The Rich Are Different

by Susan Howatch

  I was annoyed when my mind kept straying toward the Mallingham Hours, but not surprised. I had become bored with my leading lady’s theatrical gossip and disappointed by her lack of originality, and although I delayed my departure in order to be polite it was a relief to retreat home with Peterson faithfully at my heels. When Peterson was on duty as my bodyguard I seldom spoke to him—the best way to tolerate a surrender of privacy is to ignore the offending presence—but that night as I stepped into the evening air I felt the sinister pressure building behind my eyes and I said quickly, “You can sit in the back with me, Peterson,” as my hand groped in my pocket for my medication. As soon as I had taken a pill I felt better and knew that the symptom had been imaginary, a product of my fear of illness and not of the illness itself. Meanwhile the car was drawing away from the curb, and to distract myself I said rapidly to Peterson’s solid comforting bulk beside me, “What do you think that girl Dinah Slade wants?”

  “Money and the usual, sir,” said Peterson placidly. “Same as all the other broads.”

  “But no broad’s ever sent me a book of hours before— My God, listen to me! Peterson, why is it that when I’m with you I always pick up your detestable slang?”

  We laughed. I was relaxing, the pressure behind my eyes fading fast and my fear temporarily conquered. “We’ll play tennis tomorrow,” I said. “We’ll leave the house at seven, motor to Queen’s Club and play for an hour or so before I go to the City. …” And as I spoke I remembered those far-off days of my secluded childhood when my parents had taken me from doctor to doctor until finally my father had cried out in an agony of guilt, “There’s nothing wrong with that boy that a game of tennis can’t cure!” Lawn tennis had been a new game in those days, but it had quickly become popular at Newport. I could remember playing with my father as clearly as if it were yesterday, my father and Jason Da Costa—

  A curtain came down over my memory. Turning to Peterson, I talked to him about tennis, and I talked until we arrived home five minutes later.

  It was one o’clock. After dismissing my valet I was alone at last with the Mallingham Hours, and I retired to bed without a thought of the inevitable insomnia in the hours before dawn.

  Time passed tranquilly. I was examining the pictures, imagining myself a craftsman working for three days to illuminate one letter. What could it be like to labor day after day to produce an object of great beauty, a legacy of spirituality as well as aesthetic triumph? My romantic imagination, always at odds with my quest for classicism, overcame me at this point and I visualized myself as a humble monastic scribe, living in creative peace in some remote corner of Europe where money was virtually unknown. Fortunately my common sense reasserted itself before I could continue in this sentimental vein, and I remembered that medieval artists were always anxious to get paid before either they or their patrons were eliminated by a new war, famine or pestilence. … The fascination of Europe enveloped me again; I heard its mysterious call, felt it once more stake a claim upon my soul, knew myself hypnotized by that old familiar glamour, and as I fingered my way through the Mallingham Hours from matins to lauds and from lauds to vespers I felt as if I had been given a key to a world which I had always longed to enter but which had remained tantalizingly just beyond my reach.

  At two o’clock I put the manuscript aside, and postponing once more the dreaded moment when I would have to try to sleep I began to write to Elizabeth, the woman I had loved for thirty years but had somehow never succeeded in marrying. I felt that Elizabeth would understand how the seductive mirror of Europe had once more caught the sun to blind me with its brilliance, yet when I wrote the words “My dearest Elizabeth” I saw not Europe but her house on Gramercy Park, and then I was back in New York again, back in my own culture among my own people in a world which I had so painfully constructed with my own soiled and bloodied hands.

  I got up and began to pace around the room. It was three o’clock before I could bring myself to return to bed and four before I drifted into sleep, but my dreams were so appalling that it was a relief to rise at six to play tennis. By nine o’clock I was already at Milk Street to submerge myself in my work.

