In the Great Green Room: The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown(9)

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At the beginning of their senior year, Margaret, Kitty, and their mothers took the train to Boston for several days of shopping before settling in at Dana Hall. Kitty continued to date Morrie, who introduced Margaret to his classmate Bryan Lyseck. The four went on regular outings to the Massachusetts countryside or met in Boston on special occasions. Bryan quickly was besotted with Margaret. After their first date, he sent her a bouquet of roses and, soon afterward, a pair of diamond earrings. Margaret held them up to the moonlight, and the reflections created a beautiful spiderweb of refracted light. Bryan was handsome and charming, but Margaret warmed to the relationship slowly. She swore to herself that she would never allow her emotions to be swayed by jewelry.

On Thanksgiving, the foursome had lunch at a nearby hotel. After the lunch, Margaret went with Morrie to his cousin’s house for dinner. The cousin was expecting her first child, and in that visit, Margaret got a glimpse of the life she hoped to have. It wasn’t envy she felt, simply excitement for this same future she believed was to be her own. The problem was she felt like a satellite orbiting around Kitty and Morrie. For the sake of their friendships, Margaret kept her attraction to Morrie to herself. She liked Bryan, but try as she might, she couldn’t muster the same feelings for him that she had for Morrie and Kitty. She loved them both dearly.

When she returned home to Great Neck for the Christmas holidays, it was the first time she had spent a long amount of time at the new house. All the family’s belongings that had been in storage were now in place. It felt like home—finally. Even her parents seemed happy to be together.

On Christmas Eve, the family sang carols as her mother played the piano. Margaret took eggnog to her room that night and made resolutions for the new year. She was so happy to have been reunited with her belongings and furniture that she was often too excited to sleep during the holiday break. She read until the early hours of the morning, occasionally looking up from the pages to admire her little haven, decorated with all the girlhood possessions she loved.

For the new year, she resolved to keep a regular diet of fifteen hundred calories a day until she was 120 pounds, or else in perfect form. She also vowed to give up cigarettes entirely. She made a final wish for love and laughter.





Four

1928

Eyes like emeralds in the road

Tell the presence of the toad

Eyes like rubies in the dark

Catch the alligator’s spark

And tiger’s, tiger’s burning bright

In the stillness of the night

UNPUBLISHED


The early winter of 1928 in Massachusetts was particularly harsh. Back in school at Dana Hall, Margaret soon fell into a listless gloom. The cold winter days compounded her blues, brought on by her parents’ constant squabbles. Margaret dreaded phone calls from home because the conversation often turned into verbal jousting between her parents, seemingly fought to win Margaret’s approval and affection. She also couldn’t break her attraction to Morrie but cared too much for Kitty to act on her desires.

Her spirits were lifted when the Johnstons invited her and Roberta to join them on Cumberland Island, the family’s private retreat off the coast of Georgia, for spring break. Margaret was thrilled, but a shopping trip to Boston with her mother soured her mood. Maude angrily recounted Bruce’s recent failings and then berated Margaret for having gained weight. Margaret couldn’t understand why her mother couldn’t simply enjoy the good moments instead of picking apart the people who loved her.

For two weeks, Margaret exercised strenuously. By the time she stepped foot on Cumberland Island, she was ten pounds lighter and certain her new wardrobe would fit. The girls had to take a train and a ferry to reach the island, but the most enchanting ride was from the dock to Plum Orchard, the Johnstons’ home on the island. The Johnstons’ car was electric, perfect for the low-speed, bumpy drive along the sand-and-crushed-oyster-shell road. Gnarled branches of water oaks on either side of the road arched above them to form a darkened tunnel, and staccato rays of sunlight danced in the twisted limbs. Every so often, the wheels of the car sank a little too deeply into the soft, deep valleys of sand and swung the back end of the car to the edge of the narrow road. There the tires once again found traction and pitched the car back into the middle of the road. This exotic island was more magical than she could possibly have imagined.

Cumberland was larger than Manhattan and was a carefully preserved paradise. The island hosted over a hundred species of migrating birds and was home to dozens more. Along its primitive shores and throughout its dunes dwelled bears, alligators, turkeys, eagles, and boars. Over a hundred horses freely roamed the island—descendants of a herd left in the 1500s by Spanish sailors.

Plum Orchard was a Classical Revival–style mansion that had been built for Mrs. Johnston’s older brother, George Carnegie, and his wife, an expert gardener. Flower and vegetable gardens bordered the extensive grass lawn that led up to graceful steps and soaring columns of the twenty-room home. Stables, a paddock, and a riding ring accommodated fifteen horses. After George died, his widow married a French count who came to Cumberland with no expectation of staying. The couple shipped every item of value in Plum Orchard off to a New York auction house. Furniture, first-edition books, and chandeliers disappeared before George’s mother, Lucy “Mama” Carnegie, sent the newlyweds packing, as well. She held the deed to the house and gave it to her daughter Nancy, who renovated the house. Modern features, including a sauna and an air-cooling system that drafted air from the basement out through vents in the roof, were added. The bathroom was fitted with towel heaters, shampoo dispensers attached to bath faucets, and elegantly styled wall fixtures that held flint stones and matches. Hand-painted wallpapers were hung throughout the house. One of deep red was repeatedly embossed in gold with the Carnegie family crest. Another wallpaper that Margaret particularly admired hung in the game room; it was painted in bright blues, greens, and yellows to resemble the pond lilies that grew along the banks of the marshes behind the house.