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UNDER THE WIDE AND STARRY SKY
A Novel
Nancy Horan
Ballantine Books
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Tentative On-Sale Date: January 7, 2014
Tentative On-Sale Month: January 2014
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Ballantine Books
An imprint of the Random House Publishing Group
1745 Broadway • New York, NY • 10019
BY NANCY HORAN
Under the Wide and Starry Sky
Loving Frank
This is an uncorrected eBook file. Please do not quote for publication until you check your copy against the finished book.
Under the Wide and Starry Sky is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Nancy Horan
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-345-51653-4
eBook ISBN 978-0-345-53882-6
[CIP Information]
www.ballantinebooks.com
Frontispiece and part-title images: ©iStockphoto.com
For my sons,
Ben and Harry
Out of my country and myself I go.
—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Contents
Cover
eBook Information
By Nancy Horan
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Part Two
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Part Three
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Postscript
Afterword
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Part One
CHAPTER 1
1875
“Where are the dogs?” Sammy asked, staring up at her.
Fanny Osbourne stood at the boat’s rail, holding an umbrella against the August drizzle. Her feet were planted apart, and each of her boys leaned against a leg. Around them, a forest of masts creaked in the dark harbor. Beyond, the city was a black paper cutout, flat against the gray sky.
“We’ll see the dogs tomorrow,” she promised.
“Are they sleeping now?” the boy asked.
“Yes, they’re surely sleeping.”
Lanterns illuminated the other passengers, whose weary faces reflected her own fatigue. After a ten-day Atlantic crossing, she and the children had traveled by rail from Liverpool to this paddleboat for the tail end of their journey, across the English Channel from London to Antwerp. Now they huddled on deck among the others—mostly American and English businessmen—waiting for some sign that they could disembark.
Fanny had begun spinning stories about the famous cart-pulling dogs of Antwerp soon after they boarded the ship in New York. As her sons’ patience waned during the long trip, the dogs’ feats became increasingly more fantastic. They swam out to sea to rescue the drowning, dug through the mud to unearth gold, gripped trousers in their teeth and pulled old men out of burning buildings. When they weren’t busy delivering milk around town, the dogs carried children through the cobblestone streets, calling upon bakers who handed out sugar-dusted cakes and apple fritters. Now, anchored a few feet away from the great port city, it occurred to Fanny that the dogcart might be a thing of the past in Antwerp these days.
“Eleven o’clock,” said Mr. Hendricks, the baby-faced surgeon from New York who stood nearby, eyeing his pocket watch. “I suspect we won’t be getting off this boat tonight.” They watched a cluster of customs officials exchange heated Flemish with the captain of their channel steamer.
“Do you understand what is happening?” Fanny asked.
“The Belgians are refusing to inspect anyone’s trunks until tomorrow.”
“That’s impossible! There aren’t enough beds on this little boat for all of us.”
The surgeon shrugged. “What can one do? It’s all part of the journey, dear lady. I am philosophical about these things.”
“And I am not,” she muttered. “The children are exhausted.”
“Shall I try to secure sleeping cabins for you?” Mr. Hendricks asked, his pretty features wreathed in concern.
The doctor had been kind to Fanny from the moment she’d met him at dinner the first evening of the voyage. “Why, art!” she responded when he asked what had prompted her journey. “Culture. Isn’t that the reason Americans travel to Europe?” The man
had stared intently at her across the table, as if deciding whether she was mad or heroic for bringing her three children abroad for an entire year.
“My daughter and I will study figure drawing and painting,” she’d explained. “I want her to have classical training with the best.”
“Ah,” he said knowingly, “you, too, then, are a voluntary exile. I come for the same reason—the best of everything Europe has to offer. This year it is Paris in the autumn, then Italy for the winter.”
She had watched him maneuver a forkful of peas into his mouth and wondered when he had time to work. He was a bachelor and quite rich, judging from his itinerary and impeccable clothing. His soft black ringlets framed an unlined forehead, round pink cheeks, and the lips of a putti. She had glanced at Sammy next to her, pushing his peas onto a spoon with his left thumb. “Watch how Mr. Hendricks does it,” she whispered in the boy’s ear.
