The President's Daughter Read online

  “You'll be gone too,” Mother said. “Sister won't be. Besides, she has more clothes than the rest of us put together.”

  My room was oddly shaped, long and very thin, because it had a bathroom stuck in one corner of it. The ceiling was so high that the room seemed narrower still. There were a brass bed in the corner by the door, an old bureau, some chairs, and a fireplace running down one long wall.

  Sister's room had two brass beds, a big dark wooden bureau, and a dressing table. I liked her bureau better than mine. I ran my hand over the smooth top of the dressing table. I wished I were old enough to need one.

  I wished I needed a big room. I wished I could do something to make them let me stay home.

  “What about Miss Young?” I heard Kermit ask. He was in the hall fiddling with the elevator. “What about Pinckney?”

  I went out to the hall. Mother was shaking her head. Father said apologetically, “I've had some temporary rooms set up for them in the basement. There's room enough in the attic to throw together something a little nicer.”

  “Even then we'll have to assure them that it's only temporary,” said Mother. “The attic for Pinckney! We'll have to get this second floor redone just as soon as possible.” She pursed her lips at the glass door to the offices.

  A porter brought my trunk up. “Which room, miss?”

  I pointed. Father and I followed him in. “What do you think?” Father asked.

  I went to the window. “You can't see the gardens,” I said.

  “No.” He lifted me up. “You can see something better. See that building? That's the Navy Department. Do you remember? I used to work there.”

  I looked at the building, and I did remember. I had been six years old when Father was assistant secretary of the navy. He had rented a house for us in Washington, though we had sometimes stayed at Sagamore. One autumn day Mame had taken me to see Father in his office. I remembered standing on the steps looking up at the giant white building. It really was the same building I could see from my window.

  “Remember when I came to visit you?” I said. “You bought us ices.”

  Father tweaked my nose. His eyes were smiling. “Lemon ices! That was a fine day.”

  Soon after that I'd gone back with Mother to Sagamore. Quentin was born. Then Father quit the navy to be a Rough Rider in Cuba. Now for a moment I thought I could remember the taste of that lemon ice. “A fine day,” I said, clutching Father's hand.

  The next morning I woke up early. My pillow felt strange, and for a moment I had to blink and remember where I was. The Executive Mansion. The sun was rising. I lifted the sash. Washington didn't smell half as bad as Mother said. There was a scent of horses, and gardens, and dampness. I looked down and saw carriages bumping through the streets, people hurrying along the walks. For the first time since Father became president, I felt a stirring of excitement. I thought of all the odd rooms in the mansion I hadn't had a chance to explore. I threw the bedroom door open and rushed out. “Watch it!” Kermit yelled. “Ethel!” He was riding his bicycle down the hallway. He swerved hard to miss me and nearly fell over. “No fair!” I said. “Where did you get your bicycle?” The last I had seen mine, it was being loaded onto the train. “Pinckney has them,” he said. “Downstairs.” “Get dressed first,” Mother said, coming out of her room. “Always be dressed when you go downstairs. This is a public building; you never know whom you're going to meet.” As I went back to my room to change out of my nightgown, Mother descended the staircase. I heard her say, “Good morning, Mr. Speaker. The president is not yet in his office.” Breakfast was served at 8:15, just like at home, and the food tasted the same too, on account of our having brought our cook. Father was buoyant and laughing, and Mother smiled and joked with him. She went around the room throwing open the windows. “We must let some sunshine into the house,” she said.

  Father grinned. “You know, I think it should be thought of as a house,” he said. “They've always called it the Executive Mansion, but that's not right, is it?”

  Mother looked up at him, puzzled.

  “It's the people's house,” Father said. “It belongs to the people of the United States, not to the president who happens to be living in it. I'm going to have new stationery printed.”

  “Are you going to call it the People's House?” Kermit asked. “No,” said Father. “Too cumbersome. I'm going to call it the White House.”

  The White House. I liked it.

