Chesley frowned, as though Tatty’s grandmother, mother, and Tatty herself were always sponging money from the almighty Chases.
“I mean my own money! I just can’t get to it myself, right now. I’m sure there are people looking for me right now. Some very bad people. If you can advance me something, I’ll repay you from one of my accounts as soon as I can.”
“Anything, Tatty. You know that.”
“Five thousand dollars. I’m going to need at least that.”
Chesley frowned again. Tatty almost threw her glass into that oh-so-perfect face. She wondered how that porcelain visage would look with cuts and bruises, wondered how Chesley would have fared with that drunken, savage Russian giant.
“I’ll do my best, Tatty.”
“Look, if I could get to my safe-deposit box, I’d happily sign over all my negotiable securities to you. I’d sign over my apartment, my jewelry. But I don’t dare do that.” She sipped the whisky, remembered something. “Do you have the combination to Daddy’s study safe? I did, but I’ve forgotten it.”
“Yes. But why? What do you want?”
“There’s that bond, the ten-thousand-dollar bond he gave us jointly when I came into the family. He said it would bind us together. A joke. I guess. I’ll sign it and you can do with it what you want. Just have five thousand dollars for me.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Please. I have to get moving.”
“All right. When shall we meet? Where?”
“At six P.M. Some place in Westchester. In Pound Ridge, in the bar of Emily Shaw’s Inn.”
“You really don’t have to sign that bond, Tatty. You know that.”
“Chesley. Just get it. Hurry. I’ve been here too long. This is one place where they could be looking for me.”
Chesley did as she was asked, leaving the room as regally as a prima ballerina leaving the stage. When she returned, Tatty had poured a third glass of whisky, and was drinking it fast. Setting the glass down clumsily, she signed the bond in the appropriate places, predating the entry to a time prior to her departure for Russia.
“It’s yours, Chesley. We are no longer bound.”
With that, Chesley began to cry. She pulled Tatty to her again. “I’m sorry, Tatty. I’m so damned sorry. I’ve been horrid tonight. It’s been a horrid time. I …”
Tatty patted her back, then pushed her gently away, looking into Chesley’s tearful eyes.
“Chesley. Tell Daddy I’m alive, that I’m all right. That I love him and can’t wait to see him again. But tell him to call off the dogs. I’ll get myself out of this, but I need as little attention drawn to me as possible, especially in Washington. Tell him that, please.”
“I will.” Her eyes were terribly cloudy. In distress, she had lost control over her face. It now showed some of her age. “Tatty. How is Jack?”
Tatty stepped completely away from her now. This time it was she who averted her gaze.
“Chesley. I don’t think you will ever see Jack alive again, and I fear it’s all because of me.”
She left by the front door. It was brazen, perhaps foolish, but she was tired of all this craven skulking. No one had followed her. As she made her way along the roadside toward her car, she detected no one. To make absolutely sure, as she drove back toward Gwen’s, she kept on past the Merritt Parkway, proceeding north all the way to Westchester, taking side and back roads and at one point turning off her headlights and driving in the glow of returning moonlight, ducking off suddenly into a remembered cul de sac in the woods. No one passed by, with lights on or off.
She turned her own back on, reversing her direction and driving fast. Contrary to her expectations, to her logic, her confrontation with Chesley had not depressed her. She felt liberated, enlarged by it. She had moved beyond the reach of Chesley’s scorn and domination. She no longer felt meek and ashamed about her sexual encounter with Jack Spencer in Moscow. It now seemed fitting and proper, altogether logical. Perhaps, were it not for poor Jack’s miserable situation, an occasion for rejoicing. She and Chesley were now certifiably equals.
She kept thinking of Ramsey and that Prince of Wales film; those songs, that illicit summer. They knew from the beginning it would end. They had counted upon it.
A country club one night. The band knew some of those songs. Ramsey then bribed them to bring their memory to full color.
Ramsey had pressed his chest against her breasts, had brushed his lips against her cheek, had danced her near the open doors to the terrace.
