A Lady of Good Family

by Jeanne Mackin

  Daisy, I have become sunburnt, and somehow fond of both boiled oats and overcooked venison. It is almost as if each landscape creates of us a different person. Yesterday I was on Black Moss moor, flat on my back and looking up at the clouds, finding cows and sailing ships in their ever-changing shapes. Imagine me thus in the Borghese gardens. I would have been carted away to an asylum for loose women.

  If the landscape creates the person, and in a garden the person creates the landscape, then it is to be considered a true relationship, not only a pastime.

  Dearest Daisy, all will be sorted out properly. I feel it. Both for you and me. Be brave, and believe and trust your loving friend,

  Beatrix

  Mr. Winters had taken me to Monaco for our honeymoon. On our first evening there he had, for the first time, approached a gaming table. “Amusing,” he had said after an hour. The next afternoon, he had sat for two hours. And every day after that, till we returned home, poorer than when we had left.

  My husband was by nature of a generous disposition, despite the early training of his aunts in Switzerland, who counted the sugar cubes as you put them into your tea. But to deed property? It didn’t matter that we had purchased the Fifth Avenue house with money from my trust. A wife did not financially separate herself in this way.

  But I would. For the children. A woman should possess her own little corner of the world, I thought. Else she is little more than a servant in her own home, unprotected from any disaster. I had chosen Gilbert for my husband, and looking back on my marriage it seemed that had been the last choice I had been allowed to make, that I was excluded from all serious discussion about finances or politics. Whenever Gilbert and his male friends wished to discuss William McKinley, or the Dreyfus affair, or coal miner strikes in Pennsylvania, or the failures of some of their investments because of the depressed economy, they did so behind closed doors. I and the other women, left behind in the drawing room, spoke of fashions and children.

  We were legally not much better off than children. How could we be, since we had no say in the running of our households and certainly no say in the running of our country?

  I had six children and a husband who could no longer control his gambling. I would own, at least, the house purchased with my father’s money.

  Mr. Winters balked at the proposed arrangement and then sulked. He did not approve that I had spoken of our financial situation to Beatrix and Minnie, that they had in turn spoken of his gambling losses to Mr. Cadwalader.

  “Unheard of,” he said, turning white and pushing away his plate. The maid who had been serving a dessert of peaches and cream backed out of the room, sensing the storm to come.

  “But, Gilbert, many wives own property,” I protested.

  “No,” he said, banging his fist on the table. He repented of that. A gentleman does not show temper. “We will discuss it no longer,” he said more quietly.

  Mr. Cadwalader sent other letters to his lawyer, my bank, and my husband. I have no idea what was in these letters—a touch of blackmail, the threat of scandal—but they achieved their mission. Mr. Winters finally agreed to deed the Fifth Avenue house in my name, on condition that he would still manage my financial affairs. Fair enough, I thought. What husband would give up that right? What wife would demand it? Mr. Wharton managed Edith’s finances; Minnie’s divorce was more about the ultimate separation of finances than the emotional separation they had agreed upon years before.

  I took my first steps to becoming a self-determining person, even though only a woman.

  • • • •

  Gilbert’s bad temper continued, so as I waited for Beatrix and Minnie to arrive in Paris, I occupied myself with outings for the children, which pleased their governess greatly. I often passed her little closet and saw her, feet up on an ottoman, napping or reading a popular novel.

  With the girls in tow, I visited exhibits about the wireless telegraph and Mr. Diesel’s combustion engine, went riding in the Bois de Boulogne, took long walks down the tree-lined avenues of Paris. My daughters were all like me, fair-skinned blondes who liked to get their own way. That was charming in children, but dangerous in matters of the heart, and I was already worried about Jenny, knowing in advance she would choose an inappropriate gown for her debut and make a questionable marriage. Our children do tend to repeat our own mistakes, despite how much they design to do the exact opposite.

