We met Winnie Davis for the first time twelve years ago, at a party in Syracuse. My husband and I arrived a bit tardily and were informed by the host, “Our young friend from Mississippi is in the side parlor. She speaks fluent French and German, plays the piano on an artistic level, publishes literary works of remarkable erudition, and paints delightful landscapes.”
Preoccupied as usual with his health and business concerns, Joseph had no idea who the guest of honor was. Perhaps I had neglected to tell him there was one. “With all those accomplishments, the miss from Mississippi should make a fine governess,” he said grumpily as I led him toward the oval-faced girl who sat like a princess in an appropriately gilded chair. Winnie projects great physical charm. She has excellent posture and a rather athletic build. Taller than most women, she can meet a man’s gaze on his level, although I am not sure that is an advantage for either, since she won’t be deferential to him. Her face just misses being beautiful. Those large pewter-colored eyes are the best feature, and the symmetry is arresting; she has her father’s patrician cheekbones. I especially approved of her gown in a rather daring shade of apricot that brought out the slightly golden cast of her complexion. I later learned the fabric had been a gift to her mother, who had it made up by one of those seamstresses who travel from house to house. Upper-class Southern women in reduced circumstances have a knack for making do in matters of style so that they and their daughters are never embarrassed by or feel they must apologize for their appearance.
I was happy to see Alfred Wilkinson, a personable young attorney whose family has been prominent in Syracuse since that city’s founding, was keeping her company. “Good evening, Fred,” I said. He bowed, having stood and all but clicked his heels together the moment he saw us approach. In the introduction, he cited her as “Miss Varina Anne Davis, who prefers to be called Winnie.”
“What a charming nickname,” I said, trying not to wince as she shook my hand with unnecessary firmness.
“Thank you.” At least, she didn’t talk like a man. Her voice was soft and melodious, and not particularly Southern in inflection. “According to my father, Winnie is an Indian word for ‘bright and sunny.’ He hoped it would guarantee me a happy disposition.”
“And of course it did.”
“Not entirely. I’m prone to occasional spells of gloom.” The shadow that flickered across her face was quickly dispelled by a smile.
“Who is your father?” Joseph asked, despite my having reminded him, just before we arrived, not to press people he’s barely met about their credentials.
“Jefferson Davis, sir, of Mississippi.” She looked as if she expected to be reprimanded.
He beamed and clasped her hands so firmly I feared he might swing her about. “The President of the Southern Confederacy! You are that remarkable man’s daughter?”
“Yes, Mr. Pulitzer.”
“Please call me Joseph. And of course my youthful Kate will not have you calling her Mrs. or Madam. My dear, I have long admired your eminent father and look forward to making his acquaintance on my next journey South.”
There are times when I find myself figuratively sweeping up after my husband, but this was not one of them. I was especially proud of his kindness toward Winnie when I learned she had received less than gracious reception at an event the previous evening. There was no evidence of hostility at this affair, where most if not all the invited were aware that our hosts, Dr. Thomas Emory and his wife, had strong ties to the Jefferson Davises. Tom Emory’s father and Mr. Davis had been classmates at West Point. During the War Between the States, the family allegiances were divided: General William Emory served in the Union Army; his son Tom, who was a student at the University of Virginia when that state seceded, joined the Army of the Confederacy. General Emory’s wife, a great-granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin, and Mrs. Davis were close friends in Washington when Mr. Davis was in the Senate, and also when he was a member of President Pierce’s cabinet.
Winnie behaved with perfect decorum. She knew how to hold more than one man’s attention at a time without making a spectacle of herself. She did not allow Fred Wilkinson to monopolize her that evening, although she encouraged him with the wiles of a natural belle: Her gloved hand would alight briefly on his arm; she would put a question to him and give him her full concentration as he answered. Joseph formed a different impression. If he had judged her to be even slightly a femme fatale who knew how to manipulate a man to advance her own purposes, he would not have said to me, just after we took our leave that evening, that I should cultivate Miss Winnie Davis as a matter of family courtesy.
