A Season in Purgatory

by Dominick Dunne

  Cheers went up from the crowd.

  “Class, the guy’s got class!” screamed a supporter.

  “What are your plans?” shouted a reporter.

  “My immediate plans are to go to my family’s home in Scarborough Hill and embrace my father. This ordeal has taken its toll on my father’s health.”

  “And after that? Any political plans?” shouted the reporter.

  “Yes, but I am not prepared to discuss them at this moment. As you know, my plans to run for governor of this great state that I am privileged to call my home state were thwarted by this unfair charge that was brought against me, but I have acquired a new strength during this ordeal that I have never possessed before, and soon I will be back in the arena, ready to announce my plans. Now you must excuse me. I have to be off to see my father.”

  “You’ve got our votes, Constant,” screamed a female voice, followed by more cheers.

  As Constant left the bank of microphones, guided by his brothers and lawyers, a woman in a mink coat rushed up to him, grabbed him by the lapel of his jacket, and began to engage him in earnest conversation. Constant listened for a moment and then laughed. In her hand was a piece of paper which she handed him.

  “Mr. Bradley, do you have any words for Mrs. Utley?” shouted one reporter. It was Gus Bailey.

  Constant paused in his exit, turned away from the woman, and returned to the microphones. “Mrs. Utley has from me what she has always had, my profound sympathy for her great and tragic loss. I so regret for her that she has had to go through this terrible ordeal. Thank you, and good-bye.”

  In victory, the rented cars were forgotten. The family limousine waited at the curb, with a beaming Charlie, tears in his eyes, holding the door open.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Constant,” he said.

  Constant hugged the old chauffeur. “Thank you, Charlie. Now, Charlie, burn rubber, man. I want to see my father.”

  “Where’d you get that Saint Thomas Aquinas quote?” asked Jerry. “It worked great. I never heard that one.”

  “I just made it up,” said Constant.

  “Who was that woman who grabbed hold of you?” asked Des as they raced to Scarborough Hill.

  “I couldn’t believe it. She said she wanted to go to bed with me,” answered Constant.

  There were roars of laughter in the car. “Whatever she said, she made you laugh,” said Des.

  “She did. She said I wouldn’t even have to buy her dinner. She slipped me her telephone number.”

  As the crowded cars returning from the courtroom turned into the long driveway of the Bradley house in Scarborough Hill, horns began to honk. Maids appeared at the windows. Beep. Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep. Shouts of laughter could be heard. The front door opened. The family, lawyers, priests, and secretaries rushed in. Maids were hugged. War whoops were raised. The sound of the family racing up the winding stairway in a thundering herd, the way they had raced down those stairs as children on Christmas morning, could be heard throughout the house, accompanied by cheers and cries of “Get out the champagne, Bridey! A celebration is in order!” The sounds of racing feet and shouting voices increased as they ran down the long hallway to Gerald’s bedroom.

  “Pa, your son is free!” screamed Jerry, pushing Constant into the room ahead of him, followed by Des and Sandro and Maureen and Mary Pat and Kitt. The family, crowding against one another, squeezed into the room. “Pa, Pa, have you heard?”

  But Gerald was dead. They had only to look to know. Sis had already closed his eyes.

  “Oh, my God,” said Jerry.

  “Is he …?” asked Mary Pat.

  “Yes,” replied Sis.

  “When did he die?” asked Maureen.

  “Just,” replied Sis. “Not five minutes ago. He knew. He knew of Constant’s innocence. I told him. The television was on. I heard the verdict. I told him. He watched your speech, Constant. I turned up the volume as loud as it would go. He looked me straight in the eye. He understood. There were tears in his eyes. Look, the rosary beads are in his hands. He was thanking God, and then he began to go into convulsions. His whole body shook, almost violently. He didn’t want to let go. I think he didn’t want to let go until you got here, Constant.”

  Sis did not tell them that he had screamed out in his last moment, a scream that was heard throughout the house.

