Parlor Games

by Maryka Biaggio

  I could hardly argue with her about the boredom of the routine or the seclusion of the estate, but my marriage to Rudolph offered many benefits: I was a baroness, a married woman of twenty-three making a fresh start. The mistakes of my past faded into the background, eclipsed by my new status and of no consequence to those who might have wished to use them against me. Nor did my memories of those slips any longer beget solitary moments of self-recrimination. Of course I saved a corner of my heart for Johnny, though I could do naught now but accept that terrible tragedy.

  Surprisingly, Rudolph had become dear to me, and his attentiveness pleased me. Once he’d won me over, he spouted less about himself, and I realized that all the trumpeting that had annoyed me during our courtship had merely been an attempt to impress. Before we married, he consented to set me up with a sizable bank account so that I needn’t pester him about every button or bauble I desired. He loved me passionately and indulged my every whim—in mail-order books, jewels, and champagne. He came to my bed nearly every night, as eager as a youngster half his age, but as considerate and gentle as the seasoned man he was.

  The family lived in a stately four-story brick home, which was rightly called De Vries Castle. Its lowest level, which housed the kitchen, storage, and work quarters, let in feeble light through narrow windows high on the walls at the ground level. The spacious entry hall on the main level led to the dining room, two parlors, a smoking room, and the library. Six roomy bedrooms, two adjoined and all with sitting areas, graced the second floor. A third level, the servants’ rooms, nestled under the roof. Daisy, plus the three lady servants and two butlers who’d served the family for many years, inhabited these steep-ceilinged rooms, all of which offered lovely views of the estate through squat dormer windows.

  Before long, the Baron and I settled into a routine of strolling the grounds, weather permitting, afternoons at four. The castle sat in the middle of a grassy five-acre parcel surrounded by a majestic forest. I enjoyed the privacy and time away from the house that our survey of the grounds afforded: Although Rudolph’s mother and sister were kind enough to me, the stiff formality of our interactions—including the burden of having communications between his mother and me translated—wore on me. One early-March day, nearly four months after our wedding, Rudolph and I met in the entryway for our daily walk.

  “Your mother tells me the daffodils and tulips will soon bloom,” I said, my mood brightened by the clear blue skies and sprays of wild hyacinths sprouting at the lawn’s edges.

  Rudolph squinted as we turned onto the graveled lane marking the estate’s west side. “Do you remember the flowers I had delivered to you in London? They were all from hothouses in this area.”

  “I can’t wait to have fresh flowers in the house,” I said, “to cheer us all up.”

  “I shall pick some for you myself.” Rudolph cupped his hand under my elbow. “My dear, I leave next week for that shooting tournament.”

  “What shooting tournament?”

  “Did I not tell you? It happens every year. In Gotha, Germany.”

  “Is that far from here?”

  “A three-day journey.”

  “Can I come along?”

  He chuckled. “No, it is all men. Nothing really for the ladies to do.”

  “Can I take a trip, too?”

  “Not now. Mother’s elderly aunt is arriving Saturday, and she will want to see you.”

  What I didn’t say was that I had not the least interest in seeing her, though I had little choice but to endure this wifely burden. Over the coming years I came to dread these all-too-regular visits from relatives. There I sat, at the dinner table or in the parlor, listening to them carry on about Earl So-and-so or Uncle Such-and-such, trying my best to appear fascinated with the goings-on of people I cared not a whit about. On those rare occasions when talk turned to worldly events—why ever America should meddle with Hawaii when it already possessed nearly a whole continent, the treachery of that Jew Alfred Dreyfus, or New Zealand’s “lamentable” enactment of women’s suffrage—I enthusiastically offered my views, only to find them knocked down by their provincial proclamations. Often, especially when older guests came around, they dispensed with translating their exchanges for me and simply lapsed to Dutch. Try as I might to learn the language, Dutch proved exceedingly difficult to master. So I sat dumbly looking on, pretending amusement when they chuckled over who-knows-what. I counted the minutes until I might politely retreat to my room and the company of Jane Austen or Rudyard Kipling. By the time I managed to gracefully excuse myself, my cheek muscles had invariably seized up from the smile I’d dutifully plastered on for endless hours.

