Chapter 2
From the Memoirs of Grace Bailey -
All summers come to an end sooner or later and this one was no exception. For me it ended in late September on the long road back to New Bedford. Trees, fields, and the occasional house sped by. I sat there reeling from shock. My driving was entirely by reflex. Van was waiting for me at the end of the journey to celebrate our decision to purchase and run the Alawanda Lumber Company. I had no idea what I was going to say or do once I saw him.
Only minutes earlier, an associate of his had revealed to me the truth about our marriage. Behind his businessman front, the husband I adored was a high-class con artist who had involved me as an unwitting accomplice in one of his swindles. I know. It sounds like one of the ridiculous plots from those overwrought soap operas that Mrs. Cramp used to run in the afternoons on CRNB. It didn't feel ridiculous when it happened to me. It felt like someone had smashed my life into a thousand pieces and left them lying at my feet like so many shards of broken glass. Every one of those shards seemed a mirror reflecting a broken dream, a lost possibility, or a crushed hope.
Is it any wonder that in my pain and humiliation I convinced myself that I hated Van and sought revenge? Van's associate, Paloma, with nothing to gain by lying, had told me that whatever else about Van was false, his love for me was true. She also told me that he had tried to back out of the swindle in which he had ultimately involved me and been forced to go through with it by his very dangerous main partner. Throughout, he had made clear his intention to give up the confidence game afterwards and make an honest life with me at his side.
Van told me the same thing more or less when I confronted him that night. I think I knew the moment he went out the door to check into a room at the New Bedford Inn that he really did love me. It wasn't enough to keep me from committing one of the most shameful acts of my life.
My scheme to use Van's love for me to hurt him as he had hurt me didn't work as I expected. I failed to trick him with a swindle of my own, but I did hurt him. It was only when I heard the pain in his voice as he told me that he understood that his deceit had destroyed our marriage and any feeling I had ever had for him that uneasiness about what I had done began to grow in me.
As his footsteps faded away, I began to realize that he was wrong, at least about my feelings for him. Nonetheless, I kept denying to myself all that day what my heart was trying to tell me. I had no way of knowing that he had gone directly from me to the town square where a recruiter was signing up volunteers for the newly forming International Brigades. Within the hour, he had enlisted and was on his way to Spain.
Vanaver Mainwaring to Grace Mainwaring October 16, 1936
… Virtually everything I told you about my background is true. The only lie, other than introducing Paloma as an old family servant, was that my father was Albert Mainwaring of San Francisco and not Jonathan Marshall of Long Island. Both men were together in Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War. They expected the real Vanaver Mainwaring and I to be the best of friends when we knew each other at Groton. It didn't work out that way.
The real Van was a bully and a louse, and I was glad to see the back of him when it was time to go on to college, he to Cornell and I to Yale. After learning of his untimely death by drowning, I had no problem with using his name as a cover for swindling. I should change it for another or for my real name, but I find myself unable to do so. Whatever wrongs I have committed under it, it is still the name under which I met and fell in love with you. Perhaps what I am about to do in Spain will remove some of the tarnish from it. I wish that we could have had the life we planned for together, but we never will. For that I have no one to blame but myself. …
From the Memoirs of Grace Bailey -
When I learned what Van had done, I was stunned by shame and regret. All the anger and bitterness fell away. The thought of what I had driven him to left me shaken and fearful. I was aware of and shared Van's contempt for Fascism and dread of what might happen if its advance wasn't halted, but it had never occurred to me that he would go this far. I had also read the newspaper reports of the bloody and merciless fighting then raging in Spain and could hardly bear the thought of Van hurling himself into that maelstrom.
There was only one thing to be done and I did it. I left for Toronto determined to find Van. This I achieved by walking into the offices of the Toronto Star and persuading a sympathetic reporter to introduce me to a contact from the Canadian Communist Party. It took a while, but I was able to convince the contact to get a message to Van asking him to meet me.
The meeting took place in Queen's Park near the statue of John A. MacDonald. We greeted each other tentatively and passed a few moments with small talk. Then Van assured me that he was glad to see me and asked me why I wanted to see him. I began with stumbling thanks for his restitution to the victims of his swindle. Also, for investing in the Silverdome Mining Company under what neither Mother nor I learned until later was his real name-an act that had helped save the family business from going under.
Then it all came pouring out-my regret that I had ever tried to take revenge, my sincere forgiveness for what he had done to me, and my hope that he could forgive me. I have rarely heard sweeter words than the ones he spoke then. "Of course, I forgive you. I should have realized how deeply hurt you were. I should have told you that I'd paid back the money I swindled out of the Easterbrooks. I had no right to expect you to take my reformation entirely on faith."
