The Magnolia Palace

Chapter Fourteen

1966

Inside the Frick mansion, a grandfather clock chimed, the sound echoing around the dark house, reaching deep into rooms filled with thickly painted canvases and silk settees. The sound bounced around the spacious cavern of the art gallery, where Veronica reunited with Joshua, the pink diamond tucked deep inside her pocket. She should tell him what she’d found. But then she thought of Polly, and couldn’t quite find the right words.

Armed with a new gas lamp, Joshua offered Veronica a tour of the building now that they’d finished the clues. “A tour that’s reserved for special patrons of the Frick.”

“Inmates with no means of escape, you mean?” she asked.

“Exactly.”

She agreed, figuring that maybe at some point there would be a moment to admit what she’d found. It still wasn’t too late. But Joshua was off to the races, proudly pointing out the new additions since Frick’s day: a fountain-and-plant-filled garden courtyard that used to be a driveway, and a reception area and entrance hall where a porte-cochère once stood. “Did you happen to see the figure above the doorway when you walked in?”

She’d been in a hurry, but she vaguely recalled a naked woman carved in stone, sporting long braids on either side of her head. It had seemed oddly out of place, considering the architecture of the building was so square and stolid. “I did.”

“That was once above the porte-cochère, and was moved to become the new front door of the museum. The model for it was a woman named Angelica, whose likeness can be found in statues all over Manhattan, and she was celebrated in her day for her classic beauty. But then she became embroiled in some kind of murderous love triangle and disappeared.”

Veronica had witnessed firsthand the plight of models who were lauded for their beauty before losing everything, from drug or alcohol abuse, from not eating enough or eating too much. How sad for this Angelica, to have left behind a grand legacy of beauty but not be able to enjoy it. “She disappeared? I wonder what happened to her.”

“I tried to dig into that over the fall, but it appears no one knows.”

They took the elevator all the way up to the top floor, where Joshua pointed out the old fur vault that was now storage, and a linen room where the massive drawers slid out without a creak. “The mechanisms were built using Frick’s steel,” he said.

His unbridled excitement at sharing that detail made her smile.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing. Continue, please.”

One floor below, he opened the door to the director’s office, where a portrait of the magnate hung above a grand piano. “That’s our man, Mr. Henry Clay Frick. He’s got eyes that could bore a hole through you.”

“The Frick Collection is lucky to have you. You’ve been working here for how long?” She wandered farther into the room, running her finger lightly along the piano’s lid.

“Since September.”

“I hope they appreciate you. You could probably give more detailed tours than any of the docents.”

“The staff here are top-notch. I’ve been learning a lot.” He shrugged. “Although sometimes it bothers me what stories aren’t being told.”

“Like what?”

“Like the story behind all this wealth.” He gestured around the room. “Visitors are in awe of the place, but they rarely question how the man behind it amassed all his money. He did it on the backs of the workingman, by busting up strikes, violently. Men were gunned down because they were protesting for better pay, better conditions. All this gilded loveliness hides a dark past. I thought about writing about that for my final project, even raised the idea with my advisor, but he discouraged it. He said maybe by the time I’ve earned my PhD it would be all right, but not as an undergraduate.”

“Because it would be considered causing trouble?”

Joshua nodded. “I’m automatically considered an outsider, a threat to the status quo, so writing anything even vaguely controversial would not be well received. It’s hard enough to be a Black man in these spaces, to go on a tour at the Met and have the docent ignore your raised hand while everyone else stares uncomfortably at the floor.”

“I imagine that must be infuriating, especially since you’re one of the nerdiest arty people I’ve ever met.”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

“As you should.” She considered her clash with Barnaby the day before. Now that the initial shock had worn off, she was no longer mortified. In fact, she was kind of proud of what she’d done by standing up for herself. “Maybe you should go ahead and do what interests you anyway. Why put up with their nonsense?”

“If I’m going to move the art world in a new direction, I’m going to have to understand the old. Like, fully understand it, in my bones. Just because I disagree with Mr. Frick’s methods of accumulating his fortune doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate his taste. I mean, the man had taste.”

“He certainly did. Old meanie.” She yawned.

“Sorry, I’ve been going on and on. You must be exhausted, and starving.”

Together, they scavenged a dinner in the kitchen and then warmed up before the fireplace.

“Tonight, if you like,” said Joshua, “you can sleep in Mrs. Frick’s bedroom, although I’m not sure how comfortable a fifty-year-old mattress will be.”

