FIVE

When we arrived at the large stone house that the Palmers were renting on rue Brignole in the Trocadéro, I hurried to the first floor suite set aside for myself and my family. I still found it amazing that these rooms, with their very tall French windows opening into a walled garden, were all for our use. When I was growing up, it was common for my wealthier relatives to make annual trips to Europe. But this was the first time my husband and I had done so, and we had never expected to be so well situated. The suite of rooms was all for us, our three small children, and Delia, who had come as their nursemaid. It was a fantastic gift that made the whole trip a fairy tale for us. I reveled in the glory of it, as five-year-old Jack and four-year-old Lizzie clattered across the shining wood floor to greet me. Delia stood smiling behind them holding three-year-old Tommy in her arms.

§

Seeing my little family, away from the surroundings that we were so used to back in Chicago, took my breath away when I realized what we had become. Gone were the days when my only preoccupation was the next assignment for a class. There was a time when I’d felt overwhelmed by the responsibilities I’d taken on as a wife and mother. The birth of my third child, Tommy, had come in the midst of a year when I not only taught at the university but also managed several of the ongoing campaigns for better government at Hull House. Much to my surprise, I realized that the more I did, the more I could do.

When I thought of the past few years, I realized how busy we always were. Stephen had continued his research, running experiments and publishing results. He had stopped work on the dangerous X-rays, although he kept in touch with Emil Grubbé. Somehow, we had managed to return to Woods Hole each summer, which provided a sun-filled break for me and the children. I loved that very much, as it reminded me of my own summers on the Cape with my mother’s father, digging in the sand to find clams and rushing at the waves. While Stephen labored over test tubes and tanks of squid, the children, Delia, and I played on the beach or waded around with buckets for specimens we brought to the Marine Biological Laboratory. They were always willing to accept our offerings and to show the children other special prizes in the tanks. We would all miss that trip this year, but the opportunity to travel to Paris was not one we could pass up.

In Chicago, I helped Jane Addams fight against Alderman Johnny Powers, who had tried to drive the Hull House women out of the West Side. But I also brought Jack and Lizzie to the kindergarten there, where they tumbled around and listened to stories alongside the children of immigrants. They enjoyed it and Stephen felt it was a better education for them than being kept apart in some kind of sterile isolation. I had worried about that but, in the whirlwind of activity that was our lives, we all seemed to be bumbling along free from any lasting harm.

Stephen set aside time to spend with the children on the days I lectured. Jack was getting rambunctious, but Stephen seemed to love that challenge. Lizzie, meanwhile, had quite a temper and could easily bring down the house with a tantrum. But she would listen, if I promised to take her with me the next time I left the house. Even at such a young age, she had a way of approaching the world as if she were a warrior happily on attack.

And Tommy was a cuddly little bear who loved to eat. Where Jack was bright and inquisitive, and Lizzie was adventurous, little Tommy was content as long as he had something in his mouth. He spoke later and less often than the first two, but we thought he was probably overwhelmed by the loquaciousness of his siblings. He couldn’t get a word in, between Jack’s statements and Lizzie’s questions. I worried about him sometimes, but Stephen laughed at my concern and Delia liked the way he clung to her during the day.

In short, our world had become hectic, sometimes filled with frustrations, and always demanding a huge amount of energy. But, when we were suddenly set down in Paris and I could look across the sea to our life as it was back in Chicago, I had to admit it was very satisfying. I couldn’t tell exactly where we were heading, or what the children would become as they grew, but we were underway and on a course, rough though it might sometimes be.

Looking at them now, in the green warmth of the little garden flooded with afternoon sunshine, I felt a thrill once again. I never would have imagined that we would be in Paris…all together.

§

I removed my hat and jacket, then changed my boots for slippers before I joined the children in the garden. It was only after I’d visited with them for a while and heard about how they’d been chasing a white cat all around the garden, that I remembered the empty velvet box I’d carried back from the House of Worth. I would have to return it to Mrs. Palmer, and I was uneasy about what would happen when she told her husband the pearls were missing. With a sigh, I stood and straightened my skirt, then I left to find my way to Mrs. Palmer’s rooms on the second floor. I needn’t have worried. But I didn’t know that, as I carried the box up the stairs. Just as I reached the corridor I almost bumped into Honoré.

“Oh, excuse me, Mrs. Chapman. I’m sorry. I’m just going to join my father for an outing to the races.” His glance fell to the box in my arms and I saw his face slowly turn red. It was especially noticeable with his pale skin, open face, and thin mustache. His eyes opened wide and I saw him swallow, but he made no comment on the box. “Excuse me, I mustn’t keep Father waiting.” He hurried away, as if I was contagious.

