by Anya Seton
Simeon walked faster. I'm as good as I ever was. Better. With an effort he effaced thoughts of the afternoon’s coming negotiation at the Continental Trust and applied an antidote. The ball—everybody in New York worth having—and the hint given by Sylvester Bull. Simeon Tower’s name would come up before the membership committee at the Knickerbocker Club, and Bull had smiled certainty as he mentioned it. The Knickerbocker!—most exclusive of them all, founded in 1871 because the Union and Union League Clubs were getting too democratic.
For a moment Simeon allowed himself a memory. Little Simon Turmstein, jeered at, hiding behind fences, rushing home early from school before the other children chose sides for Run Sheep Run and Pom Pom Pull Away. And those children now? Farmers, factory hands; not one of them worth more than a thousand a year.
Simeon entered the marble doors of Tower, Slate and Hatch, nodded in response to the flurry of respectful greeting, mounted the stairs, acknowledged Lemming’s watchful bow, shut himself into his office, and awaited the market’s opening quotations.
In abstracting Lucita from Miss Pringle’s iron-bound routine, Fey had had to silence all the governess’s stock objections, and had wondered, not for the first time, if it were really necessary to turn the care of her child over to another woman. It was so long since she had had Lucita to herself, because there had been the mounting social duties and the pressure of the ball; and now the child seemed to her a remote, polite little doll.
Briggs tucked the fur robe around them and the cutter started up Fifth Avenue toward the park. Fey gave her little girl an anxiously loving look. Lucita was so pretty, with her red-gold curls, her velvet bonnet and coat and buttoned boots, a replica of her mother’s, so pretty and so quiet.
‘See, darling,’ cried Fey, ‘I’ve brought your skates. We’ll have fun in the park together.’
‘Yes, Mama,’ said the child. ‘It is most kind of you to take me.’
‘Oh, Lucita!’ cried Fey. ‘It isn’t kind of me—I love to have you. Now that stupid ball is over, we’ll do lots of things together.’
Lucita gave her mother a wondering look. ‘Miss Pringle says you and Papa are very busy. I mustn’t bother you.’
Fey’s heart contracted. ‘But, of course, we’re not too busy for you, darling. I’ll tell you what. We’ll plan a special treat soon. Just you and me and Papa. Would you like that? ’
The child nodded. ‘Very much, Mama.’
Fey hesitated, and took the child’s mittened hand from the squirrel muff, held it tight in hers. ‘You love Papa, don’t you, dear?’
‘Oh, yes, I do. He is so good. He gives me lovely things.’
The cutter whizzed past Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, still unfinished, though the two tapering spires now pierced the clear air high above all the surrounding city. It no longer reminded Fey of the Parroquia in Santa Fe, and the familiar sight of the twin spires provoked no memory of nine years ago when it had given her asylum.
Her eyes passed it absently while each thud of the horses’ snow-packed shoes increased her nervous excitement at the coming meeting.
When they crossed the open square at Fifty-Ninth Street, she glanced at Briggs’s stolid back and said to Lucita, ‘I think we may meet somebody in the park, dear. A gentleman, a kind of—of cousin of ours. I haven’t seen in a long time.’
‘Will he skate, too?’ asked the child politely.
Fey smiled, but did not answer. She stopped Briggs at the path, telling him to come back in two hours, and holding Lucita by the hand she set off toward the Marble Arch.
This time Terry was not late and he hurried to greet the two approaching figures.
Fey had braced herself for awkwardness, but there was none. Terry inspected the child, then picked her up and gave her a resounding kiss. Lucita looked astonished, but not resentful. When he had put her down, she smiled shyly up at the tall handsome gentleman.
‘Mine all right!’ said Terry, in a loud whisper to Fey. ‘Hair just like my mother’s and the nose too.’
‘Hush!’ cried Fey. ‘You promised to be careful.’
Terry shrugged and laughed. He was in high spirits. ‘She can’t understand, she’s only eight.’
‘I’ll be nine in June, sir,’ said the little girl, turning her clear blue gaze from Fey to Terry.
‘You see?’ whispered Fey, above the child’s head. Eight, she thought; at that age one understands and knows more than people think. I was only seven when Father died and I knew many things. We must be careful.
