Something Dangerous

by Penny Vincenzi

  ‘He – might be premature,’ said Robert. He found himself slightly embarrassed by this conversation.

  ‘Oh sure. Weighing seven pounds. Anyway, what does it matter, these days? I think it’s wonderful and I’m sure Venetia’s madly happy. I’m going to write and congratulate her this minute. And suggest we go over and see them all just as soon as we can fix it. You must want to meet this baby. He’s your very first great nephew!’

  Maud ran up to her small sitting room to write to Venetia; they were at the house in Montauk, Long Island which was, she often said, her favourite place in the world. Her father had built it himself, as he had the mansion on Sutton Place; she loved that too, but Overview, standing high on the dunes above the shore, was particularly dear to her. She loved the sea, simply being near it, loved the salt and wind in the air, the sound of the waves a background to everything; she and Robert often sailed together, and rode along the shore; a weekend spent in New York, especially in the summer, seemed to her a dreadful waste.

  This one was a special treat; ‘dance free’ as she put it, unusually so, with the debutante season at its peak. She sometimes wished she had put her foot down rather more firmly about the season; but all her friends had done it, and Felicity Brewer, to whom her father deferred in all such things, had pronounced it essential.

  ‘It will be such a drawback later in life, Robert, if she hasn’t been a debutante; I didn’t want to do it either, but I loved it once it was happening. And it did so much for me.’

  Felicity had been proclaimed in the gossip columns a star debutante; the fact that she was married to John Brewer, Robert’s partner, successful to be sure, but hardly from the top layer of New York society, seemed rather to negate her argument, but Robert allowed her to persuade him.

  Maud had not done as well as Felicity, she was not exactly star debutante material; she was lovely, with her pale skin, her red-gold hair and wide green eyes, but she was too serious to be a total success. Young men wanting only to flirt with her found themselves engaged in earnest arguments about social injustice and the importance of good architecture to a city’s mental and physical health. Her own dance, held at Sutton Place, had been successful and fun, although not very large; she attended those given by other girls dutifully, but she found her presentation at the Junior Assemblies silly and pointless and had even said so, quietly to Jamie Elliott, her beloved half brother; he had laughed and said he thought the whole thing silly and pointless too, ‘but if it makes your father happy, why not do it?’

  Between them they worked quite hard at keeping Robert happy.

  Up in her room, she decided to telephone Jamie; he had met the twins and liked them. He would like to know. He answered the phone himself.

  ‘James Elliott.’

  ‘Jamie, hallo, it’s Maud. I thought you’d be pleased to hear Venetia’s had a little boy. Name of Henry. The cable came this morning.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘Yes. Your – let me see, second cousin. Is that right? You’re my half brother . . . Goodness, our family is complicated.’

  ‘Certainly is. I suppose strictly speaking he’s not related to me at all.’

  ‘Yes he is,’ said Maud staunchly. ‘Any relative of mine is a relative of yours. I’m writing to say we’re going over to meet him. I think I’ve got Daddy to agree. Why don’t you come with us?’

  ‘I don’t think I could get the time off. Sadly. Not actually being self-employed like my dear brother.’

  ‘I never thought of owning a bank as being self-employed.’

  ‘Well it is.’

  ‘Think about it, anyway.’

  ‘I will. Thanks. And if you’re writing to Venetia, send her my love.’

  ‘I will.’

  Jamie turned round in his swivel chair and looked out across the New York skyline. It never ceased to astonish him: the speed with which it grew. There was a race on now to get the already famous Empire State built; it was to be the tallest building in the world. As the Woolworth Building had been in its day, sixty storeys high, now looking almost homey, with its Gothic tower. Robert Lytton’s company had worked on many of the new skyscrapers; Jamie often wondered why he hadn’t taken the easy route and joined the firm. A desire to get away from family politics, he supposed, the ugly backdrop of his entire childhood. Life working for another real estate company as he did, concerned with the domestic market, was a great deal easier. He thought of his brother, with his fanatical drive to perform better than their father, working twelve, fourteen, sometimes sixteen hours a day at the family bank, and was grateful not to share any of those genes.