  Three days passed. O’Reilly submitted a disappointing addendum to his file on Miss Slade and suggested she was merely an ordinary girl from a country backwater who despite her superior education had seen little and done less. Since her father’s death the previous autumn she had lived alone at Mallingham Hall and there were no reports of any attentive friends of’ the opposite sex. At Cheltenham Ladies’ College there had been no opportunities for escapades, and at Cambridge she had acquired the reputation for being a bluestocking. Apparently her virtue was not only unquestioned but unassailed, a sad fate for a young lady already twenty-one.

  I sighed. I really could not, at my time of life, start toying with virgins. Such a step would involve me in endless complications and was altogether too time-consuming and troublesome. Other middle-aged men might choose to indulge themselves in such senilities, but I was still young enough to find inexperience boring and still sane enough to avoid any risk of trouble in my well-ordered private life.

  “Return the Mallingham Hours to Miss Slade, please,” I said to Miss Phelps. I had already decided reluctantly not to make Miss Slade an offer for the manuscript, for fear she would interpret my gesture as a sign of interest in her. “The covering letter should read: ‘Dear Miss Slade: Thank you for the opportunity you have given me to see this exceptionally fine manuscript, but I would not dream of asking you to come up from Norfolk to collect it. Accordingly I am returning the manuscript to you by special messenger. Wishing you all the best in your endeavors, I remain, et cetera, et cetera.’ ”

  Miss Phelps’s small mouth pursed in approval. I felt depressed and wondered glumly how I had managed to surround myself with prudes.

  During the next few days I devoted myself conscientiously to hedonism but emerged yawning with a distaste for Epicurean philosophy. I wanted to go home, yet perversely did not want to leave Europe. It rained. I felt fractious. Peterson started to beat me at tennis. I had an overwhelming longing to be entertained, yet seemed to have exhausted every conceivable source of entertainment. I wanted something to happen, I wanted to be diverted, and most of all I wanted to cut myself loose from my worst memories of the past.

  On the morning of the fifteenth of May at eleven o’clock Peterson entered my room at the office and waited silently for me to conclude a telephone conversation. It was so unusual for him to seek an audience with me at Milk Street that I ceased jotting down sterling figures in dollars and stared at him. “Yes, Peterson?”

  “Excuse me, sir, but there’s a young guy outside who says he comes from an outfit called Fortnum and Mason. It seems they’re some kind of food joint—”

  “Yes, yes, yes.” I was getting my decimal points wrong. “One moment, please,” I said into the telephone, and added curtly to Peterson, “I’ve ordered nothing from Fortnum’s. Send the man away.”

  Peterson turned obediently to find O’Reilly blocking the doorway.

  “It’s Miss Slade again, sir,” O’Reilly said with his most insufferable neutral expression. “She’s sent you a hamper, and the delivery boy flatly refuses to go until he’s delivered the hamper to you personally. I would have sent for the police to remove him but thought I should seek your permission before taking any step which might result in adverse publicity for the firm.”

  “For God’s sake!” It had been a trying morning, Peterson had beaten me again at tennis and I was being interrupted in the middle of an important conversation. “I’m so sorry,” I said in my most charming voice to the telephone, “but may I call you back in five minutes? A matter of vital urgency— cable from New York. …Thank you so much.” I hung up with a crash and prepared to make mincemeat of my aides. “What the devil do you two mean by taking up my time with trivialities?” I blazed. “Your job’s to save my time, O’Reilly, not to waste it! And I employ you to make decisions about my safety, Pe
terson, not to come shilly-shallying in here because you can’t make up your mind about some goddamned gift from Fortnum and Mason! Have the boy bring the hamper in! We all know Miss Slade’s not an assassin! I only hope she’s had the good sense to order me a decent bottle of brandy, although God knows only your asinine behavior could drive me to drink hard liquor at eleven o’clock in the morning!”

  They slunk away. I scribbled crossly on my note pad and rearranged some decimal points. Finally Peterson returned with a young man who was pushing a large wicker hamper on a porter’s handcart.

  “Mr. Van Zale?” he said nervously in an upper-class English accent. I raised my eyebrows. Despite his overalls this was no ordinary delivery boy. Had unemployment really reached such a pitch that boys fresh from public school were obliged to seek employment as delivery boys? I thought not.