“Family courtesy?” I repeated. “I don’t believe I’ve heard that expression before.” My Hungarian-bred husband, who learned English after he arrived in America at the age of seventeen, would rather invent an idiom than search for one.
“She shares your maiden name. As your blood kin, she is entitled to your patronage and affection.”
I had a vision of hundreds of children peeping out of mountain cabins, claiming to be my cousins. “I don’t believe I have heard my father mention a family connection to Mr. Jefferson Davis.”
“However, as the judge is a native of the Commonwealth of Virginia, he would not object to having the Rebel chief as a relative, would he?”
The notion did seem interesting. “Darling, I shall do my best to see Winnie again before she leaves the vicinity and assure her that we are utterly at her disposal.”
Joseph kissed my chin quite thoroughly, although he had aimed for my mouth. “I am drawn to the plight of this young lady,” he said. “Even with my poor eyes, I can see a desperation in hers. I hope she is spirited enough to transcend the tragedy she was born into. I should like her to know we are available to come to her aid whenever and however she might need us.”
The next day, I sent orchids to Winnie Davis with an invitation to tea, which she accepted by messengered note. I could tell she was pleased that there would be just the two of us. It was also obvious that she could become as engrossed in conversation with another woman as with someone of the opposite sex. The interchange had hardly begun when I intuitively knew we would become true friends who would never be rivals. As I drew her out on a variety of subjects, she responded thoughtfully, but not as though she were trying to impress me. The single off-putting thing about Winnie, I soon discovered, was that any chair she sat upon became a throne, no matter how ordinary her attire or how helter-skelter her hair might appear. When I met her mother, who could be a twin to Queen Victoria, and her father, who brought to mind a picture-book illustration of the legendary King Arthur, I realized Winnie came by the regal posturing naturally.
During that tête-à-tête at our residence on Thirty-fifth Street, she spoke little about her life abroad as a young girl, but enough to let me know that she had relished a summer in Paris after several years at a Protestant boarding school in Germany. Later, in an article for the Ladies’ Home Journal, she would write forcefully about the deleterious effects of foreign education on young girls.
Perhaps Winnie seemed to take to me immediately because I am near the age of her only sister, Maggie Hayes, whom she does not get to see as often as she would like. When Maggie and her husband lived in Memphis, they and their children visited frequently at Beauvoir. Although Mrs. Davis claims the move to Colorado Springs was due to her son-in-law’s weak lungs, I suspect Addison Hayes wanted to be his own man, which must have been difficult while he lived within convenient proximity of in-laws who were used to having people at their beck and call.
As we were getting to know each other, when Winnie remarked that most young women of her acquaintance were superficial and flighty, I confessed, “Except for the young part, you’ve just summed me up. I cannot think of a single thing I’ve ever been serious about. I do not have a talent for any of the arts.”
She said, “You have cultivated the art of being pleasant. You radiate goodwill, Kate. People can’t help but find pleasure in your company.”
“Heavens. That’s the nicest accolade I’ve ever had from one of my own gender.” After I realized it would never occur to her to play up to anyone, I valued the compliment even more. Although she graciously accepts items from my wardrobe, Winnie refuses to let me treat her to a new garment or bauble. She does not share my obsession with fashion and adornment, and she’s aware that the allowance Joseph keeps me on does not always cover my extravagant impulses.
Soon after we became acquainted with Winnie, a correspondence ensued between Joseph and her parents, in which Mrs. Davis participated with enthusiasm. My husband was impressed by the woman’s vigorous intellect, and after he came to know her, by a personality as forceful and flamboyant as his own. The meeting took place in January 1888, when Joseph routed us to California through New Orleans. “There we will take a detour to a Mississippi village called Biloxi, which is near the Davis estate,” he announced, when he informed me of the plans to cross the country by private train. To accommodate the Davises and their frequent visitors, the Louisville & Nashville Railroad had installed a section of track with a flag stop along the backside of their property. It was not unusual for visitors to find their hosts seated on a fallen tree trunk, awaiting their arrival. Shortly before we were due to arrive at the Davises’ picturesque, rather dilapidated house-by-the-sea, I reminded Joseph again that we must not mention Fred Wilkinson, as Winnie had not yet informed her parents of the romance that had flourished through correspondence and her visits to New York.
