After seeing him at the wedding rehearsal earlier in the day, Janet didn’t like the way Jack looked. She suspected that he’d been drinking. Though a party was planned that night at the Clambake Club, Janet decided that she didn’t want her ex-husband there. She would be too busy to keep an eye on him, she said, and she had no idea what kind of embarrassment he might cause her. Therefore, she dispatched Yusha to the Viking Hotel, where Jack was staying in Newport. His mission: to tell Jack he wasn’t invited to the dinner.
“Yusha had to go into Jack’s room and sit on the bed with him and give him the bad news,” Yusha’s friend Robert Westover would recall. “Years later, Yusha would still become distraught talking about it. He begged Jack not to show up and make a scene. Then he left and cried in the car all the way back up to Hammersmith. Later, when he told Jackie what Janet had him do, she was upset about it, as well. She felt that her father should have been allowed to attend the dinner. She also felt that if Janet wanted to exclude him she should have done so herself, rather than send poor Yusha as her emissary.”
Dismayed by Janet’s dictate, Jack, apparently, spent the night alone drinking in his hotel room. Lee would say that his absence from the party “made him feel incredibly low, depressed.” It was a shame, especially because, just a couple months earlier, Lee had sent Michael Canfield—no slouch in the drinking department himself—to accompany Jack to a detox center. She and Jackie were determined to help their father deal with his alcoholism before the wedding, and found what they thought was just the right place in the South of France. It had been difficult to convince him to go, but they managed to do so. They promised that Michael would stay close by for the thirty days he was in treatment. Of course, thirty days wasn’t nearly enough time to deal with Jack’s long-standing problem. However, back then, treatment for alcoholism was such that doctors believed it was sufficient.
The morning after the party, Jack was too hungover to function. Therefore, he had a few more drinks. “He got completely drunk,” Lee would recall, “from misery and loneliness. It was not his fault. I am sorry but I am a realistic person, not a woman given to revisionist history: it was my mother’s fault.” Lee would also recall, “I just remember my mother screaming with joy, ‘Hughdie, Hughdie, Hughdie, now you can give Jackie away!’” Lee would chalk up Janet’s decision to take the honor from Black Jack to the fact that “a woman’s revenge is relentless.”
“Unfortunately, Jackie would never quite be able to forgive Mummy for any of it,” Jamie added. “She blamed her and would never get over it. She believed that Mummy’s intention all along was to have Daddy, not Black Jack, be the one to walk Jackie down the aisle. Mummy thought Daddy deserved it. Daddy was a good man, a wonderful father, and a fine husband, whereas Jack was none of the above. Therefore, her mind was made up about it. That said, this sudden replacement of my father for Jackie’s would result in a family grudge that Jackie would hold against our mother for pretty much the rest of her life.”
“I am sure my father, despite his reserve, felt he was put in an awkward position and regretted it,” recalled Yusha Auchincloss. “Formally attired, he was ready, if not prepared, to accompany Jackie down the aisle of St. Mary’s Church. Privacy had become public,” Yusha added, referencing the fact that everyone present seemed to know what was going on, “possible conciliation turned confrontational, and as an usher, brother, brother-in-law, and friend, I hoped the event would end quickly.”
Despite whatever angst she felt that day, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was a beautiful bride in her ivory-colored silk taffeta gown. She wore an heirloom veil of rose point lace that Lee had worn before her, and that was handed down from Janet’s mother. The bridal party included Lee (matron of honor), Nini (maid of honor), the groom’s sister Jean, and sister-in-law Ethel, as well as his brothers Bobby (who was best man) and Teddy, along with brother-in-law Sargent Shriver. Michael Canfield was one of the ushers. Jamie was the ring bearer and Janet Jr. the flower girl. It was a religious and ceremonial High Mass wedding, followed by a grand reception at Hammersmith, where—seated at tables with umbrellas that dotted the hillside in close proximity to roaming ponies and cattle—about 1,200 guests enjoyed the bucolic atmosphere.
