The Unfortunates

by Laurie Graham

  ‘Thank goodness he met you, Poppy,’ Bobbity often said to me. ‘Otherwise we’d have lorst him to Africa.’

  Bobbity’s days centered around horses and dogs. She was in a perpetual state of letting them out or bringing them in. It was a sadness to her, I know, that I would never be persuaded closer to a horse than observing it from inside the morning-room windows. A horse, to my mind, lacked all the advantages of a roadster or an airplane, and was equipped with an arsenal of dangerous features such as whimsy and temperament.

  Bobbity, though, seemed to have been born to the saddle. Out of it she was bulky and ponderous. Even in the hip-skimming gunmetal chiffon tube I created for her to wear to the Quorn Hunt Ball, she had the look of a retreating rhinoceros. But on horseback she was transformed.

  ‘Bobbity’s an odd name,’ I observed one day.

  ‘Got it because I mastered the rising trot so young,’ she explained. ‘I’m Marigold on paper. Funny, we’re both flowers.’

  Bobbity’s younger sister was a flower, too. Angelica Bagehot. She became my friend, though having a friend in Meltun Merbrey was nothing like New York or Paris. There was nowhere to get a manicure or shop for scent. There were no lunch counters where you could sit on high stools and gossip. But sometimes, at breakfast, Bobbity would say, ‘Angelica may heck over today’ and I could look forward to a little girlish company.

  Hecking was when you rode your horse along the metaled road, as distinct from riding crorse-country. Within six months I was quite fluent in English.

  I settled as best I could into the position of junior mistress of Kneilthorpe. I overcame the cold by spending a great deal of the day in bed, and solved the problem of my constant hunger by establishing my authority in the kitchen. Bobbity had no interest in food, except soup, which she believed could be made out of anything.

  I peeled off paper money for the girl who did the ordering and Angelica obtained recipes from the Bagehots’ cook, and before long cake was making daily appearances.

  During the season she hunted, but in the summer Angelica and I would play tennis, and when we were rained off, or ‘orf’ as I learned to say, we’d play checkers instead or dance to records. She had led a very sequestered life and I was able to teach her all kinds of things, from the wild, darkie dances I’d learned from Badgirl Duprée to the best way to avoid babies.

  ‘But why would one want to?’ she asked. ‘I can’t wait to have babies.’

  Social life at Kneilthorpe was feast or famine. Between April and the end of the summer nothing much happened, but in September the pace started to quicken. Once or twice a week Bobbity would go cub-hunting, riding off wearing what she called ‘ret cetcher’ and I would call a good tweed jacket. I believe the point of cub-hunting was to teach the fox cubs what was expected of them when the true hunting season began. Then the season opened and Bobbity changed into a much more flattering costume. Some of the ladies wore skirts and veiled hats, but Bobbity rode astride and looked a picture. She had a black frock coat and a canary vest. I would have taken up fox-hunting myself if I could have dispensed with the horse.

  People came to stay during the season, to hunt and sometimes to shoot pheasant, which was Reggie’s preferred sport. House guests were put up in the many bedrooms we had at Kneilthorpe, all as cold as the grave, and after dinner they played billiards or cards. We never played Truth or drank champagne wine or had any kind of scandale. They were dull types, and I especially disliked the way they ran off all the hot water. The only time I ever recall being cross with Reggie was when I was unable, because of this selfish behavior, to bathe before dinner. I asked for a tray in my rum.

  ‘I don’t know, old thing,’ he said. ‘It’d be pretty bad form. And it doesn’t matter if you haven’t bathed, you know? Bobbity hasn’t, and she’s been in the saddle all day.’

  Then he discussed it with his brother, quite within earshot of our door.

  ‘I think you’ll find,’ said Sir Neville, ‘she’ll come nicely to the bridle when she’s hungry.’

  Humpy did come to Kneilthorpe, just once. He said he’d come to see me, but I believe the truth centered around a rather handsome johnny called Gordie.

  A party came down for shooting, and the small select group included Gordie, who actually owned a castle, and the P of W, who stood to inherit the whole country.

  Then Humpy arrived looking altogether too debonair for shooting.