  Funny to think of a new generation of Lyttons; Jamie tried to imagine himself into the position of family man and failed totally. He wondered what this Warwick guy was like; Maud had never met him, but she thought a lot of her twin cousins. ‘I’m sure he must be very nice. And he’s a lucky man, Venetia is so beautiful and such fun.’

  Jamie wished briefly, as he did on all such occasions, that Laurence was a more normal person, that he could telephone him and tell him he had a new English step-cousin, and maybe they should send some flowers; but, he was so used by now to Laurence’s obsessive hatred towards the Lyttons that the thought was gone almost before he had formed it.

  ‘Maud says she’s coming over. Isn’t that heaven?’

  Adele smiled dutifully at her sister, said it would indeed be heaven. She found it hard to think in such terms at the moment; she was in a strange mood, not quite depressed, but dull, downhearted. Her sister’s sudden propulsion into marriage and motherhood had shaken her; had left her not only jealous, but oddly bereft. She hadn’t minded so much about Boy Warwick, because she knew she was still first in Venetia’s life and heart; for both of them, there had always been other people, other relationships, siblings, friends, lovers even: and then – each other. That relationship was untouchable; an island in each of their lives that they had always inhabited quite alone, and only together. But with the arrival of Henry everything had suddenly changed. For the first time, Venetia told her, very clearly and almost cruelly, when she went to visit her the day after Henry had been born, that now she loved someone more than she loved Adele.

  ‘Something has changed,’ she said, lying back on her pillows, frail and shaken by her baptism of pain, ‘and you have to know about it. It’s important I tell you. I – well, I seem to care more about Henry than I do about anything in the world. Even – even—’

  ‘Me?’

  Venetia nodded. ‘Yes. Even you.’

  ‘I understand. That’s quite all right,’ said Adele, almost formally polite. But it wasn’t: she went home and wept heavy tears of grief and loss and something close to fear. She felt that the centre of her life had gone, that her heart had been wrenched out of her; and that there was no one to talk to, no one who could possibly understand. And then two or three days later, she had wandered rather listlessly into the drawing room and Sebastian had been there, waiting for her father; he had kissed her and congratulated her on the baby and said, ‘It must be hard for you.’

  She had looked up startled, thinking, fearing, he might mean that Venetia was a wife and a mother and she was not, but there was a great thoughtfulness in his blue eyes, and an extraordinary understanding.

  ‘Well – yes,’ she had said, brave enough to be honest, ‘yes, a bit. I’m – well, it’s nice that you understand.’

  ‘Of course. Of course I do. You’ve been moved. From your rightful place.’

  ‘Only it isn’t rightful. Any more,’ Adele said and found herself crying again. ‘I never thought, I never dreamed—’

  He kissed her. ‘Poor darling. But – you have only moved across. I’m sure you’ll find that. Not down. Not further away. Just to a different place in the circle. That wonderful charmed circle you and Venetia live in.’

  ‘Used to live in. I feel so – ashamed. For feeling like this.’

  He kissed her again. ‘Don’t be. It would be extraordinary if you didn’t.
Tell you what, how about coming out to lunch with me? I could do with cheering up. Pandora’s away for a few days, some ridiculous meeting in Scotland. Would you like that?’

  Adele said she would; and went to get ready, wondering how on earth someone who not only had no twin, but no siblings of any kind, could even begin to understand her sense of loss. Clearly his imagination was an extremely powerful thing. She supposed it must be something to do with him being a writer.

  She had felt better after that; but she was very aware of a new need for someone of her own, someone she could care for as much as herself. It was important. For a while she had dreamed of – in a foolish, almost schoolgirlish way – Luc Lieberman, had remembered his suggestion that she came to Paris, the oddly strong feelings he had evoked in her, and had almost imagined him to be in love with her; but a few months later her father mentioned a woman, clearly his mistress, whom he had brought to a literary party in Paris, and hurt and angry – very angry – she had forced him out of her head.