A few weeks after the ceremony, Jackie would send a heartfelt letter to Black Jack completely exonerating him of any wrongdoing, saying she understood and she loved him. If anything, what had happened on her wedding day colored the way she viewed her mother, not her father. Though it had always been a pattern of her life in the way she looked at her parents that Jack could do no wrong whereas Janet was more suspect, the misadventure of her wedding elevated her father even more in her eyes.
Many years later, at Janet’s sixty-sixth birthday party, the topic of Jackie’s wedding day would be raised, as it often was over the years. “It all worked out for the best,” Janet told her family members. With the passing of the years, she couldn’t even be sure of the details anymore. All she knew was that whatever had occurred was Jack’s fault, not her own. She noted that Jack had ultimately been allowed into the church, that he had sat in the back where he belonged and at least got to see his daughter marry from that vantage point. Lee insisted, though, that what Janet had done that day had been “perfectly awful” and, she charged, “You know it’s true, Mummy!” Janet shrugged. “What is also true,” she observed, “is that no matter how hard we fight it, we somehow always revert back to our true natures.” Lee shook her head with resignation. “Indeed,” she said with an arched eyebrow. “We somehow always do, don’t we, Mummy?”
“To Your Good Times”
Though the Kennedys seemed to be off to a good start in their new marriage with no complaints from either one, the Canfields had a different story. By the time they celebrated their first wedding anniversary in April of 1954, they were already dealing with serious issues. “First of all, Michael was frustrated in his job; he hated publishing,” recalled Michael Guinzburg. “He tried to fool people into believing otherwise, but he really had no passion for books or their authors and was completely bored by the business. Unfortunately, his dissatisfaction caused him to drink more, which had already been a problem for him.”
Lately, Michael had been musing about possibly opening a “nice little antique shop” in the Village—which brought up the second issue in his marriage. Lee had long ago become accustomed to a certain way of life at Merrywood and Hammersmith, and the idea of being the wife of the owner of “a nice little antique shop” did little to excite her. Even though she had been willing to forfeit extravagance for a time while working at Harper’s and living with a roommate at the Dakota, she thought that once she got married, her penny-pinching days would be behind her.
Lee kept up a pretense of happiness for the first year, not allowing anyone—especially Janet—to see how bothered she’d become not living the high life on Michael’s salary. At this time, in the spring of 1954, she and Jackie were featured wearing sweaters in a splashy fashion spread for Vogue for which they were photographed by Horst P. Horst, a preeminent photographer of the times. Though Lee was excited to see herself on the pages of such a prestigious fashion magazine, she knew it was only because of Jackie and her connection to the Kennedys that she’d been asked to pose. She didn’t fancy herself a fashion model, even though some people thought she could have a successful future in that field.
As the second year of marriage unfolded, Lee became less eager to hide the truth about her dissatisfaction. “We can’t even afford nice linens,” she complained to Janet during one of her mother’s visits to her and Michael’s apartment near the East River in New York. Janet didn’t want to hear it. “Don’t complain to me. Complain to Michael,” she told Lee. “Tell him he needs to make more money!” Lee said she had already complained to Michael, but that he just didn’t know what to do about it. Lee said she felt they just needed a fresh start. Therefore, she came up with a plan of her own: she wanted to move to England. She’d been thinking about it for some time, she said, and while s
he knew it was a dramatic change, she hoped it might be for the best. She wasn’t exactly sure of anything, though. “I’m afraid that I knew what I didn’t want better than what I wanted,” Lee would admit many years later. “The world I grew up in—of family business and bridge playing and special schools—that was something I wanted out of, although I was grateful for having had it. Oh, it couldn’t have been more pleasant, more agreeable, you understand, and yet it had no meaning for me. Nothing I was doing had any meaning. I got married and got out quite early, but still floundered. I knew what I was running from, but not to.”
Michael was intrigued by Lee’s suggestion that they relocate. He’d long fancied his British link to royalty and had never really felt at home in the States, anyway. Therefore, he spoke to his father, Cass Canfield, and managed to get a quick transfer to Harper’s in London.
