Very Old Money

by Stanley Ellin

  “Lloyd!”

  “Sorry, ma’am.”

  Reading the list, Amy observed that Ma’am, stick planted before her, hands resting on the knob, was listening with tight-lipped intensity. And when the reading was over she sat back with every sign of relief. Good for her. Rumor had it that old folks, on getting word of some friend’s death, might feel a pang of regret but that the pang was usually salved by a sense of triumph. Well, I’ve outlived another one, thank God. Nothing like that here. Margaret Durie, at least, didn’t seem to look for triumphs of that kind.

  Next, the art page, but, as Amy discovered, today there was no art page. Word, if any, about gallery owner and woman’s lib supporter Jason Cook would have to wait.

  “Very well,” said Ma’am, “now the mail. There’s a letter opener on that desk where you found the tissues. Bring it to me. And the wastebasket.”

  The letter opener was a flat, narrow, not very sharp blade set in a mother-of-pearl handle. Amy placed it in the outstretched hand and saw that the breakfast had so far gone uneaten. “Your brioche must be cold, ma’am. If you don’t mind, I have another here all heated up.”

  Since one could never be sure which way this cat would jump, the response was gratifying. “You are foresighted, aren’t you, Lloyd? No, I don’t mind at all.”

  But then when the switch was made, as if to demonstrate its futility, Ma’am disregarded the heated brioche and turned to opening her mail. This was something to see, too. One snick, and dull as the blade was, the envelope was slit as neatly as if by machine. Ma’am placed it aside and motioned at it with the opener. “Read the message, Lloyd. Correspondent’s identity to start with.”

  Most of the messages were charity pitches, and these got short shrift. A couple of lines, and Ma’am would say shortly, “Dispose of it, Lloyd,” and into the wastebasket it would go. There were a couple of notes, however, handwritten invitations to some occasion. “Answer in one phrase, Lloyd. Miss Durie will be unable to attend. Over your signature as my secretary. Do not embellish the message. It’s common knowledge that I haven’t attended any social event since losing my sight. Do you think, Lloyd, that these people really seek the pleasure of my company? Or are they acting out of shameless curiosity?”

  And now, Amy thought, we’re into multiple choice. “After all, ma’am, I don’t know these people.”

  “All humanity is of a piece, Lloyd. But let us attend to our muttons. This mutton now.”

  It was a note on embossed stationery. “Castello Sgarlati, Bologna,” Amy read. Of course, she thought. The principessa.

  “Castello,” Ma’am commented drily. “My sister, Lloyd, is its chatelaine. The Signora Enid di Sgarlati. Read it.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Dearest Margaret, I am well and Enzio is well. What more is there to say except that I pray you’ll continue your improvement and look forward to visiting you soon. Devotedly, your Enid.”

  “My prayerful Enid,” Ma’am said chillingly. “Did you know, Lloyd, that all titles of nobility were rendered null and void by the Italian government after the last war those stupid people involved themselves in?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Null and void. Bear that in mind.”

  “Yes, ma’am. And how do I answer this?”

  “Very simply, type at the foot of that paper Message received and contents noted and return it to the sender.”

  And, Amy thought with apprehension, just how long would it take the principessa to learn just who committed that rudeness? “Miss Durie, I’m not sure—”

  “I don’t care to repeat myself, Lloyd.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Nor have I enjoyed a lifetime of my sister’s urgings that I gracefully yield to my misfortune because it was God’s will. Never having known any misfortune, she is topheavy with Christian forbearance. I take pleasure in testing it now and then. Of course”—the cane was raised in a series of small arcs toward Amy’s arm. She sat rigid as it pressed the arm, then moved up to rest on her shoulder. It was an uncomfortable feeling. Not actually threatening but not far from it. “Of course,” Ma’am repeated with emphasis, “this is all said in confidence. It is between you and me, Lloyd, and no one else.”

  No one else, Amy thought, and that’s how it goes. Open the day by entering a little conspiracy with O’Dowd, work up to another with Margaret Durie, and take it from there. Secrets. And that business of Wilson confiding to Mike that he had a Durie secret he was keeping to himself. And the McEye sometimes came on pretty furtive about this and that, probably sorting out the secrets from the public domain stuff while she talked to you.

