Around his stooped figure stood the silhouettes of dress mannequins, rocking horses, slightly broken Victorian dolls, children’s desks at which the orphans had been homeschooled. I would sometimes go back there to ride the creaking rocking horses and look through the antique toys, but there was something distinctly unsatisfying about playing with broken toys from another era. Pieces of them were usually missing or would fall off in my hands.
Most of the third floor consisted of padlocked storage rooms where the family archives were kept. Though these technically belonged to the whole family, Uncle Harry kept most of them locked away from the rest of us, as if he were the family’s sole true heir.
I only got an occasional glimpse of what lay inside these mysterious storerooms. I had spied bookshelves lined up library-style, with stacks of documents—in and out of boxes—in the aisles, yellowing posters, medals, broken chairs, old mattresses, and stuffed animal heads on the walls. Everything was covered with pieces of the crumbling, water-damaged ceiling. Metal pails were poised under the known leaky spots. Here, among this mess, lay our history, an addendum to the museum downstairs.
This should have been our part of the house, exclusively. Uncle Harry had seven spacious rooms in his part—none of which were used for general storage by other family members—while my family kept only three small rooms for ourselves. I liked to imagine the third-floor storerooms reclaimed, cleaned, and renovated. Then my parents could have their own guest rooms and be able to invite people to the house whenever they liked, without having to get approval from the extended family.
Uncle Harry closed the trunk and brushed off some of its dust as he took a cursory glance around the room. In his role as guardian of our inheritance, my uncle knew exactly what we owned and exactly where it all was. About once a month, late at night, he used a flashlight to take a full inventory of all the objects in the house: books, vases, lamps, portraits, and items in third-floor storage. Sometimes a spooked guest would report the sound of footsteps during the night.
“It’s only Uncle Harry, checking the house for theft.”
Now, done with his inspection, Uncle Harry began walking in my direction. As he passed me on his way downstairs, I melted into the shadows of boxes so he wouldn’t notice me. But it wasn’t necessary, as his mind often dwelled in the past perfect, making him oblivious to the present.
Behind me was the door to the shaft of an old-fashioned hand-operated elevator, which extended behind our kitchen on the first floor. Within minutes, Uncle Harry’s voice rose through the shaft. I already knew the text.
“Why is it that I must cover your share of the taxes each and every pay period?!”
As the rent from Rokeby’s outbuildings didn’t cover the estate’s considerable property taxes, Uncle Harry would come into our kitchen and roar at Dad for not being able to come up with his share of the tax money. He’d threaten to confiscate Dad’s shares because of his lack of contribution to Rokeby. Finally, Uncle Harry would reluctantly agree to cover for Dad, but he would let it be known that he was keeping a meticulous record of the debt.
It was this tax debt that turned Dad into a willing slave, not demanding any compensation for his physical maintenance of Rokeby.
It was always in the wake of Uncle Harry’s tirades about the taxes that I could sense Dad’s heavy despair over his inability to find a regular job and earn money. He had worked once as a hospital orderly in New York City during a year off from Harvard. But he had found it difficult to stick to an arbitrary schedule imposed on him by others, and Rokeby continually called to him, like a kingdom missing its king.
Dad would never fight back. Unlike Uncle Harry, he didn’t keep a meticulous record of his contributions to Rokeby. He would just stand uneasily, one foot slightly in front of the other, rubbing his head and shrugging.
“Well . . . I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”
“Hmpph!” I could almost see Uncle Harry laughing scornfully. “You’ve never worked a day in your life. How will you ever be able to repay me?”
As part of his lifelong commitment to keeping Rokeby in the family, Uncle Harry would also lecture us, the next generation, on the importance of making it in the “real world.”
“Each of you must learn a profession. One day, you will have to pay the Rokeby taxes out of your own pockets. You can’t expect Rokeby to support you. There are no more multimillion-dollar trusts waiting to open when you reach your majority.”
Whenever he said this, I wanted to remind him that if we sold Rokeby, we could each have a very comfortable life. Nevertheless, I intended to take his advice.
