Scruples

by Judith Krantz

  Billy had never been south of Philadelphia before. When she stepped out of the air-conditioned plane into the humid, voluptuous, spicy air of Barbados she entered a new dimension of the senses. The touch of the stealthy wind was insinuating; the unfamiliar ripe smell of the earth was sweetly stimulating and taunting, giving Billy a sense of breathing things she understood at once but could never fully know. She was disoriented by the island itself, the swift drive on the wrong side of narrow, winding roads, bordered by pastel shantytowns and deep-green scrub, ending in the pillared, arched elegance of the old bricks of Shady Lane. Her suite opened directly onto the wide, tree-shaded beach. It seemed to her that she could see 180 degrees of horizon, with piles of yellow and violet clouds riding far away just above the lowering sun.

  Mr. Ikehorn had told her that she had just enough time to buy everything she needed for a two-day stay from the arcades of shops in the hotel and, sticky in her wool suit, she hastily chose several simple silk shifts, sandals, underwear, a bikini, a nightgown, a bathrobe, and toilet articles from the drugstore. She charged them all to her room and hurried back in time to see the sun set in a frightening burst of beauty before night fell abruptly and millions of native insects instantly set up a nerve-racking combination of a chirp and a screech. She was relieved to find a message from Mr. Ikehorn under her door, which instructed her to order dinner from room service and go to bed early. They would start the meeting right after breakfast the next day. She was to be ready promptly at seven.

  For the next two days, while Ikehorn and his two South American division heads met and talked for hours on end, she and a Brazilian secretary took rapid notes, put through phone calls, and, while the men had lunch together, managed to steal a few hasty swims in the warm, seductive water in which stinging corals lurked under the clean sand. Nina, the girl from Brazil, spoke excellent English, and she and Billy ate their meals together at a small table placed a good distance from the three men. They all dined on the great curve of outdoor terrace overlooking the sea, lit only by hundreds of candles. The hotel was more than half empty and would remain so until the Christmas season when it would be packed with families who had made their reservations at least a year in advance.

  On the third morning the South Americans flew off at dawn, back to Buenos Aires, and Ikehorn alerted Billy to be ready to leave by noon. When the chief pilot called toward midmorning to inform them that the weather had changed and that hurricane warnings had been posted, they hardly needed telling. A sheet of rain, with no space visible between the drops, was already falling between their windows and the beach. The branches of the stunted trees that bore small poisonous fruit were dragging in the sand.

  “You might as well take a break, Wilhelmina,” Ellis Ikehorn finally said. “This is only going to let up when it lets up. It’s the hurricane season all over the Caribbean this time of year—that’s why the hotel’s so empty. I thought we’d get off in time, but it’s too late now.”

  “Actually, Mr. Ikehorn, it’s Billy—what people call me, I mean. Nobody calls me Wilhelmina. That’s just my name, but I don’t use it. I didn’t think I should mention it while Mr. Valdez and Mr. de Heiro were here.”

  “You should have thought of that sooner. You’re Wilhelmina as far as I’m concerned. Or do you hate it?”

  “No sir, not at all. It just sounds odd.”

  “Yup. Well, tell you what, call me Ellis. That’s an odd name too.”

  Billy was silent. There had been no rules at Katie Gibbs about this. What would Jessie do? What would Madame de Vertdulac do? What would Aunt Cornelia do? Jessie, she thought, in the blink of an eye, would probably go so droopy that shed’d melt, the Cometsse would favor him with her most enigmatic smile, and Aunt Cornelia would call him Ellis, without further ado. Billy found herself combining all three reactions.

  “Eliis, why can’t we walk in the rain? Would it be dangerous or something?”

  “Don’t know. Let’s go see. Got a raincoat? No, of course you don’t. Never mind, put on your bathing suit.”