  ‘Look at you!’ he said. ‘You’ve gone native!’

  I hadn’t at all gone native, but when you have slow circulation woolen socks are a great comfort.

  I said, ‘Are you really going to shoot?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I may ride out with the lunch wagon and catch up on old times. Gordie and I go back a long way.’

  I said, ‘What about the P of W? I’d hoped to get acquainted with him but he hasn’t paid me the least attention. None of them have. All they do is count dead birds.’

  But Humpy said he had absolutely no pull with the royals. He asked whether I missed Paris.

  ‘Not a bit,’ I lied. I said, ‘I’m so happy with Reggie.’ That much was the truth.

  Humpy reported that Gil had disappeared from rue Vavin, Hannelore Ettl was living in my house with a Dutch hermaphrodite, and Stassy’s neckties were on sale in Samaritaine.

  ‘And I suppose your babies will be joining you any moment?’ he said.

  That was the big unanswered question.

  Reggie wanted us to do the right thing. But ‘the right thing’ could be viewed in different lights. Though Bobbity and Sir Neville had given their full approval to the introduction of children, I feared they would find, as I had, that the reality was more inconvenient than the prospect. Then, perhaps Sapphire and Emerald liked growing up in New York and would react badly to being transplanted. And perhaps my sister wouldn’t bear to be parted from them. A photograph had arrived, the two girls posed on cushions side by side, not babies anymore, and Honey behind them, with an arm around each child, and a challenging light in her eye.

  ‘Come and get them,’ she seemed to be saying, ‘if you dare.’

  ‘The thing is,’ I had explained to Reggie, ‘my sister will need time to get used to the idea.’

  ‘Oh, quite so,’ he said. ‘Absolutely. But sometimes what seems cruel is actually kind. I’ve seen it with bitches. No matter how devoted they are, there comes a time when they’re actually pretty relieved to see the back of the whelps.’

  I said, ‘Perhaps we should go to New York? Kind of ease ourselves in?’

  ‘I’d have to put it to Merrick,’ he said. ‘See when I can be spared.’

  But another summer came and went. Sir Neville grew more and more gaunt, Bobbity had the girl turn great quantities of sour plums into great quantities of a condiment called chutney, and Bullyboy Beluga was stung by wasps. Then one fall morning, as I looked out of the morning-room windows, I saw a boy riding a pedal cycle up the gravel sweep. He disappeared and reappeared on the gentle wind of the road and it must have been fully five minutes before he reached the door and handed in a telegram.

  ‘It’ll be bad news,’ the girl said. ‘Telegrams are always bad news.’

  The first bad news was the way the telegram was addressed. ‘To Her Highness Poppy Minton Merrick.’

  ‘RETURN NY IMMEDIATELY,’ it said. ‘FATHER DEAD.’ It was signed ‘GRACE’.

  ‘Will there be an answer?’ the girl wanted to know. ‘Walter always waits in case there’s an answer.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘No. I’ll let you know.’

  The fact was, I didn’t quite know what to make of it.

  ‘The Mrs can’t make her mind up,’ I heard the girl say. ‘Why don’t you come round to the kitchen for a cup of tea, Walter, while she’s pondering.’

  The signature was GRACE, which was Harry. But whose father’s death was he reporting? Not mine. Not his. And what had possessed him to address me in such a way? I saw Ma’s hand in that.

  For the rest of the mornin
g the telegram lay on the table, defying interpretation. Bobbity was out, hecking over to the Bagehot place to look at a hunter that was lame. And Reggie was in Meltun Merbrey with Neville, seeing the feed merchant. I was alone except for the servants. Eventually I saw the delivery boy ride away, full of tea and my sultana cake, no doubt.

  When Reggie and Neville returned from town they brought with them newspapers with gloomy reports about the United States.

  ‘Things sound to be pretty rocky over there,’ Reggie said. ‘The stock market took a fearful dive.’

  He suggested I send my own telegram to Harry, asking for clarification.

  ‘I’ll rush it over to the telegraphic office, drectly after luncheon,’ he said.

