In the Great Green Room

by Amy Gary

  Margaret was fascinated by the story that inspired the song. It was dedicated to a young ambulance nurse shot during the rebellion. Her white uniform, stained with bright red blood, reminded the songwriter of the splashes of red cherry juice on the streets of Paris. The season of the cherries, typically cherished and celebrated, had come and gone as barricades were built and battles fought. By the time the revolt was over, cherries had blossomed, ripened, and fallen to the ground.

  Most likely the song touched Margaret so deeply because she keenly felt the loss of everything she cherished. She had taken her freedom on Long Island for granted. She missed roaming the fields, riding her horse, and playing in the woods. Most of all, she missed her home and family. Their life may not have been perfect; her mother was prone to depression and nagging; her father was away far too frequently. But Margaret missed the times that once seemed so ordinary—evenings around the piano when her mother felt well enough to play and sing, vacations on the coast of Maine, adventures in the woods, and cool mornings spent walking on the golf course with her dog beside her.

  Those moments were gone. Now Margaret had to carefully measure the space between her feet and the heels of the shoes marching in front of her. Looking around at the lake or landscape distracted her, and she wanted to go to the library instead of sitting still in the hall and listening to that incessant clock.

  * * *

  By the time Maude came to retrieve the girls two years later, Roberta had closed the educational gap between herself and her older sister. Margaret read voraciously but had little interest in other studies. She now, however, harbored a secret desire to be a writer of great literature.

  Bruce stayed on in India for another seven months while Maude oversaw the building of the family’s new house in Great Neck on Long Island. Margaret and Roberta attended a private school in the neighborhood until they were able to enter Dana Hall, a boarding school in Wellesley, Massachusetts, about fifteen miles from Boston. To Margaret, the close-knit community of the school felt like a second home. The twelve small cottages and the main building on its campus were bordered by fields of buttercups, timothy, and white violets. The courses, lectures, and assigned readings were challenging, but Margaret enjoyed learning new philosophies and discussing them with friends and teachers. She joined the equestrian team and a sorority and for the first time developed an intimate circle of friends. She grew close to her roommate, Katherine Carpenter, and they gave each other nicknames. Because Margaret’s hair was the same color as the timothy grasses surrounding the school, she was called Tim. Katherine was dubbed Kitty.

  Having spent the last two years studying abroad, Margaret had missed many of the rites of passage other girls at Dana Hall participated in, such as coming-out parties. Nevertheless, the effervescent Margaret made friends quickly and pledged a sorority. She was thrilled to have those girls as her sisters, but in order to belong, the strong-willed Margaret had to submit to the older members. Pledges were required to run errands for the seniors and to refer to themselves as “It.” Margaret made their beds, delivered their packages, saved seats for them in chapel, and even tried to sew stripes onto the pants of one senior. She failed miserably at keeping the stripes straight, and after staying up all night trying to correct her handiwork, she was demoted to sewing buttons onto another girl’s coat. Even though she was a failure with a needle, in May, a group of girls blindfolded Margaret and led her to a ceremony where she was welcomed to the sorority.

  That same month, Margaret’s mother and father met her in Boston for her birthday. At dinner, they gave her a brown leather diary with her name stamped on the front. On its pages she wove literary allusions, poetry, and quotes that inspired her.

  To calm her racing mind or when she became overwhelmed by an experience, she took mental notes of her senses—what she was seeing, tasting, feeling. It seemed to slow time down and let her remember those moments clearly so she could record the details in her diary that night. Without fail, she noted a portion of her day and at the top of each page filled in the designated spaces for documenting the weather and the phase of the moon.

