“Yes, I can see that would be better. Thank you, Paul.”
“You’re not going to tell me I can’t do it?”
“I wouldn’t dare! No, Paul, you know why I can’t accept your money, but I can think of no justification for saying Alan can’t accept it either. Besides, it’ll be good for Alan to know …” This time I was the one who couldn’t find the appropriate phrase.
“That I didn’t completely repudiate him. Exactly. Very well, now before we wallow in sentimentality and lose sight of my will, may I raise the delicate and controversial issue of the ownership of Mallingham Hall?”
“You may not,” I said. “We’ll discuss it further when we next walk across the Brograve Level on our way to the sea.”
“So Mallingham is still the carrot!” he said laughing. “And I’m still the proverbial donkey! But Dinah, be serious for a moment. In 1922 I added a codicil to my will to say that Mallingham should return to you when I died. Am I to incorporate this codicil into my new will or can we arrange a conveyance while you’re in New York?”
“Paul, I meant what I said!” I exclaimed annoyed. “We’ll discuss it when you return to Mallingham.”
His mouth hardened. We were master and protégée again. ‘You’re being both foolish and unbusinesslike. Supposing I signed a will which made no mention of Mallingham and then promptly dropped dead. What would you do?”
“Buy it back from your estate, of course, at a fair market price, just as I’ve always planned. I don’t see your difficulty, Paul.”
He stopped dead on the sand. A breeze ruffled his scanty hair, and behind him the little white sails of a hundred boats bobbed on the dark-blue waters of the Sound.
“I think I should tell you,” he said slowly, “that the bulk of my estate will go to Cornelius.”
To my amazement I was at once overwhelmed with jealousy on Alan’s behalf. It was not because I wanted Alan to have Paul’s fortune; I was intellectually opposed to inherited wealth on a colossal scale and had studied enough history to know that such wealth could be disastrous for the beneficiary. I was jealous because Paul was able to regard someone other than Alan as his son and heir.
He understood at once. “Dinah, it’s because I care for Alan that I’m doing this.”
“I know.” I pulled myself together. “I suppose I was just surprised. You hardly ever mention Cornelius.”
“He’s a good boy in many ways,” he said, but although I waited for him to continue he was silent.
“Yet you think he’ll make trouble for me if I have to buy back Mallingham,” I persisted. “Why?”
“He’s devoted to my wife. He’s also taken immense trouble to maneuver himself into a position where I can regard him as a son, and knowing the scope of Cornelius’ ambition I’d say it’s not a position he’d be willing to share.”
I looked back at Alan. A number of vistas, all of them unpleasant, opened up briefly in my mind before dissolving into darkness. I felt cold.
“How dismal Cornelius sounds!” I said with a laugh. “I hope we never meet!”
“In that case you won’t leave Mallingham in a legal limbo.”
“All right Leave it out of the will. I’ll buy it back.”
“Good. Now you’re thinking more like a Van Zale protégée. When?”
“I’ll cable Geoffrey on Monday and ask him to arrange for the property to be appraised by two different firms. I must offer you a fair market price. Oh but Paul, I do wish you could see Mallingham again before you sell it to me!”
He looked across the water. “I could be there in October,” he said, “when fall comes to the Broads. I can still see those reeds flame-red and the wild geese migrating—”
“Oh, Paul, it would be wonderful! We could take the yacht again and cruise down to Yarmouth. Everything would be just as it was before … except that I wouldn’t be pregnant. Of course I wouldn’t be pregnant. But …”
He said nothing.
“Perhaps …”
He looked back at Alan.
“I give you my absolute solemn promise that I wouldn’t … without your consent. But Paul …”
He turned back to face me.
“It would be nice, wouldn’t it?” I whispered. “It would be nice.”
“Yes,” he said. “It would be nice.”
I slid my arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth. It was only when our lips parted that I saw his eyes were bright with tears.
“It’s all a dream,” he said. “We’re living on dreams, Dinah.”
