“A Shy Man”
“I think my father was essentially a shy man,” his daughter, Miranda, 24, told The Times today. “I think he enjoyed the perks that went with being rich and powerful, and having rich and powerful clients, but he never got used to being in the limelight. He hated it when flashbulbs went off.”
Indeed, Mr. Tarkington was famously averse to being photographed. Though he often spoke in public, he did so only after being assured that no cameras would be allowed in the room. And when he and his wife appeared at social functions and cameras appeared, he frequently nudged his somewhat taller wife to the front, saying, “Photograph her, she’s the beautiful one, not me.” He once declared, “I see no value in personal publicity,” and for news stories concerning him he usually insisted that one of a series of “official” photographs, taken in 1970, be used, rather than anything more recent. Similarly, Mr. Tarkington refused to be listed in Who’s Who in America or other biographical volumes.
The Perfect Wife
Mrs. Tarkington was considered the perfect wife for a man in her husband’s business. She is the former Consuelo Banning, one of a trio of sisters whom the press dubbed “The Beauteous Bannings,” and who were belles of the Philadelphia social scene in the 1960’s. The Banning sisters, Consuelo, Katharine and Lucinda, were the daughters of George F. Banning, a socially prominent Philadelphia attorney, and all three made socially auspicious marriages: Katharine to Andrew W. Mellon III; Lucinda to Nicholas de N. du Pont; and Consuelo, the youngest, to Mr. Tarkington.
With her porcelain skin, blond hair, pale blue eyes and model’s size 8 figure, she became an ideal showcase for the designer fashions sold in her husband’s store, and for a number of years her name has appeared high on lists of the world’s best-dressed women. She has toiled for prominent charities, is a highly visible figure at New York’s most fashionable restaurants, and when designers show their collections Mrs. Tarkington is always seated front and center.
“She’s Tarkington’s merchandise personified,” says a friend who insisted on anonymity. “And having all those Mellons and du Ponts as in-laws didn’t hurt Si’s business either, in terms of attracting the kind of customers he wanted.”
Mrs. Tarkington was in seclusion today and could not be reached for comment.
A Regal Life Style
Mr. and Mrs. Tarkington enjoyed a regal life style. In addition to Flying Horse Farm in Old Westbury and the New York apartment, the couple maintained homes in Lake Sunapee, N.H., and Palm Beach, Fla., and a pied-à-terre on the avenue Foch in Paris. Whenever Mr. Tarkington and his wife appeared in public, Mr. Tarkington, a man with an erect carriage and a full head of silvery hair, was always immaculately groomed and impeccably tailored.
Whatever his detractors may say about him, few would disagree that Silas Tarkington created and leaves behind him a retail establishment that is perhaps unique. In 1990 Mr. Tarkington received the Merchant of the Year award from the New York Retailers Association. In 1987 he received a special award from the Fifth Avenue Association for having done the most to maintain the tone of the street. Past recipients have been Pierre Cartier II, Dr. Aldo Gucci and Harry Winston.
Mr. Tarkington’s interests, other than his company, included racehorses, which he bred and raced in Britain, Ireland and France. Though he declined to race any of his horses in the United States, one of his stallions, Flying Flame, won the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in 1971 and went on to win other important purses before being put out to stud in 1975. Flying Horse Farm, the Tarkington estate on Long Island, was named for this stallion.
Mr. Tarkington also amassed an important collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. It has long been understood that the Tarkington collection will be left to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “That has been our informal understanding,” Philippe de Montebello, the museum’s director, told The Times. “But we shall have to see the terms of the will before we know whether the gift is a fact.”
Shock Expressed
Friends today expressed shock at Mr. Tarkington’s sudden death. “I saw him Friday at the Athletic Club,” said one. “He looked to be in the peak of health and good spirits. He was always exercising. He’d never had heart trouble that any of us knew about. He must simply have overdone it, doing his daily laps in the pool.”
Mr. Tarkington is survived by his wife and daughter. A previous marriage ended in divorce. Cremation took place Saturday under the auspices of Frank E. Campbell, and interment at Salem Fields Cemetery in Brooklyn will be private. There will be no funeral service, though the family suggested that a memorial service may be held at a later date.
