by Sarah Lark
“Atamarie—sunrise. A Maori name for a pakeha child. A shame to Parihaka.”
Kupe reached quickly for a few documents and left the room without another word.
Heather watched him go. “Impertinent fellow,” she said.
Lana reached for Heather’s hand. “I think he has simply very loved her.”
“It doesn’t matter to me, but perhaps you should not display it so clearly,” Sean said a few weeks later. Heather and Lana had ended their trip across the North Island and planned to take the ferry to Blenheim the next day. They were spending their last evening with Sean. “If you always travel around with such a domineering woman, you’re hardly likely to find a husband.”
Sean had taken the women out for dinner, and the evening had so far passed quite harmoniously. Lana and Heather had described their North Island experiences. Lana raved about the beaches, the volcanoes, and the massive kauri trees to which she had devoted an entire picture cycle. Heather was most enthusiastic about her niece, Atamarie. She had just shown Sean the pictures she had painted of the little one. When Lana excused herself briefly, Sean asked Heather about her relationship to her friend.
“I’ve heard that women sometimes, with other women—I don’t know how to put it. It seems your relationship with Lana . . . well, it seems rather intimate,” Sean murmured.
Heather swallowed. “I love her,” she said. “Do you have anything against that?” She tried to sound direct, but her words came out more like a girl asking her brother for permission.
Sean shook his head. “It’s just,” he continued, “it’s strange. Women ought to love men, not other women. And I always thought you wanted children. Your devotion to Violet back then and now your excitement over Atamarie. You should marry.”
Heather shook her head, letting her hair flap. She no longer wore her hair up primly, instead only tying it into a ponytail.
“But I don’t want to,” she said firmly. “I would never dare. When I think about marriage, I think about how Father used to beat Mother.”
She pushed her plate away. As always when this image came to her, she felt sick.
Sean eyed her, shocked. “But you can’t possibly remember that, Heather,” he objected. “You were still so little.”
“I remember it very well,” Heather said fiercely. “I still remember how I hid under the covers and heard dull thumps. And the groans Mother tried to suppress. She did not want to frighten us by screaming. Besides, Sean, why aren’t you married yet? Admit it: you’re afraid. Just like me. Though I’m also afraid to be alone,” she sighed. “I wish I could marry a woman.”
Sean had to laugh and gestured with his chin at Lana who was walking toward them. All eyes followed her as she crossed the restaurant. Her breezy, colorful clothes, her height and her ample figure, her red hair, and her proud gaze seemed to spellbind people.
“Well, I wouldn’t have it in me to ask her,” he joked.
Heather smiled. “I don’t need to worry about that. She already asked me if I’ll go with her to Europe.”
Sean looked at his sister. “And will you go?”
“Yes, she’ll go.” Lana seemed to have caught the last words when she reached the table. “She’s artist. She cannot bury herself at end of world. You do not forever want to paint dogs and horses, Heather, do you? In Europe—London, Paris—there are so many like us. Women who paint and write. So many galleries, museums, art collectors. They will love you, little kiwi. We will have life that is big party.”
Heather smiled and managed to allow Svetlana to lay her hand quite publicly on her own. One thing was clear: here, “at the end of the world,” she could not pursue this relationship. Usually female friendships were not scrutinized as long as everyone involved preserved a modicum of discretion. Svetlana, however, seemed to prefer the straightforward and open. Perhaps that was not a problem in Paris, but in New Zealand, people would talk about them. And Heather did not want to be the subject of gossip and mockery.
“Should I go?” she whispered to Sean when she hugged him good-bye.
Sean kissed her softly on the cheek. “If nothing’s holding you here.”
Chapter 6
Letters from Chloe and Violet were waiting for Heather in Dunedin. Violet sounded almost euphoric: she liked working for Chloe; Rosie occasionally said a few words and helped with the horses; Roberta and Joe were thriving. She wrote nothing about Eric, but she had never written much about him. Heather still did not know how their quick marriage came about.
