The Artist Colony Read online

  She came back downstairs. “It’s lovely up there, but no portraits. Is that where Ada slept?”

  “No. She meant that room for you. She had the window built especially. The architect, Mr. Murphy, said, ‘Windows aren’t made that way here on the coast.’ He swore it would crack in a harsh winter storm, but Ada insisted.”

  “Too bad she never lived here long enough to find out,” said Sarah with such sadness that Rosie put her arm around her shoulders.

  “You’ve had quite a morning, dearie. I think we both could do with a cup of tea in Ada’s kitchen. I brought some in my thermos.”

  “Thank you, Rosie, but I can’t settle down with a cup of tea, not with the portraits still missing. I’ve got to find them. Where could they be?”

  “Maybe you should ask Sirena? She was responsible for cataloging Ada’s artwork. Maybe she knows.”

  “Good idea,” said Sarah, heading for the front door.

  “Hold on,” said Rosie. “Sirena went out. She won’t be back until this afternoon.” She held up the thermos and smiled. “Let’s have that cup of tea, shall we?” Sarah followed Rosie back into the kitchen.

  She had been in such a hurry to find the portraits that she hadn’t noticed the hand-painted royal blue and emerald green peacocks painted on the walls. She was sure it was Ada’s handiwork. Ada was convinced the peacock symbolized resurrection, renewal, and immortality. She often used their pigments in her paintings.

  Feeling her grief overcoming her, Sarah opened the window above the sink and looked out at the sea view, breathing in the salty air Ada might have painted. She filled Albert’s water bowl and not knowing what else to do, sat down on the blue banquette to watch him drink.

  “Everything is so modern,” she said, glancing at the gas stove. A far cry from the hot plate in her garret in Paris where she boiled water to pour into a claw-foot tub that doubled as a breakfast table when she put a panel of wood on top.

  “It wasn’t always so modern in Carmel,” said Rosie. “When I first moved here, the homes didn’t even have plumbing.”

  Rosie took down two canary yellow mugs from a wooden shelf, washed them in the sink, filled them with tea from her thermos, and placed them on the table next to a vase of dead daisies that she dropped into the waste bin.

  Sarah sipped the warm, comforting tea, thanked Rosie for bringing it, and turned to gaze out the nook’s window. The sky and the ocean met in a precise horizontal line. Ada looked at this same view, she thought, and then painted it.

  “Rosie, you’re right. My heart is here. I’d like to stay here while I’m in Carmel and, if it’s all right with you, I’d like Albert to stay here with me.”

  Albert stood up on his hind legs and put his paws on Sarah’s lap.

  “Of course, dearie. This is where you both belong. Ada would want you here.”

  Sarah picked up Albert. “You are such a comfort to me, Albert. And so are you, Rosie.” Her eyes were welling with tears she couldn’t hold back, and she turned back to the window to brush them away.

  Rosie squeezed Sarah’s hand, handed her a hankie, and got up to leave, “I need to go back to the lodge and finish my baking. And what about yourself? You didn’t have any breakfast. Can I make you a sandwich?”

  “Thanks, Rosie, but I think I’ll stay here awhile and open up the house. It needs a good airing.”

  “Suit yourself. There will be sandwiches on my kitchen table when you do get hungry.” She looked down at Albert. “You look after your mistress and don’t let her get too down in the mouth.”

  Sarah pulled back the damask curtains in the living room, opened the windows, and folded back the blue shutters. Fresh air rushed in and beams of sunlight brushed over white walls, absorbing and reflecting the upholstered furniture’s yellow and blue pigments, turning the wall into a painter’s palette of pastels. Ada’s palette.

  A long couch was angled in front of a stone fireplace in the far corner. She sat down on the couch and noticed a hook in the wall. She wondered why the picture that should have been hanging from it had been taken down and where was it.

  After a few moments, Albert jumped off the couch and ran down the hallway. He scratched on a closed door. Sarah picked him up, then turned the brass doorknob and hesitated before entering Ada’s bedroom.

