He listened to the chiming of the clock in the hall. The hours were passing, and down there, having eaten lunch, the solicitors waited on word from him. The short February day was drawing in, and still he had not made up his mind. For a second his hand touched the pages of the report built up over these last years. He thought contemptuously of the Russian, and yet the report had no mention of any but that single man, Lucky Nolan. A nightclub entertainer. Just the sort of person Stephen would have got hold of, fool that he was. But his curiosity was about his grandchild, the child with the dark hair, the report said, a very pretty child, delicately made, but not given to illnesses. He wished just for one minute he could see that child; all he needed to do was see her, and he would be sure. But with the report there had been no photograph. A photograph would not have told him what he needed to know. He needed to look into the face of a living child to know if she was his kind or not.
His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the nurse ‒ he had had them round the clock for the last months. He hated them all, bustling and cheery, knowing they were here until he died, and then they would move on to the next case. He made their lives as difficult as possible.
‘Time for your injection, Mr Rainard.’
‘Get it over with, then.’
The injection was skilfully given, but he winced at the very touch of the nurse. The time between injections was now shorter and shorter, and he knew the doctors had authorized any amount of drugs that he desired. It was perhaps just the act of the nurse going to close the curtains, the final ending of the daylight that decided him.
‘Tell those fools downstairs that they are to come up now. I wish to see them.’
3
For five hours Anna Rainard rode the Staten Island ferry back and forth across New York harbour. All day long the skyline of Wall Street grew near and then receded; she watched the gigantic features of the Statue of Liberty take shape, and then dissolve, she listened to the muted commotion of the docking and undocking, the muffled thump as the ferry hit the slipway, the cars driving on and off. It was the middle of the day. There were very few people aboard, and none that stayed, trip after trip, as she did. Twice she went and bought coffee, but did not eat. She wasn’t aware that a deckhand hovered near whenever she went on the outside deck. The ferryman had seen others like her before, those who rode the ferry hour after hour, and then at some point, slipped into the oily green water.
It was 29 February. Chunks of rotten ice came floating down the Hudson. Tomorrow was Nicole’s birthday. Winter and Nicole’s birthday were always intermixed in Anna’s mind. The Statue was coming up again. To herself she quoted the lines first heard from her father, something that inspired his long, uncompleted trip from Russia, ‘Give me your tired … your huddled masses … send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.’ There had been no golden door for Anna Rainard. One might now be opening for Nicole.
The letter from Fairfax & Osborne, and the six other partners listed, had reached Anna yesterday. It had asked her to call for an appointment at her convenience. She had never heard of these people before, and the curiosity and sense of fear aroused was no less in her than in anyone else. She had made an appointment for that morning at ten o’clock. When she saw the long list of junior partners, the size and muted air of importance of the office itself, she realized that here was one of the bastions of Wall Street. She had expected to be shown into the office of one of the junior partners, but it was to the corner office of William Osborne himself that she was shown. From that high window the Statue had looked quite small, of little importance beside the power that money had built in this land which had sent out its call to the poor of Europe.
William Osborne had also read every word of the reports which had reached Henry Rainard in Yorkshire, but the sight of Anna Rainard was still a surprise. He knew of the deception she had practised on her daughter, but when she seated herself, a beautiful, slim woman, neatly dressed, her face innocent of make-up, her nails, when she slipped off her black gloves, unpainted, he knew that he would have liked such a receptionist in his own office. She looked the part. But he said nothing about this. As briefly as possible he explained the terms of Henry Rainard’s will.
They were simple and harsh, like the man. The only child of his son’s marriage would receive half of his estate. The other half was to go to his daughter Iris, Lady Gowing. There was one condition only. Nicole’s inheritance was to be placed in trust for her until her twenty-first birthday only if, and provided that, within six months of his death, Anna Rainard was to pass over her guardianship to Sir Charles and Lady Gowing, make a promise in writing that she would never see her daughter until she reached her majority, and after that, only at her daughter’s instigation, and that Nicole’s education should continue in Europe. For this act of signing over her rights in her child, for her written promise never to see her until the specified time, Anna Rainard would receive five thousand pounds, or its equivalent in dollars.
