Brooklyn Rose

by Ann Rinaldi

  Still, I decided to make supper tonight for us, for we were supposed to be going out alone. I walked to Flatbush Avenue and went to the butcher and the greengrocer. Then I trudged home and made an excellent pot roast with vegetables and one of Grandmother's Connecticut pies. It was Mrs. Moore's day off.

  Rene didn't know whether to be angry or pleased. "I don't want you slaving over a hot stove," he scolded. Yet he said the dinner was excellent, and I know he was pleased with my accomplishment. He hugged me and called me the "Mistress of Dorchester."

  "Dorchester is the road, not the house," I reminded him.

  "I think then that we'll name the house Dorchester," he said. "It sounds romantic, doesn't it?"

  I said yes and asked him how you name a house. He said he didn't know, that you probably just referred to it that way. So we decided to call the house Dorchester. And Rene said I am the mistress.

  He is happy with Bridget and her mother, Mrs. Moore. "We have to stop living like savages around here," he told me.

  April 21

  BRIDGET CAME this morning, bearing another Brooklyn cheesecake. "What would you have me do, sir?" she asked Rene. He told her just to keep his wife company, attend to her needs and wants, and help her mother.

  "I can do all that and more, sir," she promised him. Then he kissed me and left. "Remember," he whispered in my ear, "you have a servant now. And remember you are the Mistress of Dorchester. Act accordingly."

  "Of course I will," I promised.

  "Not if I know you," he said. "If I know you, I'll come home and find you skipping rope with Bridget."

  I must write to my mother. Other than a short note to let her know we arrived safely, I have not written.

  April 22

  TODAY WAS OUR DAY to go to supper at Rene's brother's house. They live near Bedford Avenue in the old William Payne house. It is a darling house with a front porch and lots of trees and a large front lawn on which they have a croquet set. Adrian is just as I thought, genial and protective of Rene, though he kids him a lot. His wife, Sara, is sweet and childlike in the way women get when they don't have children. I think we can be friends. She told me I must join the local flower club, that I would enjoy it. I said I would consider it. Afterward, when the men went into Adrian's study to have their smokes and drinks, she took me outside to show me her gardens. I think she is an accomplished married lady. I wish I could be like that.

  April 29

  RENE WENT to the local Episcopal church with me, even though he is supposed to be Catholic. He was sent to a school by his parents in France, he told me, where the priests were so strict that he left the church as soon as he attained his majority. Then he took me to New York to dine at Delmonico's. I missed my family dearly.

  April 30

  I HAVE A LETTER from Mama! How exciting! She tells of the lovely spring down there. Daddy has had his people plant seven acres of cotton. A dead porpoise, about eight feet long, washed up with the tide. Daddy secured a rope to it and dragged it onto the beach, and hopes to get about five gallons of oil out of it. Some cattle got into his corn and ate it badly. Little Benjamin has had a spring cold and is starting to say words. I must write, she says, and let her know about my new home. And, oh yes, Heppi is expecting a baby.

  May 3

  I ASKED RENE where he lived before he bought this house. He said he rented part of Dellwood House in Bay Ridge. He promised to show it to me sometime. It is high on the bluffs overlooking New York Bay and the hills of Staten Island. But he had always wanted his own home, and so he purchased this one right before his trip when he met me. Rene doesn't say much about his past, or his family, with the exception of Adrian. It occurred to me today that he has told me nothing. I wonder why. Did he tell my parents? He must have told Daddy something, or Daddy would never want me to marry him. Suppose he comes from people who are wanted by the law back in France? Suppose he owes great globs of money? Oh, I must stop being so foolish.

  May 10

  AS THE WEATHER becomes nicer, I find it difficult to stay indoors. I am spending quite a bit of time outside, tending to the flowers. We have the most beautiful peonies behind the house. They are white and pale pink, full pink, and deep magenta. I can't stop looking at them.

  May 17

  TODAY RENE caught me weeding the garden, and so he immediately said he must hire a gardener, that he has been remiss. He put an ad in the Brooklyn Eagle, not only for a gardener but for an all-around man, and a washerwoman. Mrs. Moore has been kindly washing our clothes and putting them on the drying line out back.

  May 19

  TODAY I FOUND a beautiful black-and-white cat on the stoop in back of the house. He is most friendly. I told Rene I wanted to keep him, and he said all right, but don't be upset if someone comes around claiming him for their own. I think I shall name him Patches.

  May 20

  PATCHES IS doing quite well and nobody has yet claimed him. He sleeps at the foot of our bed at night. I think it is very decent of Rene to allow this, since he isn't overly fond of cats, but sometimes I think he would grant me just about anything I wanted. I know he spoils me. But I like it.

  For instance, this morning I wanted to go walking on Dorchester Road, and since it was Sunday, Rene agreed. And it was as if we came out of a beehive, Rene and I, because of a sudden we met all our neighbors.

  Mrs. Manning lives next door. She is elderly with white hair and a glint in her eye. She is in a wheelchair and has a young black man wheel her about. "I see you outside all the time with the flowers," she said. "What are you going to do with all the flowers?"

  I told her that where I come from, on Decoration Day, we gather flowers and take them to the cemeteries to put on the graves of the war dead. She asked me then if I had anybody who died in the war. I told her about my daddy's uncle Sumner, but that I didn't know him. She asked why I brought flowers to the cemetery then. "It doesn't matter if we know the person or not," I said. "We put flowers on all the graves."

  Well, she thought that was the best idea since electricity came to Brooklyn. The neighbors here put flowers only on the graves of those they know, she told me, and the other graves look so lost and lonely. "Why don't you encourage the neighbors hereabouts to go with you and do the same thing?" she asked. "You know, here on Dorchester Road we have a big picnic, with speeches and everything, on Decoration Day. It could be part of the ceremonies."

  I looked at Rene. "You could visit some neighbors," he said, "and have them pass the word. It's for a good cause."

  So I said I would. Now what have I gotten myself into?

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  May 23

  BRIDGET AND I literally knocked on doors this day, to solicit donors to bring flowers for Decoration Day. We knocked on the doors of Mrs. Mason, Mrs. Dell, and Mrs. Norwich. They all liked the idea of bringing flowers to the grave sites of the war dead. Then we had to visit the two churches involved, the Catholic and the Episcopalian, to see if there are any graves of war veterans. It turns out there are. And we went to make a count so we would have enough flowers.

  May 30

  TODAY IS Decoration Day, and the weather was beautiful. Mrs. Moore made up a ham and a platter of potato salad. Her potato salad is almost as good as Opal's. I put on my next-best dress (it is white) and a large hat, white gloves, and shoes, and we went to the festivities. Rene and I were introduced as newcomers. After the ceremonies and speeches, I assembled with the other women in back of the parade, each with a bouquet of flowers in our hands, and we walked to the cemeteries. Then we who had flowers went about distributing them on the graves. How pretty they looked! I heard Mrs. Norwich say we should do this every year.

  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.

  June 1

  RENE TOLD ME of a train wreck that happened in Mississippi on the Illinois Central Railroad. An engineer named Casey Jones was killed. The nam
e 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.

  June 7

  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.

  June 10

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

  June 15

  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.

  June 20

  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.

  June 24

  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.

  June 27

  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.

  June 30

  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.

  July 5

  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.

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  July 5 (continued)

  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.

  July 10

  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.

  July 12

  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.

  July 17

  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.

  July 20

  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.

  July 27

  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.

  July 28

  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, som
e 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.