  Albert jumped up on a four-poster bed and curled up below one of Sarah’s own early landscape paintings hanging on the wall. It was painted when she was still influenced by Ada’s artistry. It pleased her that Ada had kept it, that she’d found a special place for it in her new home.

  Set on top of the dresser was a silver-handled hairbrush and mirror set that had been their mother’s. There was a photograph of herself and Ada taken at the Petit Palais in Paris last summer at Ada’s exhibition. Sarah recalled the words Ada had used when asked how it felt to be an internationally renowned painter with exhibitions around the world: “Eternal, exquisite happiness.”

  Sarah sat next to Albert on the bed. He placed his front paws on her lap and looked up at her with the eyes of a wise soul.

  “Oh, Albert, if only you could tell me why she killed herself so I could find some peace. What powerful dark force destroyed the ‘eternal, exquisite happiness’ that she shared with all of us?”

  Albert jumped off the bed and scratched at the closet door.

  Inside was Ada’s large steamer trunk plastered with stickers from different ports of call. Sarah knelt down and brushed her hand over the art deco illustrations. As Ada’s fame grew and she traveled by ship to her international exhibitions, the stickers had multiplied until they were pasted on top of one another.

  The only time Ada’s voyages were curtailed was during the war when the cruise ships were requisitioned for transporting soldiers and war supplies. She remembered Ada restlessly pacing the living room floor in their New York apartment, anxious to travel overseas again. Sarah was silently pleased that her sister had to stay home.

  She pushed back the trunk’s heavy lid. It was packed with neatly folded dresses, blouses, and women’s trousers. A summery wardrobe, the fabrics jersey and linen. “But why was Ada packing for a trip, if she was about to kill herself?” she asked the ever patient Albert sitting by her side. He tilted his head as if wondering the same thing.

  The only other piece of furniture in the bedroom was their father’s roll-top mahogany desk. Ada, never wanting to part from it, had moved it from their home in Chicago to their New York apartment and now to its final resting place at the Sketch Box. Sarah couldn’t imagine how she could take it back to Paris.

  She opened the roll-top hoping to find anything that might explain Ada’s suicide. but its drawers and shelves were depressingly empty.

  It had been wishful thinking that she might find her sister’s Book of Quotables, a leather-bound journal with a square-cut ruby set in its brass clasp and on the bottom right corner, Ada’s initials, ABD. Ada used to jot down encouraging quotations from her favorite poets and authors and Sarah could’ve used an encouraging passage right now, but she’d have to settle for one of Rosie’s sandwiches.

  She left a disappointed Albert in the studio to ward off any uninvited guests and set off across the road. Rosie greeted her at the front door and told her Sirena was home.

  At the kitchen table, Sirena was eating a sandwich wearing saffron-dyed coveralls that made her look even younger than she did on the beach.

  “Rosie says you’re moving into the Sketch Box today,” said Sirena before Sarah could even say hello.

  “News travels fast around here,” said Sarah, choosing a ham sandwich over peanut butter.

  She’d hardly taken a first bite when Sirena furrowed her dark brows and asked, “Why don’t you use Davenport for your last name?”

  Sarah decided to be as candid as the girl was. “Sarah Davenport would always be compared to Ada Belle Davenport. Sarah Cunningham can do whatever she wants.”

  “Good idea. I wouldn’t want my pictures to be compared to anyone else’s, especially an art
ist as famous as your sister. Is your work very different from hers?”

  “I think so.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “I’m afraid not. Except for a few recent sketches, everything is in Paris.”

  “You could invite me to paint with you in Ada’s studio. I used to do that with her.”

  “I doubt if I’ll have any time for studio work while I’m here.”

  Sirena had a face that changed moods like a chameleon changed colors. It would be difficult to paint her portrait with such ever-changing expressions. Right now, it was showing disappointment and, preferring the happy face, Sarah added, “But I’d still like to see your work.”

  “Okay,” said Sirena, immediately brightening. “You know, I’ll miss you, Sarah.”

  “But I only just got here and we’re just beginning to know each other.”

