“It's a boarding school,” Mother said quietly. “Right inside Washington. Like Mr. Preston's, Kermit's school.”
“A boarding school?” I said. I'd never imagined that. “I have to go to a boarding school?”
“You'll like it,” Mother said. “I truly believe you will. It's been open for only a year, but it has an excellent reputation. And Sister will be there.”
Knowing Sister, I doubted it.
I went down to the bay to cry.
Kermit tagged along after me. “Go away,” I told him. I sat on the sand and let my bare feet scrunch into it. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I wiped them on my sleeve. I never cried loudly, but I was often messy about it.
“It won't be so bad,” he said.
“It'll be awful. I don't want to go to boarding school! I want to stay home! I want to stay with Miss Young.”
Kermit skipped a rock into the water. “It's not any different from what I'm doing.”
“Except that you already knew about it,” I said. “You were going to go there anyhow. If Father weren't president, I bet they'd let me stay home.” I raised my head. “Mother says Sister's going with me.”
Kermit cocked his eyebrow. “You believe that?”
Sister had been to school for a total of three months in her entire life. It had been a public day school, not a private or a boarding school. “It was wonderful,” she said once, her eyes lighting up. “A whole gang of boys, and me at the head! We had such fun together.” Mother's mouth tightened as Sister said it. It was easy to guess why Sister hadn't stayed in that school.
“No,” I said. “But I wish she were.”
At first I suffered in silence and only cried at the beach, but no one noticed me, so I got noisier. When Miss Young bought me a trunk to take to school, I started crying at mealtimes. I sulked as much as possible, but Mother still said I had to go. She took me into town and bought me new shoes. I hated them. Miss Young tried to reason with me. I pouted. “Why is no one listening?” I asked. “I don't want to go. I want to stay home.” “We are listening,” Miss Young said. “You've made your feelings sufficiently obvious. But you don't have a choice here, dear.” I scowled and kicked the dirt with the new shoes. “I never knew you to be afraid of anything,” Miss Young said. “I'm not afraid,” I said. I just wanted to stay where Father was. I wanted Mother to read to me every night. “Your parents have decided what's best for you,” Miss Young said. “Would I have to do this if Father weren't the president?” Miss Young looked sober. “Probably not,” she said. “Your family is going to be living a different sort of life now, Ethel. In a little rented house you and I and Archie and Quentin could do very well together. Not in the Executive Mansion.”
I understood, at least a little, even though I didn't want to. Every day we got more and more letters from newspapers and magazines asking about me and Sister and the boys. They'd never done that before. But understanding didn't mean I was any happier about it. I liked the life we had.
The day before Mother took Kermit and me to Washington, I got a letter from Sister. I was playing on the beach by the sound when Miss Young brought it to me.
I recognized Sister's handwriting on the envelope at once. I smiled. “Did Mother get one too?”
Miss Young shook her head. “I don't think so. I sorted today's mail.”
I sat down on the warm sand to read it. Miss Young sat beside me. When I finished I folded the letter carefully and slid it back into the envelope.
“What's wrong?” Miss Young asked.
I brushed a tear from my cheek. “She's not going to school with me,” I said. “She's at Aunt Bamie's and Uncle Will's house in Connecticut, and she says she's staying there. She says don't I remember what happened when they tried to make her go to Miss Spence's School.”
“What happened?”
I put the letter in my pocket. I would read it again later, when I was by myself. “It was when Father was first elected governor. Sister told Father she'd disgrace him if he sent her away. She said she'd do something awful.” I remembered how Sister's eyes had glittered, how fierce she'd looked, like a cornered wildcat. “I guess they believed her,” I went on. “That was when we got you.” I sniffed, trying not to cry. I'd never really believed Sister would go to school with me, but I had wanted it so.
Part of me wished I were like her. I could cry about school and I could pout, but I could never do anything shameful. I just couldn't. Father would be so grieved.
Miss Young squeezed my hand. “School's not such an awful thing, Ethel. I went away to school myself. I liked it, after a while.”
