New York, 1925
It’s a very great pleasure to see you again, Mrs. Lockwood.” Beaumont L. Williams shook Bridie’s hand vigorously. “You look well, considering you have just endured a long and arduous journey across the sea.” He helped her out of her coat, then gestured to the leather chair in front of the fire and Bridie sat down, pulling her gloves off finger by finger. She swept her eyes around Beaumont Williams’s office, taking comfort from the familiar smell of it, for during the three years she had lived in New York, she had been a regular visitor to these premises. The aroma of cigar smoke, old leather, dusty books and Mr. Williams’s lime cologne gave her a much-longed-for sense of home. “I’m sorry the purchase of the castle wasn’t a success,” he said, his shrewd eyes twinkling behind his spectacles.
“It was an impulsive idea, Mr. Williams. I saw the article in the newspaper about Lord Deverill selling it and reacted without thinking it through. As it happens, someone else got to it first, but I’m not sorry. I have no desire to live in Ireland.”
“I’m very happy to hear that. Elaine and I are the winners then.” He settled into the chair opposite and crossed one leg over the other. The shiny buttons on his waistcoat strained over his round belly and he placed his pudgy hands over it, knitting his fingers.
“However,” she added ponderously, “continue to keep your ear to the ground. If it ever comes up for sale again, please let me know.”
“Of course I will, Mrs. Lockwood. As you are well aware, my ear is always to the ground.”
She laughed. “Indeed it is, Mr. Williams. Tell me, how is Elaine? I did miss her,” she said, her heart warming at the thought of her old friend.
“Longing to see you, Mrs. Lockwood,” he replied. “We didn’t think you’d be returning.”
“I didn’t think I would,” she replied truthfully. “Those Lockwoods chased me out of Manhattan but I won’t be cowed, Mr. Williams. New York is a big enough city for all of us to live together without having to see each other. I considered starting again in a new place, as you once suggested. But New York is all I know outside of Ireland, and I feel at home here. I don’t doubt you will find me a nice place to live and that Elaine and I will take up from where we left off and I will soon find friends.”
“And a new husband,” said Mr. Williams with a smile. “You’re young, and if I may say so, Mrs. Lockwood, a fine-looking woman too. You will have all the bachelors of Manhattan howling outside your door like a pack of wolves.”
“You make them sound terrifying, Mr. Williams,” she said, but her grin told him his flattery had pleased her.
“So, tell me, what made you change your mind and return?”
Bridie sighed, her narrow shoulders and chest rising and falling on her breath. For a moment Mr. Williams glimpsed the lost child beneath the woman’s fashionable hat and expensive clothes and he felt a surprising sense of pity, for he was not a man to be easily moved by the pathos of a woman. “Life is strange,” she said softly. “I came here as a penniless maid from a small town in the southwest of Ireland, worked for the formidable Mrs. Grimsby, who, by some God-given miracle, chose to leave me her fortune when she died, so that I became a very wealthy woman overnight. Then I married a gentleman, a grand old gentleman he was indeed, who gave me respectability and companionship. His children might have called me many things, but I am no gold digger, Mr. Williams, and never was. I wanted to be looked after, I wanted to feel safe and I wanted to banish the loneliness forever. Nothing more than that. I was a young girl in a foreign country with no one to look out for me. Indeed I have come a long way.” She dropped her gaze into the fire and the warm glow of the flames illuminated for a second a deep regret in her eyes. “I wanted things to return to the way they were, when I was a small, barefooted scarecrow of a girl with a grumbling belly but a home full of love.” She smiled wistfully, sinking into her memories while the crackling embers in the grate transported her back to a simpler time. “There was music and laughter and I was as much part of the place as Mam’s rocking chair or the big black bastible that hung over the turf fire full of parsnip soup. I’m not so naïve to have forgotten the hardship. The cold, the hunger and the sorrow.” She thought of her father then, murdered in broad daylight in the street by a tinker, and her heart contracted with guilt and pain, for if she hadn’t been with Kitty and Jack that day and discovered the tinkers poaching on Lord Deverill’s land, her father might still be alive, and who knew if she would ever have left Ireland then. “But I’d suffer all that again just for a taste of what it feels like to belong.” She dragged her gaze out of the fire and settled it on Mr. Williams who was listening with a grave and compassionate expression on his face. She smiled apologetically. “So, I realized I had to come back to the city that made me.”