While she was our houseguest the previous August, we did everything we could think of to fan the flame. Joseph was convinced an alliance between the President of the Confederacy’s daughter and the grandson of the celebrated New Englander Samuel May, a founder of the American Abolitionist Society and an associate of Emerson, Longfellow, and Lowell, would help put to rest the still-smoldering hostility between North and South. As a new arrival to this country during the last year of the War, my husband had served in the back ranks of the Union Army’s First New York Lincoln Cavalry, which took part in General William Tecumseh Sherman’s infamous path of destruction through Georgia and other Southern states. Joseph does not talk about his military experiences, but over the years following the conflict, he developed great respect and empathy for Jefferson Davis, the South’s standard-bearer. By the time they met, each was almost blind in one eye.
Winnie’s father is a sacred symbol for devotees of the Lost Cause, but he’s also been the subject of some rascally rumors, not all of which originated in the North. One is that he seduced Mrs. Sarah Dorsey, a well-to-do widow who died of cancer (he was at her bedside in the New Orleans hospital), into bequeathing to him her entire estate, including land in Louisiana and Arkansas as well as the oceanfront acreage in Mississippi. Mrs. Davis told my husband the former properties had been entailed by mortgages and the latter, which President Davis subsequently left in his will to Winnie, had become an albatross. According to her mother, Winnie has turned down an offer of $90,000 for Beauvoir, because the prospective buyers would have made a resort of the place. Both women envision its becoming a rest home for old Confederate soldiers and a shrine to Jefferson Davis. Joseph thinks the notion is impractical but he admires the idealism.
Winnie did not go with us to California at that time, but she’s accompanied us on several other junkets. The most recent, this past winter, was an extensive stay in Egypt, where she attended lectures, climbed pyramids, and would have embarked on a field study caravan with camel-riding explorers, all of whom were men, had we not advised her that would be unseemly. Joseph sternly reminded Winnie that she was not his intrepid reporter Nellie Bly, who several years ago had talked him into letting her attempt to match or best the record illustrated in Jules Verne’s popular book Around the World in Eighty Days. (Over a million people entered the contest, which was Joseph’s idea, to guess the time it would take Nellie to circle the planet. As it turned out, she surpassed the eighty-day benchmark with a tally of seventy-two days, six hours, eleven minutes, and fourteen seconds.) I could see that my husband’s remark struck a nerve. Winnie would thrive on a real journalistic career, but she does not have the freedom, nor the stamina, to pursue such a path. Prior to embarking on the Egyptian tour, she had nursed her mother through a spell of heart failure that lasted most of the winter. Yet paradoxically, even as she becomes increasingly reliant on her daughter, Mrs. Davis encourages Winnie to stretch her wings at every opportunity.
I was remiss in not calling on them at the Rockingham until a week after Winnie returned from one of those veterans’ conventions that deplete her energy. My husband had learned, probably from asking her directly, that Winnie has received honorariums for lending her presence to these events, in addition to having her expenses covered. And he has it from “reliable sources” that Mrs. Davis, as soon as she became First Lady of the Confederacy, talked railway and steamship lines into providing complimentary transportation for her and other members of the family. Apparently, those arrangements are still in effect.