Chloe reported about the horses in great detail, about her neighbors in Invercargill, and about Rosie for whom she was head over heels. She seemed to have infected the little girl with her enthusiasm for horses. Both were looking forward to Dancing Jewel’s first foal. Other letters were filled with landscape descriptions—the beauty of the fjord lands, the craggy mountains, the evergreen forests, even the diverse world of birds. She wrote practically nothing about Colin. Heather read the letters again and again to pick up attitudes, feelings, fears. The friends had shared everything their whole lives, but now there was nothing more there. Chloe’s letters sounded like those of a stranger.
“We should go,” Heather said to Lana after she had read Chloe’s treatise on whether the high knee movement of a hackney was desirable in race trotters. “Something is off.”
Lana shrugged. “When they marry, they become always off. Is way of world. You cannot change.”
“But I—” Heather rubbed her forehead. Chloe’s letters gave her headaches.
Lana took her in her arms. “Look here, little kiwi: she now has husband, has horses, has house. She thinks no more on you.”
Heather shook her head. “That can’t be. When she was married to Terrence, her letters sounded very different. Then they sounded happy.”
Lana rolled her eyes. “And now?” she asked. “They sound unhappy? Look, kiwi: She does invite you? Wants to know about your life? Ask about me? She does nothing. Does only duty. Duty demand good girl write letters to friends. So is it, little kiwi. And now no more thinking of Chloe. Think of London. Here, look.”
She shoved one of her own letters at Heather. It was from a gallerist in London. While they were traveling, she had sent him her latest work, and the paintings had created quite a stir in London. Everyone wanted something from Svetlana Sergeyevna. The gallerist urged her to come back to Europe and show herself in public.
“People are extraordinarily enthusiastic about you. They’re just waiting to introduce you in high society.”
Heather read this with a prick of envy. So, Lana would become truly famous, while Heather painted babies and animals.
Lana was ready to book passage on one of the new steamships. “And now you decide. You come with me?”
In October 1884, Heather Coltrane and Svetlana Sergeyevna boarded a ship—a direct route to London. Heather informed Chloe in a formal letter, and she answered with no less stiff wishes for safe and pleasant travel.
Heather cried again, but she realized there really was nothing holding her in New Zealand anymore. She was ready for love with Lana and for the most exciting time of her life.
As the gallerist had described, London welcomed Svetlana with open arms. There was a suite in one of the best hotels waiting for them. The days and nights were busy with exhibitions and viewings and concerts and theater. Lana introduced Heather as often as possible as a highly talented young artist.
Lana’s gallerist was not yet fully convinced by Heather’s work. “You have talent,” he pronounced, “but you need to develop it further. So far, these works are too cloying. The children’s portraits are endearing, but they’re not art. Go to Paris with Miss Sergeyevna, continue studying, and then we’ll see.”
Heather found London fascinating, but Svetlana was bored with the British metropolis after a few weeks. “It is always same,” she said, complaining about the small talk in the palaces and elegant town houses to which people invited the artists. “What horse has won derby, who marries Princ
ess So-and-So, and what does queen do. Queen does always the same. She is boringest person under sun. I yearn for Paris. We go to Paris and rent studio together.”
Svetlana had earned more than enough money to afford a studio in the most sought-after quarter, and Heather had no need to do any less. Kathleen had furnished her with a generous monthly allowance although, or precisely because, she did not particularly like Svetlana.
“Don’t become dependent on her,” Kathleen had advised her daughter. “Don’t cling to her. Because it’ll turn out just like with Chloe. Eventually, she’ll find a man.” Kathleen blushed. She knew that neither Svetlana nor Heather was interested in men, but she was too much a lady to say it aloud. “And then you’ll be written off again.”
Heather had thought a lot about her mother’s words. Had she really clung to Chloe? Had she been a burden? Heather took the warning to heart and expressly kept a distance from Svetlana in London. She hardly seemed to notice. Her life as a rich woman and famous painter took up too much of her attention. Her newfound wealth sent her from one shopping spree to another, purchasing clothes for Heather and herself and so many extravagant pieces of furniture that Heather could only shake her head.
