At the end of the article, the writer had asked Cyril about his successors and, as Meredith thought about her grandfather’s reply, she felt a lump in her throat: “My son has already succeeded me to the presidency,” Cyril had said. “He has one child, and when the time comes for her to take over the presidency of Bancroft & Company, I have every faith Meredith will carry on admirably. I only wish I could be alive to see it.” Meredith knew that if her father had his way, she would never assume the presidency of Bancroft’s. Although he’d always discussed the operation of the store with her, just as his father had done with him, he was adamantly opposed to her ever working there. She made that discovery while they were having dinner soon after her grandfather’s funeral. In the past, she’d repeatedly mentioned her intention of following tradition and taking her place at Bancroft’s, but either he hadn’t listened or he hadn’t believed her. That night he did take her seriously, and he informed her with brutal frankness that he did not expect her to succeed him, nor did he want her to. That was a privilege he planned to reserve for a future grandson. Then he coldly acquainted Meredith with an entirely different tradition and one he intended she follow: Bancroft women did not work at the store, or anywhere else, for that matter. Their duty was to be exemplary wives and mothers, and to donate whatever additional talents and time they had to charitable and civic endeavors.
Meredith wasn’t willing to accept that; she couldn’t, not now. It was too late. Long before she’d fallen in love with Parker—or thought she had—she had fallen in love with “her” store. By the time she was six, she was already on a first-name basis with all of the doormen and security clerks. At twelve she knew the names of every vice president and what his responsibilities were. At thirteen she’d asked to accompany her father to New York, where she’d spent an afternoon at Bloomingdale’s, being shown around the store, while her father attended a meeting in the auditorium. When they left New York, she’d already formed her own opinions—not all of them correct—about why Bancroft’s was superior to “Bloomie’s.”
Now, at eighteen, she already had a general knowledge of things like workers compensation problems, profit margins, merchandising techniques, and product liability problems. Those were the things that fascinated her, the things she wanted to study, and she was not going to spend the next four years of her life taking classes in romance languages and Renaissance art!
When she told him that, he had slammed his hand down on the table with a crash that made the dishes jump. “You are going to Maryville, where both your grandmothers have gone, and you will continue to live at home! At home!” he reiterated. “Is that clear? The subject is closed!” Then he’d shoved his chair back and left.
As a child, Meredith had done everything to please him, and please him she had—with her grades, her manners, and her deportment. In fact, she’d been a model daughter. Now, however, she was finally realizing that the price of pleasing her father and maintaining the peace was becoming much higher: It required subjugating her individuality and surrendering all her dreams for her own future, not to mention sacrificing a social life!
His absurd attitude toward her dating or going to parties wasn’t her main problem right now, but it had become a sharp point of contention and embarrassment for her this summer. Now that she was eighteen, he appeared to be tightening restrictions instead of loosening them. If Meredith had a date, he personally met the young man at the door and subjected him to a lengthy cross-examination while treating him with an insulting contempt that was intended to intimidate him into never asking her out again. Then he set a ridiculously early curfew of midnight. If she spent the night at Lisa’s, he invented a reason to call her and make certain she was there. If she went out for a drive in the evening, he wanted an itinerary of where she was going; when she came back home he wanted an accounting of every minute she’d been gone. After all those years in private schools with the strictest possible rules, she wanted a taste of complete freedom. She’d earned it. She deserved it. The idea of living at home for the next four years, under her father’s increasingly watchful eye, was unbearable and unnecessary.
Until now she’d never openly rebelled, for rebellion only ignited his temper. He hated being opposed by anyone and, once riled, he could remain frigidly angry for weeks. But it wasn’t only fear of his anger that had made her acquiesce to him in the past. In the first place, part of her longed for his approval. In the second place, she could understand how humiliated he must have been by her mother’s behavior and the scandal that had followed. When Parker had told her about all that, he’d said her father’s overprotective attitude toward Meredith was probably due to the fear of losing her—for she was all he had—and partly to the fear that she might inadvertently do something to reawaken the talk about the scandal her mother had created. Meredith didn’t particularly like that last idea, but she’d accepted it, and so she’d spent five weeks of the summer trying to reason with him; when that failed, she’d resorted to arguing. Yesterday, however, the hostilities between them had erupted into their first raging battle. The bill for her tuition deposit had come from Northwestern University, and Meredith had taken it to him in his study. Calmly and quietly, she had said, “I am not going to go to Maryville. I’m going to Northwestern and getting a degree that’s worth something.”
When she handed him the bill, he tossed it aside and regarded her with an expression that made her stomach cramp. “Really?” he jeered. “And just how do you plan to pay your tuition? I’ve told you I won’t pay it, and you can’t touch a cent of your inheritance until you’re thirty. It’s too late to try for a scholarship now, and you’ll never qualify for a student loan, so you can forget about it. You will live here at home and go to Maryville. Do you understand me, Meredith?”
