“Oh, no,” I said. “It wasn't dangerous. It was wonderful!”
Mother's secretary, Belle Hagner, didn't usually work on weekends, but this Saturday afternoon she came to attend to Mother's correspondence. She told me she'd been sick earlier in the week. “I'm glad you're better now,” I said. I was curled up on the sofa in Mother's office, reading a book.
Belle smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “How was your week?”
I grimaced. “I've decided the less I talk when I'm there, and the less I think about it when I'm here, the better off I am.”
“But isn't that—” Belle started. Mother hurried into the room. “Good afternoon, Belle. We'll have to be quick, I don't have much time.”
I went back to my book, half listening to them discuss parties, invitations, and the unfortunate necessity of sending unsuitable gifts away. Mother didn't mind accepting suitable gifts, like horses or pears or possums, but things like zebras went to the zoo. I still thought the zebra would have liked us.
Sister breezed in. She moved my feet off the sofa and sat down. “Good morning,” she said.
“Afternoon,” Mother corrected her. “Are you just now waking?”
Sister checked the watch pinned to her waist. “Oh, heavens, no, I've been up for hours.” She winked at me.
“I've written some thank-you notes on your behalf, dear,” Miss Hagner said. “I hope you don't mind.”
I snorted. The idea that Sister might mind having her work done for her was hilarious. Sister laughed and tickled my feet. “Monkey girl!” she said.
“All right, then,” Mother said, to quiet us. “Miss Hagner hates to discuss my dress situation, but we've got a press release to write for tonight's dinner. Sister, some congressmen are coming. I expect you to be there.”
Sister and Ted were both old enough to go to the dinners Mother and Father held. I wished I were.
“To get them to vote for my dance floor,” Sister said. “Yes, I will.”
“I suppose I'd better put your dress into the press release too, then,” Miss Hagner said. “What will you be wearing, dear? Your white gown with the picot edging?”
“Good gracious, no,” Sister said. “You put that in the press release last week.”
Mother frowned. “Of everything you have, I think it's most suitable.”
“Oh, I know I'll have to wear it,” Sister said. “But I'm not describing it to the press. The last thing I need is for every person in the United States to be able to count exactly how many good dresses I own.” She scooted down the sofa until she was taking up more than half the space. I sat up. “Write this,” Sister said, “Miss Alice Roosevelt will be wearing a gown of crimson sateen—”
“Not crimson,” Mother said. “Crimson would make you look sallow.”
“Leaf green, then,” said Sister. “Miss Alice Roosevelt will be wearing a gown of leaf green silk brocade, with elbow-length sleeves, a high collar, and a half train. The bodice is trimmed with a single velvet ribbon in darker green, and the dress features a wide sash of the silk brocade. Her headdress, shoes, and handbag are made to match.”
If I shut my eyes, I could see Sister sweeping down the long staircase in a rustling green gown, her steps careful, her head held high.
I opened my eyes. Miss Hagner was looking at Mother, her pen motionless, her eyebrows raised. Mother nodded. “Write it down,” she said. “This obsession with our clothes has become such a game. It might as well be a true charade.” She turned to Sister. “What shall I wear?”
Sister smiled, a rare smile for her that lit her whole face. “Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt,” she said slowly, “will be attired in wine-colored velvet, with a deep gathered ruffle trimming the edge of the fully gored skirt…”
Sister went on and on, describing Mother's imaginary dress, her shoes, her jewelry, the flowers she would carry. Mother usually carried flowers; if she held them in both hands, it gave her an excuse not to shake hands with strangers, which she didn't like to do. The rest of the outfit was pure fiction. Mother smiled, and Miss Hagner wrote down every word.
I watched from the stairs that night as Mother and Sister swept into dinner, Mother wearing her old blue dress and Sister wearing her old white one. But the newspaper reporters weren't invited to dinner. In the descriptions they printed in the society pages, Mother presided in wine-colored velvet, while Alice, that lovely girl, wore leaf green.