According to the publicity, this latest commemoration of the Lost Cause brought twenty thousand War veterans and their wives, plus at least two thousand spectators, to Atlanta’s Exposition Park. In addition to the public events, hundreds of the city’s private homes hosted glittering receptions and cotillions. Of all the notable personalities attending the festivities, Winnie was given top billing, as though she were a famous actress or opera singer or, as in the slant of one journalist, a canonized saint. From the tone and content of Mrs. Davis’s note, I discerned that she blames the Confederate States of America Veterans’ Association, the city of Atlanta, the state of Georgia, and the widow of one of the South’s greatest hero-generals for Winnie’s current malaise: “My poor child, soaked to the skin by a downpour in all that oppressive heat, could not get out of the congestion to return to her hotel and change clothes. I was informed that Winnie insisted on keeping to her travel schedule, although clearly she was too ill to leave, and that Mrs. Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, who had ridden in the same carriage with her, was not adversely affected by the weather. Apparently, Mary Anna Jackson had the forethought to bring a sturdy umbrella but not the generosity to share it. Winnie’s flimsy sunshade disintegrated when the first shards of rain hit it. …”
I should have come early this morning, as soon as I got the message, but I have had a busy summer here, being hostess to a steady infusion of newspaper executives summoned by Joseph for lessons in economy. For the past twelve months the paper has had its largest circulation ever, yet is steadily losing money. My husband’s asthma and diabetes are directly affected whenever something goes awry with that publication, and the ongoing rivalry with the impossible ogre Mr. William Randolph Hearst keeps things stirred up.
When I arrived at their rooms, Mrs. Davis whispered, “She’s just dropped off to sleep. Winnie has extremely restless nights and is not responding significantly to treatment prescribed by the doctor or to my own tried-and-true ministrations. Kate, you’ve seen her at her absolute worst; she won’t mind if you peep in at her now. I would value your opinion as to the state of her health.”
I should, indeed, have some expertise in that area, as my husband is a chronic semi-invalid, and I care for him with compassion and diligence. However, I tend not to dwell on what is long-standing in his condition that I can do nothing about, such as extreme pallor, bloodshot eyes, and occasional twitching of limbs. I love Joseph and Winnie, but they are both so neurotic it is difficult to distinguish between what is brought on by physical debilitation and what comes from their agitated states of mind. “I would of course like to see her,” I said. “I’ll sit quietly by and not wake her.”
Mrs. Davis took me to Winnie’s room, and to my relief, did not come in with me. The woman has presence as great as her girth, and Winnie best comes into her own when her mother is not on the scene. Partially open windows admitted a heavenly sea breeze, but neither that nor the fragrance of lilies I had brought to her could dispel the pervasive odor of vomit. Winnie lay quite still, her face all but submerged in a nest of abundant wavy hair the color of maple syrup, or fine cognac. Deep mauve shadows circled her closed eyes. She did not appear to be breathing. Waiting for her to wake up, I relived the sadness of last January, at Chatswold, our residence at Bar Harbor, when my seventeen-year-old Lucille succumbed to a virulent attack of typhoid fever. Neither Joseph nor I could bear to return, less than a year later, to the Maine resort where our beautiful child was taken from us soon after her coming-out party. That is how we happened to be spending this summer at Narragansett Pier, which began as a freight wharf for farmers to ship their goods off to Providence. Since the construction a few years ago of the Narragansett Towers and Casino, designed by the architects McKim, Mead, and White, the village has become a popular beach colony resort for upper-middle-class people. There’s much more to do and see in this area now. I would love to take Winnie for a drive along Ocean Road, then to luncheon at the casino or the new country club at Point Judith; she likes to see the lighthouse up close. … It’s rotten luck that she has to languish inside when the weather and scenery are so lovely.
Forgetting I was not to wake her, I said, “Winnie, please tell me you’re all right.”
“Kate. I’m glad you’re here.” Her eyelids flickered but did not stay open. She murmured drowsily, “I don’t know that I’m all right, or right at all. This may be the real thing.”
As far as I knew, Winnie did not attend séances, but she put stock in prophetic omen. She had told me of ghastly death dreams, of seeing herself in a casket. “No, it’s not,” I said firmly. “You have been far sicker before. Do you remember that time in Naples—”
“How could I forget! That was when I showed Fred my true colors.”
Albeit a topic that I would have enjoyed exploring with her, this was not the time to get into it. I was surprised to hear her speak his name; usually she would turn stonily silent when anyone else did. “I meant you gave us a terrible scare then, but much to our relief and surprise, you pulled through quite dramatically.”
“You pulled me through. Now you must do me a simpler favor.”
“Anything.”
