The Chaperone

  In any case—she had insisted, and he had agreed—they could only decide what they might be to each other when they were on equal footing. And so on the train home, even while Greta was sleeping, they’d been careful not to touch, not to graze arms or even look at each other for too long. She’d meant what she’d said, and his agreement was real. But even just sitting next to him, she’d felt as if the hairs on her arms were standing up straight, as if reaching for him in spite of her.

  “Cora.” Alan’s voice, strained and angry, jarred her thoughts. “What did you tell him?”

  When she didn’t answer, he slapped his hand on the desk. She flinched, her smile gone.

  “This is your lover? Are you mad? What have you told him about me?”

  She was disappointed that he only thought of himself, that he couldn’t think of her at all. But she saw the fear in his eyes.

  “Alan. He doesn’t care.”

  He shook his head. Even in the dim light, she could actually see the color leave his face, starting with his broad forehead, then his clean-shaven cheeks, his cleft chin.

  “He doesn’t, Alan. And he’s got nothing over you. If he… told anyone, which he wouldn’t, we would be exposed. He’s not my brother. We would be charged with lewd cohabitation. We’d all be arrested.”

  “Your punishments would hardly equal mine.”

  She put her hand on the desk, leaning forward. “He could lose his daughter. And he won’t put you in jeopardy. He understands, Alan. Don’t worry. It’ll be all right. I just want to give them a chance here. Maybe they won’t be happy. But we want to see. It’s the only way we can know.”

  She sat back in her chair. Perhaps she shouldn’t have told him the truth, if only to save him the worry. After all, she would have to lie to Howard and Earle. She would need to keep lying to Greta. But she needed Alan’s support, or at least his complicity. Without it, her lie would be more suspicious—no one in Wichita, save Alan, even knew she had come to Kansas as an orphan, or that she’d been born in New York. But if Alan stood by her, if he were the one to tell people the story of her hard beginning and her joy at finding her brother at last, fewer questions would be asked.

  “What’s he going to do here? Does he have any money? You expect me to support him?”

  “I want you to help him find a job. It might be difficult because of his accent. But you know so many people. You could help him. He’ll take any job. And he’s good with wiring, machinery.”

  “What about the girl?”

  “I’ll look after her.” Again, she smiled. On the train, Greta had continued to literally cling to her father, but there was a long stretch in Missouri where she and Cora had sat together, counting barns, and after a while, Greta fell asleep with her little blond head on Cora’s lap. She’d swallowed the story whole. Aunt Cora. Her long-lost Aunt Cora who would take them to Kansas and keep her and her papa together.

  Alan shook his head. “You’re going to let her keep thinking she’s your niece? You’re going to keep lying to that child?”

  “We have to. There’s too much risk if we don’t.”

  “How long do you plan to keep this up? What about when Howard and Earle come home? You’re going to lie to them? Your own sons? You’re going to tell them this man is their uncle? Uncle Joseph from Dusseldorf?”

  “He’s from Hamburg.” She met his gaze. “And we’ve been lying to our sons for some time. Being truthful now would just confuse them about our marriage, about so many things.”

  He looked away. She felt no triumph. There was no pleasure in shaming him. But he had no right to shame her. Didn’t she deserve some kind of happiness? Even if she had to lie? Surely he saw the logic in this. She would make him see.

  “I need your help,” she said quietly. “You owe me that. You know you do.”

  He frowned. She understood his distress. Even if she could convince him that Joseph would do him no harm, he was certainly considering how their lives, their home, would change. For years now, he’d kept up his charade, requiring her assistance and discretion, and he’d repaid her with caring, with the boys, with pretty clothes, and with the stature of his name. He must have hoped that would always be enough.

  “It might be nice to have more people in the house.” She looked down and rubbed her neck, still sore from the long ride on the train. “I was thinking, perhaps we could entertain more.” She waited. “Perhaps… Raymond could come to dinner sometime.”