  I wished with all my heart that Robert and Gil were with us as well, but as Mr. Winters said, they were no longer children but young men who must begin to make their way in the world.

  Little by little Gilbert almost, but not quite, forgave me for requiring that the New York brownstone be put in my name. He even accompanied me to the private party at Princess Esterhazy’s to see the moving pictures of Louis Lumière. They were short, only a few minutes each, but how amazed we were to see moving photographs! One was called The Gardener and it showed a young rascal stepping on a hose and drenching the gardener. Beatrix would have found it amusing and I thought I might try to wrangle another invitation to the princess’s once Minnie and Beatrix had arrived.

  Mrs. Haskett continued to leave her cards with us on a daily basis. It began to feel almost threatening. I knew she wished to know when Beatrix and her mother would arrive in Paris, but I could not guess why.

  And then one afternoon I ran into Amerigo Massimo at the Louvre. He was standing before one of da Vinci’s paintings of the Madonna, his hands behind his back, peering wistfully up at the winged angels surrounding the Virgin.

  “How marvelous to have wings,” I said, breaking into his silence.

  “Truly,” he agreed. “One could simply fly away. How good to see you, Mrs. Winters.”

  “And you, Signor Massimo. Are you in Paris for long?”

  “A week or two. Business matters. Don’t you think this Madonna looks a little like our Beatrix? The hair, the complexion.”

  “A little,” I agreed. “She would prefer a larger landscape in the background, though. She prefers paintings of gardens.”

  “Yes. When we looked at the Caravaggios in Rome she said that to me.”

  We stood for a minute, pretending to study the painting, wondering what else could be said that would not open some floodgate. “Will you take a cup of tea with me in the café?” I finally asked.

  “I can’t stop thinking about her,” he said, once the little serving maid had brought a tray with tea and biscuits to our table. “Normally, you see, I do not care for American girls. They are . . . What is the word? Silly. Or grasping. Italian girls are better brought up, better mannered.”

  I nodded. Giovanelli had said the exact same thing to me, years before. And then he had tried to kiss me, in the moonlit Colosseum, before Mr. Winters had finally caught up to us to interrupt that kiss.

  “Beatrix—Miss Jones, I mean—is different. She has—what is the word?—gravitas.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. I declined to specify what made her different, that childhood of cold silence between mother and father, the father openly appearing with his mistress in New York, defying the convention not of faithfulness, for many broke that vow, but of discretion. Beatrix was more serious than other girls, and for good reason.

  “Does she speak of me?” he asked.

  The table next to us filled up with a family: husband and young wife, and a row of little boys in sailor suits who clamored for ice cream. I was glad for the distraction—the rattling of chairs over the floor, the wails of the youngest child—because Signor Massimo had asked a question I should not answer.

  “Can you tell me what brings you to Paris?” I asked. He understood immediately. His face shifted, like a door being closed. The pleading left his eyes; he sat up straighter.

  “I am negotiating with clients about a painting I wish to sell. A very old painting. One of Sassetta’s studies for The Wolf of Gubbio. Mrs. Haskett has shown int
erest but will not make up her mind about it.”

  “The St. Francis legend,” I said, finishing my tea.

  “You know it?” He showed surprise. Charmingly, only one eyebrow rose, not both, giving him a mischievous look.

  “The story is in one of my little boy’s schoolbooks, along with the fables of Aesop.”

  “Yes,” he said with a tight smile. “That is very American, I suppose, placing the saints alongside the fable writers.” There was disapproval, and I wondered if Beatrix had considered how the two might mix in a single household: European Catholicism and New England Protestantism. It did happen. Plenty of American girls had married Old World Catholics, but their fathers often required, by way of their bankbooks, that the children not be raised as papists. It made for an unhappy situation when one of them, as one must, breaks the marital agreement or the parental promise.

  “Has the painting been in the family long?” I asked gently.

  He laughed, but it was not a happy sound. “Very long. Since it was painted, and it is my father’s favorite. But you see . . .”

