* * *
MAGIC CITY SOCIETY
BY
CALEB KINSAUL
Birmingham’s bachelor millionaire Edward Crocker’s reluctance to be drawn to the altar is legendary; however, his appreciation for the fairer sex is also well known and reflected in this sentiment: “At the end of a long day, I prefer to see a pretty face across the table and leave business behind.”
Mr. Crocker’s friends and business associates speak of him warmly: “a grand little chap and a good and loyal pal in time of need.” His numerous lady friends, by all accounts, find him attentive and delightful company. But so far, none have come away with a wedding ring. This has surely disappointed many a Birmingham belle gone on to marry another, but all have remained friends and received generous and lavish gifts on the occasion of their weddings. When queried about his famed bachelorhood, he has this to say: “I fear a lady would find me quite inadequate as husband material. I already have three wives: iron, coal, and steel. It would not be fair to ask a lady to play fourth fiddle.”
* * *
And from the same newspaper in 1933:
* * *
Mr. Edward Crocker has left our fair city to embark on his yearly sail to England to visit his sister, Miss Edwina Crocker, who, I am told on the very best of accounts, is the toast of London society.
* * *
The more Maggie read, the more she gleaned that Edward had been unusually devoted to his sister and had left the business he seemed to love to spend three months in London with her every year. But what red-blooded man would devote so much time to his sister? People who visited Crestview had remarked that the only photographs he kept in his bedroom were of his sister. In an interview, he had once said, “My sister is my dearest friend and best companion.” One article quoted his sister, Edwina, as having said to a London Times reporter, “My brother is as fine a man as any on this earth; there is none closer and dearer to me than my own beloved brother, Edward; our hearts and minds think as one.”
Oh dear, Maggie thought. That was pretty close to saying something was going on between them. But then, considering the flowery language of the times, it was hard to know. Twins have a different relationship than just regular siblings. Still, something was strange. If they had been so devoted, then why had she never come to visit him in Alabama? Why did he always go there? Another mystery.
As she scrolled through the papers, Maggie found a few more photographs of him, but none taken with his sister, as she had hoped. He was usually standing in a group of other men. She could see he was a small man, but still very nice-looking, with a kind face. She could understand why the ladies had been so interested in him, and from everything she had heard, he had obviously liked women and had been very fond of children, and yet, he had never married. But why? It was a puzzle. There were only three good reasons she could think of:
He had been impotent.
He was a secret homosexual.
He was in love with his sister.
???????????????????????
Of course, from everything Maggie had read so far, the twin sister had never married either. Maybe she was making far too much of it. Still, it did seem odd.
Miss Edwina Crocker
London, England, 1920
NURSE LETTIE ROSS HAD GONE AHEAD TO ENGLAND AND OPENED the house in Mayfair for Edward and Edwina’s visit. She had arranged Edwina’s dresses in order and laid out the matching jewelry. Miss Edwina was particular about color, but never liked to waste her time having to mix and match her evening attire. Edwina was always happy to be in London, but one day, there was a particular excitement in the air.
At Buckingham Palace, Miss Edwina Crocker had just been presented to Queen Mary, also a lady of proud Scottish ancestry. A string quartet played as she descended the stairs, in a white dress, wearing three white feathers, having just received the title of Lady Edwina Crocker, due to her brother Edward’s enormous contributions to England during the war.
Thanks to America, where one had the opportunity to rise above one’s class, a member of a family who had once been thirled serfs now stood in line at a royal reception in her honor. As Edwina smiled and received guests, she wondered what all those poor men, women, and children of her family would have thought if they could see her standing there today. Could they even have dreamed it? Of course, there had been tremendous personal sacrifices for both Edward and Edwina, but still. “Oh, what a lovely day.”
Although Edwina Crocker’s home was on the north coast of Scotland and her brother, Edward Crocker, lived in Alabama, every year, they always spent three months together in London in a magnificent townhome Edward had purchased. Edwina loved to visit the city, and Edward loved to spoil his sister and cater to her every whim.
Whereas Edward was a shy and private man and, while in London, only came out for special occasions, usually having to do with business, his sister was quite the opposite. Edwina, famous for her beautiful clothes and quick wit, enjoyed a whirl of social activities. An invitation to her Sunday afternoon salon was the envy of all London. Noël Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, and Beatrice Lillie were among her many friends. Although not a great beauty, she had a bright mind, and men found her irresistible. Flirtatious by nature, she’d had numerous love affairs, some with quite powerful men, but like her elusive brother, she’d never married. When asked about it, she laughed it off, saying, “I’m waiting to meet a man as kind and as compassionate as my dear brother, Edward, and alas, I’m still waiting.” This was not good news to the array of hopeful suitors who would have been more than happy to marry into the Crocker family. It was rumored that her brother’s holdings were now up into the millions, and some disgruntled suitors began to wonder if Edwina had specific instructions from her brother not to marry. Some even suspected that Edward didn’t trust her to be left alone in London without supervision, because when he departed London, Edwina departed as well.