  “Bring it in,” I said, watching him, “and leave it by the fireplace.”

  “Yes, sir.” The hamper was pulled carefully into position and eased from the handcart.

  O’Reilly produced a tip.

  “Gosh, thanks a lot!” said the boy disconcerted, and he hung around as if he were unsure what to do next.

  A spark of amusement flared within me. “Is there something else you have to do?” I inquired, strolling casually toward him.

  “No, sir. At least … would you like me to open the hamper for you?”

  “Why not? Let’s see what Miss Slade’s sent me!”

  “Sir—” O’Reilly and Peterson were equally horrified, but I silenced them with a wave of my hand.

  “If there’s a bomb in that hamper,” I said pleasantly, “our young friend here will be blown to pieces with us. How long have you known Miss Slade?” I added to the boy.

  “Never met her in my life, sir,” declared the boy, blushing furiously as he raised the lid. He was quite the worst liar I had ever encountered.

  Inside the hamper was a quantity of green paper strands, and nestling in this simulated grass was a jar of caviar and a bottle of Veuve Pommery 1915.

  “Delightful!” I exclaimed. “Miss Slade has excellent taste!”

  The grass stirred, and as the boy leaped forward to remove the caviar and champagne the strands began to rise with the steadiness of a loaf of bread baking in the oven.

  “Watch out!” yelped Peterson, reaching for his pistol.

  “Don’t shoot!” squeaked the youth, his eyes round with fright as he saw Peterson’s holster.

  As I lounged amused against the mantel, it was left to O’Reilly to demonstrate his usual efficiency by darting forward to whip away the paper.

  “Ouch!” said a voice inside the hamper. “My foot’s gone to sleep.”

  She stood up gingerly, steadying herself by gripping the wicker sides, and peered at me through a strand of hair.

  “Are you Paul Van Zale?” she demanded incredulously.

  “Yes,” I said. “Don’t I look the part?” Then unable to resist a smile I added, “Miss Dinah Slade, I presume,” and held out my hand to help her from the hamper.

  Two

  I

  SHE WAS NEITHER SHORT nor slender, facts which made her concealment in the hamper the more remarkable. She had some bobbed dark hair, a large nose which needed powdering and a wide mouth which she had colored bright pink. I am old-fashioned enough to dislike paint on women. Her dowdy iron-gray skirt had not risen to midcalf in accordance with the unpleasant dictates of postwar fashion but loitered a couple of inches above the ankle, and her well-worn white blouse had come untucked at the waist. Like many English girls she had a beautiful skin. Her other redeeming feature was her eyes, which were a commonplace shade of brown but so thick-lashed and wide-set that they compensated for her oversized nose and mouth.

  She smiled at me and miraculously was no longer plain. As her eyes sparkled I at once sensed her quick adventurous mind, but then she retreated, hiding her nervousness behind a fashionably blasé pose.

  “I must look a wreck!” she drawled languidly. “How dare you make me hide in a hamper like that! Mr. Fortnum and Mr. Mason must be turning in their graves!”

  “It’s lucky you’re not already turning in yours, Miss Slade, since Mr. Peterson here was on the point of riddling your hamper with bullets. Congratulations on your survival! May I offer you a glass of your champagne?”

  We settled down comfortably. Peterson removed the hamper, O’Reilly disappeared in search of glasses, and Miss Slade, after swiftly patting her hair, tucking back her blouse and crossing her legs to conceal the holes in her stockings, motioned to her henchman.

  The boy was evidently older than he looked. He was introduced as “Geoffrey Hurst, my solicitor,” and turned out to be a lawyer who had qualified the previous year and was now in practice with his father in Norwich. I was just wondering how to get rid of him when Miss Slade said carelessly, “You can go now, Geoffrey. I’ll meet you in the teashop as we arranged. Thanks so much for your help.”

  The boy clearly thought it would be unwise to leave her in the lion’s den. When I saw his mouth turn down stubbornly at the corners I decided to soften the dismissal by offering him a glass of champagne which I knew he would be intelligent enough not to accept. He was a tall fair good-looking young man with a freckled nose and short hair which stood straight up at the crown. I wondered how he had escaped being mentioned in O’Reilly’s report.