  I wanted to ride in the sidecar but he wouldn’t allow it.

  ‘Better not, old bean,’ he said. ‘I’m going to go like the clappers.’

  It was II p.m., an extraordinarily late hour for Kneilthorpe House, especially on the eve of a meet, when another telegram arrived.

  ‘HARRY DEAD,’ it said. ‘RETURN IMMEDIATELY. SHERMAN.’

  And so the facts began to emerge. A tragedy had befallen my brother-in-law, and my nephew, who in my mind’s eye still wore diapers, was suddenly old enough to send telegrams and give orders.

  ‘Well,’ said Reggie. ‘There we have it. Emerald and Sapphire must certainly be brought home now. How often things work out this way. One wonders and wonders what to do for the best, and eventually the answer becomes clear.’

  Bobbity said, ‘Will they be here before the end of the season?’

  Hunting took up an enormous amount of her time and I could understand she wouldn’t want children around, getting beneath horses’ hooves.

  But Reggie said, ‘I hope so. I hope they’ll be here absolutely as soon as possible. I think it’s going to be rather fun. Don’t worry about getting their quarters up to scratch. I’ll see to it. I’ll have the girl bring in a spare sister, to do some scrubbing and so forth. And I suppose we’d better alert Nanny Faulds.’

  There was then some discussion as to whether Nanny Faulds was merely old or desperately old. In any event, she had nannied at least two generations of Merricks and I was quite prepared to give her a chance with the next.

  How Reggie clung to me in the week before I set off.

  ‘Do hurry back, old sausage,’ he said, curving round me till we were like spoons in a box. ‘And while you’re gone I’m going to look into ponies. One can’t get them started too soon, and it’ll help to get Bobbity on side.’

  I said, ‘Isn’t she on side already?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But she and Neville aren’t accustomed to small fry. I’m sure it’s been a disappointment to them. Bobbity would have adored to have children.’

  I said, ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s obvious,’ he said. ‘Everyone loves tiddlers.’

  That was what Angelica said, too.

  ‘How many more shall we have, old turnip top?’ he said. ‘Let’s have a hyce full.’ ‘Hyce’ was the Merrick way of saying ‘house’.

  I douched three times that night, to make sure he didn’t make an immediate start on his project to sire a dynasty. Reggie could be very impractical at times.

  It was a melancholy scene, the day I left for Liverpool.

  Angelica came over, blowing her nose a great deal, Neville delayed going out so he could shake my hand, and Bobbity feigned busyness, coaxing a worm pill into Bullyboy Beluga, in order to maintain her stiff upper lip. Even the girl put on a clean apron and came and stood with the general outdoors man and the stable boy, all looking most affected. When I first arrived, the story that I was a widow, left with two small children, had been allowed to spread by natural means, and so I suppose they felt I had already had more than my share of tragedy.

  There was a freezing mist, right up to the window panes, and when I turned to take a last look at Kneilthorpe, it had disappeared already.

  Reggie went with me as far as Leicester.

  ‘Damn and blast it, I should be coming with you,’ he said, kissing me over and over through the train window, until I wished he had stayed on the gravel sweep and said his goodbyes with the rest. I knew my mission was to go to New York and return as soon as possible, but I hadn’t the faintest expectation of being able to do it. I hoped, or believed, that by the time I reached her side, Honey would be through her darkest hour.

  She would refuse to be parted from her angel lambkins, Ma would beg me to reconsider before I dragged them to a foreign land, and we would reach some kind of mutually satisfactory arrangement whereby she brought them to Kneilthorpe for a holiday each year. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before.

  THIRTY-SIX

  I sailed on my old friend the Aquitania, and all the talk was of who was ruined. I even began to wonder whether I was myself. I couldn’t understand how people could have money one minute and nothing the next, unless someone broke into the bank and carried it all off. As I trusted, Uncle Israel’s complicated precautions had kept my fortune out of harm’s way. It was Harry who had come a cropper, cashing in Honey’s treasury bonds, mortgaging everything they had, doing something called ‘buying on margin’. He had driven out to one of his empty Bay Shore properties and shot himself.

