The Lake Of Dreams Part 10

"You were vetoed."

"Yes. And worse-I argued."

"Ah. I see." There were any number of expats in Yoshi's company, so it was more flexible than many, but with his looks and heritage and fluent j.a.panese, Yoshi was expected to walk a different walk. It seemed to me that he overcompensated, staying longer at the office and going out drinking with his business clients more often than anyone else, trying to offset moments like this, when the differences in his training and philosophy broke through. "It's not a big deal, though, is it? I mean, they're not going to fire you."

I was half joking, but Yoshi didn't smile.

"No. At least, I hope not. It's just very quiet around me right now. The fact is, when they hired me they expected my experience in Indonesia to be helpful to them, but they didn't expect me to advocate for the Indonesians. So now I've been a.s.signed a partner when we go to Jakarta next week."

"Really? A chaperone?"

"Something like that. I'm not too happy. So, no, it's not a big deal in some ways. But to be honest, I've been giving some thought to quitting."

"Quitting? Really?" I laughed, but in fact it filled me with a rush of panic to imagine us both adrift in the world.

"Some thought, yes. Not real serious thought, mind you. Just the late-night thinking after a bad day."

"If you quit, we'd both be unemployed," I observed.

Yoshi must have heard the flare of panic in my voice, because he smiled into the computer, across ten thousand miles. "I'm just frustrated, that's all. Let's change the subject. What's been happening with you? Is it pouring? I've been checking your weather."

"It is." I glanced out the window. The sky was beginning to lighten at the horizon, a pearly gray-white line above the green, and I hoped it would clear. "I've been making fascinating discoveries about my ancestors," I said, and told him about the windows I'd discovered and the trip I planned to Rochester to visit the Westrum House. Yoshi was interested, though he was having a hard time following all the various relationships.

"She's your great-grandmother, this Rose?"

"No. My great-grandfather's sister. I guess that would make her my great-great-aunt? We never heard about her. I think there was a scandal."

"Sure you want to know?"

I considered this because it echoed so clearly my own apprehension, my initial sense that the past might have been covered up for very good reasons. "You know, I really do. I'm not sure I can explain exactly why. Just that it feels like an important piece is missing from my family. I mean, if the scandal had to do with Rose being a suffrage leader, then that's remarkable. We could use some more heroic women in the family." As I said this I thought of my own struggles all these decades later, pale in comparison and yet real enough, especially for a woman in science. Times when I'd been interrupted in the middle of a presentation, or given all the paperwork to finish, a kind of corporate housekeeping, or had been excluded in a routine way from important conversations outside of work.

We talked for a little longer about his travel plans, and then Yoshi said he had to go. There were reports he had to look over before he could relax. He took a long drink, looking tired, I thought, sapped.

"You should get some sleep."

"I will. Once these reports are done, I'm going to crash in front of the TV. Mrs. Fujimoro asked after you, by the way. She noticed you were gone."

I remembered the press of her hand, the earth trembling beneath our feet.

"How is she? How are the earthquakes?"

"There was a biggish one yesterday. When I came home the bookcase had fallen over, and the rest of the plants in the kitchen."

"I can't say I miss the earthquakes," I said. "I miss you, though." And I did, thinking of the long June dusks there, the walks we'd take sometimes in the evening, by the sea.

"I wish you were here," Yoshi said, his voice wistful.

"Soon," I said. "Love you."

"Likewise," he said, and before I could give him a hard time about his lack of romantic impulses, he'd switched off Skype, and the screen went dark.

Downstairs, I had a quick breakfast with my mother, then drove her into town. We were a little formal with each other, guarded. She said Blake had seemed glad to talk about the baby, though he'd asked her to keep it quiet because Avery had been planning to announce it more formally.

"Does he know I told you?" I asked as I dropped her off at the bank.

She winced a little. "Well, maybe. I didn't say so, but maybe he guessed. He seemed a little taken aback at first that I already knew. But Lucy, I really don't think it will be a problem."

I watched her hurry up the steps in the rain, clenching a plastic coat around her to protect her cast.