I meant to learn a profession. But for me, learning a profession and earning a living would be a way not to keep Rokeby—but to leave it.
The first thing you saw as you entered our living room was a small wool tapestry hanging on the wall. It was Mom’s portrait of our nuclear family. My two ponytails were strings of brown yarn hanging down off the two-dimensional surface, my shoes were laced with yarn, and Dad had a bunch of golden-brown yarn on each side of his balding crown, snaking in and out of the surface to re-create the effect of his hair’s wiry texture.
Despite its peeling floor paint; mismatched, broken furniture; and bare bulbs, our apartment was a refuge from the open expanses of the rest of the house. Here I could close, and even lock, the doors. The ceilings weren’t high and the rooms weren’t sprawling. There were no reminders of the past. None of the extended family—aside from Maggie and Diana, who were my often welcome playmates—ever set foot here. In our apartment, it was possible to maintain an identity apart from our ancestors.
There were no photos or pictures on my plain white plaster walls, no sentimental family artifacts. My ideal living space was a cubicle, so I did my best to keep my room simple. I had basic furniture—a primitive metal cot, a bureau whose drawers had sharp screw ends where the knobs were missing. Against one wall was a five-foot-tall Victorian dollhouse, my prized possession, even though it was not officially “mine” but a Rokeby heirloom. It stood on stilts and had four open-faced chambers, two on each floor, connected by archways. In the middle of the room stood my music stand, with my music book open to the Vivaldi A-minor violin concerto, which I would soon be performing at my end-of-the-year student recital.
Hanging on my bedroom wall was my daily schedule, which I checked religiously. I’d written it for myself when I was seven. It read:
What I Do All Day:
1. Wake up at 6:30.
2. Brush teeth and hair.
3. Get dressed.
4. Practice clarinet, 7–7:20.
5. Watch Captain Kangaroo.
6. Eat breakfast.
7. Walk or ride bike to bus stop, depending on the weather.
8. Return from school.
9. Have snack.
10. Watch Little House on the Prairie, 4–5.
11. Practice violin, 5:15–6:15.
12. Have dinner.
13. Practice piano, 6:45–7:15.
14. Do homework.
15. Read in bed.
16. Write in diary.
17. Say prayers.
And that’s my day.
I hoped that this list might someday serve as evidence to future generations of my disciplined, serious character.
I often took out my old math tests and English essays. All A’s, high nineties or one hundreds. I ran my fingers over the gold stars stuck on the top of each page and savored Mrs. Keaton’s comments: “Excellent” and “Outstanding!”
Everything about Mrs. Keaton, my fifth-grade teacher, was straight and square. She seemed to have a metal pole for a backbone. Both rows of teeth between her canines were in a perfectly straight line, making her jaw seem clenched. She would march her class through the school halls in her square-heeled shoes like a general leading a children’s crusade. Mrs. Keaton adored me, as I did everything exactly as she demanded. And I adored her, as she was the only authority figure in my life who was both powerful and fair.
> Still smarting from my “conference” with Aunt Olivia, I picked up my violin and began to play madly, as loudly as I could. I wanted my aunt to hear how well I played. I wanted her to know about my gold stars. I would force on her my best self, which she could not seem to see.
My eyes rested on my dolls, displayed in a long row on an antique daybed by the window. But instead of my usual nurturing feeling, I felt nothing for these, my babies. My mind was already leaving them, scrambling furiously into the future.
As I played on, I imagined myself onstage, a famous performer in front of thousands, with an orchestra behind me. Fame meant recognition. Perhaps fame could rescue me from the confusion and shame of Rokeby.
One day—after I’d gone to Juilliard and become rich and famous—I’d return to Rokeby in a black limousine. All of the inhabitants of the big house would rush out to greet me and kiss my hands in gratitude for having donated millions of dollars to Rokeby’s restoration. The barnyard would be clean, the front rooms scrubbed by a paid housemaid, the storerooms converted into private rooms my parents could call their own, and the archives—our joint heritage—organized and available for all to share.
