Connecticut, 1938
I won’t wear that dress, do you hear!” shouted Edith, stamping her foot.
“Edith dear, Grandma bought it for you and brought it all the way back from Paris so you will wear it,” said Mrs. Goodwin patiently. “It’s Christmas Day. Let’s not fight on Jesus’ birthday.”
“I don’t care who gave it to me and I don’t care that it’s Jesus’ birthday. I hate it. I won’t wear it. You can’t make me!” Edith glared at her sister, who had appeared in the doorway in an elegant blue dress with grown-up shoes and stockings, her hair pinned and curled in the sophisticated fashion of the day. “What are you looking at, Martha?” she raged. “Why can’t I have a dress like hers, Goodwin?”
“Because you’re ten and Martha is almost seventeen,” the nanny replied. “When you’re seventeen you will have dresses like Martha’s.”
Edith sat on the edge of her bed and folded her arms. “I will not wear this stupid dress.” She clenched her jaw and no amount of coercing could induce her to put on the dress.
At last Mrs. Goodwin gave up. “I’ll go and tell your mother.”
Edith smiled. “You do that, Goodwin. Mama won’t make me wear it. She’ll let me wear whatever I want.”
But today was not just any day. It was Christmas Day and lunch at Ted and Diana Wallace’s house was a large family affair. Pam was mindful of her mother-in-law’s warning, that if she didn’t discipline Edith, the child would grow into a monstrous adult, and she was desperate for her approval—especially as Joan and Dorothy’s children were considered “delightful” and “good.” It was ironic that the adopted child whom she had worried might never fit into the Wallace family clan was Diana Wallace’s favorite grandchild and a paragon of good manners and gentle character, while her natural child who carried the blood of the Wallaces in her veins was Diana Wallace’s least favorite grandchild and the family nuisance. Today was the one day of the year when Edith had to do as she was told. Pam was adamant. Edith had to wear Grandma’s dress, no matter what.
When Edith heard what her mother had said she could not believe it. She jumped off the bed and marched down the corridor to her mother’s room, where Pam was sitting at her dressing table clipping diamond earrings onto her ears. In the mirror Pam saw the furious figure of her youngest child standing in the doorway in her underwear and turned around. “Darling, don’t look at me like that. Your grandmother gifted you the dress for today so you have no choice but to wear it.”
Edith started to cry. She ran to her mother and flung her arms around her. “But I hate it,” she wailed.
Pam kissed the top of her head. “How about we go shopping and find you a dress you do like.”
“Now?” asked Edith, cheering up.
“Of course not, darling. The shops are closed at Christmas. When they open again it’s the first thing we’ll do.”
Edith pushed herself away and stuck out her bottom lip. “But I want a new dress now!”
“Edith, you’re behaving like a spoiled child. Pull yourself together.” Pam was pleased she was asserting control.
Edith stared at her mother in horror. “You don’t love me anymore,” she sobbed. The other two tacks hadn’t worked, so perhaps self-pity would.
But Pam was having none of it. Today her girls had to be on their best behavior, come what may. Grandma Wallace had given Edith the dress, which was very pretty, and Pam was not about to offend her by bringing Edith to lunch in a different one. “Edith, go to your room and put on the dress or, I promise you, there will be no presents for you this Christmas.”
“You hate me!” Edith shouted, bolting for the door. “And I hate you!”
Pam turned back to the mirror. Her face was very pale and her eyes shone. She wanted more than anything to burn the stupid dress and let Edith wear one of her own, but she couldn’t. How she resented Diana Wallace. She wiped away a tear with a tremulous finger, then patted the skin around her eyes with a fluffy powder puff.
Edith wore the dress but she didn’t smile and she barely spoke as she sat in the back of the car gazing out of the window at the snowy gardens and frosted houses. She wanted to punish them all for her misery, especially her mother. You’re gonna wish you hadn’t made me wear it, she thought spitefully. The fact that Martha looked so pretty and behaved so beautifully made her all the more furious.