Part One
MIRANDA’S WORLD
1
The Lincoln Building at 60 East 42nd Street is one of those solid, dependable New York office buildings, put up between the two world wars, which manages to confer upon its business tenants an aura of instant sobriety and respectability. No one flashy would ever lease space here, the building seems to say; no one who was the least bit sleazy would be comfortable. Stepping through the big bronze-and-glass doors into the marble elevator lobby, the visitor is immediately surrounded by a sense of probity. You are expected to be on your best behavior here, the vaulted ceilings of the lobby whisper almost audibly.
This is not a fashionable address; it is merely good. Forty-second Street isn’t what it once was. Across the street, behind the imposing granite facade of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt’s Grand Central Station, the homeless curl asleep in corners, looking like bunches of rags dropped from a great height. But from the twentieth-floor windows of the law offices of Mssrs. Kohlberg, Weiss, Griffen & McBurney, the blue-and-white flag of the Yale Club can be seen proudly flying above its Vanderbilt Avenue entrance, and it is from the Yale Club, and luncheon with his legal peers, that Mr. Jacob Kohlberg, senior partner of the firm, has just come for his two o’clock meeting. The Times obituary of Silas Tarkington is spread open on his desk.
“Very nice,” Jake Kohlberg says, tapping the newspaper with the tip of his index finger. “He got the front page, and a full page inside the paper. Si couldn’t have asked for a better sendoff.”
“That was Tommy Bonham’s doing,” Miranda Tarkington says, almost proudly. “When Daddy died Saturday, Tommy pointed out that if we notified the papers then, the obituary would be lost in the Sunday paper. Tommy said, ‘Wait till tomorrow morning. He’ll get the front page on Monday.’”
“Of course one might have wished they hadn’t mentioned that business about underworld connections,” Jake Kohlberg says.
“Those rumors have been around forever,” Miranda says. “No one pays attention to them anymore.”
“And he received other awards that could have been mentioned.”
“But those were the two that Daddy was proudest of.”
“They might have mentioned that our father also had a son,” Blazer Tarkington says. This is the first time Blazer has spoken. Blazer is Miranda’s half brother, Silas Tarkington’s son by his first wife. Blazer is twenty-eight, and he has chosen today to defy the law office’s unwritten code of propriety. He is wearing a pair of faded Levi’s, without a belt, and one leg of his jeans is out at the knee, revealing his own knobby knee, which, for some reason, is scabbed. Did Blazer fall and skin his knee on the way to this meeting? His posture, slouched in the leather office chair, legs spread apart, suggests no explanation. His sockless feet are in dirty Reeboks, one of them untied. Blazer’s dark good looks are of a truculent variety. He is scowling now, his black eyebrows knitted over his black half-closed eyes and pleasantly off-center nose.
“Shit,” Blazer says to no one in particular, and he removes a Camel cigarette from the pocket of his T-shirt, taps it against the heel of his untied sneaker, and lights it with a match.
In the brief silence that follows Blazer’s comment—to which, of course, there is no real reply—Miranda wonders whether Blazer has been drinking. As Blazer sucks deeply on his cigarette, he shakes his head, a
nd a thick shock of dark brown hair falls across his forehead. Miranda watches as her mother reaches out and touches Blazer’s skinned knee with her gloved fingertips, a touch so gentle it would not ripple water. “You’ve skinned your knee,” Miranda hears her mother say.
And Jacob Kohlberg presses a button on his desk. When his secretary appears at the doorway, he says, “Mildred, see if we can find an ashtray for Mr. Tarkington.”
Needless to say, Blazer is not his real name. He was christened Silas Rogers Tarkington, Junior, but when he was just a little boy his father began saying of him, “This boy’s career is going to blaze across the skies! Just wait and see. He’s going to blaze across the skies.” It is perhaps unnecessary to add that this has not happened, but the nickname stuck.
