But Tom was reassuring and calm, as he had been the previous morning. “He’s using you to get to me. He’s got no other leverage. He’s not as all-knowing and all-powerful as he’d like us to believe.”
“I think you’re wrong, Tom. I think we need to go to others for help.” My mind raced through the alternatives. “I could visit Mr. Rumsey—maybe I could convince him….” But even as I said it, I knew this was no choice; or rather, it was a choice that might forever ally me with Rumsey and cut me off from Tom. “Maybe Franklin Fiske …” I didn’t think Tom knew about my friendship with Franklin: “He’s a journalist who—”
“Louisa,” Tom interrupted, though his voice was patient still. “I wish you would let me handle this in my own way. I know more about it than—” He paused; there were voices speaking behind him. “I really must go,” he said distractedly. “Please, don’t worry; everything will be fine.” He hung up.
As I paced my study, I felt certain that everything would not be fine. Tom wasn’t taking me seriously, however, and clearly I could no longer appeal to him. Who could I go to for help? Who would have power over Krakauer? I’m only a messenger. A messenger for whom?
For Francis Lynde Stetson, chief attorney for J. Pierpont Morgan and close personal friend, as well as former law partner, of President Cleveland.
Then I realized what I must do. The decision seemed remarkably easy. Obvious, even. I telephoned Mrs. Sheehan and told her that I wouldn’t be able to have dinner with Grace after all. She should tell Grace that I was feeling a bit unwell (nothing for her to worry about), and that I loved her. I wrote a note to Mrs. Schreier, the school secretary, explaining that I’d been called out of town for a few days unexpectedly. I knew she could handle any inquires. Classes wouldn’t begin for another two weeks, and Miss Atkins could deal with any emergencies. After I packed an overnight and was prepared to leave, I gave the chocolate bars to Katarzyna for her son.
When you’re famous, people know where to find you. The newspapers report your whereabouts, hotels announce your visits, rail lines proclaim your arrivals and departures, advertising your name to enhance their profits. You may try to foil these forces and travel somewhere out of the way, vacationing in the privacy of a wilderness. But even a wilderness cannot guarantee escape from those determined to seek you out.
During the summer of 1901, former president and Mrs. Grover Cleveland and their children vacationed at Tyringham, in the Berkshires. The house they rented was close to the farm owned by their dear friends Mr. and Mrs. Richard Watson Gilder. The former president loved to fish, and there was wonderful fishing in this part of the Berkshires, particularly at the Otis Reservoir. The locals were highly protective of their esteemed visitors.
All this I’d read in the newspapers during the summer. From the descriptions, I could almost pinpoint the Clevelands’ house. I’d grown up in the Berkshires and knew the countryside near Tyringham. I’d hiked the steep laurel-and pine-covered hills, bird-watched among the dense maples and ancient orchards of the valley, even collected butterflies in the lush meadows during a brief youthful fancy.
And so that Sunday evening I began the journey to the father of my child, to ask him to use his long-standing alliance with Francis Lynde Stetson to protect her. I was confident that—should he care to—Cleveland could eliminate the threats of Frederick Krakauer with the ease of a knowing smile and a collegial pat on the back.
I caught the night train to Albany. From Albany I would travel to Pittsfield, from Pittsfield—well, I would rely on my memory to guide me to one of the many inns that catered to summer visitors. The journey would be long and complicated, but what did that matter?
The night train was crowded and hot. I lay in my berth, unable to sleep, my thoughts in a riot. I hadn’t seen Grover Cleveland in ten years, and I’d known him for only—what? Hours? Minutes? I tried to focus on the halo of Grace’s hair, on the perfect sweetness of her face. But instead my mind kept clinging to the reek of Grover Cleveland’s cigars. His satisfaction, so smug. The slime upon my legs when I eased myself away from him. I had no illusions that he would remember me. He’d probably left dozens of women like me strewn across the great nation which for eight years he had ruled.
