“You possess it,” snapped Gilbert with the confidence of one quoting something he knew well. “And possession is nine tenths of the law.”
“I’ve never known what that means.” George ran his hands over the polished mahogany table. “It was right here that I first heard the story, from my grandfather.”
“I need to see it, Pa, have it appraised,” Gilbert said. “And now that Mother is gone, we need to revisit the will, check the language, see that these Irish are kept at bay.”
ROSEMARY LIKED THE way men looked at her when they were men her own age. And she liked the way old men’s eyes would follow her across a room or a street in Boston, as if she were a spirit, emerging from their lost youth to revive memories of desire.
But she hated the way that Magnus Perkins looked at her.
She took care never to make eye contact with him unless she was speaking to him. She held her head at an aloof angle and always moved with studied silence.
“Like a nun.” That was how her mother had described it.
But “like a nun” was not how Mr. Magnus looked at her. Unless he leered at nuns.
“So, Rosemary”—he was reading the paper on the morning after the Pike funeral—”it says here that there’s a Women’s Suffrage rally in Boston on Sunday.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I’m going.”
Rosemary heard her mother clear her throat. Do not make another scene.
At the funeral, they had gone through the receiving line, with her mother whispering the same thing in her ear. Do not make another scene. And they had argued all the way back to Newport.
The arguing had ended with Rosemary’s promise that she would not contact the old Amory man again. She promised nothing about the son. He was a lawyer. He might see some benefit in talking to her, if only to frighten her away. And that might lead to something. So she had already contacted him.
Mr. Perkins said, “Don’t you women realize that the best way for you to influence the life of this nation is to hold yourself above the daily warfare of business and politics? It’s the reason the Founding Fathers didn’t give you the vote.”
“They didn’t give us the vote because it was a different era,” said Mrs. Perkins. “They didn’t give the vote to men who didn’t have property.”
“A wise decision,” said Magnus.
Mrs. Perkins raised her chin and said to Rosemary, “When is the meeting?”
“Sunday at the Tremont Theater in Boston. Mrs. Maud Wood Park will be there to speak on how she convinced the Senate to vote the Amendment through at last.”
“I should like to hear her myself,” said Mrs. Perkins.
“Good God,” said Magnus, “you can’t be serious.”
“I can, and I am.”
“You’re not going,” he said, “and that’s final.”
Rosemary returned to the kitchen, wondering what the ladies of the N.W.S.A. would think if she brought a woman like Mrs. Florence Perkins into the fold.
“Did you cause a scene?” asked her mother.
“I’d say Mr. Magnus caused the scene. I just … I just set the stage.”
ROSEMARY’S MIDMORNING JOB was to see to the cleaning of the table linens and silver. So she was in a small room off the kitchen with a tub of polish and silver utensils around ten o’clock. The house was quiet. Mrs. Perkins had joined her lady friends at the beach. Maureen was off buying groceries with the butler, Mr. Bunson. The maids were upstairs preparing the bedrooms that had not been used since last fall.
Rosemary was humming softly to herself. “Come Josephine, in my Flying Machine.” The words promised adventure, a trip in one of those biplanes always puttering over Newport, a young girl aloft with a Navy flier.
And … the shine of the polished silver pleased her, and the salt-air tarnish on the candelabra challenged her, and the smell of the polish stung her nostrils, and …
So completely was she wrapped up in her work that she did not hear someone come up behind her. Then a Liberty-head dollar appeared on the table.
“Since you’re polishing silver, perhaps you’d like to polish that.”
“Polish a dollar?” she looked up past the bowsprit chin of Magnus Perkins.
He leaned closer. “I often give servants the chance to polish my money for me.”
“And what beyond your money?” She swallowed a mingling of fear and disgust, because she knew the answer without asking.
“Whatever I have that needs polishing.” He put his hands on her shoulders, slid them onto the bare flesh of her upper arms. “If a girl does her job well, and doesn’t upset the household with silly political notions, I let her keep whatever money she polishes.”
