The Rich Are Different

by Susan Howatch

  I began to look with increasing favor on the marriage, and although I could still have sent Vicky to Europe I did nothing. I stood by and watched as they became hopelessly entangled with each other, and when Jay approached me at last to seek permission to propose I gave him my blessing without hesitation and even offered him my hand to seal the deal.

  V

  They were very happy. Vicky seemed to dance through married life with such joy that her feet barely touched the ground, and Jay underwent one of those curious changes of personality which occasionally overtake middle-aged men who fall in love with youthful fervor. The shark had been transformed into a dolphin who did nothing but smile and frolic in the sunniest of waters. I got the merger on the exact terms I wanted, and in the October of 1913 I was sitting at last in my uncle’s chair. He died shortly afterward. One of the last things he did was warn Jay against me and tell him he had made a terrible mistake in consenting to the merger.

  “Funny old guy!” said Jay affectionately as he showed me the letter.

  Frankly Jay was of little use at the bank at that time since his honeymoon mentality made it difficult for him to concentrate on such delights as the financing of a new stretch of tunnel for New York City’s subway system, and it was a relief to me when eighteen months after the wedding he took Vicky for a protracted ramble through America. He was supposed to be doing business in a number of major cities, but I knew perfectly well this was just an excuse for a second honeymoon.

  What I did not know was that Vicky was upset that she had been married eighteen months without conceiving a child and that the doctor had advised a change of scenery to solve the problem.

  As soon as they returned from California Vicky called on me with her good news.

  “You’ve told her the risk, of course,” said my mother to me in private, and when she saw my expression she exclaimed, “Merciful heaven, doesn’t she know?”

  “I couldn’t speak of it.”

  “Charlotte told Mildred!”

  “And Mildred took no notice.”

  “It’s just Mildred’s good fortune that Emily and Cornelius are both healthy, although I do declare that when I heard Cornelius suffered from asthma … But Mildred assures me that that’s not a euphemism for something worse.”

  “Vicky’s always been healthy—it never seems to pass through the female.”

  “Sheer coincidence. The truth is, the Van Zales born over the past three generations have been predominantly males, and so naturally males have been predominantly affected. I’ve never been able to believe that this dreadful affliction discriminates between the sexes.”

  “Mama, I’m sorry but I can’t tell Vicky. I can’t talk about it. It’s beyond me.”

  “Well, naturally you mustn’t tell her now—you’d destroy her peace of mind for the next few months. But she should be told afterward, and if you can’t tell her I shall. I’m surprised Jay hasn’t said anything. He knows your circumstances, and— Dear God, Paul, what is it now?”

  “I told Jay it wasn’t hereditary.”

  “Oh, Paul—my dear …” She was incapable of reproaching me. She was the one person who knew exactly how much I had suffered in the past, and I knew in turn about that unique and underrated suffering visited on the parents of a chronically sick child.

  “It’s all over now,” I said. “It’s exorcised. It’s finished. Charlotte’s descendants are all healthy and mine will be healthy, too. I’ve been well without a single relapse for over thirty years.”

  “I know, dearest … a miracle … if you only knew how often I’ve gone down on my knees and thanked God—but there! I can see I’d better start getting down on my knees again and praying for Vicky. You’d better start, too. How long is it since you were in church, Paul?”

  Drawing a temporary veil over my agnosticism, I accompanied my mother to church the following Sunday, but in the end our prayers came to nothing. Vicky lost the baby, and the miscarriage was so severe that the doctor recommended a year’s delay before she embarked on a second pregnancy.

  It seemed hardly the moment to inform Vicky about the family weakness, and my mother herself said she would wait before embarking on such a conversation.

  “The whole episode of the miscarriage is Jay’s fault from start to finish!” I exploded to Elizabeth. “He should have wiped the blood from his face after he was hit by that scrap of tile which fell from the roof. No wonder Vicky fainted with shock when he walked through the door! It would make any pregnant woman miscarry to see her husband walking around as if he were fresh from some French battlefield.”