  “An old friend of yours?” I inquired after we had ousted him from the office.

  “Very old. His father used to be the Slade family solicitor until my father gave up lawyers for Lent two years ago.” She seemed uninterested in Geoffrey Hurst, and already her glance was flickering around the room as she sized up her surroundings. “This place surprises me,” she remarked, her blasé pose forgotten. “I thought merchant bankers lived like potentates. Isn’t this office a little modest for a gentleman of your standing?”

  “I’m afraid I left my harem at home today,” I said as the cork popped discreetly out of the bottle. “Now, Miss Slade, before we go any further let me stress that I specialize in long-term capital investment, not short-term loans, and since I deal with the issuing of securities my clients are corporations, not private individuals. If you want a loan I suggest you approach the manager of your local commercial bank in Norwich—or offer your truly remarkable Mallingham Hours for sale at Christie’s.”

  “My dear Mr. Van Zale,” said Miss Slade, “I’m not interested in borrowing a couple of sixpences. I want the deuce of a lot of money.”

  Unable to think of any reply bordering on politeness, I merely handed her a glass of champagne with a smile.

  “Thank you so much,” said Miss Slade. “Gosh, doesn’t that look delicious? Now, Mr. Van Zale, I expect you’re wondering about what I propose to offer as my collateral—”

  “Believe me, Miss Slade, I’ve thought of a number of possibilities, all of them alarming. You must understand that I don’t normally have the time to talk to people such as yourself, but since I admire originality and find your exploits mildly entertaining, I’ll give you …”—I pulled out my fobwatch and placed it on the desk— “two minutes, starting from now. Explain yourself.”

  “With pleasure,” said Miss Slade serenely, her knuckles bone-white as she clasped her hands in her lap.

  It took her forty-three seconds to outline the family situation which had given rise to her present predicament. Her father had married disastrously three times; on each occasion the wife had borne one child and walked out. Of the three children Miss Slade alone had grown up with her father at Mallingham, but that was only because her mother, the second Mrs. Slade, had died not long after deserting her husband. The children had grown up separated. To Miss Slade her half sister, Chloë, was a stranger who had spent the past twenty years in Yorkshire, and her half brother, Percy, was a mere blurred memory in a christening robe. Before the previous October it would have been hard to imagine how this family could have become further estranged, but then Mr. Harry Slade had committed the grand folly of
dying intestate.

  According to English law in such circumstances, all real estate went to the “heir,” in this case the child Percy, while the personality (which included the Mallingham Hours—I instantly resolved to buy it at the inevitable sale) had to be divided equally among the three children. Percy’s mother, acting on behalf of the child, wanted to sell the house, and Dinah had no legal right to stop her. To complicate the situation, creditors were springing up like weeds and it had become obvious that Slade had died with nothing in the bank.

  “So I’ve not only got to find the money to buy the house from Percy,” said Miss Slade, “but I’ve got to earn the money to keep Mallingham going. The estate can’t provide an income for its owner anymore—which is why my stepmother wants to sell it. She thinks it’s just a white elephant. It means nothing to her.” She started to say more about her stepmother but checked herself when she realized she had entered the second minute I had allotted her.

  “So I’ve got to get a job and since no one is going to pay me the salary I need, I’ve got to be self-employed. …”

  She had decided to manufacture cosmetics. She wanted ten thousand pounds. Once she had that she was absolutely certain—“positive, really”—that she could pay me back within five years.

  “Cosmetics are becoming socially acceptable now,” she said rapidly as the second hand glided on around the dial, “but all the present cosmetics are awful—they smudge and smear and don’t smell as attractive as they should. My father’s ayah had some marvelous formulae for cosmetics which she brought with her from India, and with certain chemical substitutions I think they could be manufactured easily and inexpensively. I’ve been experimenting for about six months and I’ve had some most interesting results. If you were to come to Mallingham and see my laboratory—”