From there I drove to Rochester, first on local roads, winding through the countryside, cows grazing in the fields like black-and-white clouds, the new corn trembling in the steady rain. Route 20 connects the northern tips of all the lakes, roughly following the route of the old Erie Ca.n.a.l. It travels through the nineteenth-century towns strung like beads along the tips of the lakes, so beautiful and faded, having grown and prospered a hundred years ago when the streets were unpaved and full of horses, barges floating down the ca.n.a.l and stopping at these ports to load crates of gla.s.s or garments, pumps or rope, fresh from the a.s.sembly lines. Now, with so many factories closed and so many businesses having left, the towns were stately but worn, some thriving with tourists, some with their windows empty or boarded up or given over to transitory businesses that offered fast cash advances against payday. Their outskirts trailed on for miles, full of strip malls and fast-food chains.

The Westrum House didn't open until two o'clock, so I stopped to visit the Sonnenberg Gardens in Canandaigua, and I had lunch there, too. Then I got on the highway into Rochester and found my way downtown. The Frank Westrum House was tucked away on a street full of tall brick homes, hidden by a row of overgrown forsythia bushes. The path was made of flagstones leading past the bushes and through a garden full of nooks and alcoves, hidden benches, and wisteria trailing from trellises. The house was immediately distinct, two stories, built in a style reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright, with lots of horizontal lines and windows everywhere. It was so quiet that I worried that despite the hours posted on the Web site the house wouldn't actually be open. Yet when I finally walked up to the entrance-a portico, really, with several long beams extending over the stoop-a little sign with red cursive letters said OPEN OPEN. I stepped into the hall, called out, "h.e.l.lo." My voice echoed.

Newspaper articles, framed and hung along the wall, doc.u.mented the history of the house, and I studied these as I waited. The neighborhood had been built in 1873, and the brick houses along the street dated from that time. However, there had been a fire on this site in 1910, one house kindling another and both fires raging most of a night, burning the houses to their sh.e.l.ls. No one died in these fires, but the families lost everything. The lots sat empty until Frank Westrum bought them in 1920 and began building this house, which had taken him the better part of a decade to complete due to scarce funds. The final framed article talked about the restoration of the house in the 1960s, when it was purchased from private owners and the search for the gla.s.s art of Frank Westrum to fill it had begun.

There were distant footsteps, hurrying, and then a tall man clad in khakis and a white shirt stepped into the hallway. He had short, wavy flaming-red hair that made me think of the fires that had burned here, and his skin was pale, freckled. His name tag said STUART MINTER in thick block letters. Stuart was about my age, and he gave a nervous smile as he approached, speaking so quickly he was almost hard to follow.

"h.e.l.lo and welcome, sorry to make you wait. It's usually a pretty quiet time of day, so I wasn't really expecting-well, sorry, as I said. Did you come to take the walking tour?"

"Yes, I would like to do the tour," I said. "But I have some questions for you first." I told him about the windows I'd seen in The Lake of Dreams, each with their distinctive rows of moons and densely woven vines and flowers along the bottom.

"Here's the motif. Does it look familiar at all?" I asked, bringing the digital image up on my phone. "It's a little hard to see. But the church had doc.u.mentation-an original receipt-that indicated Frank Westrum made these windows on commission in 1938."

Stuart Minter took the phone and studied the image. "No," he said, finally. "We have nothing like that here, nor have I ever seen that motif in the Westrum archives. I'd remember it, I'm quite sure. It's unusual, isn't it? But even with this image-it's very fuzzy-I can see trademarks of Westrum's work in the window. Look, there's this distinctive pattern of leading. You can just barely make it out, but if you look closely you can see how the pieces of stained gla.s.s come together here and there in a kind of flower shape. You'll see this again as you take the tour, as well. That pattern is in every Westrum window, something of a signature, as the audio guide points out."

"That's very interesting," I said, making a mental note to mention this detail to Keegan. "Is there any way to trace how Frank Westrum came to make these particular windows on commission? Do you have those records here?"

He bit his lip lightly, thinking. "I don't know, but the archives are pretty extensive. I'll check while you're looking around, if you want."

"I'd appreciate it."

"Not a problem." He smiled. "It's rather exciting, isn't? Something unexpected to liven up the day, anyway."