They had heard that the father, Angus, had been ruthless, but it seemed that now the brother would go to any lengths to protect his fortune, even depriving his own sister of the joys of marriage and children. This was a sentiment felt on both sides of the Atlantic. When several of his eligible male friends from Birmingham had shown up in London on business and requested an introduction to Edwina, Edward had declined the request politely but firmly. However, as protected as Edwina’s life was, it did not stop her from her fun with the men she fancied in London. She once said to a friend about her numerous affairs, “I know it’s quite scandalous, but I have to make hay while the sun shines. All I have is my precious three months in London, and the rest of the year, I might as well be living in a nun’s cell.”
Although she clearly enjoyed the company of men, Edwina was quite a champion of women’s rights. At a reception for the great Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, she quipped, “In your delightful play Pygmalion, is it not true that you ask the question, Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” “Yes,” he said. “Quite true.” “But my dear Mr. Shaw, my question to you is, Why can’t a man be more like a woman?” The great man laughed and had to good-naturedly agree. Such public outspokenness from a woman of lesser means, or one not so closely connected to such a powerful man as her brother, might not have been so well tolerated.
While Edwina and Edward had always lived a protected life of privilege, their Scottish nurse, Lettie, had told them firsthand stories from her own childhood of how women of a poorer class were treated, and later, Edwina had observed it with her own eyes when she had visited the workhouses and tenements. Because of her enormous influence on her brother, Edward’s eyes had been opened as well, and he had responded in kind.
Back home in America, Edward’s Birmingham banker noticed that thousands of dollars were being donated to many female causes; one check alone for fifty thousand dollars was sent to Margaret Sanger in New York, a radical famous for promoting birth control. The banker later confided to an associate, “I don’t know who she is, but he has some woman in his ear, telling him w
hat to do.”
He did indeed. What the banker did not know was that both brother and sister had an immediate and personal interest in safe and effective birth control.
The Humdrum Motel
Friday, December 5, 2008
IF BRENDA HAD A WEAKNESS, OTHER THAN ICE CREAM AND DOUGHNUTS, it was wigs. She loved wigs—not just any wigs, but good, expensive wigs. She didn’t shop at Miss Delilah’s House of Wigs, like her older sister did, or at Wow Wigs out at the mall; she ordered her wigs online from ExclusivelyYoursWigs.com. She had the Tina Turner wig, the Diahann Carroll wig, and this morning, she came in to work wearing her new Beyoncé wig, which she was not happy with. “It looked better in the ad,” she said.
At around ten A.M., Brenda came into Maggie’s office and whispered, so that Ethel wouldn’t hear her, “I need you to take me somewhere at lunchtime, okay?”
“All right, where?”
“I have an appointment with a psychic healer.”
“Oh, no. Not another one.”
“Yes, but this one’s from the Philippines, and he’s only going to be here for one day.”
Maggie shook her head. “Oh Lord, where is this one going to be?”
“At the old Humdrum Motel, out on old Highway 8.”
“Oh my God, honey, why do you want to waste your good money? You know those people are fakes.”
Brenda said, “No, they’re not! Tonya had a tumor removed last year.”
“Brenda, that man had a chicken gizzard up his sleeve and just told her it was a tumor. You told me that yourself, remember?”
“Well, I could have been wrong … Whatever he did, it worked—she doesn’t have a tumor anymore.”
“How do you know she had one in the first place?”
“She might have; she said she felt a hundred percent better.”
“Are you sure you want to go out there? I don’t think it looks good for a reputable real estate agent to be seen going to some charlatan like that.”
“Nobody is going to see us.”
“All right. But why do you need me to take you?”
“Because I don’t think I should drive after surgery. I want to see if he can help me with my kidney stones.”
“I thought you were going to use the power of positive thinking on them.”
“I am … this is part of it.”
“Have you told Robbie where you’re going?”
“No, she doesn’t believe in alternative medicine.”
“Brenda, I don’t think this would be considered alternative. This is more on the hocus-pocus side.”
“Oh, come on, Maggie, please. It will only take a little while.”
“Well, of course, I’ll take you, but promise me you won’t tell Robbie I took you out there. I don’t want her mad at me.”
“I promise.”
LATER, MAGGIE SAT in the parking lot of the Humdrum Motel, waiting on Brenda and flipping through the Multiple Listing Service book to pass the time. Forty-five minutes later, Brenda came out of Room 432 carrying a small brown paper sack and grinning from ear to ear. She opened the car door, announcing, “I’m cured! Here they are.”
She opened the bag and pulled out a small glass jar, full of what looked to Maggie suspiciously like gravel from the driveway of the Humdrum Motel, but she didn’t say anything.
“And it didn’t hurt at all!” said Brenda.
“What are you going to do with them?”
“Keep them.”
“Where?”
“Oh, I don’t know; maybe in my medicine cabinet. Why?”
“Well, if it were me, I’d throw them out. What if Robbie finds them?”
Brenda thought about it and then took out her cell phone and called her older sister, Tonya. As soon as she answered Brenda said, “Listen, this mayor may not happen, but if Robbie ever calls you about a jar of kidney stones, tell her they’re yours. Okay?” And then she hung up. Five seconds later, Brenda’s phone rang. After a moment, she said, “You don’t need to know why, just tell her,” and hung up again.
