In the Great Green Room

by Amy Gary

  Margaret spent most of the vacation rushing from adventure to adventure. She was determined to enjoy everything the island had to offer. There was so much to see and do that she only had time to jot down cryptic notes in her diary. She ate tannis pudding, sat in a gumbo limbo tree, and made friends with an Australian Cattle Dog her cousins said was called a Wemba Womba hound. She joined a crew of men on an alligator hunt, watching with fascination as they lured the beast close, then shoved a knife in its head.

  She and her cousins sailed, fished, galloped horses in the surf, and paddled around the island for hours. They held friendly competitions and acrobatic displays on the shore or in the giant sand dunes of Lake Whitney, where the ever-athletic Margaret recorded an impressive seventeen-foot broad jump. She and Lucy picked shells as they walked along the shore. The coquille shells were so colorful and plentiful the sand looked like it was dotted with flowers.

  It was customary for her cousins to swim “as is” when no adults were around. Those times were rare, though. Dr. Johnston usually accompanied them to the beach and sat on the roof of his car with his rifle in hand. Years before, he had been bitten on the leg by a hammerhead shark while surf fishing with his mother-in-law, Mama Carnegie. The feisty and fast-thinking woman saved her son-in-law’s life by applying a tourniquet and racing him to her mansion, Dungeness, to get medical assistance. If a dorsal fin appeared while his children and their guests frolicked in the surf, Dr. Johnston, an excellent marksman, was prepared. Once, on an arctic expedition, he killed a polar bear, and on safari in Africa, a lion. The many trophies from his hunts were on display in the game room of Plum Orchard, although he only occasionally showed off his greatest souvenir—an unused ticket for the ill-fated ocean liner Titanic. He had been too sick to travel on the day the ship set sail.

  * * *

  On the last day of their trip, Margaret sat in the front seat of the open-air car as her older cousin Retta drove along the straight, sandy road. Lucy was in the backseat and, like Margaret, scouted the marshes and woods for human forms. A hunter had gone missing from the Cumberland Island Hunting Club at the north end of the island. Roberta, who had left earlier that morning to look for him, also seemed to have vanished into the wilds. Patches of dense foliage that dotted the island made it easy to get lost in day or night. Margaret was frustrated with her sister for heading out on her own to look for the hunter because they needed to take the afternoon boat to the mainland to catch their train back to Boston and Dana Hall. Besides, thought Margaret, a naval crew from the battleship anchored off the island and the members of the hunting club had organized a search and were certainly better prepared than her little sister to find the lost man. Morrie had joked that the hunter probably shot one of his family’s cows by mistake and was busy burying the evidence; everyone seemed sure the man would eventually make his way back to the lodge.

  Retta eased the car onto a grassy road that led into the woods, mindful that at any moment a startled deer or one of the island’s feral horses might bolt into their path. It was best to keep a safe distance from these large and unpredictable beasts, especially the foals. They were constantly watched by their protective mothers, who were known to attack cars, wagons, and people who posed a threat.

  The car’s tires slowed as the vegetation gave way to rolling sand dunes on either side of the road. Wooden planks kept the car from sinking into the sand as the car crested a hill and the Atlantic Ocean sparkled in front of them. The girls looked north and south but saw no one.

  Retta turned the car north, and Margaret could hear the sound of shells crunching under the car’s wheels as the car cruised along on the firmest part of the shore. Margaret first learned of the dangers of driving the car close to the water one evening as the tide came in. A crew of men had come to her rescue and saved the car before the waves washed over its wheels. Margaret had been shaken up, but the Johnstons were unfazed. This happened at least once a year, they assured their cousin.

  Margaret looked out over the horizon as Retta steered the car. A storm was building over the ocean. It was common for a brief shower to appear in the afternoon, but this one looked more threatening than the average short downpour. The girls decided to head back to Plum Orchard. It was lunchtime, and they could continue their search later on.