Stuart gave me an iPod with the audio tour, along with a map of the Westrum House and its exhibits, then disappeared back down the same corridor he'd emerged from, marked STAFF ONLY, his footsteps fading. The house was not large, but it was open, empty of furniture and with extensive windows against which the art gla.s.s of Frank Westrum hung, casting colorful patterns on the opposing walls, the ceilings, and the floors. I started the audio and walked from piece to piece, through bands of light and color, learning about Westrum's life, his childhood, his brief but significant apprenticeship with John La Farge, his equally significant break with his mentor, his marriage and two children, the death of his wife, and his move upstate. Clearly, from his windows, Frank Westrum had entertained a pa.s.sion for water; the stained-gla.s.s scenes were full of its calm sheen or swirling currents or white-tipped waves. He'd liked vines, too, which tended to climb the long sides of gla.s.s panes he'd made to flank doors, and he liked flowers of all kinds. Much of his work was architectural, transoms or narrow panels to be inset above picture windows. In the middle of his career, he had experimented with geometric shapes as well, a counterpoint to the lush and intricately patterned scenes of his early work. In a series of square windows he had worked with green and blue and the white gla.s.s shaped into diamonds and triangles, arrowhead points.

There was something very calming about his work. In part it was the effect of the room itself, its white walls and vast windows everywhere. But it was also the gla.s.s art, with its radiant colors, its images of earth and leaves and water, the human figures in their flowing clothes, the geometric patterns with their soothing continuity and order.

The audio tour took me through the four downstairs rooms, and then instructed me to return to the foyer and travel down a short hallway. I did this, still glancing at the pamphlet, but I stopped, transfixed, when I reached the base of the stairway. Its open risers backed to a wall of gla.s.s; there was light everywhere. An enormous stained-gla.s.s window hung in the landing, radiant gold and green, purple and vermilion, pale blue and dark amber. It depicted a woman walking on a path of bluish-gray pebbles in a garden, holding a sheaf of many-colored long-stemmed flowers in her arms. Her hair was loose, falling to her shoulders in a dark cascade. Her simple dress was a golden green, falling to her toes, tightly belted at the waist in a darker green. Her feet were bare, her eyes cast toward the flowers, and her arms, her face, were done in a soft white gla.s.s that made her seem to glow, like the flowers in my mother's old moon garden. I noted the flowered leading pattern that Stuart had mentioned in the lower left corner, and again in the edge of her sleeve. However, what held me still was her stance, the way she stood half-turned, gazing outward as if she recognized someone beyond the frame. Her face was familiar, too, rather long, her downcast eyes large, dark blue. I got my camera out and scrolled quickly through the saved images until I reached the one I'd taken of the Joseph window. Yes, one woman stood out amid the others, turned just this way, her face the same shape, though the image was much smaller, of course. Cupping my hand over the screen to darken it, I glanced from the phone to the stairwell with a growing sureness and excitement. Yes, I felt certain-these two images, in two very different scenes, had used the same woman as a model.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor, and a moment later Stuart appeared with several green file folders in one arm, running a hand through his flash of dark red hair, looking a little worried that he'd left me alone for so long.

"She's exquisite, isn't she?" he said, pausing beside me. "This window came from a private collection in New York City, quite undoc.u.mented. We think it's from rather late in the Westrum opus. He must have done it during his retirement; certainly after he moved to Rochester. At least that's the speculation among art historians."

I nodded, slipping my phone back into my purse. I didn't want to tell Stuart, not yet anyway, about my own discovery.

"She's incredibly striking. Not beautiful exactly, but very unusual. You don't know who the model was?"

"Unfortunately, no. We don't know much about that period of Westrum's life. He'd fallen out of favor and retreated here for the last twenty-some years of his life, after his wife died. No one was paying much attention to his work, sadly enough. We a.s.sume this woman was someone from the family who commissioned the window, but that's only a guess. It may also have been Westrum's daughter, Annabeth. The colors are particularly powerful in this piece, do you agree?"

"Yes. And I see the pattern in the leading."

"That's right. Here's the other thing I just love in this window-look at the gradations of color in the flowers. It's the spectrum of the rainbow, red to violet. Which is a wonderful visual pun, because the flowers are irises, and of course in Greek mythology Iris was the G.o.ddess of the rainbow."

"That is wonderful to know," I said quietly, trying to hide the thrill of excitement, electric and alive, that ran through me as he pointed out the flowers. If Iris is to leave your household . . . If Iris is to leave your household . . . "Did you find anything interesting in the files?" I asked, nodding at his folders. "Did you find anything interesting in the files?" I asked, nodding at his folders.

"Well, yes and no. Come back to the desk and I'll show you."

