They had sat in the kitchen late the night before over a brandy and coffee, a ritual they occasionally shared when there was gossip to go around.
He found himself wondering if there weren’t a little jealousy behind her words. She and Sir Adrian had been together a long time.
“How did they meet?” he asked.
“He says in London, at a dinner party given by his publisher.”
“He says?”
“You know Sir Adrian. It may or may not be true. But however they met, it is clear this is what they call a whirlpool romance.”
“Whirlwind. I rather think the word you want is whirlwind.”
“I think I had it right the first time.”
Jeffrey laughed.
“Well, you know, Mrs. R, at his age, it’s not right he should be alone.”
“He’s not alone. He has his work. He has people he can trust around to take care of him.”
“You mean his family? Yes, of course, that’s a blessing-”
“No,” she said simply. “I mean me. And Paulo, of course. This family of his, it is no blessing.”
Jeffrey, who had yet to speak with most of the key players in this drama, wasn’t quite sure what she meant. But he trusted Mrs. Romano’s instincts, and some of her anxiety had rubbed off on him as well.
“I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that,” he’d said.
But now, having seen them all and gained some definite first impressions, he wondered. George, he felt sure, was no prize. And he rather had the idea Albert drank.
Omitting these impressions, he was concluding his letter with a reiterated promise to return home at Easter for a visit, a promise he had only vague intentions of keeping. He liked being just where he was, more so than before. As he reached across his desk for an envelope, his eye caught a movement beyond the sheltering evergreen trees outside his window. It was Paulo, carrying a plastic bag of rubbish out to the gardening shed.
He didn’t pause to wonder why Paulo would be carrying rubbish to, not from, the shed: There was a dumpster affair hidden near the kitchen wall. But he did pause to think that Paulo, despite his mother, was a man he wouldn’t trust an inch.
9. LAST MEAL EN FAMILLE
DINNER THAT NIGHT WAS the kind of extravaganza at which Mrs. Romano excelled. Where one entrée would do, she offered three. Where two savories would have sufficed, she produced four.
But as Paulo cleared course after course, bringing down the plates for washing by the local girl brought in for the occasion (her name was Martha, and she seemed to suffer from adenoids), he thought only Sir Adrian might entirely be enjoying the repast.
Jeffrey, who sat in chummy silence watching Mrs. Romano and Martha work, occasionally offering a helping hand with the heavier dishes, listened to Paulo’s bulletins with increasing interest. Really, it was like one of those nighttime soap operas.
Sir Adrian had emerged from his bedroom at seven PM, a cumberbund stretched like a rubber band to breaking point around his colossal perimeter. Trotting into the drawing room, he found his family already amassed, and stretched his rosebud lips into a semblance of a welcoming smile. He skipped over to Violet-it would seem in his present good mood his gout wasn’t troubling him as much-and made too big a fuss of noisily kissing her cheek. Or so it seemed to Sarah, who, with Albert, warily watched the pantomime from near the fireplace.
George sat snaked across one of the Queen Anne sofas, which Natasha stood behind, both of them managing to look disheveled, but in an interesting, expensive way, like an advertisement for Ralph Lauren bed linens. Natasha wore a silk poet’s blouse with long sleeves ending in ruffles at her wrists; George, a velvet coat that recalled Lord Byron about the time England was asking him never again to darken its shores.
Ruthven and Lillian stood apart, looking like the same advertisement aimed at a somewhat older demographic.
Violet, rising to the occasion, was sheathed in gray silk falling to mid-calf, flapper style, with a long string of pearls knotted at her navel. (Lillian spent part of the evening trying to tell if the pearls were real, decided that they were, and the rest of the evening calculating their retail value.) She stood alone beneath the traceried ceiling-high windows, her graceful form framed by French doors. It seemed a deliberate choice; the discreetly lighted formal garden outside provided a dramatic backdrop that drew the eye to her slender, solitary silhouette.