Pam and Larry were the last to arrive. Larry’s brothers, Stephen and Charles, were already there with their wives, Dorothy and Joan. Their children, all grown up now, were among them, dressed impeccably in suits and ties and tidy frocks. Pam was acutely aware of Edith, who hadn’t said a word since they’d left the house. Her face was gray with fury, her lips squeezed tightly shut; she was making no secret of the fact that she was furious. Pam overcompensated, greeting everyone enthusiastically, while Larry carried in the bag of gifts to place beneath the tree. “Oh Edith, you’re wearing the dress I bought you,” said Diana, running her eyes up and down with approval. Edith didn’t even attempt a smile.
“It’s so pretty, Ma,” Pam jumped in. “You’re so clever to find it. Green is a lovely color for Edith.”
Diana smiled at her youngest grandchild. She had registered her silent protest and chosen to ignore it. She turned her attention to Martha. “My darling child, you look beautiful. You’re growing up so fast. Come and sit next to me so I can look at you properly. Is that a new dress? It’s mighty grown-up, but I suppose you are about to turn seventeen. How time flies.” Martha knelt on the floor beside her grandmother’s armchair while Edith, encouraged by a gentle push from her mother, shuffled off to help her father put the presents under the tree. The conversation resumed and Edith’s rudeness seemed all but forgotten. Joan, however, watched Edith carelessly throwing the brightly wrapped gifts onto the floor and narrowed her eyes. She had always thought that Martha would be the one to give Pam trouble but it had turned out to be Edith. She grinned into her champagne flute. Diana Wallace was a woman for whom good manners were paramount. She despised ill-disciplined people and uncivilized children. Joan looked proudly on her own children and decided that Edith’s bad character had little to do with nature and everything to do with nurture. Pam had raised Martha to be a Wallace with obvious success, but she had neglected Edith because she had expected her breeding to do it for her; it hadn’t.
After lunch everyone opened their gifts. The room filled with smoke as the men lit cigars and the women cigarettes. Edith seemed unhappy with all of her gifts. She was determined to ruin everyone’s day, even if it meant making hers considerably worse. When Joan gave her an exquisite sewing basket with miniature cotton reels tucked into their own little slots she threw it on the floor and folded her arms. “I hate sewing,” she snapped. “That’s the sort of thing Martha would like.”
Pam noticed her mother-in-law’s appalled face and hurried to reprimand her child. “If you cannot behave you might as well leave the room,” she said, although it pained her to raise her voice at Edith.
Edith, humiliated in front of the entire family, ran out of the room in tears.
“I’m sorry,” said Pam with a heavy sigh. “I don’t know what’s got into her today.”
“Come here, Pam,” said Larry, patting the sofa beside him. “She’ll grow out of it. She’s just going through a difficult stage.”
“This difficult stage has been going on for some time,” said Diana drily. “I suggest you employ a strict English governess. Goodwin is much too gentle. It’s time she retired, don’t you think?”
“Mother has a point,” said Larry, puffing on his cigar.
“Martha will be terribly upset to lose Goodwin,” said Pam.
“Then why not send the two of them to London together. Martha should see a bit of the world. She should go on a tour.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Mother. Europe looks like it’s sliding back into another war.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Larry. There’s not going to be another war. No one wants a repeat of the Great War. They’ll do anything they can to avoid it. Life must go on. Really, I was in Paris in the fall and I felt quite safe.”
Ted, who was standing in front of the fireplace with Stephen and Charles, joined in the conversation. “The threat to peace is from dictatorships,” he said emphatically, puffing on his cigar. “We Americans might be neutral but we need to be more involved in Europe in order to avoid another war . . .”
Joan wandered into the hall. She heard sniveling coming from the top of the stairs. There, sitting on the landing, was Edith. Joan carried her ashtray up the stairs and sat beside her niece. She put the cigarette between her scarlet lips and inhaled. Edith stopped crying and looked at Joan suspiciously. “I’m sorry I gave you a sewing basket. I thought it was darling.” She looked down at the child’s tear-stained face. “But it isn’t really about the sewing basket, is it? What’s it about then?”
“Mother made me wear this horrible dress.”
“Don’t you like it?”
“It’s ugly.”
“Ma gave it to you so you had to wear it whether you liked it or not. You know, when I was a child, I never had any say over what I wore. Right up until I was sixteen. My mother chose everything and I obeyed. Children were more obedient in those days.”
“Mother hates me,” said Edith. She started crying again.
Joan flicked ash into the little tray. Her nails were very long and painted a glossy scarlet like her lips. “Your mother doesn’t hate you, Edith. That’s absurd.”