I followed him through the narrow hallway to the console, where he opened the folders and spread out the papers. There was a copy of the letter of receipt and thanks from the church for the chapel windows, clipped to a series of other letters.

"These are the commission requests," Stuart said. "I only had a chance to glance at them quickly. You're welcome to look further, of course. But the windows seem to have been ordered by a V. W. Branch in 1936. The address is in New York City, so Westrum probably knew him there. There's not much more information-just a detailing of the dimensions, some sketches of the images requested, that sort of thing."

I looked through the letters, all typed, all signed in black pen by V. W. Branch.

"Not him," I said. "Her. V. W. Branch is probably Vivian Whitney Branch, an early feminist." I was trying to speak very calmly, but I felt the sort of excitement you feel when the pieces of a puzzle are about to come together and make sense. "She had a sister, Nelia Elliot, who lived in The Lake of Dreams. That's probably the connection to the chapel windows. Nelia Elliot was active in the suffrage movement, too."

I went through all the papers carefully, one by one, hoping for a more tangible link to Rose, but I didn't find anything.

"Well, that's disappointing. I'd hoped the person who commissioned these might be an ancestor of mine," I explained, for Stuart was looking very perplexed. "But nothing here has her name, or her handwriting. I found a few letters of hers at my mother's house-I didn't bring them, unfortunately. But I'd recognize the handwriting."

"Well, it's quite unlikely that your ancestor would have known Frank Westrum," Stuart observed, a little affronted, taking a page from me and studying the script. "Not unless she lived in New York City before 1920. Or here thereafter."

"I don't know where she lived," I said. "But I do have a feeling she knew him."

"Ah, feelings," he said indulgently. "Wonderful, ephemeral things, feelings."

Annoyed, I pulled the phone from my purse and scrolled again to the image of the Jacob window. "Look at this-look at the woman behind the sack of grain."

Stuart studied the screen, two spots of color surfacing on his cheeks.

"I see what you mean," he said quietly, at last. "She's very familiar, this woman."

"I know. She almost has to have been the model for both windows."

"And you say she's an ancestor of yours?"

"I think so. Maybe. As I said, I found some letters in the house. She's never mentioned in the family stories, Rose Jarrett. But there's a record of her in the church-a baptismal record. She had a daughter in 1911." I didn't tell him the daughter was named Iris; I felt secretive about that discovery, so private and so exciting. I couldn't imagine sharing it, not yet. "Then she disappeared altogether."

"Where did you say the church is?"

"St. Luke's, right downtown in The Lake of Dreams."

Stuart nodded without commenting. It was always interesting to mention The Lake of Dreams to people from the area because the town had a reputation for being exclusive and rather snooty, for holding itself-the purity of its waters and the beauty of its village-above the other lakes and villages nearby. People either aspired to The Lake of Dreams or resented it. I couldn't really tell what Stuart thought, but I imagined he'd be among the former.

"I see." Then he gave a little laugh and sighed. "Well, actually, I don't see, not at all. I still don't understand why you think there's a connection between your relative and the woman in the window in the church."

"It's the border along the base of the window," I said. "Here, have another look. See-all the moons and vines I mentioned earlier? That same motif recurs in a piece of fabric I found in our house. There's also a note she wrote that was with the fabric."

"Yes, well. That's hardly proof."

I laughed. "I know. This is not proof at all. I'm going on gut instinct, an intuition that says these pieces must fit together. Of course, I could be totally wrong."

"May I?" He took the phone and scrolled to the Wisdom window again. After a moment, he nodded slowly. "You know, I think you're probably right, proof or no."

"I know I'm not supposed to-it says no photos right here-but given the circ.u.mstances, I wonder if I could take a picture of the window in the landing?"

Stuart grew clipped again, professional, and handed the phone back to me. "Oh, I'm afraid you can't. The museum directors-"

"Extenuating circ.u.mstances, don't you think?"

He hesitated, glanced at his watch. "I'll have to call and ask," he said. "I was thinking I should call them anyway. They'll be interested in your photos, your Rose." He walked around the console and hit a number on the speed dial, keeping his head turned, his voice hushed, as he conferred with whomever answered.

"All right," Stuart said as he hung up. "That was the chair of the board of directors, who also happens to be a Frank Westrum scholar. He agreed you could take one photo, as long as you leave a copy of the church window photo with us here, and some contact information, too. He's quite interested, you see. I thought he would be."

