The Other Alcott

by Elise Hooper

  Louisa stepped forward and patted May’s shoulder with contrition. “Am I really that difficult?”

  May grimaced under her tears and wiped her cheeks with her handkerchief. “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you so upset.”

  “I’ll be fine. You always underestimate me.”

  “Believe it or not, but I know how it feels to be underestimated.” Louisa let out a bark of a laugh. “I believe that’s why I’m so cranky.”

  The two women walked on, but Louisa put her hand over her sister’s when May reached for the front door to their apartment building. “Just be careful. Don’t get caught up in anything you could regret with the Crownovers.”

  “I won’t. I would never do something like that.” Saying the words aloud helped to strengthen May’s conviction.

  “Of course you wouldn’t.”

  Once May climbed into bed that evening, she closed her eyes and thought back through her string of suitors. Of course, there had been fellows back in Concord over the years, but none of them had understood she needed more than a pretty farmhouse with a view of the Sudbury River. All of them assumed she would put away her art once she married. Joshua Bishop had seemed so promising with his city ways, but even he didn’t understand her aspirations. She hadn’t fully understood them either, but now she did.

  Meanwhile, the stack of paper for Louisa’s new novel grew taller and taller with every passing day. May knew her sister would finish her book soon, and they would return to America. May’s sketches showed improvement, but she wasn’t ready to go home. Thoughts of Crownover overshadowed everything, despite her attempts to think of anything but him.

  ONE MORNING AT the end of February, she arrived at the studio to find her teacher standing over some sketches. Helen sat in the corner looking out the window, idly thumbing through a newspaper. Little Suzette sat on the floor surrounded by some colored pencils and paper, while the baby lay on his belly gnawing on a stub of charcoal. A line of drool dripped from his mouth, sparkling like a string of diamonds.

  “Helen, the baby—” May pointed to the self-satisfied grin on the baby’s smudged face.

  Helen cried out and plucked the charcoal away, prompting a wail of anger that reverberated off the walls of the room. Crownover glanced up at Helen in annoyance while she shushed the petulant baby. May moved next to Crownover and studied his sketches.

  “I’ve landed a commission from Mr. Herriman to work on a landscape of the Colosseum.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Yes, but when I suggested a historical scene, he criticized my life drawing.”

  The front door banged open, letting in a gust of cold air, and Mr. Vedder, another American painter with a studio several doors down from Crownover’s, stuck his head into the studio. The two men went to life drawing sessions at a studio up the street one night each week, but never offered to bring May.

  He nodded at Helen and May before directing himself to Crownover. “Hullo! Sorry, but I can’t make it to Gigi’s studio tonight.”

  “Too bad, it’ll just be me and the Italians.”

  “Maybe Harville will go.” Vedder shrugged apologetically and disappeared.

  “Little good bloody Harville is,” Crownover said to himself.

  “You should bring May with you. She might like the life drawing practice, too,” Helen said, her eyes on the baby.

  Crownover nodded, squinting as he stepped back to look at his work.

  “Frederic,” Helen persisted. He looked up at her in surprise. “Bring May tonight.”

  “Oh, right.” Crownover looked over at May with an unreadable expression. “It’s usually only men. And it could be a male model. Do you want to go?”

  Helen nodded encouragingly at her. “Of course she wants to go. She wants more practice, don’t you, May?”

  “I could certainly use more practice, but . . .” May looked back and forth between the Crownovers. His usual smile was gone as he watched his wife warily.

  “You’re not worried that it will be men, are you? If there’s anyone who is confident enough to handle a room full of men, it’s you.” Helen’s eyes glittered with steely resolution.