But Terry would not be careful. It amused him to charm his daughter.
By all means they must go skating, he cried exuberantly, and, linking arms with Fey and Lucita, he swept them to the upper skating lake!
They arrived breathless and laughing, both infected by his animal spirits. He scarcely allowed Fey time to be sure that there was no one she knew amongst the swirling skaters, though indeed there was little danger; this was not the fashionable lake. He had buckled the runners onto his daughter’s boots and rented skates for himself and Fey before she had finished her half-hearted protest.
‘I’m not any good,’ she said, staggering on the skates and clinging to his arm.
‘Neither am I,’ he laughed, catching her around the waist. ‘You’ll have to show us how,’ he said to the delighted child. ‘You see, your mother and I grew up in a land without ice ponds.’
The three of them floundered and struggled together. They fell down and they laughed. The other skaters gave them a wide berth, smiling sympathetically at the gay family party. Lucita was transformed, her cheeks crimson, her little voice shrill with excitement.
When they had had enough and were walking to the refreshment kiosk, she hung onto Terry like an affectionate puppy, and as soon as they were seated climbed up onto his lap, where he immediately cuddled and petted her.
‘Get down, darling,’ said Fey sharply. ‘I know you like—Cousin Terry, but this is a public place.’
‘Jealous, my dear?’ asked Terry, tightening his hold on the child and grinning at Fey. ‘What more natural than that I should fondle my——’
‘Terry!’
‘Ah—here comes our chocolate, I see,’ said Terry, sitting Lucita forward on his knee so that she might reach the foaming cup.
To Fey, who was still frowning, he said:
‘It must be the Scotch part of you, in which I never quite believed, by the way, that makes you so anxious and serious. Laugh, my dear, as you did on the lake. It makes you much prettier.’
‘It isn’t the Scottish part,’ she answered angrily. ‘It’s common decency.’
‘Ah!’ said Terry. He bent over the little girl and added in a stage whisper, ‘We wouldn’t know about that, would we, Lucita?’
The child looked up from the chocolate and inspected him earnestly. ‘No one but Mama calls me that—everyone else says Lucy.’
Terry turned from the child and, leaning back in the chair, fixed his warm, lazy gaze on Fey’s face.
‘But you don’t mind, do you?—I used to know your Mama very well—and shall again.’ He weighted the last words with caress and meaning.
Fey tried not to answer his look as she tried to push down the heat she felt seeping across her face. This is a game with him, as it always was, she thought. I’m not an ignorant child any more, and I know this is not love. But her eyes of their own separate will responded to his.
And suddenly he spoke in Spanish—‘Yes, it is true that we belong in each other’s arms; you also remember the joy.’
Fey jumped up and at her convulsive motion the chair grated on the restaurant tiles. ‘ Come, Lucita,’ she said. ‘It’s very late. We’ve got to go.’
‘Oh, Mama——’ protested the child, and then, seeing her mother’s face, she slid from Terry’s knee with frightened speed.
‘Good-bye, little one,’ said Terry, smiling at Lucita. ‘We’ve had fun, haven’t we? And Fey, I’m at the Saint Nicholas, you know. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.’
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nbsp; Fey turned her back on him and hurried Lucita out of the restaurant.
The little girl gave Fey several apprehensive looks while her legs trotted as fast as they could to match her mother’s pace; at last she said, ‘You look so funny, Mama; you aren’t cross with me, are you?’
Fey stopped dead, leaning against a bench and trying to get her breath. ‘No, darling, of course not.’ She managed to smile and saw the troubled face clear. ‘Lucita—I hate to——’ She stopped and started again. ‘This meeting with Cousin Terry this afternoon—it must be a secret just for you and me.’
‘You mean I mustn’t tell Miss Pringle—or Papa?’ said the child slowly.
‘Not anyone. Promise me.’
‘I promise, Mama. But shan’t I see him again? He’s so big and nice, and he looks like that picture of the Sun-King in my story-book.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Fey bitterly, beginning to walk again. ‘ But Miss Pringle taught you something you wrote in your copy-book. “Handsome is as handsome does.” Do you remember?’
