Scraping up all my diplomacy, I wrote to Caroline and said that I’d certainly return for a visit but that for business reasons it was vitally important for me to stay in London till mid-September. I said I had been helped to this difficult decision by a letter from her doctor saying she was heading for a full recovery. Then I wrote to Luke and asked him to deliver the other half of the florist’s shop.
Dinah was relieved that I’d restrained myself from dashing to the sickbed, but she wanted me to forget all about returning to America to see Caroline face to face. Remembering her experience with Paul, I had every sympathy for her attitude, but I wasn’t going ţo allow myself to be swayed by it.
“I’ve got to think of Scott and Tony as well,” I said. “I’ve got to see them and explain to them what’s going on. I’m sorry, Dinah, but you must let me work this out with my family.”
She at once said she understood, but I could see she was becoming increasingly strained as my departure drew nearer. The climax came in early September when the doctor told her she was anemic and ordered her to bed for a week. She lay limply on the pillows in a wonderful Parisian negligee and looked very white and sad and brave, like a lady in one of those old-world romances who hasn’t long to live.
I cracked on the third visit. “Oh hell, Dinah,” I said wildly. “I can’t leave you like this!” So I put off my visit home till November. By that time I really did think that Dinah needed me more than Caroline did. Luke wrote and said Caroline looked just great and was even making bridge dates again, but Dinah looked as if she could have a miscarriage at any minute and fade away afterwards on a chaise-longue.
I told myself I had to get my priorities right, and I began to think I should stay with Dinah after all until the baby was born. We could adopt the baby later to make him legitimate—maybe I could even adopt Alan too. Once we managed to marry, everything would fall into place.
“Have you told Alan about the baby?” I asked Dinah.
“No, I’m waiting for the right moment,” she said, but when the right moment never seemed to come I went ahead and told him myself.
“Will you still play with me afterwards?” said Alan.
I told him I would.
“Once you and Mummy are married will we be a family?”
“You bet.”
He thought for a moment. “Please tell Mummy not to let the baby out until you’ve married her,” he said finally. “To be a real family you’ve got to get married first. Mummy has to wear a white dress. You’d better explain it to her.”
“Sure. No problem,” I said, and immediately knew I had to get to New York in double-quick time to negotiate a divorce.
I was still wondering if I dared broach the subject again to Dinah when three thousand miles away on Wall Street the market started to swing.
II
It had staggered in March. There had been a panic followed by a tide of selling, but everyone had calmed down and the setback had been described as a “technical correction.” By September the market not only had recovered but was breaking all records, and everyone was laughing at bankers like Paul Warburg and my own partner Martin Cookson who continued to forecast that doom was just around the corner. I took a middle view. I didn’t think there would be a huge crash, but I did think there would inevitably be some form of decline. The bond business had been suffering seriously for more than a year because the investors preferred to buy stocks, and this showed that the public was more interested in capital gains than in safety and income. This was not only bad news for investment bankers but bad news for those who hoped for a stable market.
However, I felt less worried about the financial situation after I had read the report of the Investment Bankers Association, which had been holding its annual convention in Quebec. The verdict was that the securities business would continue to prosper and stock prices would climb to new heights. The ragged behavior of the market since early September was dismissed with a flourish and the eighteenth convention of the I.B.A. duly closed on a note of buoyant optimism.
The date was the eighteenth of October, 1929.
The very next day the market started to fall. Speculative issues plunged badly, and although I cabled Luke to start building some defenses around Van Zale Participations I had no reply until after the weekend. He and his family had gone upstate to visit friends.
On Monday the twenty-first the market plunged again. My broker cabled me to ask if I wanted to sell any items in my extensive portfolio, and that evening I booked a telephone call to Lewis in New York.
Transatlantic calls are impossible. There’s nearly always bad static on the line—assuming the line’s open—and it’s so hard to hear what the other party says that conversation is limited, to say the least. But I picked a lucky moment for my call that night and by a miracle I could hear stuffy old Lewis clearly enough to picture every pompous notch of his Hollywood profile.
“Relax, Steve! No need to worry. … Yes, it’s been one of the busiest days in the history of the Stock Exchange and there’s no doubt the market’s had another bad break, but this is still just a technical correction.”
I barely slept that night, and I booked another call to One Willow Street the next morning. I had to wait hours and finally sent a cable instead. Back came a cable saying that everything was fine and that the market was holding its own. Charles Mitchell of National City Bank had arrived back that day from Europe and pronounced the situation to be “fundamentally sound.” One of the great gods of Wall Street had spoken. The panic had now been officially laid to rest.
The next day six million shares changed hands, a busy day’s trading by any reckoning, but when I heard that two and a half million of those shares had changed hands in the last hour before closing I knew that some nightmare event was just around the corner.
I cabled my broker and told him to sell everything he could.
I cabled Luke and told him to ditch all the speculative stock in the Van Zale Participations portfolio.
I cabled my partners and told them to cable back immediately with a prognosis.
“MORE THAN A MERE TECHNICAL CORRECTION,” Lewis cabled back, “BUT THURSDAY’S FORECAST IS FOR MARKET TO STABILIZE AGAIN AS ON TUESDAY STOP RETURN TO NORMAL ANTICIPATED BY END OF MONTH.”
