The children were pretty but painfully shy. Mildred was loquacious, and no doubt in her household it was hard to get a word in edgeways. Emily had good health and like all the Van Zale women was gifted scholastically, but Cornelius was delicate, suffering from asthma, and showed no great interest in his lessons. I always felt sorry for him. He was such a dear little boy, with his golden curls and huge solemn gray eyes—or at least he was when I had married Paul in 1912. Cornelius was now fourteen, but neither Paul nor I had seen him since our return from Europe in 1919. Cincinnati is an awkward place to visit from New York and Paul was always so busy. We kept inviting the Blacketts to visit New York, but Wade was too busy with his surgeon’s schedule and whenever he did get time off he felt it his duty to visit his widowed mother in St. Louis.
When it seemed that Paul would not be returning from Europe before the end of November, Mildred had invited me to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving, and now it was at least a pleasure to tell her he was back in New York even though I had to decline her invitation. Following Paul’s instructions I invited her instead to New York, and though I expected to receive a reply in the mail Mildred as usual preferred the drama of a long-distance telephone call. The telephone service had greatly improved—the other day I had even been connected to Philadelphia in sixty seconds—but unlike Mildred I felt that such electronic communication was cold and I much preferred to put pen to paper.
Apparently it was quite impossible for the Blacketts to leave Cincinnati.
“Some frightful operation, my dear—the day before Thanksgiving—so thoughtless and uncivilized.” Mildred, whose accent was pure Beacon Hill, always talked like an extract from Queen Victoria’s diaries. “Sylvia, when on earth are we going to see you and Paul again—it’s been such eons!”
“Isn’t it difficult, Mildred! Perhaps in the new year? Paul’s very anxious to see Cornelius.”
There was a pause.
“Mildred?”
“Yes, I’m still here. Darling, how sweet of Paul! I hope he’s not laboring under some dreadful family obligation because of Cornelius being his only nephew. Of course Cornelius would love to see Paul too, but his health still isn’t what it should be, the poor pet, and I really don’t think he’s up to that ghastly journey to New York at present. Maybe next year.”
When I reported this conversation to Paul he commented wryly, “Mildred’s using the wrong approach. If she wants me to lose interest in her boy she shouldn’t try and keep me from seeing him.”
“But Paul,” I said astonished, “why would Mildred want to keep Cornelius from you?”
“Do you think it’s an accident that we haven’t seen the Blacketts for years?”
“But we’re always exchanging invitations—and Mildred’s devoted to you, Paul!”
“Of course she is, but any mother is going to protect her innocent little boy from a rich wicked uncle in the richest wickedest city on earth.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” I exclaimed, half amused, half exasperated. “What on earth does Mildred think you intend to do with him?”
“Leave him my money, of course. All those millions! I can just imagine Mildred going down on her knees at church every Sunday and praying for deliverance!”
I suddenly realized not only that he was serious but that he was probably right. Mildred was an Episcopalian minister’s daughter who had no doubt been brought up to hold the traditional Christian views on great wealth, and on her mother’s side she was a Van Zale, aristocratic enough to condemn rapidly accumulated riches as “shoddy.” Paul had made his money, not inherited it, and Mildred, who might possibly have found “old money” acceptable, could well have felt overpowered by the stench of this new fortune. After considering all this I said curiously to Paul, “But do you intend to make Cornelius your heir?” Paul had so many protégés, and I often thought it was easier to imagine him leaving his money to someone like Bruce Clayton than to an unknown youth who happened to be his only male heir. “Old money” of course would have stayed in the family, but I had the feeling that Paul would consider that the newness of his money gave him the license to dispose of it exactly as he pleased.