  He stared at her. She stared back. She wasn’t negotiating. She didn’t need to negotiate, and they both knew it. She still had him over a barrel. But she wanted him to understand that any happiness she might gain in this new arrangement would only work in his favor. Really, if she could have this chance, what did she care if Raymond Walker came to dinner? For twenty years now, she’d known he and Alan were still seeing each other, still risking everything for their secret visits. Their letters and gifts to each other had caused her so much pain. But now she felt decidedly neutral, unwilling to judge or impede. For wasn’t she just as determined to risk disgrace, even arrest, to find out if she and Joseph could love each other? It only followed, then, that what she felt for Joseph was what Alan felt for Raymond, what he couldn’t forget or ignore. What had once embittered her now filled her with sympathy, even admiration. She could only hope that if her risks were as great, she, too, would find a way.

  Alan drummed his fingers on the ink blotter. “You’re going to tell people you’re German?” He squinted. “Are you German? Did you find that out? Did you learn anything about your parents?”

  “Nothing that matters.” She shrugged. “Let’s say my father was German. My mother, too. She died in childbirth in New York. But they were married. I was legitimate.” She looked at him evenly. If she was going to invent a story, why not invent one that would make things easier, not just for herself, but for Joseph and Greta, and keep things easy for Howard and Earle? “Let’s say that when I was a baby, I was left in the care of a relative, and my father took my older brother back to Germany. Joseph immigrated back before the war, and I tracked him down in New York.”

  She watched Alan’s face. She could see he was turning the story over, shaking it out. If there were any holes, he would find them first, as a good lawyer and a practiced liar.

  “So how did you come to live with the Kaufmanns? What will you say?”

  “The relative in New York died. I came to Kansas on an orphan train.” She sighed. “I don’t care if people know about that. It’s the least of my concerns.”

  Alan blinked. “I’ll say.” He appeared dumbfounded, his lips parted, his gaze searching her face as if he wasn’t quite sure who she was. She understood. Their life, his life, had required so much careful planning on his part, every decision calculated for secrecy and survival, every argument and justification rehearsed well in advance. And now she’d gone and ambushed him, coming at him with her own desires and plans. He would need some time to get his bearings, to comprehend that yes, this mutiny was real. But she couldn’t help but feel they’d reached an understanding, or at least the beginning of one. She would force him to help her if she had to, but she would rather keep his love. She was quiet, but she looked back at him in such a way that he might know this for himself. She was careful not to smile. She didn’t want him to hit the desk again. But really, she was just so happy to see him, so happy to finally be home.

  • • •

  Within the week, Joseph was working a press at Coleman Lanterns, where Alan had put in a good word to a former client. His shift started well before dawn, and so on a muggy morning in early September, it was Cora who walked Greta to school on her first day. Greta wore the pretty blue dress that Cora had bought for her at Innes Department Store, and her blond hair was clean and combed. Cora assured her that she would like school, that her teachers would be friendly, and that many of the other girls would be nice. “If anyone isn’t, ignore them,” she said. Greta looked up at her with somber eyes, and Cora worried she’d made the c
hild nervous for no reason. After all, in her pretty new dress, Greta might simply blend in. She was shy and unsure, but she had no accent, and even if other parents had heard that her father was German and that she’d just come in from New York, there was a chance no one would care. People were more open-minded than they’d been when Cora was young, and Wichita was a good-sized town, with people coming and going all the time. Greta might make friends. Besides, even if she didn’t, she would be all right. She’d survived her mother’s death, after all, and her years at the orphanage. If the other children did isolate her, she would be able to bear it, just as Cora had.

  Still, when they got to the school yard, which was already full of laughing, running children, and Cora caught sight of Greta’s young teacher standing in the shade and waving to them, she felt her heart flutter. It was so strange—she didn’t remember feeling so much worry with Howard and Earle, even when they were young. Perhaps she’d just known her own boys would do well, buoyed by each other and their comfortable years at home. Greta, still so thin, just seemed more vulnerable. She didn’t know if this was how the Kaufmanns had felt, why they tried so hard.