When Anna sat in the chair facing William Osborne, Henry Rainard had been dead for just three weeks.
‘May I ask how you knew where to find me?’ Anna said evenly. Her tone betrayed nothing, not shock nor outrage, nor dismissal. William Osborne, who was accustomed to scenes within this quiet office, was mildly surprised. ‘There are ways of doing such things, Mrs Rainard …’
‘I’m to believe then, that Stephen’s father has been aware of Nicole’s existence ‒ of mine, and our whereabouts for some time.’
‘For some time,’ he conceded.
‘I see.’ She asked a few more direct, very blunt questions. Had Mr Rainard known what kind of job she did? ‒ had he known of her relationship with Mr Nolan? ‒ had he known of the kind of school Nicole attended? William Osborne winced as he answered. Who would have expected such a quiet-seeming woman to be so indelicate? And yet he admired the soundness of the questions. She wanted to know exactly where she was; that was the whole point of law.
‘Would my promise not to see Nicole extend beyond her twenty-first birthday?’
‘Your promise would. Once your daughter comes of age, no one can stop her contacting you, if she so desires.’
‘I see. Well ‒ I must think about it.’ She rose and began to put on her gloves.
William Osborne was used to ending interviews himself and her taking over of the situation annoyed him. ‘You realize the extent of Henry Rainard’s estate, Mrs Rainard?’
‘No ‒ I was waiting for you to tell me, Mr Osborne.’
He frowned. ‘These things are subject to valuation, of course, but Henry Rainard’s estate is mostly liquid. He sold his mills just before the crash.’ At this he smiled rather grimly. ‘Many of my clients might have prayed for his foresight. It is believed by his London solicitors to be in excess of three hundred thousand pounds. This, of course, is subject to death duties. The remainder after expenses and ‒ er, the payment made to you, is to be divided equally between your daughter Nicole, and your husband’s sister, Lady Gowing.’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘The whole estate will go to Lady Gowing.’
She stood for just a moment longer, seeming to stare vacantly out the window and across the harbour. ‘Do you recall how old my daughter is, Mr Osborne?’
He glanced down swiftly at the folder of notes on the desk before him, but he had taken off his glasses, and standing he could not read them. ‘Er … I believe ‒’
‘Tomorrow she will be seventeen.’ She turned and walked towards the door. He had to hurry to open it for her.
‘Isn’t there any more you’d like to know, Mrs Rainard? I’d be happy to advise you …’
‘I know the facts, Mr Osborne. I will call for another appointment. Good day.’
He watched her slim black-coated figure walk down the corridor. She had not allowed him time to summon his secretary to escort her to the elevator, but she wasn’t the kind to lose her way. Rarely, since his name had gone on the very b
ottom of the list of junior partners of the firm, had William Osborne been so dismissed. This might be one of the toughest clients he had ever dealt with, and his admiration for her was acknowledged, though grudgingly. She wouldn’t blur any of the lines, this woman. She would say yes or no, and mean it. He began to wonder what her daughter was like, and if Henry Rainard had not made a grave mistake.
