The LeBaron Secret

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  “But what do you think, Gabe?”

  “I think—” he began. Typical of him, she could see, trying to intellectualize the situation, trying to see it from every side. “I think,” he said at last, “that she is asking a great deal of you. She is asking you to be the substitute for a part of her life. She is asking you to pay for one of her mistakes. In return, she’s offering you her brother as a reward. But because there’s money involved, I think she’ll always think that you owe her the greater debt. Do you love him, Sari?”

  She hesitated, suddenly embarrassed to confess the depth of her feelings to him. Their romance still seemed too one-sided to discuss it openly with Gabe. “I find him very … attractive,” she said at last.

  “Is that all?”

  “He’s very nice.”

  “And he’s rich.”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he love you, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I know he likes me. But is love important, Gabe? Is it important to be in love?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t answer that for you,” he said. “But there’s a saying that anyone who marries for money works hard for a living. So I hope there’s more to it than that.”

  “I think there is,” she said.

  Finally, he said, “I can’t advise you in this, Sari. I can’t tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. I think that this is something you’ve got to work out between yourselves—you and Peter LeBaron.”

  “Yes,” she said. And then, “Of course, I used to think that someday I’d marry you.”

  “I’ve spoken to Father Quinn,” Joanna said to her parents, “and he thinks this is an excellent solution.”

  “Quinn,” her father said, “always favors any solution that’s quick and easy, and keeps the Church’s hands clean.”

  “I’d hoped for something so much better for Peter,” Constance LeBaron said. “There are so many attractive girls—girls of good family—in San Francisco. Peter could have had his pick.”

  “I like Sari,” Julius LeBaron said. “And there may be an advantage in the fact that she’s not from our so-called social set.”

  “What would that be, pray?”

  “Think about it a minute, Mother. Sari is definitely from the wrong side of the tracks, as they say. When she and Peter get back to San Francisco with their baby, and when people begin counting backwards on their fingers, as they’re bound to do—well, somehow it’s more understandable, more acceptable, for a young man of good family to have taken up with a woman of easy virtue, than for a—”

  Joanna smiled. “Than for a young woman of good family to be a woman of easy virtue,” she said. “I wondered how long it would be before someone came up with that little point.”

  Julius LeBaron’s face flushed. “Well, you know how people talk.” he said.

  “What do you want me to do, Peter?” she said to him. They were in Julius LeBaron’s study in the house on California Street, and this meeting had been arranged for them, and they were to make their final decision.

  He was not looking at her, but staring miserably into space with an utterly stricken expression on his face. For some reason, she realized, he seemed more shattered by what was happening than anyone else. “Do?” he said at last in a dead voice. “Do? We’ve got to do what will make my sister happy. That’s all there is to do.”

  “Do you love me, Peter?”

  “Love you?”

  “Yes. Just because you’ve been to bed with me doesn’t mean you love me. I know that.”

  “We’ve got to help Jo,” he said. “How did all this happen, Sari? A week ago, I thought I was the luckiest man on earth. But now—now I just don’t know.”

  “Well, we’re here to decide whether to go through with what she proposes. Or not to.”

  “I’ve got to help her. I’ve got to do my duty. She’s my sister—” There were tears in his eyes, and he clenched his right fist and pressed his knuckles hard against his teeth.

  “Peter,” she said, and then, almost desperately, leaning toward him, she went on, “I love you, Peter. I love you so much. You’re the only man I’ve ever slept with, and that means something, doesn’t it? I love you enough for both of us, Peter, I’m sure of that, and I’m sure I can make you happy. I’m going to make you love me, Peter—I will, wait and see. I’m going to make you love me, and I’m going to make you happy. Will you let me try? I’m willing to try, Peter, if you are, and if you let me—I’ll try. I’ll try so hard. Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then tell me what you want me to do!”

  “Marry me,” he said at last. And then, “For my sister’s sake.”

  “And for our sakes, too!” she cried. “We have to be happy, too, don’t we? Don’t we deserve to be happy, too? Don’t we at least deserve a chance—a chance to try?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ll try.”