“I’m undecided about a future will at present,” Paul was saying. “My present will divides the money among a number of people, a sensible but unadventurous solution. Money is power. To divide money may make some people happier, but it dissipates the power so that what I may give with one hand I in fact take away with the other. In terms of power it would be much more interesting to leave the whole lot to one person, but you can be quite sure I’d never leave well over fifty million dollars to anyone unless I thought they could handle it. Mildred underestimates me, you see. I don’t want to ruin her boy. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort making my money and I have no intention of dumping it on someone who would immediately snap like a twig beneath the burden. Whether Cornelius is in fact a frail twig or a chunk of solid mahogany I have no idea, but I’d like to find out—if Mildred ever gives me the opportunity, and I must say this is beginning to seem increasingly unlikely.”
The day after this conversation I had lunch with Elizabeth, and out of curiosity I told her about Mildred’s dilemma. We were lunching at the Claytons’ tall rambling house which overlooked Gramercy Park, and after we had finished our spinach soufflé and fruit salad we retired upstairs to the drawing room for coffee. As the butler brought in the tray I settled myself on the couch and glanced vaguely past the paintings and the tapestries to the bare trees of the park beyond the long windows.
“My sympathies,” said Elizabeth, “are entirely with Mildred.”
Elizabeth was tall and her clothes were always perfectly plain, perfectly tailored and perfectly suited to her figure, which in middle age was classically statuesque. Her dark-gray hair was swept straight back from her handsome face into a heavy bun at the nape of her neck. She had beautiful gray-blue eyes, a firm attractive voice and an oddly shy smile which did not match her air of total self-confidence.
“You mean you think Mildred should continue to keep Cornelius from Paul?” I said surprised. “But Paul is so good with young people! You should know that even better than I do, Elizabeth, since your son was a Van Zale protégé!”
“That’s exactly why I wouldn’t wish such a fate on Cornelius. However, I don’t want to go raking up the past. Coffee?”
I accepted coffee in astonishment and tried to restrain my desire to rake up the past as vigorously as possible. It was true Paul had seen little of Bruce Clayton in recent years, but I had always assumed Bruce still remained his favorite among his protégés. “Was there some trouble between Bruce and Paul, Elizabeth?” I couldn’t help saying. “I never knew.”
“Oh, it was all long ago, Sylvia, at least ten years, and I should hope we’ve all got over it, but all the same I can’t help sympathizing with Mildred now. I’ve always identified myself very much with Mildred, you know. In some ways our situations are similar: I’ve been married twice, my second husband adopted my son from the first marriage, and Paul has always played a large part in our lives. Too large in mine, I’m afraid. At least Mildred doesn’t have to cope with Cornelius thinking himself Paul’s son. Milk and sugar?”
I made some feeble gesture toward the milk jug. I was astounded not only because Elizabeth had deliberately chosen to introduce a most intimate aspect of her affair with Paul—we had long since tacitly agreed never to discuss our relationships with him in detail—but because although Bruce Clayton’s paternity was a favorite topic among the gossips of New York society I had never thought Elizabeth would refer to it either to me or to anyone else.
“Of course Paul isn’t Bruce’s father,” said Elizabeth offhandedly, as if it were amazing to think there could be any doubt on the subject. “At least biologically he’s not, but then there’s so much more to being a father than merely begetting a child, isn’t there? Bruce can’t remember his own father and although Eliot is kind he has no real gift for children. Paul filled a void in Bruce’s life a
nd this gave him a special position in our family—a position which he abandoned with unforgivable brutality when Bruce was seventeen. Poor Bruce was completely crushed—in fact, I often think he’s never got over the rejection—and I myself was so angry with Paul that … well, we remained close for another four years, as you know, but it was never the same. Forgive me for not going into detail, but really it’s too painful to discuss even now.”
“Of course. I shouldn’t have asked you about it, Elizabeth. I’m sorry.”
“I seem to remember it was I who brought up the subject—oh yes, we were talking of Mildred, and I was approving her decision to insulate Cornelius as far as possible. I don’t think Paul means to hurt people, but when one is as detached emotionally as he is one tends to make any relationship an annihilating experience.”
I knew now how wise we had always been never to discuss our relationships with Paul in detail. With our cardinal rule broken, we were no longer two civilized women who could afford to be friendly but two rivals in a competition which could never end.
