The Pages of Time

Gilded Summers-9

“Tell me what"s wrong, dear?”

She stared at me.

I scrunched down, squatted beside her, wrapping my skirts over my legs as she had done, crooking my arms just like hers. I said not another word.

Ginevra stared as hard at me as I did her. I waited. I would wait as long as need be. I don"t know what she saw on my face, but it was enough.

Her words came then, hesitant at first, then like from a faucet at full open. Her sobs faded as she found release in the telling. Her knowledge of English was greater than I expected, though she stumbled and mangled the words in odd arrangements. She told me of Mrs. Brown. She told me of the work she"d done that day, how proud she was of her work on Mother"s dress, of finding her room, of the voices, of how she came to be where she was.

She told me nothing of her tears.

“Then why are you crying, dear girl?” I asked her, unable to see as she did. “You"ve done nothing wrong. In fact, it sounds like you"ve done quite well for your first day.”

Her full bottom lip began to quiver. “F…father, your father.”

I shook my head at my revelation, chastising myself for not seeing it sooner.

“My father would not have been angry with you.” I tried to assure her even more. “Nor even my mother. It was your job. Servants are in and out of our rooms at all times of the day and night.”

Ginevra blinked; eyes wide. “It true?”

“It is true,” I corrected without making it obvious. “As long as you have a valid reason to be there, you will never be in any trouble when you go in any room.”

Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath, her shoulders shook with its quivers. She leaned her head down, but not to hide in the valley of her arms, but to rest her chin upon them. She looked better. I was so glad of it, for I had made her so.

We sat in silence for a few more minutes. I dared to reach out, to place a hand on her shoulder, to rub it softly. A stray tear, a leftover, trickled down her cheek. She turned to me.

“I lost, very lost.”

If she meant in the house or in her life, it made no matter to me. I knew how she felt.

She was a servant, a member of the staff, a non-entity my breeding decreed. It was the pervasive attitude of my set. Yet if I was more than who I was born to be—allowed to be—as I believed I was, couldn"t she be as well? Could a lifetime of habitual integrations be nothing less than habit? Mary Cassatt thought so. I vowed then to help Ginevra find whatever she felt she needed. I knew exactly where to start.

“Come with me.” I took her by the hand and pulled her up. She answered with a drawn-out moan. I ignored it.

Peeking out the door to the hall, seeing no one, I pulled her again, even as she uttered soft mutters of protest that I continued to ignore. With the same excited energy with which I had searched for her all morning, I pulled her through the house, to the south end, down the back stairs, through the Conservatory—ever so grateful we passed no other member of the household—and out onto the side terrace.

Ginevra no longer moaned. The resistance of her arm voiced her hesitance. I smiled back at her, hoping to reassure her. Enjoying myself too much at the sly mission I had undertaken, one so very not in keeping with the decorum of my world, I was blind to her. I did not once ask myself whom I served, her, or me.

Our destination was one I had been to so many times since we had moved to The Beeches. I spent more hours there than I did in the house. I had fallen in love, fallen for its magic, from the very first moment I stepped into it. I knew she would as well. I knew it was exactly what she needed at this minute. As if I could know what resided in another"s mind. The arrogance of my world was contagious.

I pulled her to me at the back corner of the house, flattened us against the wall as I looked over the two terraces running the entire width of the building, across the vast lawn stretching from the terraces to our destination, falling further into the delusion of espionage I played at. I would have laughed with the joy of it would it not confuse Ginevra more. It was a huge open space, grass-like green velvet flowing in low rolls away from the house, those I attempted to recreate upon my canvas. Usually, I would simply walk straight through. I couldn"t be so flagrant with Ginevra by my side.

I saw no one on this side of the estate. I spied a few men at the far side gardens tending to the hydrangeas and rhododendrons. But there was no one on our side.

“Come. Quickly,” I hissed, once more pulling her along.

She pulled back this time. This time she found her voice. “I find trouble. Mrs. Briggs, she…”

“She won"t be looking for you at this time of day. She"ll be far too busy with my mother, planning menus and other such nonsense.” I bounced on my toes, grinning ear to ear, believing I could infest her with what I felt.

I pulled again. She came. We ran.

From the terrace, we ran straight north, until we ran through a line of maple trees. Behind them, a small path ran the length of the property, between the high stone wall that kept others out. I often averted my eyes from the sight of it, for it gave me the shivers.

As the carriage house came into view, I stuck my head out from between two trees, once more looking for prying eyes, once more finding none.

With one more pull, I led her onto the end of the vast lawn and into the trees, the weeping beech trees.

“Duck,” I called as we came to one of the small entryways of branches and leaves. I crouched and as did she behind me. We were inside.