  They stood, staring at the corpse of their father. Constant put his hand to his mouth in shock. Slowly, the brothers and sisters made their way to the bed, surrounding it.

  “Oh, Pa,” said Maureen, starting to cry. “I want to tell you how much I love you.”

  “Yes, Pa,” said Jerry. “Thank you for everything you always did for us.” He kissed his father’s forehead.

  “Yes, thank you, Pa,” said Constant.

  “Oh, Pa,” said Mary Pat, kneeling by the bed. “I love you, Pa.”

  Des and Sandro began talking aloud to their father. “Without you, we would be nothing, Pa,” said Sandro.

  Kitt and Constant moved to the foot of the bed and looked at Gerald.

  Maureen began to pray aloud. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” The others joined in. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven—”

  “Wait a minute. Hold on. Where’s Ma?” asked Maureen. “She has to be here. We can’t do this without Ma.”

  “She’s in her room, I suppose,” said Sis.

  “Does she know? Does she know Pa’s dead?” asked Jerry. “Didn’t anybody tell her?”

  “Yes, she knows,” said Sis. “I went to her room right after it happened.”

  “I’ll go get her,” said Kitt quietly. She left the room. The family stood in silence until Kitt returned moments later with Grace. They all turned to the door to look at their mother. She was perfectly composed, already dressed in black. In her hands was a rosary.

  Grace walked over to the bed. Jerry and Maureen separated to make room for her. Jerry drew up a chair for her to sit on, but she declined his offer with a shake of her head. For a long moment she looked down at her husband. “Put this rosary in your father’s hands, Jerry,” she said.

  “He already has a rosary, Ma. He has Sis’s rosary,” said Jerry.

  Grace nodded. “What priests are downstairs, Maureen?” she asked.

  “Father Burke, Father Bill, from Southampton, Father Cahill, and Monsignor Flynn,” said Maureen. “Father Burke and Father Bill were at the courthouse. Father Cahill and Monsignor Flynn were here at the house when we returned.”

  “Ask them to come up,” said Grace. “I think we should say a rosary here by the bedside. And your children, Maureen. Aren’t some of them here? Gregory and Sarah? The whole family should be here. Oh, and Bridey. Get Bridey.”

  “Well, there goes the victory party,” said Colleen, the maid who used to be called Debbie, when word reached the kitchen that Gerald Bradley was dead upstairs. She had been looking forward to the celebration. “We got enough hams and beefs and au gratin potatoes here to feed an army, not to mention three kinds of salad and chocolate profiteroles. Poor Bridey, all that cookin’ for nothin’.”

  “Don’t worry, Colleen, it won’t go to waste. There’ll be the wake, and everyone gathering here after the funeral,” said Rose, another maid.

  “Where’s Bridey?” asked Colleen.

  “She’s up in the room with Missus,” said Rose. “They’re saying a rosary. We got all those priests to feed tonight as well, remember.”

  “Did you hear him scream out like that before he went?” asked Colleen.

  “Shhhh,” said Rose. “Don’t let Bridey hear you.”

  “It sounded like he must have saw hell,” said Colleen.

  “Shhhh.”

  “Well, darling, I’m so happy for you,” said Grace to Constant when he came to her room later. “Kiss me, darling. What a relief that this terrible trial is over. I don’t know if I could have stood it another day. We always knew how it would end, didn’t we, but hasn’t it been a d
rain on all of us? The other night at the club, on Thursday, Mrs. Somerset walked right past me without speaking. Can you imagine? After all these years of living next door? Well, I certainly hope she was watching her television set tonight. I thought your speech was lovely, darling. I was so glad to hear you quote Saint Thomas Aquinas.”

  “I’m sorry about Pa, Ma,” said Constant.