  There had been other men, other romances of course; men she had flirted and danced with, and laughed and teased for the past year, men she had liked and enjoyed, had even tried to imagine herself in love with, but they had not been enough, had not been right. She was in need of, if not marriage, something else; status, a life of her own. And she seemed unable to find it.

  The obvious solution, work, with what seemed its inevitable consequence, a life at Lyttons, had no appeal for her. She felt no interest in books or their creation; and besides, there were various disagreeable aspects of life at Paternoster Row, the ongoing confict between Giles and their mother, the inevitable comparisons of her own efforts with Barty’s – already a junior editor – which made it even less attractive. Of alternative careers, other work, she had no concept; a few of her married friends did charitable work, but that had no appeal for her and her unmarried ones were entirely occupied in their search for and pursuit of husbands. And so she moved fretfully through her days, bored, lonely, shopping and gossip the only outlet for her restless intelligence, wondering quite what was to become of her.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Venetia to her now.

  ‘Matter? Nothing. Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Dell! There is. Tell me. Come on.’

  ‘Oh – I don’t know. I’m a bit—’

  ‘Lonely?’ Venetia’s dark eyes were tender, thoughtful. ‘I’m sorry, Adele, so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ She was not to be an object of sympathy; that did not suit her at all. ‘I’m absolutely fine. But – well, bored I suppose, not having a husband and all that sort of thing to occupy me, I want something to do. And I can’t think what.’

  ‘Not—’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Adele firmly.

  ‘Good. I’d hate that. Let’s think.’ She stroked Henry’s small head, smiled down at him; then hauled her attention visibly back to Adele. ‘There must be lots of things.’

  ‘There aren’t,’ said Adele. ‘Really.’

  ‘Of course there are. Everybody’s working these days. It’s the new fun, it says in Vogue.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I mean you could do up people’s houses, like—’

  ‘Lady Colefax. Yes, well, I suppose so . . .’

  ‘Such fun, she says. Or you could do flowers for people, like Catherine Mann.’

  ‘She’s getting married to—’

  ‘I know. Just think, Catherine, a marchioness.’

  ‘Let’s not talk about getting married,’ said Adele fretfully.

  ‘You started—’

  ‘I know. Anyway—’

  ‘Or look at Constance Spry, she does flowers too. You’d be awfully good at it, I think.’

  Adele looked at her and smiled. ‘Mummy would be so cross. If I did something like that.’

  ‘I know. All the more—’

  ‘Wouldn’t it. Huge rash of Barty-itis. Anyway you’ve had far more ideas than I have. Thank you.’ Adele stood up and kissed her. ‘I must go. Important appointment at the hairdresser.’

  ‘Don’t—’

  ‘I won’t,’ Adele smiled, waved and left. Outside, starting the car – the car that marked the end of their childhood as she now saw it – she reflected with a flash of irritation that there really was no reason why she should not change her hair. Without telling Venetia. She had changed their whole lives after all. A few waves or inches here or there were hardly comparable.

  It couldn’t last. It really couldn’t. Common sense spoke out most firmly against it. And yet – yet it seemed to be going on for ever. This incredible rise and rise in the stock market, day after day, week after week. There had been no summer lull in Wall Street that year; in June Industrials had risen 52 points, in July another 25. Four to five million shares were traded on the Wall Street stock exchange daily. Endless new stocks were floated almost hourly.

  Laurence Elliott, sitting at his desk in the fine building that was Elliotts Bank, on one of the endless stifling mornings that summer, reflected that Americans living in God’s own country as they did, with all its great bounty of freedom and opportunity, had lately developed another, more dangerous belief, that of an inalienable right to ever-increasing prosperity. They bought stock, they bought shares, they bought into investment trusts, and the value soared ever onwards and upwards, and they were no longer surprised or even grateful: that was simply what happened. Fortunes were made, if not overnight, then certainly over a few weeks; risk was no longer recognised, it was an out-dated, discredited commodity.