I stopped, as did Ginevra. Her hand dropped from mine; her mouth dropped as well as she raised wide eyes at the cathedral within. My cathedral.

I entered a world not even my imagination had ever taken me to, not even in the words of a fairy tale. I couldn"t stop myself from staring up and around, seeing the branches twisting and tangling over my head, reaching far up as if to touch the sky. There were so many others curling right down to the ground as if bowing to us, as if asking us to step on them, to climb up them.

As if not allowed, any thoughts of duty or Mrs. Briggs slammed against the hidden entry, barred from this magical place.

Pearl stepped upon a lumpy root without a moment"s hesitation, her face changing; for the first time, I thought I glimpsed her unmasked truth. As if a monkey trained to dance, she climbed. To watch her lithe movements was a gift in itself.

She looked back at me, a mischievous wood nymph.

“Well, come on.” Her hand waved me toward her.

I couldn"t stop myself from following, couldn"t even if I wanted to. I didn"t.

She led me up and around, but not too high, until we came to a branch sticking out straight and sure from the thick trunk of the tree. Now both monkeys, we used hands and feet as we made our way to the middle of it. It was a tricky act, especially for me with my floor-length skirt, but we both wore low-heeled boots, so our footing was sure. There we perched, birds on a clothesline. It was the most charmed moment of my life. It was a moment that has, that will, stay with me forever.

For a while, we said nothing, for nothing should be said when first entering such a place as that. The spirit of nature precluded all words, glorified by one"s silence. That same spirit engulfed us as did the trees. They grew as tall as a grand cavern, a cave for giants, yet its delicate, almost ethereal leaves flowed down to the ground like trickles of water into the ocean. Unseen creatures scurried upon the leaf-strewn ground. Birds fluttered, though few chirped; even they honored that sacrosanct spot with their softness. I"d learned here, beneath the weeping beeches, that there are greater sacred places in nature than in any building man could construct. Ginevra broke the silence.

“Bellisimo,” it was a whispered prayer. “B…beautiful,” she stumbled on the English word. “You lucky…you are lucky living here.”

BellisimoareI didn"t know how to answer her. For all the things in my life, I thought there was little luck to it. It had just always…been, been what it was, filled with all it was filled with. Did I feel lucky? Most often, it felt as if the skin I was born in didn"t quite fit; perhaps it had been tailored improperly. But the why of it eluded me. Was I truly just “difficult,” as my mother so often called me? I didn"t know. Here I knew myself or at the least had no need to scramble for my name. Yes, for this place, I was indeed very lucky.

this“Have you seen any of the other cottages, Ginevra?” I asked a question devoid of emotion, neutral ground upon which to start.

She nodded, eyes still wide. “We walked, from corner.” She pointed north. “There was other…cottages?” I understood the question in the word. It was a silly word the community used. They lived in mansions. “But none like you…yours.”

I patted her hand. She tried so hard to use proper English, but it was not an easy language to learn, and I had a feeling she had taught herself most of it.

“Someday soon, we"ll walk up Bellevue and on the Cliff Walk,” I promised her. “You"ll see more cottages.” My lips fell in a cynical frown. “They only call them cottages because the Europeans do, to label them as their summer homes. There are some just as grand as this, if not more so.”

“No?” Her brows rose crookedly upon her moist brow.

I nodded, smirking. “Oh, yes. Much more grand.” Though she hadn"t explained what she denied, what she questioned, I had understood immediately. It had been easy.

Ginevra"s shoulders rose to her ears. She lifted a hand from the tree and made a circle round her head. “Why? Why here?”

“Well, as I have overheard the tale, there was this man, a tailor named Smith, born and raised here in Newport, who believed so much in the beauty of this place, that he and another man started buying up all the land. This place was very famous; men of the Revolution came here, came from here, one who even signed our Declaration of Independence. But there was also a great deal of slave trading that went on here as well.” I looked out of my history books and back to Ginevra. Her eyes seemed stuck upon an unblinking gaze. “Well, sure enough, this Smith fellow was right. Somehow, many of those rich, southern plantation owners heard about the place, from the slave trade no doubt, and they started traveling here in the summer to escape the awful heat of their own climate. One plantation owner, Daniel Parrish, came first and built Beechwood. Then Mr. Wetmore, a very rich man who trades goods with China, built Chateau-sur-Mer, By the Sea,” I translated for her, my hands fluttering like the wings of the birds that flew over our heads, adding their soft twitters to mine. “And then it all grew faster and faster. More families built cottages, each one larger than the last, the Astors and the Vanderbilts, the Van Rensselaers and the Stuyvesants.”