“The time will come eventually for all of us to choose sides.”
“Yes.” He nodded in agreement with her. “It will. But not for a while, or so I'm told. And in the meantime I have contracts to live up to, not only with France.”
“Do you sell to the English too?”
“I did. They've made other arrangements now.”
“Perhaps they didn't approve of your business dealings in Berlin.” And then suddenly as she said the words she blushed, sensing that she had gone too far. “I'm terribly sorry … I didn't mean … I shouldn't have said …”
But again Nick Burnham smiled his peaceful smile. She hadn't offended him, and he respected her for speaking her mind. “Perhaps you're right, and don't apologize for what you said. You were right with what you said at first, the time will come for all of us to choose sides. I'm just trying not to let my personal views affect my work for now. I can't afford to play those kind of games. I have a steel business to run, but I sympathize with what you feel.” He looked very gently down at her, and she was doubly embarrassed for what she had said. He was a very easy, personable man. And there was something more to him as well, an openness, an honesty, a lack of pretense or show. There was something very solid and strong about the man. She could see it even in the gentle way he spoke to his son when the children returned. He was the kind of man one felt that one could turn to at any time, and one always knew that he would be there, rock solid, a good man to be with in a storm.
She turned then and saw Armand, looking for her from the door. She waved and he approached, and she saw that he looked almost as tired as he did at home.
“How was the Punch and Judy show?” He kissed her gently on the cheek, watched the girls, who were back on the carousel with John, and then noticed Nick Burnham approach. The two men exchanged a brief hello and a shake of hands.
“Did you get your work done, Ambassador?”
“More or less, at least for today.” He smiled at his wife. “Were you very lonely at lunch, Liane?”
“Very. But Mr. Burnham was kind enough to invite us to join him here. The girls met his son this morning at the pool, and they've become fast friends,” She smiled up at Armand again, oblivious of all eyes but his. “Where's Jacques? Did you push him overboard?”
“Would that I could. But that briefcase of his would never sink, it would simply follow me to Le Havre like a shark, and devour me the instant I set foot on shore.” Liane and Nick Burnham laughed, and they chatted on for a few moments about the ship. There was a play scheduled in the theater that night, it had been a big hit in Paris the winter before, and Liane and Armand were looking forward to it. “Would you and Mrs. Burnham care to join us for that?”
“I'm afraid my wife doesn't speak French.” Nick smiled regretfully at his new friends. “But we might join you for drinks afterward.” Liane and Armand said that they thought that might be an excellent idea, but when they left the theater at eight o'clock that night, they didn't see the Burnhams in the Grand Salon, and Liane talked Armand into going back to her favorite room, the winter garden beneath the bridge. They sat there for several hours, drinking champagne and looking out into the night. And as they sat between the aquariums filled with rare fish and cages filled with exotic birds, Armand admitted that he was relieved the Burnhams hadn't come. The task of keeping Hillary at bay hadn't held much appeal, although he liked Nick, and Liane agreed.
“He asked me to play tennis sometime while you work. Would you mind?” She turned her deep-blue eyes to him.
“Not at all. I feel guilty enough as it is, leaving you with nothing to do.”
“On this ship?” Liane laughed. “I would be ashamed to admit it if I could find nothing to do here.”
“Are you having a good time, then?”
“A very good time, my love.” She leaned toward him and spoke in a whisper. “Especially right now.”
“Good.” At last they wandered back to the Café-Grill, and then out onto the promenade, and then they ascended to their private deck and into their rooms. It was almost two o'clock by then, and Liane was half asleep.
“Are you working tomorrow morning again?”
“I have to, I'm afraid. Why don't you play tennis with that chap. I'm sure there's no harm in it.” Liane agreed. Nick wasn't the kind of man to make passes at someone's wife, and he had his hands full enough as it was. Liane and Armand settled comfortably in their bed, and he had had every intention of making love to her, but before either of them could pursue the thought, he was snoring softly and she was sound asleep.