“I think that’s unfair to Paul,” I said sharply. “Of course he’s capable of being close to people. Look how he adored Vicky.”
“Yes, he did adore her, didn’t he? But he traded her to Jason Da Costa in exchange for half that bank at Willow and Wall.”
“Elizabeth!” I could no longer control my anger, and as I rose to my feet I felt the color rush to my cheeks. I blush easily and never more easily than when I am both angry and shocked.
“I’m sorry.” She rose to her feet equally swiftly and stood before me, her hands twisting together in her distress. “That was unforgivable of me. I shouldn’t have started talking about the way Paul treated Bruce. It always upsets me. Of course Paul adored Vicky, of course he did—”
“And anyway,” I said in a rush, “Jay and Vicky were in love. It had nothing to do with the merger. That was just incidental, and besides, you’re talking as if Paul had complete control in deciding whom Vicky married—” I stopped, remembering stories Paul himself had told me of how he had terminated various unsuitable romances by dispatching Vicky to Europe. “Well,” I said, “I guess he did have a certain amount of control, but since he and Jay were such special friends I’m sure he had no ulterior motive in encouraging the match.”
“Sylvia, Paul and Jay’s relationship was certainly special, but do you honestly think it was ever genuinely friendly?”
I said nothing.
“They were clever men who had a use for each other on Wall Street,” said Elizabeth, “but they were rivals before they were allies, and they were enemies long before they were friends.”
It occurred to me that this description could well have applied to her own relationship with me. I finished my coffee and stood up awkwardly. “Well, I mustn’t keep you any longer, Elizabeth. It was a lovely lunch.”
She made no effort to detain me, but in the hall I knew she was anxious for us to remain friends when she said, “I love your ring. Is it new?”
“Yes—thank you. It was a belated anniversary present from Paul.”
“Ten years, isn’t it? Congratulations, Sylvia!”
Since there was no doubting her sincerity it was easy for me to say a warm word of thanks, but all the way home I remembered her bitterness and tried to imagine the disaster which had upset Paul’s friendship with Bruce. However, by the time I arrived home I had realized that all speculation was futile. Elizabeth had already said as much as she was ever going to say on the subject, while Paul never talked of the past.
IV
I was very busy during the weeks which followed Paul’s return, and somehow managed to survive Thanksgiving and Christmas without feeling too blue. Christmas was the worst holiday. The toys in the store windows, the children thronging Fifth Avenue, the ubiquitous image of Santa Claus—I would dread seeing them all. The baby from my first pregnancy with Paul would have been eight by now, the second baby would have been eighteen months younger and the third would have been newborn. A baby for Christmas! I could not help crying as Christmas passed in emptiness, but I cried in private and was self-possessed in front of Paul. I had never reconciled myself to my childlessness. Part of the trouble was that no one had been able to tell me with certainty why I could not carry a child longer than three months, and because uncertainty existed I still secretly hoped for success. One specialist had suggested that a muscular weakness of the uterus was causing the trouble; another had theorized about a hidden genetic defect which made each fetus imperfect enough to trigger a spontaneous abortion; but whatever the difficulty, it was not Paul’s fault. I had endured three miscarriages during my first marriage, although I did not start making the rounds of the specialists until I was married to Paul.
I felt better in the new year. I was frantically organizing the last details of our first ball in three years, and almost before the society columnists could hail it as the event of the season I was swept up in our annual migration to Florida. Paul liked to spend February swimming and playing tennis at his Palm Beach estate, and the house had to be opened, certain servants transferred and arrangements made for Paul’s three private railroad cars to embark on the long journey south. The very thought of coordinating the movements of luggage and servants on such an extensive scale was enough to make me feel exhausted, and when we finally arrived in Florida I had to have a day to rest before we embarked on our social life among the Palm Beach set. Logically the move to Florida for a month should have been less exhausting than the move to Maine for the summer, but Maine was more informal, we needed fewer servants since the cottage at Bar Harbor had no more than twenty-five rooms, and Maine is an easy journey compared with the trek to Palm Beach.