  “I know, but you’re going back to Paris soon, aren’t you?”

  “I hope so. My exhibition is in—”

  “You’re going to have a show in Paris? Swell. I wonder why Ada never told me that.”

  “She might not have known,” said Sarah, losing her appetite and putting down the sandwich. Could it be that Ada never got her last letter thanking her for all she had done for her and how it had finally paid off with her own exhibition in Paris? And that all was forgiven, and she’d come to Ada’s show in Manhattan?

  “That would be a shame,” said Sirena, as if reading her mind. “That would’ve made her very happy. Is there anything I can do to help you get back to Paris in time for your exhibit?”

  “Yes there is. I need to ship Ada’s portraits to New York before I leave, but I couldn’t find them in the studio. Rosie thought you might know where Ada stored them?”

  “Why would I know?” Sirena said defensively. She picked up her plate and took it over to the sink to wash it, her back to Sarah.

  “Because you worked for her.”

  “So what. That doesn’t mean I knew everything.” Then she turned to face Sarah and said, “What I do know is if you hadn’t stopped writing to Ada, perhaps she might’ve told you where she was storing the portraits instead of you having to ask her lowly assistant.”

  Touché, thought Sarah, but why is she is trying to make me feel that I have to justify myself? Is it her way to avoid answering my questions? Sarah cleared her throat. “Sirena, if you know where the portraits are, please tell me.”

  “I did tell you. I don’t know where they are.” The girl returned to her seat and rocked back and forth on the spindly back legs of the chair, like young children do until their mothers say “don’t do that,” which Sarah said now, and then added more sternly, “I think you do know, Sirena, but I don’t know why you won’t tell me.”

  The girl brought the chair’s legs down hard on the floor and sat up straight, a certain resolve set in her face. “All right. If it will get you to go back to Paris, there is something I didn’t tell Marshal Judd or anyone else. Not even Rosie. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

  “Go on.”

  “Four days before Ada died, she fired me. It was a total shock to me. We were getting along famously and I thought she was pleased with my work. Those portraits you’re looking for? I packed them up in crates and was ready to send them out when she told me to leave. Just about pushed me out the door. So if the crates are gone then I don’t know where they are. Maybe she burned the portraits before she killed herself.”

  “Burned them?” said Sarah, stunned. “Ada never lit anything but coal and that was only to keep warm. After our parents died in a hotel fire she was terribly afraid of flames.”

  “Oh right. Sorry. I forgot about that.”

  Sarah had never expected to have such a peculiar conversation with her sister’s assistant. A conversation that raised more questions than gave answers. Like, where did this strange girl come from? Ada was known for picking up waifs off the street and giving them money and clothes. Is that where she met Sirena? On the street?

  She took some slow sips of water before asking, “Did Ada tell you why she was letting you go so abruptly? I would’ve thought she’d at least let you ship the crates to New York.”

  “Nope. Just threw me out. But you know how unpredictable she was. She had a red-headed temper, your sister.”

  Sirena looked over at the kitchen clock above the refrigerator and stood up, adjusting her coverall straps on her swimmer’s shoulders. “Rosie said you might need help shopping for groceries. I could help if we go now. I’ve got a modeling job later this afternoon and I can’t be late or I won’t get paid.”

  MONDAY, JULY 21

  —5—

  The clanging cowbell set off Albert’s bark. Sarah opened the front door to see Sirena in her saffron coveralls, a paint-stained sketch box in one hand and a parasol in the other.

  “That’s Ada’s robe,” said Sirena, gaping at the silk kimono wrapped around Sarah.

  “Yes, it is,” she said, tying the loose band around her waist. “Why? Is something wrong with it?”

  “It’s just kind of spooky. When you opened the door . . . you know . . . I thought you were her.” Sirena adjusted the strap on her sketch box. “I’m on my way to Mr. Champlin’s class. Aren’t you coming?”

  “I’ll have to meet you there. I overslept.” That was only partially true. She’d had fitful dreams of being chased by giant portraits with blank faces and hadn’t gotten any sleep until the first morning light.