“here are you off to at this hour?” Nick was drinking coffee in their private dining room, and John and his nurse were playing on the deck, when Hillary appeared in a pair of white slacks and a red silk shirt, cut like a man's. It set off her dark shiny hair, and the creamy color of her skin. She had disappeared also the day before, having explained to Nick that she had gone for a massage at the pool, and then a facial in the beauty shop. The treatment had taken almost all day.
“I thought I'd take a walk.” She glanced at him and her eyes were cold.
“Don't you want something to eat?”
“No, thanks. I thought I might go for a swim in a while. I'll eat after that.”
“Okay. Where shall I meet you for lunch?”
She hesitated, but not for long. They were on the trip together, after all, she had to make some effort for him. “How about the Café-Grill?”
“Don't you want to eat in the main dining room?”
“The people at our table bore me to tears.” So much so that the night before, she had excused herself before the dessert and it had taken him two hours to find her afterward. She had gone down to the tourist decks, for a look around, and declared it a hell of a lot more fun when she returned. But he had told her that he didn't think she ought to go down there. “Why not?” She had looked both surprised and annoyed, and he had explained that if nothing else, the jewels she wore made it unsafe, and she had only laughed at him. “Are you afraid the peasants will hold me up?” He hadn't answered and she had only laughed again, but she seemed much more docile than she had that afternoon, except when he suggested drinks with the De Villierses. She had declared them both prissy bores, and had gone back to her room for another bottle of champagne. He noticed that she was drinking a lot on the trip, but she had drunk a lot in New York too. He just didn't see as much of her there, and it was easy to notice the bottles decreasing rapidly in their private bar. She seemed to do most of her heavy drinking in their room.
“Hil …” He started to say something as she left. “Do you want company today?” He felt somehow as though he ought to be with her. He had promised himself that things were going to be different on this trip. But they weren't yet. They couldn't be. She never let him near her, and now she shook her head again.
“No, thanks. I want to have another massage before lunch.”
“The massages must be great.” There was suspicion in his voice again, and he berated himself silently for what he thought. It was crazy to distrust your own wife to that extent, yet she had cuckolded him so often before that now he suspected her at every turn.
“They are.”
“See you at lunch.” She nodded and closed the door, without saying good-bye to their son. John came in a few minutes afterward and looked around.
“Did Mom go out?”
“Yes. She went to get a massage at the pool, like yesterday.”
John looked up at his father with confused eyes and shook his head. “She doesn't even know where the pool is. I wanted to show it to her and she said she had something else to do.” Nick nodded, pretending almost not to hear, but he had already heard too much. And he knew that she was at it again. But where? And with whom? In tourist class? In cabin? With a purser on another deck? He couldn't chase her everywhere. He was going to confront her at lunch, but now he forced his mind back to his son.
“Do you want to go look at the dogs?”
“Sure.” The li
ttle boy beamed and they went upstairs to the upper sun deck, to see the dozen or so French poodles being exercised there. There was also a Saint Bernard, a Great Dane, two small ugly pugs, and a Pekingese, and John petted each of them in turn as his father looked out to sea, lost in his own thoughts. He was thinking of Hillary again, and wondering where in hell she was. For an instant he wanted to scour the ship and turn it upside down, but what was the point. He had fought this battle for nine years, and he had long since lost. He knew it well. Even on the ship she was the same as she was in Boston or New York. She was rotten to the core and had always been, the only thing he thanked her for was their son. He turned his eyes back to John and smiled. He was holding one of the funny, snortling little pugs.
“Dad, when we get to Paris, can I have a dog?”
“Maybe, we'll have to see what the house is like.”
“Could I really maybe?” John's eyes almost popped out of his head and his father laughed.
“We'll see. Why don't you put your friend down for now, and I'll take you to the playroom to find your other friends.”
“Okay. But can we come back?”