  “I understand.” I reached over the table and touched his hand.

  “Thank you. Between you and me, Mrs. Winters, I do not have my father’s blessing in this venture. He wishes to raise funds in other ways.”

  I should have been more alert, paid better attention. But I thought Amerigo simply meant they might sell land instead of art.

  “If I can help, please call on me,” I said.

  “You are kind. Perhaps when Miss Jones is in Paris you will allow me to take you and her, and her mother of course, out for a luncheon, or to the opera.”

  “Perhaps,” I agreed.

  We rose, and he took out his wallet to pay for our tea. He counted out the coins very carefully, and when he walked away, after that courteous little bow required of well-bred men, there seemed to be a hint of despair about him. He was, as my grandfather would have put it, between a rock and a hard place, needing to sell what should not be sold.

  FIFTEEN

  “Have you seen him?” was the first thing Beatrix said to me when she arrived in Paris. Her time in Scotland had not dulled that longing.

  “I ran into him at the Louvre. He was standing in front of a Madonna that he thought looked like you.” Cleaves took her hat and coat and I led her by the hand into the sitting room. Jenny was in there, curled up in a window seat with a book, and when she saw us, she closed her book and came to give Beatrix a hug.

  “She’s so grown up,” Beatrix said when Jenny left us to chat alone. “Even taller than when I saw her last.” I could tell she did not wish to discuss Amerigo, not yet. There are times when all we want to do is talk about the beloved, say his name over and over. And there are other times when even his name must be kept close, guarded like a secret.

  “I think Jenny has a beau,” I sighed. “The governess says she’s awfully eager to walk in the same area of the park every day, where medical students from the Sorbonne gather. I can’t imagine where or how she met him, but notes have been exchanged, or so I’ve been told. I think it is time for us to return to New York, but Mr. Winters . . .” My voice trailed off. Mr. Winters wished to stay in Paris.

  “You look tired,” Beatrix said. “I have been selfish. Tell me how you are.” She sat by the window and looked out over the boulevard, at the passing nurses pushing perambulators, the young girls in their convent school uniforms of white collars and broad-brimmed hats, marching in a single row under the chestnut trees. Soon it would be autumn, my favorite time of year, and those leaves would drop, carpeting the ground with red and gold.

  “There was a protest on that street yesterday,” I said. “Laborers demanding higher wages, but Mr. Winters wouldn’t tell me any more about it. We had to stay in all day. Other days, though, I have been busy. Museums, concerts, an evening spent watching a new contraption, a moving picture. It was about a gardener and a watering hose. Very amusing.”

  “Then we will continue the amusements,” Beatrix said, leaning forward with excitement. “On Sunday I will take you, or you will take me, since you know your way around better, to Versailles, to see the play of the fountains and Nôtre’s gardens and the orangery. They still have one of his tree-moving machines there, I believe. Imagine moving a fully grown tree.”

  “Is that all you plan for your Paris visit?” I asked. “More gardens?”

  “No. It is not.” She grew serious, her eyes half closing. There was a conflict in her face, a decision that had to be made that did not make sense to her. Gardeners like things to make sense. If you plant a peony, you expect a peony. You don’t expect irises to grow in sand or apples to fall from pear trees. She had come to Europe to study gardens. She hadn’t planned on meeting Amerigo, or anyone like him. Such things happened to other women. Not she, who had danced through several seasons without showing a preference for a single partner, who had learned how to end a conversation just as a gentleman was making it a little too earnest. And now apples were falling from pear trees.

  “Amerigo sent a note to my hotel, asking to meet with me,” she said, looking out the window again. “I said yes.”

  • • • •

  The next day Beatrix arrived for lunch, bringing her exhausted-looking mother with her. “The doorman is not looking well,” Minnie said by way of greeting. There was accusation in her voice. “He needs bed rest.”