The house was called Riverside. Or so I had read in the newspaper. At midmorning on Tuesday, I stood at the end of the pine-shadowed path, staring. I’d ordered my carriage to wait. Because I’d spent Monday night at a nearby inn, my appearance, at least, was unruffled.
Riverside. Built on a gentle hill, the large house was white clapboard, with a covered porch all around. There was a flagpole, Stars and Stripes at rest on this peaceful morning. The air smelled of pinesap and summer warmth.
The Clevelands eschewed formal protection. Or so I’d read. As I walked up the path, the single guard patrolling the property glanced my way but did not approach me. To his eyes I probably had “schoolmarm” and “old maid” stamped clearly upon me. Such was my freedom. I traveled alone, I did as I wished—as no marriageable young lady or married woman could—and those who might enforce the laws of propriety dismissed me as irrelevant.
I knocked at the door. To the shy, uniformed girl who answered I presented my engraved card, “Miss Louisa Barrett, Headmistress, The Macaulay School, Buffalo.” I asked if Mrs. Cleveland was at home. The round-faced maid, whom I pegged as the daughter of a local farmer, said she would check and invited me to wait in the hallway while she went upstairs.
Threadbare carpets; ancient umbrellas stuffed into a metal stand; watercolors of local attractions, the frames forever dusty. This was the hallway of any summer cottage, rented furnished.
I heard footsteps above me and then on the upper stairs. Suddenly Mrs. Cleveland turned on the landing, hurrying toward me, shocked to see me—her dress and hair perfect but her face in disarray. Frances Folsom Cleveland. I stared impassively at her worried expression. We’d been introduced a few times when she’d come to Buffalo to visit family and friends. Once at 184 I’d spoken to her briefly about women’s education while Miss Love’s canaries frolicked around us. She was only a year or so older than me. She was a college girl, a graduate of Wells. She’d given birth to her first child a few months before I’d given birth to mine.
She looked a bit stouter than she had been as a young woman, but even after bearing four children, she was strikingly beautiful, dressed in yellow lace, her hair heavy and dark, her round eyes framed by eyebrows thick and untouched by gray. She was the girl–First Lady still, she of the porcelain skin and the alluringly innocent tilt to her head; she who’d inspired songs, fashions, and fan clubs. In her way she was an inspiration, a stylish college graduate who’d married and raised a family in defiance of the cultural arbiters who proclaimed that education made women masculine. Despite the near-equality of our ages, I felt years older than she, like an aged crone filled with illicit knowledge—the knowledge of her husband’s body.
She took control of herself when she reached the bottom of the stairs. Gripping the newel post, she paused a moment to steady her breathing. With dignity, she greeted me and invited me into the morning room. She was renowned for her dignity. Her dignity was the first thing people had remarked upon when, at the age of twenty-two, she had married the forty-nine-year-old president.
When we were seated in hard-backed chairs around the morning room’s unlit fireplace, I offered the reassurance she needed. No disaster had befallen her family or friends in Buffalo to bring me here. She flashed a smile. She sighed in relief. She ordered refreshments. She would be too polite to ask me outright why I had come on this long journey.
After tea had been served, I began. “Fran—” I caught myself using her first name, as if she were a student. She seemed like a student to me. In private her husband called her “Frank,” or so I had read. “Mrs. Cleveland, I’m so sorry to intrude upon you in this way. I wonder if …” What did one call him? I opted for aggrandizement. “I wonder if the president might be able to receive me privately to discuss a political
matter of some pressing concern.”
“The president has left all that behind him.” Her voice was strained. I sensed that she was ever-so-slightly afraid of me, which brought me some small satisfaction: Perhaps being headmistress of a school like Macaulay did elicit respect.
“But this … this is a political matter with private implications. Affecting his former friends and associates. And I would appreciate his advice and guidance. Because of his history in Buffalo. He knows the entire cast of characters. It’s quite important to me, and I—”
“He has always made clear that he no longer has any interest in Buffalo whatsoever. Perhaps you could tell me, and I’ll ask him at some quiet moment when he’s more likely to be sympathetic. I’ll write you his response.”