  Billy’s idea of a walk in the rain was based on a drizzle on the Boston Common. This was like standing under a warm waterfall. They had to hold their heads down to avoid choking on the falling water, and they both ran, instinctively, toward the ocean and plunged in, as if the sea would protect them from the rain. Three waiters, caught by the rain, huddled under the beach bar and snickered at the crazy tourists splashing around in the shallow water for a few blinding minutes before they gave up, raced back over the sticky sand, and disappeared into their respective rooms.

  When they met for lunch Billy blurted, “My God, Ellis, I’m sorry. What a dumb idea! I almost drowned and your raincoat was soaked through.”

  “I haven’t had so much fun in—too long a time. And you ruined your hair.”

  Billy’s thick, long hair, which had been carefully bouffant and sprayed with lacquer in the early Jackie Kennedy style was now towel-dried and fell heavily to her shoulders. She wore a hot-pink shift and her skin was lightly tanned from her lunchtime swims. Never in her entire life had she been so beautiful and she knew it.

  Ellis Ikehorn felt keenly the weight of the ironic distance he maintained between himself and other people. It seemed to be dissolving or fading away into the air of the air-conditioned indoor dining room where the hurricane still seemed to quiver. Dan, he reflected wryly, had told him to indulge himself, but even that pussy-fixated man wouldn’t mean with a girl in her twenties, a Boston Winthrop, Dr. Josiah Winthrop’s daughter.

  As they chatted casually and pleasantly through a leisurely lunch, both Billy and Ellis Ikehorn drifted in and out of five distant states of mind, neither aware of the other’s thoughts. On one level they were taking the basic inventory of any new acquaintance, asking and answering carefully superficial questions about each other’s lives. On another level, as all people do without thinking about it, they were taking note of the other’s physicality: details of skin texture, muscle tone, directness of gaze, movements of the lips over teeth, luster of hair, mannerisms, gestures, everything the greedy, constantly judging eye can register. On a third level they were each thinking of getting the other into bed. Not if. Just how and when. On a fourth level they were each thinking of all the excellent and compelling reasons why they would not, should not, must not seriously contemplate such a thing. And on the fifth level, the rock bottom, they were both filled with the clear and thrilling knowledge that no matter how many reasons there were against the idea, it was simply going to happen. Something had been set in motion as they ran together through that warm, heavy rain, a sensual connection had been born that years of knowing each other might never have brought about. They had skipped every one of the normal preliminaries, and as they ate their civilized lunch, the great man unbending to put his young secretary at her ease, the secretary displaying becoming poise and breeding, combined with the proper respect for the great man, they were both as much in rut as any male and female could be.

  That condition, no matter how it is covered over by convention and prohibition, has rarely, if ever, failed to become evident. Words are not necessary. Humans still retain enough of their animal perceptions to feel when they want and are wanted.

  After lunch Ikehorn suggested that Billy should get some rest while he made preliminary evaluations of his Brazilian meetings. The phone service was out and he had no more letters for her. Actually he was fighting for time. He needed to put some distance between himself and this woman. He was a man whose acquisitive instincts had formed his life from his earliest memories. His success was based as much on following his drive to acquire as on his business genius. He had honed down to the last percentage point a philosophy that dealt with just how much he really wanted anything in this world. To Ellis Ikehorn, certain things weren’t worth more than a 58 percent investment of time plus a 45 percent investment of energy. Others were worth a 70 percent investment of time but only a 20 percent investment of energy. When he went after a new business it had to be on
e that, putting aside all purely financial considerations, caused him to be willing to give it 80 percent of both his available time and energy. Otherwise, he had proven to himself, the move was bound to be a wrong one, no matter how promising it appeared.

  Wilhelmina Winthrop? He didn’t know whether to feel like an old fool or a young fool, but he wanted her 100 percent. He couldn’t remember when he’d last thought something was worth 100 percent. Certainly nothing after the first five, maybe ten million. He paced the sitting room of his suite, damning Dan Dorman, damning Lindy Force, damning the hurricane, happier than he’d been in dozens of years and without any idea of what to do next.