“It’ll be better than this sofa, for certain. Especially if I pile on the blankets. What about you?”

He looked at the couch. “I’ll crash here. But let me light your way up there before I do.”

Up in Mrs. Frick’s bedroom, he pointed at her suitcases. “Good thing you have your toothbrush with you.”

“I’m sorry I don’t have a spare. But if you need a waist cinch or a coral lipstick, do let me know.”

“I sure will.”

Outside, the wind howled. The storm was only getting worse. Joshua setting up camp a floor below her didn’t appeal at all, not after they’d tramped around together for the past however many hours. “Hey, you can crash on that chaise longue, if you want.” She tossed out the suggestion lightly, trying to make it sound like it was no big deal, either way. “No need to go all the way downstairs.”

“You scared?” He shot her a mischievous grin.

“No. Yes. This house is eerie. I mean, people died in it, right?”

“Mr. Frick certainly did, but not in this room, if that helps. Anyway, that’s just the way things were done, back then.”

“Still. I’d prefer not to be alone, to be perfectly honest.”

“Then I’ll keep guard.” He went to the chaise and took off his shoes. She sat on the edge of the bed and watched as he undid the double knots on the black leather lace-ups, first one, then the other, and gently eased them off, placing them neatly side by side. He valued those shoes, she could tell, as she had valued her silk high heels. The thought of him shining his shoes before coming to work each day made her heart skip, for some odd reason.

She settled on the bed and distracted herself from its slightly musty odor by studying the painted ceiling, which was decorated with florals and swirls. “Earlier today you mentioned that there was another Frick daughter, besides Helen. What happened to her?”

“Martha?”

“Right, Martha.”

“Are you sure you want to know? It might give you bad dreams.”

She said she’d be fine, and he went on to explain, with a gentleness that she appreciated in that cold, dark room, about a swallowed pin, years of pain and misdiagnoses, and the girl’s lingering death. It made Veronica unbearably sad for the poor child, as well as for the family who witnessed her suffering. Mr. Frick suddenly loomed less like a capitalist monster and more like a flawed human being. “How did you find this out?”

“From reading the Fricks’ letters,” said Joshua. “They didn’t realize what was wrong with her until it was too late. The child was too little to communicate.”

“My sister can’t communicate.”

Veronica had no idea why she’d just said that. Lying in the dark with Joshua, where neither of them could really make out each other’s faces, felt safe, like she was back in the room she’d shared with Polly in Notting Hill. They’d pasted glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, and every night Polly would laugh in amazement as they emerged after the lights were out. “Something happened when she was born and she’s never been able to talk. My mum and I can understand what she’s saying, but no one else does.”

“Like a secret language?”

“I know what she wants by her sounds. And her laugh. She has a wicked sense of humor, and gets the joke. She always, always gets the joke. When our mum came home from shopping one day and didn’t know she’d left a lone pink foam roller hanging off the back of her head, Polly practically fell off her chair. As did I, we were laughing so hard.”

“I’ve always wished I had a brother or sister, to be able to share inside jokes like that,” said Joshua. “Is Polly older or younger than you?”

“We’re twins.” They were silent for a moment, but it was an encouraging type of silence, like he was giving her room to formulate her thoughts, decide what to share. “Polly doesn’t make eye contact, but she sees everything that’s going on. Unfortunately, most people avoid her completely. She scares them. She lived with us until a few months ago, when my mum insisted that she move to a home so we both could work. I hate to think of her there, surrounded by people who don’t understand her.”

“What about your dad?”

“He used to drive the night shift, as a cabbie, and one morning I came out and found him asleep in his cab, which wasn’t unusual. He hated to come in late and wake us all up. But he wasn’t asleep. He’d had a heart attack.”

“I’m so sorry. That’s a terrible thing to have to go through.”

She pushed the image of him sitting behind the wheel, chin to chest, out of her mind. “I suppose the good news is I’ll be seeing Polly sooner than expected.”

“Why is that?”

“The photo shoot was supposed to last a week. The next stop was the Breakers, in Newport, but I made a mess of things.”

“How do you mean?”

“The photographer was yelling at one of the girls, being really rude. I told him to stop.”

“Sounds heroic.”

“Certainly, the other models didn’t seem to think so. Then they all left without me. Probably thought that I’d quit and walked out. I should’ve.”

“Then we wouldn’t have found the clues or the secret compartments.”

“That was kind of fun.”

“I agree.”

“I suppose that’s your job, really,” she said. “Nosing about. Discovering lost secrets.”

