again, the door swinging behind her.

  As Sarah stroked her furry friend, she admired the stained-glass lampshades of amber, rose, and jade that gave a burnished elegance to the frayed furniture and spread warm hues over lace doilies on the backs of chairs and tops of tables.

  Two needlepoint footstools by the fireplace drew her back into her grandparents’ parlor in Chicago where she’d sat on a stool with a drawing pad in her lap and a charcoal pencil in her hand. Ada was on the other stool, bent over her own pad. They were earnestly copying an Albrecht Dürer drawing in an art book propped up in front of them.

  Now, in Rosie’s comfy parlor, white chintz curtains danced with a sea breeze wafting through the open bay window. Sarah sighed. Ada hadn’t exaggerated when she said it was so quiet in Carmel that at Rosie’s lodge, a ten-minute walk from the ocean, you could still hear the surf breaking on the shore. She breathed in the brisk blue air that her sister had found so inspiring.

  Albert rolled over in her lap and asked for a belly rub, his paws fanning the air.

  “Look out, he’ll never let you stop,” said Rosie, bringing out a porcelain tea service on a tray and placing it on the low table in front of them. “I expected you’d be hungry so I baked blueberry scones for your arrival.”

  Albert sat up and wiggled his black-patent nose. “Your treat is in your bowl, young man,” said Rosie. As if understanding her, he jumped off Sarah’s lap and pushed himself through the swinging kitchen door.

  “It warms my heart to see him perky again,” said Rosie. “He’s been mourning his mistress and having you here is a godsend. He spends his waking hours at the front door waiting for Ada to return or paces the entryway with his tail down as if it’s his fault she went away.”

  Sarah felt a similar guilt.

  Rosie poured black tea into delicate cups decorated with shamrock leaves, then looked up. “After Ada found Albert wandering on the beach, and when no one claimed him, she adopted him. They were as thick as thieves from that moment on.”

  “How could anyone abandon a cuddly, adorable dog like Albert?”

  “Don’t let him fool you, he might look like a stuffed animal, but he can be as tough as nails. Jack Russells are known for their strength.”

  “That’s what Ada told me,” said Sarah as she took a bite of the warm flaky pastry. Blueberry juice dripped down her chin. She wiped it off with a napkin. “This is so delicious!” Between bites, she thought to bring up the inquest verdict, but they’d get to it soon enough, and she was suddenly ravenous.

  “How long have you lived in Carmel?” she asked. Rosie let go of the white pearl necklace she was rubbing between her fingers and sat up. Her bright eyes met Sarah’s.

  “Coming on twenty years. I moved here in 1906, after my home in San Francisco was destroyed in the fire that burned parts of the city after the earthquake. The land developers of Carmel offered homeless artists and university professors, like myself, generous loans to build houses here on inexpensive lots.”

  “You were a professor?” said Sarah, impressed.

  “Yes.” She smiled. “It runs in the family. My father was a history professor back in Dublin and my mother taught young children. There weren’t many opportunities for educated women in Ireland, so my parents encouraged me to come to America for my graduate studies.”

  Sarah glanced over at the bookshelves. “Your library is first-rate. Have you read all those books?”

  “Most of them,” she said, looking over at the books as if they were her best friends.

  “Where did you teach?”

  “At Berkeley College. My main subject was California immigration, starting with the Chinese immigrants who arrived at Angel Island in San Francisco and went in search of gold, but ended up building our railroads. Many settled in San Francisco, but others came to Monterey for employment, and so did the Japanese, the Italians, and the Portuguese. I taught my students to respect their contributions to our country and to have empathy for the suffering they endured to settle here, as they were not always wanted. I still give lectures on immigration at the local libraries, but since the war they are poorly attended. Monterey has a lot of immigrant stories to tell and they’re not all good ones.

  Rosie stopped talking to bite into a scone, and agreed with Sarah that they were delicious.

  “Several of the other Berkeley professors came here with me to look at the vacant lots by the sea. When our horse-drawn carriage came over Carmel Hill and dropped us into a fogbank, it moistened my parched skin like a healing balm. I felt safe, far away from the threat of another destructive fire.” She drained her teacup. “Your sister’s first impression of Carmel was similar. She too found safety in the fog.”

  “She never told me that,” said Sarah, with a bit of jealousy that Ada would share this intimate feeling with Rosie and not her. She’d often wondered why Ada had wanted to move to this remote village, forsaking New York City where she’d thrived as a renowned artist. But “safety in the fog” made sense. After their parents died in the hotel fire, Ada was afraid to even light a match and it took several years before she would light a wood-burning stove.

  Sarah felt Ada’s spirit in the room urging her to get down to why she was here.

  Sarah opened her satchel and brought out the San Francisco Examiner. “I suppose you’ve seen this,” she said, holding up the newspaper. Ada’s photograph stared out at them from under the suicide headline making both women upset but for very different reasons.

  With a turned-down mouth, Rosie took the paper and dropped it in a nearby wastebasket. She folded her short, thick arms. “I’m sorry you saw that, Sarah. I wanted to be the first one to tell you, not to have you read it in the papers.”

  “It was quite a shock. The marshal’s telegram had been brief. I had assumed my sister’s death was an accident.”

  “An accident? Saints alive, my child! You of all people should know better than that. Ada would never have gone out swimming at night fully dressed. I don’t want to upset you, but your sister didn’t commit suicide.

  “She was murdered.”

  Sarah put down her scone, having lost her appetite. It took her awhile to respond. “But the article I read said that the handwriting expert confirmed the suicide note was ‘in Miss Davenport’s handwriting.’”

  “Poppycock! Anyone who knows anything about crime investigations knows that sui
ciders seldom write notes. It’s a forgery.”

  “A forgery? But why would anyone want to kill my sister?”

  “I don’t know, but I do know the inquest was a bloody sham from the start. Marshal Judd handpicked witnesses who had the same biased opinion of Ada’s state of mind as he did. The marshal just wanted to get it over real quick. That’s just the way he is. If it was a murder he’d have a lot more work to do. If it was a suicide it’d be a lot easier for him.” She rubbed her pearls with such irritation that Sarah thought they might break. “My testimony had absolutely no effect.”

  “You did what you could,” said Sarah, still stunned by this older woman’s astonishing revelations. She didn’t look insane, but her accusations were bizarre.

  “Evidently not enough,” said Rosie, hotly. “When I asked him if he had found any evidence of foul play, he glared at me as if I were an old Irish harpy. I hope you don’t think so.”

  Sarah looked down at the wastebasket and the crumbled newspaper.

  “Now that you’re here, Sarah, maybe you can pound some sense into him.”

  Sarah couldn’t think of an appropriate response and turned away to look at a magazine on the side table. The cover illustration was a masked man holding a knife over a kneeling woman’s bare chest as she gaped up at him, pleading for her life.

  “Bloody awful cover, isn’t it?” said Rosie, flipping the magazine over. “Though I have to confess it was a nail-biting story. I didn’t figure out who did it until the end. Do you like a good mystery?”

  Sarah pulled her eyes away from the pleading victim and onto Rosie, who suddenly reminded her of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, an amateur detective with an active imagination living in a small village.

  “Sometimes. They don’t usually carry them in Paris kiosks.”

  “Well you can catch up while you’re staying here. I have lots of them.”

  Rosie’s fascination with detective stories troubled Sarah and her talk of “foul play” upset her even more. She had only just found out that her sister committed suicide and was hardly prepared to take on the possibility of a murder.