PART II
ELEMENTS OF DISORDER
© by China Jorrin
CHAPTER SEVEN
SUNDAY MORNINGS
Courtesy of Ania Aldrich
Rokeby had been passed down through the female line for generations. John Armstrong Jr. built the big house on his wife’s Livingston land. After marrying the Armstrongs’ daughter, William B. Astor likewise moved to Rokeby. The Astors’ granddaughter Maddie Ward Chanler inherited Rokeby, and eventually her daughter, my great-grandma Margaret, became Rokeby’s sole owner.
Grandma Claire, who married Great-Grandma Margaret’s son, was the family’s current matriarch.
It was Sunday morning. As I entered Grandma Claire’s house through the kitchen, I stepped over cracked linoleum and shivered with disgust at the layer of hardened white grease in the cast-iron frying pan and the mouse droppings sprinkled about.
Grandma had never learned how to keep house. Despite the fact that she entertained frequently, her house was always messy. Books—some from the library and others from her own musty shelves—were piled on the reading table beside her recliner. Though wooden chairs lay on the sofas to protect them from white dog hairs, hair littered the floor and the ragged Oriental rug in front of the fireplace.
Grandma’s father had made a fortune as a senior partner at Smith Barney in the 1920s. Before his money had been swept away in the Great Depression, Grandma had been ashamed of her family’s extravagant wealth. As a schoolgirl, she would ask her father’s chauffeur to drop her off a block away from her school, embarrassed to be seen by the other girls waiting out in the schoolyard. For her, the extravagance of her father’s Rolls-Royce—gleaming, self-important, chauffeur driven—had clashed with her own humility; she was tentative and withdrawn.
This was why Grandma—who lived off the interest from some mysterious surviving trust—never hired help, except when she paid her granddaughters to help out at dinner parties.
“Good morning, dear.” Grandma Claire was seated at her dining table in her maroon felt bathrobe, reading the Sunday Times. “Can I get you some breakfast?”
Grandma’s house smelled of musty antiques. It was full of simple, elegant objects: silver ashtrays; glass candlesticks; watercolors of Florence, her favorite city; and a lazy Susan in the middle of her oval oak dining table that held quaint ceramic butter dishes and salt and pepper shakers. There were blue and white Dutch tiles around the fireplace. The gilt mirrors were dim, and the Oriental rugs tattered. Her bookshelves were lined with political biographies and illustrated animal books. Her living room cupboard was full of old parlor games, like backgammon, Scrabble, and Anagrams, all with crumbling boards and missing or cracked pieces.
The long living room was lined with French doors that opened onto a backyard. The dining table was at the east end of the giant room, and sofas were arranged around the fireplace at its west end.
“Are you coming to church with me?” Grandma asked. I usually went to church with Grandma. Occasionally Maggie and Diana would join us, but more often they would go with their mother.
Very rarely, Mom would come to church. She had technically converted to Episcopalianism from Catholicism when she married Dad, although she was really what Dad called a “pagan.” She practiced rites like dancing around bonfires on the summer solstice and burning candles for the “spirits.”
Dad always claimed to be a devout Episcopalian. When asked about his religious beliefs, he’d say, “They’re listed in the back of the Anglican prayer book.” But I only ever saw Dad in church on Christmas Eve.
In religious matters, Uncle Harry’s loyalty remained with Christ Church in the village, the construction of which had been funded by William B. Astor in the 1850s, because he and his wife wished to attend Anglican services. The Astor orphans had likewise worshiped at Christ Church every Sunday.
Grandma had asserted her independence by choosing a different church: St. John the Evangelist, a quaint bluish-gray Carpenter Gothic with a matching rectory that was just a mile up the road.
At church, we knew all the regular congregants and were related to several. This positive social interaction enticed me to attend regularly.
A second enticement was Sunday-morning breakfast with Grandma Claire, which was a welcome relief from the hard black bread of home. She would serve me sliced grapefruit, and buttered toast, and eggs that she would cook sunny-side up, special for me.
Breakfast done, I’d accompany Grandma Claire to her room to help her get ready for church.
