Whistled Like a Bird, page 9
24) Whistling softly
25) Perfect orchestra.
26) Certain clean sweet utterly masculine scent.
27) Same or women—these are very unlike.
“Sailing into the morning of another glorious year,” was Dorothy’s tribute to January 1928. With George on a mountain climbing trip with his boy author Bradford Washburn, Dorothy and G.W. drove David and his suitcase full of Christmas gifts back to the Hotchkiss School: “G.W., David and I had a picnic lunch. Left David and we started for home. Stopped for awhile near the bridge at the old marble quarry. A really perfectly adorable day. It’s awful to feel oneself torn between conflicting emotions, yet isn’t that the penalty of intellect?”
At this point, travel did not hold the same appeal as before. But Junie had been plagued by a series of illnesses since the beginning of summer, and doctors suspected he had infantile paralysis. Her concerns for his health prompted the suggestion of a trip to Hawaii, with George agreeing that the warm Pacific air would have a restorative effect on them both. Dorothy saw an opportunity to ease the growing tension with George. At this point, she could not bring herself to share even the slightest intimacy with him. Making love was impossible. “An unhappy evening. I refuse because I mentally don’t enjoy it. He can’t believe my attitude is real; possibly because it hurts his conceit. But it seems immoral to me when two people are not mutually in love and desirous, and I can’t go thro’ with it.”
Two days later she was in G.W.’s arms and deliriously happy:
JANUARY 11, 1928 All day a singing in my head and really on the crest! Drove to town in Chrysler with G.W. when he went to hospital for finger dressing and then out again just in time for a delicious dinner. In a white dress and blue crystals, etc! And a bottle or 1913 wine and gay spring flowers and an adorable evening in every way! We read poetry, we had some good music for an hour. There are days occasionally when one walks on air, and the world seems all sunshine and joy! And this has been one!
The following day Dorothy came down with a fever, and typically blamed herself. “Yesterday was the last fling before a fall! For today I’m sick in bed with vile throat, fever and chills and no food. Maybe this is a punishment for me, for being so happy!” And after another day in bed with tonsillitis: “G.W. came and talked to me late and was so sweet and considerate. I feel just ill enough and miserable enough to love his little attentions and favors. I believe he has the most perfect carriage I’ve ever seen.”
Even in illness, she was at peace with herself:
JANUARY 14, 1928 G.P. lectured Boston, 11th; Rye, 12th; Summit, N.J., 13th; and Phila on 14th. Despite being ill and in bed and just dragging around, I’m happy in my mind and between doses I lie and think and enjoy the world. I feel old and already know more poignantly what a tragedy it must be for a beauty to grow old. For God knows I’m not that, yet I regret the years.
Prior to Dorothy’s departure for Hawaii, George realized that he would miss her, despite her belief that he did not need her any more. “George home very early and dog tired after his many lectures. He is growing a bit lonely at the thought of my going away and is pretty sweet to me every minute.” The man she had married sixteen years earlier had changed, and his success was not without a price. His long absences only exacerbated her need for attention. And as a result, her most precious moments were those spent with G.W.
JANUARY 17, 1928 My last day at home for a long time—packed and did some final house accounts, bills, etc. and all day G.W. helped or sat in a big chair nearby and chatted. Then just before sunset we went for a perfectly adorable drive high in the hills and then stopped in a little cove to see a gorgeous sunset over the lake. I had a tiny sip of apricot brandy and a cracker and suddenly the sun has gone, the year’s at an end, and my trunks and bags are all ready for departure.
Don Blanding, the Putnams’ artist/poet friend from their early days in Bend, Oregon, was now living in Hawaii. During a visit to Rye in 1926, while painting a fish mural on their guest-room wall, Don had extended an invitation to George and Dorothy to visit him in Honolulu. Now, two years later, as the SS Malolo eased up against the crowded dock, Don stood waiting, his arms piled high with fragrant leis. “The pier at 4:30 and immediately leis of temple flowers for Junie and me. And reporters galore! Don on the dock with huge and very lovely wreaths for us, and a car. Stopped in town and at his studio, then on to the most lovely Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki Beach.”
