The Astor Orphan Read Free

in his own way identified strongly with his aristocratic roots, and they shared a passion for keeping Rokeby’s glory alive.
    I now rushed to put my violin back in its case, which I had left in the octagonal library. As the shutters were kept closed to protect the books from daylight, it was dark—an effect intensified by its faux bois walls and ceiling. The walls were lined with approximately four thousand deteriorating, leather-bound books, and from the ceiling dropped an ominous hook, initially meant for a large chandelier. Stagnant because it was never aired out, the library harbored winter’s chill all year long.
    Diana was there, and I handed her my violin case as I ran off to join Dad on the tractor fender. On my way through the hall, I eyed the cobwebs that clustered around the legs of tables and chairs, the clumps of dried mud and cat hair scattered on the parquet floor, and the filthy white steps. All called me to dust, sweep, and wash them.
    But the pull to Dad was stronger.

CHAPTER THREE
THE MENTOR

    Courtesy of Ania Aldrich
    I raced out the double front doors, across the dusty circular driveway, and down the grassy hill toward Dad.
    â€œDad!” I shouted. But he couldn’t hear me over the roar of the tractor engine and mower blades.
    I was always on the lookout for Dad. I would scurry after him like a desperate pet, taking three steps for every one of his. “Wait up, Dad!” I’d cry as I followed him on his daily rounds of the property—digging trenches and laying new water, waste, or electric lines; doing mechanical work on one of the farm’s tractors; or nailing new shingles onto a barn roof.
    â€œYou gotta keep up,” he’d say, without turning around or adjusting his pace.
    Dad was always chasing his own father—“Pop” to him, “Grandpa Dickie” to me. In Rokeby’s soil and barns, on the iceboats, along the electric and water lines, lay his early childhood memories of time spent with his father. Mowing, riding, fixing—these were pursuits they’d shared before the liquor had swept Grandpa Dickie into permanent oblivion, then premature death. Dad would wake up at five, and then, over breakfast, write lists of things that needed to be done on the property. He never seemed to tire of it.
    When I finally caught up with the tractor, Dad slowed down for me. I hopped on, hoping to keep him from driving up to the big house and running into his brother. Such confrontations usually resulted in Dad’s being severely scolded by Uncle Harry for some activity he had undertaken at Rokeby without consulting his co-owner.
    â€œDo you have any other work to do?” I shouted over the roar of the tractor engine.
    â€œTrench—lower barn,” he shouted back.
    Dad’s wiry hair was matted. His face and hands were smeared with grease and his face powdered with dust. The name tag on his used, blue work shirt read HANK . His gray eyes looked kind and wise.
    I loved riding on the tractor fender like this, losing track of time in the vast greenness, grass seeds flying around our heads and scratchy bits of hay getting into our noses and eyes. As we drove, I watched a family of turkeys wobble past the rusted Rokeby windmill.
    T HE ASTOR ORPHANS’ fancy New York relatives—especially their great-aunt Caroline Astor, the Mrs. Astor, the famous socialite—had viewed their country cousins as unrefined and had made extensive efforts to transform them into urban sophisticates, fit for high society. But the city Astors could not take the country toughness out of Great-Grandma Margaret.
    As a young woman—long before she married the esteemed music critic Richard Aldrich—Great-Grandma Margaret significantly expanded the farm at Rokeby. When, in 1900, she inherited money from her great-aunt Laura (Astor) Delano, she used it to add three large barns to the Rokeby barnyard and purchase approximately fifty cattle, establishing a