Princess Daisy

by Judith Krantz

  “Because she thought that you have enough problems of your own, supporting your sister. She had to have money for the treatments and she simply didn’t want you to know she was in need. She knows you’re stretched as far as you can go, so she came to me.”

  “Oh, dear God, not Anabel,” Daisy moaned. Anabel, who’d come closer to being a mother to her than anyone, Anabel, the dear friend and counselor and confidante of her youth, Anabel, whose presence in her life warmed it with generous laughing love and still lent it a quality that even today was almost like having a home, Anabel who kept her from feeling utterly orphaned.

  “The doctors have told her that with luck and care she can expect to live for many years. It’s chronic leukemia, not acute. She’s not sixty yet—she can still live the rest of her life in comparative comfort and security but … it’s a question of money.”

  “You have money!”

  “Anabel threw me out of her house ten years ago and told me she never wanted to see or hear from me again. She’s never changed that position—except now, to ask for money. I don’t feel I have any reason to give her anything unless I choose, choose to be generous. Anabel is merely a former mistress of my father’s. He left her a sizable estate which, since she declined to take advantage of my advice, she let slip through her fingers. She held on to her Rolls stock as long as you did. I have no sympathy for people who can’t take care of their money.”

  “Anabel was so good to you!” Dasiy almost shouted, but he ignored her words.

  “If I should choose to help her it means taking on heavy and unforeseeable expenses for an unknown amount of time—hardly the act of a prudent man. Obviously, she can’t keep La Marée any longer by taking in paying guests—she won’t have the energy. When she sells it she’ll have some money, but it won’t last long since she has few other sources of income. After that’s gone, it’s a question of finding a place to live, either a nursing home or an apartment, depending on her physical condition. She’ll need help, later if not immediately. And there will be constant doctor bills. It could last ten years, fifteen years—even twenty. There’s no way for Anabel to pay for these things … the expenses will have to be met as they arise.”

  Daisy struggled to keep to practicalities while the points of glass pressed deeper into her heart with every word he spoke.

  “Why should she sell La Marée? You know as well as I do that if Anabel can live for years there is no other place in the world she would be as happy. You have the money to support her without thinking twice about it … and she’ll have to live somewhere … since she’s come to you for help, why should she be forced to sell? You are going to help, aren’t you …” Her voice faded as she looked at his face, locked in brooding righteousness.

  “I feel no moral obligation at all to become financially responsible for Anabel. None. However I have a proposal which can solve the problem. I’ve been disturbed for years by reports from my friends who visit the United States for the hunting that you go about visiting at their hosts’ houses trying to drum up commissions for your little paintings. I know, of course, although they don’t, why you need the money. The only way I would undertake the support of Anabel for as long as she lives is with the absolute understanding that you give up your shoddy job and your hand-to-mouth sideline of portraits and come back to London.”

  “You really are insane,” Daisy whispered slowly.

  “Nonsense. I’m asking nothing in return for what will prove to be many years of heavy expenses except that you live in a way in which an unmarried sister of mine should live, properly and respectably. I’m even prepared to let Anabel keep La Marée since you feel so sentimental about it. And naturally I’ll take over your sister’s support as well.”

  “I’d be your prisoner!”

  “How absurd. Don’t be so melodramatic. I simply want you to fill your normal place in society in a country in which society still means something. Your life in New York is disgusting—a vulgar world full of vulgar people. It happens to embarrass me among my friends. I offer you protection and security. I want nothing from you—I have my own life to live.” His voice was cool and reasonable, but Daisy saw that his eyes had never ceased their urgent assault on her face and body. Like furtive cat burglars, they snatched and grabbed. Lust lay like a dry powder on his thin, fine lips. She had been in the presence of his madness before and nothing had changed except that this time she knew him for what he was.

  “Every word is a lie! You’d be after me again the way you were before—I smell it on you! You say my life in New York is disgusting—-I say if my father weren’t dead, he would have killed you and you know it!” Her voice rose dangerously.