  Rudolph’s excursions became more and more frequent over the years, and he only occasionally took me on a holiday—once to Paris and twice to Amsterdam. To pass my time at the estate, I learned to ride, though Rudolph prohibited me from jumping. I devoured every book I could get my hands on. I took up light gardening, not because I enjoyed the labor, but because it afforded solitary time in the open air. Still, far too often I found myself relegated to the company of his mother, Lady de Vries (who spoke not a speck of English), and his sister, Miriam (our faithful translator). Eventually, the courteous coexistence that had first characterized our exchanges gave way to intrusive prying.

  One week in the high summer of 1895, a second cousin of Rudolph’s visited with her husband and children. The two boys and one girl spanned ages four to eight—the most unruly years of childhood, if their behavior was any indication. Every day they ran about, bounding across the grass and rolling down slopes, all the time unleashing monstrous squeals of delight. I prayed they would take up a quiet game of hide-and-seek in the woods, but their doting parents forbade them to venture out of sight of the castle.

  A few days after they departed, Rudolph also left for one of his competitions, and that evening Miriam said to me over dinner, “Wasn’t it wonderful having children around?”

  She muttered a translation of her question to her mother.

  I speared and sliced an asparagus. “They certainly were a happy bunch.”

  Miriam conveyed my remark to her mother in Dutch.

  “I should have liked nothing more than a child with my husband,” said Miriam, “but we were not so fortunate.” Again she rattled off her meaning to her mother.

  I tried to steer the conversation to a more pleasant topic. “I’ve often meant to tell you how handsome your husband looks in that photograph on the mantel.”

  Miriam followed that with a brisk sentence to her mother. Then, surprisingly, she passed over the chance to talk about her husband, which she usually did with the least provocation, and said to me, as casually as a cat contemplating a swim, “I know Rudolph would love a son, or even a daughter.”

  Again she intoned her remark to Lady de Vries.

  During the pause that ensued, I restrained myself from quipping: “How strange that Rudolph would confide such an intimacy to you when he has not spoken to me of it.”

  Meantime, Lady de Vries eased her fork and knife onto her plate. She spoke a few words to Miriam and, as she turned expectant eyes on me, Miriam translated: “Mother asks if you wish to have a child.”

  “I would like nothing more,” I said. But in truth I wished no such thing and was taking measures to assure that our conjugal relations did not leave me with child. Still, I did not appreciate the insinuation afoot that evening. I was certain both Miriam and her mother had taken note, perhaps by gathering intelligence from the maid, about how often Rudolph’s bed went undisturbed. I could only surmise they blamed me for some condition that precluded motherhood.

  Having surrendered my adventurous spirit for the settled respectability of marriage, I bore the unpleasantries Rudolph’s family hoisted on me with a fair degree of tolerance. But I missed my mother and brothers and had no idea when I might see them again. They had not fared well after the Panic of ’93. Even out-of-the-way Menominee had been hard hit, and the belt-tightening among the city’s we
althiest severely curtailed my mother’s dressmaking business. But, worse yet, Paul’s employment at the lumber mill had become sporadic. Thus, in 1896, a year after my younger brother, Gene, graduated from high school, I sent him money from my account—with Rudolph’s knowledge and consent—so that he might attend dental school. He had mentioned such an interest, and I hoped that taking up a profession would not only help the family’s finances, but also position him to marry well.

  Around this time, Daisy’s simmering discontent boiled over: “I didn’t exactly hire on to be relegated to a cramped room in some country estate”; “None of the maids speak a word of English, not that I wish to mix with them”; and “You’d best not spend from your account too freely; you never know when you might need the funds.”

