At the last moment Gordon had decided to accept another offer, one proffered by an equally distinguished firm, Perry, Whitehead & Cox. It had been the result of a tense parley he had had with his bride-to-be, shortly before their union. She had been firmer than he had ever seen her.
"The Periy firm has one great advantage," she had insisted.
"And what is that?"
"David's not in it."
"Darling? What's wrong with David?"
"Nothing. Except for you."
"For
me
?"
"Yes. Not for anyone else. Or at least not for anyone else I care about. Only for you."
"You don't like David?"
"I don't like him at all. But that's not the point. I'm not going to be a bossy wife, Gordon, but in this one thing you must yield to me. This one thing I insist on. Don't go into the same firm with David."
"Darling, what's come over you? Have you gone crazy?"
"Let's put it that I have. But I won't marry you if you don't give in to me in this one instance."
Well, what could he say to that?
5. ESTELLE
E STELLE C ARNOCHAN, David's sister, the youngest of the seven children of James and Louisa, was their only daughter, and being pretty, blond, and very bright, she was the family pet. Her perennially delicate healthâthe early signs of tuberculosisâonly added to the domestic affection. She was the particular favorite of her father, a charming and witty man, only intermittently faithful to his large, formidable, and adoring spouse, and after his premature death at forty-six, in 1907, Estelle had obligingly assumed the role of primary emotional support to her widowed mother, whom all New York regarded as a heroine, left as she was with all those sons to launch in the world. Why a heroine? Estelle sometimes asked this question of the shrewd little observer whom she artfully concealed behind an impassive front. Was Louisa Carnochan not possessed of robust health, an exuberant disposition, and a comfortable inheritance from a father who had bought farmland in northern Manhattan for nothing? But New York liked heroines, and Louisa enjoyed the role quite as much as her audience enjoyed attributing it to her.
Estelle may have been willing to play her part as acolyte to this grand figure of sorrow, and to act as confidante to rowdy brothers who seemed, for all their bravado, to need more pats on the back than might have been expected from their boasts, but she was determined that she was going to have a life of her own and never sink into the position so often then expected of the youngest born of a large family: the patient companion of a never-dying parent. Particularly if that youngest was afflicted with the symptoms of a dread disease.
She defied her mother's protests by insisting on attending Barnard College, although she had to submit to the humiliation of being accompanied on her daily trips uptown by an Irish maidservant, whose odd presence in the back of the classroom she explained to her new and more liberated friends as that of a cousin who desired to audit the courses. And when she had her first beau, a former Harvard Law School classmate of her brother David, whom she had met on his visit to her family's summer place on the Cape, she thought she might have found an independent base for a vision of life outside her family and her frail lungs.
Bronson Hale was a Bostonian to the core of his being. His dark and rather solemn good looks were accompanied by a gravity of demeanor that might have chilled had it not been accompanied by the warmth of his evident sincerity. The Hales were kin to half the Brahmins of his native city, but his high-mindedness eschewed the least tint of social snobbery. He seemed to feel a kindred soul in Estelle, and she found herself wondering if she had perhaps met the man who could answer all the questions that her brothers could not.
Not that he asked those questions. It was the answers that he seemed ready to provide. Bronson Hale did not openly challenge the values of a society that Estelle tended to find
"The Periy firm has one great advantage," she had insisted.
"And what is that?"
"David's not in it."
"Darling? What's wrong with David?"
"Nothing. Except for you."
"For
me
?"
"Yes. Not for anyone else. Or at least not for anyone else I care about. Only for you."
"You don't like David?"
"I don't like him at all. But that's not the point. I'm not going to be a bossy wife, Gordon, but in this one thing you must yield to me. This one thing I insist on. Don't go into the same firm with David."
"Darling, what's come over you? Have you gone crazy?"
"Let's put it that I have. But I won't marry you if you don't give in to me in this one instance."
Well, what could he say to that?
5. ESTELLE
E STELLE C ARNOCHAN, David's sister, the youngest of the seven children of James and Louisa, was their only daughter, and being pretty, blond, and very bright, she was the family pet. Her perennially delicate healthâthe early signs of tuberculosisâonly added to the domestic affection. She was the particular favorite of her father, a charming and witty man, only intermittently faithful to his large, formidable, and adoring spouse, and after his premature death at forty-six, in 1907, Estelle had obligingly assumed the role of primary emotional support to her widowed mother, whom all New York regarded as a heroine, left as she was with all those sons to launch in the world. Why a heroine? Estelle sometimes asked this question of the shrewd little observer whom she artfully concealed behind an impassive front. Was Louisa Carnochan not possessed of robust health, an exuberant disposition, and a comfortable inheritance from a father who had bought farmland in northern Manhattan for nothing? But New York liked heroines, and Louisa enjoyed the role quite as much as her audience enjoyed attributing it to her.
Estelle may have been willing to play her part as acolyte to this grand figure of sorrow, and to act as confidante to rowdy brothers who seemed, for all their bravado, to need more pats on the back than might have been expected from their boasts, but she was determined that she was going to have a life of her own and never sink into the position so often then expected of the youngest born of a large family: the patient companion of a never-dying parent. Particularly if that youngest was afflicted with the symptoms of a dread disease.
She defied her mother's protests by insisting on attending Barnard College, although she had to submit to the humiliation of being accompanied on her daily trips uptown by an Irish maidservant, whose odd presence in the back of the classroom she explained to her new and more liberated friends as that of a cousin who desired to audit the courses. And when she had her first beau, a former Harvard Law School classmate of her brother David, whom she had met on his visit to her family's summer place on the Cape, she thought she might have found an independent base for a vision of life outside her family and her frail lungs.
Bronson Hale was a Bostonian to the core of his being. His dark and rather solemn good looks were accompanied by a gravity of demeanor that might have chilled had it not been accompanied by the warmth of his evident sincerity. The Hales were kin to half the Brahmins of his native city, but his high-mindedness eschewed the least tint of social snobbery. He seemed to feel a kindred soul in Estelle, and she found herself wondering if she had perhaps met the man who could answer all the questions that her brothers could not.
Not that he asked those questions. It was the answers that he seemed ready to provide. Bronson Hale did not openly challenge the values of a society that Estelle tended to find
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