They lay in silence for a moment. Veronica thought that Joshua might have fallen asleep, but then he spoke again. “Maybe Polly will enjoy it once she’s settled in.”

She sat up on one elbow. Her eyes had gotten used to the dark, and she could just make out his features. “How could you say that? She’s miserable.”

“So was my grandmother when she had to move into a nursing home. She was falling, it was dangerous, and my father hated to do it. But now she’s happy as can be, made lots of friends. I swear, her social calendar is so full she’s too busy to see us.”

“My mother said the same thing, and she’s wrong. You’re wrong. This isn’t like that.”

“Okay, sorry.”

She heard him settle back down. She hadn’t meant to snap at him, but he had no idea what her family situation was like. Polly shouldn’t be in an institution—Veronica was certain of that.

And now she had the means to change everything sitting right there in her pocket. A thin river of hope had spread through her ever since she’d first held the diamond up to the light. It’d been missing for so long, no one was actively looking for it anymore; no one would miss it. Mr. Frick probably would have done the same, she told herself, stealing whatever he could get his hands on to crawl his way up in the world. Much better that the diamond go to someone who needed it rather than an institution that already dripped with riches.

She felt bad for her knee-jerk reaction, though. “How old are you, Joshua?” she asked.

“Twenty-one.” he said. “How about you?”

“Eighteen. Have you always known what you wanted to do, career-wise?” Something about the dark and the quiet made her unafraid to pry. His life was so different from her own, in a myriad of ways.

“My parents took me to museums and galleries ever since I was a kid. But I don’t think working in a place like this is in my future. I have other ideas.”

“Like what?”

“My dream would be to mount a show of art brut.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s French for ‘rough art’ or ‘raw art.’ It refers to artists without formal training, who aren’t part of the mainstream art world, like Joshua Johnson. Or Bill Traylor, who was born into slavery and died in the late forties. I bet if I go to the South and travel around, I’ll find even more artists who are undiscovered.”

“That sounds incredible. Maybe I’ll come with you.”

As soon as she said the words, she regretted them. First, because they assumed an intimacy that she didn’t mean to imply. And second, because even though she wasn’t from the States, she knew a Black man and a white woman wouldn’t get far in the South before running into trouble.

“I think we both know that’s not possible,” said Joshua quietly.

“I’m sorry, you’re right.” Back in London, her father’s mates would gather on weekends to watch West Ham United on the telly, and make all sorts of nasty comments about John Charles, the football team’s first Black player. While her father hadn’t added to the racist vitriol, he hadn’t put a stop to it, either. “But maybe one day it will be.”

“That day is a long way away. In any event, I appreciate the offer.”

She’d been wanting to say something to him since they’d first found each other, and now there was finally an opening. She took a breath. “I’m sorry about the way Barnaby treated you, when you first appeared.”

“You mean mistaking me for the janitor? Not the first time it’s happened. The first day of my Intro to Art History class, the professor asked if I was in the wrong room. As if a Black person studying art wouldn’t even cross his mind.”

“That’s awful.”

“I agree. And one day I will mount a show of Black artists that will make them reconsider everything, I can promise you that.” His confidence in his abilities impressed Veronica to no end. Here was a man who was unafraid of asking for what he wanted out of life.

“Now can I ask you a question?” he said.

“Sure.”

“Two questions, actually. Did you always want to be a model? And what’s with your hair?”

She let out a laugh. “My hair was a terrible mistake that launched a fiery but brief modeling career.”

“I like the way it swings.”

“Thanks. And to answer your other question, no, I didn’t plan on modeling at all.”

A gust of wind rattled the window. With a loud bang, it swung open, the snow and wind penetrating the room in a flood of cold. They both ran to it, but Joshua got there first and secured the latch.

“Do you think that set off the alarm?” she asked, shivering in the remaining draft.

“It’s only for the ground floor. Too bad we don’t have a ladder.” He placed an index finger on the pane of glass. “He heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end.”

“Upon all the living and the dead,” she answered.

He looked at her in surprise. “You know James Joyce?”

“Sure, like I’ve told you, models can read.”

“So you’re not just a pretty face.”

The way he stared, as if she were some exotic species of bird or something, made her blush. She’d had a couple of boyfriends in London, but no one serious, just boys who took her to dances or to the pub for a drink. She still lived with her parents, as did all of the boys she still knew from school—the few who had left to go to university rarely came back. “I suppose not. My guess is we’re both often underestimated.”