  “ 'S not very white,” Kermit said, chewing a mouthful of eggs. “It's dark as a cave.” “The outside, silly,” I said. “We'll fix the inside, too, in time,” Mother said. “I've already ordered flowers to be sent from the greenhouses, Theodore. I hope to unpack most of our books today. I've decided not to hire a housekeeper, but I think I really do need a social secretary.”

  A tall man came in. Father introduced him to us as Mr. Hoover, the chief usher. He was like a butler, Father said, only more important. “You two have a few days to explore,” Father said to Kermit and me. “If you need to know where anything is, or if you need to know how anything works, ask Mr. Hoover.”

  Mr. Hoover smiled at us but seemed nervous. “Sir,” he said, “shall I remove the rodent from the table?”

  Father looked up. Kermit's rat was hopping toward the sugar bowl. “Oh, no,” Father said. “It's the boy's pet. He's very tame.”

  “Very well, sir. And the kitten on the stairs?”

  “That's Tom Quartz,” I said. “He's not exactly tame.”

  “Shall I put him in the stables, sir?”

  “Why, no,” Father said. “He's the children's kitten. They'll tend to him.” Mr. Hoover nodded and withdrew. “Hope he's not a nervous fellow,” Father said. “He won't last long if he is.”

  Mother grinned. “I've asked Miss Young to bring Archie and Quentin on Thursday. Kermit, Ethel, your schools start next Monday.”

  I laid down my fork and lifted my chin. I tried to sound as much like Sister as possible. “I have decided,” I said. “I'm not going. You can't make me.”

  “Dear Johnny,” Father chuckled, “of course we can.”

  I hated being called Johnny. It was short for Elephant Johnny, Father's nickname for me when I was a baby. “Maybe I'll do something awful,” I said.

  “No, dear, of course you won't,” Mother said serenely.

  The horrible part was that she was right.

  After breakfast Pinckney brought me my bicycle. Kermit and I ran races down the main-floor hallway until Mother came out and made rules. She said we were allowed to wear our stilts and ride our bicycles on the family side of the upstairs hallway, but we weren't to ride them downstairs. This was a shame, because the big rooms seemed made for bicycling. “Can we ride them outdoors?” I asked.

  Mother looked surprised. “Of course,” she said. “Anything you would do in the garden at Sagamore, you may do in the gardens here.”

  After that, I unpacked some of my things and took care of my rabbits and ran outdoors to the garden. Father and Mother were having guests to lunch, some senators, Mother said, and a Cabinet member or two, so Kermit and I were served luncheon in a smaller dining room. It was fun eating by ourselves. We grinned at each other across the table.

  “Which Cabinet members were they?” Kermit asked. “Which senators?”

  “I don't know,” I said. “Mother didn't say. Do you know what any of them look like?”

  Kermit shook his head. A few moments later Mr. Hoover came into the room. He addressed us formally. “Mr. Gilbert of the president's police would like to speak with you,” he said.

  “Us?” said Kermit.

  Mr. Hoover nodded.

  “Sure,” I said.

  I had already seen the policemen in their tall hats parading the grounds that morning. I was glad of them. Now Mr. Gilbert came in and took an empty seat at the table. He removed his hat and shook hands with Kermit and me. “Now then,” he said, “I'm the head of the police force here. Do you know what that means?”

  “You try to keep Father safe,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “We protect the president.”

  They hadn't done such a good job protecting President McKinley. I didn't say that out loud, but I exchanged looks with Kermit.

  Mr. Gilbert sighed. “What happened to President McKinley must never be allowed to happen again,” he said. “We will keep your father safe; we must do it. But that is why I want to talk to you. I want to enlist your help. Yours, and the older children's too, when they are home. I suppose you often go out riding with your father?”

  We nodded. Father and Mother rode nearly every afternoon, and they liked us to come with them. Kermit was a strong rider, and I was a good one.

  “If you are out with him on horseback, and a stranger rides at your father suddenly, I want you to spur your horse and get it in between your father and that stranger,” Mr. Gilbert said.

  I blinked. Kermit sat up straighter.

