“YOU’RE NOT GOING!” MAX said flatly when Elizabeth explained over the telephone, in hushed tones, her plan. He couldn’t believe she was planning on spending two weeks at Alan’s country house in Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson. “First off, your mother isn’t going to let someone pick out a fellow for her. Second, if you think I’m going to shout hooray at the idea of you spending two weeks in the company of your former fiancé, think again!”
“I never agreed to be engaged to him,” Elizabeth reminded him, keeping her voice calm. “That was all my parents’ doing, Max, and you know it. So what are you worried about? You know I never loved Alan.” She smiled into the telephone. “You’re worried that a sudden, mad passion for Alan Reed will overtake me and I’ll throw myself into his arms with abandon?”
“Something like that,” Max admitted grudgingly. “It isn’t really you I don’t trust. It’s your mother. She always gets what she wants. And what she wants is for you to give me the old heave-ho and marry Alan Reed, which is why he suddenly showed up tonight at your house. You know she invited him, probably because you defied her today and spent the afternoon with me. That must have really worried her.”
“She doesn’t always get what she wants,” Elizabeth reminded him.
He knew immediately what she meant. “You’re right. I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me. But when it comes to you, she does. At least, ever since…” He paused, then went ahead and said it, “Ever since we got back.”
Elizabeth didn’t want to argue with Max. She’d be leaving the city soon, leaving him, and it was important that they part on good terms. “I have to do this, Max. If I can find someone to take care of her, I’ll be free of my promise to my father. I can apply to Vassar the very second I know she’s going to be in good hands.”
Max made a rude sound. “As if the woman isn’t perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Look at the way she runs that house. At the way she runs you….”
Elizabeth sighed. “I know. But she doesn’t want to take care of herself.” She sighed again. “I just hope Alan’s wealthy Uncle Casper is at least reasonably good-looking.”
He wasn’t. Alan’s wealthy Uncle Casper was an older replica of Alan. Meeting the man, seeing uncle and nephew side by side, Elizabeth felt as if she were viewing two photographs of the same man, except that one of them had been taken twenty years after the first. The resemblance was uncanny … and dispiriting. Martin Farr had been so handsome. It was hard to imagine her beautiful mother on the arm of someone like Casper Reed, who had lost a bit more hair than his nephew and bore a few more pounds around the middle. How could Nola ever be attracted to Casper Reed?
But, Elizabeth reminded herself sternly to lift her sagging spirits, if Alan, a younger version of Casper in every way, was good enough for me in Nola’s eyes, why shouldn’t the older version of him be acceptable to her!
She realized the flaw in that logic instantly. Alan had only been acceptable in her parents’ eyes … never in hers. She herself had never been attracted to him. How likely then was it that Nola would be attracted to his uncle? Nevertheless, it was worth a try. Elizabeth hadn’t made the trip from Manhattan to Tarrytown to give up so easily.
Nola did seem happy to be in the country again. And Casper’s estate was impressive. Acre upon acre of lush green land, in the middle of which sat an enormous stone and frame dwelling twice the size of Alan’s house. If Elizabeth was less impressed by the lack of imagination in the decorating of the bachelor’s home, she assured herself that Nola could remedy that easily enough. If she chose to.
She did not choose to. After five days and evenings spent in the company of nephew and uncle, Nola was ready to go home.
“The days are entertaining enough,” she confided to Elizabeth as she prepared for bed on a warm summer evening in July. “But the evenings!” Nola sighed. “One more night of conversation about dogs and horses, hunting and banking, and I think I shall go mad.”
Thoroughly disheartened by her mother’s clear lack of interest in Casper Reed as a suitor, Elizabeth argued, “Mother, dinner conversation among your friends is hardly more stimulating.” She had thrown Nola and Casper together at every opportunity, suffering through long, tedious hours alone with Alan, hoping some spark would flare up between the two adults. It hadn’t. Though Casper seemed intrigued by his beautiful companion, it was clear that Nola was no more attracted to him than to the stone fence guarding the man’s property.
“You could have been friendlier to Casper. He’s very wealthy, you know,” Elizabeth said. “And he’s not a bad sort. He seems very taken with you.”
