We reconvened Tuesday evening to discuss the finer points of our financial collapse.
After dinner we went into the sitting room. I sat on the brocade sofa in one of what Priscilla called the “conversation areas.” I didn’t want to take a seat in the corner. My days of sitting in the corner like a china figurine were over—at least for the moment.
Littleton perched on a Chippendale chair near me. Miranda sat on a settee. Dolores had stayed at home for once. I glanced at Pris, who was knitting with a fluffy green wool. Teddy was slumped in a wingback chair by the fireplace. He sat just apart from our little group, as if he couldn’t bear to join us.
“You’ll have to cut out the Christmas party,” Littleton said.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Miranda said. Miranda was a renowned Boston party-giver. People jockeyed all year to get onto her Christmas party list. She had three-by-five cards on her dressing table with people’s names on them and she moved them from one pile to another depending on how well disposed she was toward the person on that particular day.
Though I wasn’t much of a party person, even I enjoyed Miranda’s Christmas parties. They were always done in a Roaring Twenties style with a big band and costumes. I liked watching the couples pull up to the valet in their fancy cars. They’d rush into the cold, the women hobbling toward the house in spiked heels, the men secure in their spats, and arrive at the door all flushed and smiling, blowing the frosty air like smoke.
Miranda loved to pull the strings of Boston society. She got invited to all the best parties because people hoped that their invitations would be returned. It was as if after my mother died, Miranda and I split her traits down the middle. Miranda got everything that was outgoing and social and I got all that was thoughtful and sedentary. Miranda flourished and became, in her way, a social luminary.
“To be honest, you can barely afford to run this house, and if you are to continue to do it, you’ll have to make some major changes. Perhaps you could take in boarders,” Littleton said.
Priscilla’s head snapped up. I tried to picture myself as the proprietor of the Fortune Family Bed & Breakfast. We would introduce our guests to the moneyed class of the twenty-first century, the diminishing, foolish, useless moneyed class that didn’t even have the sense to hang on to what they had been given.
But, of course, the city would never allow it, nor would our neighbors, nor would our sense of propriety.
“Take in boarders?” Miranda whined. “What can you be thinking, Littleton?”
Littleton was perspiring into the collar of his shirt. He took out a linen handkerchief and wiped it across his neck.
“I don’t understand how this happened.”
This came from Miranda, whose collection of designer shoes and handbags filled an entire walk-in closet on the second floor. Teddy had some expensive habits also. He collected wines, cigars, antique watches, and first editions of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. He didn’t read the books; he just collected them. But all these things were minor indulgences for us. What had really happened was that for two generations we lived extravagantly and made no money. The family had dipped into the principal of its many trusts little by little until they were dangerously depleted.
My father also made some bad investments. He would read something in the paper, get an idea, and call his “broker.”
“Couldn’t we remortgage the house?” Teddy asked.
“You have two mortgages already,” Littleton said.
“We do?” I asked. I thought our house, which my father inherited free and clear, had remained that way.
“Even if you got another mortgage, how would you pay it back?” Priscilla asked. “You could pay it back when you sold the house, I suppose, but are you really planning to sell the Fortune family home?” She continued to knit without looking at her work. She was staring at Teddy. He stroked the arms of his chair as if it were a friend from whom he would soon be parting.
“What choice do we have?” he asked. He was haggard and I had never seen him look that way, except during the few months after my mother died.
I couldn’t believe that Teddy would think of selling the house. It had been Euphemia’s house. It was a house that gave him status, that defined us as a family. It was the best of what we had.
“You could rent it out,” Littleton said.
“Over time, you could rebuild your capital,” Priscilla added.
“What would people think?” Teddy asked. He rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on the top of his folded hands.
“No one would have to know that it wasn’t your choice. You could make it seem like it was your idea. After all, your girls are grown and this is such a big house. And there’s the place on the Vineyard. You could sell that,” Littleton said.
“But, Littleton, they always rent the Vineyard house out in the winter,” Priscilla said. “It pays for itself. I think they can only gain by keeping the Vineyard house. Besides, they’ll need somewhere to live in the summer,” Priscilla said.
“What about the charitable trust?” Miranda asked.
“What about it,” Priscilla said.
“I don’t see how we can keep giving charity when we don’t have any money of our own. Can’t we break the trust?”
“No, dear.” Priscilla bit at the inside of her cheek. “There is no provision in the trust that says ‘If my progeny should be such spendthrifts that they run through all the family money in one generation, you can break the charitable trust.’”
“You don’t have to be nasty about it. It was just a question,” Miranda said. “Still, I don’t understand why it isn’t possible.” She raised her head and stuck out her chin in a combative way.
I shifted in my seat. If the trust were breakable, what would that mean for the work I did? Would we just shut down our office in Kenmore Square and cease to be? Now that we were a known entity, maybe I could raise money. But I had never raised money for anything before, not even for a cup of coffee. Money had never been a problem. The foundation was well endowed and I had used the money carefully, making sure—with the help of the bankers—to continuously grow the capital.
Littleton broke in. “Priscilla’s right,” he said. “There is no provision for breaking the trust. I checked. Besides, your family name is associated with it. You’ve done some good in the community through it. You wouldn’t want to jeopardize that.”
He acted as if the Fortune Family Foundation did the work all by itself, as if the money jumped up and spread itself all over Boston. But there was someone behind it, making the choices and writing the checks, and that someone was me. I couldn’t lose the foundation. I had taken it from near obscurity to a position of respect among the other great foundations for the arts.
Miranda stood up. It looked like she was ready to have the kind of tantrum she so often had as a child, but before she could do anything other than stamp a foot, she sat back down. Tantrums don’t look good on anyone, and even she knew that they looked ridiculous on a woman who was almost forty.
“No Christmas party. I won’t be able to show my face,” she said.
“It will be easier if your face isn’t here,” Pris said.
“What do you mean?”
“Littleton and I think that the best place for the family this winter is Palm Beach. You can get a lovely apartment there with the money you get for renting this house and you’ll still have plenty left over.”
“The Fortunes are wintering in Palm Beach,” Teddy said. “I don’t mind the sound of that.”
Miranda walked over to the window, tied back the drapes, and gazed out. “No Christmas party.” She released a theatrical sigh.
“There are worse things than wintering in Palm Beach,” Priscilla said.
I, for one, couldn’t think of any. I hated the bright yellows, greens, and pinks of country-club chic. I couldn’t see myself walking the streets among the tanned and the leathered. I wasn’t big on drinks with little umbrellas in