“Well, why shouldn’t they come true?” I demanded fiercely. “Why shouldn’t they?”
He was silent, drawing me close to him again. For a while we watched the boats on the Sound before we heard Alan calling and saw him running across the beach to join us. He ran as fast as he could, his little feet pounding on the sand, his fair hair flying, his dark eyes bright in his small suntanned face.
“Tony and Scott have come to play!” he shouted, and as I glanced towards the house I saw the two Sullivan boys racing down the path to the beach while Steve paused to watch us from the shadow of the trees.
II
Paul had to return to the city that evening, and immediately after he had left I telephoned Grace.
“My, how excited you sound!” she said affectionately as she recognized my voice.
“Grace, marvelous news—I just had to ring you and tell you all about it! Do you have a minute or are you in a rush? Well, listen—I really think I’m getting somewhere with Paul at last. … Yes, honestly! He’s more or less promised to come to Mallingham this autumn, and Grace—this is the best news of all—he actually said it would be nice if I had another baby! Oh Grace, isn’t that absolutely terrific?”
“Well, gee … yes, that’s great, Dinah, but … well, do you think that’s wise? I mean—”
“Oh God, Grace, don’t shower me with platitudes about illegitimate children because I shan’t listen to a word! Anyway I think Paul will marry me. He’s too much of a Victorian to approve of having children out of wedlock.”
“Oh, my stars!” said Grace, casting aside her doubts and beginning to enjoy herself. “My mother-in-law will just die if you succeed in marrying Paul! Just think—she tried for twenty-five years and never made it, while you carry him off after one torrid summer in New York! Oh, how am I ever going to stop myself from saying something to her this evening when Bruce and I go down to Gramercy Park for dinner—how am I going to resist it! If your name comes up and Elizabeth makes one of her snide remarks I just know I’ll let the cat out of the bag.”
“Poor old Elizabeth,” I said fondly. I really did feel sorry for her. “Well, have a good time, Grace, and ring me up tomorrow to tell me what happened when you let out the cat.”
She telephoned at eleven-thirty that night. “Di, did I wake you?”
“Yes, but I don’t care! Tell me everything! Did she have a fit when you let out the cat?”
“No, my dear—quite the reverse! That’s why I just couldn’t wait till morning to call you. After I let the cat out Elizabeth just looked at me for a long moment, and then just guess what she said!”
“ ‘That girl is a disgrace to womanhood’?” I suggested gamely.
“No, no, no—you’re hopelessly wrong! She said, ‘Maybe I should invite Miss Slade to tea. I think it’s time she and I had a talk together.’ Now, what on earth do you make of that?”
III
The note from Elizabeth arrived on Tuesday morning after Paul had departed for Maine. It was July by that time, but of course I had not returned to England. I had now postponed my departure until the beginning of August and Paul had promised to come down to New York every week, ostensibly to attend to business but also to spend nights with me at the Plaza. It was getting unpleasantly hot in Manhattan and when I saw that Elizabeth was writing to me from her Gramercy Park address I was surprised, for I knew she and her husband had a summer home at East Hampton where they retired when the New York summer became unb
earable.
She had written in black ink on thick white paper:
DEAR MISS SLADE,
My son has taken scrupulous care to ensure that we have never met, but I suspect you may share my opinion that his desire to protect us both is unnecessary as well as misguided. Why should we not meet? Beyond my natural curiosity I also have a genuine interest in meeting a friend of my son and daughter-in-law, and so I should be delighted if you would visit me this Thursday at four o’clock. If you have no means of transport, let me know and I shall send my chauffeur to Great Neck to collect you.
Sincerely,
ELIZABETH CLAYTON
P.S. Please bring Alan and his nurse.
Paul and I had agreed not to communicate by telephone when he was at Bar Harbor, and since he had already left by the time Elizabeth’s note arrived I had no chance to tell him of the invitation. I could have written to him, but I did not. Instead I looked forward to regaling him with the story of my visit when he returned to Manhattan.