Only Albert and Sarah had been latish in arriving. Albert to all appearances was sober, to the surprise of his family. Albert sober was a rare event, somewhat like a comet sighting. He also appeared to be feeling rather chipper, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Both George and Ruthven eyed him with suspicion.
“Won’t Jeffrey be joining us?” Sarah asked, her voice so studiedly casual it immediately raised eyebrows among the women in the group, with their special radar for love in bloom. For the occasion Sarah wore an embroidered caftan of African origin, unaware that the design included fertility symbols of a particularly explicit and ribald nature.
Her father raked her with a wintry stare, all traces of good humor vanished.
“No. Nor will Watters nor any of the other servants. Good heaven, what an idea.”
Sarah, still smarting from her earlier adventure in the kitchen, said: “I don’t see why not. After all, according to the Bible we are all brothers.”
“Surely that didn’t include Americans,” said George.
Ruthven smiled appreciatively at this witticism over the top of his sherry glass.
“Nor the French,” he said. “Really, Sarah. Lighten, as they say, up. You really can be such a prat.”
“I think you’re just being horrid,” said Sarah sulkily. “He’s quite nice, actually.”
George seemed to twig the situation for the first time.
“Oh, I see.” He chanted the sing-song of the playground: “Sarah fancies Jeffrey. ”
“Stop it. I feel sorry for him, that’s all. Being so far from home and-”
Sir Adrian cut in: “You can all stop it. I get enough of the man during the day. All that perkiness: it’s like having Meg Ryan scampering about the house.” He cast eyes upward, beseeching an indifferent heaven, then glared at each of his offspring in turn. “Whatever did I do to deserve this quarrelsome family?”
“It rather begs the nature versus nurture question, doesn’t-” began Albert.
“That’s enough!” Sir Adrian could bellow, when he wanted to, loud enough to shatter glass. “This is a joyous family gathering and you are all, for once, going to behave yourselves. What must Violet be thinking of us?” He gave her a little hug; her narrow form seemed to disappear somewhere into the folds of the cummerbund.
“It’s just that it’s nearly the holidays, and he’s far from home, that’s all,” repeated Sarah.
Now even Sir Adrian began to twig. He turned on her-or rather, maneuvered twenty degrees more in her direction, like a submarine.
“Don’t even think it,” he said. “No daughter of mine is going to get involved with an American secretary.” From his tone, he might have been contemplating her elopement with a Bedouin tribesman.
For perhaps the first time in her life, real defiance welled up in Sarah. She drew herself up in what she hoped Jeffrey would think of as a queenly posture.
“You think to tell me with whom I may or may not get involved? Under these circumstances?” She cocked her head in Violet’s direction. “Are you forgetting why we’re all here?”
It was the first time any of them had referred even indirectly to the happy occasion which had brought them together. Her siblings stirred uneasily.
“At least he’s not a mur-”
“Not a what?” Violet could match Sir Adrian’s frosty tone, icicle for icicle, thought Lillian. Bravo.
Having come to the edge of the cliff, Sarah found she couldn’t leap.
“Under these circumstances?” Sir Adrian repeated slowly. “Yes. Under these or any other circumstances I will tell you
exactly what to do. You’re my daughter and if you expect to ever see a penny from me you’ll drop the whole subject right now.”
“I don’t want-”
Ruthven, seeing an opportunity to ingratiate himself with his father at Sarah’s expense, cut in. “He’s only after your money, Sarah. Don’t be such an ass.”
The fear that what Ruthven said might be true made her lash out. With a nod in Lillian’s direction, she said:
“You should know all about that.”
Albert, who had only been half-listening to the conversation up to this point, said, “I say. That is rather rich, coming from you, Ruthven. I doubt you’ve ever done a deed in your life that wasn’t motivated by money. Same goes for you, George. Just leave Sarah alone for once.”
“Coming from me? Me?” said George. “As if you hadn’t spent all your life sucking up to Father over money.”
“I?
”
Sir Adrian roared: “I said that’s enough.”
He looked at each member of his rancorous brood in turn with steely eyed displeasure, his face contorted like a gargoyle’s on a Gothic cathedral. It had the hoped-for, withering effect.