Dorothy’s uncertainty over her marital status and her feelings for G.W. plagued her two-month stay: “Gorgeous sunset above the clouds. Supper and then that most marvelous grandeur, full moon over volcanic peaks of crater!! Oh, some thing one can’t write of, all night in little cots in the resthouse. Cold, but clear as day. I want him here.”
Despite her passion, she felt guilty over her indiscretions and questioned her judgment. Away from her lover, she saw more clearly the potential for disaster, dreading the scandal if the truth were known. She seemed contemplative, reflecting on her future as she and Junie sat on the beach for days at a time, watching the passing parade of bathers.
FEBRUARY 19, 1928 Waikiki. My conscience—long dormant or atrophied is suddenly coming to life and I loathe myself as never before! I’m useless, senseless and wrong. Absolutely a mess. Ah God, may the present determination to turn over a new leaf really take hold and accomplish a change in me!
MARCH 9, 1928 Women grow old prematurely because our badly organized civilization gives them so little to do except talk and dress when their children are grown! Oh, this place is too full of useless old people! Jet that is harsh to say. What should they do, and do they deserve no rest for what they have already done in the world? But the majority of them are huge and pulpy and shapeless, mentally as well as physically, and repulsive to see. The pity, the tragedy or age! And the joy when one sees an artist at the game or lire, and old!
MARCH 23, 1928 I wonder, is chastity an overrated virtue? Apparently its only for women, and men seem to regard their own lapses so casually. We, alas, feel ours as too burdensome for words! And suffer remorse in silence. Is it different? Can it be so much worse? Certainly, one strives for it and controls unruly desires for years. And I do believe in it fundamentally for all. Yet, what or this quite unchaste habit or married couples who most or the while loathe each other, yet continue to indulge!
She and Junie returned home to Rye that spring, and George was relieved to see his son fully recovered. The weeks away and Dorothy’s countless hours of soul-searching had made the once-dreaded return to her husband a relief. With G.W. back at Yale, the Putnams attempted to resume their marital duties, at least for the time being.
Dorothy responded to her husband’s joy in her presence again: “Life is very full and very sweet. Perhaps Pm all wrong, but I’m happy.” For the time being she was safe.
APRIL 17, 1928 Last night my husband said “Your reticence and innate modesty about certain personal things is one or your greatest charms. I have never known you to fail this in any tiny respect in the eighteen years I have known you. And I think I love you more as the years go on because I see how rare a quality it is!” This is a comforting tribute, I hope it is true.
PART THREE
1928–1929
A phone [call] from George. I go to Boston
tomorrow. I shall see her [Amelia] depart I trust.
What nerve, courage, intelligence and faith!
Or perhaps it’s fatalism. If I go, my reputation is
made forever; it I’m lost, I’m always a mystery…
or what do I care!
D.B.P.
7
THE FLYER
“Illusions, not realities make life bearable. This dangerous age? When is it? Surely 38 is the age when women most desire an attractive man’s admiration. It probably comforts one to think we are still attractive, but more than that we want to feel power.”
MY GRANDMOTHER MUST HAVE KNOWN that the affair with G.W. was ultimately hopeless, and that the possibility of admitting adultery might cost her custody of her sons. She continued to play the role of Mrs. Putnam.
Calling downstairs to George one morning in early May, she announced that she would take him to the train. Harold, the Putnams’ chauffeur, had already started the motor when she tapped from inside the bedroom window and motioned that she would drive Mr. Putnam.
Bounding down the stairs, she found George sitting with his open newspaper, more preoccupied than usual. As always, he looked studious and neatly dressed for the city. His still damp hair was meticulously combed straight back in the fashion of the day, and his white collar stood up stiffly inside the dark, tailored suit. His wife’s presence caused him to look up, collect his papers, and stride out to the car beside her.
Speeding over to the station, George hurriedly began to tell her about a secret project he was involved in—something that had come up quite by accident and had the potential to become another sensational book along the lines of Lindbergh’s We. He did not have time to elaborate, except to say that it involved a top-secret trans-Atlantic flight. “A wild scrabble to get G.P. off. Missed the very early train by 2 minutes, A futile rush—but it turned out all right.” She would not hear anything more for several days.