  May was unable to decipher why the issue seemed to matter to Helen so much, but any misgivings she felt were overshadowed by a twinge of excitement to be with Crownover on her own. She tamped down the traitorous thought, reminding herself it was just a sketching session. Yet it was a sketching session with a group of artists, many of whom ran thriving art studios of their own. She would be in the company of some of Rome’s most successful painters. Why not try it? There was the issue of the male model, but May felt confident her background in anatomy enabled her to handle it, although now she understood why Crownover never invited her to Gigi’s. While in Europe, certain standards could be relaxed by an American instructor, but bringing an American woman to see an unclothed male model was a bold proposition. She forced a casual shrug. “Yes, I can go.”

  She watched Crownover carefully to see if he balked, but other than an initial pained look, he carried on as if nothing was amiss. Excitement prickled through her at the challenge ahead.

  “I can feed you both supper so you can just go straight there.” Helen appeared relieved. “Should we send a note to your sister so she knows where you’ll be?”

  “No need. Louisa’s engrossed in her manuscript. I could sail back to Boston tonight and it would be weeks before my absence would register with her.”

  “Your sister’s such a hard worker. She needs to take a break sometime and come and visit us again.”

  Crownover ignored his wife’s pointed look at him and carried some canvases to the back room.

  May set up to work on a landscape she had begun the previous week.

  “Frederic is worried about this commission.” Helen said quietly.

  “Why? Are they still negotiating the terms?”

  “No, it’s his. But we really need it to go well. He wants the recognition.”

  In the almost four months May had worked with Crownover, he had not been awarded any commissions until now. May wondered if money was an issue. Her teaching payments hardly amounted to anything substantial. Based on a few of Helen’s past comments, May knew she had brought inherited money to their marriage, and it was certainly much cheaper to live in Rome than Boston, but a tension had arisen between the husband and wife, and May could not discern the source of it. Crownover’s other painter friends were always busy with various commissions and lived in grand rooms with attending staff while the Crownovers led a far more frugal existence by renting a modest apartment, avoiding travel, and relying on Helen’s mother, who lived with them, to care for the children.

  Helen’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Make sure he stays focused tonight.”

  “I’ll keep us on track.”

  She gave May a grateful smile. “I know you will, thank you.”

  May resolved to focus her excitement only on the prospect of working with a new group of artists that evening. This commission was important to the Crownovers, and his wife had tasked her with keeping him working. Going somewhere alone with Crownover meant nothing. After all, he was her teacher.

  Chapter 16

  Later that evening, Crownover and May strolled down the Via Margutta to Gigi’s Academy. A light rain had fallen throughout the day, and now patches of fog hung low, edging their way down the streets like little lost clouds. Having her mentor to herself stoked giddiness within May. She breathed in the chilly, damp air and shivered with excitement.

  “Are you cold?”

  “Not really. It’s a short walk.” In truth, May was on fire and welcomed the cool air.

  “Take this.” In one fluid motion, Crownover stopped, pulled off his wool coat, and swung it around May’s shoulders. The wool collar scratched lightly against her lips. She dropped her art box, gasping as she wrapped herself deeper into the warmth—his warmth—and hugged it around herself. She practically skipped down the
sidewalk to keep up with him. His eyes were fixated on the ground and distracted when she reached his side, so she checked her excitement, remembering her promises to Louisa and Helen. She resolved to think about art. Only art.

  They entered Gigi’s basement studio to find a handful of men milling around the room, drinking Chianti out of tumblers. The other artists raised their eyebrows at May’s entry, but Crownover’s introduction allayed any comments, at least as far as May could tell. Easels circled the model’s space in a close ring. The room was a humid fug of sweat, wet dog, and the pinch of red wine. May reluctantly peeled off both Crownover’s coat and her own velvet jacket and looked around for a place to hang them. Her eyes caught on Crownover rolling up his shirtsleeves, unbuttoning the top of his collar, and unfastening his cravat. She diverted her eyes from the triangle of skin appearing at his throat and hurried away to the hooks near the door to hang their jackets. With the door still open, May lingered, welcoming the cool breeze on her face before heading back to the easels.