  “Shut up, shut up! People will hear you!”

  “Why should I? So that you won’t be embarrassed? Do you think I give a damn … do you still think I’d ever let you force me to do anything against my will?”

  “Anabel …” he began again.

  “Blackmail!” she raged at him. “How can you live with the filth you are?” She turned and strode rapidly back in the direction of the main saloon. She opened the door and stood there for a second, panting, open-mouthed, searching for Vanessa. When Daisy saw her, sitting at the backgammon table, she walked straight toward her and put a hurting hand on Vanessa’s shoulder.

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Daisy, love bug, wait till the game’s over, hmmm?”

  “Now.” The pounding, molten emphasis in Daisy’s voice summoned Vanessa to her feet. “Outside,” Daisy ordered. Vanessa followed, smiling broadly and flittering her hands as several inquiring looks were directed at her.

  “Daisy, just what is it—how dare you?”

  “Vanessa, tell the captain to turn this boat around and put me ashore.”

  “That’s impossible. Now just calm down …”

  “You’ve collected on your debt. Whatever I owed you, I’ve paid. Vanessa—I’m warning you.”

  Vanessa, experienced, astute Vanessa, didn’t have to think twice. The menace, almost out of control, that she saw on Daisy’s face could only lead to trouble. And, in Vanessa’s brilliantly balanced life, that life of so many delicious but dangerous secrets, risk and consequences had to be eliminated as quickly as possible.

  What could Ram have done to her, she wondered to herself, as she hurried to the bridge to speak to the captain. Oh, how she’d love to find out

  “What’s all this?” Patrick Shannon demanded of his executive secretary as he sat down behind his desk. He had just come back from Tokyo and he expected, as usual, to find the clean desk he’d left. Each of his three secretaries would have compiled dossiers of matters to be attended to, but he hadn’t sent for the folders yet.

  “Mr. Bijur asked me to put them where you’d see them first thing.”

  Shannon lifted the six photographs, each of which had a sheet of paper attached to it. “They’re all princesses, Mr. Shannon. Mr. Bijur thought you’d like their family trees, too. There are two Belgians, one French and three Germans. He said to tell you that he’d gone over every white princess in the world and these were the only really beautiful ones. Princess Caroline and Princess Yasmin won’t return his calls, but he’s still trying, through channels.”

  Shannon roared with laughter as he looked over the photographs.

  “Oh God, oh God,” he groaned as he laughed, “he must have worked like a son-of-a-bitch—poor Hilly—doesn’t he know when I say unforgettable I don’t mean merely beautiful? Miss Bridy, will you put me through to Daisy Valensky at North’s studio? If she’s not there, find out where she is and get her before you try any other calls.”

  Daisy was standing with her arms akimbo, eying both of her production assistants severely.

  “Do you mean to tell me that that grip just walked into Central Park and sawed a limb off a tree without either of you telling him to do it? It couldn’t possibly have been his own idea. Don’t you creeps realize that there were five people trying to make citizen’s arrests following
him? We almost had a riot.”

  “It was just a little branch.”

  “It isn’t as if there were leaves on it.”

  “We needed it in a hurry—the tree on the street was too puny.”

  “No excuses,” Daisy said. “If it ever, ever happens again, you both go back to robbing graves.”

  “Daisy, phone,” one of them said, grateful for the interruption.

  “Studio,” Daisy answered, as she always did.

  “Princess Valensky, this is Patrick Shannon.”

  “How was Tokyo?” she said in a neutral tone, watching her two assistants slink off as inconspicuously as they could.

  “Too far. Listen, I didn’t get a chance to apologize to you for the way I talked to you the last time we met.”

  “Or the first time we met either.”

  “That’s exactly what I was about to say.… I feel that somehow we’ve gotten off to a bad start—all right, two bad starts—and I’d like to do something about it. Is there a chance that I could persuade you to have dinner with me? I promise not to say a word about Elstree. This is not an attempt to get you to change your mind. I wouldn’t be that obvious—or devious.”

  “Just a friendly meal?”