  Lunches on Cumberland were almost always sumptuous picnics, allowing every opportune moment to be enjoyed outside. But the disappearance of the hunter—and of Roberta—had made today’s lunch anything but normal. Mrs. Johnston’s servants had prepared a buffet for the naval officers and members of the hunting lodge. Turkey, cranberry sauce, eggplant, sweet potatoes, corn pones, beaten biscuits, freshly churned butter, strawberry ice, and coconut cake were elegantly displayed in silver dishes for the guests. No one had located the missing hunter, but a few of the luncheon guests had found Roberta and had returned her to Plum Orchard.

  Much of the food came from the island. Trees bore exotic fruits, such as kumquats and bananas. Cattle, chickens, and pigs were farmed, while deer and boar were hunted to add to the family larder. Bountiful dinners revolved among the different families at the smattering of homes on the island. The grandest meals were served at Stafford, another Carnegie family home that belonged to Nancy’s brother Andrew. Formal dress was required for dinners at his home, a tone that had been set long ago by Mama Carnegie at Dungeness. Tables were candlelit and set with ornate silver, gold-rimmed china, and crystal glasses embedded with gold lace. Margaret loved the formality of those occasions. Even though life with her parents was strained, she was very grateful for their generosity. She loved the clothes her mother bought her, especially her dresses.

  After dinners, the adventures always continued. The cousins would drive around the island in the electric car or take nighttime strolls with flashlights in hand. On one ramble, the sweet aroma of cake meandered through the air as they passed Greyfield, another Carnegie family home. Morrie couldn’t resist creeping over to the open window to snatch a cooling cake. He was such a charming scamp. When someone placed shadow crabs in their room, the girls knew who to blame.

  One night, their group was making its way through the darkest part of the forest, where entwined tree limbs formed a thick canopy, when Margaret turned her flashlight into the woods. The beam caught the red eyes of a whip-poor-will and then the yellow eyes of a toad. Another sweep of the light illuminated the fearsome glare of a large, unknown animal at the edge of the woods. The scare had sent the group scurrying for the safety of the car.

  Margaret filled her plate at the sumptuous buffet on the lawn of Plum Orchard and then sat with some of the officers at a table and chatted—they were quite amiable for military men. During the search, the men had worn huge cloaks as a defense against the thorny bushes and poison ivy—native to the island—and as a safeguard against the potential rain. Margaret borrowed one officer’s cloak and swooped around the yard, enveloping anyone who came in her path.

  After lunch, the girls piled back into the convertible and headed toward the beach for one last walk before boarding the boat back to the mainland. They stopped at Stafford to play with the Johnstons’ younger cousins on the front lawn. Margaret noticed how drawn the children seemed to Retta. Her cheerful smile and pleasant manner were infectious. All the Carnegies were so inspiring. They were an exemplary family, remarkable in every way, Margaret thought.

  Why couldn’t her own family be more like them? Each Brown family gathering ended in arguments or alienation. Margaret was grateful she would soon go off to college but hated to leave behind the friends she had made at Dana Hall. She feared losing touch with the people who meant the most to her, including Lucy, who was getting married later that summer. Margaret knew Lucy’s marriage would distance them; it had happened with other friends. When girls got married, they disappeared completely into their new lives, and Margaret couldn’t help but feel left behind.

  As she and Roberta boarded the boat that afternoon, there were tears in Margaret’s eyes as she said good-bye to
Lucy. Changes, she decided, were an inevitable part of life, and she must accept them. She could choose to wrap herself in disappointment and anger like her mother or she could choose to live with the same fervor, adventure, and love of life as the Johnstons and Carnegies. She vowed to rise above her parents’ petty arguments; she would refuse to side with either of them in their marital war. She had to save herself, Margaret realized, otherwise she, too, would drown in their sorrow.