“She does. She prefers Martha. Martha does everything right and never gets into trouble. Martha is perfect.”
“Well, she certainly behaves well.”
“Mother prefers her to me.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“It is. If she loved me she wouldn’t have made me wear this horrid dress.”
“Love has nothing to do with dresses, Edith. She had to make you wear it otherwise she would have upset Ma, who bought it for you.”
“Mother doesn’t want me. She only wants Martha,” said Edith, realizing that with Aunt Joan self-pity would guarantee her lots of attention.
“Your mother wanted you so badly,” said Joan. “She longed for you from the moment she married your father, but you took a long time in coming.”
“She had Martha,” said Edith bitterly.
“But she wanted you.”
Edith frowned. “She didn’t know me, Aunt Joan.”
Joan examined her nails and considered the secret she was about to spill. She knew she shouldn’t and she was well aware that if she was caught she would be in a great deal of trouble, but the child was gazing up at her with big shiny eyes and there was something inside Joan that wanted to help her—at the expense of Martha, who was so perfect and beloved and irritating. “Shall I tell you a secret?” she said. Edith sniffed the gravity of this secret like a hound sniffing blood and stopped crying. She gazed at her aunt, barely daring to breathe. She nodded. “But you have to promise not to tell anyone, ever. This is between you and me, Edith.”
“I promise,” said Edith, who at that point would have promised the world.
“Let’s shake on it, then.” Joan held out her hand. Edith shook it. Joan stubbed out her cigarette. The rumble of voices from the drawing room downstairs receded as Joan leaned in closer to her niece. “Martha is adopted,” she said. There, it was done. Those words had been released and they could never be recovered. Edith stared up at her in amazement. “It’s true. Your parents couldn’t have children so they went to Ireland and bought one. You see, they wanted a baby very badly. So badly that they were willing to buy someone else’s. Then, years later, by some miracle, God granted them one of their own and you were born. You see, my darling, you might think they don’t love you as much as Martha, but the truth is they love you more than her because you belong to them in a way that she never will.”
At that moment their conversation was cut short by Pam, who appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “There you are,” she said, throwing her gaze onto the landing where Edith and Joan sat huddled together like a pair of conspirators. Edith, so overwhelmed by the secret, ran down the steps and into her mother’s arms. “I’m sorry, Mother. I promise to be good from now on,” she said and Pam frowned up at Joan. Joan shrugged and pulled a face, feigning ignorance. Relieved that Edith had cheered up, Pam mouthed a “Thank you” at Joan and took Edith back into the drawing room.
The transformation in Edith was instant. She was polite, charming and obedient. Pam was astounded and asked Joan what she had said to her at the top of the stairs, but Joan pretended that she had simply told her that life was easier if one did as one was told. For the first time since joining the Wallace family Pam felt warmly toward her sister-in-law. “You have a magic touch,” she said.
“Really, it was nothing. She’s a good girl at heart,” Joan replied, which made Pam even more grateful. But Edith was bursting to tell the secret. She returned home at the end of the day with a smug smile on her face and a feeling of the deepest satisfaction in her heart. Every time she looked at her sister she could barely contain the information that was making her feel so superior and had to bite her tongue to stop it from slipping off. But slip off it did, because Edith was not only bad at keeping secrets, as are most ten-year-olds, but she wanted to wound. The darkness in her nature, born out of a sense of inadequacy, compelled her to continually search for the higher ground, and when it came to Martha, the only way to achieve any advantage was by pulling her sister down. Edith had no idea how far down the secret would drag her.
It didn’t take long for Martha to strike the match that started the fire. Edith goaded her on purpose until Martha rolled her eyes and snapped at her, at which point Edith raised herself to her full height and out it came. Gleeful, Edith told Martha that she didn’t really belong to their mother because she was adopted. At first Martha didn’t believe her. “Don’t be ridiculous, Edith,” she said. “Why don’t you go and find something to do instead of picking fights with me.”
“Oh it’s true,” Edith insisted. “Aunt Joan told me.”
That got Martha’s attention. “Aunt Joan told you?” she asked, suddenly feeling less secure.
“Yes, she did, and she made me promise not to tell anyone.”
“So why have you told me?”