Years of suppressed resentment came spilling out, bursting past Meredith’s dam of control. “You’re completely irrational!” she cried. “Why can’t you understand—”
He stood up slowly, deliberately, his gaze slicing over her with savage contempt. “I understand perfectly!” he sneered furiously. “I understand there are things you want to do—and people you want to do them with—that you know damned well I wouldn’t approve of. That’s why you want to go to a big university and live on campus! What appeals to you most, Meredith? Is it the opportunity to live in coed dorms with boys swarming through the halls and crawling into your bed? Or is it—”
“You are sick!”
“And you are just like your mother! You’ve had the best of everything and all you want is the chance to crawl into bed with the scum of the world—”
“Damn you!” Meredith had blazed, stunned by the force of her own uncontrollable rage. “I’ll never forgive you for that. Never.” Pivoting on her heel, she had headed for the door.
Behind her, his voice boomed like a thunderclap. “Where do you think you’re going!”
“Out!” she had flung over her shoulder. “And another thing, I won’t be home by midnight. I’m through with curfews!”
“Come back here!” he shouted. Meredith ignored him and walked down the hall and out the front door. Her fury only intensified as she flung herself into the white Porsche he’d given her on her sixteenth birthday. Her father was demented. He was sick! She spent the evening with Lisa and deliberately stayed out until almost three A.M. Her father was waiting up for her when she returned, pacing in the foyer. He roared and called her names that tore at her heart, but for the first time in her life Meredith wasn’t intimidated by his wrath. She endured his vicious verbal attack, and with every cruel word he said, her resolve to defy him increased.
Protected from interlopers and sightseers by a tall iron fence and a guard at the gatehouse, the Glenmoor Country Club sprawled across acres of majestic lawns dotted with flowering shrubs and flower beds. A long, curving drive lit by ornamental gas lamps meandered through stately oak and maple trees to the front door of the club, then curved back again to the main road. The club itself, a rambling three-story white-brick s
tructure with wide pillars marching across its stately façade, was surrounded by two championship golf courses and rows of tennis courts off to the side. At the back, French doors opened onto wide terraces covered with umbrella tables and potted trees. Flagstone steps descended from the lowest terrace to the two Olympic-size pools below. The pools were closed to swimmers tonight, but thick, bright yellow cushions had been left on the chaise longues for those members who might desire to watch the fireworks display from a prone position, or recline between dances when the orchestra came outside to play after that.
Dusk was just beginning to fall as Meredith drove past the main doors where attendants were busy helping members out of their cars. She pulled into the crowded parking lot on the side of the building and parked her car between a gleaming new Rolls belonging to the wealthy founder of a textile mill and an eight-year-old Chevrolet sedan belonging to a much wealthier financier. Normally there was something about dusk that lifted her spirits, but as she got out of her car, she was thoroughly depressed and preoccupied. Other than her clothes, she owned nothing she could sell to raise the money she needed to pay her own college expenses. Her car was in her father’s name and her inheritance was under his control. She had exactly $700 in her bank account, $700 to her name. Racking her brain for some way to pay her own tuition, she walked slowly toward the club’s main doors.
On special nights like this the club’s lifeguards did double duty as parking attendants. One of them hurried up the front steps to hold the door open for her. “Good evening, Miss Bancroft,” he said, flashing her a killer smile. He was muscular and good-looking, a med student at the University of Illinois. Meredith knew all that because he’d told her last week when she was trying to sunbathe. “Hello, Chris,” she said absently.
In addition to being Independence Day, the Fourth of July also marked the founding of Glenmoor, and the club was alive with laughter and conversation as members with cocktails in their hands wandered from room to room, clad in the tuxedos and evening dresses that were mandatory attire for tonight’s dual celebration. The interior of Glenmoor was far less imposing and elegant than some of the newer country clubs around Chicago. The Oriental carpets that covered the polished wood floors were fading, and the sturdy antique furniture in the various rooms created an aura of stuffy complacency rather than glamour. In that respect, Glenmoor was like most of the other premier country clubs in the nation. Old and intensely exclusive, its prestige and desirability came not from its furnishings or even its facilities, but from the social standing of its membership. Wealth alone could not gain one a coveted membership at Glenmoor unless it was also accompanied by sufficient social prominence. On those rare occasions when an applicant for membership met those two standards, he was still required to have the unanimous approval of all fourteen men on Glenmoor’s membership committee before submission for comments to the general membership. Those rigid requirements had, in the last few years, scotched the membership aspirations of several newly successful entrepreneurs, countless physicians, innumerable congressmen, a number of players for the White Sox and Bears, and a state supreme court justice.
Meredith, however, was impressed by neither the club’s exclusivity nor by its members. They were simply familiar faces, some of whom she knew fairly well, others not well at all. As she walked down the hallway, she nodded and smiled automatically at those people she knew, while she looked into the various rooms for the people she was supposed to meet. One of the dining rooms had been turned into a mock casino for the evening; the other two had been set up for a lavish buffet. All of them were crowded. Below, on the ground floor, an orchestra was tuning up in the club’s main banquet room and, judging from the volume of noise coming up the stairwell as she passed it, Meredith assumed there was a crowd down there as well. As she passed the card room, she glanced warily in it. Her father was an inveterate cardplayer, as were most of the other people in the room, but he wasn’t there and neither was Jon’s group. Having checked out all the rooms on this floor except the club’s main lounge, Meredith went there next.
