Loving Frank (28 page)

Dear Mamah:

I have not heard from you in some time and wish to know the progress of the subjects we touched upon when you were at Strand in June. In your last letter you indicated that Mr. Putnam was not in his office and you had to speak to his representative when you were in New York. You said there was not much interest in the “personal freedom” selection. Might we regroup some other essays and give them to Putnam under another title? I would consider such a change in selection. Did you look up my friend Miss Emmy Sanders while you were in New York? Have you sent anything to the Atlantic Monthly? To
The American?
Also, you said at the time that Mr. Seymour had the manuscript in hand for
Lieb und Ethik,
but I have had no word on the progress of its publication.

Mamah cringed as she read down the list of questions. She would have to write back to Ellen immediately and reassure her, point by point.

The next paragraph, by contrast, made her nearly leap for joy.
I authorize you to commence translating
“Missbrauchte Frauenkraft”
and
“Frauenbewegung”
right away.

The prospect of new work meant that Ellen had not given up on her. Near the end of the letter, she inquired about Mamah’s life at Taliesin.

I was sorry to learn that your situation with Mr. Wright has garnered unfavorable publicity. In reading the account of your departure from the United States two years ago, I find myself much concerned about the manner in which you have chosen to pursue certain choices. It has been my belief and expressed philosophy that the very legitimate right of a free love can never be acceptable if it is enjoyed at the expense of maternal love. It distresses me deeply that my words to you have been misinterpreted. I urge you to reconsider this matter and return to your children if there is any question of their happiness.

You know the esteem I hold for you. I trust you will make a choice in harmony with your own soul.

Ellen Key

Mamah had to sit down. She took the letter into the newly stuccoed study and sat with it on her lap, trying to catch her breath. The smell of lime from the wet plaster, or perhaps the letter itself, created a sour taste in her mouth. Perched on the chair, squeezing her eyes shut, she felt like such a stupid, selfish fool. She had made a mess of so many lives. If she had waited a few more years…if she had simply moved to Boulder with the children…But how would they have survived? She felt as if she were butting her head against the same old wall.

Anger welled up in her. It struck her that Ellen Key’s ideas were inherently self-contradictory. Mamah had found inconsistencies as she had translated, but none so disheartening or confusing as this. What did Ellen want her to do? Return to Edwin for the sake of the children? How ironic, in light of what she had written about staying in an unloving marriage—that it was tantamount to prostitution.

“I FEEL LIKE
I just lost a friend,” Frank said when Mamah read the letter aloud to him. He was tired from the train ride from Chicago and had stretched his feet out in front of the fireplace. “You know, you’re right. It
does
sound as if she would have you return to Edwin.”

“What’s strange is that I thought I had made my situation clear to her. I thought she knew I was not going to do that.”

“Did you tell her you were coming to Wisconsin after you left Europe?”

“No. She didn’t ask. We talked almost entirely about business that last time I was at Strand. She was giving me all kinds of instructions and new responsibilities. She was very positive. She said, ‘You will be the mouthpiece for me in America.’ The mouthpiece. I remember that because it seemed such a funny word to come from her. We were planning a whole strategy for bringing her ideas to this country, and it was incredibly exciting.”

“Someone got to her. Maybe Huebsch sent her the
Examiner
article to discredit you.”

“Well, I can understand that it may not look good for Ellen to have me as her translator. There are other things lately, though, that I haven’t wanted to admit to myself. For example, she hints in her letters that somehow you and I are making money off her books that we aren’t reporting to her. It’s laughable, isn’t it? I’ve explained that it’s you who has lost money out of your pocket. And then there’s Huebsch. Did she really give him translating rights? I’m not sure she can remember exactly what she has promised to whom. I know for certain she can’t keep straight what she has given
me
permission to do.” Mamah shook her head. “It makes me question if I know her well at all. Before I even met her, just reading her books, I felt closer to her than I have ever been to almost anyone in my life, except you. And then to be welcomed by her in Sweden, almost as a daughter—it was wonderful. Now, though, I feel as though I’ve fallen from grace with her.”

Frank shook his head. “Now, wait. She asked you to do more translating. She told you when you were there before that you were her mouthpiece. Do you still want to be her sole translator in America?”

“More than anything. I’ve told her all along that it wasn’t the money I cared about. You know all this, Frank. I truly feel no one else understands her work quite the way I do. And it has always been about getting her ideas into the mainstream.”