“After how long?” I asked.
“Not too long,” she said. “I know it's hard to go away.”
“Sister doesn't want to be with us that much anymore,” I said, sliding my hand into the pocket with her letter.
“Aunt Bamie will take good care of her,” Miss Young said.
“Sometimes I think Sister feels like she's not part of our family,” I said. I scooted closer to Miss Young. The sand was warm and soft. “She had a different mother, you know. One who died.”
Miss Young nodded. “I know,” she said.
“Aunt Bamie took care of her when she was a baby,” I said. “Aunt Bamie loves her.”
“Yes, and your mother loves her too,” Miss Young said. She stroked my hair back from my forehead. “Sister's not an easy person to be around sometimes.”
She was easy for me to be around. She was always easy for me. I stabbed at the sand with my finger. “Before we went to Tahawus, Mother said Sister's real mother was a silly girl who would have bored Father to death if she'd lived.”
Miss Young's hand froze against my hair. “She said that to you?” she said. “To Sister?”
“To Ted,” I said, gulping back tears. “And Ted told Sister. I heard him.” Was it any wonder, I thought, that Sister hadn't come home? “Why would Mother say something like that?”
“She didn't say it to Sister,” Miss Young said. “I'm sure she never meant her to hear it. Remember that.”
But she had said it to Ted. Mother hadn't cared that Ted had heard it. I loved Mother so, but I loved Sister, too.
Sometimes I felt like the only person in our family who worried about Sister at all.
Miss Young smelled like lilac powder. I leaned against her.
“Sister's mother died two days after Sister was born,” I said. “It was the exact same day that Father's mother died in the exact same house.”
“I know,” Miss Young said. She smoothed my hair from my forehead.
“Father's mother died of typhoid, but I don't think Sister's mother died of that. I don't know why she died.” I shrugged. “We aren't allowed to talk about her, you know. Not ever. Aunt Bamie tells Sister about her sometimes, but that's all.” I was eight years old before I thought to ask who the woman in Sister's photograph was, and why Mame reminded Sister every night to pray for her dear mother in heaven.
“Some things are best forgotten,” Miss Young said.
“I don't think so,” I said. We sat silently.
“It's suppertime,” Miss Young said when we had watched the waves for a few minutes more, “and then we need to finish packing your things.” I helped her up and we started the long slow walk back to the house.
“I shouldn't have told Sister about the school,” I said.
“Your mother told her too,” Miss Young said. “It isn't your fault.”
After supper I went into Sister's room. It was kept very orderly now that she had a maid of her own. The photograph of Sister's mother hung on the wall beside her bed. I took it down from its nail and carried it to Miss Young. “Will you pack this safely?” I asked. “Sister will want it in her room in Washington.”
Miss Young took it from me. “Certainly,” she said. “What treasures do you want?”
I had dolls and books and games. “It doesn't matter,” I said. The things I most wanted I couldn't take with me. Father, Mother, Sister, my brothers, Miss Y
oung. They would be in Washington, but not at my school.
When Mrs. McKinley moved out of the Executive Mansion a few days after the funeral, Mother and Kermit and I moved in. We left Archie and Quentin behind at Sagamore with Miss Young until we had a chance to get settled. I loved traveling so cozily, with Mother, Kermit, the two maids, the cook, and me all snug in one corner of the swinging train car. The trip to Washington, D.C., passed quickly. My two white rabbits were quite patient in their basket, and Kermit's kangaroo rat didn't seem to mind in the least being on a train. He hopped in and out of Kermit's pocket while Mother read bits from Pride and Prejudice that Kermit said were funny. I didn't think so.
“You have to be older to understand,” Kermit said.
“Do not,” I said.
“Do so,” he said. “You'd better hope so, anyhow. Otherwise it's not that you're too young, it's that you're too thick in the head.”
I stuck my tongue out at Kermit. I could've kicked him. Then I started to worry. What if I was thick in the head? Probably all the girls at school had read Pride and Prejudice and thought it was so amusing they laughed themselves silly. I scowled.