  “Right. I don’t like leaving the impression that I’m a heavy.”

  “Would you admit that you’re aggressive?” Daisy asked sweetly.

  “Aggressive—sure, but not a heavy. Will you be free for dinner sometime this week?”

  “I think I might manage dinner,” Daisy said.

  “What’s a good night for you? I haven’t made any plans for the rest of the week so you pick the day.”

  “Tonight,” she said without a second’s hesitation. There was a moment of blank silence.

  “Oh. Of course. Tonight.”

  “It’s the corner of Prince and Greene. The southeast corner, third flight up. I’ll expect you at eight o’clock. Ignore the sign that says ‘Fierce Guard Dog’—he doesn’t bite unless I tell him to … as a rule.”

  Daisy hung up before he had a chance to say goodbye. “Ginger,” she said to North’s secretary. “If North comes in, tell him I’ve taken the afternoon off. If he wants to know why, tell him I didn’t say. If any of the others need me, tell them to figure it out for themselves. If anyone calls, tell them I can’t be found. If anyone asks you what the hell is going on, tell them you don’t know.”

  “It’ll be a pleasure,” Ginger assured her. “Got a date, huh?”

  “Not exactly,” said Daisy.

  Daisy knew exactly what she was looking for. There has never been a season, in spite of the programmed fluctuations of fashion, in spite of swings in taste from classic to kinky, in which Bill Blass has not quietly made a group of sublime black dresses, the witty, wily discretion of which combines the ultimate in rich-lady good taste with the ultimate in naughty-lady sexiness. Sometimes he does it with net and chiffon, sometimes with lace and silk, mixed with such supreme distillation of the tactile advantages of each fabric that it is impossible to say just where one melts into the other. Daisy finally found the Bill Blass she sought on Bendel’s second floor and, on her way out, she stopped at Jerry Miller’s first-floor shoe department, Shoe Biz, and bought a pair of thin, high-heeled black silk sandals with tiny rhinestone buckles. A pair of sheer taupe pantyhose were found on another counter and Daisy left the store on West 57th Street having spent just a dollar or two more than three weeks salary.

  Recklessly she took a cab home instead of the subway, and, as soon as she’d hung up the dress, she washed her hair in the shower. Even with a powerful blow dryer it took almost an hour to get it all dry, and by the time she finished her arms ached. Theseus, back from his brief stay with the landlady, cowered under a sofa. The only thing in the world he was afraid of was the hideous whine of the blow dryer. Fortunately Kiki was still out of town with Luke. Daisy would not have liked to answer questions about her extraordinary preparations for the evening ahead. She would not have liked inquisitive Kiki to wonder why she was cleaning up the living room, throwing dozens of extraneous objects in closets with abandon, until the room presented a perfectly neat and, in fact, elegant appearance—thanks to Eleanor Kavanaugh’s latest shipment of expensive white wicker furniture covered in a flowered Woodson print which cost forty dollars a yard and looked like the surface of a lily pond painted by Monet. She burrowed anxiously into Kiki’s chest of drawers until she eventually found the black silk evening bag she had counted on using. Kiki really should take better care of her things, Daisy thought, as, nervously, she started to dress.

  At precisely eight o’clock the doorbell rang. As Daisy opened the door the smile on Patrick Shannon’s face froze.

  Daisy had put herself together tonight with the most meticulous attention to each part of her self-presentation, but she hadn’t been able to assess the total and get an objective view of herself. All she was sure of was that she had made a desperate investment in the Blass dress and done her hair in the most classic way she knew. It was a roll of the dice, risking so much money, but the stakes were too high to leave anything to chance. Any one of her jumble-sale costumes, no matter how exquisitely made, might make her look eccentric. She had to look solidly rich. It was as simple as that.

