Page 55 of One of Them

W hen Anne arrived at the Old Westbury train station, she took a cab to the address Mrs. Bancroft had given her; they’d been corresponding for a couple of weeks.

The driver whistled softly when he came to the stone wall where he let Anne out.

“Some spread,” he said—more to himself than to her, but she had to agree.

The red-brick house beyond that wall was three stories high; on one side there were extensive gardens, on the other a swimming pool, now empty, and beyond that a pool house and tennis court.

Anne paid the man before turning back to the house and walking up the flagstone path leading to the front door.

That door was a glossy black, which matched the shutters, and in the center was the face of a large brass lion that functioned as a knocker.

She lifted it—it was so heavy—and the sound brought someone almost immediately.

A maid in a black uniform topped by a white apron said, “Miss Bishop? Mrs. Bancroft is expecting you. May I take your coat?”

Anne handed the coat—not the fur she’d bought in Paris, she couldn’t bring herself to wear that anymore, but a black-and-brown tweed that she’d bought in New York and thought was very chic—to the maid and waited while it was hung in the closet.

Then she followed her across the marble-floored entryway into a vast carpeted room whose large windows were covered by sheer, ivory panels that let in the light—which was abundant—but obscured the view into the house.

“Anne!” Mrs. Bancroft got up from the champagne-colored silk sofa and crossed the room.

“It’s good to meet you. I’m so intrigued that you know something about those pieces of sculpture.

My husband and I called them the mystery statues—we hadn’t a clue about what they were or how they got packed and shipped to us, because we hadn’t seen them in Paris—there must have been some mix-up. ”

“And I’m so happy the sculpture has been found. I can’t wait to tell Delia.”

“The artist’s daughter? You haven’t told her yet?”

“I don’t know where she is.”

“What about the artist herself?” asked Mrs. Bancroft. “Surely she’d want to know where they are now.”

“I will let her know. She’s overseas.”

“Paris?” asked Mrs. Bancroft.

“No. Israel, actually.”

Mrs. Bancroft looked exceedingly surprised but said nothing.

Anne followed her through a dining room with an elaborately carved marble mantelpiece and an oval table that looked like it would seat twenty people, then through an enormous kitchen with two sinks, two refrigerators, and a stove that had six burners.

Mrs. Bancroft opened a door at the kitchen’s far end, and they went through a little covered passageway that led to the pool house.

It was dark at first, but when the light was switched on, Anne was so entranced, overwhelmed even, by the twenty or so sculptures placed around the space that she hardly knew where to look first. At the life-size figures of a man and a woman embracing, her hair streaming down her back?

The young woman coiled upon herself, arms wrapped around her knees?

Or the group of animals, none of them more than fifteen inches high, that formed an impromptu menagerie?

Some were more conventional in their naturalism, while others were streamlined and spare, verging on abstraction.

Most of the surfaces were shiny and sleek, almost glazed, like the female figure Anne had bought in Paris.

But a few were rougher, pebbly or almost gritty—were they unfinished, or had Sophie been trying to achieve a different effect?

And the colors! Burnt orange, wine, green, greenish gray, rich brown flecked with black or white.

“They’re quite something, aren’t they?” Mrs. Bancroft said. “Walter and I had no idea.”

“What will you do with them?” Anne asked.

“That’s a good question, especially now that you’ve told me the artist’s daughter has been looking for them.

I was thinking of giving a couple to the Vassar College Art Gallery.

But now it seems that the artist—or her daughter—might want them back?

Am I right in thinking that you know the daughter? She’s a friend of yours?”

“I do know her.” Anne couldn’t really claim friendship. “She was in my year at Vassar.”

“Oh! Will she graduate with you this spring?”

“She took a leave of absence,” Anne lied.

“But she’ll be so thrilled to know that they’re safe and that they’re here.

” She kept looking at the sculptures: their arresting forms, their range of color, of texture, of subject.

For the last several years they’d been wrapped up and hidden away; now they deserved to be seen and appreciated again.

And maybe she could find a way to make that happen.

Back at Vassar, Anne sought out Miss Grayson, who had only seen a couple of the sculptures, while Anne had seen them all.