“Then don’t let this slip away. And anyway, you adore Ellen Key. Even I adore her, and I’ve never clapped eyes on the woman.”

“Ah, Frank,” Mamah said sadly.

Frank had been feeding the fire with fragrant fresh-split wood. He used a log to poke the others, and the fire spat red cinders back at his feet.

“Do you mind if I just go and write her this minute?”

“Go,” he said. “I’ll finish making dinner.”

DEAR ELLEN KEY
.
Mamah did not begin with
Beloved Lady,
as she usually did. She started with business issues, itemizing each point of concern and reiterating what they had agreed to, while reminding Ellen that she had named Mamah her sole authorized English translator in America. Mamah told her about the pirated translation of Huebsch, which the publisher claimed Ellen had authorized. She paused to consider how to word what she had to say next. She had not been forthcoming about her plans when she’d been at Strand with Ellen last June, and it had come back to bite her. Now was not the time to mince words, whatever the consequences might be.

I have as you hope “made a choice in harmony with my own soul”—the choice as far as my own life was concerned was made long since—that is, absolute separation from Mr. Cheney. A divorce was obtained last summer and my maiden name is now legally mine. Also I have since made a choice in harmony with my own soul and what I believe to be Frank Wright’s happiness and I am now keeping his house for him. In this very beautiful Hillside, as beautiful in its way as the country about Strand, he has been building a summer house, Taliesin, the combination of site and dwelling quite the most beautiful I have seen any place in the world. We are hoping to have some photographs to send you soon. I believe it is a house founded upon Ellen Key’s ideal of love. The nearest neighbor half a mile away is Frank’s sister, where I visited when I first came here. She has championed our love most loyally, believing it her brother’s happiness…. My children I hope to have at times, but that cannot be just yet. I had a good summer alone with them camping in the Canadian woods….

I will wish you now a very happy Christmas and tell you that Frank is sending you a little Hiroshige, which we hope you may care to hang in your new house.

I am grateful indeed for your words of friendship and I trust I may live my life and I believe I am living it so that you may not be ashamed of it as a testimony of faith in the beauty and purity and nobility of Ellen Key’s wonderful words.

Your loving disciple,
Mamah Bouton Borthwick

Taliesin
Spring Green, Wisconsin
U.S.A.

CHAPTER
38

December 23, 1911

S
uch a painful “early Christmas” with the children in Chicago last week. Everyone uncomfortable in the hotel room. And then Edwin, suddenly friendly, pulling me aside at the end of my allotted day and a half to confide so happily his secret. He has not even told the children yet that he plans to marry this Elinor Millor woman next August. If she is one of Lizzie’s best friends, how is it I have never once heard mention of her? How magnanimous Edwin thought himself, offering to allow me to have the children an extra month while he is on his honeymoon next summer.

I should feel glad for him. I should be happy when Edwin says she shows only the tenderest concern for the children. Instead, I am ashamed to admit, I feel stupidly betrayed. Replaced, more like it. Cannot think on it much or I will surely go mad.

Frank had his own “holiday”—ate his sliced turkey downtown with his children and Catherine, then took them all shopping. He won’t go back to Oak Park on Christmas Day, says it will only encourage Catherine in her fantasies. So it will be just the two of us here for a quiet Christmas—our first at Taliesin.

Icicles have made the most beautiful, glassy veil around the house. They hang from the roof edge all the way down to the snow on the ground. Frank has hung some Japanese prints and the pictures we bought in Berlin. This place is taking on the feel of a real home. No rugs or much furniture, but here and there he has made assemblages of things from nature—rocks, pine boughs, and branches with berries. So lovely.

Mamah noticed the horse first. She was making coffee when she heard neighing outside. The roads had been impassable around Taliesin for the past week, and the workmen came in on horseback now. But today was Saturday, two days before Christmas. Everyone was gone, even Frank’s mother, who had decided to pass the week in Oak Park.

When Mamah went to the door, she found a red-cheeked young man peering in, his fist poised to rap on the glass.

“Good morning,” he called cheerfully. She looked him up and down, opened the door. He was clean and well-spoken. “Is Mr. Wright here?”

“Come in,” she said.

“Say, something smells good.” She couldn’t place his face, but his manner made her think he was a workman’s son come back home for the holiday and looking for work.

“He’s here. I’ll be right back.” Mamah found Frank in front of the fireplace. “There’s someone here to see you.”

Frank got up from his knees and went into the kitchen, wiping his hands on his pants.

