Trust Fund Princess
Long before Paris Hilton began tantalizing tabloid readers with her scandalous, over-the-top lifestyle, wealthy socialites such as tobacco heiress Doris Duke and Barbara Hutton, heiress to the Woolworth Five and Dime fortune, frequently made the news. They hosted and attended lavish parties, wore the latest fashions and traveled around the world, spending money like it was water. The gossip columnists faithfully reported their weddings, divorces and love affairs. Hutton, in particular, gave the gossipmongers a lot to write about with seven husbands that included dashing actor Cary Grant, three princes, a count and famed international playboy Porfirio Rubirosa, who was Doris Duke's ex-husband and actress Zsa Zsa Gabor's lover. The lives of both Doris and Barbara have since become the subject of numerous books and films.
Although her name is not as familiar to our generation, Madeline Hargrove was as wealthy, style-conscious and socially active as her contemporaries, Duke and Hutton. Yet no author ever penned her biography, so I decided to take on the job.
After making some inquiries into the Hargrove family history, I received a surprising phone call from Madeline herself, wanting to know my interest in her past.
"I'm a freelance journalist," I explained. "I'd like to write an article on your life."
"A story about me? How wonderful!"
I was not sure how she would react to the news, and I was relieved by her enthusiasm.
"Perhaps you'd agree to an interview," I said hopefully.
"I'd be delighted to answer your questions. The only problem is my health prevents me from leaving the house. Would it be possible for you to come to Maine?"
I could not believe my good fortune. Fearing the elderly recluse might change her mind, I made the five-hour drive the following day. My car's GPS got me within three miles of her house, and then I had to rely on my own instincts to get me the rest of the way. As it turned out, Madeline's was the only home in a ten-mile radius.
Upon my first glimpse of Hargrove House, I stopped my car, took my digital camera out of my handbag and snapped several pictures. It took numerous photographs to capture the immensity of the huge place. My guess was that it would cover two city blocks. Given the size of the property and the remoteness of the area, I was not surprised by the absence of a fence.
I drove my Toyota up the circular driveway and parked in front of the steps. Then I walked across the veranda and knocked on the large oak front door. Given the immense size of the place and the owner's allegedly vast fortune, I had expected a butler or at least a housekeeper to answer and was surprised when the ninety-eight-year-old heiress opened the door herself.
"You must be Miss Winters," she said. "Won't you come in?"
After seeing the immaculate exterior of the house, I was shocked by the condition of the interior. The previous year, I had interviewed several compulsive hoarders in conjunction with an article I wrote on mental disorders, but I had never seen such an accumulation of junk as I saw in Madeline Hargrove's foyer.
"Are you moving?" I asked.
"No," the old woman laughed. "I'm just running out of storage room in the attic and the basement. I suppose I should hire a contractor to build an addition for some of my things."
When Miss Hargrove invited me inside, I had to tiptoe through the boxes, shopping bags and plastic crates that covered nearly every square foot of the floor.
"Follow me. There's a couch in the parlor where we can sit and talk."
As we made our way toward the first-floor parlor, I saw that the hallway and every room we passed were as crowded as the foyer.
"You certainly have a lot of stuff," I said—an understatement, to be sure.
Perhaps it was rude of me to say such a thing, but as a journalist, I was not concerned with polite manners as much as I was with getting a good story. And I could tell there was a hell of a story in Hargrove House.
"There's almost a century of memories here," Madeline said proudly, not in the least bit offended by my observation.
"How many people live here with you?" I inquired.
"Oh, I'm all by myself. My doctor visits once a month as does my lawyer. If I need anything, I call the market in town, and a delivery boy brings it out to me."
We sat on the antique Chippendale sofa, the only surface in the room that was not covered with old items of clothing, books, magazines or other personal belongings.
"What a beautiful piece of furniture," I said, quickly estimating the sofa probably cost as much as my car.
"Thank you. It's been in the family for years. It belonged to my grandfather."
"That would be Eustace Hargrove, the founder of Hargrove Publishing?"
"Yes. I never knew him. He died before I was born. He went down with the Titanic. Did you know that?"
"No, I didn't."
"My grandparents were vacationing in Europe when my father sent a telegram informing them that my mother was pregnant. Father was an only child, so naturally my grandparents wanted to be home for the birth of their grandchild. They booked passage on the Titanic, and—well, my grandmother came home alone."
Madeline got up from the sofa, walked to one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and took down a dusty photo album.
"These are my grandparents," she said, pointing to a well-dressed couple circa late 1890s. "It's funny. My grandfather made millions as a publisher, and yet when he came here from Scotland as a teenager, he couldn't read or write."
I took a notebook and pen out from of my oversized handbag and began to take notes. I thought the rags-to-riches story of Eustace Hargrove might be a good opening for my article.
My interest in her family encouraged the old woman to continue talking. She turned a brittle page in the album and pointed to a sepia-toned wedding photograph.