  As her first year at Dana Hall was complete, Margaret returned to Long Island, but her stay there was brief. Her mother had been hospitalized with high blood pressure and depression after Margaret’s birthday dinner in Boston. When the girls came home to Long Island for their summer break, Bruce decided it would be better for Maude’s recuperation if he sent Margaret and Roberta to spend three weeks with his family in Kentucky. Although Margaret loved being back on Long Island, where she could swim in the ocean, ride her bike, or walk for miles on the golf course next to their new home, this trip was a welcome respite from the pressure cooker inside the house. After returning from India, Maude had joined the Theosophical Society and frequently attended lectures and séances. She had lost both her sister and father unexpectedly within a year of each other, and this religion strongly appealed to Maude in her grief. Despite her newfound faith, Maude’s bouts of depression had become more severe. She frequently shut herself away in her room for days, shouting commands to her husband and children from the doorway of her room. She demanded that they drop whatever they were doing and immediately attend to her often petty needs. She complained about her husband and constantly corrected her children. This angered Bruce and exhausted Margaret. Rather than divorce Maude, Bruce bought a large boat and docked it nearby. If he needed to escape their circular quarrels, he stayed on board his boat.

  Bruce’s family knew his marriage was troubled and wanted to make certain his girls enjoyed their time in Kentucky. When Margaret and Roberta arrived at the train station, the conductor knew who they were and who they were coming to visit. This amused Margaret. She loved the friendly people and slower pace of life in the South.

  For seventeen-year-old Margaret, the trip was a dream come true. Her Kentucky relatives were adventurous, well connected in local society, and part of the Thoroughbred horse racing community. To entertain the Brown girls, they planned a variety of activities, including luncheons, horseback riding, swimming, aquaplaning, and sailing. Every day was a new adventure. At night, they sang around bonfires, stargazed, and made wishes on the unseen new moon, then talked together on the sleeping porch until the early morning hours.

  One relative took her up in his open-cockpit plane. When she put her hands in the air, the wind was so strong she thought her arms might blow away. When her aunt took them on a tour of the stables, Margaret got to pet the legendary racehorse Man o’ War. At an uncle’s house, she fell asleep with her legs dangling out an open window. The sounds of sheep lowing in his misty, moonlit fields was sweet summer music.

  Margaret and Roberta spent most of their time with their cousin Dr. Marius Johnston and his family at Montrose, their farm near Lexington. Dr. Johnston was a kind, respected physician and was married to Nancy Carnegie, a daughter of the steel magnate Thomas Carnegie. They had one son together, Junior, and Nancy had four children from her previous marriage—Coley, Retta, Lucy, and Morrie—whom Marius adopted.

  On the night of Margaret and Roberta’s arrival, the Johnstons took the girls to a dance at their country club. Margaret had never met so many boys. Her all-girls schools kept boys at bay. In Kentucky, young men buzzed around the blond beauty with the quick wit and smile. Her dance card was filled right away, and she accepted three dates for the following week. She danced until midnight and then played parlor games until dawn at the Johnstons’. She went to bed as the morning sky turned a pale green and birds began to sing. It was the first time she had ever felt popular, and she pressed the corsage she wore on the night of that first dance into her diary to keep the memory alive.

  The Johnstons took the girls to visit other relatives at Liberty Hall, the home her great-great-grandfather built. There Margaret heard stories about their ancestors whose portraits surrounded the room. She recognized many of those faces. Similar paintings hung in the guest room of her family’s house, where she was always relocated when sick.
Their stoic visages and unsympathetic stares would bear down on her as she recovered from colds, influenzas, measles, and a broken leg. Three members of their family had been vice presidential candidates. Her redheaded grandfather, Benjamin Gratz Brown, who was known as the Kentucky Cardinal, had led the fight against the expansion of slavery into Missouri. John Brown, the man who had built the Kentucky house where Margaret was staying, had served in the Continental Congress with his good friend Thomas Jefferson. Monticello was undergoing a renovation around the same time, and Jefferson had given construction advice to Brown. Years later, Brown’s beautiful widow was visited by Marquis de Lafayette, and it was reported that Lafayette had held the widow’s hand for far longer than was appropriate. The teacup Lafayette had used stood on display in the china cabinet next to the table, which Margaret eyed with wonder during supper.

  Margaret’s relatives shared story after story, and before her first dinner at Liberty Hall was complete, she had come to see those faces on the wall differently. Margaret felt a surge of pride that she was part of this interesting and courageous family. Other hilarious stories about their father growing up flowed from her aunts and uncles as they retired from the dining room to the breezy porch.