Nola gasped. Her jaw dropped in an unladylike gape. “Casper? As a suitor? For me? Oh, Elizabeth, you can’t be serious! You were actually entertaining such a ridiculous notion? Why, the man is nothing like your father. Even if I were thinking along such lines, now that my period of mourning is over, and I assure you I am not, Casper Reed would certainly not be a candidate.” She paused, thought for a minute or two, then her eyes narrowed. “Elizabeth? Is that why you were willing to come up here? You were … you were thinking that Casper and I…” Nola broke off in mid-sentence to laugh. At first it was just a small, ladylike laugh. But as she continued dwelling on Elizabeth’s intention, her laugh gained strength and momentum, until it rang out in the room like a chorus of bells. She bent double at the waist, laughing and gasping at the same time.
After several long minutes, Nola wiped her eyes, gasping, “Casper Reed! Oh, Elizabeth…”
“Why wouldn’t Casper be a candidate, Mother?” Elizabeth asked when Nola had regained control. “Because he’s too much like his nephew? Too dull, too boring, and not at all handsome?” She kept her voice very quiet, aware of Alan sleeping somewhere on the same floor. “Yet you found Alan perfectly acceptable for me.”
Nola frowned. She wiped her eyes with a linen handkerchief. “That is very different.”
“How is it different?” Elizabeth picked up a magazine and waved it for emphasis. “Your daughter doesn’t deserve a handsome, interesting husband but you do? Isn’t that terribly hypocritical, Mother?”
Nola faced her dressing table mirror and started brushing her hair. “Nonsense. You’re young. You need the stability of someone like Alan, who can establish a respectable, secure life for you. I, on the other hand, already have an adequate income, my own home, an established life. Your father saw to that.”
Elizabeth mulled that over. Then she said, “So, what you’re saying is, you have everything you need. You don’t need Casper. You don’t need a husband. You don’t need anyone to take care of you. Isn’t that what you’re saying?”
Realizing the trap she had fallen into, Nola hastened to repair the damage. “Not as long as I have you, dear. What would I need with a husband when I have my darling daughter at my side?”
But it was too late. Much too late. The first mistake Nola had made was laughing at her daughter. The second mistake was insisting that her life was well-ordered. That she didn’t need a husband to care for her. Elizabeth had always known this was true, though her father hadn’t seen it. But she had never before heard her mother admit it.
All right, then. She would apply to Vassar College. And she would be accepted, she was certain of that. She would take the train home every weekend to make sure her mother was doing well, and to see Max. But she would be leaving the house in Murray Hill.
Because her mother was fine, would be fine. Hadn’t she just said so herself?
Sensing that something was happening but unable to figure out exactly what it was, Nola turned once again on the vanity stool. She glanced at the magazine in Elizabeth’s hand, and anxious for a diversion, said as if nothing out of the ordinary had taken place, “Oh, darling, look at the gorgeous green hat on the cover! Do look inside the magazine and see if it tells us where I might find that hat. It would go so beautifully with my green suit, the one with the ermine collar.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Oh, it would, Mother, you’re right.” Still smiling, she began leafing through the magazine again. Though she appeared to be searching the pages for information about where her mother might purchase the green hat on the cover, she was actually mentally composing her letter of inquiry to Vassar about admissions policies.
Dear Sir or Madam,
You will be happy to hear (though not nearly as happy as I was) that my mother is perfectly satisfied with her life, perfectly capable of caring for herself and therefore I am writing to inquire how I might become a matriculating student at your fine establishment…
or:
Dear Sir or Madam,
Might you have room at your fine establishment for a young woman who has had enough shopping on Fifth Avenue to last her a full lifetime?
“Have you found it yet?” Nola asked.
“No. But I’m still looking.”
They returned to New York the following day, a sticky, sultry, Thursday afternoon in mid-July.
A month before Elizabeth had secretly written to Vassar College, applying for admission. She had asked for a scholarship, saying she wanted to be independent of her family. She doubted, at the time, she would be able to leave her mother, but she wanted to have hope.
On a Tuesday morning, she received her acceptance letter. “We are pleased to inform you….” Not only had she been accepted, but because of her “excellent academic standing” in her “lower-form education,” she was being offered a scholarship that would meet most of her expenses.
Elizabeth couldn’t believe her good fortune. Now, even if her mother disapproved, she would be able to go. She could get a part-time job in Poughkeepsie, perhaps as a salesclerk in a department store, to cover the remainder of her expenses.
The first person she shared this joyful news with was Max, by telephone. He was as elated as she was. When she had returned from Tarrytown and shared with him what had happened there, how her decision to apply to college had come about, he’d been almost as excited as she was. But he reminded her that because she had applied so late, she would have to tell her mother right away.
She did.
Upon hearing the news, Nola collapsed.