An Embarrassment of Riches

by Margaret Pemberton

  Isabel turned to Bridget. ‘I think it would be safer for Felix if we made our way to one of the lower decks,’ she said, as Alexander remained with his back towards them.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am.’

  She was holding a wriggling Felix in her arms and was only too happy at the prospect of moving to a safer position.

  Isabel began to lead the way but she had reckoned without Felix.

  ‘Want to stay!’ he protested lustily. ‘Want to play with the little boy.’

  Stasha also wanted to play. He had slipped free of Ariadne’s careless hold and was pulling on Felix’s leg as Bridget tried to walk away with him.

  Alexander, his attention momentarily caught by his son’s protests, turned his head.

  ‘Put Felix down,’ he said to Bridget. ‘He’s safe enough on the bridge for the moment. The race isn’t going to start until we get to Yonkers and open water.’

  There was absolutely nothing that Isabel could do, nor could she do anything when two photographers, one of them from the Herald, puffed their way up on to the bridge and began taking pictures of everyone present.

  As soon as Yonkers was reached and she had an excuse for removing both children from the bridge, she did so with all speed.

  The lower decks were crowded with festive Schermerhorns and De Peysters, Roosevelts and Astors.

  ‘The Jays and Goelets and Stuyvesants are aboard New Dawn,’ a pink-cheeked Bessie Schermerhorn said to her as she squeezed into one of the sumptuous lower saloons. ‘Is this the little boy who is Alexander’s orphaned nephew? The family resemblance is quite striking, isn’t it? He looks so much like dear Felix.’

  It was a day Isabel thought would never end. There had been screams of excitement tinged with fear from the Rosetta’s many passengers when the race proper began and by the time they reached Albany, the Rosetta ploughing a full hundred yards in front of the New Dawn, many ladies, Bessie included, were in a state of nervous collapse.

  Nor was the return trip any more restrained. Bands played, fireworks were set off from the prow, champagne ran like water.

  ‘Felix tired,’ Felix said to her tearfully. ‘Felix wants to sleep.’

  Isabel wanted to sleep too. For hours she had done her best to avoid Ariadne, and, as Ariadne had very quickly abandoned her pretence of supervising Stasha’s nurse, she had had to undertake that task as well.

  ‘Be sure you keep tight hold of his hand,’ she said to the English girl as the Rosetta approached her East River pier and the crowds who had come to enjoy the free spectacle could be clearly seen.

  Alexander was too swamped by newspapermen besieging him with questions as to the tactics he had used in order to win, to be able to escort either her, or his children, from the boat.

  ‘Just press straight through the crush,’ she instructed Bridget and Stasha’s nurse as they began to descend the gangplank. ‘The carriages will be waiting but we are going to have to push our way through.’

  As the crowd began to ‘ooh’and ‘aah’at the sight of the Rosetta’s passengers’dresses and jewellery, Isabel was relieved to see Karolyis uniformed footmen coming to their aid, making a passageway for them.

  Stasha and his nurse were behind her. She heard the girl cry out and turned round just in time to see Stasha almost swallowed up in the crush as the footmen, not realizing who they were, allowed the crowd to surge forwards after herself.

  ‘Pick up the little boy!’ she shouted to the nearest liveried figure as she saw Stasha stumble against a poorly clad youth with open sores on his face.

  The footman did as she demanded, but it took him some minutes to do so. He was assisted in his task by the youth who obligingly grabbed hold of Stasha and held him aloft. The footman plucked the struggling Stasha from him and Isabel turned with relief towards the waiting carriage.

  She was shamefacedly half-glad when Maura had still not returned by the day she was to leave the city with Bessie. She wrote her a long letter, explaining that she thought she had been acting for the best when she had accompanied Felix and Alexander aboard the Rosetta, and that neither she nor Alexander had been party to the photographs that had since been published in the Herald.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Maura returned from Washington in a state of stunned shock. The Washington Globe had given two full pages to the boat race between Alexander and Willie Rhinelander. And it had published photographs that the Herald had tactfully suppressed. A photograph of Felix innocently holding Ariadne Brevoort’s hand on the Rosetta’s bridge. A photograph of Ariadne with both Felix and Stasha. There were other photographs in plenty. There were photographs of Isabel with Felix, of Alexander deep in consultation with the Rosetta’s captain, of Leonard Jerome and his clutch of opera-singers and glamorous show-girls, of festive Schermerhorns, De Peysters and Roosevelts.