  Margaret was about to go to bed when she heard the story of the ghost, the Gray Lady, who was said to have haunted this house and its grounds for more than a hundred years. Margaret was immediately intrigued and desperate to see the ghost, but was too afraid to search for it alone. She convinced her cousins and reluctant sister to follow her to the most logical place she could think to look—the bedroom where the Gray Lady had died. It was in that room where the ghost was first seen by Margaret’s grandmother on her wedding day.

  Margaret crept up the stairs toward the room. Her sister and cousins were behind her as she climbed the creaky stairs. As Margaret arrived at the bedroom door, she turned around to find that she was alone. The others were watching from a safe distance on the landing below and motioned her to go in. She would have to do this by herself. She paused to gather her courage, then turned the doorknob and pushed. It didn’t budge. Relief that the door was locked flooded through her. She ran back down the stairs, and the giggling group stumbled to the porch and out into the moonlit garden.

  * * *

  Kitty, Margaret’s roommate from Dana Hall, also lived nearby. She held a dinner for the Brown girls and the Johnston children, then they all went to see the famous John Barrymore in the movie The Beloved Rogue. Afterward, they danced for hours at the country club. Morrie was immediately smitten with Kitty, and Margaret was happy for her friend even though she, too, had become enamored of her cousin. Morrie was a charming rascal who made common moments into exciting escapades. Conversation with Morrie was easy for Margaret; they talked for hours as they rode horses or sat on the riverbank, watching the moonlit reflection of the trees on the water. Margaret was thrilled his boarding school, Middlesex, was close enough that they could see each other when school began in the fall.

  * * *

  At the beginning of their senior year, Margaret, Kitty, and their mothers took the train to Boston for several days of shopping before settling in at Dana Hall. Kitty continued to date Morrie, who introduced Margaret to his classmate Bryan Lyseck. The four went on regular outings to the Massachusetts countryside or met in Boston on special occasions. Bryan quickly was besotted with Margaret. After their first date, he sent her a bouquet of roses and, soon afterward, a pair of diamond earrings. Margaret held them up to the moonlight, and the reflections created a beautiful spiderweb of refracted light. Bryan was handsome and charming, but Margaret warmed to the relationship slowly. She swore to herself that she would never allow her emotions to be swayed by jewelry.

  On Thanksgiving, the foursome had lunch at a nearby hotel. After the lunch, Margaret went with Morrie to his cousin’s house for dinner. The cousin was expecting her first child, and in that visit, Margaret got a glimpse of the life she hoped to have. It wasn’t envy she felt, simply excitement for this same future she believed was to be her own. The problem was she felt like a satellite orbiting around Kitty and Morrie. For the sake of their friendships, Margaret kept her attraction to Morrie to herself. She liked Bryan, but try as she might, she couldn’t muster the same feelings for him that she had for Morrie and Kitty. She loved them both dearly.

  When she returned home to Great Neck for the Christmas holidays, it was the first time she had spent a long amount of time at the new house. All the family’s belongings that had been in storage were now in place. It felt like home—finally. Even her parents seemed happy to be together.

  On Christmas Eve, the family sang carols as her mother played the piano. Margaret took eggnog to her room that night and made resolutions for the new year. She was so happy to have been reunited with her belongings and furniture that she was often too excited to sleep during the holiday break. She read until the early hours of the morning, occasionally looking up from the pages to admire her little haven, decorated with all the girlhood possessions she loved.

  For the new year, she resolved to keep a regular diet of fifteen hundred calories a day until she was 120 pounds, or else in perfect form. She also vowed to give up cigarettes entirely. She made a final wish for love and laughter.