"I'll e-mail it right now." I took a business card from its little holder on the granite counter and punched the e-mail address into my phone. "By the way, what's in those other folders?" I asked.

"Ah, right-not so much, really. Orders for gla.s.s in various colors."

I looked, but Stuart was right. Not much to go on. I copied down the address in New York City so I could check it against Vivian's other letters once the archivist at Serling College got back to me. I took my single photo of the window, framing it carefully, and gave Stuart my name and phone number before I left.

It was after five o'clock by the time I stepped outside. Low clouds had gathered, and the wind-stirred leaves seemed lurid against the maroon brick across the street, the darkening sky. I paused beneath a trellis covered with wisteria; a b.u.t.terfly floated past, then drifted to the ground like a leaf.

As I was puzzling over Frank Westrum and Beatrice Mansfield, and how the equally mysterious Rose Jarrett might be connected to them, a shiny black car drove up and parked on the street beyond the gates. A tall man, rather plump and beginning to bald, got out and hurried into the house, glancing at me with an a.s.sessing interest as he pa.s.sed. He disappeared into the building, but a moment later he was on the steps again, hurrying along the flagstones, the wind catching at his tie.

"Pardon me, are you Lucy Jarrett?"

"Yes, I am."

"Pleasure," he said, extending his hand. "I'm Oliver. Oliver Westrum Parrott." He grimaced slightly when I smiled and said, "I know it's a ridiculous surname, but what can you do? I'm chief of the board of directors. I am also Frank Westrum's great-grandson. Stuart called me just now, and I was able to dash over straightaway. I wonder, could I see the photo of the window you've found? If it's truly a Westrum window, there will be great interest, you see."

"I sent an e-mail copy," I said. "But yes, here, it's on my phone. Have a look." I pulled up the image, surprised at how possessive I felt about this information suddenly, about Rose. "The quality isn't great, I'm afraid." I handed him the phone; he stepped back beneath the shadows of the wisteria to see more clearly. For a moment he didn't speak, but a muscle started twitching in his cheek.

"I see," he breathed, finally. "Yes, this is very exciting, I'd say." He looked up then, his eyes dark brown and avid. "Lucy. Pardon me, Ms. Jarrett, could I call you Lucy? Could I buy you a drink? I think perhaps it would help us both if we were to exchange stories."

I glanced at my watch. "I don't know-I have an hour's drive."

"I won't keep you long, I promise. Plus, I know more about Frank Westrum than anyone else in the world."

I nodded, intrigued. "All right."

I followed Oliver Parrott and his black car for several blocks to an old section of the city that had been revitalized, the brick storefronts full of restaurants and shops. He parked, and so did I; we met outside a little cafe with big plate-gla.s.s windows. Oliver held the door open for me, then threaded his way through the after-work drinkers to the back, which opened onto a little patio overlooking the water. Due to the breezy weather, several tables were free. We took one with an umbrella and ordered-gin and tonic for Oliver, sparkling water for me.

"So, please-tell me about Frank Westrum," I said as the waitress left. "I have to confess I've never heard of him until a few days ago."

Oliver nodded, settling back in his chair. "He was a fascinating character. I'm biased, of course; it's fair to say his legacy shaped my life, something my wife and children will attest to, with some frustration, I'm afraid. Not that I'm an artist," he added, waving one hand as if to dismiss any aspirations he might once have had. "I've dabbled, but it became quickly apparent to me that I didn't have the talent. Or the interest, really-it's not an easy life. I went to law school, thinking I would work for arts organizations, and that's what I've done. When there was an opening on the Westrum House board, I took the post gladly. My great-grandfather has been an avocation, really.

"He was an immigrant to this country from Germany, one of a great wave of artisans. He arrived in 1885 when he was seventeen, and started working in a gla.s.s factory outside of New York City, where several master gla.s.sworkers were reviving the art of stained gla.s.s, which had been virtually forgotten. They set about trying to re-create formulas for gla.s.s as it had been made in medieval times. Frank Westrum worked for one of these men, and in that way he started to come into contact with Art Nouveau. The style suited my great-grandfather, who loved the fluid, sensuous lines of the natural world, and who was a romantic at heart."

"I have a friend who makes gla.s.s from old formulas-Keegan Fall."