Did she ever wonder why “the president” no longer had an interest in Buffalo? Did she ever allow herself to believe the rumors which his enemies put out about his indiscretions? Probably she rationalized that enemies will always find some weapon, and this was the one they had found for him.
But Mrs. Halpin—she couldn’t be rationalized away. Did this beautiful girl–First Lady ever wonder about what had happened to Mrs. Halpin, she who had been forced into an asylum and then bundled into oblivion? Possibly Frances feared that her husband would do the same to her if she challenged him. During the reelection campaign of 1888, Frances had felt compelled to make a public declaration that her husband didn’t beat her. She was twenty-seven years younger than he. He had pushed her baby carriage—the carriage he himself had presented as a gift upon her birth. After her father’s death when she was still a child, Grover Cleveland had become her guardian. This incestuous tangle of personal history made me recoil, yet also made me bolder.
“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Cleveland. But the matter is urgent.”
She glared at me. “He’s not at home now. He’s taking his morning walk.”
In the garden, children called to one another as they played. With her hands delicately crossed on her lap, she turned her head and stared out the window as if posing for a painting. A uniformed baby nurse comforted a little boy, four-year-old Richard, the youngest. Three girls spread across the lawn, tossing a ball. They wore ribbons in their hair, shirts with leg-o’-mutton sleeves, short skirts, thick stockings, high-button boots. They looked like—Grace. They were Grace’s half-sisters. The oldest was just about her age. I hadn’t thought, I hadn’t realized, that I would see Grace’s sisters, the family she might have had, the trusted companions of girlhood.
Taking a deep breath, I made what I knew would be my final attempt. I had no courage left. Quietly I said, “Perhaps I could wait for him at a certain point and talk with him on the path, and then be on my way. I won’t trouble you for lunch.”
She seemed relieved that she need not invite me to dine with them. She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Well, if you insist.” She shook her head, as if trying to rid herself of some unwelcome thought. “If you walk down the drive …” Without looking at me, she described a nearby place. “I often meet him there myself.”
I stood on the woodland path beside the ruins of an old stone wall, waiting for the father of my child. The ground was soft underfoot, cushioned by centuries of pine needles. After about ten minutes, he turned onto the path. He was about fifty feet away, walking toward me. He was much changed, which I knew to expect from the pictures I’d seen, but nonetheless the transformation was shocking. Although still a big man, properly attired in a suit and straw hat, he looked deflated, like an overpressured balloon that has gradually lost its air and become wrinkled and pockmarked. His mustache, while still walrusy, had turned completely white. Liver spots dotted his cheeks. Instead of the curves of fat I remembered, he had a real chin now, his skin snapping oddly back toward his throat before sagging down to his neck. Rumor was that he’d been ill, that during his second term he’d had surgery for mouth cancer, although all had been hushed over at the time. His steps were cumbersome—he clutched a thick walking stick made from a rough-hewn tree limb. In his other hand he held his ubiquitous cigar.
I felt sympathy for him, made easier because, surprisingly, I saw nothing of Grace in him. He simply looked weak. Vulnerable. His wife’s wariness seemed now a tender attempt to shelter him. This figure who had loomed so forcefully in my imagination had become nothing but a tired old man. Time had rendered him frail. For so many years I had feared him and anguished over what he had done to me, yet somehow in the process I had become the stronger of us. Heartened by that realization, I stepped forward, unashamed.
“Mr. President, I’m Louisa Barrett, headmistress of the Macaulay School in Buffalo.” Despite my resolve, an image of Mrs. Halpin imprisoned in an insane asylum flashed through my mind.
“Louisa Barrett?” He said the name slowly, puzzled but not alarmed by my presence. “Do I know you?”
“We met in Buffalo, some ten years ago now, when you visited in May of 1891. I was a teacher then.”
“Ah, yes. We met at one of the receptions?”
“Indeed. At the Cary house.”
“Ah.”