More than anything, Michael wanted to make Lee happy, and he felt that the move to the United Kingdom might do it. One day he decided to take up the matter with someone who knew Lee better than anyone, Jackie. Jackie couldn’t believe her sister’s good fortune; she’d always wanted to live in Europe and now Lee had the opportunity to do just that. “Can you give me any advice as to how I can make your sister happier?” Michael asked Jackie. Because she was never critical of him, he felt he could trust her for an honest answer. Jackie thought it over for a moment and said, “Well, Michael, I think the best thing is for you to get her some real money.”
“But listen, kiddo,” Michael said, “I make a perfectly good living. I’ve got a certain amount of money of my own and Harper’s pays me well.”
Jackie shook her head. “I mean real money, Michael. Real money!”
Jackie’s few words of advice did little to encourage her brother-in-law, though. How was he to make “real money” on his publishing salary? That remained to be seen.
Lee announced her and Michael’s new plan to move to England during one of the ladies’ Mother-Daughter Teas in Manhattan at the Plaza. Though Janet was worried about Lee being on her own in a foreign country, she understood the reasoning behind it and supported it. Jackie was excited for her sister. Therefore, on February 1, 1955, after a farewell party hosted by Janet and Hugh at Merrywood, Michael and Lee were off to Europe on board the SS United States.
Once they arrived, the Canfields rented a house on Chesham Place in Belgravia outside of London. Immediately, they began to socialize with London’s movers and shakers as they tried to carve out their own place in British high society, especially given Michael’s possible royal lineage. When Lee appeared in a pensive pose on the cover of a social publication called The Tatler and Bystander with the headline AN AMERICAN HOSTESS IN LONDON, Janet was proud enough of it to keep it among her most prized possessions. Because they were young, good-looking, and engaging, it wasn’t difficult for Lee and Michael to move about in influential circles, which is how they eventually met the American ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, Winthrop Aldrich, at a cocktail party.
When Lee found out that Ambassador Aldrich was in need of a social secretary at the embassy, she felt the position would be perfect for Michael. She encouraged him to interview for it; he was quickly hired. Not only was he happy to leave publishing, he realized that the job would afford him and his wife the opportunity to meet new, influential people. “Michael’s job was to basically squire around the ambassador’s visitors and make sure they got into the best restaurants and nightclubs,” said Lois Aldrech, who also worked as a social secretary at the embassy at this time. “He was given entrée to the best places in London, the most select private clubs, which worked out well for Lee. So, even though this was nothing more than a secretarial job for Michael, he seemed to enjoy it. I’m not sure that Lee had much respect for it, though. There was definitely growing tension between them.”
Michael’s drinking continued to be a problem. “A drunk needs a reason to get sober,” he told Lee, according to Tom Guinzburg, “and I don’t have one.” Lee had to wonder how this had happened to her; she’d grown up with an alcoholic father, and now she was married to an alcoholic husband? Jackie said she felt it was Lee’s duty to stand by Michael and try to help him. However, it was one thing to have an opinion about a drunk, Lee said, and quite another to actually be married to one. Maybe if the Canfields had lived in America in closer proximity to Jackie, Lee might not have felt so alone in her troubles. With her sister so far away, though, she felt sadder than ever.
Lee couldn’t help it; her eye started wandering. She soon became attracted to someone who actually was a royal—David Somerset, 11th Duke of Beaufort. Did she have a fling with him? If so, it was brief. Whatever was going on between them ended in July of 1956 at Deepdale Stadium in Preston after the two watched a football game. The specifics of the argument are unknown, but as she stormed away from Somerset, Lee said, “And don’t you ever call me.” He shot back, “Don’t worry, I seldom do.” With that, she turned around, walked up to him, and slapped him right across the face. “He is such a small measure of a man,” she later said of him.
Shortly thereafter, Lee and Michael entertained Terrance Landow and his wife, Betty, at their new home at 45 Chester Square. This was a spacious four-story complex in a row of homes on Chester Square, which Lee had decorated so beautifully one had to be impressed by what she could do on a limited budget. By this time, she knew all of the best high-end furniture dealers in London as well as the most preeminent art dealers and was able to barter well with them. “The place was full of antiques and only the best of the best,” Betty Landow recalled. “You would look around and marvel at what Lee had done. She was an excellent interior designer. Terry and I were bowled over. They even had two servants. How could they afford servants on his salary? We were gobsmacked.”