The pain and anger which Anna would not betray before William Osborne rode all day with her on the ferry. She paced the deck and then wished that she might have stamped beneath her feet all the anonymous faces of the anonymous people who had brought herself and Nicole to this situation. The fierce February wind that blew across the harbour did not drive her to the warmth of the cabins. She pretended that it was the wind which whipped the tears to her eyes. She thought of a man, known only to her as a mill-owner who had educated his son to be a gentleman, and had married his daughter into the upper classes, and who could shape his will into such a cruel instrument. She thought of Lucky, who had been generous and easy, and who had given Nicole the things that made her what she was, the education that would make her acceptable to this man’s daughter, Lady Gowing. Anna relived again, against her will, the hurt and humiliation of those few weeks when she had encountered the English at their haughtiest, their most inflexible, the few weeks of her love for John Manstone, and how it had withered and died beneath the icy stare of his mother. The English. How she hated them, all the tribe of conceited, overbearing cold-eyed snobs. She thought of how the facts about herself must have looked on paper ‒ the facts about the job, and Lucky and the small apartment on Central Park West. Well, where had Henry Rainard been with his money when Nicole had been a small child? ‒ where had he been all these years? He was taking the product of Lucky’s money, the product of St Columba’s, and imagining that she could be fashioned overnight into a little English miss. Brigadier Sir Charles and Lady Gowing. God, it had a fine sound. But so did Prince Michael Alexandreovitch Ovrensky, order of the Grand Cross of St George. Had Henry Rainard’s investigation gone as far back as that? Anna didn’t think so. And yet it was there whence she felt herself to be sprung. The Ovrenskys were her family. She had had a family, even if she was called by another name. She wasn’t sprung from the mud of the steppes. And yet she could hear Lady Manstone’s voice again, ‘My son tells me you are a Russian. How interesting,’ as if she were some new kind of insect. The English ‒ once again they had shown very plainly that they did not want her.
She paced and paced the deck, and she was locked by the confines of the ferry and the rigid terms of Henry Rainard’s will. The early lights began to come on in the skyscrapers at Manhattan’s tip, and a sense of panic grew in Anna. The day was running out, and her sense of direction had deserted her. She had lost count of the number of times the ferry had made the crossing. The lamp in the Statue began to glow in the sky. The night was coming and tomorrow was going to be Nicole’s seventeenth birthday. She recognized that she was herself responsible for what Nicole had become; it was she who had encouraged the latent spark of ambition in her, had aided the little snobberies, the trace of vanity. She had brought Nicole up thinking of better things, and higher places. Now, when she could have all Anna had urged her towards without struggle, why should she expect Nicole to choose the struggle, to risk the failure and to taste its bitterness? Put that way, the question answered itself. But it would have to be resolved with speed and a seeming heartlessness that left no time for second thoughts, speed that would inflict one savage hurt, not a lingering pain. There could be no goodbye to Nicole.
When the ferry thumped against the timbers of the slipway, this time Anna was ready to disembark with the other passengers. She bought herself a sandwich and a cup of coffee at the ferry terminal. For the first time Prohibition was a hardship for her. It would have helped to have a large glass of brandy to anaesthetize the pain of what she was going to do this night. She went out, found a taxi to take her to the offices of Fairfax & Osborne.
Back in William Osborne’s office she insisted that it be done at once. He protested that the documents would have to be drafted, and typed; she insisted that she would wait until they were done, otherwise she would not sign them. So William Osborne, with some irritation, agreed; he and his secretary and a junior partner worked for several hours, while Anna sat alone in the waiting-room, not even pretending to read the magazines on the table. When it was done, she read it over carefully, twice, and then signed. She also received from William Osborn a paper which set out her right to the payment of five thousand pounds from the estate of Henry Rainard.
‘I’ll be in touch with you, Mr Osborne. I’ll let you know where to send the money.’
‘You won’t be at your New York address, Mrs Rainard?’
‘No.’
The answer was so flat and unequivocal that it startled him. He was already dismayed by what had turned into a rather sordid business of making a legal document of a mother promising not to see her only child. He had dreaded tears from Anna Rainard; he found he was shocked by their absence. The woman who signed her name with such a steady hand seemed strangely numb. He asked her several times if she fully understood what she was doing. Her reply had been cold and full of impatience to have the act finished. She was preoccupied with thoughts that took little account of him, it seemed. She did not talk of going to see her daughter; she did not talk of her daughter at all.