Rosemary had been working on the butter knife. She wished she were holding a better blade. She pretended not to notice the hands kneading her upper arms. She kept her voice neutral. “Does Mrs. Perkins know about your polishing projects?”
His hands stopped. His face appeared beside hers, his mouth close to her ear. “Any girl who doesn’t like to polish gets another job … or finds one on her own.”
How to answer? How to gain an advantage? She said, “I’d … I’d best see to my polishing, then.”
“You’re very wise.” His hands started moving again, from her arms toward her breasts. Then he was touching them through her uniform and something was rising against her back. She had never felt one before, but she knew what it was.
And what should she do? Sit there in frozen fear and let him do what he would? Or drive him away … and lose her job. That might not be so bad … but not just yet.
She swept her arm suddenly, knocking the silver clattering to the floor. “Oh, good Lord!” As she turned to pick things up, she crooked one of her elbows toward that thing tenting the Perkin’s trousers, and she “accidentally” gave it a good shot.
He let out a yelp and turned away.
“Oh, sir!” she shouted, “are you all right? Are you hurt? I’m so sorry.”
He waved her off. And from somewhere came the sound of feet scurrying. In a house with fifteen-foot ceilings, voices echoed and carried.
Mr. Perkins said, “You’ll have another chance. But no matter what my wife says, don’t go to Boston on Sunday. Or you will lose your job.”
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, Rosemary answered a bell from the solarium. The doors were open, so a breeze was blowing through. Palm fronds and giant ferns waved in the heavy moist air. But Mrs. Perkins looked glacially cool and graciously pleased to have a gentleman visitor. “Could you bring us lemonade, please, Rosemary?”
“Yes, ma’am. Sweetened or sour?”
“I’ll have sour, and the gentleman—”
He turned toward Rosemary: a tan linen suit, a white celluloid collar, hair shimmering with Macassar oil, mustache neatly trimmed … Gilbert Amory. He smiled and said, “Sweetened.”
Rosemary’s knees went weak, but she managed an “As you wish.”
Then Gilbert turned back to Mrs. Perkins. “I have several papers for your husband to sign regarding the sale of his mill in Brunswick, Maine. He had said that he would be here.”
“You can’t leave them?” she asked.
“They need notarization,” said Gilbert. “I’m a notary public in six New England states, admitted to the bar in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.”
“I’m afraid that my husband has run into slow play on the course.”
“If he’s as good at golf as business”—Gilbert knew how to flatter, so he flattered—”I’m sure he’s having a fine round.”
“I’m sure.” Mrs. Perkins inclined her head, as if to change the subject. “Tell me, you’ve been through Boston. What’s the mood as regards the Women’s Suffrage Amendment?”
“Massachusetts is a hidebound place,” said Gilbert. “But I think that women should have the right to vote.”
“A liberal opinion,” said Mrs. Perkins, “for a man who wears no wedding band.”
“Some would say I have such opinions because I’m no
t married.” Gilbert waved the finger in front of his face. “The law has been my mistress and my lover.”
As if unaware of the meanness of her words, Mrs. Perkins said, “How sad.”
Gilbert did not respond. He attributed her remark to the offhand bad manners of the rich. He knew that people talked about him. They speculated behind his back that he was afraid of women, that he was a misogynist, that he liked boys, that he was doomed to loneliness. But seldom did they comment so openly. And if they were business associates, seldom did they speculate long, because he did his work too well for any foible to color him or any opponent to rattle him.
But he was rattled now, quietly. Perhaps he should not have come like this, pretending to hand-deliver documents that might just as easily have been mailed, all so that he could confront the girl now carrying a tray of lemonade…. No. It was another girl.
“Where’s Rosemary?” asked Mrs. Perkins.
“She took ill, ma’am,” said the other girl. “Begged that she needed a bit of air.”
From where Gilbert sat on a wicker sofa, he could see her leaving by the kitchen door on the other end of the house, hurrying across the lawn to the Cliff Walk.
Mrs. Perkins looked at Gilbert. “My husband thinks that I’m too easy on the girls, especially when they go wandering off, but I try to be understanding.”