She described the different kinds of stone, the finishes, as well as the range and scope of the subject matter.

“There was one—a small crouching woman—that reminded me of Rodin’s Danae .

Maybe Rossner had seen it and was inspired by it?

But instead of bronze, she used porphyry,” Anne said.

“It’s such a gorgeous color, and it gave the figure a wholly different look.

Compared to the metal, the stone seemed warm, almost animate. ”

“You sound very excited by seeing these statues,” Miss Grayson said. “They made a real impression on you.”

“They did.”

“Did Mrs. Bancroft say what she intended to do with them?”

“She talked about possibly returning them to Sophie Rossner. Or to Delia.”

“I’m guessing you haven’t been in touch with either of them yet?”

“I don’t know where they are.”

“I’m sure the college has an address on file. I can write to her and let her know the sculpture has been found.”

Anne didn’t say anything.

“You want to be the one to tell her, don’t you?” Professor Grayson asked.

“Yes, I do.”

Professor Grayson considered this. “I think that would be all right. You can send her a letter, and then the school will follow up in an official way.”

Anne didn’t think Delia would be so pleased to hear from anyone at Vassar.

But she wasn’t going to say that now. She took the address back to her dorm room and wrote Delia a brief note, which she mailed that afternoon.

She couldn’t predict how or even if Delia would respond, but she didn’t have time to dwell on that.

There were the preparations for her final exam, and her paper, which had once again stalled.

What was the matter with her? She had switched topics from Chartres to Rodin because she’d felt stuck, and now it was happening again.

She had a meeting with Miss Grayson the following day, and she was dreading it.

She trudged to Taylor and went up the stairs.

The door to the professor’s office was open, and the professor was seated at her desk.

She wore a powder-blue brocade suit with a mouton collar; two pale-blue enamel cuffs adorned each wrist.

“Come in, Miss Bishop.”

Anne sat down. She didn’t have a single thing to say.

The professor waited, and when Anne still didn’t speak, she said, “Is something wrong?”

“I just haven’t been able to move ahead with the paper,” Anne confessed. “I don’t know why. I was enthusiastic about working on Rodin at first. But now it’s as if the light went out. And I’ve already changed my topic once. I can’t do it again.”

Well, now she’d said it, and there was some relief in that. She expected Miss Grayson to say that the paper had to be completed in order for Anne to graduate, and that she would simply have to buckle down and get to work, light or no light. The professor said something quite different, though.

“Miss Bishop, do you remember that conversation we had about Sophie Rossner’s work?” Anne nodded. “Well, I do too, and I think that may solve the problem.”

“How?”

“Mrs. Bancroft would like to move those sculptures out of her pool house, and since she’s donating two paintings to the art gallery, she wondered if she couldn’t send the paintings and the sculpture together.”

“Sophie Rossner’s sculpture would be sent here, to Vassar?”

“Well, yes. You’ve written to Delia Goldhush?

” When Anne nodded, she continued, “It seems impractical to think about shipping them overseas. And until arrangements can be made to ship them to New York, they’ll be safe here.

Since they’re going to be here, what if you put together a small show in the art gallery, and wrote a catalogue to accompany it?

Students are allowed to do an independent study.

That could be yours. And the final paper could dovetail with the show—you could write about Rodin and his influence on successive generations of sculptors, Rossner included.

You even said one of her pieces reminded you of Rodin. ”

“That sounds like a terrific idea.”

“Put together a proposal, and I’ll share it with the chair. I think I can get him to agree. But you’ll have to buckle down and work very hard, because you’re behind schedule. Do you think you can do that?”

“I know I can.”

“Good.” Professor Grayson smiled. Then she said, “There is one more thing. I took it upon myself to do a bit of research, and found out that Delia Goldhush was expelled.” She paused. “But of course you know that.”

Anne looked down at her shoes, the rug, the bottom of the metal file cabinet against the wall—anywhere but at Miss Grayson. “I did know,” she said finally. “I just didn’t think it was my story to tell.”

“You were involved in it, though. I saw the file, and the letter that was sent to the dean. Your signature is on it.”

“It is.” Anne forced herself to look up. “And I’ve been sorry about it ever since.”