Gramercy Park was a beautiful square framed by sumptuous houses. It was exactly four o’clock when her chauffeur deposited us at the door of her home.
We were admitted by an elderly maid whose uniform crackled with starch, and an English butler led us to an upstairs drawing room. The atmosphere was heavily prewar, almost pre-twentieth century, and as we moved at a funeral pace up the staircase I shuddered at the gloomy wallpaper.
“Miss Slade, madam,” intoned the butler, opening the handsome double doors.
We entered a large light room which faced the square at one end and a long narrow walled garden at the other. The carpet was Persian, the porcelain in the cabinets was Chinese, the paintings were English. I was just gazing incredulously at a Turner when a woman’s calm authoritative voice said, “Miss Slade—so nice of you to come! How do you do.”
She was a tall woman who had probably once been slender. Even now she was not stout but merely heavy in that unobtrusive fashion common among the middle-aged. She was conservatively dressed in dark blue, and her hair, drawn off her face and coiled in a heavy knot, was gray. Her eyes were gray too, and beneath her regal nose her mouth was strong and firm. So completely did she seem to personify the virtues of a Roman matron of the early Republic that I did not at first remember she had been consistently unfaithful to two husbands during her many years of married life.
“It was so nice of you to ask us, Mrs. Clayton.”
We shook hands. Her glance, politely welcoming, flicked over me in two seconds, ignored Mary and rested briefly on Alan. “Hello!” she said to him, but before he had had time to hide himself shyly behind Mary’s skirts she had turned to gesture to the sofa. “Do sit down. I’ve asked for tea to be served in the garden—the weather’s so much cooler today and I know children prefer to play outside. When Jackson has everything ready we’ll go downstairs. By the way, how do you find our New York weather? Rather trying, no doubt, in comparison with an English summer.”
We discussed first the weather, then New York. She was perfectly at ease, as if all awkwardness of manner were unknown to her, and by the time we moved downstairs I had already discarded my preconceived notions. Whoever Elizabeth Clayton was, she was not a pathetic old woman.
I felt a twinge of uneasiness but suppressed it.
She did try to talk to Alan again, but when he remained too shy to sustain a conversation she wisely left him alone. “Bruce was shy at that age too,” she said. “I remember it well.”
As if embarrassed by this comparison Alan squeezed his doughnut until the jam spurted out, and asked if he could get down.
“Not until you’ve finished, darling.”
He immediately wriggled off his chair and, still clutching the doughnut, skipped off to the far end of the garden.
“Alan!” I exclaimed annoyed as Mary dashed after him, but Elizabeth said, “It doesn’t matter—he’s been very good. Tell me, is it my imagination or does he really look a little like Paul?”
“There is a small resemblance, I think.”
“Heredity’s always so interesting, isn’t it. More tea?” She reached for the silver teapot. A fly buzzed lazily over the cakes. The sun shone. The little garden was warm and drowsy. “Paul took after his father in looks,” murmured Elizabeth, filling my cup. “The Van Zales were a handsome family, but unfortunately poor Charlotte, Paul’s sister, took after his mother and was very plain. But they were remarkable women intellectually. No doubt that explains why Paul, unlike most men, is very much at ease with strong clever women. It must have been intimidating to him when he was younger—of course that was why his first marriage was to a girl who was his social and intellectual inferior—but once he had proved to himself that he was stronger and cleverer than his mother and sister, his interest in stupid women declined. More cake, Miss Slade?”
I resisted the cake but not the bait of her reminiscences which she was dangling before me so invitingly. “You knew his first wife?” I said, trying not to sound too vulgar in my curiosity.
“Oh no, no—she was quite unpresentable and he could never take her anywhere. Besides, my association with Paul only began after her death. While she was alive he was quite besotted with her even though I suspect she gave him a very difficult time. Sexual attraction is really such a curious phenomenon, isn’t it, Miss Slade?” she added casually, pouring herself, another cup of tea.
The word “sexual,” used so unexpectedly by that extremely dignified woman in that overpoweringly Victorian setting, was so erotic that I actually blushed. “Er—yes,” I said floundering. “Yes, I suppose it is. Quite.”