  Elizabeth told me I should calm down before my anger upset Vicky, but Vicky was so upset already that she was barely aware how distraught I was. Jay was distraught too, and when I thought he was being ineffectual and he thought I was being interfering we exchanged sharp words. Finally he took more leave from the office and sailed away with Vicky on his yacht for a two-month winter cruise in the Caribbean.

  When they returned and I saw Vicky was radiant again I felt so enormously relieved that I decided to forgive Jay for every ounce of his stupidity.

  My forgiveness lasted less than five seconds.

  “Wonderful news, Papa—a miracle! I’m going to have another baby right away!”

  As soon as Jay and I were alone I said, “I thought the doctor advised—”

  “Oh, we saw another doctor in Palm Beach,” he said glibly, turning away from me a split second after I had seen the guilt in his eyes. “Vicky’s fine.”

  I was so outraged that it took me several seconds before I could say, “She should have the pregnancy terminated.”

  “Nonsense. She’s doing well and anyway she would never consent to it.”

  “But—”

  “Paul,” he said with the brutality I could remember from those faraway summers at Newport, “this is none of your goddamned business. You’re not Vicky’s husband.”

  “If I were,” I said, “she wouldn’t be pregnant now, I can assure you.” Then I turned on my heel and left him.

  It was the only honest conversation we ever had on the subject, and during the remainder of Vicky’s pregnancy we never referred to it again.

  She became unwell, always tired, always pale, always struggling with discomfort. I saw the gradual fading of her radiant vitality, and long afterward I remembered that spring and summer of 1916 when I called daily at Jason Da Costa’s home and watched my daughter die.

  The baby was born soon after noon in mid-September. Jay had not come to the office but had called to tell me the baby was on its way.

  “You’ll let me know as soon as—”

  “Sure.”

  I heard nothing. Naturally I could not work, so telling my staff I was not to be disturbed I sat alone in the office to wait for the telephone call which never came.

  At three o’clock my secretary announced that Elizabeth had come to see me. I remember thinking without emotion how extraordinarily understanding it was of Sylvia to send Elizabeth to break the news. I said politely that I would see her and she was ushered into my office.

  She told me. My rage was so violent that I never noticed the sinister pain building behind my eyes, and I was still spewing out abuse when suddenly I looked past Elizabeth and saw the terrifying distortion at the far end of my vision. Comprehension burst upon me, but it was too late-and there was nothing I could do. Thirty years of perfect health dissolved in far less than thirty seconds, and in those last few moments I was back once more among all the horrifying memories of my childhood and the roof of hell was grinding shut above my head.

  Later I found that Elizabeth was holding me in her arms, and when I saw the pity in her eyes I knew I could never sleep with her again.

  She took me home. I felt deaf, dumb and blind with pain, unable to perform even the simplest tasks.

  At the funeral four days later I saw Jay for the first time since Vicky’s death. The baby, who was later to die in infancy, was still alive so there was no double funeral
. No doubt that was just as well. I had not expected to be shocked by Jay’s appearance, but when I saw his eyes, bloodshot with drinking, and his hands, trembling whenever he unclenched his fists, even I was appalled. He cried throughout the service. He kept rubbing his knuckles against his eyes like a little boy, and his sons had to pass him a succession of handkerchiefs.

  My eyes were dry. I had obtained some medication for my illness—there was a new drug called phenobarbital which had been produced in 1912—and I had drugged myself into a stupor. All I wanted to do was sleep.

  After the funeral I shut myself in my home and refused to see anyone. No one thought this odd, since Vicky’s death was certainly enough to send me into seclusion, and it was only my mother who guessed I was suffering from more than my bereavement. After a week she insisted on seeing me. She was an old woman by that time and had not long to live, but as usual her mind was sharp and clear.