  And so, the following week, an item appeared in the society pages of the San Francisco Chronicle:

  PETER POWELL LEBARON WEDS THE FORMER MISS LATHAM

  In a small ceremony attended only by family and close friends, Mr. Peter Powell LeBaron was married to Miss Assaria Latham of Terre Haute, Ind., in the chapel of the Cathedral of St. Peter Martyr, San Francisco.

  The bridegroom, long considered one of the city’s most eligible bachelors, is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Julius LeBaron of 1023 California Street. Mr. LeBaron is the president of LeBaron Vintners, Inc., wine producers in the Napa, Colusa, and Sonoma Valleys until Prohibition. The bride’s parents are both deceased. She is the legal ward of Mr. Gabriel Pollack of San Francisco. The bride wore an heirloom gown of white Valenciennes lace, and carried a Bible garlanded with white orchids and stephanotis. Miss Joanna LeBaron, the bridegroom’s sister, was her only attendant.

  Following a small reception at the LeBaron home, the bride and groom departed for an extended European honeymoon. Later this month, they will be joined by Miss Joanna LeBaron, who will undertake several months’ travel and study of art and history abroad.

  Now it is nearly one o’clock in the morning in the White Wedding-Cake House that was being built for them while she and Peter and Joanna were waiting for Melissa to be born in Saint Moritz, and still Sari has not gone to bed. She wants, desperately, to speak to Melissa now, but cannot. Mr. Littlefield’s presence in Melissa’s apartment precludes this. Perhaps, even now, the two of them are making love—why not? Sari would have nothing to say against this. And so, instead, she pens Melissa a short note:

  Melissa dearest,

  I know you are thinking that there is a great deal of explaining to be done, and I am very much prepared to tell you everything you need to know. Please telephone me as soon as you receive this.

  Much love,

  A.L.LeB.

  She will have Thomas slip the note under Melissa’s door in the morning.

  Surely, once the special circumstances surrounding her birth are explained to her, Melissa will be reasonable, because now, more than ever, Sari needs Melissa on her side. “You will be reasonable, won’t you, Melissa?” she says to Melissa’s portrait now. “You’ll vote on the side of the woman who sacrificed so much to raise you, and not on the side of the mother who gave you up—won’t you?” But the enigmatically smiling portrait offers no reply. “You’ll help me win this fight, won’t you, Melissa?”

  Wheeling herself away, Sari tells herself: I’m going to win. I’ll win, she says, because I was strong enough to make a man love me who was afraid to love me, strong enough to make a lover out of a lover who wasn’t one. I’ll win because I have the strength, because I have the faith, because I have the will.

  Watching her, the house seems to sigh.

  We are your house, the house says. Without you, Sari, we would not exist. We were your wedding present.

  “Not that I asked for you, or needed you!” she says.

  But without us, Sari, you would not exist, the house says.

  Thirteen

  BARONET V
INEYARDS, INC.

  934 Montgomery Street

  San Francisco

  NOTICE OF SPECIAL MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS

  A special meeting of shareholders of Baronet Vineyards, Inc., will be held in Suite 617–619 of the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco, California, on Monday, April 30, 1984, at 9:00 o’clock a.m. for the following purposes:

  1. To consider the acquisition offer by Kern-McKittrick, Inc., of your Company for 13.25 (thirteen point two five) shares of Kern-McKittrick per each one (1) share of Baronet Vineyards now outstanding.

  2. To conduct a shareholder vote on above offering.

  3. To transact any other business that may come before the meeting.

  Shareholders of record at the close of business on March 4, 1984, are entitled to notice of and to vote at the meeting or any adjournment thereof.

  March 15, 1984

  By Order of the Board of Directors,

  William C. Whitney

  Secretary

  It is important that your shares be represented at the meeting. Even if you expect to attend the meeting, PLEASE SIGN AND RETURN YOUR PROXY PROMPTLY.