“The name is Lester Cowden,” the visitor said, extending his hand. “I’m from the
Chicago Journal.
”

Frank withdrew his hand. “What is it you want?”

“Sir, we had a report that Mrs. Cheney is living here, and I was sent out to confirm it.” The young man seemed without shame in stating his business.

“I won’t say a word!” Frank shouted. He yanked open the door and pulled the man’s coat sleeve until he was outside. “Go on, get out of here.” He slammed the door and waited until the man had mounted his horse and turned down the driveway. “The invidious sons of bitches,” he muttered.

“I wasn’t thinking. He seemed to know you.”

“Don’t talk to any of them, Mamah. Don’t let anyone you don’t know into this house.”

Later that afternoon, while Frank was out in the barn tending to the horses, the telephone rang.

“Mamah?” A man’s voice. “Mrs. Cheney?”

She hung up, threw on her coat, and went to the barn to tell Frank.

“The vermin are back,” he said.

THEY HALFHEARTEDLY
ate the lamb and greens she had cooked that night. When the phone jangled again, they both started. Frank got up and answered it. “All right,” he said. “Just read it to me.”

Mamah knew this meant a telegram. That was how they had to handle telegrams sent to them at Taliesin, unless they wanted to travel into the train station in Spring Green. It was an unsatisfactory system for all purposes, business and personal, as the telegraph office was patched through by the telephone operator on a rural party line. “You might as well just put an ad in the
Weekly Home News,
” Frank would grumble after such a transaction.

“The
Chicago Tribune,
you say, not the
Journal
?” He was pressing a finger against his free ear. “No. No. Wait a minute, Selma. Just a minute.” He looked over at Mamah. “The
Tribune
’s on to it now. What do you want to do?”

Mamah bit down on the inside of her cheek. “Call them back later.”

“I’ll call you back, Selma…What is it? Well, I don’t give a damn about their deadline.” Frank hung up the receiver and slumped into a chair.

“So they all know I’m here,” she said.

“It was only a matter of time.”

“Now what?”

“Just carry on with our lives. You can’t let them rattle your footings every time they show up.”

“Why don’t you say some small thing, Frank? Tell them I’m divorced. Say we are living quietly together and wish not to be disturbed. Something like that. Then they’ve gotten their quote and it’s over with.”

He picked up the phone and called the telegraph office. “It’s Frank Wright,” he said. “Look, about that telegram from the
Tribune.
Just send one back to them from me. Say this: ‘Let there be no misunderstanding. A Mrs. E. H. Cheney never existed for me and now is no more, in fact. But Mamah Borthwick is here, and I intend to take care of her.’”

Frank listened to the woman on the other end reading it back to him. “B-O-R-T-H-W-I-C-K,” he said. “No, that’s all. Just sign my whole name.”

The next day Frank stood at the window of her study, brooding and waiting. From where he was positioned, he had a commanding view of the driveway. At ten o’clock, a party of three men on horseback turned off the highway and rode toward the house.

“Stay here,” Frank instructed her.

When the knock came at the kitchen door, he answered it. The men included the reporter from the
Journal,
one from the
Chicago Record Herald,
and the other from the
Tribune.
The
Journal
reporter had been chosen spokesman.

Mamah crept down the hall to better hear what they were saying.

“Not a man here wants to be spending his holiday this way, Mr. Wright. Personally, you have our respect and sympathy. But the fact is, the editors think the only way to sell papers is with sensational news stories. That’s what the people want.”

“I won’t be a part of it,” Frank said.

“Sir, you already are. Here are today’s papers.”

She heard Frank cursing.

“Mr. Wright, why don’t you tell your side of the story? I honestly think people would be sympathetic, and it could put an end to this.”

“That’s right,” the other ones said.

She heard the door shut hard, and watched Frank walk disconsolately into the living room carrying the newspapers. When she joined him and picked up the top paper on the stack, it was ice-cold. Like a familiar bad dream, there was her portrait on the front page of the
Journal.
Next to her head, black letters shouted the “news.”

