Brooklyn Rose (8 page)

Rene said I had started something. And if he wasn't busy calling me the Mistress of Dorchester, he would call me Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She's the woman who went about talking of women's rights.

RENE TOLD ME
of a train wreck that happened in Mississippi on the Illinois Central Railroad. An engineer named Casey Jones was killed. The name of the train was the Cannonball Express. The papers said Jones couldn't read the signal lights because of the dense fog.

I love it when Rene reads to me from the newspapers at breakfast, because then we discuss things. He seems to value my opinions.

Another item from today's papers was about the reunion of forty thousand veterans of the Confederate Army in Louisville, Kentucky. We both marveled that there were so many vets left on either side.

TODAY I WATCHED
Rene play tennis. He belongs to the Knickerbocker Field Club on East 18th Street, here in Brooklyn. He says we must soon go to a club supper, next time they have one.

RENE HAS HIRED
a washerwoman and a gardener. They both seem very capable.

I WENT TO
the greengrocer and the butcher with Bridget today. We purchased some very nice lamb chops and potatoes and vegetables, and when I came home I showed Bridget how to make a Connecticut pie.

At the butcher's we met a very nice young man named Charley. He was carrying haunches of beef in from the delivery wagon, and the butcher scolded him without mercy because he dropped a haunch of beef on the sawdust floor. I felt so sorry for him. When we were ready to leave, the butcher assigned Charley the task of carrying our bundles home. We had a nice conversation with him. I know Rene tells me not to be so familiar with the servants, but we are all human beings, aren't we?

It turns out that Charley is helping to support his family. And he is looking for another job, and I thought immediately of the all-around man that Rene needs. So at supper I told him about Charley.

"Rose," he said, "you can't hire all of Flatbush."

I said I know and managed to look sufficiently crestfallen so that he took my hand. "I'll see him if he comes," he said. "Have Bridget send him around."

Bridget got word to him. He comes tomorrow.

A LOT HAS
happened. Another letter came from home. My family is going to stay on the plantation this summer, though they usually go inland to escape the fevers from the swamps. I think Daddy wants to save money. Some servants have gathered plums, and Mama is overseeing the making of plum jam. Heppi is doing well, and she and Josh visit home frequently. Little Benjamin is saying more words and has taken to sitting in the kitchen and banging pots and pans.

I wrote back immediately, of course, and told them about my adventures on Decoration Day.

Charley came over to see Rene about the job. They were a long time in Rene's study, and for a while I stood outside the door and listened.

I heard Rene tell him he needed somebody he could depend on, who could be counted on in any emergency, who could live on the third floor, be available to drive the carriage, attend to his needs, and, when around, answer the door. And did he know horses?

I crept away as Charley said yes, he could handle horses as well.

Rene hired him. So now we have five servants.

WE HAVE
beautiful roses, both in front of the house and in back. The gardener, whose name is Joseph, knows a lot about flowers and lawn care. He comes twice a week, and Rene told me I am to tell him what I want with the flowers. The first thing I wanted was window boxes, like we have at home, so he made some and put them in front and on the side of the house. They look lovely.

THIS EVENING
we went to a supper at the Knickerbocker Club. Although it is men only, the women are invited for social occasions. I was much impressed with their clubhouse and their dining room. At home, Daddy belongs to a club, so I am quite accustomed to it.

TODAY A VERY
large delivery-wagon-type vehicle pulled up in front of our house. In it were our horses. They arrived at the docks yesterday, having come by steamboat. Tom Jones was glad to see me, and I, him. With him was the mare Rene had bought from Daddy in what seems so long ago now. Can it be that six months ago I'd just met Rene? It seems impossible.

YESTERDAY, EARLY
, I awoke and crept downstairs, where I knew Mrs. Moore was making a picnic lunch for us. I came up with the idea two days ago. I would make a picnic lunch and go with Rene to the end of our trolley line, where the salt marshes are. He always wanted to picnic there.