“How do you mean to get all that to Paris? And where will we put it? Do you want to rent a palace? Just for the two of us?”
Svetlana laughed and spun her around. “Not just for the two of us, little kiwi. We will have company every night. We will celebrate. You will know great women painters. We will see big exhibitions, Salon de Paris and Salon des Indépendants. It is exciting; you will see.”
Paris was the European art center in the 1880s. For the first time, Heather saw impressionist paintings and was fascinated. So, Svetlana invited Berthe Morisot, an impressionist specializing in portraits, to their housewarming party. Lana also invited Rosa Bonheur, and Heather was awed by the great painter of nature and animals. Mademoiselle Bonheur, who had known Svetlana for a while, greeted her euphorically with kisses on the cheek and proved to be enraptured by Heather.
“She’s just as beautiful as you described her.” She smiled and immediately introduced Heather to her own companion.
In artists’ circles, no one seemed to find it strange or shocking when female or male couples lived together. Exchanges of partners seemed to occur relatively frequently, and no one appeared to be familiar with discretion. Embarrassed, Heather followed an angry confrontation between the young sculptor Camille Claudel and Rodin, her mentor and lover. She saw how Svetlana’s friend Alicia, the portrait artist who painted unhappy women and now lived in Paris, comforted her models. And she heard how no subject was too intimate to be talked about with all of their friends. Heather tried at first to befriend the women, but she soon learned that both Svetlana and Alicia were possessive and jealous. After that, Heather kept aloof of other women when she knew that they loved women.
Lana dedicated herself to the production of large-sized oil paintings, for which, until then, she had not been able to afford the materials and studio space. Heather finally ventured to show Mary Cassatt her pictures. Mary was an American and did not indicate whether she preferred the love of men or women. She lived with her mother and sister, so Svetlana did not react grumpily when Heather visited the artist alone. Mary Cassatt praised her new works, particularly a picture cycle of Violet.
“That’s still a bit conventional. You need to paint freely. There’s photography now; conventional portraiture survives in that. Express what you see within people, and you can certainly do it. This girl here”—she pointed to a picture of Violet—“is pretty enough to bring you to tears. But you could put more into the painting.”
She laughed at Heather’s portrait of Svetlana. “Oh no, dear, you’re better off throwing that away. You’re not looking at our Svetlana with the eyes of an artist. You’re looking at her with love in your eyes. God in heaven, you paint her, and she’s a whole lot of woman, like the Virgin Mary.” Heather did not quite know what she meant by that but was too shy to ask. She was, however, overjoyed when Mary declared herself prepared to teach her. “Join our circle. I’ll introduce you to Degas and the other indépendants. And go to the museums. Paint copies of the great masters, feel their genius. It takes a while to find one’s own style.”
The craze for Svetlana’s work lasted about two years. During that time, Heather sat dutifully in the studio beside her and imitated paintings by Titian and Rubens. At first, she had no success, and, disheartened, she stopped painting her own works. After some time, however, her imitations turned out similar enough to the originals to fool someone.
“Now you’re going to have to decide whether you’re going to make a career as an artist or a forger,” Alicia said. “Get to work. You’re a portrait artist. So, show us what you can do.”
Heather would have most liked to paint Svetlana again, but she still had Mary’s laughter in her ear. So, she painted Alicia. A few days later, Mary and Berthe, Svetlana, and Alicia stood before the finished watercolor, discussing it.
“Everyone sees something different in the picture.” Heather was surprised by the varied responses. “Sometimes more than I do myself. Is that—”
“That’s exactly what you want, Heather Coltrane. You’re on your way,” Mary said.