When the ashtray has been delivered, Jake Kohlberg shuffles some papers on his desk and says, “Now, let’s see. Are we all here? Is Miss O’Malley—”
“Pauline was going to try to make it,” Miranda says, “but she telephoned me this morning to say that she’s just too upset. She was afraid she’d break down. She’s taken this whole thing very badly, I’m afraid.” Pauline O’Malley was Silas Tarkington’s private secretary for thirty-two years.
“I can understand that,” Jake Kohlberg says. “We’ll have to make do without her.” He turns to the third man in the room. “And you, sir? Forgive me, but I’ve forgotten—”
“My name is David Hockaday,” the fair young man says. “I represent Philippe de Montebello of the Metropolitan Museum.”
“Ah, yes,” Jake Kohlberg says. “Very good. Now, before we begin, let me explain that this is a somewhat old-fashioned procedure, the reading of the late Silas Tarkington’s last will and testament. It isn’t strictly necessary and is not legally required. I could easily have faxed copies to each of you. But I thought, considering the nature of some of the bequests and the somewhat unusual contents of the instrument itself, that it might be a good idea if we all met here this afternoon to go over the points herein, so that I might answer any questions you might have about the bequests or about the intent of the testator in certain clauses—”
Consuelo Tarkington clears her throat and leans forward slightly in her chair. “Jake?” she says in her soft, almost whispery voice. Miranda has noticed that her mother, as always, is dressed perfectly for the occasion in a navy blue Chanel suit with covered buttons, a blue Chanel over-the-shoulder bag with a gold chain, but with the gold double-C logo removed, and navy pumps—all chosen to emphasize her pale blue eyes. Her fluff-cut ash-blond hair is perfectly coifed, with two half-moon curls perfectly framing her perfect forehead. Miranda knows how much effort it takes to create perfect half-moon curls like these, nestled just so, just off the face. On any other woman, those curls might look too studied. But on her mother they look, as always—well, just perfectly right, the perfect touch. With a small frisson of jealousy, of which she is not proud, Miranda thinks her mother has the knack, the talent, the ability, call it whatever you want, to make every other woman in the room look overdressed, or under-dressed, or just plain put together wrong. Even Miranda, in a simple black silk sheath, cut to just above the knee, and a single strand of twelve-millimeter pearls, her chestnut hair pulled back in a ponytail and tied with a Hermès scarf, feels dressed all wrong, compared with her mother. But then, she always has.
“Yes, Connie?”
“I wonder if I could ask just one question before we start,” her mother says.
“Certainly.”
“Jake, as I think you know, Si wanted to make some changes in his will before he died.”
Jacob Kohlberg pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “That is true,” he says.
“These were to be substantial changes,” she says. “I know what they were to be, and I believe you know what they were to be.”
“That is true,” he says again, pulling a white manila envelope from his center drawer and placing it on his desk. “In fact, this office was in the process of preparing the new instrument for his signature when unfortunately he—”
“Died,” Consuelo Tarkington says, a little sharply. “Please don’t say ‘he passed away,’ or ‘we lost him,’ or, like my black maid says, ‘he passed over.’ He died, is what he did.” She sits back in her chair. “I’m sorry. We’ve all been under a strain these last two days.”
“I understand,” Jake Kohlberg says. “But as I was saying, the new instrument was not yet ready for his signature when he—died.”
“Well, what I’m asking you,” she continues, “is whether, since you and I both know exactly what his final wishes really were, we can use that instrument—that draft, or whatever it was—whether we can use that as his last will and testament.”
“Unfortunately, no. The new will was never executed. It was never signed or witnessed.”
“But we both know he’d changed his mind about certain things—important things. So couldn’t we consider—”
“Unfortunately—”
“—what my husband really wanted?”
“Legally, you see—”
“But couldn’t we bend the law a little in this case, Jake? After all—”
“What you are suggesting constitutes fraud, Connie. And if it were even hinted that there was anything fraudulent about your late husband’s will, it would open us up to lawsuits from all directions, since the size of the estate is, to say the least, extensive. I cannot suggest that you and I be parties to a fraud.”
Mr. David Hockaday from the museum clears his throat. “I am afraid I shall have to divorce myself from these proceedings right now if anything like that is being considered,” he says primly. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art would certainly not wish to be party to a fraud.”