"These are my parents."
"Your mother was a stunning woman," I remarked.
"Yes, she was."
Madeline was suddenly overcome with sadness, and I waited a moment before prompting her to continue.
"What happened to her?"
"My father was a very patriotic man, so when the First World War broke out, he went off to Europe to do his duty and fight for his country. He was killed in Flanders. Mother took his death hard; she had a nervous breakdown, and her family found it necessary to 'put her away,' to use an old euphemism. With my mother in a mental hospital, I was practically an orphan, so my grandmother assumed the responsibility for my care."
"That was your paternal grandparent, whose husband died on the Titanic, is that right?" I asked, as I scribbled in my notebook.
"Yes. Grandma Eleanor Hargrove. She was a strict, overprotective woman who was appalled by what she considered to be the decline of morals during the 1920s: girls with bobbed hair and rising hemlines, speakeasies, bootleg whiskey! Hoping I wouldn't be exposed to any bad influences, she packed our bags, and we moved to France where I was schooled at a convent."
Madeline turned another page in her album. It was another wedding picture but one of a later generation. From the style of clothing, I assumed it was sometime in the 1930s.
"Is that you?" I asked.
"Yes. At age eighteen, against my grandmother's wishes, I wed a handsome man with a title but no money. Like many young women who had sheltered childhoods, I grew up with unrealistic dreams of romance, true love and happily-ever-after endings. I was in for a rude awakening."
"I hear you," I said, having had personal experience with the reality of male-female relationships.
"Even though America was suffering an economic crisis in the Thirties, my family had money invested throughout Europe. So, while people were lining up for soup kitchens back home, I was living in luxury with my husband in France. At first he was very attentive and seemed genuinely happy. Then I learned the reason for his happiness: he was robbing me blind behind my back. Cash, jewelry, furs, artwork, bonds—he must have pocketed a few million before I learned what he was doing."
"Did you turn him over to the police?"
"No, I didn't want the scandal to sully the family name. I just wanted him out of my life. But being French, he was a Catholic and unable to divorce. The only way I could get rid of him was to pay him five million dollars so he would agree to an annulment. Since we weren't married in a church by a priest, this wasn't difficult to manage."
"After your marriage ended, did you stay in France?"
"By then the Nazis were gaining power, and the situation in Europe was precarious. I thought it best to return home to America, where I was welcomed by New York society with open arms. Oh, those were wonderful times!" Madeline exclaimed, her eyes glowing with excitement. "There were so many parties and so many suitors lining up to my second husband! Not only did I date princes, counts and earls, but I also went out with Hollywood movie stars, artists, athletes and politicians."
"And did you ever marry again?"
"I almost did—once. I even bought a wedding dress."
The old woman turned away, took an expensive lace-trimmed handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped the tears from her eyes.
"If there was ever a case of opposites attracting!" she laughed. "Eddy Rowan was a baseball player who had been born with none of the advantages I had: no money, no private education, no European travel, no exposure to culture of any kind. He had grown up in a small farming town in Pennsylvania and never really learned to do anything but milk cows and hit a baseball."
"How did the two of you meet?"
"At a charity fundraiser for a children's hospital. He was tall, strong and handsome—just the kind of man I liked. Since the end of my disastrous marriage, I'd developed a love-them-and-leave-them attitude toward men, and I thought I would have a brief fling with Eddy and then continue on my merry way. When I got to know him, though, my faith in true, happily-ever-after love was restored."
Madeline turned another page in her album, and I saw a photograph of a man in a baseball uniform.
"He looks a little like Tyrone Power," I said, understanding why the heiress had been so attracted to him.
"Yes, he did," she sighed. "I absolutely adored him! We were going to be married. Then the war came."
The last four words were uttered with such grief that my tears nearly joined those of the old woman.
Madeline closed the album and, with a deep sigh, suggested we take a break from the interview and have a cup of tea.
* * *
"Come upstairs with me," Madeline urged as she headed toward the kitchen with the unwashed tea cups. "There's something I want to show you."
I gladly followed her, hoping that the upper levels of the house would be less cluttered. Sadly, they were not. If anything, there was even more junk on the second floor.
"You could make a fortune selling this stuff on eBay," I joked as we passed hundreds of boxes and bags.
"I already have a sizable fortune," she laughed. "While I don't take an active part in running the companies I own, I employ excellent people who continue to expand my holdings through various acquisitions and mergers."
As we gingerly made our way down a long, crowded hallway, I made a mental note to check on Madeline's net worth. At the end of the hall, the old woman entered a room with a French provincial desk and matching bookcases, obviously a woman's library or writing room that, like all the other rooms in the house, was bursting at the seams with things the publishing heiress had collected during her ninety-eight years on earth.
"So many of the ballplayers enlisted," she resumed the narrative she had begun before their tea break. "Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Bob Feller and Hank Greenberg. Eddy was no exception. He became a Navy flier and shot down German planes with as much passion as he once hit homeruns."