“Sure.” And as they left, Nick glimpsed the tennis courts and remembered his invitation to Liane the day before. Her husband hadn't seemed to object, and he would enjoy a game or two to burn off steam. It was either that or throw something at the wall in his suite. He had to find something to do to calm his nerves between now and one. He was almost sorry that he had not yet met a man with whom to play. But Hillary was right about one thing at least, the group at their table in the Grande Salle à Manger was extremely dull. There were not too many young people on the ship, it was a very expensive journey, and most who made it in first class had long since “arrived.” There were important journalists and authors, attorneys and bankers, musicians and conductors, but all of them had reached a certain stature in life, not unlike Armand. And few of them were as young as Nick, possibly none of them, except the ambassador's wife, Liane, and his own. He was used to being the youngest man around, but for a moment he regretted it. He would have liked to have had a male friend his own age along just then.
He escorted his son downstairs to the playroom, where he spotted Armand and Liane's girls, and then after a moment's hesitation he decided to take a walk on the promenade outside the Grill, and he saw Liane there, sitting on a bench with a book, her head bent and her blond hair flying in the wind.
He hesitated before he approached, but in the end he decided to anyway. “Hello.” She looked up in surprise and then smiled as she saw him. She was wearing a pink cashmere sweater set and gray slacks, and a double strand of pearls. This was acceptable only as morning dress, for a walk on the promenade, but she had no other plans. “Am I disturbing you?” He stood, with his hands in his pockets, braced against the wind, in white flannel slacks and blazer once again, but today he wore a bright red bow tie.
“Not at all.” She closed her book and slid over on the bench.
“Is the ambassador already at work?”
“Of course.” She smiled. “His assistant arrives every day at nine o'clock, with one of those big hooks they used to use in vaudeville, and whether Armand has finished his breakfast or not, Jacques drags him off.” Nick grinned at the image she conjured up.
“I saw him yesterday. I must admit, he doesn't look like much fun.”
“He isn't, but he'll make a good ambassador one day.” And then she smiled again. “Thank God Armand was never like that.”
“Where did you two meet?” It was a little bit impertinent to ask, but he was intrigued by them. It was obvious that they had a special bond, a deeply woven tie of love, despite the span of years that separated them, and the fact that Armand obviously worked very hard. But she seemed to understand and sympathize, and wait ever patiently for him. He wondered how one found a woman like that. Perhaps by being not quite so impetuously taken with a young debutante of eighteen. And yet Nick knew, from the age of their oldest child, that Liane must have married young as well. She couldn't have been more than thirty now, he thought. In fact, she was thirty-two, but she had always been mature well beyond her years, woman enough to marry—unlike Nick's wife, the spoiled child bride.
“We met in San Francisco when I was very young.”
“You still are.”
“Oh, no.” She laughed. “I was fifteen then, and …” She hesitated for a moment, but one said things to people on ships that one would not say at other times. She fell prey to that magic now, and turned to him with wide-open blue eyes. “Armand was married to someone else, a woman I loved very much. My mother died when I was born, and Odile, Armand's wife, was like a mother to me. He was the consul general in San Francisco then.”
“Did they divorce?” Nick was intrigued, Liane looked all innocence, not the harlot or the home wrecker, somehow she didn't figure in this plot, but Liane slowly shook her head.
“No. She died when I was eighteen, and Armand was almost destroyed. We all were, I think. I think I was numb for almost a year.”
“And he fell in love with you?” Now the story began to make sense.
Liane drifted back in memory, her eyes wearing a far-off look and her mouth a gentle smile. “Not as quickly as all that. It took a year or two before we realized how much we cared. I was twenty-one when we finally admitted it to ourselves and each other and we got engaged.”
“And got married and lived happily ever after.” He liked the story better still. They were fairy-tale people after all. But again Liane shook her head.