  * * *

  A month later, Margaret awoke while it was still dark in her dorm room at Dana Hall. She wanted a cigarette, but didn’t want to disturb Kitty’s slumber. She sneaked out of the room and stepped quietly to the end of the hall. She lifted the large window and crawled out onto the fire escape. She was fire marshal for her floor and well aware that this was against the school’s rules. She would graduate in two weeks, so she didn’t think the headmistress would impose a serious penalty for this minor infraction. The punishment they gave her when she was caught breaking curfew was to send her to the library after dinner for a week. That was like throwing Joel Chandler Harris’s rabbit into the briar patch. The library was exactly where she preferred to be.

  She sat on the metal slats of the fire escape and looked out on the small school that felt like home to her. The moon illuminated a layer of fog over the fields that surrounded the school. Her life at Dana Hall was so comfortable she considered remaining on the school’s campus to attend their postsecondary school, Pine Manor. They offered a certification for teaching, but Margaret couldn’t overcome the feeling that she would make a terrible teacher. She hated sitting still in class and studying. Also, she had little patience for children. It would probably be best for her to attend her mother’s alma mater, Hollins College.

  Many of Margaret’s classmates had already decided where they would attend college. Roberta was going to Vassar. Margaret’s uncertainty about where she would be the next year weighed on her. She also wasn’t sure how she would survive without the friends she had made, especially Kitty.

  As she thought about all the things she would miss at Dana Hall, she developed an intense craving for a toasted cheese sandwich and milkshake from a local café. Likely, the craving was intensified by nostalgia and fear of the future, but before she could remind herself of the school’s strict rules, Margaret had devised a plan. She saw how easy it would be to slip down the fire escape and to walk to the café. She could get to town, eat, and be back before her first class began. It would be an adventure!

  She went back inside and tried to convince Kitty to come with her. Leaving the campus without permission was a serious school infraction. Girls had been expelled for less. Kitty wisely declined, but Margaret was undeterred. She succeeded in convincing two sorority sisters to accompany her. One was valedictorian, a position of almost assured immunity if they were caught.

  It took a great deal of enthusiasm and charisma to keep the other girls walking for almost four miles in the dark. When they finally arrived at the café, it was daybreak, but the restaurant was closed. If they waited for it to open, they would surely be late to their first class and their crime would definitely be discovered. They had no choice but to turn around and walk back to Dana Hall. The other girls were furious with Margaret for leading them on such a foolish venture. When they arrived back on campus, their housemother and the headmistress of the school were waiting for them. Their escapade had been found out when a school administrator drove past the girls on the road. She recognized them because they had been wearing their school uniforms.

  For days, it was uncertain if the girls would be allowed to graduate. Margaret was sincerely remorseful. This caper had almost cost their housemother her job and could mean the end of school for Margaret. She scolded herself for acting so impulsively and swore to herself that in the future she would consider the consequences of her actions more carefully.

  It hadn’t been easy to convince her father to pay for her college education. He believed Maude’s schooling in the liberal arts at Hollins had been a waste of money. He had gone to work instead of attending a prestigious university like his brothers and sisters, yet he was the only financial success in the family. He still sent monthly stipends to two of his well-educated sisters, but he expected more out of his own daughters. He agreed to pay for Margaret’s college, but stipulated that she had to earn a degree or certification in something that would lead to gainful employment.

  Roberta planned to teach. Gratz was an engineering student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and already shared a patent on an air-cleaning system for automobiles. As Margaret waited to learn her fate, she decided that she wanted to go to her mother’s alma mater, Hollins. She knew better than to confess her desire to be a writer to her father, though, so she promised to become a landscape gardener.

  Bruce was rightly worried about Margaret’s lackluster performance in school. It was clear she was smart, but she habitually did the least amount of schoolwork required to pass. He wanted to inspire her to greater heights and to turn the competitive nature she showed in sports toward her education. During one of Margaret’s visits home, her father had brought out his family scrapbook to show her the many accomplishments of her ancestors, especially the women in the family. He read his daughter an article her great-aunt had written, which traced their ancestors’ journey from a farm in Ireland to the upper echelons of Washington politics and society.