“In the foyer, on the bottom shelf of the bookcase by the door, there’s a set of dark blue books with illegibly faded titles—not ours, they’re part of the furnishings. Tucked out of sight behind them is a binder I would like you to bring to me. I do not wish my mother to know of its existence.”
“What if she catches me rummaging around?”
“Could you offer to stay with me for awhile, so she can go out?”
“Of course. I’ll make the suggestion.” I was sorry I had not thought to do that as soon as I arrived. Mrs. Davis, poor haggard old thing, was thrilled to be relieved. She scurried off to freshen up.
I had brought a blancmange made by our excellent cook. Winnie let me spoon in a few mouthfuls, then said, “That’s all I can hold. I can’t keep much of anything down. Kate, how can you stand to be around me?”
The first response that came to mind would have been too hurtful: Because being around you makes me aware of my own good fortune. I have a husband I adore and admire, who treasures me, and there are no weighty issues complicating my mind, like whether my father was responsible for the bloodiest war in history, and how dishonorably he was treated in comparison to other prominent leaders of the defeated South. … So I said the next thing: “Because you are not like the other women I know. You’re complex and amazing, but never irritating or overbearing, and you are very dear to me.” There was enough truth in that declaration to cause tears to form in my eyes and hers.
“And you are very dear to me, and we sound like a couple of geese.” She added defiantly, as though she expected me to refute the statement, “I was not cut out for marriage.”
At that moment, wearing a heavier shawl than was called for and a previous year’s bonnet with the most dejected-looking ribbons imaginable, Mrs. Davis reappeared and said in the smooth contralto that can spin out, according to her whim, delightfully droll, deeply perceptive, or preposterously tactless remarks, “Darling, I’m sure Kate will agree with me: Intelligent women never think they are cut out for marriage.”
It’s just as well she did not press me for corroboration. I would have said, “On the contrary, from the time I was seven years old, my one ambition in life was to be married.” I might have added: … to an exciting, driven man who would create an empire and become wealthy beyond my wildest expectations. I conjured him in my dreams, then waited for him to find me, and he did. …
I accompanied Mrs. Davis to the outer door, and as soon as she had departed, located the object Winnie had requested and dusted it off with my petticoat before bringing it to her. She gathered the thing to her as she might have a child or a puppy. (Winnie is wonderful with animals and children.) She said—whispered almost; her voice was weaker than I’d ever heard it before—“While I’m laid up, I can revisit these scrawled pages. The new hiding place will be beneath this bed, which I can manage. Kate, this is important: If I should die here, or if it looks like I’m going into a twilight state, please retrieve this notebook immediately, and take it away with you. I don’t want it be found by someone who would turn it over to my mother. I won’t ask you not to read what I’ve written here, but please do wait until I’ve really gone, and then destroy it.”
“The next place you’re really going is somewhere wonderful with us.” I disdained to address the rest of that sentence. The presumption that I would be inclined to read her journal must have been due to the illness. Winnie was well aware that my taste in pastimes runs to shopping for clothes, millinery, jewelry, and objets d’art; dining in exquisite surroundings; and attending the theatre, light opera, museums and galleries, balls, receptions, and occasional séances. Of course, I have read her pretty book, The Veiled Doctor (which has a stylish peacock imprinted in gold on a grass-green cover), and I look forward to the new novel—but perusing handwritten text in a pasteboard-backed tablet would be like overseeing the children’s schoolwork, a task best left to those trained for it.
She had drifted back into sleep. Her lips moved slightly and she moaned as though making love in a dream. I fervently hoped she was. I recalled when her face was flushed, not with illness, but with pleasure, because Fred Wilkinson was around. But she never showed any inclination to take me into her confidence about why a love affair that seemed like an ideal match had ended, and so acrimoniously. When Fred came to Naples to console her after her father died, I should have been more observant, but I did not regard myself as their chaperone; Winnie was twenty-five years old and the man had every intention of marrying her.