“Not another word or I’ll see you all regret it.”
To Violet’s amazement, they all-including Natasha-exchanged quicksilver glances, as if relaying some pre-arranged signal. In unison, they clapped their mouths shut, like a perfectly orchestrated firing squad having used up its round.
Paulo, who had been lurking in the hall outside, admiring his long, dark hair in the Louis Quinze mirror while eavesdropping on the conversation, judged it a good moment to step inside and announce, in perfect imitation of the perfect servant, “Dinner is served.”
Sir Adrian offered his arm to Violet and without a word began heaving his slow way in the direction of their meal.
***
“I don’t know what you mean,” shouted Sarah to Albert.
They sat across from one another in the trompe l’oeil dining salon reserved for formal occasions. Reminiscent of the wedding invitations, and probably serving as the inspiration for same, the decorative panels lining the walls featured cherubs, scantily diapered in clouds, sitting atop Roman columns, the whole in a style that somehow managed to marry the worst of Gothic and Renaissance excesses.
Paulo had by this point brought in the fish with its accompanying wine. The volume of conversation seemed to have increased exponentially with each course.
“What are you saying? You’ll soon have the real story?”
Albert noticed for the first time that Lillian, to his right, had torn her attention away from Violet to tune into his conversation.
“We’ll talk later,” he shouted back. By this time, he had had more than his share of wine, although his eyelids hadn’t yet started dropping to half-mast as they normally would have done by this point. Instead, he seemed animated by whatever news he was hugging to himself.
That sleepy look of his could sometimes be deceptive, Sarah knew. Albert was becoming well-known for giving entire stage performances-some of his best performances, at that-whilst completely intoxicated. Often, it wasn’t until he collapsed backstage after the final curtain call that his fellow actors realized he had been in the bag the whole time.
Somehow they got through the meal, making inconsequential replies to each other’s small talk and surreptitiously watching Sir Adrian and Violet the while. She sat at the opposite head of the table from Sir Adrian-a blatant indicator of her elevated status, which Lillian, demoted to her left hand, had not failed to notice.
George, on Violet’s right, pointedly refused to engage her in conversation, and, most unusually, made small talk with Sarah about her book. Never retiring on this subject, Sarah warbled forth, relieving George of the task of doing anything more than feigning interest as he shoveled in food.
When Paulo began serving the port and Stilton, Lillian quickly rose to lead the ladies away for coffee in the drawing room, precisely as if she owned the place. Sir Adrian waved her back to her seat. He tapped a spoon against his glass and a hush descended. Turning to Violet, he said, “I think it’s time we broke the news, don’t you, my dear?”
“I think it is well past time, as I’ve told you previously, darling,” she said.
Sir Adrian stood and, raising his glass, beamed at them in turn.
“My happy little family, once they hear the news, will understand all and forgive all. Isn’t that right?”
In unison, they folded their hands politely, no one but George making a move to prepare to raise a glass in toast.
“You’ve all journeyed far to be here and to share my happiness on this day. Do not think your joy in the occasion has gone unnoticed. To have my own flesh and blood in my home to share this moment is… well, it is a happiness beyond description. Without further ado, I ask you all to drink a toast to my wife, Violet, the woman who has made me the happiest man in England.”
“Father, you mean, future wife, don’t you?” said Sarah.
“Trust Sarah to nail it on the head. No, my dear, I do not mean ‘future.’ I mean ‘wife.’ Violet and I were married in Scotland last week, in a small private ceremony at Gretna Green.”
There was a silence in which, suddenly, no glass clinked, no spoon rattled against saucer, no foot shuffled. Even Paulo stood stock still, except for his ears, which Sarah imagined she could see flapping. They all-with the exception of Violet, who looked down at her plate-stared back at him, their mouths rounded into small circles. It was Ruthven who spoke first.
“You don’t mean it,” he said flatly.
“Oh, but I do. We are lawfully man and wife. Violet is your stepmother. It is what I believe Jeff would call a ‘done deal.’”