He nodded and smiled. “This city might have turned you into the fine lady you are today, but you made yourself, Mrs. Lockwood, out of sheer strength of character and courage.”
“I’ve certainly come a long way on my own.”
“When you wired to tell me you were on your way I set about finding you somewhere to live. I have an apartment for you to look at, when you feel ready. Elaine will help you put together your household. I understand you returned without Rosetta?”
“Yes, indeed. I need a new maid as soon as possible.”
“Let’s dine tonight. Elaine is longing to see you. We’ll go out, somewhere buzzing. I hope you haven’t put away your dancing shoes?”
Bridie laughed, her anxieties about her future falling away in Beaumont Williams’s confident and capable hands. “Of course I haven’t, Mr. Williams. I will dust them off and take them out and see if they remember the Charleston!”
Bridie spent a fortnight at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel while Beaumont Williams arranged the rental of a spacious apartment on Park Avenue, which was a wide and elegant street a couple of blocks from Central Park, home to New York’s richest and most glamorous people. It felt good to be back in Manhattan. She liked the person she was here, in this faraway, vibrant city that seemed to reject the old and embrace the new in a thrilling tide of jazz, bright lights and wild parties. It was the era of Prohibition, all alcohol was banned, and yet you wouldn’t have known it. The drinking was just driven underground and it was in these murky speakeasies where bootlegged alcohol was drunk to the music of George Gershwin and Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith and Duke Ellington that Bridie could forget her past sorrows and dance until the skyline above New York blushed with the pink light of dawn. She could start afresh in the private parties on the Upper East Side where they would consume Orange Blossoms in crystal glasses and sweet-talk in dark corners, and Bridie could reinvent herself yet again, attracting a new crowd of friends who were as full of hedonistic fun as she was. Here, she was Bridget Lockwood, and the noise of the trucks, buses and automobiles, trolley cars, whistles and sirens, hoists and shovels, the clatter of feet treading the sidewalks, the singing in the music halls and the tap dancing in the theaters was so loud as to drown out the little voice that was Bridie Doyle, deep in her soul, calling her home. In the dazzling lights of Times Square she could forge a new happiness, one that came from champagne and shopping, spending money on fashionable clothes and cosmetics, and nights out at the new movie theaters. She embraced New York with a renewed fervor, determined never again to stumble back into her past.
Her apartment was light and airy thanks to its tall ceilings and large windows, and decorated in the opulent and highly fashionable art deco style. Shiny black-and-white marble floors, bold geometric wallpapers, silver and leather furnishings and mirrored surfaces gave the place a feeling of Hollywood glamour that Bridie relished. She felt she was in another world and it suited her perfectly. She gazed out of the window where modest black Fords motored up and down the street beside luxuriously painted Rolls-Royces and Duesenbergs in bright reds and greens, and noticed that there were precious few horses and carts in the city. In Ireland the horse was still the main form of transport and in the countryside very few people had a car. Everything in Manhattan seemed to belong to the future and she was thrilled to be part of this bright new world.
Elaine had found an Ecuadorian couple to work for her. The husband, called Manolo, would be chauffeur, and Imelda, his petite and quiet wife, would be her maid and housekeeper. Mr. Williams had helped her buy a car. She had chosen a sky-blue Winton, with a soft top, which could be pulled back in the summer, and plush leather seats. She was pleased with Manolo and Imelda because neither of them knew where she came from. They took her as they saw her, a wealthy young widow, and she was grateful for that. However, it wasn’t long before the infamous Mrs. Lockwood who had graced the society pages of the city’s magazines and newspapers only a few months before began to appear once again. But no one wanted to dwell on her past anymore; her rags-to-riches story was old news. They were now interested in the glamour of her clothes and the identity of the lucky men accompanying her out on the town.
“Oh do look, Bridget. There’s a photo of you,” trilled Elaine one morning, burying her head in the newspaper. “The delightful Mrs. Lockwood attends Noël Coward’s The Vortex in a sumptuous mink coat . . .”