  ‘How could Isabel have done such a thing?’ Maura had whispered white-faced to Augusta Astor as she stared down at the photograph of Ariadne Brevoort and Felix. ‘How could she have betrayed my trust in her in such a way?’

  Augusta had no answer for her. New York society was well aware of the relationship between Alexander and Ariadne and the photograph of Ariadne with Alexander’s son was tantamount to a public declaration, on Alexander’s part, that he intended Ariadne to one day be Felix’s step-mother.

  ‘There may be an explanation,’ she had said with Christian charity. ‘Isabel loves you very much and …’

  ‘She can’t,’ Maura said starkly, appalled at the enormity of the realization. ‘She can’t possibly. No-one who loves me would have been a party to this photograph. No-one who loves me would have allowed my son to come within a mile of Ariadne Brevoort.’

  She had hoped against hope that when she returned to New York Isabel would have an explanation for her that would put things right between them. But Isabel wasn’t there.

  ‘She left with Mrs Schermerhorn two days ago,’ Haines said to her only minutes after she had entered the house. ‘She has left a letter for you, ma’am. I have put it on your desk.’

  Maura read the letter with shaking hands. It was an obvious attempt at explanation and yet it explained nothing and there was certainly no suitable apology for the photographs that had caused her so much pain.

  She sat still for a long moment. It wasn’t only Isabel who had behaved badly. It was Alexander as well. But she was accustomed to Alexander shocking and hurting her. She was not accustomed to Isabel doing so.

  Heavy-heartedly, she drew a sheet of notepaper from a drawer and picked up a pen. She had only just completed the words Dear Isabel when Haines coughed discreetly.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am. There is a young lady at the door in some distress. She has Mr Karolyis’s nephew with her.’

  Maura put down her pen. The girl could only be Stasha’s English nurse. Even Haines would not have described Ariadne as a ‘young girl’.

  ‘Ask her to come in to me, Haines.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Maura felt her heart beginning to beat in fast, light strokes. What on earth could the girl want? And why had she brought Stasha with her? Surely she realized that Alexander never brought Stasha to the house. She wondered what he would be like. On the photograph in the Globe his head had been half-turned away from the camera and she had only been able to make out that he was a sturdy little boy with a thatch of dark hair.

  A footman opened the door. ‘Miss Millbank, ma’am,’ he announced before withdrawing.

  A fair-haired young woman entered the room carrying in her arms the three-and-a-half-year-old Stasha, wrapped in a blanket.

  ‘He’s sick, Mrs Karolyis,’ she said without preamble. ‘Too sick for me to care for on my own. Mr Karolyis is away on a yachting trip and …’

  ‘But if he’s sick, why isn’t he in bed?’ Maura asked, rising to her feet, appalled. ‘Why on earth did you bring him here with you? You could have sent a message …’

  ‘The manager at the hotel says Stasha cannot stay there. Not w
hile he’s unwell. He says he has his other guests to consider and …’ She swayed slightly under her heavy load.

  ‘Lay him on a sofa,’ Maura said immediately, crossing the room towards her in order to help her.

  From beneath the blanket there came a pathetic whimpering. Gently the two of them lay him on a sofa. As the blanket fell away, it revealed a perspiration-soaked little face and fevered, disorientated eyes.

  ‘He’s burning up!’ Maura exclaimed in horror. ‘Have you had a doctor to him? What did the doctor say?’

  ‘The doctor said it was a summer cold and that I should give him plenty to drink and keep him well wrapped up.’

  Maura looked down at Alexander’s son. There were small pink discolorations on his face and hands – discolorations she was sure would soon be turning into spots.

  ‘It’s not a cold,’ she said decisively. ‘It’s chicken-pox.’

