In the Great Green Room: The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown(8)

Bruce’s family knew his marriage was troubled and wanted to make certain his girls enjoyed their time in Kentucky. When Margaret and Roberta arrived at the train station, the conductor knew who they were and who they were coming to visit. This amused Margaret. She loved the friendly people and slower pace of life in the South.

For seventeen-year-old Margaret, the trip was a dream come true. Her Kentucky relatives were adventurous, well connected in local society, and part of the Thoroughbred horse racing community. To entertain the Brown girls, they planned a variety of activities, including luncheons, horseback riding, swimming, aquaplaning, and sailing. Every day was a new adventure. At night, they sang around bonfires, stargazed, and made wishes on the unseen new moon, then talked together on the sleeping porch until the early morning hours.

One relative took her up in his open-cockpit plane. When she put her hands in the air, the wind was so strong she thought her arms might blow away. When her aunt took them on a tour of the stables, Margaret got to pet the legendary racehorse Man o’ War. At an uncle’s house, she fell asleep with her legs dangling out an open window. The sounds of sheep lowing in his misty, moonlit fields was sweet summer music.

Margaret and Roberta spent most of their time with their cousin Dr. Marius Johnston and his family at Montrose, their farm near Lexington. Dr. Johnston was a kind, respected physician and was married to Nancy Carnegie, a daughter of the steel magnate Thomas Carnegie. They had one son together, Junior, and Nancy had four children from her previous marriage—Coley, Retta, Lucy, and Morrie—whom Marius adopted.

On the night of Margaret and Roberta’s arrival, the Johnstons took the girls to a dance at their country club. Margaret had never met so many boys. Her all-girls schools kept boys at bay. In Kentucky, young men buzzed around the blond beauty with the quick wit and smile. Her dance card was filled right away, and she accepted three dates for the following week. She danced until midnight and then played parlor games until dawn at the Johnstons’. She went to bed as the morning sky turned a pale green and birds began to sing. It was the first time she had ever felt popular, and she pressed the corsage she wore on the night of that first dance into her diary to keep the memory alive.

The Johnstons took the girls to visit other relatives at Liberty Hall, the home her great-great-grandfather built. There Margaret heard stories about their ancestors whose portraits surrounded the room. She recognized many of those faces. Similar paintings hung in the guest room of her family’s house, where she was always relocated when sick. Their stoic visages and unsympathetic stares would bear down on her as she recovered from colds, influenzas, measles, and a broken leg. Three members of their family had been vice presidential candidates. Her redheaded grandfather, Benjamin Gratz Brown, who was known as the Kentucky Cardinal, had led the fight against the expansion of slavery into Missouri. John Brown, the man who had built the Kentucky house where Margaret was staying, had served in the Continental Congress with his good friend Thomas Jefferson. Monticello was undergoing a renovation around the same time, and Jefferson had given construction advice to Brown. Years later, Brown’s beautiful widow was visited by Marquis de Lafayette, and it was reported that Lafayette had held the widow’s hand for far longer than was appropriate. The teacup Lafayette had used stood on display in the china cabinet next to the table, which Margaret eyed with wonder during supper.

Margaret’s relatives shared story after story, and before her first dinner at Liberty Hall was complete, she had come to see those faces on the wall differently. Margaret felt a surge of pride that she was part of this interesting and courageous family. Other hilarious stories about their father growing up flowed from her aunts and uncles as they retired from the dining room to the breezy porch.

Margaret was about to go to bed when she heard the story of the ghost, the Gray Lady, who was said to have haunted this house and its grounds for more than a hundred years. Margaret was immediately intrigued and desperate to see the ghost, but was too afraid to search for it alone. She convinced her cousins and reluctant sister to follow her to the most logical place she could think to look—the bedroom where the Gray Lady had died. It was in that room where the ghost was first seen by Margaret’s grandmother on her wedding day.

Margaret crept up the stairs toward the room. Her sister and cousins were behind her as she climbed the creaky stairs. As Margaret arrived at the bedroom door, she turned around to find that she was alone. The others were watching from a safe distance on the landing below and motioned her to go in. She would have to do this by herself. She paused to gather her courage, then turned the doorknob and pushed. It didn’t budge. Relief that the door was locked flooded through her. She ran back down the stairs, and the giggling group stumbled to the porch and out into the moonlit garden.

*

Kitty, Margaret’s roommate from Dana Hall, also lived nearby. She held a dinner for the Brown girls and the Johnston children, then they all went to see the famous John Barrymore in the movie The Beloved Rogue. Afterward, they danced for hours at the country club. Morrie was immediately smitten with Kitty, and Margaret was happy for her friend even though she, too, had become enamored of her cousin. Morrie was a charming rascal who made common moments into exciting escapades. Conversation with Morrie was easy for Margaret; they talked for hours as they rode horses or sat on the riverbank, watching the moonlit reflection of the trees on the water. Margaret was thrilled his boarding school, Middlesex, was close enough that they could see each other when school began in the fall.