“Because you should know. Mother and Father aren’t really yours. They’re mine though. Aunt Joan told me that they wanted me so badly and were so sad that they couldn’t have me that they bought you. Then they had me. It was a miracle,” she said with delight. “I was a miracle.”
Martha’s eyes filled with tears. “You’re making all this up.”
“No, I’m not. You came from a shop.”
Martha shook her head and left the room, fighting tears. She ran into the snowy garden and sat on the bench beneath a cherry tree where she could cry alone. If it was true and she was adopted why hadn’t her parents ever told her? Why did Aunt Joan decide to tell Edith? Why would anybody confide in a ten-year-old? If it wasn’t true, why would Aunt Joan say such a spiteful thing? Martha sat on the bench and explored all the alternatives. She tried to take herself back into her childhood and remember anything that might corroborate Edith’s tale but there was nothing that gave her adoption away. She knew she looked like her mother, everyone said so, and neither parent had ever made her feel less important than Edith. There was only one person she could ask.
Martha found Mrs. Goodwin in the nursery sitting room ironing a basket of clothes. When Mrs. Goodwin saw Martha’s tear-stained face she put down the iron. Martha closed the door behind her. “Where’s Edith?” Mrs. Goodwin asked.
“In her room I presume, where I left her.”
“Are you all right, my dear? Is she being difficult again?”
Martha stood in front of the door looking uncertain. “Mrs. Goodwin, I need to ask you something and you must tell me the truth.”
Mrs. Goodwin felt a sinking sensation and sat down on the arm of the chair. “All right,” she replied nervously. “I will tell you the truth.”
“Am I adopted?”
The old nanny’s mouth opened in a silent gasp. Her skin flushed and she shook her head vigorously, not to deny the statement but to get rid of it. But the secret was out and no amount of shaking her head would expunge it. “Martha dear, come and sit down,” she said, aware that her eyes were stinging with tears.
Martha began to cry. She put her hand to her mouth and choked. “I thought Edith was lying . . .”
Mrs. Goodwin did not wait for Martha to sit with her. She hurried and pulled her into her arms, holding her fiercely. “My darling child, it doesn’t mean that your parents don’t love you. In fact it means quite the opposite. It means they wanted you so badly they were prepared to travel the world to find you.”
“But where’s my real mother?”
“It doesn’t matter where she is. She’s irrelevant. Pam is the woman who has loved you and taken care of you since you were a tiny baby. She was so happy when she found you in that convent in Ireland, they both were. It was as if they fell in love.”
“She didn’t want me then? My real mother.”
“Your biological mother is the woman who gave birth to you but she’s not the woman who has loved you and—”
“But she obviously didn’t want me, Goodwin. She gave me away.”
“You don’t know the facts. I think it’s much more likely that she was a young unmarried woman who got into trouble.”
Martha pulled away and searched her old friend’s eyes. “Why has no one ever told me?”
“Because it’s irrelevant. You’re a Wallace and a Tobin, Martha.” Mrs. Goodwin’s face hardened. “Did Edith tell you?” Martha nodded. “How does she know? Surely your mother wouldn’t have told her.”
“Aunt Joan told her.”
Mrs. Goodwin was horrified. “Now why would she go and do that?”
“I don’t know.” Martha went and sat down on the sofa and hugged herself. “I feel sick, Goodwin. I think I’m going to throw up.”
Mrs. Goodwin hurried for the wash bowl. She returned a moment later and put it on Martha’s lap. “Breathe, darling. Take deep breaths and you’ll feel better. It’s the shock.” Indeed, Martha had gone very white. “Your parents didn’t want you to know because they didn’t want you to suffer as you are suffering now. I can’t believe Joan would be so thoughtless. How can she expect a ten-year-old child to keep a secret such as this? What was she thinking? Your mother will be furious when she finds out.”
“She’s not going to find out,” said Martha quickly. “I’m clearly not meant to know and I don’t want to upset her or Father. Edith couldn’t have known what she was doing,” she added and Mrs. Goodwin’s heart expanded at the goodness in Martha, for even when faced with enough evidence to condemn her sister, she chose to excuse her of any blame.
“Edith knew exactly what she was doing,” said Mrs. Goodwin in an uncharacteristic outburst of vitriol. “That’s why she told you.”