Returning home, Dorothy anticipated G.W.’s arrival. But the day so filled with promise would turn sour when her young lover showed up with an attractive young companion, Darcy Kellogg. Dorothy was stunned by the attention that G.W. paid to Darcy. “They stayed late into the evening.” She recorded her underlying disappointment and hurt: “An odd business, Darcy is most attractive, intelligent and talented (cello) and I believe G.W, is very fond of her.” After the cordial good-byes, Dorothy sought comfort at her piano, but even the soft music could not soothe her. The old insecurity had surfaced. Could G.W. really love her, so much older than the girls he knew? How could she possibly compete?
Meanwhile daily life at Rocknoll kept her distracted, and later in the week, after a visit with G.W., she decided to continue the affair despite her doubts, although the emotional confusion left her exhausted.
MAY 7, 1928 Oh, Oh—Thank God! For strangely, unexpectedly and happily I am suddenly freed from a wretched indecision or mind. A misery hanging over me many months — a compelling force or desire has ceased to function. I am free, free or it and recognize it in a certain sense or rapture, in myself. Floating, with a mind and body at length unpossessed by any thought or another!
But the next day she appears to have regretted her decision:
MAY 8, 1928 Even sin is to be made as difficult as possible. And I had imagined it so easy! Will God ever forgive me for not committing the sins intended for me! Well, I nave committed some perhaps, very mud ones. But, often my conscience hurts me and I’m full of remorse. We’re such ridiculous chicken-hearted souls at best!
Dorothy broke down and wrote a farewell note. She was heartsick and more alone than she had ever felt. She sought solace in the multivolume history of civilization by Will Durant, seeming to need that moral justification for her decision. “Wrote a ‘goodbye’ note today! Durant says Christ was a great moralist, not necessarily a great thinker. Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Copernicus (Earth round), Francis Bacon, Kant, Newton, Voltaire (Emancipator of Mind), Darwin (Evolution). Oh, there’s Spring in my nostrils and the orioles are here again.”
Amidst Dorothy’s turbulent odyssey, George Putnam was on the verge of helping to make aviation history.
He arrived home one evening in mid-May bursting with pride over the mysterious project he had alluded to a few days before. Once again, he enlisted his wife as partner. They sank back on the sofa in the living room with their legs propped on a huge storage trunk that served as a coffee table. Dorothy sat motionless as she listened to his story unfold. A wonderful promoter, George reveled in the role of publisher and adventurer as he unveiled his plans, describing the series of interviews and discussions he had held over the past few days. As he would later recall, “Just then my career as a publisher of exploration and adventure books was in full cry. And here I had stumbled on an adventure in-the-making which, once completed, certainly should provide a good book.” By the end of the evening Dorothy was convinced that her husband was about to embark on the most ambitious project of his career.
Over the years he had given financial support to many unknown young adventurers, and now was enlisted to find the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. He was convinced that the story would be another bestseller for G. P. Putnam’s Sons and that he would find just the right candidate. In George’s own words, “I was commissioned to find an American girl who would measure up to adequate standards of American womanhood.”
George had heard quite by accident that a wealthy socialite from Pittsburgh, Mrs. Frederick Guest, was searching for a suitable candidate to be the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane. Mrs. Guest, an amateur pilot herself, had originally planned to make the flight but had been dissuaded by her family for safety reasons. Already, six women had risked their lives attempting to set other flying records. The dangers were real, and Mrs. Guest’s family were adamant in their decision. Nevertheless, Mrs. Guest had leased a tri-motored Fokker floatplane built originally for Richard E. Byrd’s Antarctic expedition and now renamed the Friendship. Two accomplished male aviators had been selected as well. Wilmer (“Bill”) Stultz would serve as pilot and Lou (“Slim”) Gordon as the plane’s flight mechanic. Before Mrs. Guest bowed out, she stipulated that her replacement be a well-educated “lady pilot.” The candidate was required to be physically attractive and—like Mrs. Guest— possess all the social graces that reflected the appropriate image of a modern American woman.