  Miss Millbank sucked in her breath. ‘Then I know when he was infected,’ she said in utter certainty. ‘It was the day of the race. There were crowds of sightseers at the pier when we disembarked and it was nearly impossible to push a way through to the carriages. Stasha was nearly submerged in the crowd and if it wasn’t for Lady Dalziel I shudder to think what would have happened to him. As it was, Lady Dalziel ordered a footman to retrieve him and to make a way for us, and an ill-looking boy in the crowd with sores on his face lifted Stasha up and handed him to the footman. The sores on his face must have been barely healed chicken-pox scabs.’

  ‘Very likely,’ Maura said in growing alarm. If that was when Stasha had become infected, then Felix might be infected too. And all because Isabel had been so irresponsible as to have taken them to a spectacle she had no business taking them to.

  ‘I can’t nurse him by myself,’ Miss Millbank was saying unhelpfully. ‘And where am I to take him?’

  ‘He must stay here.’ Looking down at Stasha, Maura knew that she had no choice. Even if there was somewhere else for him to go, he was too sick to be moved.

  She tugged the bell-pull. Dr Bridges would have to be called. A room separate from Felix’s and Natalie’s would have to be prepared for him. Caitlin or Bridget would have to nurse him.

  ‘Send for Dr Bridges immediately,’ she said to the footman who came in answer to her summons. ‘Have Caitlin and Bridget come down to me and see to it a room is prepared for a sick child.’

  She turned to a vastly relieved Miss Millbank. ‘You can leave matters with me now, Miss Millbank. Please don’t worry about anything. I will explain the situation to Mr Karolyis for you.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Karolyis. I’m most grateful.’

  As she left the room Maura wondered wryly just how she would explain to Alexander. No doubt he would say she should have insisted Stasha be allowed to stay on at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, even if it meant the management turning out all other guests. She wouldn’t put it past him to suggest that Stasha should have been taken to Ariadne’s. Whatever his comments, they wouldn’t be favourable. He had never brought Stasha to the Fifth Avenue mansion and he would not like him being there, no matter what the reason.

  While she waited for Caitlin and Bridget to come to her, and for Dr Bridges to arrive, she looked down at the child who had innocently caused her so much grief. Because of him, she and Alexander were again estranged, Felix no longer came first in Alexander’s affections and Tarna would never belong to her children or to her grandchildren. He was the root cause of all her unhappiness and she waited for a resurgence of the resentment and jealousy that she had felt so often in the past. None came. He was small and he was sick and her only instinct was to care for him.

  When Caitlin and Bridget entered the room, she said crisply, ‘I’m going to need one of you to care for an ill child. Whichever of you does so, you won’t be able to re-enter the nursery for fear of spreading the infection to Felix and Natalie.’

  ‘I’ll do it, madam,’ Caitlin said immediately.

  ‘Good. We need to get him in a warm bed as quickly as possible. Dr Bridges should be here very soon.’

  As they entered the bedroom that had been speedily prepared, she said to one of the maids hurrying in their wake, ‘I need a child’s nightshirt, a hot-bottle and plenty of freshly made lemonade.’

  The footman who had carried Stasha up the stairs, laid him gently on the bed. He began to whimper again, bewildered and frightened by all the strange faces.

  Maura reached him before Caitlin could do so.

  ‘There, there, my pet,’ she said soothingly. ‘There’s nothing to be alarmed about. You’ve been brought here because you’re not very well. My name is Maura and this other lady’s name is Caitlin. We’re going to put you to bed now and you’re soon going to feel well again, I promise.’

  He stopped crying and looked up at her. Maura felt her heart lurch in her chest. He didn’t look like Alexander in the way that Felix looked like Alexander. His hair wasn’t as dark as it had appeared to be on the photograph, and his eyes were blue, not grey. Yet there was something about him that was so much like Alexander that she wanted to cry.

  She held him close and hot little arms slid hesitantly and gratefully up and around her neck. She continued to hold him, rocking him gently, until the house-maid entered with the nightshirt and hot-bottle and lemonade.

  Ten minutes later he was tucked up in bed, one chubby hand still holding tightly on to hers. Fifteen minutes later Dr Bridges was with them.

  ‘How long has he had the fever?’ he asked as he removed his top hat and laid it on a chair.

