“Frances Perkins,” Colby said. “Of course, Roosevelt’s labor secretary.”
“This country is clawing its way out of the Depression,” I went on. “Women are working outside of the home every day to feed their families. They don’t have time to waste on worrying whether it’s ladylike. Let’s do what makes sense. I ran one of the biggest military hospitals of the Great War from across an ocean. And I established one of the busiest canteens in the country. I employ more men and women in my various homes than most male business owners can claim to do anywhere in this country. And I know how to run things. Papa taught me well. I’ve been preparing for this role my entire life.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Colby said, and I could tell that he was nodding into the telephone on his end. “Of course you’re right, Marjorie. How does…Joe feel about it?” I understood the question and just how many layers it had. It was a question not only of how my new husband would feel about a wife who sat in on board meetings with a room full of men, but also of how my husband would feel about his wife putting aside her duties as hostess and homemaker to stay current on business and managerial matters. How my husband would feel about having a wife who wielded such power and independence. But even more, how my husband would feel about his wife taking those powers and responsibilities away from him in the process, since my representation on the General Foods board had always been by proxy, with my husband holding the Post family member’s place at that table.
No more.
I spoke now with steel in my voice: “Joe isn’t like Ed, and he’s certainly not like Ned. He’s perfectly comfortable with his wife going into business,” I said. “And since Ned is out, I’ll take his spot.”
* * *
—
Betty Beale could put that in her column. It wasn’t society gossip; it was real news: I would be the first woman to serve on the board of directors in General Foods history. Regardless of what the society dames in Washington might think of me, nationally it was received as a positive move. The Gals are Inching Their Way into Big Business, went the headline. Fortune magazine wrote a glowing piece on my appointment, while The Literary Digest praised me as a woman “thoroughly schooled in the corporation, and respected for her sound business sense.”
The board appointment gave me so much more to focus on than the bitter gossip in Washington, and it required that I make regular trips to New York for the meetings. By summer, as Joe awaited word on his upcoming assignment, he was ready to travel north with me as well—up to the Adirondacks for a few weeks of rest. I’d scrapped the name Camp Hutridge after the split with Ned, settling on Camp Topridge instead, and I could not wait to show the place to Joe and enjoy our time away from the Washington swamp.
I got up to the Adirondacks a few days ahead of Joe’s scheduled arrival in order to open up the camp and prepare for his first visit. The most pressing matter was changing everything over from Hutridge to Topridge. I’d been the second mistress of a home before, and the last thing I wanted was for Joe to arrive and feel as if he’d stepped into another man’s domain.
With that in mind, I’d ordered new stationery for the bedrooms and new labels for our homemade jam jars, and had changed the monogrammed grates over the fireplaces. Anything that bore witness to Ned Hutton’s onetime residence at the place had to go. That morning I was sitting with a few of the maids, and we were pulling the stitching from all of the towels embroidered with my former initials, MPH, replacing them one at a time with my swirling new initials, MPD. That’s when I got the call, Cook finding me under a pile of bath towels in the main lodge. “Mrs. Davies? The operator has Mr. Davies on the line.”
“Mumsie.” Joe’s voice crackled in the receiver, greeting me with one of his favorite new pet names.
“Joey, my love.” All around me the waitstaff bustled throughout the bright great room, readying the furniture and sorting kitchen supplies for the coming weeks.
“How is Topridge?” he asked.
“Sublime,” I answered, glancing out the floor-to-ceiling window at the lake, where at that moment the thinnest lacing of fog was settling over its smooth surface. “I can’t wait for you to get up here. You leave tomorrow, right?”
A pause on the line. I shifted on my feet as Joe said simply: “Mumsie.”
“Yes?” My pulse quickened. Nearby someone dropped a cooking pot, and I startled at the clamor it made against the wooden floor.