“Although he would never admit it I suspect there was a strong element of that nature in his relationship with his second wife Marietta, whom he ostensibly married for convenience. However, he was quite in control of the situation on that occasion, and although the marriage was as disastrous as his first it was by no means as painful to him. After he got rid of her we had some happy years together; Eliot was traveling a great deal and I was often alone. Of course there was no question of divorce. Things were so different before the War, and I didn’t want Bruce, to suffer from any stigma which might have resulted from my socially unacceptable conduct. Besides, I think both Paul and I knew that we were too alike to make each other happy in marriage. Paul needs someone who can absorb his faults instead of reflecting them back at him like a mirror. However, there was no question that a man in his position had to remarry, and after his previous disasters you can imagine what a relief it was for us all when he finally found the right person to be his wife.”
There was a silence. I suddenly realized I was clutching my cup of tea so hard my fingers ached.
“You haven’t met Sylvia, have you, Miss Slade?”
“No.”
“Oh, she’s charming! Much the best wife Paul’s ever had, as everyone always says! And Paul’s as devoted to her as she is to him. Perhaps you don’t quite realize, Miss Slade,” said Elizabeth Clayton in the kindest and most considerate of voices, “how very happy they are together—and how well-suited.”
“I–“
“Oh, but I do understand! It’s quite natural that you’ve misunderstood the situation! As I was implying earlier, passion does so distort one’s judgment and affect one’s perceptions. But my passion’s all been spent, Miss Slade, and I can see your situation with a detachment which you cannot possibly hope to attain.”
“Mrs. Clayton,” I said strongly, rallying at last from this blistering assault, “you may presume to know Sylvia’s feelings towards Paul, but since we’re strangers you can’t conceivably presume to know mine. Besides, isn’t the main issue not our feelings but Paul’s? And surely isn’t it his business, not yours, whom he finally decides to live with?”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Miss Slade,” said Elizabeth politely, “but then you’re very young and allowances should be made for your immaturity. The real issue doesn’t revolve around Paul’s feelings. He never could afford the luxury of high romance in his p
ersonal life, and he certainly can’t afford it now. The real issue revolves around who has the most to offer him—and what can you offer him, Miss Slade? I understand you’re not interested in marriage.”
“Well, if Paul wants to marry me to satisfy some Victorian corner of his conscience, that’s his affair, but I love him too much to care whether he marries me or not. When he was at Mallingham with me in 1922 we had this totally honest, totally monogamous, wholly worthwhile relationship—”
“Did you?” said Elizabeth Clayton. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure!” I said incensed, and wanting only to shock her out of her composure, I added passionately, “And if you really want to know, I’d much rather have that than marriage!”
“Why, yes,” said Elizabeth, quite unshocked and more composed than ever, “I expect you would. Marriage involves such a heavy commitment, doesn’t it, and so many promises.”
“Hypocritical dishonest promises! How can one possibly promise to love someone for ever and ever—”
“For richer, for poorer,” said Elizabeth, “in sickness and in health.”
“Well, I mean, it’s simply not practical, is it? Everyone knows love can die! After all, if we’re to be honest—”
“Ah yes, Miss Slade,” said Elizabeth, “let’s by all means be honest. Let’s call a spade a spade. The scope of the relationship you share now with Paul falls very far short of the vows he once exchanged with Sylvia, doesn’t it?”
“Well, I—I didn’t mean—that wasn’t what I—”
“Be honest, Miss Slade! If Paul became so sick that he could no longer live a normal life, you wouldn’t stay with him, would you?”
“Yes, I would! Of course I would!”
“But I thought you just implied that love can die in that sort of circumstance?”
“Yes, but—Mrs. Clayton, don’t you think this discussion has wandered a little far from the point?”
“In view of his illness?” said Elizabeth surprised. “I should have thought that in the circumstances our conversation could hardly have been more pertinent.”
The Rich Are Different Page 38