I doubt Father even noticed, but if he did, he never said a word. For the longest time afterward, Sister wrote all the dress descriptions for the press, until Miss Hagner learned the trick of making up a whole outfit. According to the newspaper reports, Mother and Sister had wardrobes overflowing with the most beautiful gowns imaginable; they never wore the same dress twice. “Just you wait,” Sister told me. “When you grow up, I'll imagine some wonderful dresses for you.”
Sunday evening at dinner I started to cry. I couldn't help it. I was still so lonely at school. I dreaded going back. Father chucked me under the chin. “Enough, now. You've stated your position plainly. You know you've got to go back.” “No one likes me there,” I said. “Nonsense! Of course they do!” “I'm sure that the other girls are just as lonely as you are,” Mother said. “It shouldn't be too much trouble to make friends.”
Mother had never been to school. No one knew what it was like, except Ted, who was away, and Kermit, who shrugged and said he was getting used to it and he guessed I would in time.
“I don't want to,” I said. “Ethel.” Father's gentle voice had an edge to it. “Surely you're not afraid?”
I went to bed early and kept my light on so that I could read. Miss Young had loaned me A Tale of Two Cities. My satchel and a suitcase with some warmer clothes in it were lined up next to the door. When Sister came home, she went through my room to use the bathroom and knocked my book bag out of the way.
“Stop bothering my things,” I said.
“Tch, what's gotten into you?”
I had to go to school, and she did not. “You know what's wrong with me,” I said. “You do!”
“Ethel?” She sat on the edge of my bed. I reached up and smacked her shoulder with my fist.
“Nobody's listening to me!” I said. “Nobody! I don't want to go back to school! I didn't want to go there in the first place! I want to stay home like you!”
Sister pushed me over and moved next to me. She put her arms around me. “I know,” she said.
“They let you get away with things,” I said.
“You wouldn't want to be me.”
The gaslights hissed softly. The tap in the water basin dripped. I could hear muffled thumps coming from Archie and Quentin's room down the hall. I thought I could hear the beating of my own heart. Sister wrapped her arms around me more tightly. “You wouldn't trade places with me, not really,” she said.
“I guess not. I just wish I could be like you.”
She laughed softly, her breath ruffling my hair.
“You don't,” she said. “But never mind. What's the number one worst thing about school? That you can fix, I mean. Not the fact that you have to go.”
I thought for a moment. The worst thing was worrying about Father, but I worried about him even when I wasn't at school, and anyway, I couldn't fix that. I thought of Harriet. I thought of being away from home and missing Mother and Father and the boys. I knew I couldn't change any of that, either.
I said, “I want to make a friend. I missed my chance to be friends with Emily.” Sister frowned. “Why? You said you were going to be nice to her this week.” “I was. But it doesn't matter. She's already friends with
Sophie.” “So make friends with Sophie, too!” “That's harder—twice as hard. I just want one friend.” “Is there anyone else you'd rather be friends with?” I shook my head. “So make two friends. It sounds as if you're just scared,” she said. “Scared they won't like you.” “I am not scared!” “Are too!” “Am not!” “Whoa!” She caught me by my wrists and held me at arm's length so that I couldn't
hit her. Sister was stronger than she looked. “Stop it. I'm only telling you the truth.” “You don't know what it's like!” I said. “You don't have any idea!” “Of course I do,” she said calmly. “I'm scared all the time.” “What do you do?” “I just do the thing I'm most scared of.” I thought of Sister riding horses, and I knew it was true.
“I can't,” I said. “I'm not like you.”
She sighed. “I can tell you a secret,” she said. “I can make it so you're not afraid.”
“How?”
“It's a pretty valuable secret. I'm not sure if I can tell you without some kind of payment.”
“What?”
“A dare. You'll have to take a dare.”
“What dare?”
“Give me some time. I'll think of something.”
“Please tell me now!”
She got up. “No, it's nothing to be in a hurry about. I'll think it all out and tell you on Friday.”
“Sister!”