  Laurence wondered what his father and indeed his grandfather, the founder of Elliotts, would have made of it all; what view they would have taken of this heady, greedy era, of the dizzy rise of borrowing both by individuals and corporations, the near hysterical railing against anyone who expressed even a hint of concern over the situation.

  No less a person than Chairman Mitchell of the National City Bank had several times expressed anger at anyone who dared to question, never mind criticise, the rise in brokers’ loans – these were the most common cause for concern, and rising at a rate of $400,000,000 a month.

  Laurence felt fairly confident that his father at least would have erred on the side of caution; on the other hand he had had a famously cool head, had ridden out the great crisis of 1907 in a joint venture with JP Morgan and several of the other great banks, pouring money into the stock exchange and persuading his customers to leave their money where it was, rather than rushing in panic to get it out. Jonathan Elliott was a legend still on Wall Street, twenty years after his death, even more so than old Mr Samuel, as he was known at the bank; he had had more vision, more courage, more capacity for lateral thought than any of his contemporaries. Had he lived, everyone said, there was no limit to what he would have achieved; but he had died of cancer at the height of his powers.

  It was Laurence’s greatest regret now that he had been unable to know his father in his professional capacity. His grief at his loss at the age of twelve, his anger at his mother for marrying again only two years later, his bitter hatred of Robert Lytton his stepfather, his resentment at his younger brother for accepting that stepfather, his loathing for his small half sister, and his dreadful ongoing anger at the next pregnancy that had killed his mother – all these things, dulled only slightly with time, still left him railing against the fate which had deprived him of the chance to absorb at first hand the financial skills and near-genius that his father had possessed.

  Nevertheless, he had inherited many of them; along with some of Samuel Elliott’s more cautious wisdom. Old timers on Wall Street admired him, said that they would both have been proud of him. What they also said, privately, was that they would not necessarily have liked him very much: if indeed they had liked him at all. A view with which Robert Lytton, who had experienced the not unmixed blessing of marrying Laurence’s mother, would have most wholeheartedly concurred.

  Both Samuel and Jonathan Elliott had made happy marriages and enjoyed family life w
hich had tempered, however slightly, their personal ambition. Laurence, absolutely alone in the world, cut off ruthlessly and at his own instigation not only from his brother but from his stepfather and half sister, nurtured a savage and almost obsessive professional ambition; success and the recognition of that success was his prime, indeed his only, concern. To see Elliotts Bank rising ever higher in the financial firmament, to observe his own personal fortune increase hugely year by year, to be marked as one of the most brilliant and ingenious minds on Wall Street, served for him as substitute for family, for friendship – and for love.

  He was, at the age of thirty-three, unmarried and unattached. Women, endlessly attracted to him by his hard-etched looks, his patent sensuality, his superb physique, his dazzling dress sense, found themselves for the most part rebuffed. He was bored by young girls, however pretty, and was openly impatient with ambitious hostesses who sought his presence at their dinner tables and cocktail parties; he rejected any effort to be coerced onto charity committees, or into cultural circles, and went out of his way to inform the mothers of debutantes that he intended to remain single until he was at least forty, ‘and probably beyond that’.

  When pressed by the braver souls among them for his reasons, he would reply by misquoting Oscar Wilde and saying that his own company amused him more than most other people’s. The only female company he courted was that of clever, married women bored by their husbands, but with no intention of actually leaving them; he had had several affairs with such ladies, and found them entirely satisfactory. Married women, he had been heard frequently to observe, were better in bed than their single sisters. They were less demanding emotionally and absorbed a great deal less time and trouble. ‘You can’t even buy them much in the way of gifts,’ he said in a rare drunken moment (Laurence Elliott liked to remain absolutely in control), ‘they can’t wear the jewellery, can’t use the cigarette cases, can’t even display the flowers; the most you can get away with is underwear. And I don’t mind buying that.’