Empty Mansions

sixteen.
    At commencement, as the entire school filed in to Mozart’s “March ofthe Priests” from
The Magic Flute
, the youngest led the procession. Huguette’s commencement was held at the old Waldorf-Astoria, where in five years would rise a new structure, the Empire State Building. In a photo, the girls are dressed all in white, holding flowers. Everyone has the newly fashionable short hairstyle. Huguette would become the last surviving member of the Spence class of 1925, but we do have a few memories of her from classmates, secondhand.

    Eighteen-year-old Huguette, middle front, with her 1925 graduating class at Miss Spence’s Boarding and Day School for Girls. Even at the most exclusive school in New York, she was far wealthier than nearly all of her classmates
. ( illustration credit5.1 )
    Louise Watt, a banker’s daughter, recalled having good times with her, including a clandestine visit to a speakeasy—the proper Spence girls exploring the city during Prohibition, when whom should they see at a table but Jimmy Walker, the mayor of New York. Louise described Huguette as her best friend.
    A different portrait came fromDorothy Warren, a classmate from an old Yankee family and a year older than Huguette though in the same grade. She described her as always polite and gracious but often not socializing with the other girls. Most of the Spence girls had visited one another’s houses, but none had been to the Clark home. Warren said thatHuguette was something of an odd bird, and the girls who knew her only casually were flummoxed by her. Was she too proud of her family, which was so much richer and better traveled than most of the other families? Was she embarrassed about her father’s wealth or his failed campaign for social standing? The other girls couldn’t quite figure her out.
WITHOUT POMP OR CEREMONY

 
    O NE OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS in Huguette’s album, one she particularly liked to share in her later years, shows her in an American Indian costume and feathered headdress, sitting beside her father. She looks about seven years old, which would make him about seventy-four. The family was on a sojourn in Greenwich, Connecticut, known for its art colony. Huguette had taken a fall while playing in the yard and had cried a bit before the photo was taken. Her eyes are puffy, but she’s smiling, and her arm is draped across the old man’s shoulder. W.A. looks dapper in his black sport coat, white pants, and white nubuck shoes, his gray hair billowing as he hugs her proudly.
    Given Huguette’s shyness, in contrast to her outgoing father, it’s not surprising that there were Clark family stories claiming that W.A. wasn’t keen on her, even that he wasn’t actually her father, but these tales are belied by his warm mentions of her in his correspondence. In 1921, for example, W.A. wrote to a friend while he, Anna, and Huguette were on a Hawaiian vacation, describing with enthusiasm how mother and daughter sunned and rode surfboards at Waikiki Beach:“They take great delight in swimming and the beach at the Moana Hotel is very good. The board riding is particularly interesting to them.” Later he wrote, “They enjoy the swimming very much and go in generally twice a day.” In this letter, he refers to his daughter affectionately as Huguetty.

    Huguette hugs her dapper father on a family weekend in Connecticut about 1912. He showed great affection for his youngest child, whom he called Huguetty. She called him Papa.
( illustration credit5.2 )
    IN CONVERSATION WITH HUGUETTE

 
    Huguette in 1999 described her memories of a family trip to Hawaii. Even at age ninety-three, her memory was excellent, as she remembered clearly the name of the beautiful trees in Honolulu, and the name of the handsome Olympic champion who took them out paddling on surfboards. I had begun by asking if she’d traveled to the islands.
    Huguette: Oh yes, I was there.… I went there several times.
    Paul: You traveled with your family there?
    Huguette: With my father, in 1915. We went to Honolulu at Waikiki Beach. It was lovely there! I think it was more pleasant in those days, because it wasn’t so built-up.
    Paul: It’s very commercial now.
    Huguette: Very commercial.
    Paul: Yes. Was the Royal Hawaiian Hotel built at that time?
    Huguette: Yes, that’s where we were, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
    Paul: Oh, how nice!
    Huguette: Is it still there?
    Paul: It’s still there, yes, it is. And the other one, I think it’s called the