He seemed to relax. Of course the reception at the Cary house was the most prestigious of those he attended. My presence there would make him lower his guard.
“I remember one of those little birds made a mess in what I had intended to be my dessert,” he said. I was taken aback by the kindliness in his eyes. The newspapers reported that he was wonderful with children. He would painstakingly teach them to tie fishing flies, and would amuse them with stories for hours. I could imagine him entertaining his children with the story of Miss Love’s canaries. Grace would have enjoyed that story too. “Not the sort of thing one forgets.”
“No.”
“And how is my friend Miss Love? Still doing good deeds?” he asked, chuckling.
“She’s quite well.” I forced a smile. “Doing more good deeds than ever.” I braced myself. “Sir, in addition to meeting at 184, we also met afterward, at your—at the Iroquois Hotel.”
Something seemed to dawn in his memory. “Did we?” he said cautiously.
“Yes, sir. Mr. Gilder brought me.”
“Ah.” He thought this through. “Have you come for a repeat performance?” he asked, not unkindly. “Have you been dreaming of me all these years?” Gentle indulgence filled his voice. There was even a twinkle in his eye. “You’ve come out here like some forest sprite to trap me on a lonely path and seduce me away from home?”
I hadn’t expected the easy charm, the natural flirtatiousness. “I’m hardly laying a trap, sir. Mrs. Cleveland told me that I might find you here at this hour.”
His anger was swift and startling. “You went to my home? You spoke to my wife?”
Surprised, I said, “Why, yes. Of course.”
“A woman such as yourself? How dare you set foot in my home and show yourself to a virtuous woman? Have you no shame?”
Now I understood him. I saw the double standard he practiced, which allowed him to retain his much-proclaimed moral probity while still doing exactly as he pleased.
“Well, sir, please remember that I am the headmistress of a school and not—well, not something else. If you have the virtue to present yourself to your wife, then surely I do as well. For everything I did was done with your contrivance. Does not shame reflect upon us both, if it should reflect on one?”
“I hardly think—” he began.
“Furthermore the truth is that I went to your hotel all-unknowing. Completely naive—as I was raised to be. What I remember best is you, sir, threatening the innocent girl who was my former self.”
That silenced him. He resumed his walk, and I took the place beside him. With each step he pressed the stick hard into the ground. His legs seemed stiff, wooden. He puffed on his cigar, and smoke surrounded us, blocking out the forest scents. The path led along the edges of the house’s clearing. Frances sat in a rocking chair on the porch, knitting. With a look of longing, and a trace of satisfaction, Cleveland tipp
ed his hat to her. She stood to wave, holding her needlework against her abdomen.
On the far side of the clearing, we entered the forest once more. When we were safely hidden by the foliage, he grudgingly asked, “And what brings you here, lurking at my doorstep?” Disdain filled his voice, along with a touch of peevishness.
“I have an appeal to make. For the daughter I bore. Your daughter. She is the only reason I feel entitled to come here.”
“A woman like yourself cannot give assurance that such a child is my daughter. A woman like yourself cannot know such a thing—innocent though you claim to have been at our first acquaintance.”
On this he seemed confident, not at all taken aback by the notion that he had a daughter he had known nothing about until now. Most likely he had wide experience with this situation; perhaps many women had accused him of paternity, and he had his answers ready. Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa? Goin’ to the White House, ha, ha, ha—obviously the election ditty applied to more than one unfortunate child.
“A woman like myself can know such a thing, although I understand your reasons for hoping not.”
“If you want money, I don’t have any. Even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you. I’m far beyond blackmail now. Mrs. Cleveland is the only one who concerns me, and she will believe my word over yours. And I hardly think the newspapers will care anymore.”
I could remember him naked. The mush of his stomach. His thighs white and dimpled. His face twisted with arrogant passion. “I don’t need money. I would never come to you for money. My daughter—our daughter—was adopted into a fine family, where mercifully she has no need of money.”
Angrily he turned to face me, blocking the path. “Why then, miss, have you come here?”
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