Chapter 7: A brisk awakening
Martha swept into May’s suite at eight o’clock. The doctor was due for his weekly visit, and was expected at nine. Martha anticipated a battle. However, to her surprise she only saw Edith, who was making the bed. Edith looked up, and shrugged her shoulders.
Martha eventually found May in the kitchen. She was there chatting with the shocked cook. Chatting with staff?! Martha was astounded. And then, she noticed what her mistress was wearing.
“Mum, are those bloomers?” Martha asked, knowing the answer, but questioning either her mistress’s sanity or her own.
“Yes! Well, Turkish trousers to be exact,” May said excitedly, pulling at the colorful patterned fabric. “Countess Olenski gave them to me. They are a revelation.”
“I suppose they would be fine around the house, if you like, Mum,” Martha said, humoring her unstable mistress.
“They are going to be fantastic for riding,” May said, as she bit into a biscuit.
“Riding, Mum?” Martha asked, afraid for the answer.
“If my husband asks, tell him I took a coupé to the spa,” May said, as she placed a short-brimmed, flat-top hat on her braided hair, and strode toward the back door.
A bay gelding was waiting for May at the alley fence. A black boy, dressed in an ill-fitting stable uniform, nervously held the reins.
“I got the one you wanted, Ma’am,” the boy said, his voice cracking.
“Thank you, Jimmy,” May said, handing him a silver dollar. The boy lit up at the sight of a week’s pay in his palm. “If anyone asks, I told you I’d thrash you if didn’t do as you were told. Now, help me up.”
Jimmy offered his interlocked hands as a step stool, and May swung herself onto the saddle. Her complete confidence suddenly waned. She had not ridden astride since she was twelve years old. Even then, it was scandalous. But, her father allowed it — no, encouraged it — until she bled for the first time. After puberty, it was skirts and side-saddle, and no more racing with Dad.
May walked the horse down the patchwork of brick and dirt alleyways that ran behind the grandest manors, and the grandest outhouses, in all of New York City. When she reached Fifty-Ninth Street, she trotted the bay between a milk dolly and an ice wagon, then shot into Central Park. Only two-thirds finished, the Park was still considered unsafe by many, especially for a woman, alone. Her husband, like many others, had argued that the Park should be fenced, and only people of society should be allowed to enter. Tammany Hall had won out, and common people were allowed to frequent the Park. In part because of that, May had only seen the Carriage Way, until now. The balance of the park was new to her.
She tucked her braid into her blouse and trotted along the bridal path. The oft-used phrase, “once you learn how to ride a horse, you never forget,” proved true. Though, the muscles in her calves, thighs, and buttocks complained of a faulty memory. When she saw a mounted policeman, or a society man, she would duck off the path to avoid a confrontation. The farther north May got in the Park, the less finished it was and the fewer people she saw. She brought the bay to a gallop, and for a stretch, a canter.
Air filled May’s lungs, and blood filled her muscles, in a way she had not felt since she was a child. She exited the Park at the swampy northeast corner onto the rutted dirt road that, in theory, was Fifth Avenue. Just a couple miles from her home, this country lane had nothing in common with the Fifth Avenue that she lived on. She weaved through some shanties, chicken coops, and sheep pens, until the road opened up again. For a moment, she flashed back to riding on this part of the Island with her father.
She jogged over to Park Avenue, which was far more developed than Fifth. She trotted along it, trying to look as much like a man as she could, until she finally reached the Countess Olenski’s mansion. Robert, the dark, handsome doorman, did a double-take.
“Well, aren’t you going to help a lady,” May said with a laugh.
“I think the Countess will be very pleased,”Robert said, flashing his brilliant smile, as he steadied the horse. May dismounted and strode up the grand stairs, two at a time.
Chapter 8: The Countess’s journey
May greeted Mary, the Irish maid, with a European kiss.
“Can I offer madam any help, this morning?” Mary asked with hungry eyes.
“I think I would like that, very much, Mary, but later,” May said. “The Countess hinted that I might be ready for the Therapy Garden today. Is she, here?”
“I saw her in the library. I’ll be in the Therapy Room this morning, perhaps I’ll see you, Mum,” Mary said, her brogue lingering on ‘see.’
May went to the changing room. With her simple trousers, bodice, and blouse, she was naked and in a robe within moments. These clothes make so much sense, she smiled to herself.