"Maybe not, but I should have told you that just saying you intended to change wasn't enough. Maybe you would have told me about repaying the Easterbrooks and I wouldn't have behaved like such a fool."
"I'm just glad to know that you don't hate me anymore. You've lifted a weight from my heart."
"I love you, Van. I may have forgotten that while I was lost in a fog of anger, but I never stopped loving you."
"I love you too, Grace. I wish there were still a chance for us, but I can't return to New Bedford with you. I've made a promise that I have to keep. I didn't enlist in the International Brigades just to escape the wreck I made of our life together, although that was part of it. Fascism has to be stopped in Spain before it sweeps every last vestige of civilization and democracy from Europe if not the world. It won't be easy. This war is brutal and there's no knowing how long it will last or how it will end. Even if I hadn't treated you so badly, I haven't any right to expect you to remain part of my life under those conditions."
"Van …" He silenced me with the touch of his finger on my lips.
"What can I possibly offer you with an ocean between us and no guarantee that I'll ever come back? You should go home to New Bedford and go on with your life. I have more than enough from legitimate investments to repay all my victims with interest and still make you a reasonable settlement. I'll make the necessary arrangements to remove any legal obstacles to a divorce."
I stared at him with my jaw hanging open in disbelief. "What did you think I meant when I said I loved you? That it was for better only? That I can't see that you've put your old life behind you? Do you honestly think that I could turn my back on you when you're about to risk your life for others in a foreign country?"
"Grace . . ."
This time it was I who put my finger to his lips. "I don't know if reconciliation is possible or if we've hurt each other too much for that, but I think it's worth waiting for you to come back so we can find out together. I will wait for you and I will keep on loving you."
"Do you really mean that?"
"I've never meant anything more in my life."
We stood staring into each other's eyes for a moment, hardly daring to believe in the hope we saw there. Then I spoke to break the tension. "We can write to each other while you're gone."
"I'd like that."
"I'm glad." I dug into my purse and pulled out a letter still sealed in its envelope. "This is for Will Lane. His parents gave it to me before I left New Bedford."
"It was good of you to bring it. I don't know that anyone that young has any business in a war. He can't really be nineteen, can he?"
"It's hard to believe, but he is."
Van promised that he would deliver the letter and that he would write from New York before he left for Spain. We kissed before saying goodbye. I prayed that it wasn't for the last time.
That night in my hotel room I sat and stared at the letter Van had sent to me before he had left New Bedford. I had just finished rereading it. Thinking back to our courtship, it was now so very clear to me that Van had not built a false front behind which lurked essential rottenness. He had simply used what was best in himself to hide what was worst. The good man I fell in love with was not an illusion. He was all that remained to go forward into the future now that the dishonesty and selfishness of the past had been left behind.
May Bailey to Jesse Buchanan October 20, 1936
… It is sobering to think that my own daughter fears me so much that she could suffer through such a terrible ordeal and not immediately come to me with her troubles. How could she think that I could see my own child in such pain and want to gloat? My fears about Van may have proven all too horribly justified, but I would much rather have been absolutely wrong and seen my darling Grace happy with the man she loves.
I still feel like murdering him with the first blunt object that comes to hand for what he did. However, his efforts at atonement are sufficient that for the time being I am willing to go along with Grace in giving him the benefit of the doubt. I am not certain that she is doing the right thing in going after him, but I can understand why she feels the need to make her peace with him.
As I wait for Grace to return, I find it hard to avoid looking back on my past treatment of other members of the family. I see little in which I can take pride. I can't help cringing when I think of how I behaved towards Honey during that first year after Jack's death. How could I have tried to take Hub and Henry from her and farmed out Violet to distant cousins? How could I have had Max fired from his teaching position when he married Honey after she left this house taking her children with her?
You and Grace certainly tried hard enough to warn me that I was taking the wrong path. Thank God I came to my senses in time and got Max his job back before he and Honey left New Bedford with the children. Having to admit to the school board that I had used my influence with them to have Max fired for selfish reasons was humiliating, but I deserved every bitter drop of that particular cup.
I can't help wondering if John and I were too stern with Bob and Jack when they were growing up. They needed to be tough to succeed in the mining business, but I can think of so many moments when we could have been a little more forgiving. We made Bob tough, but we may have also made him more than a little selfish. As for Jack, all I did was drive him away from me. When he returned to New Bedford, I did it again.
The last time I saw him alive he stormed out of this house, taking his family with him. I was certain that we would patch up our differences somehow. I had no way of knowing that it was already too late. It was almost too late for me and Bob when I had my stroke. If only he could see how dangerous his association with Hugo Gerrard is. Bob is a fool to think that he can keep Gerrard's dishonest business methods and rumored ties to homegrown fascists like Adrien Arcand at arm's length. Then again, how many times have I thought others fools only to be proven one myself? . . .
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