When I saw that the lunch was all packed, I went back upstairs and awoke him for breakfast and wished him a happy Fourth of July. Then I told him what I had planned. He smiled and said he'd love to go. "Nobody has ever thought to do anything like that for me before," he said.

There is an underlying sadness in Rene, which I cannot figure out. Is it the reason he does not speak of his past? To think that he has all this money and all this authority, and yet he seems sad. I wonder if I shall ever find out why.

ANYWAY
, the picnic was a huge success. I am so glad I thought of it. Rene and I sat on a blanket on the sand dunes and watched the water and the gulls and had quite an afternoon of it, all by ourselves. We watched fireworks in the distance at the end of the day, then caught the last trolley back home.

I NEVER
recorded it here, but Rene allowed Bridget to keep the contents of her garden for her family. That is Rene. He is stern and sometimes seems very stiff-necked, yet under it all he has a kindness that he doesn't like to bandy about.

I HAVE NOT
yet ridden Tom Jones, although I have taken him around the yard. Rene says he hopes I'll wait for when he can ride his Peaches. But he has had Tom Jones out and says the horse absolutely cannot abide Mr. Ford's horseless carriage, and we must be very careful of him in the streets.

BRIDGET HAS
told me that her maternal grandfather was killed in the draft riots of '63. How terrible. I told her I thought the riots were the mayor's fault, because he sent all the city's police and soldiers to Gettysburg to fight and left the city defenseless. Bridget says I have a lot of opinions for a woman, and I told her that back home we were all expected to have opinions, that I'm not the little Southern belle with nothing but honeysuckle for brains.

Then she told me about her father's father, who fought in the war. She says that although he is crippled he can still carve the most beautiful things out of wood. I asked what and she said anything. Rene's birthday is coming up soon and maybe I will get him something Bridget's grandfather has carved. But first I will have to go and pick it out.

MRS. MOORE
doesn't approve of my going into their neighborhood. "Now, Bridget," she said, "why would you be wantin to take this child to where we live? You know she's quality and don't belong there." But I want to go.

TODAY RENE
took me shopping in New York. Charley drove the barouche, which is dark blue trimmed with black. He had it nicely polished. We went to Simpson-Crawford on Sixth Avenue, where I bought some fall dresses, new underthings, shoes, and a long skirt and middy blouse and a robe. After that Rene took me to lunch on Ninth Avenue and University Place, where we had French food. Rene drank French wine but ordered none for me because, he said, it was too hot outside and I wasn't accustomed to it.

I think I could almost love Rene. And this I did not plan on. I planned just to marry him because he is nice and has position and garners esteem. And because he holds the mortgage on Daddy's plantation. I really did it for Mama and Daddy, if I were to be honest. The thing I need to know is, why won't he speak of his family? And why does he seem to have such a sadness in him?

Tomorrow I go with Bridget into her neighborhood.

IT IS VERY HOT
. Rene told me at breakfast that he wants to take me to the mountains for a vacation. But I said no. The house is cool, I have everything I need right here, and if I want to go anywhere, I'd go home. He just shrugged. I hope I haven't hurt his feelings.

I was gone all afternoon with Bridget. We took the trolley for what seemed like endless blocks, west of here into her neighborhood. I wish I hadn't gone. It is all a series of rundown houses, some that never saw a coat of paint, ragged children playing in the middle of the horse dung and urine in the streets, and garbage falling out of boxes. And the smell is horrible. So many houses had broken or cracked windows, and since the day was nice, the front doors all stood open.

But most of all the place reeked of failure, desolation, and despair. Dingy laundry ran on lines across the streets; vendors were everywhere. When we got off the trolley and Bridget showed me her house—which was at the end of the street and at least had an empty field next to it—it looked a little better than the others. But still it is in sad repair. She introduced me to two men sitting in the front yard. One was her injured father and the other his father. I shook their hands. Her grandfather must be in his eighties. He showed me the things he'd carved. One I particularly liked. It was a carved pipe stand, and I thought how perfect it would be for Rene's pipes. So I bought it and we got on the trolley and came back home.