I drank half a bottle of scotch and waited for the night to end.
I remember the dawn, the great bloodshot clouded dawn of Black Thursday, the twenty-fourth of October, 1929.
“There’s going to be a crash,” I said to Dinah. “I think it might be a big one.”
Even then I was so busy standing on the beach watching the angry breakers that I never saw the dimensions of the tidal wave beyond.
The Crash came. People who lived through it on Wall Street said it was like the end of the world. Stone-faced crowds packed the Street from end to end, men had hysterics in front of the ticker, wailing women keened on subway cars. But I wasn’t there, so I never saw the greatest gambling machine of all time crack up to strip the people of their money and the bankers of their reputation. I just saw the cables, the stark reports, the unbelievable figures of a market gone mad.
Black Thursday was followed by a lull while the market staggered around like a chicken with its head cut off, but five days later on the so-called Tragic Tuesday the market was brutally drowned beneath a tidal wave of sixteen and a half million dumped shares.
My telephone rang. It rang continuously. I sat beside it all day. I didn’t eat. After a while I even forgot to drink.
The appalling cables began to stream across the Atlantic.
“STEVE WE’RE HURTING BADLY PLEASE COME HOME SITUATION DESPERATE RE VAN ZALE PARTICIPATIONS …”
But neither of my brothers had the nerve to cable me full details of the gory disaster which had overtaken the investment trust.
The blood streamed all the way down Willow Street into the bank on the corner of Wall.
“CRISIS OF GRAVEST PROPORTIONS,” cabled Lewis, “FOR THE GOOD OF THE FIRM WE MUST ALL UNIT
E …”
“HOW SOON CAN YOU BE HOME?” cabled Martin, “IMPOSSIBLE TO OVERESTIMATE MAGNITUDE OF CRASH.”
“… SO MUST REQUEST YOUR IMMEDIATE RETURN …” Even Clay wanted me back.
The phone rang. New York was on the wire. Above the gasps of the static I could hear Matt sobbing.
“Please come, Steve,” I heard him beg, and Luke, grabbing the receiver from him, shouted, “You’ve got to come, for Christ’s sake come—” We were cut off.
The last cable arrived directly afterward. It said:
SINCE YOU APPOINTED YOUR BROTHERS TO THEIR POSITIONS WE FEEL YOU SHOULD NOW ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS STOP IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO IMAGINE THE SORDIDNESS OF THEIR SITUATION BUT I ASSURE YOU THAT IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO EXAGGERATE IT STOP KINDLY CABLE YOUR ARRIVAL DATE STOP MAY I SUGGEST YOU TAKE THE NEXT SHIP STOP CORNELIUS.
I tried to get hold of my brothers, but the lines were out. I booked the call, but when nothing happened I shot off a cable asking them just what the hell they’d been playing at when the Crash had caught them with their pants down. Eventually, hours later, I did manage to speak to them again on the phone and they did try to tell me what had been going on.
I thought I’d have a heart attack. Men have died from less provocation, but fortunately for my brothers I have an iron constitution.
“All right, boys,” I said, cutting off the conversation as soon as I realized it was quite unsuitable for the telephone. “Keep your mouths shut, get out of sight and if you’re arrested hire the best criminal lawyer in town. I’m on my way.”
I finished a bottle of scotch and opened another as I thought about what the disaster meant. It wasn’t just that my brothers could end up in jail. The partners would need a scapegoat, and as Cornelius had already implied, the role was tailor-made for me. I didn’t just have to return to New York to bail out my brothers. I had to rush back to save my neck.
Very slowly I levered myself to my feet, abandoned the bottle of scotch and trudged off to Belgravia to talk to Dinah.
III
“… So you see,” I said heavily to her, “there’s no choice. I’ve got to go.”
I thought she’d say, “Yes, of course. I understand.” But she didn’t. Without a word she retreated upstairs to her room.
Following, I found her sitting on the edge of her bed and staring at the floor.
My heart went out to her. I’d never felt more miserable in my life. “Dinah … honey …” I slumped down beside her. “History’s not going to repeat itself, I swear it. I’m not going to disappear into America and occasionally send you a cute letter to keep you amused. I’ll come back. And I’ll marry you.”
She still said nothing. The silence closed in upon us.
“Come with me,” I urged in desperation.
“They wouldn’t let me on the ship.”
“But you’re only six months pregnant!”
“And big as a house. It’s not just one baby, Steve. There are two.”
“What!” For the second time in a couple of hours I felt close to heart failure. “You mean …”
“Twins. I’ve known for two months. I was saving the news as a Christmas present for you.”
“Oh, my God! Jesus Christ, I can’t possibly leave you!” I was distraught. I began to pace feverishly up and down the room. “Look, you’ve got to come with me. I’ll fix the ship—we’ll hire a doctor to come with us—and when we reach New York I’ll find you an apartment—”
“Oh no,” she said dryly. “That’s one road I’m never going to travel again.”
“But I’m not Paul!” I shouted. “My God, you don’t think I’d sleep with Caroline while you were looking the other way, do you?”