  “When will I see my papa?” Greta asked. “When will he come to get me?”

  Cora, hearing the fear in the girl’s voice, crouched as low as she could and smiled. “Your father works until five tonight, and you’ll be home by then. We’ll all have dinner together. Uncle Alan is picking up a special dessert, because you’re being so brave. And I’ll be standing here at three o’clock, right when you get out. If you like, we could get a pop on the way home. You can tell me all about your day.”

  She kissed the hot top of Greta’s head and nudged her toward the gate. It was the best she could do. There was no sense in assuring her that she would have a good day, or, for that matter, a hard one; Cora didn’t know what lay in store, for this day or any other. She could only promise to be there at three, to console, to celebrate, or to strategize, to help this child as best she could, to hold her hand and lead her home.

  In late October, the first cool night, Joseph came to her room, knocking softly, saying nothing, only looking at her, waiting; but she’d been awake, turning in her bed, and when he reached for her hand, she pulled him to her. By then, he was paying rent to Alan and helping with groceries and household expenses. He didn’t make anywhere near what Alan did, and his contributions would not have been missed. But he had not touched her, or even tried, until he had money of his own. So by the time he did, she was both comforted and thrilled, knowing that when he came to her, it was out of pure and genuine desire. Her want for him was as pure. They wanted nothing from each other but each other—no children, no security, no social approbation. What was between them mattered to no one else. No one else, besides Alan, and likely Raymond, even knew.

  Still, it astounded her sometimes, the madness of what she’d done. She kept thinking they would all be found out, or that she and Joseph would become disenchanted with each other, or that Greta would decide not to love her, or that Alan would refuse to go on.

  But none of these things happened. No one in town voiced suspicions. Viola Hammond only chided Cora for never mentioning her being born in New York, and she praised her for doing the Christian thing and taking in her niece. Alan’s mood improved after Joseph tinkered with the car’s engine until it no longer made a worrisome ticking sound, and it further improved when Raymond finally accepted one of Cora’s many invitations to dinner. Raymond, who had by this time lost most of his red hair, was quiet at first, watchful—especially with Cora. But he got along well with Greta, and after a while, their evenings settled into an easy routine: Alan had, in fact, purchased a radio over the summer, and after dinner they would all go to the parlor to listen to a show or music. Cora noticed that Alan and Raymond rarely looked at each other or spoke to each other directly, and Cora perceived this as a well-honed strategy she and Joseph might borrow. When there was dancing, she danced with Alan. Never Joseph. (And never Raymond—that seemed a mutual understanding.) They kept up the act even in the house, so as not to confuse Greta. Still, it was enough just to have Joseph nearby, to hear his voice, even when she didn’t look at him.

  And they managed. The child slept soundly, and there was a lock on Cora’s door. Even after Joseph had to get up and go back to his room, leaning over to kiss her good night, Cora would lie with her eyes open, content, and listen to the quiet house. In time, she would decide what she’d done wasn’t madness at all. Was it mad to at least try to live as one wished, or as close to it as possible? This life is mine, she would think sometimes. This life is mine because of good luck. And because I reached out and took it.

  • • •

  Alan advised that there was little point in telling anyone what Louise had said about Edward Vincent. He agreed it was worrisome that Vincent was still teaching Sunday school, but if Louise refused to attach her name to the complaint, then Cora could only go to the church leaders with a vague accusation. Vincent wasn’t likely to be let go over the matter, and if Cora confronted him directly, she would only succeed in making an angry enemy.

  “Given our domestic arrangement,” Alan added, “we might choose our enemies with care.”

  But Cora had to do something. Feeling cowardly, she sent an anonymous letter to Vincent’s office. She used plain stationery, and wrote the words with her left hand:

  Stay away from the girls in your Sunday school class.