  “Thank you, darling. My feeling is that he died a very happy man, Constant. Sis was holding him up to the television set, so he knew. He heard your speech. You spoke so beautifully about your father. You’re quite a public speaker; we’ve always said that about you. It’s a glorious way to die, when you stop to think of it. He was in a state of grace. He received Communion this morning, so at least we know he’s gone straight to heaven, and he went out watching a great victory for his most beloved son.”

  “Yes, Ma,” said Constant.

  “Now, where’s Bridey? Where’s my precious Bridey?” asked Grace.

  “Right here, madam,” said Bridey. Her eyes were red from weeping.

  “That’s sweet, Bridey. He was so fond of you. Do you know how long Bridey’s been with me, Constant? Just about all of your life, that’s how long. She’s family. Get out all my black dresses, Bridey, and we’ll start making decisions. There’ll probably be two days of calling. Whether they’ll have Gerald laid out here in the house or in the funeral home, that will be up to you boys to decide. For myself, I think it’s depressing in the house, don’t you? After my father died, I couldn’t go into the living room for almost two years. I kept seeing the casket at the far end of the room by the piano. In those days we had open caskets. That’s when I moved the Holy Father’s picture from the living room into the library. And all those people from Bog Meadow will be coming to pay their respects, wandering through the house. You know how they worship this family. Oh, and the terrible flowers they always send. Gladiolas, don’t you hate them? Orange and pink, the worst colors. And stock. I can’t stand the smell of stock, can you? Most of them have never seen a house like this, you know. That’s what they’re coming for. A tour. God knows what will be missing. We’ll have the maids take away all the little things on the tables. I think you should tell your brothers the funeral home, Constant, rather than the house. Ahern’s does a wonderful job. I went to Monsignor Hannon’s wake there last week. There’s a lovely big room. So that will be two black dresses for the calling days, Bridey. And another for the funeral. I think the one with the gold-link chain at the waist for the funeral. Cut off the gardenia at the neck. And I’m going to want a double thickness of black veils. I want to talk to Mrs. Saltzman at Bergdorf’s. Remind me to call her in the morning. I want black grosgrain ribbons at the bottom of all the veils. They hang so much better with the weight of the borders, and they don’t blow if there’s a wind. Let’s get to it, Bridey. There’s work to be done.”

  * * *

  Gerald Bradley’s obituaries were long and respectful, but his funeral was private. Only family, and a few others. Sis and Fatty Malloy were there, and Sims Lord, and all the secretaries, and all the nurses, and all the servants from all the houses. There were unkind people who said the funeral was private because so few people would have come. Some of the same unkind people even said they were glad he was dead. It wouldn’t have done at all for any member of that family to have a sparsely attended funeral. If it wasn’t to be a mobbed cathedral, then it was to be private. That was the decision made by Jerry, who set about making many decisions within hours of his father’s death. Grace, the widow, was informed after the decision was made. She didn’t mind. She had never liked crowds. She only wanted to make sure that the flowers on the altar were all white, that the Mass would be a high requiem, and that Cardinal and a great many priests were going to be there.

  That there was not an outpouring of congratulations over Constant’s victory from the inhabitants and townspeople of Scarborough Hill was attributed by the family to respect on their part for the concurrent sadness of Gerald’s death. “It’s so typically Yankee, isn’t it?” said Des, laughing.

  His father’s death had deprived Constant of the celebration that he felt his triumphant vindication merited, and on the eve of Mary Pat’s return to Paris, he decided on the spur of the moment to host an evening for the family that had stood so staunchly behind him. It was a Thursday night, known in Scarborough Hill as cook’s night out, and he suggested to his brothers and sisters and their wives and husbands that they dine together en famille, as Mary Pat called it, at The Country Club before dispersing to their own lives and families. All accepted except Charlotte, who, having played her part to perfection throughout the trial, left that day for Maryland to visit her father.

