by Marlowe Benn
Yes, yes, yes. The beloved Charlotte and her bonny young Philip. Surely they’d all memorized the passage ages ago. At last the moment seemed ripe for Julia to speak. “Precisely,” she said. “Simple then and simple now. Our father’s will was grounds for the arrangement made eleven years ago. Surely it still pertains. According to its terms, I’m due to take full control of my inheritance on my birthday, two weeks from today.”
For a moment Philip’s gaze sharpened into focus. His head sank fractionally to one side, and he seemed to assess her with fresh interest. Intrigue, even, as if finally noticing she was no longer a tongue-tied girl with stubby braids and scuffed knees. Then the droll mask returned, and he clapped twice like an enthralled child. “Sensibly put and succinct to boot!”
However annoying this outburst, Julia hastened to echo it. “Excellent, then. As we agree these objections are nothing more than a baseless nuisance, I’ll rebook on the next available sailing home, and our paths will part forever. Nothing would make either of us happier, I’m sure.”
Another keen look crossed his face, and Julia wished she could seize hold of its mercurial intelligence. In that instant he was a man she could talk to, reason with. But again that discerning flicker disappeared, and instead Philip gave a flamboyant sigh. “And waste this morning’s expedition?” He pulled a gold cigarette case from his jacket pocket and swung it in a lazy arc toward the others. “I spent half an hour getting this cravat to behave. Might as well take a stab at defending said baseless nuisance. It’d be a pity to have dragged you hither for anything less. How’d you put it, Jack, the nature of that arrangement? Hasty and expedient, I think you said.”
Jack. The hairs on Julia’s arms rose. More than acquaintances. They were good friends by the sound of it. She must be vigilant.
“The thing ain’t so simple, you know.” Philip lit a cigarette and drooped back into his chair to address the lawyer. “I wasn’t much more than a pup myself at the time. I hardly knew the girl, but I did what was asked of me.” He exhaled a perfect O of smoke. “I doubt she’s had cause to complain.”
True enough. For years the bank directives and holiday deliveries had arrived promptly, though rarely with more than a few scrawled words. Until she’d turned eighteen, she’d been the subject of his duty-bound attention—arrangements for stuffy boarding schools and dreary summer camps and tours, not to mention the various “mature gentlewomen” engaged to monitor her general welfare—rather than its object. If not for Christophine’s companionship, Julia would have lost entirely the cheer of loving arms, fond smiles. Those years had taught her well: to rely on herself—not hired overseers and certainly not her remote half brother—to shape her own mind and aspirations. Philip’s greetings, arriving like clockwork at each birthday and Christmas, wouldn’t total a single page.
“I’ve never complained,” Julia said. “You’re the one who raised this absurd business.”
“Absurd? Is it?” Philip gestured to the papers on Van Dyne’s desk. “May I?”
Van Dyne handed Philip the two typed sheets of his formal challenge, which he studied. Maybe he was thick after all. This would be risible were it not so irksome.
“It gets going somewhere here, I think.” Philip tracked a paragraph halfway down the first page, then read from it aloud: “Eleven years ago it would have been churlish to press my misgivings about the arrangements made for my half sister’s keeping. But accepting that responsibility did not mean accepting its addled logic, then or now.”
He scanned ahead. “Milo Kydd’s will now deserves more calm and deliberate examination. Note it’s dated just a year after I was born. It fairly reeks with a proud papa’s vision of a brood of Vancill-Kydds to follow. He refers specifically and solely to my mother. It’s safe to infer that by future issue he means their children, theirs together.”
Safe to infer? More like convenient and profitable, for Philip. Any necessary inferences had been drawn years ago when these very lawyers concluded that “future issue” included Julia. She recrossed her legs and drew breath to contest his facile assertion, but before she could, Philip resumed reading aloud.
“Milo Kydd did not die suddenly. He had ample time to get his papers in order. If he wished for my half sister or her mother to receive a share of his estate, he would have made those wishes plain. But he died leaving unaltered a will that did not mention, much less provide for, Lena Jordahl and her daughter.”