“Don’t they have anything better to write about?” Bridie interrupted, secretly thrilled with the attention, for that photograph reinforced her sense of belonging.
“You’re a beautiful, rich widow, out on the tiles with a different man every night. You oughtn’t to be surprised.” Elaine tossed her blond curls and took a long drag on her Lucky Strike cigarette. “I’m glad you wore the dress with the fringe. You look swell, like a real flapper.”
“Rather a flapper than a vamp, Elaine,” she replied.
Elaine grinned at her over the top of the newspaper. “You’re not a vamp, sweetie, you’re just having fun. I watch you, being fawned over by the most handsome men in Manhattan, and sometimes wish I wasn’t married. Not that Beaumont isn’t everything a woman dreams of.” She gave a throaty laugh and Bridie laughed with her.
“Mr. Williams is distinguished,” Bridie told her, choosing her word carefully because Beaumont Williams was not a handsome man by anyone’s standards.
“Sometimes a girl wants a little more dazzle and a little less distinguished, if you know what I mean.” Elaine sighed and put down the paper. “A girl needs a bit of adventure, otherwise life can get boring and boredom is the enemy, don’t you think?”
“God save us from boredom,” Bridie agreed. She brushed a crumb off the lapel of her pink satin dressing gown. “Having nothing to do makes me think and thinking takes me to places I don’t want to go. How will we keep ourselves entertained this weekend, Elaine?”
“Beaumont has suggested I take you to Southampton. The Reynoldses are giving a Christmas party on Saturday night that promises to be one of the most lavish of the year. They’re very keen for you to come. You add a bit of mystery—”
“And scandal, most likely,” Bridie interrupted. “Some people have long memories in this town.”
“Not Marigold and Darcy Reynolds. They’re great people collectors. Anyone who is anyone will be there, you can be sure of that. We have a modest beach house in Sag Harbor, which we close during the wintertime, but we can stay there.” Elaine looked shifty. “Beaumont can’t come. Business, you know.” She shrugged. “Too bad. We can drive out together, just the two of us. It’ll be the bee’s knees. What do you say?”
Bridie had inherited Mrs. Grimsby’s luxurious pink chateau-style house in the Hamptons, but on the advice of her husband, Walter Lockwood, she had sold it. She hadn’t been back since. She remembered gazing out of the window onto the long white beach and the frustration she had felt at not being allowed out to enjoy it. Mrs. Grimsby had been very demanding. Then, after the old woman died, she had finally taken a long walk up the sand. It was on that stroll, with the waves softly lapping at the shore and the glittering light bouncing off the waves, that she had realized she would miss her. She still did sometimes. Mrs. Grimsby’s autocracy had given Bridie the greatest sense of security she had had since leaving Ballinakelly pregnant and afraid, and the hard work—and hard it certainly was—had given her a refuge from her pain. “I should like that very much,” said Bridie.
On Saturday morning Bridie set off for Southampton in her new blue motor car with Elaine, who had persuaded Bridie that it would be much more fun without Manolo and was sitting confidently behind the wheel. The roof was down and they were wrapped in furs, gloves, hats and scarves to ward off the cold and chatting merrily as they jostled for position among the traffic making its way out of the city for the weekend. It was a crisp winter morning. The sky above Manhattan was a bright cerulean blue, full of optimism and free of cares. The sun hung low over the Hudson, caressing the ripples on the water with fickle kisses, and turning the rising new skyscrapers orange. As they drove over the Brooklyn Bridge Elaine broke into the song “Tea for Two” from the musical No, No, Nanette, which had appeared on Broadway that year and got everyone toe-tapping to the catchy tunes. Bridie joined in, although she didn’t know all the words, and smiled coyly at the admiring men who glanced at them from the passing cars while their wives weren’t looking.
As they left the city giant billboards lined the route, advertising cars, cigarettes and the new Atwater Kent radio set, which Elaine had insisted Bridie buy because it was all the rage. Beautiful faces smiled out from these posters, twenty feet tall, promising pleasure, glamour and happiness, and Bridie, who had bought into that world of material immoderation, delighted at being a part of it. Hers was the pretty smile in the advertisement and hers was the glossy existence behind it. Together, she and Elaine were wild, carefree and liberated, popular, fashionable and blithe.