  Constant fully expected that the appearance of the large and glamorous family together for the first time in years at the club would be the occasion for congratulations and even applause from a membership that had held them at arm’s length for so long. They grouped together at the entrance to the dining room, waiting for Corky, now the maître d’ of the room, to come and lead them to their large table. When he did, Constant, in a spirit of good sportsmanship, extended his hand in friendship to the former bartender in the men’s locker room who had testified against him during the trial as to the amount of liquor he had drunk at the club on the night of the murder. “No hard feelings,” Constant said, smiling in the friendly manner of a victor. The exchange caused the presence of the family to become noticed, and slowly silence descended on the crowded room. Corky performed his seating duties and menu passing with formality but without a greeting or a response to Constant’s gesture. The Somersets, the Frenches, the Prindevilles, the Wadsworths, and the Thralls, among others, lowered their eyes as the family passed. Only old Bishop Fiddle, now retired from his Episcopal duties at the American Church in Paris, his mouth full of vanilla ice cream, spoke out to his wife in the loud voice of the hard-of-hearing. “Extraordinary, those people coming here, don’t you think?”

  AFTERWORD

  The verdict was a grievous disappointment to some, like Luanne Utley, a cause for delirium to others, like the Bradleys, but a surprise to no one. I have, I suppose, legally lost, but I feel almost delirious. And certainly victorious. I have never been one who automatically equates an acquittal with innocence.

  From the moment of the first day of the trial, when Judge Edda Consalvi disallowed, without comment, the testimony of Weegie Somerset Belmont and Maud Firth, who had been assaulted by Constant Bradley in fits of rage, the die was cast. Even if Wanda Symanski had come forward, as she was tempted to do but didn’t dare, having taken compensation, or Teresa Miller, who chose not to when I located her in Deep River, it would not have mattered. Only reasonable doubt had to be shown, and it was. Valerie Sabbath earned her million, and her fame increased. She appeared on all the morning news shows and all the afternoon chat shows and was widely praised when she said she prayed nightly for poor Winifred Utley.

  The charges against me were dismissed. They could hardly send me to jail for my participation in Winifred Utley’s death when Constant, who killed her, had been acquitted. There was enough doubt in enough people’s minds so that if the charges against me had not been dismissed, an uproar would have occurred, with Gus Bailey leading the fray. The Bradleys, to give them their due, must have been happy at that turn of events. Another trial, with me at the center, would only have perpetuated the unwanted attention on them, and they might not have been so lucky the second time around.

  It was impossible not to think that Gerald’s death, coming when it did, was some form of comment on the fruits of victory. Certainly it muted all the celebratory aspects of the victory.

  It was crushing, of course, for Luanne Utley, who wanted only to settle the unfinished business of her daughter’s life. She has returned to New York. She is making a new life for herself. One night I took her to dinner at Borsalino’s. It was only at the end of the evening, when I returned her to her apartment at Sixty-second and Park, that we both realized we had no
t mentioned the trial once. She said she thought that was progress.

  From the day he returned home from the Southampton Hospital, Constant had been intending to go away someplace, so as not to be near Charlotte. Since his accident on the Montauk Highway and the discovery that Wanda Symanski had been in the car with him, their personal relationship had become acrimonious. But Johnny Fuselli’s death, and the family’s certainty of my intentions, had thwarted Constant’s plans.

  Charlotte stuck by Constant all through the trial as the most loyal of wives. She even went through with a television appearance with Constant on “20/20,” after his acquittal, in which she introduced her children, little Charlotte and Constant Junior, to Barbara Walters, her interviewer, and played the role of wife in a happy American family that had come through a distressing ordeal. After the trial, she waited nearly a year before she slipped off quietly to the Dominican Republic and divorced Constant. She returned to Baltimore with her two children. When Henry Valentine Jessup, Jr., receives his divorce from Margo Jessup in June, he and Charlotte Bradley plan to marry, although those plans have not, as of this time, been made public. They have bought a farm in Frederick, Maryland. Visitation rights preclude little Charlotte and Constant Junior from visiting their father in Scarborough Hill.