The music ran thrillingly through her mind, memories of that passionate interlude mingling with cold lovely thoughts of how she would delight in one last dance with Ramsey Saylor, at the end of which, like the black widow spider, she would kill him.
There were headlights steady in her rear view mirror. She let them stay there awhile, but at the next side road, she abruptly pulled off. The other car, a large station wagon, drove by without pause. Killing her own lights, Tatty turned around and pulled back onto the main highway, pursuing the station wagon with her own car in darkness. The other driver continued steadily on, his speed comfortably below the limit. As they neared the Merritt Parkway, she slowed to let him gain distance from her, then turned her lights back on as she ascended the entrance ramp.
It was becoming clear to her what she must do now, and the prospect of doing it made her at once sad, fearful, and excited. Gwen would not like it. Her family would not like it, but what family had she, really? Her father, mother, and grandmother were dead. Except for a few distant cousins in Massachusetts and Virginia, there was only her stepfather and Chesley. Daddy Chase loved her as dearly as she loved him, but that love had flourished only as compensation for the lack of family bond. As for Chesley, she was full of love, but had shared not a drop of it with anyone but a few men and her child. In a strange way that had mostly to do with Russia, she felt closest now to Jack Spencer.
She had driven away all thoughts of Russia as soon as she had gotten free of the place, but now they were returning. She was beginning to think of herself as Russian, almost as intensely as she had at Czarskoe Selo. Chesley’s petty, cruel attempt at debunking notwithstanding, she was once again thinking of herself as Tatiana Alexandra Iovashchenko, cousin of czars. Could she become this? Was that wise? Whether it was or not, she could not remain Tatty Chase.
Gwen did not like it at all when Tatty informed her of her plans. She flew into a tearful rage, marching angrily about the room, flailing the air with her thin arms, screaming that Tatty was making an enormous mistake, that she was going to expose herself to great danger, for all practical purposes kill herself, for nothing. Gwen then collapsed in a chair, sobbing. She was providing a haven for Tatty, providing her with everything she needed. Tatty had been so wonderfully kind and generous for so many years, and now she was so happy to be able to pay her back, and Tatty was throwing that aside, rejecting her help, rejecting her. She sobbed until Tatty felt she must have expended her every tear, till Tatty could stand no more and went to the kitchen to pour herself a glassful of Scotch. When she returned, Gwen had largely recovered. She stood forlornly in the middle of the room, her arms slack at her side, her head held absurdly, like a martyr’s at the stake. When she spoke, her voice was tremulous, and exaggeratedly tragic.
“You’ve absolutely made up your mind? You’re going to leave? You’re going to do this foolish thing?”
“Yes, Gwen. I absolutely must.”
Gwen left the room without another word or look, whimpering all the way up the stairs. Tatty sat and drank, going to the piano finally to play Satie’s Fifth Gnossienne again, to calm herself. When she was sure Gwen was asleep, she went to bed. She would have to get up early the next morning.
She fell asleep at once. She knew she would awaken at three or four in the morning and have to fight her way back to slumber, as alcoholics do. Her new plans must involve doing away with all this drink. She was very near to becoming her mother.
She awakened well befor
e three. At first she thought it part of some dream, for she had been dreaming lately with such regularity, sexual dreams, with Jack, Ramsey, and the horrible Russian giant all interchangeable, all naked. There was now a naked body next to her, and a warm small hand reaching beneath her nightgown.
“Tatty. Dear, dear Tatty.”
The hand touched her breast. Fury brought Tatty completely awake now, but she lay frozen, her anger silent, as helpless as she was raging.
“Tatty, Tatty. I love you so.” There were kisses now. “I have loved you for so terribly long. I thought you understood that. I thought I’d made that known to you. So let me tell you now. I love you, love you, love you. You mustn’t go. Dear Tatty. I can be so good to you.”
There were kisses again, and the small hand moved down her belly.
Tatty struck with both knee and elbow, with as much violence as she had in her struggle with the giant Kolshov. Gwen was knocked from the bed, striking the floor and the bedside table with a simultaneous crash.
