Our friends. My first thought was: They are your friends, not mine. My second thought was: Why would you not defend something that’s important to your wife? My father credited Christian Science with saving his life. And then mine. It had been the only thing I’d ever known to unite Mother and Papa. The kindness and generosity of Mrs. Gregory had been a credit to her faith, the very same faith that all in that household had leaned on during that dark Michigan winter.
I sighed, looking at my husband, seeing the crimson stain of his lips. The droop of his eyelids. It was just the drink talking, I reassured myself. He was not himself that evening. I hoped that we could both simply go to sleep and awake in a better humor the next day. He would apologize, I was sure of it. He’d be mortified once he looked back on this discussion with the clarity of sobriety and sunlight.
As I clicked off my bedside lamp and leaned forward to give him a chaste kiss, I spoke in what I hoped was a conciliatory, measured tone. “Ed, darling, I will go to the Episcopal church with you, if you wish. I’m your wife now, and I do support you. But you knew before you married me what my faith meant to me. So please, support me as well.”
* * *
—
The next morning when we awoke, Ed said nothing of the previous night, save to complain of a wretched headache and roll back over to sleep. I decided to put off any reconciliatory chat and leave the room so that he might sleep. I rose alone and dressed hastily. I’d have breakfast downstairs and then take a walk, clear my head in the fresh air, I decided. But before I had left the lobby, I was informed that there was another package waiting for me at reception, this one from my dear friend Helen. She had clipped and sent along a pile of newspaper articles that had taken up the news of our wedding. I was stunned to see that these were not simply the New York and Connecticut society pages, where news of our marriage would be of local interest; journalists from as far as Washington, Chicago, and even San Francisco had filled their pages with details of our wedding.
Our marriage was declared the “preeminent union of the season, perhaps the year.” Another journalist gushed: “The Closes will occupy a prominent position, for the bride is twice a millionaire in her own right, and the groom is a descendant of one of the finest, oldest families in the country.”
There it was again: Eddie had the breeding, and I had the bank account. I read on, the next fawning words doing some good in softening my coiled nerves after the tensions of the previous night: “The bride, who has already attained a wide reputation for exquisite beauty, is probably the richest young woman in the United States, in addition to her dowry of youthful charm and grace.”
I folded the articles, planning to keep them. I would show them to Eddie to remind him through his claret-soaked headache of the prize he’d secured in marrying me. I hoped that the other Closes were reading these gushing articles in their sunny breakfast rooms in Greenwich and Manhattan.
But most of all, as I read the accounts of our flawless wedding day, of the love that encircled us, of how our union stood out for its style and promise in even the highest levels of society, I hoped that the real thing would prove as magical as it all appeared when I read about it on paper.
Chapter 11
Greenwich, Connecticut
December 1905
Eddie scowled when he saw me enter the breakfast room and take a place at the table, dressed only in my slippers and salmon-colored satin pajamas. The room smelled of coffee, and Eddie took a slow sip, gently replacing the china cup as he looked back down at his newspaper. After a moment, his voice quiet, he said: “Good morning. You do realize, Marjorie dear, now that you’re married, you are entitled to take your breakfast in bed?” A tight, controlled smile replaced his frown of a moment earlier.
The footman appeared just then, and I nodded that I was ready for my meal. Eddie went on, speaking into his china coffee cup: “I’m quite certain Cook could manage putting some Grape-Nuts on a tray and sending it up.”
I ignored the derision that tinged his tone, just as I’d ignored the comment he’d made to our butler when he’d first moved into The Boulders, giving his order that Cook was not to include Grape-Nuts in his own breakfast spread. He hadn’t known I could hear: I can’t imagine starting the day eating birdseed. Or had he?
Now, as I unfolded my linen napkin and accepted the warm drink of Postum that the footman poured into my coffee cup （I still drank only Papa’s popular caffeine-free beverage）， I did my best to assume a breezy tone as I answered, “I’ve been rising with the sun since I was a girl. Nobody else was going to collect those chicken eggs but me. In my experience, the only ladies who spend the morning in bed are those who work in a brothel or suffer from migraines.”