M
RS.
C
HENEY AND
W
RIGHT
E
LOPE
A
GAIN

F
AMOUS
C
HICAGO
A
RCHITECT
L
IVES WITH

D
IVORCEE IN
S
ECLUSION AT
H
ILLSIDE,
W
IS.;

L
EAVES
W
IFE AT
H
OME

F
ORGIVEN
A
FTER
F
IRST
E
SCAPADE,

H
E
N
OW
T
ACKS
R
ENT
S
IGN ON
R
ESIDENCE

She looked at the Sunday
Chicago Tribune.
Running down the middle of the front page was a similar headline. Mamah shuddered as she read accounts of their love affair rehashed from two years before. But the
Tribune,
on a tip, had gone to the office of the Wrights’ lawyer, Sherman Booth, and had come upon Catherine, who insisted that the woman up in Wisconsin was Frank’s mother and not Mamah. Asked about the wall Frank had built between the studio and the house, Catherine insisted Frank was renting out one part of the house because he thought it had become too large.

It occurred to Mamah that Catherine might be mentally unstable. Why else would she carry on with this fiction?

“The bastards bushwhacked my daughter,” Frank growled. His voice was murderous.

Mamah read the paragraph he pointed to in the
Tribune.

At the bungalow, Wright’s 17-year-old daughter met all inquiries with the flat statement, “We have nothing to say.” When shown a copy of the report exploiting her father’s latest fall from grace she seemed surprised and amused.

“We have become hardened to the sensational features of this case,” she said, finally with a smile, “and we really don’t pay much attention, one way or the other. Just say for Mr. Wright and Mrs. Wright, and all the little Wrights, that we don’t know anything about this awful story, and that it must be untrue.”

It was young Catherine’s bravado in the last paragraph that pierced Mamah’s heart. She remembered the pretty blond girl as deeply shy.

“Frank, are your children really expecting you for Christmas?”

“I made it very clear to Catherine that I would not be back there for Christmas.”

“But did
you
tell your children?”

Frank threw up his hands. “I have tried to talk with my children.”

“Catherine
does
know you live with me here, right? She doesn’t actually believe you built this house for your mother—”

“Oh, for Chrissakes. Of course not. She’s pulling us all down with her insanity. There won’t be a client left after all this.”

Mamah looked through the kitchen window and confirmed what she suspected: the reporters had not left. “Come sit down with me for a minute,” she said when she returned. “Let’s think this out together. I believe the reporter could be right. There’s a part of me that feels we should lock the door and never speak to those people again. But I keep thinking maybe it’s time to tell our side of the story once and for all.” Now it was Mamah who paced. “Just imagine for a minute what would happen if we dignified this whole witch hunt with an explanation spoken from our hearts. I believe it would help.”

“You think rather highly of the man on the street.”

“Seriously, how many times have we talked about exposing people to Ellen’s ideals—our ideals? If I stand up on a podium and talk about living an honest, authentic life, no newspaper is going to cover it. But now, at this moment, in the context of this absurd situation, it may be the one chance we get to explain ourselves.”

“Beat them at their own game?”

“I don’t want to use Ellen’s name at all. It would be our own thoughts.”

Frank sat for a while, considering, then got up and went into the kitchen. Mamah could hear the relief in the reporters’ voices as they piled through the kitchen door. They were probably nearly frozen. “Come back tomorrow,” she could hear Frank telling them. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Be here at ten.” He let them stay for a few minutes to warm themselves, then sent them packing.

“Do you think it’s wise to have them come back on Christmas Day?” she asked when they were gone. “Maybe we should wait until the day after.”

“If we’re going to talk, we can’t take the hand railing down the stair on this. If it means a press conference on Christmas Day, then so be it.”

DURING THE AFTERNOON
and into the late evening, they struggled to put words on paper.

“I’ll talk,” he said. “They’ll crucify you if you speak out.”

He was trying to protect her. When she looked at him sitting there with his arms crossed, she knew he would not be budged on this point. “Then say I am in accord with all your remarks.”

“Agreed.”

He read the sentences to her as he composed, and Mamah was the editor, responding to the words he had chosen about squaring one’s life with one’s self. By nine o’clock Frank was depleted. In bed, she stared into the dark, waiting for the blankness of sleep.

In the morning Frank built fires and bathed. He emerged from the bathroom wearing his bright red robe over a white shirt and pajama bottoms. “We’re going to have Christmas, even if it’s for ten minutes,” he said. She bathed, dressed, and hurried down the hall. There wasn’t much time before the reporters were scheduled to arrive. When she saw a gift waiting for her under the tree, she dashed back and pulled from beneath the bed the wrapped picture album she’d made for him.

They took their ten minutes, he studying her photo story of Taliesin, she examining the Genroku kimono he’d bought for her. It was exquisitely dyed and embroidered with pine trees, wisteria, and jagged rocks.