“Yes, all right, fine, but-Why? Why not tell us?”
“Why not tell you before?” Sir Adrian looked at him. There was a cold glint in her father’s eyes which Sarah, usually perfectly attuned, could not read. “Oh, my dear boy, I think you know perfectly well why not. You would have tried to talk me out of it. Tried to talk me out of marrying the most wonderful woman I’ve ever met in my life. Not that it would have done a bit of good. But I simply did not want to listen to you on this subject.” The “you” was perhaps just that bit too nicely shaded to be polite.
“I did want to tell you all,” said Violet, looking beseechingly around the table. “It’s quite awkward, I realize-”
“And I forbade it,” said Sir Adrian. “Much better this way, I said. And I was right.”
Lillian, meanwhile, whispered furiously to Albert.
“It’s just a stunt, I tell you. He’s pulling a stunt. Like Agatha Christie, when she disappeared.”
“Except that people could actually be bothered to look for Agatha.”
“No, my dear, it’s no stunt,” said Sir Adrian, whose hearing, as Lillian unfortunately had forgotten, was excellent, particularly for the higher ranges at which Lillian excelled.
Sarah and Albert, meanwhile, were telegraphing frenetic glances across the table. Only George looked unperturbed. He’s planning something of his own, thought Ruthven, who caught and accurately read the cat-in-cream expression on his brother’s face.
“I say, Father,” said George. “This is excellent news. Congratulations. Congratulations are due all around. Paulo-” and here he waggled his fingers as if to signal a maitre d’-“more champagne. For Natasha and I have news of our own.”
Ignoring the frantic appeal in Natasha’s eyes, he stood.
“It gives me great pleasure to announce that Natasha and I are expecting the first addition to the next generation of the Beau-clerk-Fisk line. Sometime in July. A boy.” He lifted his glass to his father. “A boy who shall naturally be named Adrian, in honor of his grandsire.”
He looked around his audience to gauge the reaction, and was not disappointed by the pole-axed stares of his siblings. Violet seemed uncertain what to do with her expression, then, remembering perhaps that babies were supposed to be good news, she b
eamed a smile down the table at Sir Adrian.
“I say,” George continued. “Isn’t this truly the family occasion we’ve all so longed for? Paulo, I said to fetch some champagne. What’s the matter with you, man?”
Paulo turned to Sir Adrian for direction in this unprecedented situation. There was a silence now that went deeper, if possible, than before.
But Sir Adrian, having like Violet tried on several poses, seemed finally to settle on that of avuncular squire. At least, he pulled back his lips in a fearsome smile and said, “Well, well-well! Another wedding in the works. I must say, George, I am pleased. Well done.”
It may have been the first time George had ever done anything right in his father’s eyes. As he was basking in the unaccustomed glow, a voice shot coolly across the table.
“Oh, no,” said Natasha. “I don’t think so.” She tucked her silken dark hair behind her ears, the better to hear any objections.
Sir Adrian, giving the waiting Paulo the high sign for champagne, said, “You don’t think so what?”
“A wedding is not in the offing. Baby, yes. Wedding, no.”
George, to whom this clearly was news, and whose thoughts had been miles from the altar in any event, flushed an ever-deepening red. He was not used to being rejected before he had even thought of proposing. He especially didn’t like the public style of her rebuff. What woman in her right mind would turn down marriage with George Beauclerk-Fisk?
“Nonsense,” said Sir Adrian gruffly. “A child needs a name. A quiet ceremony is in order to be sure. Perhaps right here, in the conservatory? I’ll have to ask Mrs. Romano. Now, the invitations-”
“I really don’t think-”
“I’ve told you my views. The subject is closed. Now, you could take a leaf from my book, but as Violet can tell you, Scotland doesn’t have a lot to offer this time of year.”
“Far too cold,” agreed Violet.
“Perhaps the Round Church in Cambridge. Quite romantic, but intimate. Do you have a large family, m’dear? I do think a small-”
Death of a Cozy Writer Page 9