Upset by the rumbles in the Deep South over her romance with a Northerner, Winnie had welcomed the opportunity to sail with us to Paris that November on Joseph’s soundproof yacht. Except for my husband’s complaints about noise—as his eyesight failed, his hearing became so acute that any loud sound caused him pain—we were having a pleasant sojourn. Then, in early December, word came that Mr. Davis had died. Her mother wired instructions that Winnie was to remain abroad with us, since she could not get back in time for the funeral. Stricken with grief— she had adored her father—Winnie sank into a spiraling depression. By early spring, I decided a change of scenery would be beneficial for both Winnie and Joseph. We sailed south to Naples and the Grand Hotel. The entourage included a newly hired editor at the World, our children, several servants, one of Joseph’s physicians, and the ubiquitous flock of secretaries he must have available at all times.
Unfortunately, nature, both God’s and my husband’s, conspired against what should have been an idyllic interlude. The weather was terrible, and there were explosions in the nearby bay, where cannon was being tested. Joseph had dispatched messages to the Italian Minister of War to stop the unbearable noise immediately, but the testing had not ceased altogether. Winnie showed a bit of her usual spunk when she asked Joseph how he could distinguish cannon blasts from the sound of waves crashing against the seawall. I was delighted when Fred Wilkinson, at the nudging of Mrs. Davis, came to Naples to join us. After he arrived, Winnie eventually perked up and the lovers went about on their own. They saw the ruins of Pompeii and traveled up Vesuvius. However, Winnie informed me later that the rains had kept them inside the inn for much of that latter excursion.
The melancholia brought on by her painful loss seemed to abate while Fred was present. He was able to continue on to Rome with our party, but could not remain with us indefinitely; he had to return to the business of earning a livelihood. On the day he bade me good-bye, Fred seemed quite subdued, as if he were the one who had suffered a loss. At dinner a few hours later, I asked Winnie if she missed her sweetheart already. The question appeared to startle her. Then, “Oh, God, Kate. I miss my father,” she said. I had never before heard such anguish in her voice. “I cannot believe he won’t be there when I return.” She began to weep quietly, yet visibly. Although Joseph, in conversation with his current protégé, appeared not to notice, I knew how he abhorred any disturbance at table—he will not tolerate what he calls “mewling” from the children—so I suggested to Winnie that we go to her stateroom. There I gave her a large dose of a strong-smelling sedative that had been provided by her mother and looked like boot polish. I had my maid come to help her get ready for bed. Winnie assured me she would be fine by morning, and indeed, when I next saw her some twelve hours later, she appeared to be collected and in better spirits. Although she made a conscious effort to put forth a cheerful countenance for the rest of the trip, she stayed in her quarters most of the time. I did not think that unusual, as Winnie loves to read, and she has disciplined herself to spend a good portion of each day writing. Also, burdened as she is with an intelligent and inquiring mind, she quite likely spends a lot of time in profound thought.
In April, soon after Fred left us, a formal notice of his engagement to Winnie was published. I was surprised by Mrs. Davis’s having taken that step while Winnie was still abroad. By the time she returned home, a vehement protest over the Daughter of the Confederacy’s betrothal to a man “not of the South” had erupted in letters to Fred in Syracuse, to Winnie and her mother in Mississippi, and to newspapers around the country. I heard—not from any of the parties directly involved—that Alfred Wilkinson was referred to in some of these communications as a “God-damned Yankee son-of-a-bitch.”
Gossip also had it that Mrs. Davis had expected Fred to seize the moment and marry Winnie when he crossed the Atlantic to be with her after her father’s death. Joseph commented, after I passed that morsel on to him, that if such were the case, Mrs. Davis’s instincts were right. He wished he had thought to offer the Liberty for a shipboard ceremony and honeymoon cruise. The sheer romance of that kind of elopement would have put a damper on any potential furor and might have prevented Mrs. Davis’s complaining to friends—and even to the young man himself—about Fred’s inability to talk Winnie out of her depression.
Shortly after Winnie returned to Mississippi in midsummer, Fred’s mother’s house in Syracuse burned to the ground. The Wilkinsons’ fine possessions, among them valuable paintings and statuary, and an elderly servant perished in the flames. In August, Mrs. Davis published a notice that the wedding had been postponed until late June 1891, with the explanation that Winnie did not wish to be married until a full year had elapsed since her father’s death.