Paul’s house occupied a superb position by the sea and was built in the style of a Spanish castle, with half a dozen patios linking the thirty-seven rooms and the sunroom auditorium. There was also a ballroom which hung out over the sea so that when one was dancing one felt as if one were on board ship, but in fact we seldom held dances in Florida, and Paul preferred to limit his activities to swimming, tennis and dinner parties. Occasionally he played bridge, but that bored him because he usually found the other participants too slow, and anyway people did not like it when he won too often. He refused point-blank to go to any of the cocktail parties which were becoming fashionable, although he could occasionally be coaxed away from dinner to an after-dinner party. However, one such party was his limit and we were always in bed by midnight; probably the younger members of the Palm Beach set thought we were hopelessly staid. To my surprise he never gambled, always protesting facetiously that he had enough gambling on Wall Street and that he came to Palm Beach for a vacation. Those were before the days when one poker chip was reputed to cost ten thousand dollars in Palm Beach circles, but the stakes were notoriously high and gambling was popular among the local millionaires.
By the end of our fourth week in Florida Paul always became bored, and that year was no exception. He returned to New York ahead of me while I stayed on to close the house, but when I arrived home I wished I had stayed away longer. I found myself knee deep in correspondence, my housekeeper’s accounts did not balance and the steward told me our best bootlegger had gone to jail. The servants always go to pieces at the end of the long New York winter, particularly if they are left unattended, so I could not be too severe with them, but after I had straightened out the housekeeper’s poor arithmetic, dismissed a light-fingered footman, asked O’Reilly to find a new bootlegger and sent the latest foolish housemaid to the usual institution for unwed mothers I began to think how nice it would be to live simply with Paul in a little country cottage with only a hired girl to look after us. I even thought longingly of quiet evenings free of dinner parties and soirees, but came to the conclusion I would miss the glittering lights of Broadway. The production of Hamlet had led to a Shakespeare revival, and although I had never enjoyed reading his plays with my governess long ago I was always enthralled by a live performance on the boards.
> It was in early April that Paul suddenly decided to see Cornelius. The decision to force Mildred’s hand came quite out of the blue and as far as I could see for no reason. One day he was saying with his usual lack of enthusiasm, “I must do something about Mildred’s boy,” and the next he was saying, “I’m going to have a showdown with Mildred about this!” and was reaching for the telephone.
But Mildred had her excuses ready. Cornelius’ health had improved; he was about to attend school for the first time and would be fully occupied until the end of the semester. Then after the Fourth of July the entire family was heading for Canada for Wade’s first long vacation in years.
“When are you due back from Canada?” said Paul. “The end of August? Very well, you can send Cornelius to New York directly afterward and he can spend a week with us before his school starts again.”
They argued, but Paul won. Perhaps Mildred had always known she was fighting a losing battle. For a moment I wondered what Cornelius thought of the situation, but I suspected that no one would have asked his opinion. Perhaps he did not want to come. Indeed by this time I myself was wondering if Paul’s pulverizing orbit was the best place for a delicate sheltered boy, and when I remembered Bruce Clayton I could only hope that Cornelius would be more fortunate in his career as a Van Zale protégé. It even occurred to me that he might be better off altogether if he failed to qualify as a protégé and was allowed to withdraw quietly to Ohio.
The entire situation troubled me increasingly as the summer passed, and the suddenness of Paul’s interest in Cornelius troubled me most of all because I felt sure there was a reason for it yet I could not guess what that reason was. “I don’t want a son,” Paul had said to me over and over again, but he behaved all that summer as if it were of vital importance to him to discover the perfect substitute for the son he had never had, and as the time of Cornelius’ visit drew closer I no longer knew whether I wanted Cornelius to succeed or fail. I only wanted neither of them to be hurt.
The Rich Are Different Page 19