  Billy sat in front of her dressing table brushing her hair. She had decided that she was going to have Ellis Ikehorn. Calculation did not enter into her decision; it came directly from her heart and her cunt. She wanted him, and no matter how almost unthinkable it was, she was going to get him and get him now, before anything happened to change the opportunity the weather had given her. The pupils of her eyes narrowed in concentration, her lips, without lipstick as always, were a deeper rose than usual and she bit them to keep them from trembling. Moving precisely, as if in a preordained pattern, she put on her transparent, white lawn bathrobe over her completely naked body and strode boldly, a huntress with bare feet, across the empty corridor to the door of his suite.

  Before he opened to her knock he knew who it was. She stood silent, unsmiling, very tall. He drew her into the room, locked the door behind them, and took her in his arms without a word. They stood together for a time, not kissing, just pressing tightly against the firm length of the other’s body like two people who meet after an absence too long to be interrupted by mere words. Then she led him by the hand into his bedroom in which the curtains had been drawn against the storm. Two bedside lamps were already glowing. Suddenly, they fell on the bed, ripping off the few clothes they wore, consumed with a lust that knew no barriers, no hesitancies, no pride, no age, no limits. Time out of mind.

  The hurricane lasted two more days. From her room Billy fetched her handbag, her hairbrush, and her toothbrush. From time to time they got out of bed, ordered from room service, and peered out at the wind- and rain-battered beach, both dreading the moment when it would stop. As long as the cocoon of the hurricane enclosed them, there was no other world. They thought that they had pushed all memory of it out of their minds, but, always, it was there. Not once in the endless, intense flow of conversation did they refer to the future. On the third morning Billy awoke knowing that the sun must be shining outside. They could hear dozens of men raking the beach, several carpenters already at work, dogs barking as they chased each other in the sand.

  Ellis signaled Billy not to pull open the curtains and picked up the phone to tell the operator not to put through any calls.

  “How long can we play hurricane, my darling?” she asked wistfully.

  “That’s exactly what I’ve been meditating on since five this morning. I woke up then and saw that the rain had stopped. We’re going to talk about it.”

  “Before breakfast?”

  “Before anything or anyone from the outside world comes into this room. The minute that happens we’ll stop thinking straight. The only thing that matters is what you and I decide. Now, today, we can make our own choice.”

  “Is that really possible?”

  “It’s one of the things that money can buy. I’ve never fully understood that before. We have the freedom to choose.”

  “What do you choose?” She hugged her knees with her elbows, intensely curious. Even in the midst of a business meeting she had never seen him so concentrated, so powerful.

  “You. I choose you.”

  “But you have me, don’t you know that yet? The sun won’t change it. I don’t melt.”

  “I’m not talking about an affair, Wilhelmina. I want to marry you. I want you for the rest of my life.”

  She nodded, stunned, incapable of speech, her whole being instantly assenting to an idea that had not consciously entered her mind until that second. Although they had spent the last two days in the perfect equality of nakedness and passion, in the back of her mind she had always discounted a future. Too much separated them, too many years, too much money. She had accepted the inequality of their positions because she had grown up trained to live with inequality. She had not dared to hope beyond the present because she had learned that hope was dangerous. She had given herself freely, without expectations, because she had wanted this man. Now she loved him.

  “What does that mean? Yes or no?” Her nod could have meant either, he thought, as unhinged as a boy.

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes yes!” She launched herself at him and pulled him down on the bed, pounding him with her fists to emphasize her point.

  “Oh, my darling! My darling, darling! We’re not leaving this island until we’re married. I’m afraid you might change your mind. We’ll keep it as secret as possible. We can stay here for our honeymoon—or forever if you like. I’ll just have to make one call to poor Lindy. She’ll know what to do.”

  “Do you mean I can’t have a church wedding in a long, white dress with eight cousins for bridesmaids and Lindy to give you away?” she teased him. “It would be one of the events of the year in Boston—Aunt Cornelia would see to that.”

  “Boston! When this gets out it’ll be in every paper in the country. ‘Elderly Millionaire Marries Child Bride’—we’ll have to be prepared for that. How old are you anyway, darling, twenty-six, seven?”