About the same time, a prominent gentleman from Mississippi was dispatched by Mrs. Davis to make inquiries in Syracuse about Fred’s financial situation. Some scandal about his family was unearthed at that time, in addition to revelations that the Wilkinson wealth had been exhausted when the Wilkinson Brothers Bank suffered reversals some years before the fire consumed the house. Mrs. Davis and her snooping advisor speculated that Fred’s income would not be sufficient to support Winnie. In mid-October, during a visit by Fred to Beauvoir, he expressed to Mrs. Davis his resentment of her initiating that investigation. Shortly thereafter, he and Mrs. Davis acknowledged the ending of the engagement. Fred gallantly conceded the decision was the wish of Winnie and her mother; Mrs. Davis cited Winnie’s poor health as the reason. The South claimed a victory as though it had been won on a battlefield: The Daughter of the Confederacy would not be carried off by the enemy.
From then on, the issue was treated by the principals—Winnie, her mother, and Fred—as a closed book. After the dust had settled a bit, Mrs. Davis contrived to have Winnie meet or become reacquainted with eligible suitors in New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, Atlanta, and heaven knows how many more cities. From the time they moved to New York, I have arranged place cards at our gatherings so that Winnie is always seated next to or across from an unmarried gentleman. Well, not all may be gentlemen, but if they’re at our table, they are capable of interesting conversation, which Winnie, like Joseph, requires. Her aura of self-containment intrigues some and discourages others, but she has not lacked for escorts. However, to my knowledge, she has not been enamored of anyone since Fred Wilkinson, and I have heard no rumor of a romantic attachment on his part, although it’s quite likely he has had the kind that men keep secret.
A couple of years after the breakup, Joseph asked me to include both of them at the same dinner party.
“But darling, wouldn’t that reignite the spark of scandal that surrounded their rift?” I protested.
“I doubt it. The people on this guest list have more to put their minds to than fanning a dead flame.”
“Warn her of what? That she will be dining with perceptive, stimulating people, among whom may be her former fiancé? Of course not. As a member of a family whose history is filled with strife and controversy, she must have weathered many more jarring experiences than our festive occasion would provide. I would expect both Wilkinson and Miss Davis to be completely civil and cordial to each other while they are our guests.”
It did not turn out as Joseph predicted. Fred and Winnie almost collided before they spotted each other. According to an observer, each stared and turned pale at the sight of the other. Then like the swan she can be, Winnie sailed away into an adjacent parlor to insulate herself among people, furniture, and potted palms. Fred headed for the front door, stopping briefly to tell me he was not feeling well enough to stay for dinner. He politely declined the next invitation, and I don’t believe we have had him on a list since, other than for Joseph’s all-male gatherings. I do not recall running into him at any intimate social events, although I have glimpsed him at large affairs and on a few occasions with his sisters at the theatre and opera. One of the Wilkinson girls married, but the others are typical New England, gaunt-faced spinsters. Fred’s name surfaces occasionally in news items relevant to his line of work; apparently he does quite well as a patent attorney. With so many marvelous things being invented these days, patents must be greatly in vogue.
I had been in that close, depressing room for over an hour. On the fern stand directly in my line of vision was a tarnished silver vase filled with peacock plumage; the iridescent orbs in those dusty feathers seemed to be staring at me. Winnie lay still as death except for the wisp of breath that made her chest rise and fall. It didn’t appear she would wake anytime soon. I extracted the notebook she was anxious about from one of her large but delicately boned hands. As I knelt to place it beneath the bed frame, the plain blue cover fell open to reveal the first page’s startling heading in her childlike penmanship: “My Father’s Peccadilloes.” Recalling that Joseph had been impressed with a piece Winnie wrote for the Sunday World in which she had extolled her father, and knowing how she idolized his memory, I could not imagine her acknowledging that the man had any faults, much less writing about them, even in a form not intended for publication.