  “I mean this,” Mr. Gilbert said firmly. “A person trying to harm your father is not after Theodore Roosevelt. He is after the president of the United States. No one will try to hurt you. You must put yourselves in the way. Will you do that?”

  “Yes,” I said quickly.

  “Yes,” said Kermit. “Yes, of course we will.”

  “Good. Another thing. You must never let a man approach your father with his hands in his pockets, nor with a bandage on his hand or his arm in a sling. Not ever. If you see such a person coming near, you must shout or run at them or cause some kind of disturbance. Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course we can.”

  “Of course,” Kermit echoed. “Only—” He grinned. “If we make a big fuss and get into trouble with Mother, will you get us off the hook?”

  Mr. Gil
bert smiled solemnly. “Yes,” he said. We shook hands all around on the deal, and he got up and left the room.

  “That's good,” Kermit said. “I'm glad the police are paying better attention now.”

  “About time,” I said. I took another bite of my meat and chewed it slowly. “The only problem is, we're going to be stuck away in those stupid schools.”

  Kermit looked grim. “We'll be home on weekends,” he said. “Anyway, they'll tell Archie and Quentin, too.”

  “Quentin can't stop an assassin. He's only three.”

  We were silent for a moment. I thought of Quentin hurling himself into a crowd of grown men. He would do it, I thought. He was bony, but he had plenty of energy. He would try.

  “Archie can run him over with Algonquin,” Kermit said. Then his face brightened. “And Mr. Gilbert will tell Sister. She'll be here most of the time. That'll help.”

  It would help, I was sure. Sister could fight like a wildcat. She was a match for anyone.

  We ate for a few minutes without speaking. “One thing,” Kermit said at last. “Don't tell Mother about any of this. She'd have Mr. Gilbert fired.”

  I nodded. Mother was at least as worried about Father as the rest of us, but I knew that what Kermit said was true.

  Before she went to dinner, Mother read to Kermit and me in the library. She read to us for half an hour every day. “What would you like?” she asked.

  “Sir Walter Scott,” said Kermit.

  Mother opened up a book called The Pirate and started at the beginning. It was a good book; I'd heard it before. I lay on my back on the sofa with my feet hanging over the arm and my head pressed against Mother's side. Her voice was so rhythmic and soothing that I was startled when she stopped reading and asked, “And which of you has been roller-skating in the East Room?”

  Skating in circles while staring at the East Room ceiling was like looking through a kaleidoscope, only faster.

  “That was me.” It was how I'd spent the afternoon.

  “Well, don't do it again,” Mother said. “You've made marks all through the carpet.”

  “But I can't skate upstairs,” I said. “The carpet in the hall is too thick.”

  “Then skate in the basement,” Mother said.

  “Yes, ma'am.” I hadn't explored the basement yet. After Mother went to dinner, Kermit and I had a look.

  You could get lost for a year down there. It was dark and dank and it seemed to go on forever, room after musty room connected by dim hallways lit with flickering gaslights. Pipes gurgled above our heads. Around one corner we found the kitchens, and our cook standing over the biggest stove we'd ever seen. “Cookies?” I asked.

  He waved us away. “The president's invited extras for dinner again,” he said. “No time for cookies today.”

  “We'll have parties down here,” Kermit said as we skated away. “We'll get Father to tell us ghost stories and it'll be spooky as anything.”

  I skated after him, laughing. Father's ghost stories were the spookiest in the whole world, and the White House basement looked like a dungeon.

  The next morning there was an article in the newspaper about my rabbits. I had taken them to the groundskeeper and arranged a place for their hutch, since rabbits prefer to live outdoors. The groundskeeper had been very nice about it. I couldn't believe he'd spoken to a newspaperman. “What do they mean, putting that in the paper?” I said. “You're charming,” Kermit said. “You're the president's wee daughter, and everyone wants to read about your bunnies.” “If they want to put one of us in the paper, it ought to be Sister,” I said. “She'd like it.”

  “She'll get her chance, I'm sure.” Father folded the newspaper and set it beside his plate. “Don't worry over it, Ethel. They can't do you any harm. But it's things like this that have us sending you to boarding school. The women in charge of the Cathedral School won't breathe a word about you to the press. It'll be nearly as discreet as Allenswood.”