“That's enough,” said Mother. She marked her place and set the book aside.
The rhythm of the wheels changed as the train began to slow for Union Station. “Listen,” I said, “doesn't the train sound like Father, Father, Father—”
“Yes,” said Mother, listening. “Yes, I suppose it does.” She had put on a somber dress, because of President McKinley, but it was one of Father's favorites. She looked beautiful and trim. I knew just how Father would smile when he saw her. I knew just how happy he'd be.
When the train stopped, Mother arranged for our trunks and crates and the horses to be unloaded and sent to the president's house. Kermit buttoned his rat into his coat pocket and bundled his books together. I took my rabbits in their basket. Annie gathered up the rest of our things. Then Mother hired a cab and we all climbed aboard. Evening had come and the light was fading from the indigo sky. The Capitol gleamed white above the rooftops of the buildings around it. The horses clip-clopped slowly through the almost-empty streets. There were no crowds, no cheering, no one to notice us at all. I breathed deep. The air carried the scent of autumn: warm dry leaves, damp earth. Sooner than I expected, the carriage pulled up to the Executive Mansion. It was a huge building, square and white, much grander than I had expected, but I hardly noticed it at all. Up the steps, in the gaslit doorway, stood Father.
Kermit and I fell over each other as we rushed out of the carriage. Kermit was first onto the ground but I jumped over him, and we scrambled to our feet and ran—wham!— straight into Father, wonderful Father. He met us partway down the stairs, caught us both around our middles, and lifted us off the ground.
“Father!” I said. He smelled so perfectly the same.
“Sweet Ethel,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “Dear Kermit. My, how I've missed you! And here's Mother! As lovely as ever.” He set me down, drew Mother toward him, and kissed her full on the lips. “Come on!” he said, herding us toward the open door. “You'll want to see the place. It needs work, Edie—” The fading sunlight glinted off his glasses and his teeth as he smiled. “Oh, this house is a disaster.”
“Well,” Mother said cheerfully, “it won't be for long.”
The president's house made the governor's mansion in Albany, with its fusty furniture and terrible old wallpaper, look like a palace fit for a king. “It hasn't been fixed up in ever so long,” Father explained as he walked us through the door. Mother sniffed. I did too. It smelled musty, like our cellar at Sagamore. “Congress put some money aside to redecorate,” Father continued, “but McKinley never got the chance to spend it. I'm sure we'll set the place to rights.”
Mother stopped in her tracks. “That,” she said, “will be the first thing to go.”
The rest of us stopped too. “That” was a wall directly in front of us made up entirely of pieces of colored glass. It filled the space between the columns of the entrance hall, top to bottom, side to side, all the way down the hallway. Bright reds, blues, and greens blazed in the fading sunlight. Looking closely, I could see American flags and eagles intertwined in some of the panes. It was shockingly ugly, almost hideous. I giggled.
Father cleared his throat. “It was made by Tiffany. President Arthur put it in, to stop drafts. I believe they say it's in the Arabian style.” He looked at Mother. “Don't know that you'd have it be the first thing out, though. After all, you haven't seen upstairs.”
Kermit said, “Look at the hen!”
On a table in the vestibule a china hen sat on a nest of china eggs. I ran up to touch her.
“Another relic,” Father said, waving cheerily to an old man who stood near the door. “Been here forever, so they say.” I thought Father meant that the man was a relic, but then I realized he was talking about the hen.
“Out,” Mother said, laughing a little. “China hen, second thing to go.”
The old man smiled and waved at Kermit and me. I waved back. “Hello, Mr. Pendel,” Father said. The man was wearing a uniform, so I guessed he was a doorman or some other kind of servant.
Father was already striding away. I ran to catch up. “Are there guards here?” I asked him.
He frowned. “Heavens, yes. Uniformed policemen following me everywhere. A lot of time-wasting nonsense.”
Kermit and Mother and I grinned at each other. We hoped for lots of policemen. Attentive policemen. Better policemen than President McKinley had had.