  If you want to create a miasma, Amy thought, that’s the way to go. And heighten it with a stick laid on the shoulder, which was not the way to do anything. That was really out of line.

  She carefully took the silver tip of the cane between thumb and forefinger and removed it from her shoulder. It briefly wavered in the air, then was returned to the floor. If Margaret Durie had any reaction to this mutiny, she concealed it. “Understand, Lloyd, I am neither hardhearted nor softheaded. Do you think I was hardhearted in dismissing those appeals for my charity?”

  “I suppose you had reason to dismiss them, ma’am.”

  “I did. I don’t contribute to institutions my family’s endowments may already finance. But I do give to the deserving. For your information, Lloyd, I virtually support the Upshur Institute for Braille with personal funds. Two most deserving people, that’s all, working out of their apartment. A husband and wife—Mr. Upshur is blind, Mrs. Upshur is not—splendidly efficient in their instruction. I speak from experience. Mrs. Upshur was the patient angel who gave me a command of braille not long ago.”

  “Not long ago?” Amy said. “But I thought—Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “No, I understand your confusion. Offered braille instruction many times over the years, I rejected it—I’m almost embarrassed to say—angrily. Learn from that, Lloyd. This is a fascinating and challenging world. Don’t let any handicap have you withdraw from it.”

  Like the handicap of a family, Amy reflected, who with all good intentions helped you to withdraw. So Margaret Durie, resisting them, needed a partner in her little war of independence, and here in this Mrs. Lloyd she had found one. And that cane laid on the shoulder was not a threat, it was in a way the knighting of the squire, the sealing of the partnership.

  “No, ma’am,” Amy said. She realized it came out a little more fervent than she had intended, but that was all right too.

  “Nor,” said Ma’am, “does my charity go unrewarded.” She smiled. “Mrs. Upshur has the dire conviction that I’ll backslide without her prodding. Become dependent again on being read to where the writing can be found in braille. That’s why you’ll now and again find messages from her in my mail done in braille. Firm admonitions to keep in practice. What do you think of an instructor like that, Lloyd?”

  Amy felt a pang of jealousy. “She seems very capable.”

  “She is. Capable, highly principled, and, I’m sorry to say, absolutely incompetent in handling her business affairs. Could that also be said of the ancient Greek philosophers walking the groves of academe? Fortunately for the Upshurs I do provide for them generously. Do you know about the groves of academe, Lloyd?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, we shall now tread our own groves. Have you seen our galleries yet?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “You shall now.” Ma’am stood up easily, without any support from the cane. There was a sudden vivid youthfulness in her face. Off on an adventure, Amy thought, and delighted about it. “Come along, Lloyd.”

  Amy looked at the two uneaten brioches. But no, she warned herself, you mustn’t mention them. This wasn’t a child to be urged into eating her breakfast. This was a spirited woman who’d been treated like a child for too long. Which must have been exactly the point Dorothy Durie—smart if sultry—had been making with her homily about too much pity, too much protectiveness.


  Ma’am moved on sure feet to the door, cane tip never touching the carpet, and Amy opened the door. She followed along as Ma’am crossed the corridor to the interior window overlooking the courtyard and halted there, fingertips against the glass. “Have you taken notice of my little garden, Lloyd?”

  “Yes, it’s lovely,” Amy said, though the vista wasn’t improved by a couple of grimy-looking men working on it with spades and shears. Domestique Plus again?

  “My garden, Lloyd. Only scented flowers are cultivated in it. My father arranged it as a gift for me after my mishap. I’m going to introduce you to him now.”

  “Your father?”

  That startled reaction was evidently what Margaret Durie had hoped for. She looked mischievously pleased with herself. “You’ll see. Do come along.”