  She could overhear James Harville, the English painter, talking to Crownover about his new commission, but then the sound of her name floated toward her, prompting her to listen more closely.

  “The woman is your student? Since when did you begin taking students?”

  Crownover mumbled and shook his head, running his hands through his hair. “She’s got a wealthy sister. I’ve been hoping to land a commission from her. God knows, we could use the money.”

  May froze.

  “So, she’s only your student? I could think of a few other ways to put her to use.”

  “No. Not my type.”

  Both men laughed.

  She could not find her breath. It was like when she was eighteen years old and thrown from Rosa’s back while jumping a fence. She had found herself lying flat on her back, staring at the sky, wondering if she was alive. The same shock paralyzed her now. Crownover’s only interested in me because of Louisa. This thought kept repeating itself in her mind. Over and over. Each time, her lungs flattened a little more. Every doting thought of him she had entertained now shamed her. How could she be so naïve? Rage filled the empty space inside her. And Helen, a woman whom she counted on as her friend—was she a friend? All the times Helen encouraged Louisa’s presence—it all became clear. Painfully clear.

  A door flung open from the far wall of the studio and a shirtless man swaggered out, followed by another man with an eye patch, presumably Gigi, the owner of the studio. May guessed the first man to be the evening’s model. Clad only in trousers, he had a swarthy countenance and a compact, athletic build with perfectly defined abdominal muscles. Since Rome’s paintings and sculptures were the closest May ever came to naked men, she could not help but stare. He took his place in the center of the easels and reached down to unbutton his pants, kicking them off behind him while talking and laughing with one of the other artists. As she was standing in the back of the room, he didn’t even notice her. Without being aware her feet moved, May stepped to her easel, drawn to the model, momentarily distracted from her anger at her mentor.

  “Good, we’ve got Paolo tonight,” Crownover said, smiling to himself as he arranged his sketchbook on the easel.

  May seethed at the sound of Crownover’s voice, but the other artists called out directives for the model’s first pose. She turned back toward the model, not wanting to miss a thing. He remained engrossed in the painters in front of him.

  The Italian voices all reduced to background noise as she studied the man before her.

  He settled on a pose with one foot forward and a hand on his hip. From May’s position, she could view him from the side and did not have to look at his face. This turned out to be a blessing, for he was not the type of model to look out over the heads of his audience with an air of detachment; rather, he made a point of trying to catch the eyes of artists and engage them with a rakish angling of his brow, a suggestive shift of his jaw, or an insolent flare of his nostrils. This caused a certain amount of involvement with his audience and prompted a steady stream of conversation.

  A bead of sweat trickled down her hairline, and she tugged at the collar of her dress in a futile attempt to cool down. She cast an envious eye toward the tumblers of wine parked around the room but then thrust all thoughts of the stuffy room from her mind. She focused on the model and tried to summon all of the lessons with Dr. Rimmer to the forefront of her mind. I have a job to do. She ignored the distractions and absorbed herself in the long lines of his basic contour. He did not hold poses for long. Instead of a clock or hourglass, the only measure of time passing was the plummeting levels of wine in the dark green bottles on the benches surrounding May.

  At a certain point, the tone of the room shifted. Voices became louder, the laughter raucous. The model turned, noticing her for the first time, and she found herself looking straight into the naked man’s dark eyes. He reconfigured himself into a new pose, facing her straight on. A wolfish leer spread across his face, and he thrust out his pelvis toward her while throwing back his shoulders, spreading out his arms with open palms, daring her to look down to the line of hair traveling from his navel into the unmistakable bulge under the loincloth. Somehow May maintained an impassive gaze back at the man and sketched. Half-aware the other artists had abandoned their own work and were watching her, she refused to stop sketching. A sliver of fear wormed its way into her. She became aware of every snigger and chuff in the room and stood alone, surrounded by men, none of whom cared a whit for her. She tilted her chin upward and clenched her jaw; if they expected to frighten her off with some foolishness, they were sorely mistaken. Passion ignited in her as her hand flung across the canvas, tracing the contour lines of the model before her.