Beyond the glass wall was another wide hallway, full of old sofas and tattered chairs. It looked like the parlor of a train station. Then Father led us into an immense open room. Giant ancient chandeliers hung from a painted red and gold ceiling. The carpet was so threadbare we could have skated on it. Enormous O-shaped sofas, with potted palms stuck in their middles, stood at intervals beneath the chandeliers. “The East Room,” Father said.
“Wow,” said Kermit with a shudder.
“How awful,” said Mother.
I didn't say anything. I'd never expected the Executive Mansion to be so gloomy. I'd hoped it would be homey, like Sagamore. But Mother strode the length of the room and swept the heavy curtains aside. She began to throw the windows open. It was twilight, but the room seemed suddenly lighter. A breeze ruffled the leaves on the potted palms.
Father smiled. “I knew you'd put it to rights,” he said.
Mother said, “This is just a beginning.”
Father led us through the Green Room, the Blue Room, the Red Room. “Is there a Purple Room?” I asked hopefully. “Lavender? Yellow?”
“Yellow makes the ladies look bilious,” Father said, laughing.
Mother shook her head. “So does that particular shade of green.”
We went through the State Dining Room—Mother opened more windows—and then up a little stairway with a carved-eagle balustrade, the first thing in the whole mansion that reminded me of Sagamore. I ran my hand over the eagle fondly. “This is private,” Father said. “The public stairs are at the opposite end.”
“Public stairs to the family quarters?” Mother raised her eyebrows. The public didn't go upstairs at the governor's mansion in Albany.
Father coughed but didn't say anything.
The upstairs hallway was wide and long and the ceiling was wonderfully high, but the carpet was horrible and the wallpaper was worse. Sofas and tables lined the walls. “These are our rooms,” Father was saying. Mother opened one door, peeked in, then opened another.
“My,” she said, “it's like living over the store.” She pointed down the hallway. “What's beyond those glass doors?”
Father coughed again. “Offices. My office, in fact. Every-one's offices.”
“Well,” Mother said. She opened and shut a few more doors. “Is this all the room we have?” Father nodded. “I'm sure it can be changed,” Mother said. “Though where we'll put everyone to start is more than I know.” She smiled at me.
“What do you think, Ethel? Do you suppose it's a good thing Ted's at Groton?”
I had been eager to look through all the rooms, hoping to be allowed to chose my own. Mother's words caught me short. “No,” I said, scowling. “No, I don't.” I knew she meant to be funny, but it didn't strike me as amusing at all. Pretty soon I'd be gone too. Whatever room I got would be empty most of the time.
Mother picked out her and Father's bedroom first, a big one right at the top of the stairs. It had a room opening off it that Father could use for a dressing room, and a private bath. She put Archie and Quentin in the room next to that, so that they would be close and she would hear them if they cried out in the night. There was one more room on that side of the hall, and I hoped it could be mine: it had a pretty bow window looking onto the garden. Mother and I looked out and admired the flowers.
“What's that?” she asked, pointing to a door in the room's side wall. Father opened it. “A secret passageway,” he said, giving Mother a wink, “to my office.” I looked inside. Father's office wasn't fancy, but it was full. His big desk was already covered with papers.
Mother smiled. “Then this room will be my library,” she said. “My office. That way I can speak to you whenever I like.”
She put Kermit in the room opposite the library. “You'll share with Ted when he's at home,” she said. She walked quickly down the far side of the hall, opening doors, talking to herself. Kermit and I ran ahead of her. There was an elevator, and beyond that a big room, nearly as large as Mother and Father's.
“This can be for me,” I said. “Me and Sister. We'll share too.”
Mother came in and looked it over. Like her office, it had a side door, which led into a long, narrow room next to it. “I think Sister had better have her own room,” she said. “We'll give her this one. You can have the one next door, Ethel, the adjoining room. We'll use the tiny one for the housemaids and the leftover one for guests.”
“That's not fair,” Kermit said. His and Ted's room was smaller than Sister's.