  Soon enough, I, too, yearned to escape the shackles of tight-sheeted domesticity. Come January of 1897, I had embarked on a campaign to convince Rudolph to move us to London. Finally, in the spring of 1898, Rudolph and his butler, as well as Daisy and I, took up residence in a splendid house on Cork Street in Mayfair. Our central location afforded easy access to all of London, and, after almost six years of “the peaceful country life,” I delighted in outings to plays, fine restaurants, and musical entertainment. Daisy, too, was much happier, especially after she convinced Rudolph, via my importuning, to bring her brother Dicky over from America to serve as coachman for the household.

  But barely one year into our London sojourn, when I informed Rudolph I’d exhausted the account he’d set up for me upon our marriage, tensions flared between us.

  “Good heavens,” he said, sitting upright in his desk chair and brandishing his pen, “where did all the money go?”

  I stood before his desk, attired in the day dress I knew to be his favorite. “You’ve seen the gowns I’ve had made. You know I sent money to my family. And Daisy needed some gowns for London, too.”

  “Gowns? Why, you could have bought several thousand with all that money.”

  “I made the money last nearly six years. Surely that’s not unreasonable.”

  “How did you ever manage that antiquities business in Japan when you can’t even keep track of your own money?”

  “I did keep track of it. I know exactly how I spent it.”

  “And what do you expect me to do?”

  “I’d be grateful if you would replenish the account.” I folded my hands and bowed my head. “Please spare me the indignity of bothering you every time I need a farthing.”

  He leaned back in his chair and glared at me. “I shall set you up with half the original amount, and I expect it to last four years. I’ll not give you another pound before then.”

  Of course I accepted his somewhat generous offer, but Daisy took umbrage at this treatment, especially when I informed her I would no longer be able to afford her bonuses.

  As she arranged logs in my bedroom fireplace for the evening warming, she complained, “It’ll be a hardship on Mother, me not sending her that money.”

  “I’ve no choice. Unless I come into more funds or turn a profit by investment.”

  She knelt on the hearthrug, her back to me, and scraped a match against the brick, releasing a whiff of sulphur. When the match flared, she jerked back, then leaned over and lit the kindling. She fanned the fledgling fire with the bellows until it erupted into robust flames, then stood and faced me. “If I help you, will you pay my bonuses?”

  “Help me how?”

  “With coming into more money.”

  “If it’s enough to cover what you wish to send to your mother, then yes.” I drummed my fingers on the arm of my chair. “But how do you intend to do that?”

  She sighed and swung her head from side to side. “I’m not sure.”

  That was the last I heard from her on the matter for some time.

  In June of 1899 a committee of London theater supporters organized a Shakespeare Ball, and Rudolph and I received an invitation. The charity ball, with a steep admission of two hundred guineas, attracted droves of costumed revelers to the Albert Hall. Once I’d convinced Rudolph to attend as Mark Antony, Daisy and I set about shopping for my Cleopatra costume and accessories. We designed a white gossamer gown and adorned it with a long golden sash. The sash, secured low on my waist with a golden fan scarab, flowed down to the hem of my gown. I draped a royal-blue scarf around my shoulders and tucked a conical crown—like one I’d seen in a National Theatre poster board—over my swooped-up hair. Daisy selected my jewelry: “Gold and more gold, you must drip with gold,” she said. On went all my gold bracelets, my finest gold-and-diamond earrings, and my prized yellow-diamond necklace.

  Daisy also insisted on Egyptian garb for Dicky, who had grown into a strapping, if somewhat sullen, twenty-one-year-old with jet-black hair and deep-set brown eyes. “Dicky will escort you in separately, with the Baron entering first and exiting last,” she said. “That will make for a grand show, don’t you agree?”

  How right she was. When I entered, Rudolph stood on the long carpet awaiting me, with photographers clustered along the entrance walkway. As I strolled in on Dicky’s arm, oohs and aahs escaped from the guests. The photographers readied themselves for my entrance with Mark Antony. I found I didn’t mind the flashes of their cameras in the least, especially when my picture appeared in that week’s Illustrated London News.