She closed the bathroom door behind her. “On Friday,” she said.
When she came out I had turned off the light. “Will you pick me up again?” I asked. “In the automobile?”
She grinned. “If Margot lets me,” she said. “Now you've got something to look forward to, don't you? Good night.”
“I always look forward to Fridays,” I called after her. “It's Mondays I don't like.”
“I wouldn't ride in an automobile,” Harriet said with a sniff during dinner on Monday. “Noisy, smoky things. Anyway, you might break your neck.” She had seen me drive off on Friday with Sister and Margot.
“I liked it,” I said. “It was fun.”
“They're not dignified, either,” said Harriet.
I shrugged. Harriet might speak perfect German, but at least I wasn't afraid of automobiles. “I'm sure you won't have to ride in one if you don't want to,” I said. I picked at my food with my fork.
“I'd do it,” Emily declared. “I think it does look like fun.”
I looked up and smiled at her. She smiled back. But after that, I didn't know what else to say. What would sound right? Was it better if I waited for her to talk first? I squirmed. Emily's smile faded.
I'd made a mistake again. When the bell rang, I walked back to my room alone. After study time that evening the girls visited each other. They squealed and laughed so much that it was hard for me to concentrate on my book, even though I kept my door firmly closed.
No one ever knocked.
I missed Mother dreadfully. I missed Father. I would ten times rather have woken up in my room at the White House than in my room at school. I liked the food better at home. I liked the people better. I would have traded Miss Bangs and Miss Whiton for Tom Pen and Arthur any day.
I kept quiet. Each day passed slowly, but each was easier. I ignored Harriet when she said rude things about Father. I ignored Gertrude. I talked as little as possible, in class and at meals. I smiled hesitantly at Emily, and once I even smiled at Sophie, but that was all. I did my homework. I practiced the piano. I finished A Tale of Two Cities. By Friday, even Harriet didn't have much to say to me. I was becoming invisible—but not for long.
All week I thought of Sister's promise. I was counting on it. She knew the trick of being happy, the secret of making everyone love her. She had promised to tell it to me. Her dare would be a tough one, I knew—hers always were. The secret would fix things for me, though. It would give me the courage Father expected me to have, the strength I knew I lacked. It would make me brave—if not as brave as Sister, brave enough for school.
“I'll tell you my secret,” Sister said, her eyes gleaming. It was Saturday morning, and we were up on the roof with Kermit. “But first, here's what you need to do. Father's having a dinner tonight. Forty people at one long table in the East Room. I want you to crawl under the table, from one end to another, and drop a note onto Father's lap.”
I blinked. Only Sister would come up with a dare like that. “I'll do it,” Kermit said. His eyes were laughing like Sister's. “I'll do it with you, Ethel.”
“You can't,” Sister said. “This is her dare. Hers alone.” She grinned at me. “You don't look happy, Ethie. Don't you want to know my secret?”
“Mother'll kill me,” I said.
“No, she won't.”
“She will. Who's coming to the dinner, anyhow?”
Sister waved her hand. “Some congressmen, some senators, maybe a judge or two. And their wives. I'm sitting next to the speaker. I've got to talk him into that dance floor before it's too late.”
I gulped. “The speaker of the House?” Father had introduced me to him one Friday afternoon. He was a very solemn man. He hadn't liked it at all when Tom Quartz attacked his ankle on the staircase.
“If you're careful, they won't even know you're down there,” Sister said. “It's not as if I'm asking you to tap every-one's knees as you go.”
“There won't be room,” I said.
“There will be,” said Sister.
Kermit jumped up. “Let's have a look.”
We ran down to the East Room. The State Dining Room wasn't big enough to hold a table for forty people, but the East Room was. Workmen, led by Mr. Hoover, had removed all the circular upholstered chairs and set up the long table. Already they were busily setting out floral arrangements. The table was draped with cloths that hung to the floor.
“See?” said Sister. “Easy as pie.”