Miranda decides that she hates Mr. David Hockaday.
“And so,” Jake Kohlberg continues, after a brief pause, “we must accept as the last will and testament of the late Silas Tarkington the one dated”—he places his glasses on his nose and removes the stapled document from its envelope—“dated June twenty-second, nineteen-ninety.”
Miranda’s mother sighs. “So we’re about to hear read to us a last will and testament that wasn’t his last will and testament at all.” Her tone is bitter as she folds her gloved hands in her lap.
Jacob Kohlberg begins. “‘I, Silas Tarkington, being of sound mind and body, do declare this to be—’”
His voice drones on. Miranda fingers her pearls gingerly, and her mother, her head tilted slightly to one side, her chin resting on her fingertips, gazes absently into a middle distance somewhere between the lawyer’s chair and her own, her beautiful legs crossed gracefully at the ankle, just so.
The residences are disposed of first. Flying Horse Farm in Old Westbury, the house on Jungle Road in Palm Beach, and the Paris apartment all go “‘to my beloved wife, Consuelo Banning Tarkington.’” Next comes the stable of horses, a small but distinguished one. This, “‘unless either party has an interest in maintaining same,’” is directed to “‘be sold at public auction, with the proceeds of such sale, less commissions, to be divided equally between my wife and my beloved daughter, Miranda.’” Miranda, knowing that her mother has little interest in horses, and also knowing that it costs $30,000 a year to stable a single animal, decides that probably this is what will be done.
Next come items of personal jewelry. Most of these are bequeathed to longtime employees and old friends. A pre-Columbian gold tie clasp in the design of a man and a pre-Columbian gold frog go to the store’s chief of security. An eighteen-carat gold signet ring goes to James, the store’s doorman. A fourteen-carat yellow-gold gypsy-style ring containing a 1.78-carat emerald-cut emerald goes “‘to my old friend and associate, Thomas E. Bonham III.’”
“That should put an end to the rumor that there was any falling-out between Tommy and Daddy,” Miranda whispers.
A pair of eighteen-carat gold cuff links set with cabochon rubies, and a matching set of studs, is left to Jacob Kohlberg himse
lf, “with thanks for the years he has served as my principal legal counsel.”
The list goes on and on, item by item, and Miranda tries to envision the pieces of jewelry her father liked the best, the cufflinks she occasionally helped him fasten when he dressed for dinner, and the pieces he liked less and rarely took out of the drawer in the bank, and gradually a vision of her father appears before her, a small but commanding presence, and in her mind she dresses him, from top to bottom, the way she used to dress her paper dolls as a child, until he stands, elegantly and impeccably clad, as always, before her. And she realizes that there are tears in her eyes, though her mother’s beautiful face is impassive.
Now comes the first small shocker. “‘To my faithful secretary, Miss Pauline O’Malley, I bequeath the sum of ten thousand dollars.’” There is a little collective gasp from the members of the family.
“Shit!” Blazer says. “She slaved for him for thirty-two years and that’s all she gets, a lousy ten thousand bucks?”
Perhaps to change the subject, Miranda’s mother interrupts. “Tell me,” she asks quietly. “Does the name of Moses Minskoff appear in the will?”
“No, it does not,” Jake Kohlberg answers.
“Well, thank God for small blessings,” her mother says.
Jake Kohlberg hesitates, then nods, almost imperceptibly, in agreement.
Now comes the first mention of the art collection, and David Hockaday sits forward in his chair and almost visibly seems to prick up his ears. Miranda watches as he opens his briefcase, removes a gold pen and a legal-size pad of yellow paper, and makes a desk out of the briefcase on his lap. This is all he cares about, she thinks: the art collection. It doesn’t matter to him that a man has died, and rather mysteriously at that. He doesn’t care about the troubled and divided family the dead man left behind. He doesn’t care about the uncertain future of Tarkington’s, that rare and special store her father created, the store that as a little girl she used to think of as her own private castle, the store she used to dream of running herself someday, if only her father would ever take her seriously. Who will run the store now? Perhaps the will offers an answer.…
Carriage Trade Page 2