“No, goddamn it!” shouted Tatty. “I won’t have it. I am not like that! I have never been like that! I won’t let you do this to me! Damn you, Gwen!”
She calmed herself, letting her heaving breathing fall to sighs. Gwen made no sound. Alarmed, Tatty turned on the light. Gwen lay curled and huddled on the floor, her eyes open in the wild stare of some injured animal. A gash on the side of her head was turning her strawberry hair dark with the crimson of blood.
“Oh God, Gwen. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I’m sorry.”
She helped Gwen to her feet, then took her into the bathroom, washed out the cut, and applied antiseptic and a bandage to it. Gwen’s right eye was swelling and what looked to be the beginning of a large bruise was forming on her hip.
“I’m so sorry, Gwen. You startled me in my sleep. I’ve just been through a lot. I …” She took Gwen by her thin shoulders and looked emphatically into her eyes. “Gwen, this is all for the best. It is probably a very good thing that each of us knows exactly how the other feels about this.”
Gwen turned her head away.
“We can still be friends,” Tatty said. “We’ve always been friends.”
Gwen pulled herself away and walked into her darkened bedroom, not saying a word.
In the morning, Tatty was afraid Gwen would go back on her promise. Before the dreadful scene the night before, Gwen had said she would let her have her car for the day. If Tatty would drop her off at her school, she would get another teacher to drive her home in the afternoon. Gwen said nothing at all about this, about anything at all, eating her breakfast in silence, the flesh about her eye all purple and black.
After breakfast, Gwen came up and handed her the car keys, then started toward the door. When they reached her school, Gwen got out, still not having spoken a word, but paused before slamming shut the door.
“You’ll come back tonight?”
“Yes,” said Tatty. “In time for dinner. We can have a long talk. But I’ll be leaving in the morning.”
Gwen shut the door. Tatty watched her slender, tragic form until it disappeared into the school’s main entrance, then slammed the car into gear and drove hurriedly away. She had awakened at daylight feeling sick and depressed, but that eased now with every mile that brought her closer to the state line and Westchester County, New York.
She had tied a scarf tightly about her head, much like an old Russian babushka, feeling sufficiently disguised upon arriving at the village of Braddock Wells. Driving swiftly through, she followed Pommel Ridge Road, slowing as she passed her grandmother’s old house, still sad to see a stranger’s cars in the drive. Turning onto the dirt road beyond, she found it frozen hard with winter. Speeding the Volkswagen past the old mill and across the stone bridge, she ground it into lower gear for its struggle up the hill. The old duke’s great stone house was just as she remembered it, except there was no smoke from the chimneys, the windows were darkened, and there was a chain across the driveway.
Tatty parked in the gravel just in front, stepped over the chain, and trudged up the sloping drive. The duke could answer many questions, if he were still there. If he were not, many questions might still be answered, another way.
No one came to the door. She pounded on it, rang the bell, remembering that the aged man was hard of hearing. But no one came. No duke, no servants. Nothing. With a sigh of irritation, she left the front steps and went around to a window, peering within. The room was empty, devoid of furniture. She hurried past a long line of bushes and went to one of the windows of the library where she, the Grand Duke, and Ramsey had had drinks by the fire. It was empty; the furniture gone. For a frightening moment, she thought herself part of some particularly scary John Cheever story, but she quickly brought herself back to reality. She was merely caught up in one of Ramsey Saylor’s more elaborate schemes. And that was scarier.
She had to make sure. She had plans to deal with Ramsey, but she was not going to accept her stepsister’s disdainful dismissal of her heritage until she had made sure. Dead sure.
It required her talents as an actress. The role, she decided, would have to be that of a blasé, haughty, social-climbing Westchester housewife whose husband had almost but not quite the financial means to advance their social station by advancing their residential one. It meant filling out a card, going on at length about fictional family finances, looking through a large notebook of photographs and descriptions of properties on the market—including some Tatty recognized as belonging to families of friends—discussing some houses she had seen for sale in the vicinity of the village, and finally mentioning the one at the top of the hill on Old Tarleton Road that looked empty and deserted.