Through the Putnams’ friend Hilton Railey, George had heard of a potential candidate named Amelia Earhart, who was living in Boston. Railey had met with the young flyer on April 25 and described her as a “female Lindbergh.” My grandfather was intrigued by the comparison.
George’s initial interview with Amelia Earhart in early May 1928 had been brief and not entirely positive. Her first reaction to him was somewhat harsh, as he had kept her waiting. He noted later: she was “sore as a wet hen!” and Amelia had not disguised her annoyance with him.
Nonetheless, she was instantly intrigued. “Unquestionably, George was enormously attractive to women,” recalled his friend, the playwright Robert E. Lee. “A trim but husky hulk of a man, handsome, irascible, sly, opinionated, a total stranger to fear, gifted (or cursed) with a vinegar wit, the champion of raw charm.”
A settlement worker at the Denison House in Boston (where Dorothy and her Glee Club had once performed), thirty-year-old Amelia Mary Earhart was an experienced flyer. She was the first woman to be granted an air license by the National Aeronautic Association, receiving her certificate as a pilot in 1923. She was also deeply committed to the advancement of aviation, and particularly concerned with introducing women to the daring and exhilarating freedom of flight. Amelia’s qualifications perfectly matched Mrs. Guest’s requirements. She was intelligent, tall, and poised, and she became George Putnam’s immediate choice for the secret crossing.
Only three weeks would pass between Amelia’s first meeting with Hilton Railey, her interview with George Putnam in New York, and the scheduled date for the Friend-ship’s departure. My grandfather was determined to invest his considerable reputation on the risky flight and immediately left for Boston, where the crew was waiting.
Dorothy enjoyed having the house to herself. Gardening, reading, music—and of course sharing it all with G.W.— seemed a fair exchange for George’s involvement with the project.
Though her role with the flight’s backers was strictly social, at a luncheon Dorothy appeared fascinated by the company.
MAY 15, 1928 Hated leaving the garden and out of doors to go to town. New maid, Swiss-German with no English! Dined with multi-millionaires, Mr. and Mrs. Phipps, their pretty daughter, Peggy, and nephew, Tony Guest and Lord Elgin at Colony Restaurant. It’s Mrs. Guest (English sister of Phipps) who bought their big plane soon to go to London with American girl flyer!
George was infatuated with Amelia and spoke freely to his wife about the young woman’s intelligence and friendly manner. He also noted her graceful hands, her gray eyes, and quick laughter, describing the aviatrix as someone Dorothy would enjoy knowing.
May 19 was the one-year anniversary of Dorothy and G.W.’s love affair. “A delicious soft rain just saturating my lovely ferns and garden! I watched two thrushes building in the dogwood on the terrace. And it made me a little breathless for various reasons.”
As much as she had wanted to be a part of her husband’s venture in those first few weeks of May, she could think only of G.W., and had even devised a code name for him and their affair: the “child.”
MAY 19, 1928 The child is one year old, the darling and I adore it! Occasionally he seems almost intelligent enough to understand. He recognizes colors or sunrise, songs or birds, and once he thrilled over the moon. He can’t talk, he is rat and strong, but his appetite is normal. The rain, the woods, ferns, azaleas and new dogwood trees. All day outdoors and loving every minute or it, every drop or rain.
With George acting as Amelia’s agent in Boston, my grandmother and G.W. celebrated their anniversary together. In spite of all the difficulties, this improbable union had lasted an entire year. Both decided not to question the future.
MAY 20, 1928 Still a bit damp and off to the woods again, George in Boston expecting his girl flyer to leave at any dawn, great excitement and very secret. Buffet supper at Sound Beach and afterwards the Arctic movies and G.W. gave a very easy and good talk, substituting for George still in Boston. Slept on loggia and it seems so completely heavenly and in the woods. Deliciously sleepy.
MAY 21, 1928 Awake with the thrushes song at dawn and lay listening for an hour all warm and sleepy. Then drove to the beach. The stillest kind or sort, gray day, rippleless and the sandpipers scurrying ahead or the incoming tide. But I doubt if she [Amelia] flies. Transplanting, garden, birds, letters, music.