She made her way to the library, where, as Mary had indicated, she found the Countess. Anne was sitting with a patient named, Jennie. Jen and her husband were English, in New York in the employ of the British Hudson Bay Company. May had only met her at the spa in the last couple of days. May had found the pretty, curvy Jen to be charming and quite funny. But now, seeing her with Anne, May felt a surprising pang of jealousy.
“Ah! May!” Anne said, standing to embrace and kiss May. Jen did the same.
“A pleasure meeting you, again,” Jennie said. “I hope you’ll excuse me. I’m meeting someone in the Therapy Garden.” She said it almost desperately, and rushed from the room.
May sat with the Countess. “Do you think I might learn what goes on in the Therapy Garden, today?” May asked.
“I think so,” Anne said with a smile. “You have progressed quickly, May. I can see it in how you walk. I can see it in your smile. I can see it in your quiet countenance. There is a peace. Yes?”
“Oh my heavens, yes!” May answered. “I’m not sure what helped most. The exercise, the sunshine, the meditation, the waters, the conversations with you and the other guests, the …touching. Maybe it is all of it. But, I feel as though parts of me that had fallen away, have been reattached.”
“I am so very happy to hear that, May. So very happy. You have recovered your former self. Then we are, indeed, ready for the next step. And that is to find your new self. A self that will never again fall victim to that sad, mean, prudish, women-fearing world out there.”
Arranged on the table in front of them was an array of books. An atlas was open to a map of the Mediterranean. “I am going to explain, as best I can, what the Therapy Garden can do for you. To do that, I need to tell you my own story.”
Anne sat, in her royal blue robe, with a strong, straight back. With a sincere, but practiced, cadence, she shared her life. May found herself distracted by Anne’s kissable lips, and the feminine thigh that appeared from under the blue silk. But, her attention snapped back, as Anne’s words began to sink in.
“And that’s when I knew I was pregnant —“
May was now locked-in. Anne explained how a very ill-chosen dalliance with a society dandy had resulted in a pregnancy. Anne’s mother and father put all the blame on her, and they were both petrified that she would be ostracized because of the shame of her daughter.
And, so it was that eighteen-year-old Anne was shipped to an Anglican convent in the middle-of-nowhere England. “I stared out at the rolling hills of Wantage for eight months, certain that my life was ruined, while my transient beau was living it up, here in New York, at society parties. He never wrote me. Not even once.”
Anne gave birth to Charles, and nursed him for twelve weeks, before he went to the breast of a wet nurse at the St. Mary’s orphanage. Anne then set out on what was to be a brief tour of a few European cities. This was more to add to the ruse covering her out-of-wedlock shame, than it was to entertain or edify her.
London was choked with soot and proved to be a huge disappointment. From there, it was Paris. Though about the same size as New York, it was otherwise incomparable. It was extraordinarily beautiful, clean, and organized.
The beauty of Paris lifted Anne’s spirits. There, she also had a guide: the dashing Count Olenski. An acquaintance of her father from the fur trade, he was a widower. But, he was hardly dour. On the contrary he was full of life. Despite his class and title, he was also bohemian in his habits and tastes. He showed Anne the Louvre and Versailles, but he also showed her the dance halls and art studios of Montmartre.
If Anne’s father had assigned the Count the duty of protector of his daughter, it did not show. He seduced Anne within days of her arrival. And, he shared her with a friend, within days of that. May reacted with shock.
“Oh, yes, May,” Anne said with a smile. “I adored every moment. He — and eventually they — made love to me in ways I had never imagined. They were kind, and very focused on my pleasure, but also demanding. They also had an inkling about how to avoid getting a girl pregnant.”
Anne smiled as she pointed to various spots on the map. “From Paris, we traveled to Vienna, and then Venice. At first I was his ‘niece.’ But, eventually we traveled as husband and wife.”
Anne reassured her father via letter that she was in good care as her trip lengthened and lengthened. Florence, Rome and Athens followed. The art and beauty, and the libertine sex, of the trip opened Anne’s mind and heart.
“It was in Athens that I acquired this,” Anne said as she opened one of the leather bound books. “The first in my collection.” It was authored and illustrated by Elephantis, and amounted to a sexual manual, of sorts. It showed men and women, in every conceivable sexual position and combination. May was both excited, and astounded, by what she saw.