"We'll see. I'm sure they're all nice and proper girls if they go to Winterhaven," she added and started for the shower. "But please, Leigh, no more difficulties. I'm absolutely drained," she said and followed it with a trail of laughter.
And so my first weekend home from
Winterhaven began the way most all of these weekends would. Our Friday night dinners were always quite formal, and unless Tony and Momma wererinvited someplace to have dinner, they usually invited friends to join us. None of the couples ever brought their children along, so except for me and Troy, when he was well enough to join us at the table, I was always with the adults, who talked about things that I had little interest in.
Sometimes Tony had a movie to show in the little theater. A friend of a friend would get him something that was popular. A few times we had a pianist perform in the music room. On those occasions, Tony and Momma would invite a half dozen or more of their friends to dinner and the private concert. Momma said it was not only chic, but it was her way of supporting the arts and the artists who needed the added income to continue their creative work.
Tony and I did go to a nearby ski hill on Saturdays throughout the winter months. He employed a private ski instructor to teach me the fundamentals and before long, I was following him down the intermediate slope. Tony was a magnificent skier who usually took the most difficult runs. We would have lunch in the ski lodge, sitting by the fire.
Momma never came along with us. While we were away, she would go somewhere to play bridge or have her women friends over to play at Farthy. If she didn't play bridge, she would go shopping or to matinees in Boston.
Troy, still weak from his terrible bout with pneumonia, was kept inside most of the time. At Momma's insistence, Tony hired a full-tirne nurse to look after him, even though he was no longer sick. In late March when he came down with chicken pox, which was then followed with the measles, Momma never stopped reminding Tony and me how clever she was to insist Troy have personal medical attention around the clock.
Being sick more often than he was well left poor little Troy thin and weak. He would look at me with large, sad, sunken eyes staring out of his small pale face when Sundays came and I was to return to Winterhaven, for he knew he was confined to five more days of little company and enjoyment. Momma treated him like a walking germ, avoiding him whenever possible and, I found out when I returned one weekend, having him fed at a different time so she wouldn't have to be at the same table with him.
In the spring he developed new allergies and had to be taken to see a skin specialist and an allergist almost on a weekly basis. First, they thought it was pollen and ragweed, then they thought it had to do with the fabrics in his suite, so Tony had everything changed: rugs, curtains, linens and quilts, but that didn't solve the problem. He still walked about with a running nose and coughed even on the warmest, clearest days. The hope was he would eventually grow out of the allergies, but until then, he was confined and given heavy dosages of various medicines, some taking his appetite away, some making him tired. He slept a lot, remained thin and small, and looked drained and depressed most of the time.
Naturally, he withdrew into himself, spent most of his time playing with the toys Tony bought him and with creating his own toys. A number of his creations were very good and Tony even made one into a Tatterton Toy for children Troy's age.
During the spring months Tony and I started horseback riding. He decided to teach me this himself. We would go for rides along the beach and over the dunes. Troy wanted desperately to come along and to ride Sniffles, his pony, but the allergist absolutely forbade his contact with animals. He couldn't have a puppy or a kitten, not even a hamster. It was so sad to see him standing on a hill, holding his nurse's hand and watching Tony and I start off for a ride along the beach, but there was nothing I could do about it.
That winter and spring Momma was the happiest. I was doing what she wanted--spending most of my weekends with Tony and freeing her to indulge in her own activities. During the week Tony was very busy, and from what understood listening to him and to her, they often spent whole days without seeing each other. I wondered what had happened to that driving passion, those magnificent magical moments when the world had looked as though it would end unless they broke apart my loving family so that the two of them could be together all the time.
Daddy's postcards and letters came regularly through the winter months and into the spring. Then, around May. I noticed that the next letter was long in coming. Just when I thought it would never come and had begun to fear that something had happened to Daddy it arrived. In it he mentioned someone new, mentioned her as if I had always known her.
"And today," he began in his middle paragraph, "Mildred Pierce and I had lunch on the Champs Elysees. It was a magnificent day and the street was filled with cars and people and tourists from everywhere, a veritable parade of fashion. It was the first real day off I had taken in ages. We went to museums and I even let her talk me into going to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Mildred is great company."
Mildred Pierce? I thought. Who was Mildred Pierce? I thumbed through all the letters Daddy had written just to be sure he had never mentioned her before. Was she a secretary, a relative, some wellknown person in his business should have known? It was very confusing, but there was also something in the way Daddy wrote "Mildred is great company" that made my heart skip a beat.
How old was this Mildred Pierce? Could she be someone's daughter, someone my own age perhaps, someone who was taking his attention from me? I would have so loved to have had lunch with Daddy on the Champs Elysees and gone to the top of t
he Eiffel Tower with him, too. It wasn't fair.
And then I thought it was terribly selfish of me to begrudge Daddy this day which he called his first day off in ages. I couldn't wait until his next letter to see if he would mention her again. He didn't, but he did say he thought his return to the States would be delayed a little and he didn't give a reason, but I sensed something between the lines. Momma would have called my feelings feminine intuition. All I knew was that in my heart of hearts I feared being replaced, feared losing the love of my faraway father. I held my breath every time I opened one of Daddy's letters or read one of his postcards after that.
And then it came in early June. Daddy wrote to tell me he would be returning in mid-July. He said he was anxious to see me and he was anxious for me to meet Mildred Pierce.
I could understand why my father would be happy to meet someone to help fill his time. But he wrote so enthusiastically about this person, it made my heart worry and hurt.
"Mildred and I are very compatible. She's interested in the things that interest me and she is a lovely, gentle person. I'm sure you will like her. Being with her is like being able to push away the gray clouds and bring sunshine back into my life."
But Daddy, I cried inside, I thought I was the one who brought sunshine into your life. Is this really why you stayed away from me so long, why you lingered in Europe? Has someone stolen that part of your heart I thought had been left for me?
And what if this Mildred Pierce doesn't like me or want to be around me, or is jealous of me? Would you have even less to do with me than you do now? I looked at Daddy's photograph on my dresser for a long time before asking the scariest question, If Daddy got a new family, where would I belong?
One evening at dinner in mid-June, Tony announced his intention to go to Europe on business. Unlike the times when Daddy would make such an announcement, Momma did not become immediately unhappy, complain and pout. She was very
understanding and very interested in what he was going to do.
"There's this company in Europe," he explained, "that I recently learned about, a company similar to my own, making different sorts of things for the very wealthy classes in Europe. One of the things I'm afraid of is its expansion to the United States. It might steal away our clientele. I want to learn more about them and see firsthand what sort of competition might be in store for me.
"Why don't you come along, Jillian? It could be like a second honeymoon. I don't have to spend all my time on business. There's a lot of sightseeing to do."
"Europe? Now?" Momma groaned. "It's too hot and the Continent is overrun with tourists. Besides, I told you think we should consider redoing some of the rooms in Earthy, and you said I could go ahead and meet with my decorators. I'll have to get started on that."
Tony wasn't happy, but he left for Europe by himself a few days later. Momma seemed relieved, as if a major responsibility had been lifted from her shoulders. She started on the redecorating
immediately, having long meetings with decorators, filling the music room with books and books of wallpaper, carpet, and fabric samples, as well as pictures of furniture. She gathered her experts around her like a queen and her entourage, and went from room to room discussing, listening to suggestions, making suggestions. She even had them to dinner, where she continued the discussions of fashions, colors and styles into the evening.