  “Allenswood?” I said. “Please don't send me to Allenswood!” In all my worries, I'd never even thought of that. Allenswood was where Aunt Bamie and Aunt Corinne had gone to school. My cousin Eleanor was there at that moment. In England. An ocean away.

  “Eleanor loves it there,” Mother said.

  “I can't go to Allenswood,” I said. Tears sprang to my eyes. “I can't.”

  “Of course not, dear,” Mother said soothingly. “We want you close to home.”

  Close to home, but not at home. “I shall never get used to school,” I declared. “Never.”

  “Chin up,” ordered Father.

  I gulped. “Yes, Father.”

  Archie and Quentin arrived Thursday night. Mother and I went in the carriage to meet their train. Archie sat on Mother's lap the whole drive back, and Quentin sat on mine. They had brought the guinea pigs. Most of them were in a basket Miss Young carried, but Archie had one tucked into his blouse. “Careful, Mother, you'll squish Bishop Doane,” he said. Bishop Doane was the brown and white guinea pig.

  “Let's put the poor creature back in the basket,” Miss Young said.

  “They like it when we carry them,” said Archie.

  “They do,” I said. “We carry them in our shirts all the time at home.”

  Homesickness washed over me in a wave. In Albany or at Sagamore I could carry the guinea pigs around all day long, but if I did it here I would probably be in the newspaper, and I was sure I wouldn't be able to take guinea pigs to school. Or Tom Quartz. Or my bunnies. Or Wyoming. I wrapped my arms more tightly around Quentin and wished we were back at Sagamore.

  The carriage turned the corner and we could see the White House ahead. “Look, boys,” Mother said. “There it is.”

  Archie and Quentin scrambled to their feet. Quentin almost fell out of the carriage, but Miss Young caught him. She and Mother exchanged a sympathetic look. Then Mother patted my arm. “This is our home now,” she said. “For at least the next three and a half years.”

  I blinked back tears. “Everything's so topsy-turvy,” I said. Mother didn't answer, but the way she looked at me made me feel she understood.

  “The National Cathedral School for Girls,” Miss Young read to me that night, “in this, its first year of existence, has taken its stand among the foremost educational institutions for girls in America. Its graduates are admitted without entrance examinations to Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Smith, and Vassar.”

  “I don't want to be admitted to Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Smith, and Vassar,” I said. “I don't even know what those things are. I told you, I want to stay home.”

  “And ride Wyoming in circles around your father,” Miss Young said dryly. “Those are colleges, Ethel. For women.”

  “Ugh,” I said. The last thing I wanted to do was go farther away.

  “They give certificates, too, for those not wishing a full high school degree. Don't panic. There will be lots of different kinds of girls there.”

  On Friday morning Mother and Miss Young went through my clothes. I'd grown taller and stouter since the past winter. Mother made me try everything on while she and Miss Young poked and pinched me. “Too tight,” Mother said, putting my old winter coat to one side. “Too short,” she said about my good white dress.

  “But that's my favorite!” I said. “I like that!”

  “You can keep it here at home,” Mother said. “It won't do for school.”

  School. “What do I have to wear at school?” I asked. Ted wore suits. Archie and Kermit wore regular boys’ clothes.

  “There's no uniform,” Mother said. “You just need to be neatly dressed. You're a little girl, Ethel, they'll expect you to run and play.”

  I hoped so. I sat on the edge of my bed and watched Mother count up the clothes in the “keep” pile and make shopping lists for Miss Young. “Remember,” Mother said, “Ethel looks better in the sort of dress that doesn't have a waist.”

  I supposed the rest of the girls would look beautiful in tight-waisted dresses. They would be tall and willowy, like Sister. They'd probably laugh at my baby dresses. They'd sit elegantly in their elegant clothes and discuss whether they'd rather go to Mount Holyoke, Wellesley, Smith, or Vassar.

  Not one would be homesick for a guinea pig. Not one would rather have a governess. Not one would be worrying about her father, the president.