  We are watching you.

  She didn’t know what would come of this attempt, and it didn’t seem like enough. But the following Sunday, the minister announced that Edward Vincent had decided to focus on business matters and spend more time with his family, and the church was looking for a volunteer to instruct young people on moral matters. For a moment, Cora considered raising her hand. Since her return from New York, she had been giving a great deal of thought to moral matters, and she would have liked the opportunity to share some of these thoughts, not to mention a few questions, with the young Presbyterians of Wichita. But she knew this wasn’t the kind of instruction the minister expected. She doubted she could do as he wished. Given how she was living, if she taught the hard rules and fearful stories that she herself had been taught as a child, she would be as big a hypocrite as Edward Vincent. So when the minister looked down at her, sitting in the pew between Alan and Joseph, she politely averted her eyes.

  In 1926, a nineteen-year-old Louise Brooks, still a relatively unknown actress, was cast as the leading lady in A Social Celebrity, opposite the well-loved Adolphe Menjou. When the film opened in Wichita, Cora and Joseph went to see it, and they brought along Greta, who at ten was almost as tall as Cora’s shoulders, her hair even blonder from so many summers in the Kansas sun. But she insisted, to both her father and Cora, that she had a clear memory of the pretty black-haired girl she’d met briefly in New York when she was six. She’d been eating toast and jam, she said, and she’d hidden under a table when the pretty girl came in, and the girl had been laughing about something. As if those details weren’t proof enough, in the theater, the moment Louise appeared on the screen, Greta breathed in, sharp and quick, clutching Cora’s arm. “That’s her!” she whispered. “Aunt Cora, I remember! She looks just the same!”

  Joseph gently shushed her. Cora couldn’t respond. She stared, open-mouthed, up at the screen. There was Louise, the dark eyes flashing under the bangs, and then the bright, familiar smile. Cora was not at all surprised that Louise had found success, but it was still so thrilling, so startling, to see a person she knew in a real movie. But Greta was wrong—Louise didn’t look exactly as she had that summer. Her hair was cut even shorter than it had been, and her face had grown slightly more angular, thinner, more like her mother’s. Her eyes were heavily lined, and shadow darkened her lids. She played a flapper, a plucky girl who wanted to go to New York to become a dancer. That was hardly a stretch, of course, but her acting, in Cora’s opinion, was solid. And no matter which way she turned, no matter what her expression, her
luminous face beckoned to the eye. When she was in a scene, it was hard to look at anything else. She wore simple outfits at the beginning of the movie, and at the end, a low-cut beaded gown, her pale neck unadorned.

  The next day, a gloating Wichita Eagle quoted a New York critic’s review: “There is a girl in this picture by the name of Louise Brooks. Perhaps you’ve never heard of her. If not, don’t worry. You will.”

  All at once, it seemed, her picture and her name were everywhere. Her posed portraits appeared in Photoplay, Variety, and Motion Picture Classic. Sometimes she stared sultrily at the camera, and sometimes she smiled sweetly, her hair and pale skin always showing up so well in black and white. Even before her next film came out, the professional gossips started to track her. There were reports of her dining at expensive restaurants, dancing in clubs, and then there were rumors of her being seen around New York with Charlie Chaplin, who, the articles frequently noted, was not only married, but twice her age. The magazines also reported that just a few years earlier, Louise had been a Denishawn dancer until she was kicked out because of a bad attitude. She’d quickly become a Ziegfeld girl, still underage but living high and free at the Algonquin Hotel until the Algonquin kicked her out for lewd behavior. Of all the bob-haired, knee-showing flappers on the screen that year, it seemed Louise Brooks was the one, in real life at least, who was truly wild and rebellious. Howard wrote to Cora that he’d impressed his new classmates at law school by telling them he’d not only gone to school with Louise Brooks—his dear mother had chaperoned her for an entire summer. “The fellows were all jealous of me,” he added. “But none could say they envied you!”