Grandma and I would dress up, transforming ourselves into unquestionable respectability, she in her black dress suit and I in one of the kilts she’d bought that made me look like a small Talbots model.
Clothes were draped over the footboard of Grandma Claire’s bed, and unmatched slippers and shoes were scattered underneath. As she was constantly writing letters and giving gifts, her two dressers were piled with envelopes, books of stamps, stationery boxes, and rolls of wrapping paper and scissors.
Grandma Claire now half sat, half lay on her bed to get into her stockings. Chronically overwhelmed and disorganized, she would coax herself through the steps of any task.
“Ughh! Oh dear me! All right now. Right foot’s in.” She managed to get her right stocking on without tearing it on her curling yellow toenails. “Ugh!” She pulled it high and snapped it to her girdle: Click. “There! Now, that’s much better!”
When she’d snapped both stockings on, she buttoned herself into her inherited, threadbare Lord and Taylor suit, which didn’t quite fit her tall, stooped, emaciated body. The jacket’s sleeves weren’t long enough and left her skinny wrists and hands, slightly twisted with arthritis, to jut out like the front feet of a mole.
Then the search for the shoes began. She bent over to peer under the bed and rummaged through her musty closet. “Ugh! I only see one black loafer. Who on earth could have taken my other loafer? Ughh!” Then, “Oh I really am a dunce. How could I have misplaced my glasses?”
“They’re hanging around your neck, Grandma.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake! . . . Where is my pocketbook? I just can’t go anywhere without my pocketbook! I’ll give you ten dollars if you can find it.”
Things went on in this way until we got into the lemon-yellow Plymouth and went floating along Rokeby’s dusty farm road as I stared out at the open fields.
MY REVERIE WAS broken by a noisy red Fiat bumbling toward us, undaunted by the driveway’s potholes. Grandma Claire began pumping her foot, madly alternating between the gas and the brake, jolting the car back and forth. I thought I could hear her teeth grinding and the short, snorting breaths from her nose, building like a dragon’s internal bellows. When the Fiat reached us, Grandma Claire came to a complete stop and rolled open her window with uncharacteristic speed.
The red
car stopped obediently alongside us, like a child caught in the middle of an exciting game of tag. The female driver cheerfully rolled down her window to greet us.
“Bonjour, Madame Claire, comment ça va?” Her girlish voice rang like a soft bell. A bit of perfume wafted from her direction, and the gold bangles she wore clinked against the steering wheel. Like me, she had a gap between her front teeth.
A roar welled up from deep inside Grandma Claire, and, like lightning, she slammed her car door several times against the red body of the Fiat:
Once! “You French harlot!” Grandma Claire’s sixty-six-year-old voice shrieked over the din of colliding metal.
Twice! “Get off my property!”
Three times! “I’ll smash you!”
Four times! “Get back to France!”
The red car pulled away before the fifth blow. Grandma Claire now had one leg out of the Plymouth and was shaking her fist, still screaming.
Grandma’s violent reactions to Dad’s friends and general way of life were a testament to how desperately she cared, how desperately she hoped to set Dad straight. The company he kept reminded her painfully of her failure to raise him into a model member of the class into which he’d been born.
“What did she do, Grandma?” I asked.
“Oh . . . well . . .” She seemed disoriented now, her anger suddenly gone. “She’s a fallen woman—married with three daughters—and a homewrecker.”
The only wrecks I had known of until now were the junked cars Dad had accumulated in the barnyard.
And Mom often said that Dad had wrecked her life.
And now this woman’s car door was wrecked, as an act of revenge: one wreck for another.
GRANDMA SEEMED TO have recovered from our encounter with the harlot by the time we arrived, late as usual, to the ten o’clock service.
We shuffled in along the red carpet—the blood of Christ—that led from the back entrance all the way up to the parapet where congregants took Communion. It was dim in the sanctuary, with its stained glass of dark purples and blues and its dark brown pews. To keep from falling asleep, I would scrutinize the pictures in the glass.
The Astor Orphan Page 4