  “This isn’t like you, Paul,” she said. “You always turn to your work when you’re upset and do a dozen things at once to take your mind off your troubles. Why are you shutting yourself up here as if you’re afraid to go out?”

  I told her. Caught between my grief and my shattered self-confidence, my drugged composure crumbled and I broke down.

  My mother said three words: “Remember your father,” and suddenly I heard him declare to the specialist as we were leaving the consulting room, “There’s nothing wrong with this boy that a good game of tennis won’t cure!” I knew then what I had to do.

  I summoned my young partner Steven Sullivan. I trounced him in straight sets on the tennis court. Then scraping up a nerve I hardly knew I still possessed, I stopped cowering at home and walked the six miles downtown through the crowded streets to the bank.

  I felt better after that. I even did a little work before my chauffeur drove me home, and the next day when Jay too returned to the office I felt strong enough to face him.

  Our rooms were side by side on the ground floor at the back of the building. Originally there had been one enormous room like a double drawing room, but thick folding doors had been inserted into the archway by Lucius Clyde when he had become joint senior partner with Jay’s father, and Jay had restored the doors when his firm had merged with mine. When he heard me arrive that morning he knocked before slowly pushing back the doors and stepping into my half of the room.

  “Sorry we couldn’t talk at the funeral,” he said, groping for words. “I guess we were both too upset.”

  “Yes.”

  He closed the doors and we were incarcerated with our suffocating grief and intolerable memories. My hand went instinctively to my pocket for my medication.

  “Don’t be too hard on me, Paul,” he said in a low voice. “I realize you blame me, but—”

  “No.” I wanted only to terminate the interview and abort the tension which threatened me.

  “—but oh God, I’ll never get over this, never—” I mentally gave him a year to recover. One cannot replace a daughter, but one can always replace a wife.

  “Yet grief can draw two people together, can’t it? I know we’ve never been truly close, but perhaps now …”

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

  “I hope we can become better friends—for her sake. …” His mawkishness was unforgivable. He even thrust out his hand in a rush of emotion and I, seeing no alternative, took it in mine. The hand he offered was large and thick-fingered, the back of it dotted with black hair. As I pictured it resting on Vicky’s white skin I wanted to vomit.

  “No hard feelings, Paul?”

  “No hard feelings, Jay,” I said, and thought, I’ll ruin you, I’ll crucify you, I’ll tear you apart until you wish you’d never set eyes on my daughter. …

  He left the room, and finding the nearest basin I began to wash the hand he had held. I washed it over and over again, but by that time I hardly knew what I was doing, for I was back once more in my cherished past with Vicky and she was exclaiming with all her spell-binding radiance, “Wonderful news, Papal I’m going to have a baby …”

  Seven

  I

  “YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE a baby,” I said to Dinah Slade.

  As the past merged with the present the drawing room in New York dissolved into the sandhills above the Brograve Level, and the young woman with the violet eyes blurred into a plain girl with tearstained cheeks. I rubbed my hand across my eyes as if I feared that the transition of time was an illusion, but it was real. I could hear the thudding of the waves on the dark sands, and when I looked up the gulls were wheeling in the clouded sky. A gust of wind made the grass flick like a lash against my arm. Shivering, I reached for my shirt.

  “Don’t be cross, Paul,” wept the girl. “I’ll never ask you for anything, I swear it. I know it’s all my fault because I didn’t tell you I was a virgin—”

  I leaped to my feet. “Don’t try to pretend this is the accidental result of one isolated occasion!”

  “But Paul—”

  “I’ve had enough of your lies! You’ve been lying to me at least once a month in order to pretend there was nothing wrong with you, and you’ve been lying to me by insisting you always used the device the doctor gave you to protect yourself. This was no accident! You planned this from the beginning because you’re stupid enough to believe that by having an illegitimate child you’ll have a guaranteed source of affection. My God, what a fool I’ve been!”