  “Well, the fat’s in the fire!” Sari says to Gabe Pollack. “This is it! Here we go!” Her tone is almost jubilant, and Gabe knows that now that the fight is actually at hand, with a date, place, and time for the showdown settled, this fact alone has done much to buoy her spirits. Everything that has gone before has been as dust in the mouth. But now that the fighters are actually in the ring, have exchanged the perfunctory gloved handshake, and are squared off to do battle, Sari is in her element. “Have some more coffee,” she says to him. It is Monday morning, and they are in Sari’s drawing room, sipping coffee and enjoying a plateful of Cookie’s sweet rolls, like old times. “Even if I lose, Gabe,” she says, “and I may, I’m going to go down fighting. There’s fight in the old girl left, Polly, and I’ve still got one or two pieces of heavy ammunition I haven’t brought out. There’s some fight left, and even if I don’t win there’ll be casualties, wait and see. The casualties won’t be all on our side, either.”

  “What’s your secret weapon?” he says with a little smile.

  “Never mind!” she says with a wink. “If you tell what your secret weapon is, it’s not a secret anymore, but I’ve got one and it’ll be a real crowd-disperser that will turn this little meeting of theirs into a rout! It’ll send lawyers running to their casebooks, it’ll—but never mind. Whatever happens, this is going to be my last hurrah.”

  “Well, I wish you luck,” he says.

  “Don’t. Don’t wish me luck. I don’t want luck. I want success. Wish me success, if you want to—success with my last hurrah!”

  He raises his coffee cup. “To success, then,” he says.

  “And now, on top of all this, get a load of this new development, Polly,” she says, and hands him another piece of the morning’s mail. He takes it and reads:

  Law Offices

  BARTLESS, MATHER, BROOKS & KLINE

  Two Embarcadero Center

  Assaria L. LeBaron, Esq.

  2040 Washington Street

  San Francisco, California 94109

  re: Estate of Peter Powell LeBaron, Deceased

  Dear Mrs. LeBaron:

  This firm has been retained as counsel by your niece, Miss Melissa LeBaron, in a claim Miss LeBaron will be making against the Estate of your late husband, Peter Powell LeBaron, based on the recent disclosure to our client that she is the natural daughter of your late husband’s sister, Ms. Joanna LeBaron of New York City.

  As I am sure you are aware, under the terms of your late husband’s Will, our client was specifically bequeathed five percent (5%) of all outstanding shares of Baronet Vineyards, and an additional fifteen percent (15%) was to be divided equally among all living issue of Joanna LeBaron. It will be our client’s claim, therefore, that she is rightfully entitled to an additional seven and one-half percent (7½%) of outstanding Baronet shares at the time of your husband’s death.

  Further, it will be our contention that our client is rightfully entitled to any and all dividends paid on said 7½% of shares and which have thus far been unrightfully paid to our client’s half brother, Mr. Lance LeBaron of Peapack, New Jersey. In this regard, it would be helpful to have from your office a full accounting of dividends paid, whether in cash or stock, to its shareholders of record since October 10, 1955, the date that our client became a beneficiary of the Estate.

  Let me add that our client is fully aware that this is a family situation of some delicacy. Therefore, it is her wish and ours that all shares and monies due our client should be delivered to our client promptly and in specie fully, in order that litigation may be avoided. Meanwhile, until this matter is settled to our client’s satisfaction, we have advised our client to avoid direct communication with other members of her family.

  Sincerely yours,

  J. William Kline, Jr.

  “When did I get to be an ‘Esq.’?” Sari asks.

  “It’s a form all lawyers seem to use nowadays,” he says, handing the letter back to her. “Well, this is a hell of a note, Sari.”

  “Isn’t it?” she says, her eyes sparkling. “Isn’t it wonderful? What a damned fool I’ve been, Gabe! Why didn’t I think of this?”

  “I don’t understand,” he says.

