A Lady of Good Family (12 page)

Minnie looked as if she might weep. I saw the difficulty, of course. You’d have to be blind not to: a mother on the verge of divorce with a grown daughter on the verge of . . . well, we didn’t know, and that was the problem, wasn’t it?

“The heat makes you worry,” I said. “Beatrix has more common sense than anyone else I know. She won’t rush. She won’t be
unwise.” But I had had a vision of Beatrix in a travel costume, tiptoeing down a hotel staircase late at night. A vision of an elopement. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. But then, perhaps that was the chance she needed to take?

“Gardeners love order and control,” she had admitted to me that day at Holms Lea, when we first met. “But before there can be control, a certain amount of risk has to be taken. Will that peony get enough light? Will that tree, full grown, cast too much shade? You must be willing to take chances.”

“Daisy, you of all people should know,” Minnie went on. “Sometimes one doesn’t make the decision. It is made for one. It is why young people are so fond of the words ‘fate’ and ‘destiny.’ They still believe in it. A Roman! She would be so far from home.”

Beatrix came back before I could answer, carefully carrying three glasses of fruit punch. There was a half smile on her lips. Minnie and I looked at her.

“Is something wrong?” Beatrix asked. “Do I have a smudge on my face?”

“Let’s go look at the lion,” I proposed. “I hear he is a particularly sweet old thing, all yawns and big yellow eyes. If I don’t go to see the lion so I can tell her all about it, Clara will never, ever forgive me.”

But even the lion was overcome by the heat and refused to do anything more amusing than swish his tail at the flies, so we returned to the hotel, and the stuffed animal heads peering at us from all the walls and corners, to rest for the evening.

M
rs. Haskett’s residence in Berlin was on the newly fashionable and expensive boulevard Unter den Linden. There, she had rented a large town house for several months to avoid the summer heat of Rome, though Berlin did not seem much cooler. The owners had obligingly moved into the back rooms so that Mrs. Haskett could enjoy the front rooms—and they could enjoy the undoubtedly large rent she paid them. They pretended to be cousins, to avoid the stigma of a crass financial arrangement, but unless one searched back to Adam and Eve’s extended family, I don’t think a blood connection could be found between Mrs. Haskett and the Baumgartens.

“Must we?” Beatrix was still protesting when our carriage pulled up in front of the house that evening. The Berliners kept marvelous horses, large and white and as clean as porcelain, so unlike Rome, where one might end up being forlornly pulled about by a single horse with its ribs showing, or even donkeys.
That evening, the carriages with their liveried coachmen and footmen and magnificent plumed horses filled the wide boulevard.

“Yes,” Minnie said, smiling. “We must. For your sins in Rome.”

“It is a high price to pay for a few minutes spent in moonlight in the Colosseum.”

“Beatrix, don’t forget the hotel room,” I said.

She shot me a scalding glance. “If I could go back in time, I would never open the door to his knock,” she said, but I didn’t believe her. Nor did Minnie, judging by her expression.

Beatrix wore a red dress that evening, dangerously close to scarlet. If she was going out to be seen, then she would ensure she was seen. She wore a little tiara of pearls, and two larger pearls dangled from her ears.

To my eyes, and to others as well, I assume, she looked decidedly American: tall and healthy and full of confidence. When she stepped up the stairs to the entrance, her movements were filled with athletic grace and ease, the result of a childhood spent on horseback and swimming and besting even the strongest boys at tennis. It was as if the Americanism of this young woman declared, “The nineteenth century might have been Europe’s, but the twentieth will be ours!”

I walked between mother and daughter, our arms interlinked. Heads turned in our direction as we entered the ballroom. Minnie was small and dark, precariously balanced between her mature beauty and the inevitable, mortal loss of it. Beatrix was all youthful strength and radiance. I, in the middle, blond and average in size and height, was the young matron. The Three Graces, we had been called when we went out together in New
York. Conversation ceased when we stood at the top of the stairs to be announced. The footman, dressed in a Louis XVI costume, as were all the other servants, barely had to raise his voice.

The room was ablaze with candelabras and huge urns of white roses. Mrs. Haskett, resplendent in a tawny spangled Worth gown and with diamonds at her throat and wrists, broke free from a circle of friends, more likely sycophants, and rushed forward to greet us.

“I’m so glad you could come,” she said, putting her arm around Beatrix’s and Minnie’s waists in an overly intimate manner. This seemed a bad omen. She was condescending, and only people who believe themselves to be superior can be condescending.

“Good evening, Mrs. Haskett. You have a lovely rental here in Berlin.” Minnie managed to look down her nose though her hostess was four inches taller than she. Mrs. Haskett’s patronizing familiarity was too much. Minnie was a warmhearted and generous woman, but she was also a member of one of the oldest families in the East, and she preferred that people not forget it, especially not when her daughter’s reputation was at stake.