  “What day is this?”

  “November second. Why?”

  “I’m twenty-one, as of yesterday,” she said proudly.

  “Oh Jesus,” he groaned, burying his head in his hands. After a minute he began to laugh, unable to stop, gasping “Happy Birthday” at intervals, which only set him off once more. Finally Billy had to join in the laughter herself. He was such a sight, doubled up like that. She just didn’t understand what was so terribly funny.

  During the next seven years no public-relations department in the world could have kept Billy and Ellis Ikehorn from being in the public eye. To the millions of people who read about them and saw the frequent newspaper and magazine pictures of the magnificently dressed, aristocratic, young beauty and the lean, tall, white-haired man with the hawk nose, the Ikehorns seemed to be the essence of what being in the great world of wealth and power is all about. The thirty-eight-year difference in their ages and Billy’s patrician, historic Boston background added a degree of rampant, romantic titillation that was missing in more evenly matched society couples.

  Speculation never ceased on the question of whether Billy had married Ellis for his money. Obviously, knowing the circles they lived in, both of them realized that this deliciously vile question simply had to be somewhere in the minds of everyone they met and that most people would assume money had been the motivating force. But only two or three people knew how much Billy loved Ellis, how totally she depended on him.

  But would she have married him if he had been poor? This was basically a meaningless speculation. Ellis was the man he was because he was immensely rich. Or perhaps he was immensely rich because he was the man he was. Without money he would have been someone else entirely. It was as futile an exercise as asking if Robert Redford would still be Robert Redford if he were ugly, or Woody Allen the same Woody Allen if he lacked a sense of humor.

  Six months after their marriage in Barbados the Ikehorns went to Europe on what was the beginning of their many travels. Their first stop was Paris, to which Billy wanted to return in triumph, and triumph she did. A four-room suite at the Ritz, facing on the noble symmetry of the Place Vendôme, became their base for a month. Their rooms had great high ceilings, walls tinted in the most delicate “château” tones of blue and gray and green, superbly intricate moldings picked out in gold leaf, and the most comfortable beds on the Continent. Even Ellis Ikehorn, for all his anti-French bias, had to admit that it wasn’t a bad place to stay.

  Lili
anne de Vertdulac had seen Billy off on the boat train back to the United States just about two years before. Now she gasped in surprise as she saw the changes that so little time had made in the girl. It was something, she thought, like seeing pictures of the young Farah Diba, that lovely, almost lanky, shy and unassuming student, soon after she had been transformed into the absolute and unquestioned consort of the emperor of Iran. The same face, the same body but an altogether different air, something touchingly new in the way she moved and looked at those about her, something unexpectedly splendid, tentatively imperial, yet wholly natural.

  Now Billy, too, saw a side of the Comtesse emerge that was a complete novelty in her experience of that lady. Lilianne flirted with Ellis as if they were both no more than twenty-three, found nothing more endearing than his uneasy attempts to speak a few words of French, called him frequently and under almost any circumstances “my poor darling,” and freely exhibited her command of Oxford-accented English. She accepted Billy as an adult woman, called her Wilhelmina the way Ellis did, and insisted on being called by her own first name, which Billy found, at first, strangely difficult to do.

  Ellis escorted the two women to all the couture collections. They asked the concierge at the Ritz to arrange, by phone, for their invitation cards to each showing, as is the custom when tourists visit Paris, but their place in the showrooms was not a detail the concierge could guarantee. The same haughty directrices who had, only a few years earlier, granted the Comtesse seats during the fifth or sixth week of showings, and not necessarily good seats at that, took one look at Ellis, a great tanned chieftain in a Savile Row suit, barely bothered to register Billy and Lilianne with peripheral vision, and instantly led the three of them to the best seats in the house. A couture directrice can spot a rich and generous man almost before he comes through the door; some say she must be able to smell him at a hundred paces—blindfolded—in order to really merit her job.