Pushing Up Daisies

CHAPTER 8

If most of the following days were spent in the garden, most of my evenings were spent either online or at the Ferguson Library ferreting out snippets of information from a variety of sources on the specific plants at Halcyon. With the help of my new best friend, Mrs. Cox, I’d just about wrung everything out of the library and the newspaper archives. She’d even contributed some useful firsthand info, like the fact that Dorothy Peacock was severely allergic to roses and didn’t grow them.

Exhausted, I’d fallen into bed fully clothed the night before, so it was no surprise I was up like a shot at 4 A.M. the next morning, raring to go. It was far too early to leave for Halcyon, and, as dedicated as she was, I didn’t see Mrs. Cox opening the library for me at this hour, so I took my coffee and oatmeal downstairs and turned on the computer.

If I’d had any special gift in my last career, it had been finding things. Obscure documentaries, forgotten films, foreign gems. My biggest coup had been finding a reclusive film producer hiding out in a yurt in New Mexico. He was living an ascetic lifestyle while holding the rights to his seventies’ cult classics which were now, unbeknownst to him, worth two million dollars to an interested party. He still has the yurt, but now it’s sitting next to his Taliesin- style home in Scottsdale, Arizona.

All of my once state- of- the- art equipment was now available smaller, cheaper, and faster, but for my purposes the old setup would do. People searches had changed, too, since I left the old job; it was a helluva lot easier than it used to be. Disturbingly easy. People you hated in high school could find you in minutes. How disturbing was that?

I silently apologized to the woman whose privacy I was about to invade, but this was business. Meeting Dorothy Peacock, even electronically, would help me restore her garden. At least, that was how I rationalized poking around in her past.

“You look lovely today. You’ve got some letters.” It was Hugh Grant with my wake- up call. I didn’t need another mortgage, cheap prescription drugs, or the dozen press releases from companies I no longer cared about. And I wasn’t interested in the few e-mails I suspected were from my stalker, Jon Chappell. Delete all. If anything’s important, they’ll send it again; otherwise it was relegated to Spam Heaven.

I googled Dorothy. No, not a school in British Columbia, not a porcelain doll named Dorothy from the Peacock company, no, no-. I scrolled down through the obviously incorrect matches.

“Hello, I think we have a winner.”

The New En gland Women’s Hall of Fame. Who knew? Dorothy Charlotte Peacock, b.1911(?)-d.2008. And they keep current.

A small picture loaded: Dorothy, in her twenties or thirties. She looked lovely, head thrown back a bit, like the lady in the moon, even had the necklace. Dark hair, dark lipstick. Then the copy appeared.

Dorothy Charlotte Peacock was born on December 6, 1911(?) in Springfield, CT, to Walter and Sarah Peacock. Attended Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, CT, where she studied Latin, French, German, algebra, trigonometry, geometry, chemistry, history, geography, music, and natural philosophy. In 1928, she entered Wellesley College. Upon her graduation, she embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe, eventually settling in Italy to study art history at Florence’s Villa Merced. In 1933, she was joined by her younger sister, Renata (nйe Rose).

The sisters were forced to return from Florence in 1934 when their parents were tragically killed in a fire aboard the cruise liner Morro Castle. Dorothy became principal heir to the family fortune and the guardian of Renata and younger brother, William, age five.

After her return, Dorothy emerged as a significant patron of many of New En gland’s rising artists of the time, hosting salons, exhibiting their works, and sponsoring numerous study trips abroad. At times, her home, Halcyon, was used as an art studio, and Dorothy herself gave drawing lessons to William and other talented local children.

In addition to Miss Peacock’s cultural pursuits, she was a vocal and generous supporter of various feminist and community organizations-among them the Maternal Health Center, Connecticut’s first birth control clinic, and the Farmington Lodge Society, founded by Miss Sarah Porter, of Miss Porter’s School fame, which brought “tired and overworked” girls to Farmington for their summer vacations.

Although their home was unscathed, the hurricane of 1938 destroyed the famous Peacock gardens and toppled the giant “Olivia” elm that had graced its entrance. The two sisters spent many years redesigning the gardens, introducing an Italian influence, which reflected on their happy days in that country. With the help of landscape designer and herbalist Beatrix Shippington, the garden regained its place as one of Connecticut’s most notable.

In the years that followed, Dorothy’s activities were severely curtailed by the declining health of her sister, to whom she was devoted. Together they made numerous trips to specialists all over the country, but Renata’s health was poor for the rest of her life.

Despite the fact that Dorothy Peacock was a renowned beauty, she never married, remaining her sister’s constant companion until Renata’s death in 1997. There are no known survivors.

Well heeled, well-educated, and with quite the bohemian lifestyle for a single woman in the 1930s. And my friend at the Historical Society was right: there was a brother. But all that glamour, travel, Wellesley, the Villa whatsit, and then she stays tethered to Halcyon for much of the next fifty years. Trips to medical specialists were no substitute for spending the season on the Italian Riviera.

The Miss Porter’s Web site didn’t give me much except its endless athletic schedule and a recipe for an icebox cake that Jackie Kennedy supposedly liked. Wellesley’s was a bit more promising-friends’ names, clubs, and the mildly interesting factoid that Dorothy was the hoop- rolling winner of her senior class; that’s something to put on the old rйsumй. Back then, it was supposed to mean she’d be the first of her graduating class to marry. Guess again. I made a note of the friends’ names but doubted any of them were still alive.

I keyed in William Peacock’s name, entered a search, and went upstairs to refuel while the computer chugged away. When I returned, the screen was full of William Peacocks. Apparently, this name was right up there in popularity with John Smith and Bob Potter. Assuming Inez at the thrift shop was right again, and he was on the West Coast, Google found no fewer than thirty who were about the right age. Eighteen in California, six in Oregon, two in Washington, two in Texas, and two in Alaska.

It was also possible that my William Peacock was deceased or had somehow eluded the Internet gods and was not accessible to just anyone with a computer and a nosy disposition. I printed out the names and addresses and made a note to run the list by Margery Stapley at SHS before bothering to contact any of the Mr. Peacocks.

Beatrix Shippington, the landscape architect who advised her friends, had hundreds of references. Most were for her gardens but many linked her to her famous clients, including an acid- tongued New York playwright reputed to be her lover.

I was bleary- eyed from too long at the computer, and while this background information was interesting, it wasn’t helping me decide what to plant in Halcyon’s many empty beds. I hit print again, and went upstairs to dress.

I had one other client to see before returning to Halcyon, a real estate chain whose seasonal planters I looked after. Three offices, six planters. This early in the year I had to go with annuals-boring but reliable. And the company paid its bills on time. That would take two hours, tops. On my way out, I grabbed all the pages that had printed out and stuffed them in my backpack. Just as I was signing off, I heard Hugh again, but didn’t bother to check my mailbox. I had pansies to plant, and Hugh would still be there when I got home.