  No guiding hand or cane was needed as she led the way toward the elevator midway down East Hall. A couple were standing there at the elevator, Amy saw, the tall, athletic-looking Glendon Durie and wife Dorothy, she with cigarette in hand. And one look at her in full light, Amy knew, settled all doubts. Dorothy would definitely rate sultry. Dark hair, dark eyes, full lips, high cheekbones—trust Mike to have gotten the picture at once although that bedroom where introductions had been made was so shadowy. And that husky voice didn’t hurt either. “Good-morning, Auntie. You do look well.”

  “Dear Aunt Margaret,” said Glendon. There was a teasing note in it. “Off to the races?”

  From Ma’am’s expression she didn’t mind this. She held up her face in invitation, and simultaneously nephew and niece delivered a polite kiss on each cheek.

  “You’re smoking, Dorothy,” Ma’am said. “If you don’t mind—?”

  “No, darling,” said Dorothy. “But only one puff.”

  “I’ll watch for the cops,” said Glendon.

  Dorothy carefully placed the cork tip of the cigarette to Aunt Margaret’s lips. The glowing end glowed brighter, and Dorothy removed the cigarette. Smoke jetted from Ma’am’s patrician nostrils. “Heaven,” she said with rich contentment.

  “Poor darling,” Dorothy said. “I’m glad I haven’t your willpower.”

  “My priorities require willpower, child.”

  The elevator car appeared behind the bronze grillwork gate. The Duries turned to face it, and then Amy saw that Dorothy was frowning at her. Oh, God, Amy thought, the protocol again. She hastily pulled open the gates and stood aside. The car was wide and shallow with a red-cushioned bench extending the width of its rear wall. The family party arranged itself in a row, rejecting the bench, Ma’am in the center.

  Amy stood there holding the gate. Now what, she wondered. Do I come aboard without invitation or just wave good-bye? The McEye in all her spelling out of details had overlooked this one.

  “What are we waiting for, Lloyd?” Ma’am said sharply, and Amy with vast relief said, “Sorry, ma’am,” and stepped aboard.

  Glendon pressed the button that started them downward. “I imagine you’ve gotten the word?” he said to Ma’am.

  “Almost at once, I daresay. I’m surprised you prevailed.”

  “So am I,” Glendon said. “A riddle, Auntie. What’s harder than adamantine?”

  “That is not correctly a riddle, Glendon, but yes, I know the answer. Your father.”

  The elevator came to a stop at the ground floor. Amy pushed open the gates and stood aside in attendance. The family party broke up after one more puff on the cigarette for Auntie, and Glendon and Dorothy Durie went their way across the marble foyer to the front door.

  Frustration time, Amy thought. All right, Glendon had prevailed over his father about something, but what?

  “Your arm, Lloyd,” said Ma’am.

  Amy placed her wrist—the lesson well remembered—under the hand extended toward her, and this way they moved across the marble floor. The cane was used here, not tapping the floor, but searching from side to side a little above it. The second floor, Amy thought, could be kept clear of unfamiliar obstacles at all times, but not this open territory.

  They halted a short distance from a huge pair of doors. “The West Gallery,” Ma’am said, and as Amy pushed open a door, a little surprised at how easily it opened, Ma’am’s arm moved free of hers. Back on sure ground again, evidently, even though there were obstructions here and there through the broad sweep of the gallery. Statuary. Marble figures, some much larger than life-size, all gleaming in the light coming through the high French windows that made up part of one wall of the gallery and offered a view of the courtyard and garden outside.

  Some of the statuary appeared to be Ma’am’s old friends. As she moved along, the tip of the cane would find a pedestal—not by accident, Amy had a feeling, but seeking it out—and there Ma’am would stop, fingertips moving lightly over the surface of the stone, then a hand pressing against a curve of it, the woman obviously taking a sensuous pleasure in the pressure.

  “Houdon,” Ma’am said. “Maillol. Mr. Daniel Chester French. If they’re unrecognizable to you, Lloyd, it’s for good reason. None has ever been on public exhibition. Nor are reproductions or photographs permitted. Do you think that dreadfully selfish of the owners?”

  “Well, ma’am—”

  “No need to be diplomatic, Lloyd, because it is selfish. My instructor in painting once confronted my father on this. He learned on the spot what a mistake that was. But you still haven’t met my father, have you? Well then”—the stick pointed—“there he is.”