Hugging the red velvet box to my chest, I knocked and the maid admitted me to Mrs. Palmer’s rooms. Bertha had changed into a flowing tea gown, which was designed to allow a woman to discard her confining corset while at home. It was pink silk chiffon, in a faint floral print, with a froth of transparent chiffon and delicate lace at the round neck. A dainty lace bolero had sleeves to the elbow, where several layers of lace spilled down to her wrists.

She was working again, seated in a gilt chair at a large, ornately painted desk that might have been from the seventeenth century. The rooms in this part of the house were even taller than those on the first floor. Their ceilings featured carved moldings and painted ovals of cherubs floating in blue skies. Back in Chicago, such tall rooms with colorful decorations existed in institutional buildings, such as banks and offices, where they were calculated to impress. But, in Paris, a private home seemed to be a place built for giants of another time. I had come to the conclusion that they were designed to emphasize the vast difference between the aristocrats and the lower orders of an earlier era. Perhaps it had been such disparities that had incited the French Revolution.

Bertha used the sitting room adjoining her bedroom and dressing room as an office. The tables were spread with private and official communications. On a side wall hung the Renoir painting she took with her wherever she went. It had been in the sitting room of her mansion on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Then it had hung on the wall of her stateroom on the transatlantic trip and now it held the place of honor in her Paris rooms. In it, two young girls who were circus performers stood, accepting applause in the middle of a sawdust ring. One was turned so she could gesture to the crowd. The other hugged a half dozen oranges in her arms. I wondered if they had been juggling them, or if they were tributes thrown by the crowds. In the upper corner you could barely make out the figures of several well-dressed men sitting and watching. I couldn’t help thinking there should have been children applauding, rather than those businessmen. I had come to think that Bertha Palmer must have identified with the girls. She and her sister, Ida, had been quite young when they first appeared on the social scene in Chicago. Had it seemed like a stage, perhaps, where they were called upon to perform? Like the girls in the picture?

I had heard how Potter Palmer, who was more than twenty years older than Bertha, had met her when she was still a schoolgirl. He’d been patient for a long time and, despite the other suitors who’d appeared by the time she was of age, she chose him in the end. From a really young age she must have known her own mind. I imagined that something in her girlhood must have made her feel a special sympathy for the two young girls in the painting.

“Emily, our visit to the House of Worth was very satisfactory, don’t you think?” Bertha’s dark eyes gleamed and she smiled with mischief, so I knew she was thinking of Mrs. Johnstone’s retreat. I was sorry to poke a hole in her bubble of satisfaction but I held out the empty velvet box without comment.

She reached for it. “Yes. I know. I’ve just questioned Honoré about it, and he insists it never left his hands. I will have to make inquiries.” She opened and shut the box, frowning. “It’s a delicate matter, Emily. One cannot raise a hue and cry without having suspicion fall on some poor servant or saleswoman. Even the breath of such a scandal could absolutely ruin them, you know. No, this will take some quiet investigation, so as not to stir things up.”

I collapsed onto the gilt chair opposite her. “It was a very valuable piece of jewelry, though, wasn’t it?” I was no expert on jewels, but her choker with seven strands of pearls was quite famous in Chicago.

“Hmm. Yes.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Over two thousand pearls and seven diamonds, actually.” She sighed and folded her hands in front of her on the desk. Looking directly into my eyes, she said, “We must not mention this to Mr. Palmer.”

“But perhaps you’ll need to speak to the police. Wouldn’t you want Mr. Palmer to know about that?”

Bertha grimaced. “The police…no, I don’t think we want that. You see, Emily, sometimes Mr. Palmer believes I’m careless with my jewels. He’s been known to sleep with them under his pillow when we travel.” She shook her head in disapproval of this habit, but I had heard tales of how she’d dropped a diamond bracelet in a box at the symphony in Chicago, never noticing it was gone until it was returned by a conscientious usher. Mr. Palmer had reason to be concerned.

“You may not know that Mr. Palmer was quite ill in Rome last year. I really do not want him worried.” I could see she was sincerely concerned about her aging husband. Despite the difference in their ages, and sometimes their interests, I had rarely met such a devoted couple. “You need to promise me, Emily, not to mention this to Mr. Palmer.”

“Certainly.”

“We’ll find the pearls before he ever knows they were missing.”

It seemed to me to be more than a mix-up, but I had to defer to her wishes.

“It may be that Honoré has done something foolish,” she admitted. “And that would be even more upsetting to Mr. Palmer than my misplacing the pearls, you see. Meanwhile, what did you think of the Countess Olga and her lovely daughter, Sonya?”

“The countess is quite beautiful.”

“And no doubt her daughter will be just as much a beauty. But I must warn you about something. You saw the way Mrs. Johnstone snubbed her? Of course you did. She’s a terribly small-minded woman. The Countess Olga is married to a Russian count. He’s distantly related to the tsar. Of course, it was an arranged marriage. He’s rather a brute, apparently. You saw the cane. She’s never explained her injury. There are things that are not mentioned. But they live separately now, by arrangement of the family.”