  Rudolph, casting his eyes upon his laced sandals, lent me his arm as we stepped onto the carpet. “Ravishing, my dear. Could there be a more beautiful Cleopatra?”

  I looked into his flushed face. “As I am Egypt’s queen, thou blushest, Antony.”

  “Ah, my queen,” said he, not to be outdone in quoting, “how I love your infinite variety.”

  I had a wonderful time that evening, meeting up with some of my old friends from the Royal English Opera House and mixing with Rudolph’s London crowd. Rudolph and I danced as we’d never danced before. I believe I quite wore him out, for we stayed until nearly all the partygoers had left.

  But the evening ended on a dreadful note. Once ensconced in our carriage, I yawned, covered my mouth, and let my hand drop to my chest. “My necklace,” I exclaimed, “it’s gone.”

  Rudolph felt his way around the carriage seat. “It’s got to be here. Didn’t you have it on all evening?”

  I raised myself up from my seat. “Is it there?”

  Rudolph checked the area I’d occupied. “No. Could it be back at the hall? Did you take it off anywhere?”

  “No, and it has a solid clasp.”

  Rudolph thumped the front of the carriage and opened his door wide enough to call out, “Dicky, stop under that lamppost ahead.”

  Dicky pulled the carriage over.

  “Bring the lantern,” ordered Rudolph.

  Dicky hopped down from his seat, the carriage lantern swinging in his hand. While he and Rudolph searched every inch of the carriage’s interior, I stood loitering on Kensington Road, a chilled and panicked Cleopatra.

  Rudolph threw up his hands. “No sign of it.”

  “We have to get back to the hall,” I said.

  We climbed back into the carriage, and Rudolph ordered Dicky, “Stop if you see a bobby.”

  As we approached the Albert Hall, we did pick up an officer, but by the time we arrived, all the guests had departed. Only three workers remained, two gathering glasses on trays and another slouching along over a sweep broom. The bobby questioned them and asked them to empty their pockets, and then Rudolph, Dicky, the officer, and I searched every area I’d traversed in the course of the ball. But we found no necklace.

  Rudolph told the bobby, “It must have been stolen, though I can’t imagine how.”

  The pasty-faced bobby looked to Rudolph and then me. “You’re sure you had it on when you arrived?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said.

  Rudolph said, “I saw it on her.”

  “I did, too,” said Dicky.

  The officer wrote up a theft report and asked each of us when we had last seen the necklace.

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bsp; “I remember seeing it when I visited the ladies’ room,” I said, “a good hour before we left.”

  Rudolph spoke up. “I noticed it when she made her entrance, but I failed to pay close attention after that.”

  The officer looked to Dicky. “She had it on when she arrived, but after that I can’t say. I was waiting in the carriage.”

  I’d lost my precious yellow-diamond necklace, the one I’d had since 1888, my first substantial jewelry purchase. Although I should have been pleased that it was insured by Lloyd’s of London, the piece was irreplaceable, truly a one-of-a-kind work of art. At first Lloyd’s balked at honoring the claim, threatening to turn the case over to Scotland Yard. But the newspaper photos proved I’d worn it that night, and the bobby’s report was unassailable. Finally, after Rudolph expressed his indignation to the Lloyd’s agent handling the claim, they relented. The payout was substantial, for I’d insured it for its full value, which had increased quite handsomely over the ten years I’d owned it. Still, I cried over the loss of that dazzling piece.

  Over the next two years, I found myself more and more discontented with Rudolph, who had become quite contrary: “Use your own money if you must go to plays every Saturday,” or “Mother and Miriam will not be happy that we are staying only two weeks at Christmas,” and “No, I refuse to mingle with the masses at Queen Victoria’s funeral. They can bury her well enough without me—or you, for that matter.”

  In truth, he’d grown tiresome, and I missed my family. Then I received a letter from Maman informing me that Paul had lost his lumber-mill job and Gene, two years post–dental training, still hadn’t secured a dentist position or managed to set up a practice in Menominee.