This time, he escorted her along the silent corridors to the elevator. ‘Mrs Rainard, if I can be of any help, please do call on my services. You may think of investing ‒’
She cut him off. The elevator doors opened: the operator stood waiting. Anna Rainard gestured to indicate the silent building, the whole world of tall and silent buildings outside, the world whose crash had sent shock waves through financial institutions and ordinary homes all around the globe. ‘You people down here don’t seem to have made such a good job of investing, do you? Thank you, Mr Osborne, I’ll manage for myself.’
Anna returned to the apartment on Central Park West, and made a phone call to Danny at Lucky Nolan’s. ‘Danny? ‒ you’ll have to get a fill-in for me tonight. I’m not feeling well.’
She could hear him swear softly. ‘Hell, Anna, this is a great time to be tellin’ me. Where am I gonna find someone ‒’
She cut him short. ‘You’ll find someone, Danny. I can’t come. Just tell Lucky when he gets in, will you?’ She hung up.
Then she packed two suitcases, made a reservation at one of the big anonymous commercial hotels near Grand Central, and checked in. As soon as the bank opened the next morning she cleared the small sum she had in her chequeing account, and closed it. Then she went to her safe deposit box and took out the cash that was there, the few stocks she had bought, her passport, her naturalization papers, the photographs of her father and mother, the few she had of the Ovrenskys, the photos of Nicole as she had been growing up. There was a gold watch which had belonged to her father, presented to him by Prince Michael, and a watch of Stephen’s returned to her after he had been killed. There was also the citation for bravery he had earned. For a few moments only she dwelt over the small pile of objects which represented a lifetime of history for her parents, herself and her daughter. Then she put them all into the hand suitcase she had brought, handed back the key, and instructed the bank official that she would not need the deposit box again. After that she collected her suitcases from the hotel, and went to Grand Central and took the first available train to Chicago. She didn’t think she was going to stay in Chicago, but it was the first stage on a journey away from New York.
4
William Osborne wrote first to Mother Mary Helena at St Columba’s, and then followed his letter with a telephone call suggesting that he might send a car to pick up Nicole Rainard and bring her to his office. ‘I’m sure you’re just as experienced in these things as I am, Mother,’ he said soothingly, ‘but it has been my experience that with news to impart, either good news or bad, it is often better if it is
given in an impersonal environment. This young lady has some shocks coming, and it might be kinder if she has the journey back to think about what has happened, and adjust herself. That is why I suggest I send a car for her. I don’t want her to have to think about the trains, or anything else …’
Knowing a little of what Nicole was going to hear, Mary Helena gave her permission with some misgivings. In a sense the man was right. Nicole was going to have to get used to a great deal more of what she would experience in William Osborne’s office. She was seventeen now and the time for shielding her behind the calm façade of the convent life was almost over. She decided that she would send Nicole to William Osborne’s office, and she would send her without any companion ‒ not one of the nuns who usually went with a pupil when there was any family problem; Nicole didn’t have a friend among the pupils close enough that she could make a confidante. As solitary as her way had been all through her time at St Columba’s, so it would remain until the end. Mary Helena would not visit on Nicole the indignity of the suggestion that she did not have the control to face what she must alone. Nicole had never been a girl for talk; she knew she would take this new development in silence, and a companion might be an unbearable burden.
William Osborne rose to his feet as Nicole Rainard was announced. He saw a very slight figure, of only medium height, in a school hat and coat which seemed to be a little short in the sleeves and length, as if she had shot up suddenly this unexpected inch or so. He guessed that Mother Mary Helena was careful of Anna Rainard’s budget, and had not wanted to impose the additional expense of new clothes when Nicole would be finished at St Columba’s in June. William Osborne gestured towards the leather-covered sofa and chairs at the end of his long office. ‘Won’t you take off your coat, Miss Rainard? Please sit down and make yourself comfortable.’
The Lynmara Legacy Page 7