Then, and again over the next days as Winnie alternated between getting well and sinking deeper into the abyss of her illness, that word peccadilloes reminded me of a ludicrous anecdote about Jefferson Davis. In a cartoon (which certainly did not run in my husband’s newspaper; I forget how I came across it, and of course, I’ve never mentioned it to Winnie or her mother), he is shown scrambling down, his clothes in disarray, from an upper berth of a sleeping car. A glimpse beyond the parted curtain reveals the berth’s occupant as a disheveled, buxom woman; no identity is provided. In the balloon caption, Mr. Davis informs the conductor: “This lady’s husband asked me to see to her safety while she and I coincidentally happened to be traveling overnight on the same train.”
While I was dreamily imagining the diatribe Mrs. Davis might have hurled at him after that humiliation, she returned to the sickroom and caught me about to nod off in a stiff, shinily upholstered slipper chair, the kind of appointment one encounters in hotels that put decor ahead of comfort. The Rockingham, the best of the ten or twelve hotels in Narragansett Pier, attracts clients who may not be able to afford first-class accommodations yet can impart a measure of prestige by their presence. Those Burnses are quite proud to have the Davis celebrities among their summer “regulars”; I suspect the rate is significantly reduced for them. Winnie remarked recently that this is the sixth summer they’ve been here. Maggie Hayes brought them the first time, when Mrs. Davis became so enamored with the resort. However, Winnie prefers Bar Harbor, where she first visited the Burton Harrisons and has often visited us. As I rose to leave the bedside watch, her mother said, “I’ve asked some of my friends to come a week from Friday at one o’clock to play cards. I hope Winnie will be able to go for an outing then.”
I responded as she wished me to: “A drive and luncheon in a pleasant inn should do her a world of good. I’ll come for her that morning about half past eleven.”
I did not see them again until the appointed date. I had intended to send my chauffeur into the hotel to fetch Winnie, but decided that might appear high-handed. Their pleasant little New York maid opened the door to me. I was glad to see this young woman had been sent for, and was about to tell her so when Mrs. Davis appeared and said, “Oh, Kate, thank heaven you’re here. Things have taken a turn. We haven’t been able to get Winnie dressed. She’s not keeping any food down now.” I took one look at my friend, who was either asleep or unconscious, and hurried back to the lobby to place a telephone call to one of Joseph’s physicians in New York. The man was there within hours. After listening through a stethoscope to the mysterious insides of Winnie’s limp body, he said, “It appears Miss Davis has contracted malarial gastritis.”
“Is that serious?” I asked.
He made the harrumphing noise doctors resort to when they don’t know what to say, then blew his nose thoroughly into a handkerchief and examined the contents before replying, “It certainly can be. In order to get well, the patient must demonstrate she has the will to live.”
“And how would she do that, in her debilitated state?” I persisted.
“She must be encouraged to eat and drink.”
Mrs. Davis said, “Winnie cannot retain anything except an occasional spoon of egg white and small sips of lemonade.”
“Well, do your best,” he said, and patted her hand. “Mrs. Pulitzer will keep me informed.”
My husband had informed me that morning that he was ready to return to the city. If the servants got everything packed, we would depart the next day. I waited until the doctor had left before telling Mrs. Davis, “I can come back at a moment’s notice, so you must stay in touch.” I pressed my cheek to hers and felt it quiver like a bird. “Try not to worry. We must think only life-affirming thoughts.”
I remembered Winnie’s instructions to me several weeks later, by which time Mrs. Davis was back in New York. I immediately contacted Mr. Burns at the Rockingham and explained that Winnie, as a writer for my husband’s newspaper, had told me her current work was in a notebook that she kept beneath the bed in their suite; she had asked that I be sure to retrieve the folio in the event she was incapacitated. Mr. Burns replied rather huffily that no personal property of the Davises had been found in those rooms; Mrs. Davis had asked for packing boxes, and had left the place clean as a whistle.
If Winnie knows I failed miserably in the one thing she asked of me at the end of her life, I hope she also knows that Joseph and I gave her a dignified, tasteful send-off, with the finest casket and floral trimmings, and that I shall miss her terribly, and am resolved to be kindly attentive to her mother for the rest of that courageous woman’s life, or mine.