“It is rather quaint, isn’t it?” Mrs. Haskett said, making it seem as if she had rented a hut, not a huge town house. “I was tempted to take a castle in the Odenwald for the season, you know, one of those airy, ancient places that look down on the river . . . which one is it? I don’t remember . . . but it seemed just too, too beyond the pale. All trees and wolves, from what I heard. And there was dear cousin Harold to consider. He does need me.”

Harold, six feet tall and looking as though his teeth pained him, came to her side as soon as she beckoned and gave us a stiff,
unhappy greeting. It was obvious he would rather be elsewhere, perhaps the nearest tavern or gaming table.

Mrs. Haskett dismissed Harold with a wave of her hand, and he slunk away to find the nearest punch bowl.

“Will there be a tour of the house?” I asked. Mrs. Haskett, if she heard the derision in my voice, ignored it. I had once offered a tour of my new home on Fifth Avenue and learned the hard way that only the nouveau riche did such a thing. I had been laughed at, behind my back, for weeks.

“My footman can show you around, if you want. Don’t miss the picture gallery on the mezzanine. I’ve had my Vermeer and Van Dyck installed. The David sketches haven’t arrived yet.” Mrs. Haskett still had her arm around Beatrix’s waist.

“Is there a solarium?” Beatrix asked, always eager to see orchids and other exotics. She managed to disengage herself from her hostess and put several feet of empty air between them.

“Of course!” Mrs. Haskett seemed to think better of her response and quickly added, “Not in good repair, however. Nothing of interest, I fear. You would be much happier seeing the picture gallery.” She turned Beatrix halfway and pointed to an arched doorway. “Through there. All the way to the end of the hall and up the stairs.”

There was malice in Mrs. Haskett’s face, hidden under the forced smile, the feigned gaiety. I often wondered what had so embittered her, that she must spend the rest of her life purchasing what had once belonged to others and making trouble whenever possible. When I spend time with people such as she, I remember we are a species that once threw our neighbors to the lions for
amusement. Mrs. Haskett reached out as if she would forcibly restrain Beatrix, then thought better of herself. She wasn’t smiling any longer, though.

The band had started playing a lively polka, and a swirling mass of people took to the dance floor. Beatrix threaded her way through them, heading away from the gallery and toward the opposite arched doorway, into the solarium.

“I warned her,” Mrs. Haskett said.

“What was the warning?” Minnie asked, her voice colder than the sherbets on the buffet table. At least I assumed there would be sherbets and a buffet.

“She’ll find out.” Mrs. Haskett’s angular face was fierce in its intensity.

Minnie took my hand as if she suddenly needed support. We had both guessed. Neither of us knew what to do. Stop Beatrix, warn her? Wouldn’t that suggest we still thought of her as somewhat childish, in need of protection?

Minnie decided. “Come, Daisy. Let us look at the pictures. Perhaps we will visit the solarium later.”

Beatrix was already out of sight. She had passed through that arched doorway and was on her way.

•   •   •   •

T
his is how Beatrix later told it to me. I believe she gave her mother the same version, but there is no guarantee. Minnie and I did not exchange notes. Somehow, what had happened had taken on a life of its own and we became mere bystanders.

Amerigo was there, of course, bending over a pot of orchids.
He heard her footstep and turned, his mouth slightly open in surprise.

“You!” he said.

“Indeed,” she agreed, equally startled. As soon as she saw him, she understood her combination of fatigue and restlessness of the past weeks. It was, she said later with a smile, like Eve encountering Adam in the garden, as if she had been waiting for this moment without knowing she was doing so. There was pleasure, yes. And fear. And that sense of inevitability that accompanies the great passions of life.

“What are you doing here?” Amerigo asked. He sounded a little anxious, and that reassured her. She couldn’t stand bullies of either sex. If he had rushed forward, embraced her immediately, taken advantage of the moment and her surprise, she would have fled. Instead, they stood in the solarium, surrounded by heat and green and the earthy smell of humus and loam and flowers, not moving toward each other, only looking, enjoying this last moment of separateness either of them would ever know.

“I was invited to come hear the music. And you?” She stood in the doorway, enjoying those dozen steps between them, knowing that as soon as she closed that space there would be no turning back.

“A little family business. Look,” he said softly. “Do you know she has bought a Vermeer?”

“So I’ve heard.” Beatrix fanned herself. It was humid and warm in the solarium. Perfect conditions for an orchid but not for a young woman already flushed with emotion.

“Shall I get you a glass of water?” he asked.

“No, thank you. Has the Vermeer been hung among the ferns?”

He laughed. “Not even our hostess would make such a mistake. No. But she wished me to see her orchids first.”

“Ah. I was to view the pictures first.”

“Perhaps she was trying to prevent our meeting. There are so many people here.”

“Indeed. We could have spent the night and never encountered the other.”

“But you found me.”