  How many times had she heard Nick-the-Greek explain that the reason North could charge a higher fee than any other director in the business was because he had more clients than he had time for—all, of course, thanks to Nick’s own efforts—and so, not needing the money, he commanded it? If she were to become the Elstree Girl, and now Daisy knew she had to take that job at whatever cost to herself, she had to make it pay enough so that she could take care of both Anabel and Danielle for a long time into the future. She couldn’t settle for model fees, not even the thousand dollars a day that certain top models were commanding. It must be more money, much, much more. Against the spiritual threat which emanated like a stench from Ram, money was her only protection. It was the only shield solid enough to trust.

  The woman who greeted Shannon was not the fantastic girl he’d met dressed in green sequins and corduroy with fake emeralds pinned in her long hair, nor the disheveled, furious, funny figure in carpenter’s overalls, but the most unreasonably beautiful creature he’d ever seen. He literally gaped as he looked at her. The heavy, low braided chignon into which all of Daisy’s hair was caught, emphasized the length and molding of her neck, and the proud, high carriage of her head. With her hair pulled back from her face, the particular ripe peach bloom of Daisy’s skin, her thick, straight brows over her dark purple, pansy-centered eyes and full, strongly marked mouth, all stood out in the kind of relief which the wonder of her unbound hair would have diminished. Her dress had a halter top of dotted black net which dissolved at the slender, wrapped waist into a swoosh of full, rustling black skirts, and from it her arms and shoulders, quite unornamented by any jewels, rose in simple majesty.

  “Aren’t you going to come in?” Daisy said, with a gracious smile, which she had sternly prevented from turning into a satisfied grin. Apparently she’d managed to achieve the effect she was trying for, if the test was rendering Pat Shannon unable to function normally. And he was.

  Silently he walked into the apartment and stood in the center of the living room.

  As gently as if she were talking to a sleepwalker, Daisy asked, “Won’t you sit down and have a drink?” Shannon sat.

  “Vodka, whiskey, white wine?” Shannon nodded agreement, to all her suggestions, his eyes never leaving her. Rather than disturb his concentration, she poured wine for both of them, brought the drinks and sat down near him. Finally he spoke, automatically saying the first thing that entered his bedazzled mind.

  “I like your apartment.”

  Demurely she answered, “My roommate and I have lived here for four years. It’s rather an amusing part of town.”

  Daisy could tell from the faint tightening of the lines around his mouth that he was aware of how many dif ferent kinds of romantic relations
hips were tucked into the convenient, ubiquitous title of roommate.

  “She’s Kiki Kavanaugh,” Daisy continued, composedly. “Perhaps you know her father—he’s president of United Motors? No? She’s back home this week,” Daisy said. “I was supposed to go, too—Uncle Jerry, Kiki’s father, is having a birthday and I’m considered part of the family, but I didn’t think it was quite fair to leave the studio. My assistants aren’t as dependable as I’d like and I’ve just been away in Nassau.”

  “Your work,” Shannon asked tentatively, “is it something recent? When we met in Middleburg somebody said that you were a painter … at least that was the impression I got.”

  “Oh, that—it’s just my hobby. I love children and I love horses and I love to paint, so sometimes I treat myself to all three of them together,” Daisy said with a fine carelessness. “Actually I’ve worked for North since school—it’s so much more amusing to do something, don’t you think? Otherwise, life tends to become self-indulgent … one simply must fight that dreadful tendency to drift. And the studio is the ideal solution. No week is the same as any other, we have new problems, new crises, new solutions and never a second to get bored.”

  She smiled as complacently as Marie Antoinette discussing her cows while she briefly batted her eyelashes in supplication to Kiki’s patron saint, the deity of all those who told lies in a good cause and gave themselves airs and graces.

  Shannon looked at her questioningly. “Funny, I’ve picked up the idea that a job like yours demands a high degree of efficiency and very long, hard hours …”

  “Oh, of course it does,” Daisy drawled. “But that’s the joy of it … it’s such a challenge! Would you enjoy doing something that wasn’t a challenge?” Daisy leaned languidly back against the water-lily pillows in an attitude which persuaded Shannon that long, hard hours must be the inevitable choice of any rich girl with a brain in her head.

  “I take it North is a good man to work for?”