“That’s hardly—”
Philip silenced Julia with a raised palm. “My father had six years to name them in his will. He did not. Why? There’s no mystery to it. The marriage was a disaster. Of all the rash things he did after my mother died, marrying a foreign girl half his age was surely the most foolish. Within a year he virtually lived at his clubs, in obvious misery and profound regret. His unchanged will confirmed what was plain to see: the marriage was dead. One must presume he wished to erase it, to expunge it—”
“Of course the marriage was unhappy.” Julia’s words sailed, startling the pen in Miss Baxter’s hand.
A foreign girl. The epithet stung. Though rarely summoned into conversations and more rarely still admitted, Lena’s memory still scraped a tender nerve. However much Milo may have rued their ill-suited marriage, it was Lena who paid the greater penalty. To now blame her for that folly was intolerable.
Julia regripped her bag and steadied her voice. This was too important to let anger shrill her words. “How could it have been otherwise? My mother had more life in the tip of her finger than that old man ever dreamed of.” She tapped her forefinger to her thumb. “Yet the fact remains they were married. Unless you plan to claim that Milo Kydd was not my lawful father—which he most certainly was—this is a complete waste of time. I am every bit as much his legitimate heir as you, Philip.”
A daft look of pleasure flooded Philip’s face. His fingers fluttered a lazy dismissal: thin and lithe, fluent as doves. His little finger curved up—inquisitive? mischievous? droll?—as the others floated in a languid palmward curl. She’d seen it a thousand times before, at her own arm’s length as she examined her hands for traces of ink missed by the printer’s pumice. Was the gesture another legacy from their distant father?
“There’s no question of your legitimacy, my dear,” he said. “Only the old boy’s wishes. If I may?” He scanned the document and continued reading: “It is significant that Lena Jordahl made no claim for herself or her daughter at the time of her husband’s death.”
Julia again drew breath to answer, but Philip’s low voice bore on. “Apparently she saw the absurdity of such a claim. Not only were they estranged as man and wife, but she had money of her own. This is significant. The terms of Milo’s will are predicated on my mother’s fortune being entailed elsewhere—neither I nor my prospective siblings could hope for anything from the Vancill line. It seems to me the maternal situation bears some consideration, as it was in his mind when he dictated his wishes.”
Philip laid down the sheets and turned to Julia. “I’d forgotten about that point, but it’s a good one. Let’s be reasonable. Yes, I accepted the expedience of footing your childhood bills. It was easier than trying to tap into that distant Jordahl money, mired as it was in Swedish barnyards. But really”—he exhaled a soft whistle—“there’s enough to keep you comfortable. Now that you’re grown and living on that side of the pond anyway, why haggle over the modest Kydd stash?”
This stung. “We may be a far cry from Rockefellers, Philip, but our father’s fortune is ample enough. We can both live on its income, and like you, I depend on it.”
Script forgotten, he parried back, “That’s not true. Unlike mine, your mother was rich.”
“You know perfectly well my mother’s wealth was in land, which in any case reverted to her brothers after she died. I can’t ask—no, beg—my uncles to break up their holdings so my pigheaded brother might steal my inheritance. It’s unthinkable. Impossible.”
Philip settled back, a new cigarette cradled between hi
s fingers. “As trustee in the matter,” he said to Van Dyne, “I assure you the Jordahls may be dull, but they’re provident to the hilt. They could readily muster an allowance more than ample for my half sister’s needs.”
What new arrogance was this? Proposing she forgo a lawful inheritance to rely on charity instead? Presuming to know her financial needs? Julia fought to remain cool. This was important. She had Christophine to think of. Christophine had always been far more than a maid to Julia, especially in the hard years after her mother’s death. She’d been just fourteen, a bright and eager waif by all accounts, when she left Saint Barthélemy with Julia’s parents after their rather bohemian wedding at the Jordahl home near Gustavia on that tiny Caribbean island. Christophine was Julia’s nursemaid and companion, growing into more of a surrogate sister or aunt and then into the essential manager of all that made Julia’s domestic life proceed smoothly.
“You know nothing of the sort, Philip,” Julia said. “I’m sure my household costs no less than yours. My need is not one jot less than yours.”