Despite its large size, the decor of the lounge had been intended to create an atmosphere of coziness. Overstuffed sofas and wing chairs were grouped around low tables, and the brass wall sconces were always dimmed so that they cast a warm glow against the mellow oak paneling. Normally the heavy velvet draperies were drawn across the French doors at the back of the lounge; tonight they’d been opened so that guests could stroll out onto the narrow terrace off the lounge, where a band was playing soft music. A bar stretched the entire length of the room on the left, and bartenders moved back and forth from the guests seated at the bar to the mirrored wall behind, where hundreds of liquor bottles were stacked on shelves beneath subdued spotlights.
Tonight the lounge was crowded too, and Meredith was about to turn around and head downstairs when she spotted Shelly Fillmore and Leigh Ackerman, who’d both phoned to remind her she was expected to join them tonight. They were standing at the far end of the bar along with several more of Jonathan’s friends and an older couple who Meredith finally identified as Mr. and Mrs. Russell Sommers—Jonathan’s aunt and uncle. Pinning a smile on her face, Meredith walked up to them, and then froze as she noticed her father standing with another group of people just to their left. “Meredith,” Mrs. Sommers said when Meredith had said hello to everyone, “I love your dress. Where on earth did you find that?”
Meredith had to glance down to see what she was wearing. “It came from Bancroft’s.”
“Where else!” Leigh Ackerman teased.
Mr. and Mrs. Sommers turned aside to speak to other friends, and Meredith kept one eye on her father, hoping he would stay completely away from her. She’d been standing still for several moments, letting his presence completely unsettle her, when it suddenly struck her that he was even managing to ruin this evening for her! That made her angrily decide to show him he couldn’t do it and that, furthermore, she wasn’t beaten yet. She turned and ordered a champagne cocktail from one of the bartenders, then she beamed her brightest smile on Doug Chalfont and gave an excellent imitation of being fascinated with whatever he was telling her.
Outside, twilight deepened into night; inside, conversations escalated in volume in direct proportion to the liquor being consumed, while Meredith sipped her second champagne cocktail and wondered if she ought to try to get a job and, in so doing, present her father with further proof of her resolve to go to a good college. She glanced at the mirror behind the bar and caught him watching her, his eyes narrowed with cool displeasure. Idly she wondered what he disapproved of now. Possibly it was her strapless dress, or, more likely, it was the attention Doug Chalfont was paying to her. It couldn’t have been the glass of champagne she was holding, however. Just as Meredith had been required to speak like an adult as soon as she learned to talk, she had also been expected to conduct herself as an adult. When she was twelve, her father had started permitting her to stay at the table when he had a few guests in for dinner. By the time she was sixteen, she was learning to act as his hostess, and she sipped wine with dinner guests—in moderation, of course.
Beside her, Shelly Fillmore said it was probably time to go into the dining room or else risk losing their reserved table, and Meredith gave herself a mental shake, belatedly remembering her vow to have a good time tonight. “Jonathan said he’d join us in here before dinner,” Shelly added. “Has anybody seen him?” Craning her neck, Shelly looked around the thinning crowd in the lounge, many of whom were also starting to proceed to the dining rooms. “My God!” she burst out, staring at the entrance of the lounge. “Who is that? He’s absolutely gorgeous!” That remark, made in a louder tone than she’d intended, caused a ripple of interest, not only among the entire group Meredith was with, but with several other people who’d overheard her exclamation and were turning around.
“Who are you talking about?” Leigh Ackerman asked, peering about the room. Meredith, who was facing the entrance, glanced up and knew instantly exactly
who had caused that awed, avaricious expression on Shelly’s face! Standing in the doorway, with his right hand thrust into his pants pocket, was a man who was at least six feet two, with hair almost as dark as the tuxedo that clung to his wide shoulders and long legs. His face was sun-bronzed, his eyes light, and as he stood there, idly studying the elegantly dressed members of Glenmoor, Meredith wondered how Shelly could ever have described him as “gorgeous.” His features looked as if they had been chiseled out of granite by some sculptor who had been intent on portraying brute strength and raw virility—not male beauty. His chin was square, his nose straight, his jaw hard with iron determination. All in all, Meredith thought he looked arrogant, proud, and tough. But then, she’d never been very attracted to dark, overly macho men.
“Look at those shoulders,” Shelly rhapsodized, “look at that face. Now, that, Douglas,” she teased, turning to Doug Chalfont, “is pure, undiluted sex appeal!”
Doug considered the man and shrugged, grinning. “He doesn’t do a thing for me.” Turning to one of the other men in their party whom Meredith had met for the first time tonight, he asked, “How about you, Rick? Does he turn you on?”
Paradise Page 8