“Probably right.”

“What do you think you’ll do after you graduate?” she asked.

“I’d like to go to Columbia for my master’s degree, but since my father works at Brooklyn College, that makes better economic sense. Also, he’ll be able to keep an eye on me, make sure I’m living up to my potential.”

She thought of the diamond. How that might solve both of their problems. “Is Columbia expensive?”

“Very.”

She was tempted to pull out the diamond again, show him, but before she could do so, he changed the subject.

“What will you do, once we’re freed?” he asked.

“Head to the airport and fly home. Ignore my agent’s calls berating me for my bad behavior.”

“What if money was no object?” asked Joshua. “What then?”

It was almost as if he knew what she’d done. “I don’t know,” she said airily. “Never really thought about it.”

“Would you go to college?”

“In England, there’s one track for those who go to university and another for those who have to go out and get jobs. After my father’s death, I was placed on the latter track.”

“The fact that you use words like latter makes me think you should have remained on the first track. To be honest, I’m jealous. Sometimes, the pressure from my parents to make them proud makes me want to do what you did at the photo shoot. Stand up to authority and blow it all up.”

“What kind of pressure?”

“I have to be fluent in two cultures: the world that my highly educated parents live in, where we are tolerated by the white majority, and the world inhabited by most young Black people, which is burning up.”

“I’m sorry, Joshua.”

“Me too, V, me too.”

They settled into the quiet—Veronica smiling to herself, chuffed that he’d given her a nickname.

The next thing Veronica heard was the clock chiming six times. She’d fallen asleep, and her shoulder ached from the stiff mattress. Outside, a snowplow drove by, the harsh scrape of metal on tarmac the first indication of impending freedom. The blizzard was over.

From across the room, Joshua stirred.

“You up?” she asked.

“I am.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Some.”

“What time does the building open up on a normal day?”

“The security guard comes in at eight,” said Joshua.

Two more hours. “I wonder what Mr. Frick would say about the two of us lounging about in his bedrooms, gallivanting around his home in the dark.”

Joshua gave a strangled chuckle. “He’s probably rolling over in his grave.”

She enjoyed making him laugh. When she’d first seen him, standing in the doorway of the room with the beautiful panels, he’d radiated a mixture of concern and authority that most guys his age doing a part-time job might not have managed. He’d been brought up to cherish art and was personally invested in the care of these beautiful objects.

She fingered the hard stone that lay in her pocket. It would not only help her with Polly’s care; it might help Joshua with the tuition for grad school at Columbia. She slowly started to draw it out.

“Joshua, there’s something I have to tell you.”

“What’s that?”

Her response was stopped by a loud slam downstairs.

“Was that the wind?” She sat up and began to put on her shoes, as did Joshua.

“The wind’s died down.” Large flakes made leisurely loop-de-loops on the other side of the windows. Joshua extricated an iron from the fireplace tool set. “Someone else is inside. Stay here and lock the door behind me.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. We should hide, not go down there and confront them.”

“What if someone is stealing something?”

“Or what if it’s the police, checking on things?” she said hopefully, before remembering their earlier discussion of how it would look if the police showed up. “Maybe I should go down.”

“Definitely not.”

“Then we go together.”

They took the front stairs, creeping as quietly as they could.

Another noise, another bang. “It’s in the direction of the garden court,” said Joshua.

He’d shown her the enclosed courtyard, which consisted mainly of plants arrayed around a fountain, during her tour. It had been added later, after the Fricks had moved out, as a serene spot for visitors to rest and gather their thoughts.

They ventured in, Joshua first. The first dabs of morning light peeked in through the arched skylights in uneven patches, wherever the snow had become too heavy and slid off. To the left was a line of French doors that ran along the main-floor hallway.

A strange muttering floated across the room, but Veronica couldn’t figure out where it came from. A cackle followed, like a witch might make. Veronica’s heart rose to her throat. “What was that?” she whispered.

Joshua stepped forward. She grabbed at his shirt to pull him back, but the fabric slipped through her fingers.

Slowly, she stepped out as well.

There was nothing there. Only the plants and the quiet gurgle of the fountain.

Maybe it was just the sound of the snow falling off the roof. She looked at Joshua, and was about to tell him that, when a shadowy apparition appeared on the steps at the opposite end from them.

In the dim light, Veronica could make out a woman, dressed in black. Her mouth was clenched in fury, her hands like claws. They weren’t alone, possibly hadn’t been this entire time.

And now she was barreling toward them, screaming.