  Murray was waiting for me with this bleak story. He had come down to the pier to watch the old four-stacker come in to her berth. Whether he’d offered or whether he’d been sent, I don’t know. He was very formal with me.

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve come home to such sadness, Poppy,’ he said.

  I said, ‘Thank God Harry had the decency not to do it at home.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I see being an English lady hasn’t softened you any. I’m instructed to take you straight to Honey. Then onto 69th Street. Your Ma has the girls there, and I know how eager you’ll be to get reacquainted with them.’

  I said, ‘Why are you still mad at me for loaning them to Honey? If you only knew how she begged me to leave them behind.’

  He said, ‘You make them sound like a pair of gloves.’

  There was no way of telling, from the outside, that my sister’s house had been visited by tragedy. Everything looked the same as usual. As I climbed to the front stoop I could remember feeling just as affronted when Pa had been lost at sea but the milk still got delivered on time.

  ‘Anyhow,’ I said to Murray, ‘why did Sherman Ulysses wire me? Wasn’t that your job?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Sherman is head of this house now.’

  And I soon discovered what he meant. The stocky red-faced child who had seen off more nursemaids and governesses than I could count, had grown into a man. He had thin coppery hair and an earnest face. Sixteen years old. He was down in the kitchen carefully following a receipt from his Boy Scout Campfire Cookbook.

  ‘Aunt Poppy,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘Mother’s resting so I’m going to speak to you plainly while I can.’

  Then he turned to Murray.

  ‘Did you tell her?’ he asked.

  Murray shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘We haven’t had time for much,’ he said.

  ‘The thing is,’ Sherman said, wiping his hands on a kitchen cloth, ‘Mother has lost everything. She can’t be expected to support you a moment longer …’

  I saw red.

  I said, ‘I have never asked anyone to support me. And I’m here to tell her not to worry. I still have my fortune. I’ll buy her another house or whatever she needs.’

  ‘You’re missing my point,’ he said. ‘You have to take your children and raise them yourself. You’ve been helling around and pleasing yourself for long enough. It’s time those girls know who they belong to, and Murray agrees with me, don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ Murray said. ‘But Poppy knows that. There’s been bad feeling between us since the day she ran out on Emerald.’

  Those two pipsqueaks talking about me like that.

  I said, ‘Save your breath. I have a husband and a home
waiting for them in England. I was about to collect them anyway.’

  Sherman said, ‘You make them sound like a pair of repaired boots.’

  I saw a little something pass between him and Murray. How they must have rehearsed the way they were going to persecute me. I believed I’d grown accustomed to the world’s disapproval but the hurt of their criticism took me quite by surprise. I began to cry. And neither of them rushed to comfort me.

  Sherman returned to browning sausages in a pan, and Murray began to arrange a tray for tea.

  ‘Have your cry, Poppy,’ he said, ‘and then we’ll take this up to Honey. She’s asked for you every day.’

  My poor sister. She looked like she had had a quantity of stuffing removed from her. Her hair hadn’t been combed. Her wrap was crumpled. She reminded me of Ma during the ups and downs of 1912.

  I sat with her a while and seemingly managed to say every wrong thing in the book.

  ‘Don’t fret about money,’ I said. ‘I have plenty.’

  ‘I don’t care about money,’ she said. ‘I want Harry back.’

  ‘Why?’ I said. ‘He was nothing but a fool and a thief. I’ll bet you never saw your rose pearls again. And all those showgirls.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘I still want him back.’

  I said, ‘And don’t worry about Sapphire and Emerald. I’ll take them to England and raise them as Merricks.’

  ‘No!’ she said, and she grabbed my arm. ‘There’s no need to do anything hasty. In a day or two I’ll be feeling well enough to have them back here, and you can have Aunt Fish’s room and gradually the girls will grow to understand who you are. You have to give them time, Poppy. Lots of time.’

  I said, ‘Have you been preparing them for this? You knew they’d have to come to me eventually. You have been showing them my picture regularly?’

  She sank back against the day bed. Her silence confirmed my fears that she had not been following my instructions. I have often found in life that the only way to ensure a job is done properly is to do it yourself.