“A marvelous trait, understanding.” Gilbert gulped the lemonade. “I hope you’ll understand if I go out for a look at your marvelous Cliff Walk.” He plunked down the glass. “I’ve never seen it, and it’s such a marvelous afternoon.”
“Marvelous, yes,” said Mrs. Perkins. “But Mr. Amory, does it occur to you that perhaps it’s your manners that keep women at bay?”
“Perhaps it’s the women.” Gilbert stood and bowed. “With your permission, I’ll leave the papers for your husband’s perusal and return in half an hour or so.”
He had just committed a serious faux pas, leaving his hostess like that. But he was also giving her something else to talk about, which he knew would please her.
It did not take him long to catch sight of the girl in the gray dress—she had removed her apron and her little crest. He called after her, but she did not look up.
A butler was coming toward him with two Irish wolfhounds on a leash. The dogs were huge but looked benign. The butler was small but scowled at Gilbert, who was so ungentlemanly as to be running along the Cliff Walk in late afternoon, when the breezes were cool and the best folk came out to enjoy them.
Gilbert ignored glares and gazes and caught up with Rosemary near the Breakers.
She said, “I told you not to come here. I said I’d contact you.”
Gilbert pulled out a telegram. “The paper may be yellow, but this is blackmail, plain and simple, and I won’t be blackmailed, nor will my father.”
“It’s not blackmail. I wouldn’t know how to blackmail….”
He read as he walked beside her. “ ‘We need to speak of your family treasure. I do not claim it as a birthright. But I claim the right to ask my grandfather for help. Or I will reveal its existence without your consent.’ “
Up ahead, Mrs. Hiram Sumner was bustling along with two lady friends. She was self-appointed Queen of the Cliff Walk and took it upon herself to shoo household staff back to work when she found them meandering here. Any staff, any household.
To avoid her, Rosemary went down the Forty Steps, which were set into the rocks on the side of the cliff. She went halfway down, then turned and looked up at Gilbert Amory. “If you want to argue with me, come down here.”
Gilbert wrapped his hand around the iron railing at the top and told her that he was a gentleman and he did not conduct business in the open air.
“Excuse me, sir.” It was Mrs. Sumner. “But we don’t appreciate shouting on the Cliff Walk when we are taking our afternoon constitutionals.”
Gilbert glanced at her. He didn’t know her. He said, “So don’t listen.”
Mrs. Sumner gave an indignant huff and paraded on.
And from the other direction came another of the maids, who looked down the steps and whispered, “Rosemary! Hurry. Mr. Bunson is calling for you.”
Rosemary came back up the steps and looked Gilbert in the eye. “I’ll be in Boston on Sunday morning. I’ll go to the nine o’clock Mass at the Cathedral. If you bring the Constitution, meet me outside the church afterward.”
“You must be crazy.”
“I’ll only look at it is all, know what’s in it, and tell Mrs. Park.” Then she went running off, and heads turned.
Running on the Cliff Walk was … well … never done.
“DID YOU FIND the Cliff Walk satisfying?” asked Mrs. Perkins.
“A spectacular view,” said Gilbert.
She looked at her husband, who had finally returned. “Our guest gulped down his lemonade and went running off. I thought it was something I said.”
Magnus Perkins grunted, as if he didn’t really care what his wife thought, then asked Gilbert, “Do you have your notary stamp?”
The signing went quickly. Perkins treated Gilbert not as a legal representative but as an employee worthy of no more time or attention than he gave to one of his servants.
When Rosemary carried in a tray with more lemonade, Mr. Perkins waved her away. He seemed in a bad mood, as if he had missed a putt that cost him a lot of money. “I don’t want more goddamn lemonade. I want a gin and tonic. Bunson!”
The long-faced butler appeared in the doorway. “Sir?”
“G-and-t’s for me and Amory.”
Mrs. Perkins said, “Would you like to stay for dinner, Mr. Amory?”