  The aim of the stick wasn’t altogether accurate, but there was no mistaking which portrait it indicated, the centerpiece and largest one on the wall. The strikingly beautiful woman in the foreground, dressed in an Edwardian full-length gown of white satin, could have been Margaret Durie herself in her early womanhood, the resemblance was that strong. So, thought Amy, that was who today’s Duries inherited those strange, downward-slanting eyes from, and that disdainful, narrow nose—their mother. But in a way the face was disappointing. Characterless compared to Ma’am’s.

  The same could not be said of the man standing at the woman’s shoulder. A brooding, strong-featured face, all command. James Hamilton Durie. A very revealing portrait, Amy decided. A man with urgent matters to attend to was dutifully but impatiently taking part in a project he found a waste of time.

  “Do you recognize the artist?” Ma’am asked.

  “I think so,” Amy said. She had sufficient clues, she felt, to take a chance on it. “John Singer Sargent?”

  “Quite right. Mr. John Singer Sargent. Are you looking at the portrait?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “My father and mother. Mr. Sargent had an eye for charming women. She was to be the main subject here, my father supplementary. And what happened? He defeated Mr. Sargent.” Ma’am’s voice was scathing. “Not easy to do, it was not done with intent, but he did it. Do you think it a fair match, Lloyd?”

  “She seems very lovely,” Amy said.

  “Indeed she was. But even loveliness of that order isn’t much help against the visage of Jove. Would you recognize the painters of any of these other works?”

  Here, Amy thought, was where Mike had recommended the comic “I’m at a loss, ma’am,” but on the grounds that the biblical Daniel himself had not likely tried out comic repartee on the lions it seemed good policy to settle for an apologetic “I’m afraid not.”

  “Trumbull, Inman, Inness, Chase, Eastman Johnson—those names mean nothing to you?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Interesting, Lloyd, that my instructor once said that those names would soon mean nothing to even the comparatively well informed. A passionate man, he was passionately devoted to the modernists. Demuth, Stuart Davis, Hartley, Marin. He idolized Joseph Stella. Are those names familiar to you?”

  “Most of them, ma’am,” Amy said, grateful that she could say it.

  “Then, since I regard you as comparatively well informed, he was correct in his judgments. Although modernist is an awkward word in this context. Ye
sterday’s modernists these were. A long yesterday ago. Now tell me, Lloyd. I remarked on a certain gallery owner to you. What is his name?”

  “Jason Cook, ma’am.”

  “Very good.” The cane pointed. “That door, Lloyd. Let’s see what’s behind it.”

  When Amy drew the door open what turned out to be behind it was the dining room, still in some disorder from last night’s dinner party. The table was almost cleared, but under Nugent’s supervision the two junior maids were bundling together linens and stowing empty wine bottles into a carton. The open door across the room exposed a service area with dumbwaiter ready to be loaded. Which meant, Amy thought, that this dining room was located right above the staff hall and far from the kitchen where invisible agents prepared the dinner.

  The room itself was extravagantly large, but since unlike the West Gallery its ceiling and the walls were wood-paneled its dimensions weren’t oppressive. But like the gallery its centerpiece was the portrait of a Durie, a life-size study that compelled the eye at a glance.

  Margaret Durie herself sitting there, Amy thought. It had to be. Not only was the resemblance acute, but presented in her late teens she was wearing a dress—low-waisted, short-skirted, the rounded knees gleaming in silk stockings—which was a giveaway to the early thirties, when she would have been about eighteen. Before her accident? Yes, because even seen from this distance those eyes were clear and lustrous and altogether alive.

  “Your arm, Lloyd,” said Ma’am, and with a hand resting on it moved into the room.

  The two juniors froze in their tracks at the sight, but the cheerful Nugent said, “Good morning to you, Miss Durie. And Mrs. Lloyd. We’re not in your way, are we?”

  Amy had a kindly “Not at all” on the tip of her tongue, but there it stuck when Ma’am said, “Who’s with you, Nugent?”

  “Walsh, ma’am. And Plunkett.”