Maggie said, “I wish I had a sister I could boss around.”
Brenda laughed. “Well, I would give you Robbie and Tonya, but nobody would believe it.”
After she dropped Brenda and her “kidney stones” off, instead of going right home, Maggie changed her mind, and made another trip down to the library. When she got there, she sat down and started to look at microfilm again.
Maggie scrolled forward in time and found a January 16, 1939, headline:
* * *
EDWARD CROCKER FEARED LOST AT SEA
Three days after the death of his beloved sister, Birmingham business tycoon Edward Crocker has been reported lost at sea in what appears to have been a sailing accident. The accident occurred off the northern coast of Scotland, where his sister was buried.
* * *
Then another, dated April 28, 1939:
* * *
EDWARD CROCKER OFFICIALLY DEAD
After two weeks of extensive search, officials say all hope of finding missing Edward Crocker has been abandoned. A family spokesperson in Scotland said that Edward was last seen on the morning of his sister’s funeral, when he announced that he was taking his boat for a short spin to “clear his head.” As he was known as a master sailor, some speculate that foul weather may have been a factor, in that neither boat nor lone passenger was retrieved. All Birmingham mourns the passing of this great industrialist and philanthropist.
* * *
Edward had died just three days after his sister. Maggie had been guessing about his being in love with his sister, but now she began to wonder if she had been right, and whether his death really had been an accident or if Edward had been so despondent over losing his sister that he had done exactly what Maggie was planning to do. Another clue that he had been in love with Edwina.
Maggie kept looking, but she did not have any luck finding anything more about the Crocker twins. Just as she was about to get up and leave the library, she saw Miss Pitcock walking over. Miss Pitcock had worked in the library archives forever, and Maggie had known her since she was in high school. Miss Pitcock asked her if she needed any help finding anything. Maggie told her that she was doing research on Crestview and on Edward Crocker and his sister, Edwina, in particular. Miss Pitcock’s eyes lit up behind her thick glasses. She told Maggie she would be delighted to help, that anything about old Birmingham history was her specialty.
Miss Pitcock was one of the unsung heroines of the world; she had quietly devoted her entire life to helping thousands of struggling teenagers (like Maggie) find their way through the maze of the library archives, and now she was doing it again. God bless her, thought Maggie.
After that, true to her word, Miss Pitcock sent Maggie a little information each day. She had found several photos of Edwina Crocker in a few English newspapers. There was one of her standing alone and several of her in a crowd, but never a photo of Edward and Edwina together, as Maggie had hoped; body language could tell so much. Then Maggie began to wonder why they had never been photographed together. They had spent so much time together in London. That seemed odd. What were they trying to hide? Had they just been unusually close or had it been something else? And why had neither of them ever married? She couldn’t tell Edwina’s coloring from the black-and-white photos in the paper, but she certainly looked attractive. It was a mystery all right, and as the days went by, Maggie began to feel just like Nancy Drew in The Secret of the Scottish Twins.
A Bad Day
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
MAGGIE HAD REALLY BEEN HOPING FOR A QUICK SALE. BUT AS THE days dragged by, she was becoming more and more concerned. She’d had her hopes up a few weeks ago, when a nice woman who had come to an open house had loved Crestview, but today, when the husband came to see it, he had not liked the floor plan, so that was that. And to make a bad day even worse, when she got home that afternoon, Miss Pitcock had just faxed her some new information that had completely blown a hole throu
gh her entire theory about Edward Crocker and his sister, Edwina. Miss Pitcock had traced the Crocker-Sperry family’s records all the way back to Scotland and had found a photocopy of Edward’s birth certificate. There had only been one child born on that date.
To Maggie’s surprise, there was no sister at all.
According to the records, Angus Crocker and his wife had only had one child, a male named Edward. Then who was that woman in London, the one Edward claimed was his sister? Was it his mistress? Edward had supported her. But why hadn’t he married her? It made no sense. She looked at the photos again. To her, they looked exactly like twins. They had to be related in some way. Maybe she had been a cousin. But that wouldn’t make any sense either. If she was a cousin, why not say so? Maggie was completely stumped. Oh God, now she had a headache. She went to look for an aspirin and realized she had thrown them all out a few weeks ago. So she put a cold washcloth on her forehead and lay down on the couch.
While Maggie hadn’t expected this news about Edwina, she guessed she really shouldn’t be surprised. It was the story of her life. She had also expected that Hazel would live forever, but she hadn’t.
Easter morning, about six years ago, the entire staff at Red Mountain Realty was already over in the park, hiding all the Easter eggs, and after church, Maggie had gone home with Hazel to help her get into her bunny outfit. Later, driving to the park, Hazel had been very excited. “Oh, Mags, don’t you just love Easter? Christmas is great, too, but just think, every Easter, we get a chance to rise up and start all over again. And even when you’re dead, you still keep going. Isn’t that great? Isn’t that wonderful?”