While Heather slowly developed her own style, Svetlana’s star began to fade. True, it had been her wish to fill big canvases with life, but as it turned out, she had little talent for oil painting. Svetlana’s dreamworlds were miniatures. Her small pictures had worked like crystal balls the viewer could dive into, searching for secrets and discoveries. In large format, they seemed by contrast clumsy, unnatural, and tacky—of which no one dared make Svetlana aware. Only her friends’ male companions showed deprecatory smiles, but since Svetlana reacted to every criticism with a hysterical fit, they, too, remained silent.
“Although really these studio parties are also supposed to serve for a bit of mutual critique,” Mary observed regretfully. Her companion, Edgar Degas, had withdrawn silently with a glass of champagne to a corner where he did not have to look at any of Svetlana’s botched efforts. “At Lana’s, all we compliment now is the quality of the champagne.”
There was nothing to hold against that in any case. Lana still made good money, and her pictures sold well, though the gallerist decided to forego private viewings and sold them directly to foreign investors. The hope was the value would increase, but the art world had no scruples, and one could sell anything on hand to an eager buyer. Occasionally, it reminded Heather of her brother’s horse business, and she thought painfully of Chloe, with whom she still dutifully exchanged vapid letters. Violet wrote much more vividly, and here Heather thought she could also read something between the lines. Violet mentioned disagreements, sometimes expressing concern that Rosie could get caught in the middle of a quarrel.
I would never have thought it, but my shy little Rosie has grown into a really brave young groom. All that’s lacking is for her to wear pants, but Mr. Coltrane prohibited that rather strictly when Mrs. Coltrane suggested it. Rosie cleans the horses and harnesses them, and she drives them on the track at a speed that scares me. She talks to the horses, too, though almost never with us. She can get by with pointing. Sometimes she seems to do things better than Mr. Coltrane’s grooms. Mrs. Coltrane enjoys that, but I worry.
Heather would have liked to ask for more details, but it took months for a letter from New Zealand to reach France and vice versa. This kept a real conversation from coming to be.
Besides, Heather was busy with her own life. Astoundingly, she profited from Lana’s decline. The visitors to their studio expressed platitudes about Lana’s work, but they were effusive about Heather’s painting. Heather took in praise and censure, accepting help and making use of critique. She was shocked when Berthe suggested they exhibit together.
“Your pictures are good, but if you exhibit alone, it will fizzle. This is Paris. There are so many exhibitions that no one will come to see a novice. But if you provide
the, let’s say, sideshow for me . . .”
At first, Lana was upset by the arrangement. “You are good enough to do alone. And if you exhibit with someone, then do with me. What this person thinks of us.”
“Berthe paints women’s portraits,” Heather objected. “Just like me. They go together. With your paintings—”
“You now want to say my paintings you don’t like.”
Svetlana flew into a rage. She must have recognized that she had passed the zenith of her fame but wasn’t prepared to find her way back to her earlier style.
“I just mean your subjects don’t match with my work.”
“You not do it. I say it, the end,” Lana said, shaking her head wildly.
Heather had tears in her eyes when she told Berthe of Lana’s decision.
Berthe Morisot frowned. “Pardon me, Heather, but did she paint the pictures, or did you? Where you exhibit your pictures, only you decide. Don’t be ordered around, Heather. Free yourself from Lana.”
Svetlana reacted with an outburst of anger worthy of a great tragic actress when Berthe’s gallerist sent for Heather’s pictures. That night, Lana was throwing another party, and their first guests landed right in the middle of their furious argument.
“If you take away pictures, you can go with them now,” Lana screamed.
Heather began to pack her things. Half an hour later, Lana begged her tearfully to forgive her. Heather unpacked.
Her exhibition with Berthe was a respectable entrance into the Parisian art world. Heather sold all of her pictures, which surprised Svetlana, who was both proud and irritated. Then, Heather announced her plans to travel to Verona, Rome, Siena, and Madrid.
“I need to study the old masters up close,” Heather explained, “and now I have the money to do so.”
She did not reveal that she also had the money before. She had still not come close to spending everything Kathleen had sent to her. Heather, however, wanted to support herself.