“If I can still catch the last ferry to Providence.” Gilbert had no great desire to stay. He thought it best to avoid further contact with the girl. And he did not particularly like Magnus, but he sensed that Magnus was warming to him, which might be good for business. With any luck, he could still make it to Boston in time for the midnight train to Portland.
“Amory, you’ve done an excellent job with our affairs in Maine,” said Magnus Perkins.
“Thank you,” said Gilbert. “Progress can be painful, but it’s all for the best.”
“Right answer.”
Then Bunson appeared in the door carrying a bottle of Tanqueray, a tonic dispenser, and two glasses with ice.
Mrs. Perkins stood. “We shall set another place, Mr. Amory, and dine presently.” Then she left, her linen dress sweeping coolly across the stone floor of the solarium.
Gilbert sensed that Perkins’s drinking was an issue with his wife, and that Perkins might be warming to him simply because he was a drinking companion.
Bunson poured generous shots of Tanqeueray, followed by squirts from the bottle. “A slice of lime, sir?” he asked Gilbert.
“Yes. Thank you.” Gilbert took a long, satisfied sip.
“Enjoy that,” said Perkins, “because there are places where it’s already illegal. A year from now no one will be able to have a drink anywhere in these United States. Another assault on the Constitution. Do you study the Constitution, Amory?”
“I’m a lawyer. I must study it.”
“Is there anyplace in it that says a man cannot dispose of property as he sees fit?”
“Not if it’s his own property.”
“Right answer again.”
Gilbert did not like the condescension. In Maine, he was seen as an educated man, not one who went about seeking the approbation of the rich. “What’s your point?”
“It’s time to liquidate the Pike-Perkins Mill.”
“Liquidate?”
“The business is dying in New England. The mill is losing money.” Magnus Perkins swirled his glass, studied the ice cubes.
“But the people … we’ve already put too many out of work in Maine as it is. I …”
“Convince the other members of the family to sell—your father, the McGillis faction, the Bishops. It will make things go more smoothly. But Perkins Holdings is majority owner and we int
end to move. We have a buyer who’ll meet our price. If we wait, the price will only go down.” He gulped the rest of his drink then called, “Bunson!”
“Sir?”
“Mix two more.”
Rosemary came in and whispered something to Bunson, who, according to the hierarchy of the household, conveyed the information: “Gentlemen, dinner is served!”
“Dinner? Already?” said Magnus. “But another drink.”
And his wife’s voice came from somewhere within the house. “Dinner, Magnus. We have wine decanted.”
Magnus shot a dirty look toward the dining room, then gestured for Bunson to refill the glasses.
Rosemary turned and went off silently.
Gilbert noticed the way Magnus watched her round young bottom. It was as if he could consume her. And Gilbert realized that he was looking at her in the same way. He averted his eyes, because the girl was his niece.
When she was gone, Magnus said, “Do you know that little Irish piece fancies herself a suffragist. She’s even corrupting my wife with her ideas.”
“I suspect that your wife has a mind of her own,” said Gilbert.
Magnus Perkins laughed without mirth. “Right answer.”
OVER DINNER, MRS. Perkins asked Gilbert his opinion of prohibition, which somehow led to a conversation about the Boston Suffragist Rally.
Mrs. Perkins announced that she would be attending with “young Rosemary.”
Magnus slammed his hand on the table. “You are not!”
So Mrs. Perkins offered a polite good evening and excused herself.
“If you go to Boston, I’ll fire that girl,” shouted Perkins. “And her mother, too!”
“You’ll fire no one without my permission. If you try to, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” he demanded. “Refuse my bed? Bunson! Another g-and-t!”
Then Magnus Perkins turned to Gilbert and turned the talk once more to the closing of the mill. His prescription: “Once you’ve protected your bedrock in trusts, get out of bad businesses, like New England textiles. Go into new things.”
“Such as?” Gilbert poured himself more wine.
“The tube wireless,” said Perkins. “Marconi was the Gutenberg of the modern age. It should be for smart men like us to see the genius of broadcasting through the air, just as other men saw the genius of linotype. Everyone reads now. Someday, everyone will listen— to music, to information, to advertising….”
The Lost Constitution Page 42