The highway soon left the city behind and the concrete and brick gave way to fields and woodland, farm buildings and dwellings. Winter had robbed the countryside of its summer foliage and the trees were bare and frozen, their gnarled and twisted branches naked to the winds and rain that swept in off the sea. The young women sang to keep warm, their breath forming icy clouds on the air. It was late afternoon when they reached Elaine’s house, which was a white cottage made of clapboard with a weathered gray shingled roof and a veranda overlooking the water. “Beaumont bought this as a young man and even though he has the dough to upgrade, he insists on keeping it. Surprisingly sentimental, don’t you think?” said Elaine, drawing up outside.
“I think it’s charming,” Bridie replied, keen to get inside and warm up.
“Connie should have prepared it for us. Let’s go and see.” But before she reached the steps up to the front door, a stout little woman no more than five feet tall opened it and the welcoming smell of burning wood greeted them with the promise of hot food and comfort.
Preparing for a party is often more thrilling than the party itself. While one can’t predict whether the evening will be a success or a failure, at least one can assure that the two hours or so it takes to get ready are exciting in themselves. With this in mind Elaine and Bridie laced their orange juice with gin, listened to jazz on the gramophone and danced around Elaine’s bedroom in satin slips and stockings as they curled their hair and applied their makeup. Connie, who was originally from Mexico, pressed the creases out of their dresses and brushed the scuff from their dancing shoes, muttering to herself in Spanish that no good would come of two young women going off to a party without the presence of men to escort them. But she waved them off with a smile, if not a little warning shake of her head, then retreated inside to tidy up the great mess the two of them had made of the main bedroom.
The Reynoldses’ grand Italianate mansion, set in sumptuous grounds overlooking the beach in Southampton, was famous for its spectacular ballroom, baronial-style fireplaces and elaborate gardens. Darcy Reynolds had made his fortune on Wall Street. His motto seemed to be, “No point earning it if you can’t show it off.” So the mansion, or “summer cottage” as the family referred to it, heaved with entertainments during the summer months and usually fell silent directly after the first frost. This winter, however, was Darcy’s fiftieth birthday, and he had decided to celebrate with a lavish Christmas party, the like of which had never been seen on Long Island.
Bridie and Elaine were immediately struck by the lights. It looked like the entire building had been covered in stars, which shone so brightly they almost eclipsed the full moon that glowed like a large silver dollar above the towering ornate chimneys. The central piece of the circular entrance was an impressive gilded staircase that swept up in two curving flights meeting on a landing in front of a wide arched window before parting again. A dazzling crystal chandelier hung above Bridie’s head and she couldn’t help but remember Castle Deverill and the preparations for the Summer Ball, when the servants would help take down the chandeliers in the ballroom and lay out every little piece of glass on a vast cloth on the floor in order to polish them until they shone like diamonds.
At the far end of the ballroom a jazz band of black musicians led by Fletcher Henderson was positioned on a stage and their energizing music echoed off the walls. The floor was already crowded with fashionable people drinking champagne from crystal flutes and cocktails from slim-stemmed glasses. There were martinis and cosmopolitans and cherries on sticks, and no one gave a thought to Prohibition; if anything, it made the party all the more exiting. Some of the revelers had already begun to dance. Women with feathers and headbands, strings of beads and pearls, fringes and tassels, short dresses, short hair and short attention spans were like exotic birds among the men in bow ties and slicked-back hair. Laughter and conversation rose above the sound of brass and drum and Bridie and Elaine threw themselves into the thick of it. It seemed to Bridie that Elaine knew everyone, but it soon transpired that most people had already heard of the infamous Mrs. Lockwood. It wasn’t long before they had glasses of champagne and a crowd around them of admiring suitors all vying for a dance.
“Look, darling, there’s Noël Coward talking to Gertrude Lawrence and Constance Carpenter. I wonder what they’re plotting?” said Elaine, gazing at the famous English playwright and actresses with curiosity. “Wouldn’t you just love to be able to eavesdrop on their conversation?”
“I only have eyes for the luscious Mrs. Lockwood,” said a young man who had introduced himself as Frank Linden.
Bridie gave him a quizzical smile. “You’re presumptuous,” she said tartly.