  It had the desired impact on Margaret. She wanted to live up to her family’s colorful and influential history. Most of all, she wanted to make her father proud. By the time she graduated from Dana Hall, Margaret had added her middle name, Wise, to her signature to remind herself of her ancestry.

  If Margaret had acted alone on her walk to town for a toasted cheese sandwich, she would have surely been dismissed from the school. But the presence of the class valedictorian made things more complicated for the school administrators; indeed, the headmistress was reluctant to eject their best student, who was bound for great things, and allowed the girls to graduate with their class.

  * * *

  That summer, the family went on vacation in Maine. Margaret was disappointed that the trip to Paris they had originally planned had been canceled because of Maude’s elevated blood pressure. Margaret’s parents spent more and more time apart, and on the Maine vacation, they saw very little of each other. When they were together, it seemed they were always arguing.

  Bruce took Margaret and Gratz on overnight excursions on a fishing boat. Roberta had no desire to go with them. Margaret loved being with her father on the sea. Prohibition was still in force, but Margaret and Gratz had found the bootlegger that skirted the shore along the northern tip of Long Island before they left. The trio drank and talked into the late-night hours. Bruce took his children to where the phosphorescent fish swam, and together they studied the stars. Margaret and Gratz had seen little of each other over the past few years, and they enjoyed the time together. Margaret hoped she and her brother would never grow so distant again.

  Although the Browns had visited Maine before, Margaret was struck, for the first time, by the beauty of its rocky coast and lush, green forests. She tried to recapture her days on Cumberland, taking picnics with her to island hop or walk in the woods. On one excursion, she fell asleep while lying in the woods, listening to the rustlings around her. That night, Margaret had found her way home in the deep darkness of the moonless night. She picked blueberries and went on starlit sails. She took long, exploratory drives, once returning with an entire carful of honeysuckles.

  Her mother spent most days with Theosophical Society friends in Rockport, and on rainy days, Margaret went with her. She sat with her mother’s friends as they held talks and séances. She attended a lecture on the meditation techniques of Yogananda and one on Celtic spirituality, the belief of her ancestors. This religion held that nature was sacred and God is present in every living creature and plant. These beliefs resonated with Margaret far more than the traditional religious teachings that ha
d been handed down to her in chapel at Dana Hall. But Margaret was not entirely convinced about reincarnation, the topic of another lecture her mother brought her to. If she had been reincarnated, she teased, then she must have been a fish in her former life because she never wanted to get out of the cold, invigorating water of Maine.

  On her way back from the family vacation, Margaret camped in upstate New York with a group of friends that included Bryan and Morrie. They rafted down the rapids of West Canada Creek and fished for their dinner. Some sang and others played instruments, with Margaret on the mandolin. When night came, the group listened to rustlings in the forest with a bit of fear and wide-eyed alertness, assuming the noises might be rummaging bears. The next day, Morrie invited the group to stay in the barn of a home his family owned nearby. Margaret was very happy to see Dr. and Mrs. Johnston and relieved to be sleeping in the safer quarters of the hayloft.

  At the end of the getaway, Margaret waved good-bye to Bryan and was certain this was the last time they would see each other. They were headed off to different schools, miles and miles away from each other. She felt more relief than sadness. This vacation confirmed that she hadn’t conquered her attraction to Morrie.

  * * *

  Margaret’s last days of summer were spent alone in the family’s Long Island home. Her mother was with Roberta at Vassar and her father with Gratz at MIT. Margaret had a few days alone to prepare for her departure for the Blue Ridge Mountains of Roanoke, Virginia, where she would be attending Hollins College.

  This was the start of a new world for her. Margaret vowed to control her racing mind and lazy body. She believed everyone should develop their God-given talents, and since she was doomed to be an athlete, she refused to be a poor one. She felt sluggish and bothered by the ten pounds she had gained over the summer, so she bicycled, swam, and walked for miles, determined to be fit and healthy by the time she left for school.