“I underestimated Sylvia and went through hell. I’ve no intention of underestimating Caroline.”
I was enraged by her implication that Caroline could twist me around her little finger. “Well, what the hell do you expect me to do?” I bawled at her. “God damn it, Dinah, can’t you understand that I love you and want to marry you? What the hell else do you expect of me now, for God’s sake?”
“Common sense.” She rose to her feet and impulsively slid her arms around my neck. “Don’t go back to New York, Steve.”
“Christ, as if I had any choice!”
“I mean it. Don’t go back. Don’t get drawn into your brothers’ mess. They’ll drag you down with them.”
“But I’m responsible!”
“Rubbish,” said Dinah. “Your partners are just as responsible as you are—more so because you haven’t been in New York since March—but they’re hitting you as hard as they can to draw a veil over their own negligence! Let them cope! Let them clean up the mess! Good God, Steve, can’t you see that someone back there at Willow and Wall is making a grab for power by using your brothers to jockey you against the rails?”
I stared at her. I felt exhausted. I was dimly aware that I didn’t like her telling me what was going on. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I tried to keep a clear head.
“My brothers—”
“Oh, fuck your brothers!” said Dinah. I was never so shocked in my life. Not even Caroline had ever used that kind of language. For one horrible moment I was reminded of the scene in my New York office when Cornelius had jettisoned his polite well-mannered Midwestern upbringing to reveal himself as the toughest kid on the block.
I backed away.
“Steve, it’s so damned obvious that those brothers of yours have been sponging on you ever since they shared a cradle. Why can’t you see they’re just a couple of petty failures?”
My temper erupted. “Don’t you call my brothers failures!” I shouted.
“Failures!” she shouted right back. “Your trouble, Steven Sullivan, is that you’re too damned sentimental!”
I walked out.
“Steve!” She ran after me. “Steve, wait!”
“Go to hell.” I was crossing the living room to the front door.
“Steve—” She tripped at the top of the stairs and just managed to grab the rail. She didn’t scream—there wasn’t time—but I saw the color drain from her face as I raced back to her.
“My God, are you all right? Here—let me carry you,” I said, and lifted her to the bed.
The shock sobered us both. We started to apologize, she saying she found it hard to understand my attachment to my brothers because her brother and sister had meant so little to her, I mumbling that I didn’t know how I was ever going to leave her. I forgot that chilling moment when she had reminded me of Cornelius.
But not for long. For it was unmasking time at the masquerade ball, and I was just about to find out that the Làdy of Mystery, Miss Dinah Slade, was no ordinary protégée of that goddamned best friend of mine but a made-to-measure replica of Cornelius Van Zale in drag.
“I’ve got to go back to New York,” I was saying. “My mind’s made up and there’s no altering it. I’ll sort out the mess, see Caroline, wangle a divorce, come back, marry you—and we’ll go to Paris again in the spring!” I added, pouncing on a way to cheer her up. “Ah, honey, remember what a wonderful help you were to me there! What a way you have with the clients! Maybe I should take you into Van Zale’s and train you for a partnership!”
“Steve!” She sat bolt upright on the bed, eyes shining, cheeks glowing, all our problems forgotten. “Oh, Steve, I’d like that better than anything—I’ve been thinking of it for such a long time! I suppose it really all began when I first saw the great hall at One Willow Street, but of course I never dreamt then that I’d ever get the chance to—” She stopped. Her expression changed. “But you don’t mean it, do you,” she said. “You just said that as a joke. How stupid of me. I’m sorry.”
“Why, don’t be sorry,” I said. “Tell me more.” A small hard knot was forming in the pit of my stomach.
“It’s nothing. You know how I enjoy my work, but you must have suspected that I was getting tired of cosmetics and wanted something more challengin
g. However, it’s not important. Let’s forget it.”
“Did Paul know about this?”
“I wasn’t consciously aware of it myself when he was alive, but yes, I think he always knew. If he were alive now—”
“What does his death matter?” I said. “I’m here, aren’t I? Your second chance for a slice of the Van Zale pie!”
She smiled nervously. “I know it’s odd of a woman to want to go into banking. But I know I could do it, Steve, I know I could! If I could only have the opportunity—”,
“Forget it, Dinah,” I said thickly. “Women don’t become investment bankers. I’m sorry.”
“But I’m intelligent, hard-working and able. I’ve proved I can start with nothing and build up a hugely successful business in less than seven years. Why should I be disqualified from a banking career just because I’m a woman?”
“The clients would never accept you, and neither would the partners. Sorry, honey, but there’s no way you can sleep yourself into this particular saddle.”
She flushed and stood up. “That was a horrible thing to say!”
“Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to do ever since I set foot in this country last March?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re so goddamned smart—don’t tell me you don’t understand! Why, after the very first night we spent together you got me to guarantee Alan’s future at Van Zale’s! I was the key that was going to open the Van Zale door for you, wasn’t I, so you made a big fuss of me and gave me the time of my life—although it was kind of tedious for you, because at heart you’d rather be debating classical literature or moseying around old churches—”
“Steve, for God’s sake, you’re twisting everything around—”
The Rich Are Different Page 56