  “Okay. See you on the beach.”

  “Please tell Mr. Champlin I’ll be late,” said Sarah, but the girl had run off and was already out of hearing.

  When Sarah had hurriedly packed in Paris, she hadn’t had time to consider what one wears in a beach town, and she definitely hadn’t planned on attending an art class. But, by chance, at the last minute she’d added her painting smock to her valise. And as far as an easel and art supplies, she never went anywhere without her portable art studio—her sketch box.

  She put on her only sundress, tied her canvas shoes, and left behind an unhappy Albert. Until she found out who had been using Ada’s studio and had the lock on the alley door changed, she needed him to be a guard dog. On her way out of the studio she grabbed a small blank canvas.

  When she arrived on the beach, she spotted the students draped in long black smocks, standing like a colony of penguins. Their heads were bobbing up and down under wide-brimmed straw hats as they gazed out at the calm sea and back again at their canvases. Their black parasols, which effectively blocked out the direct sunlight, fluttered in the breeze.

  Sarah apologized to Mr. Champlin for being late and hurriedly put on her own smock, which happened to be bright red. He then pointed to a spot on the beach several yards away and said, “Set up over there.”

  “Is there a particular subject I should paint?” she asked.

  “Paint what you see in front of you,” he replied.

  As she walked over to the ordained spot, she nodded to Sirena and the other students, while taking a moment to glance at their canvases—composed, rather colorless, formations of jagged granite jutting out into the bay, splashed by the silver and white hues of breaking waves. None of their work had the nightmarish theme of the painting that had disappeared from Ada’s studio.

  She unfolded the three skinny legs that supported her easel and stuck them into the sand. Picking over several tin tubes of oil paint in her sketch-box drawer, she squeezed canary yellow, carmine red, and titanium white onto her palette board. Mixing the familiar pigments gave her a surge of energy and she quickly dipped a wide brush into the oils and made short brushstrokes across the canvas. To get more vivid splashes of color she added cadmium orange. Then with her palette knife she smeared a thick glob of white over the orange.

  “I thought you’d studied the basic techniques of plein air pictures under your sister’s tutelage,” said Champlin severely. Unnoticed he had walked up behind her and was passing judgment over her shoulder.

  Without stopping her work, she said, �
��That was when Ada was teaching at the Art Students League and I was her student. For the past three years I’ve been studying at the Académie Julian in Paris where I’ve learned a more modern approach.”

  “That’s very apparent,” said Champlin sarcastically. “I hope your sister’s teachings weren’t wasted on you.”

  She waited until his sandy bare feet were gone before she wiped the gooey white oil from her fingers and furiously mixed more oils on her palette. Hadn’t he told her to paint what she saw? For her, the clouds were not clouds but white sheets drying on a clothesline. And the waves splashing and falling against the coarse, jagged rocks were rain drops in vibrant shades of orange dripping down a crimson wall.

  By midday, Sarah felt a headache coming on and sat down on the sand to rest her eyes. She was accustomed to working under studio lights, not glaring sunlight. Sirena saw her discomfort and came over to share her parasol and a thermos of water.

  After taking a break under the parasol, Sarah returned to her painting. When she finished her morning work, she had fully expressed van Gogh’s belief that a painting should “exaggerate the essential” and “leave the obvious things vague.” She was very pleased with her canvas.

  “I see you are in need of instruction in color theory, Miss Cunningham,” Champlin said as she was putting away her supplies. “I must say your viscous expressions splattered on the canvas are very clever, almost entertaining, but the aesthetic is inappropriate in my class.”

  She could hear Ada scolding her. Shame on you, Little Sis. You know he and I both have a limited tolerance for expressionists, but you goad us anyway. Watch out—he doesn’t take kindly to whippersnappers.

  A small curl came to Sarah’s lips. Ada had often called her a whippersnapper when she was trying to teach Sarah how to paint and Sarah wanted to do it her way. But what widened her smile even more was that Ada was talking to her again, even if it was only to scold her.