I lifted the cloth. The table was wide, wider than I'd thought, and there probably would be enough room for me to crawl past the diners’ knees. “I'll have to stay under there the whole dinner,” I said.
“You can duck out when you've finished,” Sister said. “One length, and a note on Father's lap. But I think you'd better get under there before the dinner starts. That part'll be easy—there's going to be a reception in the Cross Hall first. I'll jump out and tell you when they're almost ready to start seating people.”
I'd be like a fly on the wall, able to hear everything— only I'd be under the table. I'd get to stay up with Father and Mother at night, just like Sister did. I grinned. “I'll do it,” I said.
Miss Young fed Kermit, Archie, Quentin, and me dinner in the Family Dining Room as usual. Mother peeked in on us. She was beautifully dressed, all in white, with flowers in her hair. Kermit bounced in his chair. “Don't you think dinner tonight will be exciting?” he asked her. I tried to kick him under the table but missed.
“Pleasant, certainly,” Mother said. “I don't know about exciting.”
After dinner we went upstairs. Archie and Quentin got into their pajamas. Mother sat down with us on the hall sofa to read. She started with Tennyson's poem Ulysses, one of our favorites.
“I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone. …”
Kermit's eyes half closed and his lips moved in silent unison with Mother's. Archie leaned across Mother, his eyes aglow, and even Quentin was still.
“I am become a name.” Father came out of his bedroom proclaiming the next line of the poem. He was dressed in formal clothes, with a white carnation in his buttonhole. “For always roaming with a hungry heart / Much have I seen and known”—his eyes met Mother's and both of them smiled—“cities of men / And manners, climates, councils, governments, / Myself not least, but honor'd of them all. …”
“I am part of all that I have met,” I quoted. Father beamed at me. Mother and the boys listened while Father and I took turns, there in the upper hallway of the White House, feeding lines of Tennyson to each other. I hadn't realized that I knew the poem so well, but I got to the end of the third stanza without missing a single word and fired off the last line, “… to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield!” in a ringing voice.
Father stepped back and bowed to me. “He has the right of it, Tennyson does,” he said, and tousled my hair.
Qu
entin tackled him after that, unable to be still a moment longer. Archie jumped on Quentin, and they had a great bear play right there on the rug, while Mother stood aside, smoothing her long skirts and shaking her head. Father had to rush off to change his crumpled shirt and get a fresh carnation, so it was Kermit who solemnly escorted Mother downstairs.
I took my shoes off and crept down to the East Room. Mr. Hoover saw me and gave me a quizzical look, but I pretended not to see him. The noise of the reception in the Cross Hall grew louder and louder. At last Sister poked her head in the door. “Here they come, honey!” she whispered. I dove beneath the table.
I sat close to one wide end. I drew my feet beneath me. The tablecloths were white, and the light from the flickering gas chandeliers shone faintly through them. The top of the table was decorated with flowers from the greenhouses; the room smelled like a garden. A jungle, I decided. I was sitting outside a tent in the middle of a jungle in deepest Africa, just like Father. He'd been to Egypt; he'd sailed down the Nile.
I heard Father's voice, loud and hearty, as he led the party into the room. That was a lion, I thought. An African lion. King of the jungle. And I was a lion too, younger but still strong, part of the mighty beast's pride. There were hunters abroad in the jungle tonight; the king was in danger, but I carried a warning. I could save him, if only I dared travel through the jungle at night, alone.
Chairs scraped back. Knees pushed the walls of the tent toward me. Elegant shoes peeked under the tent's edges. Danger surrounded me.
People talked. I imagined their voices as the chattering of birds and monkeys in the jungle high above me. I heard Sister exclaim, “Oh, Mr. Speaker, what intelligent things you say!” and I nearly laughed aloud.
The savory smell of meals cooked over the natives’ campfires permeated the room. The monkeys and birds grew quieter. I heard the clinks of forks on china. My stomach rumbled.
In the distance, the lion roared. Time, I decided, to start my journey. I slowly eased myself onto my hands and knees and began to crawl.