“I can see you have mettle, Mrs. Osbourne,” the surgeon said. “Do you have any French?”
“I don’t, but Belle knows a little.”
“If the Old World is to work its magic on your children, they’ll need to learn the language. Flemish is spoken in Belgium, but French is a close second. If you plan to travel at all, that is the better language.”
“Then we all must learn it.”
Having determined the fastest route to the mother’s affections, the surgeon smilingly made his offer. “I would be happy to teach you a few phrases.” Every afternoon for the remainder of the journey, he had conducted language lessons for her and the children in the ship’s library.
Now she told Hendricks, “Don’t ask about the sleeping accommodations quite yet. Give me a few moments.”
Fanny glanced over at her daughter, Belle, who shared an umbrella with the nanny. She beckoned the girl, then bent down to her older boy. “Go to Miss Kate, Sammy,” she said. “You, too, Hervey.” She lifted the three-year-old and carried him to the governess. “Do keep in the background with the children, Kate,” Fanny told the young woman, who took the boy into her sturdy arms. “It’s best the officials don’t see our whole entourage. Belle, you come with me.”
The girl’s eyes pleaded as she ducked under her mother’s umbrella. “Do I have to?”
“You needn’t say a word.” Looking distraught would be no challenge for Belle right now. The wind had whipped the girl’s dark hair into a bird’s nest. Brown crescents hung below her eyes. “We’re almost there, darlin’.” Fanny Osbourne grabbed her daughter’s hand and pushed through a sea of shoulders to reach the circle of officials. Of the Belgians, only one—a lanky gray-headed man—had a promising aspect. He started with surprise when Fanny rested a gloved hand on his forearm. “Do you understand English, sir?” she asked him.
He nodded.
“We are ladies traveling alone.”
The official, a foot taller than she, stared down at her, rubbing his forehead. Beneath the hand cupped over his brow, his eyes traveled artlessly from her mouth to her waist.
“We have come all the way from New York and have experienced nothing but chivalry from the English officers on our ship. Surely there must be some way …”
The Belgian shifted from foot to foot while he looked off to the side of her head.
“Sir,” Fanny said, engaging his eyes. “Sir, we entrust ourselves
to your courtesy.”
In a matter of minutes, the plump little surgeon was trundling their luggage onto the pier. On deck, the other passengers fumed as a customs man lifted the lids of Fanny’s trunks, gave the contents a perfunctory glance, and motioned for her party to move through the gate.
“Bastards!” someone shouted at the officials as Fanny and her family, along with Mr. Hendricks, followed a porter who loaded their trunks on a cart and led them toward an open horse-drawn wagon with enormous wheels.
Near the terminal, masses of people waited beneath a metal canopy. Women in head scarves sat on stuffed grain sacks clutching their earthly valuables: babies, food baskets, rosaries, satchels. One woman clasped a violin case to her chest.
“They come from all over,” said the surgeon as he helped the children into the wagon. “They’re running from some war or potato field. This is their last stop before America. You can be sure the pickpockets are working tonight.”
Fanny shuddered. Her hand went to her breast to make certain the pouch of bills sewn into her corset was secure, and then to her skirt pocket, where she felt the smooth curve of her derringer. Her left hand reached into the other pocket, where it touched the round silver art school medal she’d tucked in before leaving San Francisco.
“Take them to the Hôtel St. Antoine,” Hendricks ordered the driver as the last trunk was hoisted into the back of the vehicle. He turned to Fanny. “When you know where you will be staying permanently, leave a forwarding address at the desk. I will write to you from Paris.” He squeezed her hand, then lifted her into the wagon. “Take care of yourself, dear lady.”
Less than an hour later, ensconced in the only available room of the hotel, she stepped behind a screen, untied her corset, and groaned with relief as it dropped to the floor, money pouch and all. She threw a nightgown over her head and climbed into bed between her slumbering boys. In the narrow bed an arm’s length away, Belle’s head protruded from one end of the sheet, while Miss Kate’s open mouth sent up a snore from the other.
Fanny leaned against the headboard, eyes open. It had been a harrowing monthlong journey to get to this bed. Twelve days’ travel on one rock-hard train seat after another from California to Indianapolis. A few days’ respite at her parents’ house, followed by a mad dash on a wagon across flooded rivers to catch the train to New York before their tickets expired.