“It seems.” Somewhere water dripped, measuring the seconds. Time! It called to them. Never forget time. It will not stand still. Amerigo took the first step. She took the second. They alternated, like children in dance school. When they were within arm’s length, Amerigo took her hand and repeated the kiss he had given her in Rome, on her palm.

“I am happy to see you,” he said, not releasing her hand. She saw in his face it was more than happiness he felt. She imagined her expression echoed his own.

“And me, to see you.” There was no coyness in her, no dishonesty. She knew there was no need, and no purpose for it. They were the only two people in the world, and they were in a garden. An artificial one, certainly, but a garden nonetheless.

They moved slowly, side by side, down the rows of tables, afraid to look at each other for fear of revealing too much.

Because it was the fashionable thing to do, Mrs. Haskett had assembled a large collection of exotics in her Berlin house, and Beatrix and Amerigo toured the solarium, exchanging quiet
opinions and comments on the flowers for the pleasure of hearing each other’s voice. Silence, Beatrix felt, was to be avoided. It was too full of possibility.

“A
Cattleya labiata
,” she said, stopping in front of a large pink flower. “First found in Brazil by Mr. Swainson. It is a favorite among collectors. I find it a bit too showy.”

“Yes, you are right,” Amerigo agreed. “It reeks of a stuffy ballroom, a too-large corsage on the wrist.”

“The color is much too florid,” Beatrix said disapprovingly of a purple freckled
Phalaenopsis bellina
.

“It should be paler. This looks as if an artist has overpainted it,” he agreed, happy to discover that they agreed on such a simple thing as the color of a flower.

“And look, she has an
Orchis spectabilis
. It is a North American orchid, and now she has brought it to Europe. There was a whole shelf of these at the Chicago fair.”

The flowers of the
Orchis spectabilis
are an inch or so in size, and of a shape that makes them suitable for imposing thoughts on them, much as the shape-shifting clouds are. It is a delicate plant easily found growing in leaf litter but easily overlooked because of its diminutive size. In the solarium, surrounded by the huge, flamboyantly colored tree orchids of Brazil and Colombia, it seemed even more unassuming.

But Amerigo, who could tell the brushstroke of a Fra Angelico from that of a Fra Lippi, saw more in the plant than many people see.

He bent to examine it more closely. “It looks like a ghost in a white hooded cape,” he said.

“I never thought of it that way, but yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Beatrix lowered her head for a closer look, and a coppery lock of hair fell over her forehead. It was all Amerigo could do to leave that lock in place, not to reach over and tuck it back.

Beatrix thought perhaps his Roman religion shaped his thoughts on this orchid, but it didn’t matter. In New York, that hint of superstitious Catholicism would not have offended her, for Minnie had taught her better, but would have required her to reconsider some previous opinion of him. Here, in Berlin, it seemed all of a piece and even appropriate. A monk, then. A ghostly monk.

“Have you seen white-hooded ghosts often?” she asked.

He knew she was jesting, but he answered seriously. “My palazzo is said to be haunted. I myself have never seen the ghost, but the housekeeper has. On all the saints’ holidays she puts out a plate of food for it, and once a year we open the chapel where his bones are kept and have a mass said. He was an old monk who was persecuted by one of my ancestors centuries ago.”

“Why? Why was he persecuted, and what happened to him?” They had reached the end of the orchid tables and Beatrix let her shawl drop off her shoulders. It was warm, as any orchid room should be, but the heat was making her dizzy. She could hear the dancers laughing as the musicians played the opening notes of a mazurka.

“It was over a painting that had been acquired by less than legal methods. A holy relic the monk wanted returned to the church.” Amerigo leaned against a table. There were only inches between them.

“Not
The Wolf of Gubbio
?”

“The same. It was stolen from Sassetta’s studio in Siena before it could be delivered to the church in San Sepolcro. For a certain amount of money, it was delivered to us instead. We are a family known for our love of art and questionable, if traditional, methods of acquiring it.”

“What happened to the monk?”

“Brother Leo was sent to the palazzo to bring back the painting, but my ancestor would not give him an audience or even speak with him. The guards at the gate treated him poorly. Brother Leo slept by the gate in all weather, good or bad, for many weeks, waiting for the painting to be handed over to him. He refused to eat and grew thin. He refused to move, so all visitors had to step over him. Most inconvenient. But one night he had a dream about the painting, and the wolf spoke to him. ‘Tell the signor that if he returns the painting, he will get something else in its place.’ It’s the story of St. Francis and the wolf all over again, you see. Give up one thing—marauding and killing—to get another—free meals for the rest of your life. So the duke of the time, my ancestor, gave up the painting and received for it something even more precious: Sassetta’s study for the painting of
The Wolf of Gubbio
. Sassetta destroyed all the studies, preferring his reputation be based solely on finished works. How this one study survived is probably another tale of theft.”