“How so? Is it so wrong to tell a woman she’s a doll?” he replied. He watched her blush, then added, “Dance with me?”
She let her eyes wander over the dancers. Everyone looked as if they were having the most wonderful time. “All right,” she replied, handing Elaine her empty champagne flute.
Frank took her hand and threaded through the crowd into the middle of the throng just as the band started to play “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby.” A roar went up and a great surge of people flooded the dance floor. Bridie was good at dancing. Ever since she had been swung around the kitchen by her father in Ballinakelly she had loved moving to music. There was nothing more exciting than jazz and she danced energetically while Frank gazed at her with admiration.
Dinner was a banquet of mouthwatering dishes, each one more beautifully presented than the last. Bridie drank more champagne—she had lost count of just how many times her glass had been refilled—and sat down to eat at a round table with Frank, Elaine and a small group of Elaine’s friends. She noticed that Elaine was tipsier than usual, flirting outrageously with a young man in a white tuxedo called Donald Shaw, patting his chest with a limp hand and laughing her throaty laugh at everything he said. Her headband had slipped on one side, almost over her left eye, and her kohl had smudged a little, giving her a decadent look. Bridie was glad Mr. Williams was not present to witness it. But she was too drunk on excitement and dizzy with champagne bubbles to worry about Elaine.
It was very hot in the ballroom. The music vibrated in her ears, the alcohol made her drowsy and the sheer delight of being part of such a fashionable crowd gave her a heady sense of omnipotence. So when Frank Linden took her by the hand and led her up the stairs to find a quiet room where they would not be disturbed, she happily obliged. In the darkness of one of the guest bedrooms he pressed her against the wall and kissed her. It felt good to receive the attentions of a man again and she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back. She closed her eyes and felt the room pleasantly spin.
When she opened them again she was lying on the bed in her underwear and Frank Linden’s hand was beneath her slip and caressing her breast. She was too sleepy to do anything about it and besides, the sensual feeling it gave her made her writhe in pleasure like a cat. A low moan escaped her throat and Frank, taking that as a sign of encouragement, slid his hand onto her inner thigh where it lingered for a moment, tentatively teasing. As Bridie didn’t protest, rather her staggered breath and soft sighs left him in no doubt that she was willing, he slowly and gently moved his hand north, until it glided over her skin, under her silk panties, and on up her thigh until it could go no farther. Bridie widened her legs with abandon. Her moaning grew into gasps and sighs as she allowed the delicious warmth to spread into her belly.
When she awoke, Frank was lying asleep beside her. She could hear the music coming from downstairs, but it was slow and mellow, and a woman was singing. She climbed off the bed without waking him and fumbled about for her clothes. Once she was dressed she turned the brass doorknob as quietly as she could and slipped into the corridor. As she stepped onto the landing, Elaine was sitting on the top stair, smoking a cigarette. Bridie sat down beside her. “You all right?” she asked.
“Does petting count as infidelity?” Elaine asked in a dull voice.
“I think Mr. Williams would count it.”
“Then I’ve just broken one of the Ten Commandments.” She turned to Bridie and her big blue eyes shone. “Didn’t I say a girl needs a little adventure from time to time?”
“I think we should go home now,” said Bridie.
“You’re right. I’ve had enough adventure for one night.” Elaine narrowed her eyes. “Where’s Frank?”
“Asleep.”
Elaine gasped. “You didn’t!”
“I have no one to betray,” Bridie retorted with a shrug. “Adventures are essential for a young widow like me, are they not?”
“Are you going to see him again?”
Bridie shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
“Just a bit of fun.”
“Yes, tonight I discovered how a girl can have fun without . . . complications.” She wished she had known that when she had been a maid at Castle Deverill.
Elaine smiled drunkenly. “I could have told you that, Bridget.”
“Are you good to drive?” Bridie asked, knowing that she wasn’t.
Elaine grabbed the banister and pulled herself onto her feet. “Never been better,” she giggled.
The two women linked arms and began to slowly and unsteadily descend the grand staircase. “God bless America,” said Bridie, for she truly believed that America had given her a second chance.
Elaine squeezed her friend’s arm. “God bless us,” she said.