Six thousand miles lay between Fanny and her husband. Whether he would send her money, as he had promised, was uncertain. Tomorrow she would think about that. Tomorrow she would enroll herself and Belle at the art academy and wangle a ride on a dogcart for the boys. Tomorrow she would find a cheap apartment and begin a new life.
She got out of bed and went to the window. Across the square, Notre Dame Cathedral soared above the other night shapes of Antwerp. The rain had stopped, and the unclouded moon poured white light through the lacy stone cutwork of the church spire. When the cathedral bells rang out midnight, she caught her breath. She had believed in signs since she was a girl. The clanging, loud and joyful as Christmas matins, hit her marrow and set loose a month’s worth of tears.
If that isn’t a good omen, she thought, I don’t know what is.
She climbed back into bed, slid down between her boys, and slept at last.
CHAPTER 2
In the morning, dressed in a blue jacket and a plaid skirt, Fanny tried a red scarf around her throat. Wrong, she thought, peering at the mirror. With her olive skin and wavy black hair, the effect was too much the contadina, not enough the artist. She tied on a sober white cravat, retrieved the silver medallion from her other skirt, then ferreted around in her trunk, collecting the things she’d brought to present to the school: the letter of recommendation from Virgil Williams, her friend and teacher at the San Francisco School of Design; the charcoal sketch of the Venus de Milo that had earned her the first-place prize; and a collection of Belle’s best drawings.
“You will need to exchange this downstairs.” Fanny gave some bills to Kate Miller, who was dressed and getting the children organized. “Take them to have baths first, then to a bakery for breakfast. After that, you should go over to the cathedral and walk them all through it.” She handed crayons to Hervey and two drawing pencils to Sam. “Make a nice picture of the church for Mama,” she said.
Out on the slippery cobblestones, Fanny took in the morning foreignness of Antwerp. She let go a relieved sigh when she spotted a wagon filled with shiny brass milk cans being drawn by a large harnessed dog. Two army grenadiers wearing high black bear-fur hats passed in front of her, followed by women in winged white headdresses bound for the flower market with baskets of rose
s balaced on their round hips. A few doors down from the hotel, old women lit candles in front of a shrine to the Virgin. The damp air at the Place Verte was heady with the mingled odors of flowers, horse manure, and bacon wafting from the hotel’s restaurant. Except for the dogs, all of it—the flower market, the preposterous headgear, the religious statues on street corners—surprised her, for she hadn’t read much about Belgium before she’d set off.
Fanny had chosen to come to Antwerp, rather than London or Paris, for reasons she knew to be vague, reasons issuing from her gut rather than from a thorough study of tourist guides or school brochures. Virgil Williams had told her about the Antwerp academy, but there were a number of good art schools in Europe. She’d never met a Belgian, but she’d heard they spoke a kind of Dutch. Her father’s people were Dutch and decent folks, mostly. There was a trove of paintings in churches and museums to be copied in the practice of landscape and figure study, though Paris would have served even better. She’d also heard that it was cheap for Americans to live in Antwerp. That was the sum of it.
“Go study art in Europe,” said her friend Dora Williams, Virgil’s wife, when Fanny confided her situation. “It’s one of the few respectable ways a woman can leave a rotten husband.”
During one of Sam Osbourne’s contrite moments, after Fanny discovered he was supporting yet another whore in an apartment in San Francisco, she saw her opening. She extracted a thousand dollars from her husband along with a promise of monthly checks, bought train tickets, and darted for freedom.
Now, with a penciled map from a porter at the hotel, Fanny found her way through a maze of narrow, winding streets to the old convent that currently housed the Royal Academy of Fine Art. A young man at the gate directed her to a stone building blackened with age. When she approached the carved wooden door, she noticed above it a frieze depicting a draped male figure in the Greek style, holding a chisel above a block of stone. Beside him sat a goddess clutching a handful of sticks—no, they were paintbrushes. She felt goose bumps rise on her arms as she turned the heavy doorknob and stepped inside.
“I do not have an appointment,” she said in English to a man at a desk. “But you may tell the gentleman in charge that I was sent here by the director of the San Francisco art academy.”