‘Yes, Mama, but I don’t understand it very well.’
And I haven’t learned it either, whispered Fey to herself. I haven’t learned it either. Her jaw set, and for the next few days she directed her servants and attended to social obligations with a tense, chill efficiency.
Chapter Seventeen
ON TUESDAY MORNING at eleven o’clock Terry took the Broadway stage for Wall Street. He intended to do nothing decisive, particularly nothing which might jeopardize the satisfactory progress of his affair with Fey. This was to be merely a reconnoitering expedition. And for its outcome he trusted to luck. Luck, as usual, treated him very well.
He wandered in through the doors of Tower, Slate and Hatch, admiring the veined marble pillars and cast-iron grilles, and before the first junior clerk had approached to ask his business, he encountered Noah Lemming. Lemming was temporarily downstairs supervising a bond transfer, and Terry’s appearance interested him.
‘What can we do for you, sir?’ He bowed before Terry, smiling his tight smile and adjusting his glossy paper collar.
‘Why——’ Terry hesitated. ‘I had a little private matter to take up with Mr. Tower, but there’s no hurry. I just thought I’d run in.’
‘Mr. Tower’s out just now. Over in the Exchange. But I’m his secretary. Maybe I could assist you.’
‘Well—I hardly think——’ began Terry, smiling with great friendliness.
He had no idea where or if this secretary might be useful, but he had no intention of making an enemy.
Lemming, far shrewder than Terry, instantly followed this reasoning. Something’s up, he thought, and I’m going to find out what.
‘Come up to my office and join me in a Havana, anyway,’ he said, and led the way upstairs.
Terry followed uncertainly. He had not the faintest notion of what he was going to say.
‘Nice office you’ve got,’ he offered, sitting down in an armchair upholstered in red plush and accepting the cigar. ‘Must be fine working for a rich man like Tower.’
Lemming’s foxy face sharpened. ‘You’re looking for a job?’ he asked, disappointed.
‘Hell, no!’ returned Terry. ‘I couldn’t stand office work for a second.’
‘So I should have imagined.’ Lemming permitted himself a thin smile. ‘ My name is Noah Lemming, and what is yours, may I ask?’
Terry hesitated, but there seemed no reason for concealment. ‘Dillon,’ he said. ‘Xavier T. Dillon.’
Lemming considered this, frowning. Something familiar about it, some teasing correlation just over the edge of memory that couldn’t quite be fished out. He reached beneath his desk and brought up a bottle and glasses. ‘Brandy?’ He poured Terry a large glass and handed it to him with the utmost graciousness.
Terry nodded and took a huge fiery swallow. You won’t catch me that way, he thought, amused. I could drink six of you under the table, you dried-up little weasel.
‘Been in New York long?’ asked Lemming.
‘Why, no. As a matter of fact, I’ve just come. I spent the last three years in Mexico.’ And make what you can out of that, he added mentally.
But he was wrong. Lemming’s eyes veiled themselves; beneath the edge of the desk his dry hands gripped each other as the lost correlation slid into consciousness. Mexico—Spanish. A woman with an accent, breaking into angry Spanish. Mrs. Dillon! Mrs. Simeon Tower.
He decided to clarify matters by a bold attack. ‘I think,’ he said, delicately setting down his glass and giving it a little halftwist, ‘that your call concerns Mrs. Tower—who was once, perhaps, Mrs. Dillon?’
‘How the devil did you get that!’ cried Terry, astounded out of caution. ‘Oh, I suppose you knew about the divorce.’
Divorce! Lemming’s face fell. He had hoped for bigamy. Still, far more clearly than Terry, he saw the possibilities.
‘Let’s be frank, Mr. Dillon,’ he said. ‘One can hardly deny that your appearance may embarrass Mr. Tower. Just how much did you think your—ah—silent disappearance was going to be worth?’
Terry was shocked. Lemming had at one bound jumped much farther than Terry’s vague optimistic plans had reached. His precise voice had nailed down the gauzy moth, and now, no longer fluttering on ahead but starkly spread out on the desk between them, it looked crude and ugly.