“Oh, I know the one you mean,” said the real estate saleslady, an attractive, gray-haired woman of about fifty. “That’s not on the market. It’s been held in a private trust for years.”
“Are you sure? I thought it was owned by some Russian. A General Suvorov.”
“Let me check the computer.”
They went to an inner recess that, in clashing contrast to the colonial furnishings of the outer office area, looked like the working area of a space station. The woman flicked the fingers of her hands over the keys rapidly.
“No. That property’s been held in a private trust for years and years. No Suvorov. There was a Russian house nearer the village, on Pommel Ridge Road; the name was Iochenko or something. But it’s owned now by somebody named Brady.” She smiled, sweetly but professionally. “You seem to be very interested in that old Tarleton Road house, but I’m sorry, it’s just not for sale. If it were, I fear the price would be, well, prohibitive. It’s the sort of place that will ultimately end up being bought by a religious order or sanitarium or something.” Another sweet smile.
Tatty asked to look at something comparable but less expensive. The woman suggested she come in the next Saturday and she’d show her a few. Tatty nodded and hurried out; once in the cold, she realized her face was covered with perspiration.
She halted. She had to make perfectly, absolutely sure. She went into another real estate office on the other side of the Braddock Wells village green, and got more or less the same answer, with some amplification. The property was not only held in trust but was tied up in probate proceedings.
She drove aimlessly away into the winter afternoon in some despair, passing many remembered places, then with much purpose, passing many, many more, devoting the remainder of the day to a nostalgic perambulation.
All right. Once again, the perfect Chesley was perfectly right. She was no relation to the Romanovs. She was merely victim of Ramsey Saylor’s clever exploitation of her credulity. Her grandmother’s origins were probably as murky a mystery as Tatty had always felt them to be. All right, it was a fraud. She was no more Romanov royalty than she was a Chase.
But it didn’t matter. Whatever she actually was, she could no longer be. She had to become something, someone, completely different. And fast. Dear Jack had been in Lubyanka far too
long.
Tatty pulled into Emily Shaw’s parking lot, handed over Gwen’s old Volkswagen to the youthful attendant at the entrance, and hurried into the warmth inside. Chesley sat alone at a table near the fire, her beauty striking even in silhouette. Tatty touched her hand, in hopes they might recommence in a different mood than that in which they had parted. Her hopes were well founded. Chesley took her hand and gripped it warmly.
“I’m so sorry about last night,” she said. “You took me by surprise. I was feeling so much anger and resentment, toward you and Jack, for what you were doing to the family, putting me and Daddy through. He’s overjoyed, by the way. It was all I could do to keep him from coming with me.”
Tatty wished he had. She could in no way guarantee to herself that she would ever see him again.
“Did you bring the money?”
“Yes.” Chesley’s lips formed an embarrassed smile. “I didn’t cash in the bond. Daddy was very upset at the idea. Instead he got you most of the cash he had in that little savings account he keeps in the bank in Greenwich. It comes to about seventy-eight hundred dollars. Will that do?”
“Yes. That’s wonderful. Where is it?”
Chesley gestured at a small overnight bag on the floor beside her. “It’s in there. I put in a few clothes as well. And your mail. Daddy’s been collecting it from your apartment. I didn’t put in all of it; just what looked personal or important. There’s a slip from the post office, too. You have a registered letter waiting for you there.”
The very last thing she needed at that point was a stack of mail addressed to Tatiana Chase. She would deal with it as quickly as possible. She would ignore the registered letter, having a very good idea who might have sent it, who might have someone waiting every day for her to pick it up. Clever, clever Ramsey.
Chesley was having a sweet Dubonnet. Tatty ordered a Manhattan. She had little time to linger and a great thirst for alcohol. Many in the room were looking at them; certainly all the men were. Here were what Jack had called the two best-looking women in New York, seated at the same table in this country village inn. They should have met in some gas station women’s room, but Chesley would have hated that, and probably would have balked at it.
Blood of the Czars Page 25