“No. Just after our engagement was announced, Armand got transferred. To Vienna. And my father insisted that I finish my last year at Mills.” She turned and smiled at Nick. “It was a very long year for us at the time, but we survived it. We wrote to each other every day, and as soon as I graduated he came back, and we were married, and off we went.” She was smiling broadly now. “Vienna was a wonderful spot. We were very happy there, and then London after that. Marie-Ange and Elisabeth were born in those two posts respectively, and then we came back to the States.”
“Your father must have been pleased.” And then suddenly he remembered the error of what he had just said, remembering that her father had probably been dead for nearly ten years.
“No, my father was already gone. He died right after Elisabeth was born.” She smiled gently at Nick then. “That seems a long time ago now.”
“Do you go back to San Francisco often?”
“No. It's really not my home anymore. I've been gone for too long and I only have my uncle now. We've never been very close and …” Her voice was very gentle as she spoke. “… my home is with Armand.”
“He's a very lucky man.”
“Not always.” She laughed. “Even fairy tales have their rocky spots. I'm as difficult as anyone else. He's a very good, very kind, wise man. I am fortunate to have known him for all these years. My father didn't think I'd get along as well with a younger man, and I think he was right. I lived alone with my father for too long.”
“Is your husband a great deal like him?” He was still curious about them, even more so now after hearing her tale.
“No, not at all. But my father had prepared me well. I ran his home, I listened to the business problems he and my uncle had. I wouldn't have been satisfied with much less.”
“Were you an only child?”
“Yes.”
“So is my wife. But she had less responsibility than you, less exposure to the real world. She grew up expecting Christmas every day, and birthday parties, and debutante balls. It's fun, but it's not exactly the essence of real life.”
“She's a very beautiful girl. It would be difficult for her not to be spoiled. Women who look like that often grow up expecting life to be something that it is not.” But as she said the words he found himself wanting to ask her “And you? Why aren't you like that?” Liane was lovely too, but in a different way. In a gentler, quieter, more womanly way than his wife. Instead, he thought of something else.
“You know, it's funny our paths never crossed, with our fathers doing business with each other, and we aren't that far apart in age.” And the elite from one end of the country to the other were a small group, as they both knew. Perhaps if she had gone to college in the East, he might have met her at some party or ball, but with her at Mills, and earlier he at Yale, their paths were never destined to cross, until now on the Normandie, on the high seas.
“My father was really a recluse for years. There were a lot of people I didn't meet, people my father knew or did business with. He never really recovered from my mother's death. It's a miracle I even met Armand and Odile, but I think he wanted me to meet them so I could show off my French.” She still remembered Odile's report of their first meeting with Harrison. She thought of it again now and had to pull her attention back to Nick. “Where is Mrs. Burnham, by the way?” It was not impertinent to ask, and yet when she saw the look in his eyes, she regretted the question almost at once. There was something smoldering quietly there.
“She wanted to have a massage. Which is why I came looking for you.” Liane seemed surprised at his words and put her book down on the bench. “I was wondering if I could talk you into that tennis game we talked about yesterday. Does that appeal to you right now? There's no one on the courts. I was just there. John wanted to take a look at the dogs. Anyway, could I tear you away from your book for a quick game?”
She hesitated for an instant and glanced at her watch. “I have to meet Armand for lunch at noon. He promised that today he'd break away.”
“That's fine. I'm meeting Hillary in the Grillroom at one.”
“Then let's.” She smiled at him. She hadn't had a male friend in years, not really since Armand. But it would be fun to have someone to play tennis with. “I'll hurry up and change and meet you there.”
“Ten minutes?” He looked at his watch, a handsome piece of black enamel and gold from Cartier.
“Fine.” They both rose and went up to the sun deck, where they lived, and met ten minutes later on the courts, she in a pleated tennis dress that exposed half of her slim thighs, and he in well-tailored white shorts and a tennis sweater over a shirt from Brooks Brothers. They played a relaxed, carefree game. He beat her twice, and she took him by surprise in the end, and beat him 6-2, with a whoop of victory and a handshake as he sailed across the net. Suddenly they both felt happy and free and young.
Crossings Page 10
