Bonfire of the Vanderbilts

1. The Painting

Chapter One

The Painting

Figure 1. Julius LeBlanc. Stewart, The Baptism, 1892. Oil on canvas, 79¼” × 117¼” (201.30 × 297.50 cm). Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by the Museum Acquisition Fund, Mr. and Mrs. William Preston Harrison Collection, Mr. and Mrs. J. Douglas Pardee, Jo Ann and Julian Ganz, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Charles C. Shoemaker, Mr. and Mrs. William D. Witherspoon, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas H. Crawford, and other donors (LACMA 80.2).

Monday Afternoon, September 6, 2010, Los Angeles

“Turn around,” Maggie said. “Tell me what you see.”

Grace thought it was a joke, that a museum guard would be standing behind her making rabbit-ears over her head — she didn’t know what. What she saw instead was “the painting,” as she would come to call it, because from this day forward this image would define her life.

Julius Stewart’s The Baptism stretched along the wall behind her. More than six feet tall, nearly ten feet wide, it depicts a family in a Victorian drawing room. In fact, it has twenty-one individual portraits. The event is somber and elegant, a priest standing in front of a young couple, the wife holding a newborn. Men in suits, women in silks and satins. Off to the left, a pre-teen girl holds a rag doll at her side. A couple of restless younger boys in sailor suits look like they can’t wait to race from the room.

The eye surveys it all in a moment and then comes to rest. And lingers. On the reclining figure of a woman in the lower right, seated all the way across the room from the priest, the infant, and the ceremony. A fur-lined lap robe thrown over her legs, the woman is dressed in her peignoir, as if she were permitted out of bed just long enough to witness the event. Her eyes are heavy-lidded, her face is ashen, and with one hand she limply clutches a small bouquet of violets in her lap.

Violets.

A symbol of death.

The woman’s eyes are focused on the baby. Not just focused — fixated. People surrounding her aren’t as interested in the ceremony. A man, perhaps her husband, sits directly behind her, his head disconsolately in his hands. Beside him sits an older, white-whiskered fellow in a smoking jacket. Her father? His? He, too, is downcast.

Other people in the room might have their eyes on the ceremony, but their attention is really on her, on the one who is dying.

Grace stared at the sick woman.

Maggie studied Grace. “What do you think of it?” Maggie asked finally.

“I think the sick woman is the mother, not the woman holding the baby,” said Grace. “How do I know that?”

“Because it doesn’t make sense, otherwise,” said Maggie. She waited for Grace to say something, but it never came. Her attention was on death, which was staring at life. It was so tragic.

The woman would not live to see her baby grow up.

It was horrible!

Compounding her horror, Grace now realized, was the fact that the sick mother looked just like her — a tall, blonde beauty.

No one should have to be subjected to this! Not on her birthday, of all days. But Grace couldn’t stop staring. She knew how the woman felt. She couldn’t put it into words. But she knew — everything about her. Everything except the facts, of course.

Maggie was the lecturer now. “The couple standing with the priest are the baby’s sponsors.”

“That’s right,” Grace said. “You were raised Catholic, weren’t you?”

“It’s not Catholic. It’s Episcopal,” she said. “The other woman standing beside the priest is the third sponsor. They need two sponsors the same s*x as the baby and one of the opposite.”

“How do you know?” Grace asked.

“I’ve been to those churches. For a christening. The priest explained it.” Maggie came closer and joined Grace in studying the painting. “Know what I think? I think her husband is cheating on her, and she knows it.”

“It’s killing her,” Grace agreed.

Maggie studied Grace, who gave her no visible reaction.

There was another long pause, but Grace didn’t find it uncomfortable. She was busy, not thinking, just occupied, the way a cat could study a mouse or a three-year-old could watch television.

Maggie sat down to put on her shoes. Still on her feet, Grace was momentarily dizzy.

“You all right?” Maggie asked.

“Low blood sugar, I guess,” said Grace.

Maggie stood up, straightened her clothes, and smoothed back her dark hair. “Can’t do the tea, I’m sorry. Another time.”

“You have to get back?” Grace was not sure she was ready to leave.

“I have to pick up Sylvie at three,” Maggie said.

“Piano lessons?” Grace asked.

“No. Tai-Boh,” Maggie replied, and laughed. “Don’t cross her. Sylvie’s a tough kid, and now she can defend herself.”

Grace wondered why Maggie still hadn’t mentioned her birthday. And whether Maggie had seen the painting before. And why she was dropping those hints about adultery. Did she think the painting would inspire the same feelings in Grace? How could two people, even close friends of the same age and s*x, be expected to react the same way to a piece of art?

Grace had to admit, the painting upset her deeply, but she couldn’t explain why.

She insisted on staying a few minutes longer so she could take a dozen shots of the painting with her phone. Just before they left, it occurred to her to read the museum card affixed to the wall beside the painting. The card said the family might be a branch of the Vanderbilts, but nobody knows for sure.

It also mentioned that the painting once had an inscription, which the artist took pains to remove.