Page 42 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms
A weak understanding, and a shift filled the air.Remorse, slow and struggling, crept from his squeeze to her fingers, and she returned it with her own pressure.Forgiveness bled from her to him, and somewhere, hopefully, planted the seeds of forgiveness within himself.
‘I’ve decided what I want,’ she said, holding his gaze for as long as she could.‘I don’t want to see the surgeon.Not yet.I’d like you to teach me how to design.Properly, as if I am a student articled to you.’
Father hunched into his familiar exasperation.‘I can teach you everything, but you won’t get commissions.The associations will not allow a woman to join, and without that, there is little chance of work.’
‘I don’t care about the work.I want to try!’She’d never truly confronted him on this before, and he startled with her rising anger.She took a breath until it settled.‘Maybe you are right.But it’s not about commissions.You know I could be an architect.A rational, freethinking, calculating professional.And I imagine I am not the only woman in the world like me.It might come to nought, but I can stilltry.I can bang on the door.I can holler until I am hoarse.They may never grow weary enough to let me in, but perhaps the next woman who comes along will have the courage to thump a little louder because of what I have done.Maybe they will tire more quickly once she starts, and eventually, they will letherin.That will bemylegacy.I may never design buildings.But I will forge a path.’
Father released her grasp.He crossed the room to his own desk where he hovered like an indecisive dragonfly, moving from the table to the window and back again as he contemplated the empty wooden surface with intensity.
‘Don’t start being a proper father now,’ she pleaded.‘Stay terrible.’
He stared at his desk for an age until at last, a slow, relenting smile curved his lips.He rapped a knuckle against the wood.‘If I am going to teach someone, it may as well be you.Consider yourself apprenticed.’
Florence wanted to squeal and throw herself across the room, but he was not one for commotion, and she could not move like that, anyway.But she smiled until she laughed, and then the pair of them bubbled with joy in the small light of the office.As their mirth faded, a solid clap at the door claimed his attention.
‘Work starts at eight o’clock sharp,’ he called over his shoulder on his way to the door.‘I have no patience for tardiness.’
Florence picked up her pen again.She mixed red and brown droplets into umber and, once happy with the shade, traced little rectangles of bricks.She swirled a darker brown for a tree trunk across the paper, then yellow for bright lemons on the tree.The washed-out form of their first home emerged on the page.She swapped the watercolour for purple ink and traced her mother, young and full of song and dance, and then her own small self, skipping beside her.
‘Commission?’The question pierced her focus, followed quickly byschedules,levels, andthe water pipes are already laid out.
‘Florence, my notebook!’her father called.
Florence set the little drawing aside.Once it dried, she’d give it to Mama.If she liked it, they could hang it in the hall next to Father’s elevations.Then they’d all have a memory of their early life framed on the walls.She slid his notebook from his desk and made her way down the hall.
‘I have no patience for competition.’A woman’s voice, strangely familiar, drifted from the room.‘Johannes says you are very good with complicated spaces and houses that are for both work and for living.’
Florence slowed.She squeezed the notebook so tight the card buckled.At the door to the front reception room, she sank back against the stair rail.
The young woman that she had met at Miss Delaney’s—Elise Hartright was her name—sat opposite her father.Father was watching her intently, with a bursting creative hunger in his eye.‘I have been waiting for too long,’ Elise continued.‘I would like a kitchen with sunshine.Offices and spaces to meet with clients on the lower levels.What else… Johannes, I have forgotten something.’
He must have been standing by the window, for she had not seen him, but with one bold step, all of Johannes came into view.He bent over Elise’s shoulder and scanned the notes.‘Brick or ashlar for the facade.You hadn’t decided.’
He looked as he always did.Healthy, strong, beautifully dressed in a navy coat and snug black pants, hair slightly tousled from the city.Like Elise, he moved with a heightened energy, and the old jealous part of her couldn’t help but search the space between them for some hint of connection or commitment.When he took a step away from the table, a sigh escaped her.All three of them turned to the door.
‘Florence!’Elise leapt from her seat, clasped her hands, and led her into the room.‘We are building a house at Number 6.No more sadness.No more mess.Poor Lord and Lady Dalton need their home to themselves, not filled with a business.I’m going to be an investor, not just an assistant.What do you think?Brick or ashlar?’
‘Brick is more expensive, but ashlar can look as good as proper plaster.It just doesn’t last as long…’
Father pulled his notebook from her with a huff.‘Which way does the block face?Are there footings?How far from the nearest pumps?’
‘You should come see it!’Elise chirped with a clap.‘If you are able to start today?’
Father nodded, then began peppering Elise with questions about window sizes, a portico, and the number of stories as he shoved on his coat and hat.The door snipped shut, and their voices trailed off.
‘Do you think either of them will notice they’ve left without us?’Johannes looked out the window, shaking his head with a laugh.
‘Elise is as terrible as Father.He loses himself in his work.I don’t know how Mama has managed it all these years.’
‘It may not be a build to make a legacy, but it will make Elise very happy.’He released the curtain, then turned back towards the room.
She buried her hands in her skirts.‘Why aren’t you Elise’s architect?You know her and the street better than Father.Possibly better than anyone.’
He chuckled.‘She says I know her too well and will try to bully her into what I think is best instead of letting her choose.Maybe she’s right.But I’m taking some time away from design.I’m going to see the world.A little of it, anyway.’He gestured at the line pen in her hand.‘And you?’
‘Father is going to teach me.Properly, like an articled student.’
‘And then?’he asked.