  I grabbed my blazer and walked away from her down the dunes. Suddenly I became aware of the dull ache building behind my eyes, but when I stopped to search for my medication I could not find it. I panicked, then forced myself to remain calm. I must have dropped the phial in the hollow when I shed my jacket. Should I go back or should I go on and hope for the best? Fear swept over me. My glance raked the flat fields of the Level and saw nowhere to hide if I felt ill. I realized I was pacing up and down so I made myself stand still, but I continued to rub my eyes and the back of my neck with short sharp compulsive movements of my hand.

  “Paul!”

  I spun round. She was stumbling down the sandhills with my medication in her hand. “You dropped something—”

  I grabbed the phial, swallowed three pills and rammed the phial into my blazer pocket.

  “I have to be alone,” I said. The pills took half an hour to work, and anything might happen while I waited. Also they were no guarantee against a recurrence of my illness; they merely lengthened the odds. “Wait for me by the mill, please.”

  “I’ll wait here if you like.”

  “My God, can’t you do as you’re told?” I blazed, frightened to death by this time, and saw her flinch before she turned away.

  Retreating to the sandhills, I flung myself down out of sight in the tall grass and immediately felt better. By the time my medication started to work I was wishing I had not taken such a heavy dose, for the tension had already left me and the pain had faded from behind my eyes.

  I was so sleepy from the drug that I could hardly drag myself back to Horsey Mill, but I managed it and found Dinah waiting miserably by the staithe. We traveled back to Mallingham in silence, and on our arrival I went to bed and slept for three hours.

  When I awoke I felt ill, but that was the aftermath of the pills. I drank some water, washed my face and decided I was capable of rational thought. After pausing long enough to marshal my well-worn arguments I went downstairs to confront her in the library.

  She had sought escape from reality in a mystery novel. As she uncurled herself from the window seat she dropped the shawl she was clutching like a small child and regarded me fearfully.

  “I apologize for my abrupt behavior,” I said with as much civility as I could muster. “I realize I was very rude, but I had had a considerable shock. Now, my dear, let’s try to discuss this news rationally without getting too upset. You do realize, of course, that it’s quite impossible for you to have this child?”

  Half an hour passed most unpleasantly. I spoke fluently, I employed a forensic
skill which any leading trial lawyer might have envied, I deployed both low cunning and high intrigue, I flattered, pleaded, bullied and cajoled. I got nowhere.

  The trouble was, as I was slowly forced to admit, that Dinah did not react like a normal woman who found herself pregnant out of wedlock. It was no use stressing that a wedding ring would not be forthcoming, because Dinah had no interest in wedding rings. Neither was it any use stressing that my lawyers had more than enough muscle to kill an affiliation order stone dead with dire results for the mother’s reputation; Dinah had no interest in legal action and said at once she had no intention of suing me. When I told her I could arrange an abortion with the maximum of secrecy, she merely looked at me in amazement and said, “No, thank you.”

  Wearily I turned to the moral arguments. She was having a child for all the wrong reasons. It was sheer selfishness to have a child out of wedlock. A child deserved two parents, not one.

  “Better to have one loving parent than two who don’t give a fig,” said Dinah.

  “What about the stigma of illegitimacy?”

  “Oh Paul, how Victorian!”

  I was suddenly very angry. “You just don’t know what you’re doing!” I exclaimed, jettisoning my role of calm, wise, supremely rational counsel. “You have no right to do this!”

  “Oh yes I have!” she shot back at me. “It’s my body and I can do what I like with it—I don’t need anyone’s permission to have a baby! Anyway, you always told me you’d refuse to accept responsibility for an illegitimate child, so why are you now trying to interfere? You forswore all your rights! Now leave me alone and stop trying to dictate to me!”

  I was dumbfounded. I felt like a knight who had ridden into battle with a shining new lance to meet an opponent who not only seized the precious lance but proceeded to add insult to injury by flagellating him with it. In shock I floundered around amidst half a dozen arguments, rejected them all and ended by staring at her in infuriated silence.