I realized she meant that the countess’s injury must have been caused by her husband. It was a terrible story. I had met women in the tenements around Hull House who had been mistreated by their husbands. But I had foolishly assumed such behavior was caused by poverty. I had not thought to hear of it in the upper reaches of society in Europe. It seemed very sad to me.

“It’s a shocking story. But the Europeans, the other aristocrats, they understand that sometimes it’s necessary to make such arrangements. It’s our own Mrs. Johnstone who makes a fuss, as if the countess were the baker’s wife in her hometown and had chosen to leave her husband.”

“Can’t they divorce?” I asked. It was an extreme measure but I knew that Florence Kelley—a social activist I had worked with at Hull House—had survived a divorce. She had moved to Illinois with her children to finally become legally free of a husband who’d deserted her.

“In England or America, it might be possible, but they are Catholics of some sort and it’s not permitted. Really, is it too much to ask to grant the woman a little leeway? Can’t she just live in Paris in peace? I find Mrs. Johnstone’s attitude very embarrassing. And the French think she’s quite mad. But she tries to get the other Americans to follow her lead in this. It’s just disgraceful.”

“I can see it’s not something you would do.”

“On the contrary, I find the countess charming and I believe that Sonya would be a wonderful match for a nice young American.” Her eyes glowed with the excitement of it. “Especially, a nice young American with political ambitions. My niece Julia married into the Romanian aristocracy, you know. I think it only fair that we should bring home a Russian bride!”

Julia was the daughter of Bertha’s sister, Ida, and the granddaughter of President Grant, as Ida had married the former president’s son Fred. Lacking any daughter of her own, Bertha was extremely fond of her niece. She’d told me that, since the young woman’s marriage, she sorely missed her company. And I even suspected that I myself benefited from that absence. Bertha yearned for a young girl to mother. It made me glad I had a daughter of my own, as well as two sons.

“That’s why you were disappointed Honoré left before they came?”

“Don’t you think it would be a wonderful match? Of course, I would never try to force the issue, but she’s a charming and beautiful young woman and he’s a carefree young man.”

“So nature might just take its course?”

“You never know.” She tapped her fingers on the desk. “And a young man needs a wife, if he’s going to start a political career.”

“A political career?”

“Alderman. He’ll be standing next year. Plans are underway.”

“Well, in that case, I’m sure he’ll win.”

“I certainly hope so. But can you imagine the impression he would make in Chicago with the daughter of a Russian count on his arm? The campaign will still take a lot of work, but I have the assurance of support. I was very disappointed with President McKinley. He promised Mr. Palmer an ambassadorship but never fulfilled that promise. I let him know exactly how disappointed Mr. Palmer was, so I expect a good deal of party support for Honoré.”

I suspected that Mr. Potter Palmer might not have been as disappointed as his wife when he was not named ambassador. But I certainly believed Honoré would have a great deal of support for his election. And he would have a hard time resisting the beautiful daughter of a Russian count, if his mother turned her attention to making their meeting inevitable. Few men could resist Bertha Palmer when she set her mind to something.

We spent the rest of the afternoon planning attacks in her other current battles. She was on the offensive to get more women appointed to the awards committees for the Exposition. In addition, she had succeeded in expanding the space for the United States exhibit and would meet with a committee to decide where the additional paintings by American artists would hang. Winslow Homer and Whistler would be prominently displayed in the fine arts exhibition in the Grand Palais. The United States was already well represented with paintings by those artists and others, such as Eakins and Sargent, but some lesser painters, whose work had not been accepted for the Grand Palais, still needed to be hung elsewhere. So Bertha had identified space in another pavilion. Negotiations were more often concluded in salons than committee meetings for this type of issue and, by nature of her connections and fluent French, Bertha had wangled invitations to the most useful of them. The French were charmed by the “Queen of Chicago,” despite the fact that they were originally dismayed by the appointment of a woman to the post of commissioner to the Exposition.

“Mary Cassatt will not be persuaded to act as a judge. And she refuses to submit her own work anymore. However, she may be persuaded to attend our little tête-à-tête with the young American artists.” It was one of the social engagements she had delegated to me to arrange. “But you must convince her to get M. Degas to come as well. She was his protégé for a long time, you know. They do have their little tiffs, these artists, and they are on the outs again. But I’m sure you can convince her to invite him, and they are such old comrades, I’m sure he’s just waiting for her to ask. She’ll be at the engagement party for M. Worth’s daughter. She has a swarm of relatives visiting from Philadelphia, but she wouldn’t miss it. Oh, and we all need to wear Worth. The man would be completely insulted if we appeared in anyone else’s designs.”

I looked at her with alarm. I certainly had nothing suitable among the dresses I’d brought to Paris, let alone a gown by Worth. I was looking forward to the day ensemble Mrs. Palmer had promised me, but a ball gown was a different matter altogether.