‘That’s an extraordinary question,’ said Terry. ‘Nothing I’ve said has given you any such——’
‘Let’s not be childish,’ interrupted Lemming. He was now sure of his man, and moved by natural malice and the prospect of safe advantage, he saw the kind of guidance that Dillon required.
‘I can help you, you know,’ he said, smiling. ‘You will find my—ah—advice invaluable, I assure you.’
The smile did not reassure Terry. He was out of his depth, for after all this man was Tower’s secretary and presumably would guard his employer’s interest.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Lemming, who did. He found that handsome, pseudo-sophisticated face very transparent. ‘Let me convince you, Mr. Dillon, that, though of course I am entirely loyal to Mr. Tower, I really see no reason why you should not profit a bit by this situation.’
‘And you?’ said Terry, after a moment.
‘Well——’ Lemming again produced his pinched smile, he poured Terry another glass of brandy. ‘I’ll leave that up to you. You will find, I think, that my advice has—ah—value.’
Terry emptied his glass and moved uneasily in the red plush chair.
‘Just what is your advice?’ he asked sulkily.
Lemming glanced at the wall clock. Tower might drop back to the office from the Exchange on his way to Delmonico’s for lunch, and it would be unwise for him to see Terry. ‘ Come back at three,’ he said, rising. ‘He’ll be well-fed and less irritable than at other times. Ask for ten thousand.’
Terry jumped. So much! The nebulous plan had never reached an exact figure, but no such sum as that had he ever aspired to. ‘He’ll kick me out,’ he said.
Lemming shook his head, his eyes hardened into a fleeting expression of contempt. ‘Not if you handle the interview with finesse; no threats, of course. Keep a light tone. You will naturally in no way let him guess that you have talked to me.’ He paused and waited, until Terry nodded slowly. Then Lemming continued, ‘And in case you do run into trouble, you might just—ah—mention the name—Pansy Miggs.’
‘Pansy Miggs!’ repeated Terry incredulously. For a moment he had the disagreeable sensation of riding a runaway horse through a tunnel, of having lost control while being rushed willy-nilly into darkness.
‘Why, yes,’ said Lemming, in a light conversational tone. ‘A public figure like Mr. Tower always has several things in his past which he would prefer to forget. I see no reason why he should not pay for the privilege of forgetting them.’
‘By God, you’re right!’ cried Terry, laughing. The disagreeable sensation had stopped and the brandy had produced a haze of good feeling
. He noted that Lemming’s fingers trembled very slightly and that he glanced nervously at the clock. The little weasel was neither headlong nor dangerous, and if he, too, wanted to pick up a bit of cash, who could blame him? I can handle him all right, thought Terry, and it was lucky I met him. ‘Well, so long,’ he said cordially. ‘ I’ll be back at three and have a go at it. After it’s over, you sneak out to the Saint Nicholas and we’ll compare notes over a drink.’
Lemming bowed, wincing a trifle, as Terry clapped him on the back. Terry went out to find some lunch, and the glow continued. He looked forward to the afternoon interview with relish. It would be fun, a good game, far more exciting than faro, and for higher stakes. It was amusing, too, to feel power over the great Simeon Tower, and he thought of him almost affectionately. Funny dumpy little man in a silly king’s costume, such a rich little man with a few shady spots in his past. Jealous of Fey, too, thought Terry, grinning to himself, as why wouldn’t he be when he had nothing but money to offer a woman? Terry squared his shoulders and threw out his chest, seeing the eyes that were being made at him from under a frizzy blonde bang across the room. There’d be a message from Fey in a day or two. He knew her; underneath she was the same dazzled girl he had met in Santa Fe. And in the meantime, thought Terry, consulting his watch, off we go to give her precious husband the shock of his life. He paid his check and walked back to 57 Wall Street. ’
Lemming had suavely arranged the interview. ‘There was a man here, Mr. Tower, didn’t give his name, but I’ve a feeling it’s important. Might be—ah—that information you wanted. He’s to be here at three again.’
Simeon nodded, and his heavy eyes brightened a little. The leaks which had once been so helpful all seemed to have dried up. And today, though the market had been firm, Transic and the Gulf and San Diego both showed the effects of a stealthy ambiguous hammering.