“In household expenses, perhaps not. But you’re spared a man’s responsibilities of business and family. Furthermore, you hold the trump card.” He surveyed her, his head quirked to one side as if she were an array of cufflink options. “I don’t doubt you’ll snare a rich husband. You’ll have plenty of money to foot even the steepest milliners’ bills.” He eyed Julia’s hat. “For what else is a female’s fortune really required?”
Julia steadied her expression. Of one thing she was certain: the future she envisioned for herself, however vaguely, included no husbands, snared or otherwise. Her chin rose and twisted slightly, the better to display Mme Hamar’s beautiful felt cloche with its pleated rosette of lettuce-colored faille ribbon nestled over her left ear. She owned others like it, finer even, and every one not a bit of his business. “While questions of need may amuse you, Philip, they’re irrelevant. A will is a document of rights.”
Miss Baxter rustled, and Van Dyne’s chair squeaked. Duty bound him to inform Philip that Julia was right, he said, and all discussion should be limited to the documents at hand.
“Oh, naturally. And their context.” Last salvo away, Philip’s spine dissolved into another genial curve. He hoisted an ankle onto his knee, exposing a lavender stocking the exact shade of his amethyst tiepin. Julia wanted to despise his sartorial impudence, but the color very nearly matched the shade of her favorite silk pyjamas.
She held her tongue, letting his prattle dry to nothing in the little office’s somber air. Philip had had his farce of a debate, but her words carried greater weight; let them conclude the meeting. Her position was the sound one, grounded in both precedent and logic. And it was fair. In the end that was her reassurance. Justice was on her side. It would see her through. Confidence. Confidence would carry the day.
Van Dyne measured the silence that followed. At last he unhooked his spectacles from his ears and dismissed Miss Baxter with a relieved nod. The partners would try to reach a judgment quickly, he promised, possibly as early as next week.
Philip unfolded himself from his chair, demurring that there was no need to rush. “Not bad for a first sibling squabble,” he said, “though regrettably late in the game. Nothing like a brisk thrust and parry to get the color up.”
Was he going to thank her? Wipe the sweat from his brow and praise her worthiness as an opponent? As if the past hour, the past week, the past few months since word of his objections arrived had all been some great sport? Before Julia could muster a retort, Van Dyne hurried to preempt it. “He’s teasing you, Miss Kydd. You have to understand he’s—”
“An utter lamb, capering for your amusement,” Philip said. “Mild as milk.” He selected a cigarette from Van Dyne’s extended case. “They say the patch up afterward is twice as fun. Swords into swizzle sticks and all that? Lunch at the Pomeroy, on my nickel?”
“Do join us, Miss Kydd,” Van Dyne said as he leaned close to light Philip’s cigarette. A wry smile passed between them, and the younger man colored.
Blood rushed in Julia’s ears. She wanted nothing more than a swift exit out of this office and into the reviving autumn sunshine for time alone to consider the morning’s assertions, but the sight of Philip and the young lawyer relaxing into each other’s company kicked all such thoughts out the window. Whatever these two had to say to each other, she wanted to hear it—and intervene if necessary.
“I suppose I could spare the hour,” she said. “And it’s Julia, please. Jack.”
CHAPTER 7
“Heads down,” Philip said into a glass of claret. “Wright is on the move.”
It was too late. He pushed back his chair and rose to greet a small man with a razor-honed Vandyke beard weaving toward them through the Pomeroy’s crowded dining room.
Identified only by a small brass P above the buzzer, the Pomeroy occupied the third floor of the Hoskins Building. It was a hive of downtown Manhattanites, most of them feasting on liquid offerings. Drinks were served in their proper glassware; a clientele of judges, attorneys, and city officials, plus generous bribes underscoring that they served only members’ own liquor, spared diners the usual Volstead farce of teacups.
The Pomeroy’s bustling trade fueled a dull roar in the vast low-ceilinged room, a din Philip had twice already lamented. There was no need to mention that if not for Julia, he and Jack would be lunching peacefully at the Hogarth Club, which, like most such clubs, forbade females. Julia too left unsaid her fervent wish to be elsewhere. For the first time since arriving in New York, she missed David. She missed his mild, effortless company—demanding nothing and offering nothing beyond whatever shared pleasures might arise, in and for the moment only.
