Cumberland was larger than Manhattan and was a carefully preserved paradise. The island hosted over a hundred species of migrating birds and was home to dozens more. Along its primitive shores and throughout its dunes dwelled bears, alligators, turkeys, eagles, and boars. Over a hundred horses freely roamed the island—descendants of a herd left in the 1500s by Spanish sailors.
Plum Orchard was a Classical Revival–style mansion that had been built for Mrs. Johnston’s older brother, George Carnegie, and his wife, an expert gardener. Flower and vegetable gardens bordered the extensive grass lawn that led up to graceful steps and soaring columns of the twenty-room home. Stables, a paddock, and a riding ring accommodated fifteen horses. After George died, his widow married a French count who came to Cumberland with no expectation of staying. The couple shipped every item of value in Plum Orchard off to a New York auction house. Furniture, first-edition books, and chandeliers disappeared before George’s mother, Lucy “Mama” Carnegie, sent the newlyweds packing, as well. She held the deed to the house and gave it to her daughter Nancy, who renovated the house. Modern features, including a sauna and an air-cooling system that drafted air from the basement out through vents in the roof, were added. The bathroom was fitted with towel heaters, shampoo dispensers attached to bath faucets, and elegantly styled wall fixtures that held flint stones and matches. Hand-painted wallpapers were hung throughout the house. One of deep red was repeatedly embossed in gold with the Carnegie family crest. Another wallpaper that Margaret particularly admired hung in the game room; it was painted in bright blues, greens, and yellows to resemble the pond lilies that grew along the banks of the marshes behind the house.
Evenings were often spent in that room. Sedate hours were passed playing parlor games or listening to Morrie play the piano and Coley, the violin. Margaret particularly liked a game called “Coffeepot,” in which a person had to guess what noun or verb had been substituted by the word coffeepot—Do you coffeepot alone? A more raucous indoor game they called “Watch on the Threshold” involved dividing into teams with the intent of capturing members of the opposite side. Lights were turned off throughout the house, and players quickly hid or searched through closets and nooks and behind furniture. Quiet skulking gave way to giggles and delighted screams as hiding places were uncovered. The Johnstons were competitive, but it was cloaked in an air of good humor that inspired Margaret. Roberta, though, turned glummer as the days went on. At first, Margaret attempted to cheer her sister, but saw that, like their mother, Roberta relished layering a foul mood over happy occasions.
Margaret spent most of the vacation rushing from adventure to adventure. She was determined to enjoy everything the island had to offer. There was so much to see and do that she only had time to jot down cryptic notes in her diary. She ate tannis pudding, sat in a gumbo limbo tree, and made friends with an Australian Cattle Dog her cousins said was called a Wemba Womba hound. She joined a crew of men on an alligator hunt, watching with fascination as they lured the beast close, then shoved a knife in its head.
She and her cousins sailed, fished, galloped horses in the surf, and paddled around the island for hours. They held friendly competitions and acrobatic displays on the shore or in the giant sand dunes of Lake Whitney, where the ever-athletic Margaret recorded an impressive seventeen-foot broad jump. She and Lucy picked shells as they walked along the shore. The coquille shells were so colorful and plentiful the sand looked like it was dotted with flowers.
It was customary for her cousins to swim “as is” when no adults were around. Those times were rare, though. Dr. Johnston usually accompanied them to the beach and sat on the roof of his car with his rifle in hand. Years before, he had been bitten on the leg by a hammerhead shark while surf fishing with his mother-in-law, Mama Carnegie. The feisty and fast-thinking woman saved her son-in-law’s life by applying a tourniquet and racing him to her mansion, Dungeness, to get medical assistance. If a dorsal fin appeared while his children and their guests frolicked in the surf, Dr. Johnston, an excellent marksman, was prepared. Once, on an arctic expedition, he killed a polar bear, and on safari in Africa, a lion. The many trophies from his hunts were on display in the game room of Plum Orchard, although he only occasionally showed off his greatest souvenir—an unused ticket for the ill-fated ocean liner Titanic. He had been too sick to travel on the day the ship set sail.
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On the last day of their trip, Margaret sat in the front seat of the open-air car as her older cousin Retta drove along the straight, sandy road. Lucy was in the backseat and, like Margaret, scouted the marshes and woods for human forms. A hunter had gone missing from the Cumberland Island Hunting Club at the north end of the island. Roberta, who had left earlier that morning to look for him, also seemed to have vanished into the wilds. Patches of dense foliage that dotted the island made it easy to get lost in day or night. Margaret was frustrated with her sister for heading out on her own to look for the hunter because they needed to take the afternoon boat to the mainland to catch their train back to Boston and Dana Hall. Besides, thought Margaret, a naval crew from the battleship anchored off the island and the members of the hunting club had organized a search and were certainly better prepared than her little sister to find the lost man. Morrie had joked that the hunter probably shot one of his family’s cows by mistake and was busy burying the evidence; everyone seemed sure the man would eventually make his way back to the lodge.
Retta eased the car onto a grassy road that led into the woods, mindful that at any moment a startled deer or one of the island’s feral horses might bolt into their path. It was best to keep a safe distance from these large and unpredictable beasts, especially the foals. They were constantly watched by their protective mothers, who were known to attack cars, wagons, and people who posed a threat.
The car’s tires slowed as the vegetation gave way to rolling sand dunes on either side of the road. Wooden planks kept the car from sinking into the sand as the car crested a hill and the Atlantic Ocean sparkled in front of them. The girls looked north and south but saw no one.
Retta turned the car north, and Margaret could hear the sound of shells crunching under the car’s wheels as the car cruised along on the firmest part of the shore. Margaret first learned of the dangers of driving the car close to the water one evening as the tide came in. A crew of men had come to her rescue and saved the car before the waves washed over its wheels. Margaret had been shaken up, but the Johnstons were unfazed. This happened at least once a year, they assured their cousin.