The only trouble was that when we got home, Rene was there, having left work early. I was glad I had the pipe stand in a bag. "Where have you been?" he asked. When I told him, he scowled and called Bridget into his study. "If you take her there again, I shall terminate your services," I heard him scolding her. But he said nothing to me and I felt like a child. Oh, I feel so badly for Bridget.

"That man really loves you," Bridget said, as she started to set the table for supper.

But I didn't care. I went into the study, where he was reading the mail behind his desk. "Tell me if you don't want me going someplace," I said. "Don't make me feel like a child, between you and Bridget."

He smiled. "You want me to scold you?"

"No."

"You want me to terminate your services?"

"I want you to discuss it with me," I said. I saw respect in his eyes. "I wish you hadn't gone," he said. "It's a squalid place."

"Well, I should know about it. Doesn't anyone help the children?"

"We can't take them in, Rose. So don't start."

Still, I think somebody ought to be able to do something for them.

I HAVE SUSPECTED
this for some time, but now I am sure. I am expecting a child! Oh, I am half afraid and all excited. I have written to Mama and she has written back saying it is likely so and that we should find a good doctor. But I haven't told Rene yet.

A NEIGHBOR
came to call today. Her name is Mrs. Snelling and she lives in the large Victorian two doors down. It is three colors and ours is only two. Rene calls her house the Painted Lady.

I invited her in and had Bridget serve us tea, but Mrs. Snelling made no bones about her visit.

It seems she belongs to the Ladies of the Flatbush Branch of the Needlework Guild of America, one of the many women's organizations a lady can join in this neighborhood. And she was angry because I went over everybody's head to organize the trip to the cemeteries on Decoration Day.

"You've scarce been here a few months," she chided me. "Many of the ladies are angry with you that you didn't consult them."

I told her there hadn't been time.

She harrumphed and said that was not true. So I asked what the Needlework Guild of America did with the things they made.

"They are for charity," she said.

I told her about the poor Irish children in Bridget's neighborhood, and how they must suffer in winter for lack of warm clothes. "There is a case of charity for you," I finished.

She harrumphed again. "What have they done to deserve it?" she asked.

I told her nothing. I told her they hadn't done a single thing. And just maybe they had done some things not to deserve it. But that they were still a good cause.

"Tell you what, missy," she said, "you come to one of our meetings and tell the Ladies of Flatbush why we should do this. You convince them, and we'll make those children a project."

I thanked her and said I would consider the matter.

I WAS GOING
to tell Rene about the baby, because today is his birthday. But then a letter came from, of all people, his mother! I didn't even know he had a mother. He has made no mention of her this whole time. I thought she had died.

He read me the letter at breakfast. She is coming to visit, it says, within the next two months. And to meet Rene's new wife. She will let us know when her ship is likely to drop anchor.

Rene didn't look too happy about the whole thing, so I asked him about her, and why he didn't tell me about her. "She has a chateau in Aubigny," he said, "as well as a town house in Paris. My father is dead. He died when Adrian and I were boys, and she sent us off to be schooled by the Jesuits so she could continue on with her life on a high social level. There's nothing more to tell, Rose."

But apparently there was, which made him so sad. Her name, he said, is Charlotte, and he supposed we should give her the large corner bedroom upstairs. And did I mind if she came?

"Of course not," I told him. And then I told him that Adrian and Sara were coming for supper that night. And I gave him his pipe stand, which he liked so much.

And then I gave him the bigger present. I told him about the child.

RENE IS ECSTATIC
about the child. He treats me as if I will break. And he doesn't want me to ride Tom Jones. The doctor says that as long as I have always ridden I can still ride, for a sensible amount of time and in a sensible manner.