Even if Philip and his guests had been inclined to chat, they’d scarcely have had the chance. Three times in the past twenty minutes, a different young woman had ambled by to purr some vacuous remark in his direction. Each time he shooed the lady on, and each time she departed on a glissade of delighted affront. Wright was their only gentleman visitor and the only one to sink into the vacant chair. He spun the wine bottle around to read its label and signaled the waiter to fetch another glass.
Wright greeted Philip and Jack with a grunt, but he fixed his sharp brown eyes on Julia. “Where’ve you been hiding this morsel, Kydd?”
“Under my roof, if you must know.”
Julia’s throat burned at the rakish innuendo, though she relished the fellow’s start.
“The lady is my sister,” Philip said. “Cheering news for sybarites like yourself but stultifying to me.”
“Hardly original, Kydd. At least choose a brunette.” Wright’s leer was creepish but his skepticism understandable. Julia’s fair coloring shouted of her Swedish mother, while Philip could pass for a sunbrowned Greek. Only lean frames and a left-handed grasp of the world suggested they were even partial siblings.
“She really is his sister,” said Jack. “Half sister, at any rate. She’s visiting from London.”
Wright shrugged and filled his glass.
“Julia,” Philip said, “manners compel me to inform you this is Willard Wright. An acquaintance of Van Dyne’s who fancies himself a popular novelist.” He watched Wright’s show of tasting the wine. “What brings you out in the harsh light of noon, man?”
Wright glanced at Julia. “The scenery.”
She inclined her head. Perfect flummery. She’d met a hundred Wrights before. Men like him loitered in restaurants and theaters and concert halls everywhere, each dispensing the same dreary arrogance disguised as compliments.
“Saw your piece on Stieglitz in American Mercury,” he said to Philip.
“A trifle.”
“Certainly. But Mencken must have thought it tolerable. It was a thin issue, with summer holidays, but still.”
“Indeed.”
“Any news on the sleuthing front?” Wright asked. His beard jutted in a sarcastic smile.
Philip winced. “Good Lord, no.”
“No fiendish murders? No lovers’ quarrel gone horribly wrong?” Wright persisted, elbows on the table, as soup arrived.
“You’re a ghoul, Wright.”
The man’s small teeth gleamed. “I’d make you famous, you know. Just imagine, an insufferable ponce—a clever insufferable ponce—sniffing out criminals. With my pen and your nose for mayhem, readers would lap it up; you can’t imagine the depths of literary taste these days.”
Philip snapped the air with a violent flick of his napkin. He divided the remaining wine among Julia’s, Jack’s, and his own glasses. To Wright he said, “Alas.”
Wright ignored the slight and buttered a slice of bread with Jack’s knife. “Just as well. Indifferent vintage.”
“Wright’s got a point, Philip. Folks are mad for detective stories nowadays,” Jack said, undeterred by Philip’s frown. “You squared that business with the bank bonds in a flash. I could help, make sure he gets it right.”
Wright smiled. “There’s a thought. I could use a nom de plume, write as if Van Dyne’s telling the tales. He could be your very own Dr. Watson.”
Julia listened to this remarkable exchange with growing impatience. What on earth were they talking about? She put down her spoon with more force than she intended.
Jack apologized. “It’s an old dispute, I’m afraid. We go round and round with it every time our paths cross. Wright here has a notion of writing detective novels—”
“For ready cash,” Wright interrupted. “Bags of it, I hope.”
“And he wants to model his lead character on Philip. Your brother’s solved a few puzzlers for the police, and Wright thinks they’d make good stories. Philip detests the idea, though frankly I don’t see any harm in it.”
“This sleuthing twaddle is beginning to annoy me,” Philip said, fixing Jack with a meaningful stare.
Refreshing as it was to see Philip back on his heels, Julia shared his irritation with the term, shouted nowadays by cheap magazines everywhere to sell cheap novels. She didn’t particularly care if Wright’s literary aspirations poached upon Philip’s so-called deductive exploits, but she did agree that—for those bored with séances and scavenger hunts—“sleuthing” reduced to a game the serious work that she and Glennis had solemnly resolved to do. Their investigation might not involve theft or murder (Glennis’s hyperbole aside) or even probably the law, but it was nothing to joke at. Naomi Rankin deserved, if not justice, then at least for the truth of her fate to be known.