  “Don’t you see? I’ve been so busy thinking about voting shares that I never even thought about dividends. Do you see what she’s asking for—half of Lance’s dividends for the past thirty years, half of his entire income! Do you realize how much that would amount to, Gabe? Millions! Millions and millions! Plus interest! If she’s smart she’ll ask for thirty years’ interest on top of it all! Lance can’t pay it, of course, nobody could, and there’s no way she could try to get that kind of money out of me. She’ll have to sue Lance, and if she wins she could send Lance LeBaron straight to the poorhouse. Then Lance could probably sue Joanna. Then maybe Joanna could try to sue me, though I can’t see what she’d base a case on. Failure to disclose? She’s the one who’s failed to disclose. Don’t you see, Gabe? This company is going to be so tied up in lawsuits that you won’t be able to see the sky for the legal paperwork, and nobody is going to want to touch us with a ten-foot pole till it’s settled, and that could be years! Oh, I almost hope that Harry Tillinghast wins his takeover bid. Then he’ll inherit this whole can of worms. But the fact is that until this is settled nobody’s going to want this company but me—me!”

  “I see what you mean,” he says.

  “Gabe, this is simply the best thing that could happen to me at this point,” she says. “And the damned thing is, why didn’t I think of it? Dividends!” She waves the lawyer’s letter in her hand. “And this is only the beginning. Hand me that,” she says, pointing to a small pocket calculator that sits on a table. He hands it to her. “Let’s see,” she says, “let’s figure how much she stands to collect. Let’s say, in round figures, Lance has been getting six hundred thousand a year, and Melissa wants half of that—that’s three hundred thousand, times thirty years. That’s nine million! Plus interest, cumulative interest—”

  “The letter doesn’t mention interest,” he says.

  “If they’re smart, they’ll ask for it. So, let’s see—” She begins punching more figures into her calculator.

  Watching Sari like this, greedily poking away at the little calculator, totting up sums of money and achieving totals that surely will never change hands, is not, Gabe thinks, to see Sari at her most attractive. In fact, as he sits there sipping his cooling coffee, there is almost something a little depressing about it all, and he can remember a pretty young girl, flushed from her first success on a stage, with whom it is hard to reconcile this old woman who sits opposite him now, licking her lips as millions are added to more millions of dollars. Yes, this morning Sari suddenly looks old, old and desperate, and even ugly in her thirst for power. He looks at his watch, and decides he must think of some excuse to go.

  “Lance will be wiped
out!” she cries gleefully. “Wiped out! At least twelve million, with interest—maybe more!”

  “I wonder what Peter would have said,” he says.

  “Who knows?” she says breezily. “But isn’t it funny, isn’t it ironic, that Peter should have been—should have died—just when our company began to move into the really big time, in nineteen fifty-five? That was the year the really big money started to come in again.”

  Gabe Pollack shifts in his chair. “Well, it looks like you’ve got your secret weapon,” he says.

  “Oh, I’ve got one or two more arrows in my quiver,” she says with another wink. “But I’ll tell you this—I’ve never felt more sure of winning this thing than I do right now. And the press! Think of the field day they’ll have with this! The illegitimate daughter, the mystery father, the daughter suing the man who turns out to be her half brother! Then the half brother suing his own mother! Maybe there’s some way they can both be wiped out, Gabe.”

  “Well, that would be nice,” he says a little dryly, “to have them both wiped out. But speaking of the press, Archie McPherson is already dropping little hints about a story. He knows something’s up, and if he knows, then others will be finding out, too. When do I get my story, Sari?”

  “Just give me a few more days,” she says, “and I promise you you’ll have it. You’ll have it, and it will be an exclusive. Your name will be in all the papers, too! Now tell me, Gabe, when I answer this lawyer’s letter, should I bring up the matter of interest they may have overlooked?”

  “I’d let Melissa deal with her lawyers, if I were you. In fact, I don’t see why you need to answer that letter at all. You’re a family-owned company. You don’t have to reveal any figures to outside lawyers at all.”

  “Wait for them to subpoena them, do you mean? But don’t you see, I want them to have these figures. I want them to know how much is involved. I want to get these lawsuits started—right away!”

  “Well,” he says, “do what you want. You always have.” He rises, a little stiffly, from his chair. “I’ve got to go.”