The elderly heiress walked to the desk, opened a drawer, and took out a stack of aged, yellowed envelopes.
"I lived for these letters! They were the only thing that mattered to me at the time. Then they stopped arriving."
I waited patiently until Madeline found the strength to discuss the events surrounding Eddy Rowan's death.
"His plane went down behind enemy lines. My dearest Eddy was classified as missing in action and presumed dead. I was devastated! In an effort to ease my pain, I began to drink heavily, but I stopped when I realized I was traveling down the same path as my poor mother."
The old woman brought out her handkerchief again and wiped her eyes.
"Shortly thereafter Grandmother Eleanor died, and I inherited the entire Hargrove fortune. After making some donations to various charities, I purchased four hundred acres in Maine and built this house. I've been here ever since."
"You've been here for more than fifty years?" I asked with amazement.
"At first, I travelled three or four times a year: Paris, London, Rome, Vienna and occasionally to Greece and Switzerland, all in an effort to put my grief behind me. What I wound up with was clothes, works of art, souvenirs—things. None of them could fill the void in my heart though, so eventually I lost my wanderlust."
I closed my notebook, believing that the remainder of Madeline's life story would have little interest for my readers. A few paragraphs could sum up the lonely existence of a rich old hermit who locked herself away in a huge house with her possessions, but what she told me next made me realize I had only scratched the surface.
"It wasn't until ten years after the end of the war that Eddy returned."
"He was alive all that time?"
"Yes. He told me he had been injured after his plane went down and had been nursed back to health by a young woman whose father and brother were active members in the French Resistance. By the time he recovered, he had fallen in love with his angel of mercy. Rather than return to active duty in the Navy, he stayed with the woman and let everyone else believe he was dead."
"Still, he did come back eventually."
"Yes, but only because his conscience bothered him. He came here to tell me the truth: that he had survived the crash. For so long I had prayed my beloved would be found alive, and yet after my prayer was answered, I then wished he were dead!"
Madeline's eyes burned with anger and jealousy, and I realized the pain was still strong a half century later.
"He swore he was sorry for what he had done, and that, in his own way, he still loved me. But when I took him upstairs to the bedroom, he told me he wouldn't be unfaithful to his wife. I assured him I had no intention of seducing him, that I only wanted to return the letters he'd written me."
The old woman then headed toward her bedroom, where an elaborate canopied bed dominated the room. Despite the magnificence of the furnishings, my eyes were drawn to the yellowed wedding dress that adorned a dressmaker's form in the center of the room. As I examined the exquisite garment, the old woman inched toward the fireplace and picked up the poker.
"Eddy believed a simple apology could make up for all the pain he caused me."
I turned at the sound of her voice and saw a rust colored stain at the end of the poker.
"What happened to him?" I asked. "Where did he go?"
"Why, he didn't go anywhere. He's right here."
Her crazed eyes went to the bed and mine followed. I could barely distinguish in the shadows of the large, heavy canopy, a form on the bed. I took a step nearer and saw the white skull resting on a silk pillowcase. I screamed and quickly backed away.
"Unfortunately, my dear," Madeline announced menacingly, "you're not going anywhere either."
With physical strength uncharacteristic of someone her age, the old woman raised the poker above her head and swung. Still shocked by discovering Eddy Rowan's remains, I reacted slowly. I felt the blinding pain in my temple and knew Madeline wanted to kill me. I had to get out!
Stunned and bleeding, I tried to make my way to the bedroom door. With the madwoman only steps behind me, I tripped on one of the myriad boxes that littered the floor. I tried to catch my balance but landed on my back on a stack of old books. In that moment I believed I was going to die. I briefly wondered if anyone would ever find my body amidst the junk, but suddenly I saw the thick velvet curtains of the canopy move. A shimmering diaphanous light that resembled a man headed toward the insane heiress.
As Madeline raised the poker again to finish me off, the icy cold hand of Eddy Rowan's revenant grabbed her arm. The old woman turned, saw the specter of the man she had loved and killed and emitted a blood-curdling wail of terror.
I've often used the phrase "scared to death" but was never aware of an actual case of death by fright—until then. Madeline Hargrove took one look at Eddy's ghost, and her heart stopped. She fell down dead, her body draped over a cardboard carton of designer clothes she had purchased long ago in Paris.
Although lightheaded and unsteady on my feet, I managed to stand. My ghostly savior helped me navigate through the sea of Madeline Hargrove's belongings, and I safely made my way out of the house. At the threshold, I turned to thank him, but he was gone. I closed the heavy front door and left behind the tragic life and guilty secrets of a poor little rich girl who lost the man she loved and tried to fill the void left behind with boxes and bags crammed with meaningless possessions.
Salem was once a hoarder. He stopped when I sent him and all his junk to the Good Will store.