  “He has too many children to be a man of leisure,” said Mr. Winters, who had appeared in the doorway. “Don’t encourage him, Minnie. He is a malingerer and always looking for tips. How was the channel crossing?”

  “Tolerable. How are you, Mr. Winters?” Minnie was always formal with my husband. There was a distinct lack of warmth between them, and the lack of warmth had turned to a chill since the announcement of Minnie’s divorce proceedings. Mr. Winters didn’t approve, and she knew he didn’t approve.

  When a woman marries according to the truth of her heart (which is not the same as wisdom, unfortunately), when she then raises an excellent daughter born from that marriage, and when the marriage fails and she turns to good works rather than dissipation or despair . . . that woman neither expects nor deserves disapproval.

  Mr. Winters disapproved, of both her independence and the upcoming divorce.

  He saw Minnie’s situation only from a husband’s point of view, the one that said a wife must endure all for the sake of the vows made, that a wife is a form of property to be managed and maintained. That a wife must always put her husband’s happiness above her own, even when the form of that happiness is a mistress with unnaturally colored hair and a too-loud laugh when she is in public with him. His was a common enough viewpoint.

  “We were not born to merely suffer,” Minnie told me once. “And I will not. There is too much that needs to be done in this world for intelligent women to sit back and weep the days away. There is work to accomplish.” She herself, in New York, worked in Bellevue, Presbyterian, and the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled, providing not just the usual crocheted shawls that society women provided at Christmas, but real labor, helping to train nurses in sanitation techniques and bringing in teachers for children with tuberculosis and poliomyelitis who were away from their studies for months at a time. “It gives them courage to know they have to work at their schooling, even if they are ill,” she always insisted.

  “You are looking well, Mr. Winters,” Minnie said now, drawing off her gloves. “How was the racing season?”

  He grimaced. Polite conversation is a dance around things that must not be said aloud, but everyone in hearing distance already knows the silent conversation. How much did you wager this year? Minnie was saying. When will you stop?

  “Pleasant,” Mr. Winters answered. Mind your own business, he was saying.

  “Well,” I said. “What shall we do today? Are you tired, or would you like to walk?”

  “Wal
k,” said Beatrix.

  “Rest,” said Minnie at the same time. The very next day would be her first meeting with the lawyers. We decided she should stay in my apartments for the day and put her feet up, gather her thoughts, and make notes for the morrow. “Gird myself for battle, you mean,” she said. “For battle it will be.”

  Mr. Winters gave them a tight little smile, the look of offended patrimony. “I, alas, cannot join you,” he said, turned, and left us. It was difficult to love such a man. Understand, I did love him. There were afternoons alone with him, early evenings in bed when he played the lovelorn knight and all was as it should be between man and wife, or close enough.

  Such times were scarce that season, but love, for me, was not a seasonal thing. There are things between a man and a woman that are not easily spoken of, but my passion for him was as strong as it had been when we first met. When we were alone, in bed, we were in complete harmony.

  “Mr. Winters will be out most of the afternoon,” I reassured Minnie. “If he does come back early, he will probably stay in his study.”

  “The rift has not healed, then.” Minnie eyed me sadly.

  “It will,” I assured her. “In time.”

  Beatrix and I began her tour of Paris with a walk in the Bois de Boulogne, comparing the gardens there to the ones at the Villa Borghese in Rome.

  “Still formal, but better maintained, more pleasant for walking,” she decided. “The lines curve and meander. Straight lines are so like a military parade, aren’t they?” She hitched up her skirts slightly so as not to sweep over a marble that had strayed into our path. Children shrieked on the lawn and one young little fellow, debonair in his sailor suit with a rim of jam around his mouth, came to fetch his toy. He looked up at Beatrix, a long way up, and smiled at her, sticking his thumb in his mouth.

  We stopped like that, in the middle of an alley of plane trees, and waited for his nanny to fetch him safely back to the circle of children playing on the lawn. She was busy, though, with another child.