  ‘I don’t know. He was under someone else’s care until half an hour ago, they think they know when he caught the contagion. They think it was ten days ago.’

  Dr Bridges was a tall, thin, aesthetic-looking man who rarely wasted words. He crossed to Stasha’s bed, pulled back the sheets and looked down at him.

  ‘I think it’s chicken-pox,’ Maura said in deep concern. ‘His nurse says that an ill-looking boy with sores on his face lifted him from the crowd after the Rosetta and New Dawn race …’

  Dr Bridges dropped the sheets loosely over Stasha’s tossing and turning, fever-ridden body. ‘It isn’t chicken-pox,’ he said briefly. ‘The child will have to be removed to a fever hospital immediately.’

  ‘No.’ Maura’s response was instant.

  The reputation of the fever hospitals was nearly as bad as those of the tenements. Having his son admitted into one of them was the very last thing Alexander would want. Or that she wanted.

  ‘I’m afraid you have no option, Mrs Karolyis,’ Dr Bridges said gravely. ‘The child isn’t suffering from chicken-pox. He’s suffering from smallpox.’

  ‘Smallpox?’ Maura felt as if she was going to faint. ‘How can you be sure? How can you tell?’

  ‘Chicken-pox rash begins on the body and only then spreads to the face and hands. This is smallpox, Mrs Karolyis. I haven’t a single doubt of it.’

  ‘Dear God,’ she whispered, her face bloodless. Felix had also been at the races. He, too, had been in the crowd that Stasha had stumbled into. ‘My son was with Stasha on the day he became infected,’ she said unsteadily. ‘Will you have a look at him, Dr Bridges?’

  ‘I will, but I would prefer it if you did not accompany me, Mrs Karolyis. No-one who has been in contact with the sick child should carelessly be in contact with anyone else for several days.’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’ Maura could hardly speak for fear. ‘If you call for a maid when you leave the room, she will take you to the nursery.’

  As he left the room Caitlin’s horrified eyes met hers. Maura knew exactly what she was thinking. Smallpox could kill. Even if it didn’t kill it could result in permanent blindness and it would certainly result in life-long facial disfigurement. And they had both handled the blanket and clothes Stasha had arrived in. They had both held his hand and stroked his forehead in an effort to soothe him. The very least the disease would do if they caught it was to destroy their looks for ever. And if Felix was incubating it, he cou
ld die.

  The next five minutes were the longest of her life.

  ‘There is no need for concern where the other two children are concerned,’ Dr Bridges said unequivocally as he re-entered the room. ‘As for this child, I will arrange for him to be admitted to a fever hospital immediately.’

  Maura shook her head, weak with relief over his verdict on Felix, her mind made up as to what she must do in regard to Stasha.

  ‘No,’ she said again. ‘As far as Caitlin and myself and the footman who carried Stasha up the stairs are concerned, the damage has already been done. I’ll arrange for the footman and Caitlin to go into isolation for whatever length of time you suggest and I will nurse Stasha. I’ll arrange for Bridget to take Felix and Natalie immediately to Tarna and I will instruct all but the minimum of household staff to take paid leave.’

  Dr Bridges frowned unhappily. ‘If you do as you are suggesting, the chances of you contracting the disease are extremely high.’

  ‘If I don’t, and if Stasha goes into one of the fever hospitals, then the chances of his dying will also be extremely high.’

  It was true and Dr Bridges didn’t attempt to deny it.

  ‘I will be able to give you very little help, Mrs Karolyis,’ he said warningly. ‘I cannot possibly continue visiting and also continue seeing other patients. The disease is highly contagious as you are so obviously aware.’

  ‘Just tell me what to do.’

  He nodded. ‘All right. I can’t help but admit that what you are suggesting is in the child’s best interest. Blood relations are always the best nurses and …’

  ‘I’m not a blood relation.’

  He stared at her, highly disconcerted. ‘I’m sorry, I had assumed … as the risks of nursing the child are so high …’

  She wondered what he would say if she told him that Stasha was her husband’s illegitimate son.

  She said instead, ‘Just tell me what to do, Dr Bridges. Tell me how to save his life.’