  Without looking at his face, she sketched the model’s basic form. In her mind, May repeated the instructions about grafting the bone and muscle combinations of the arm to the shoulder and torso. She sent out a silent blessing to Dr. Rimmer for spending so many hours of class drilling them on the minutiae of how the pelvis fuses together. Ilium, pubis, ischium, she breathed to herself to maintain a smooth rhythm.

  When taunting May didn’t elicit any reward, the men returned to their sketches with an air of disappointment. The model wasn’t giving up so easily. For his next pose, the man gave a smug smile, and turned in the opposite direction so she viewed his tight buttocks. Transfixed, May ran a hand across her forehead and found it damp. She pushed up her sleeves as high as they would go.

  A bottle stood on a bench near her with an abandoned tumbler next to it. She left her easel, walked over, and poured a glass, hoping none of the men noticed the shakiness of her pour and the droplets of bloodred wine that spilled onto the floor. A couple of the painters raised their glasses to her. Salud. May raised the wine to her lips, ignoring the haze of vinegar that overwhelmed her, stinging her nostrils. She took long, deep gulps of the stuff trying to slow her galloping heart. One of the Italian painters walked over to observe her canvas and nodded approvingly. She nodded back at the fellow painter and took another swig. With the tumbler emptied, she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and returned to her easel. Seeing Crownover fully absorbed in the model made her fume. At the same time, confidence grew in her; her work was good enough for her to remain. She turned to her easel and continued to sketch, plotting the confrontation she planned to have with her teacher after they were done.

  She pondered the nature of her accusations to Crownover as she painted. What exactly were the charges she planned to level upon him? He used her for access to Louisa? It was hard to fault a man for trying to support his family. How about leading her on with advances? When she pictured the last few months in her mind’s eye, she knew the advances were all hers. Maybe it was the wine, maybe her anger, maybe it was her increasing embarrassment, but now her strokes were big and loose. It felt freeing to simply lose herself in sketching.

  And then, suddenly, it was over. With a secret cue they all seemed to understand, the model stood up stra
ight and stretched. The men drifted from their easels to talk in small clusters. Harville packed his pencils into his satchel. May turned to say something to Crownover, but he was bent over, picking up some paper he dropped on the floor. She walked back to the coatrack by the door, trying to settle her muddled thoughts, but by the time she returned to her easel, her mentor had disappeared. She looked around the room. There he was, in the far corner of the room, huddled by the model. The two men slipped into the door of the office—without so much as a backward glance—Crownover’s hand in plain view resting on the model’s bare shoulder before dropping to caress the man’s spine at the small of his back. May stared. The door shut behind the two of them. Perhaps the wine was making her hallucinate—but as her gaze traveled around the room, she could see nothing else amiss. Mr. Harville glanced over at her, smoothed down his thinning pale blond hair, and gave a hopeful smile. “Shall I escort you home?”

  “Ummm . . .” May, still stunned by the sight of Crownover skulking into the back room with the model, could only stare.

  “The streets are not as safe as London’s, I’m afraid.”

  May nodded acceptance and lifted her art box. Harville appeared delighted by the possible dangers lurking in Rome’s streets and stuck out his hand to take May’s art box.

  “Oh, no, thank you. I can carry it.”

  His smiled wavered momentarily, but he escorted her outside of Gigi’s.

  Once out the door, she inhaled deeply, shivering against the sting of night air traveling down her throat and into her chest. She felt hollow. In all her born days, she would never have foreseen the evening’s happenings. While they walked, Harville chronicled a running history of each piazza they traversed on their way to May and Louisa’s rooms. He appeared happy to lecture, and she was grateful not to have to comment. At her door, he paused before saying, “If you’d like, I’d be happy to take you to my favorite sites and tell you more about the history of the city.”

  “That would be lovely.”