  Four

  1928

  Eyes like emeralds in the road

  Tell the presence of the toad

  Eyes like rubies in the dark

  Catch the alligator’s spark

  And tiger’s, tiger’s burning bright

  In the stillness of the night

  UNPUBLISHED

  The early winter of 1928 in Massachusetts was particularly harsh. Back in school at Dana Hall, Margaret soon fell into a listless gloom. The cold winter days compounded her blues, brought on by her parents’ constant squabbles. Margaret dreaded phone calls from home because the conversation often turned into verbal jousting between her parents, seemingly fought to win Margaret’s approval and affection. She also couldn’t break her attraction to Morrie but cared too much for Kitty to act on her desires.

  Her spirits were lifted when the Johnstons invited her and Roberta to join them on Cumberland Island, the family’s private retreat off the coast of Georgia, for spring break. Margaret was thrilled, but a shopping trip to Boston with her mother soured her mood. Maude angrily recounted Bruce’s recent failings and then berated Margaret for having gained weight. Margaret couldn’t understand why her mother couldn’t simply enjoy the good moments instead of picking apart the people who loved her.

  For two weeks, Margaret exercised strenuously. By the time she stepped foot on Cumberland Island, she was ten pounds lighter and certain her new wardrobe would fit. The girls had to take a train and a ferry to reach the island, but the most enchanting ride was from the dock to Plum Orchard, the Johnstons’ home on the island. The Johnstons’ car was electric, perfect for the low-speed, bumpy drive along the sand-and-crushed-oyster-shell road. Gnarled branches of water oaks on either side of the road arched above them to form a darkened tunnel, and staccato rays of sunlight danced in the twisted limbs. Every so often, the wheels of the car sank a little too deeply into the soft, deep valleys of sand and swung the back end of the car to the edge of the narrow road. There the tires once again found traction and pitched the car back into the middle of the road. This exotic island was more magical than she could possibly have imagined.

  Cumberland was larger than Manhattan and was a carefully preserved paradise. The island hosted over a hundred species of migrating birds and was home to dozens more. Along its primitive shores and throughout its dunes dwelled bears, alligators, turkeys, eagles, and boars. Over a hundred horses freely roamed the island—descendants of a herd left in the 1500s by Spanish sailors.

  Plum Orchard was a Classical Revival–style mansion that had been built for Mrs. Johnston’s older brother, George Carnegie, and his wife, an expert gardener. Flower and vegetable gardens bordered the extensive grass lawn that led up to graceful steps and soaring column
s of the twenty-room home. Stables, a paddock, and a riding ring accommodated fifteen horses. After George died, his widow married a French count who came to Cumberland with no expectation of staying. The couple shipped every item of value in Plum Orchard off to a New York auction house. Furniture, first-edition books, and chandeliers disappeared before George’s mother, Lucy “Mama” Carnegie, sent the newlyweds packing, as well. She held the deed to the house and gave it to her daughter Nancy, who renovated the house. Modern features, including a sauna and an air-cooling system that drafted air from the basement out through vents in the roof, were added. The bathroom was fitted with towel heaters, shampoo dispensers attached to bath faucets, and elegantly styled wall fixtures that held flint stones and matches. Hand-painted wallpapers were hung throughout the house. One of deep red was repeatedly embossed in gold with the Carnegie family crest. Another wallpaper that Margaret particularly admired hung in the game room; it was painted in bright blues, greens, and yellows to resemble the pond lilies that grew along the banks of the marshes behind the house.

  Evenings were often spent in that room. Sedate hours were passed playing parlor games or listening to Morrie play the piano and Coley, the violin. Margaret particularly liked a game called “Coffeepot,” in which a person had to guess what noun or verb had been substituted by the word coffeepot—Do you coffeepot alone? A more raucous indoor game they called “Watch on the Threshold” involved dividing into teams with the intent of capturing members of the opposite side. Lights were turned off throughout the house, and players quickly hid or searched through closets and nooks and behind furniture. Quiet skulking gave way to giggles and delighted screams as hiding places were uncovered. The Johnstons were competitive, but it was cloaked in an air of good humor that inspired Margaret. Roberta, though, turned glummer as the days went on. At first, Margaret attempted to cheer her sister, but saw that, like their mother, Roberta relished layering a foul mood over happy occasions.