As a cook served helpings of roast beef and potatoes onto their plates, the Landows and the Canfields chatted happily at the dinner table until the awkward subject of David Somerset was raised by Michael. He noted that Lee had a new friend, “David Somerset, the Duke of Beaufort,” he said, pronouncing the title with dripping sarcasm. He also slurred his words. Obviously, he’d had too much gin.
From the look on her face, Lee was embarrassed. Was Michael trying to humiliate her in front of guests? Fine, she seemed to decide, if he wanted to play that game, she was up for it. Even though whatever she had with David was over, she looked at Michael with cold eyes and said, “Oh yes, David is perfectly lovely.” Not only was he rich, she said, he “unlike some others I know is a true royal.” They were having loads of fun together, she added.
As the Landows squirmed in their seats, the Canfields stared at each other for an awkward moment. “Finally, Michael raised his glass in Lee’s direction,” recalled Betty Landow. “‘Cheers, my dear’ he said. ‘To your good times, then. Long may they continue.’ Lee then lifted her own glass. ‘And to yours as well, my husband,’ she said, glaring at him.”
Unconscionable
“My Jacqueline is having such a difficult time adjusting,” Janet was saying to friends at Hammersmith Farm over cocktails.
Julian Balridge, who was twenty in 1955, recalls visiting Hammersmith and Merrywood many times with his parents, Carolyn and Edward. Carolyn was one of Janet’s bridge-playing girlfriends; Edward worked in the finance business with Hugh. “As a uniformed butler served us,” he recalled, “Janet said that Jackie had moved into an enormous estate called Hickory Hill, a fifteen-room mansion on ten acres, and that she was now just lost.” She noted that at Hammersmith and Merrywood there were always people coming and going, but at Hickory Hill there was no traffic—the only people she could talk to were the servants, Janet said, because Jack was so busy at the Senate.
Tasting her drink, Janet shuddered and turned to the butler. “This is not dry,” she said. The functionary looked at her blankly. “Dry. Dry. Dry!” Janet repeated as she handed her cocktail back to him. “Made with vermouth.” The butler quickly disappeared with Janet’s drink.
Janet said she’d s
pent many hours at Hickory Hill teaching Jackie how to run an estate. Of course, Jackie was used to such living at Hammersmith and Merrywood, but she never had to think about how anything worked. Everything was just done for her. Now, however, she was the mistress of her own massive domain. Janet made lists for her, drew diagrams, outlined every detail from which servant should serve the meals to how those meals should be served and then how the dishes should be cleared. She had what she called “a formula for good living,” and she delighted in sharing it with Jackie. “Mummy was the chief architect behind all of that,” Jamie Auchincloss said. “I don’t think she ever got the credit she deserved. My sister [Jackie] would never have become the great hostess she was known for being at the White House if not for my mother’s coaching.”
It wasn’t long before Jack and Jackie decided that Hickory Hill was too big and too remote a location for them, especially with Jack at work at the Senate most of the time. They therefore sold it to Jack’s brother Bobby and his wife, Ethel. Jackie and Jack would then settle into a new home in Georgetown on N Avenue.
Jackie couldn’t have been surprised by Jack’s preoccupation with politics; after all, he had told her shortly after they met that his ambition was to one day be President. As history has shown us, he and his powerful family would stop at nothing until that goal was achieved. He came close to that office in 1956 when he campaigned to be the vice presidential nominee for the Democratic Party. He’d only grown in stature in the Senate and many observers felt he had a strong chance when presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson let the convention select the VP nominee that year. Unfortunately, Jack finished second in the balloting, with Senator Estes Kefauver winning the nomination. The good news for Jack was that the national exposure he received during this time was the greatest of his career thus far. His father, Joe Kennedy, figured that there was still time, that the Eisenhower ticket would have been too great to overcome, anyway. As far as he was concerned, they were still on track.
Jackie, Janet & Lee Page 9