The Great Husband Hunt

by Laurie Graham

  “I don't know, old thing,” he said. “It'd be pretty bad form. And it doesn't matter if you haven't bathed, you know? Bobbity hasn't, and she's been in the saddle all day.”

  Then he discussed it with his brother, quite within earshot of our door.

  “I think you'll find,” said Sir Neville, “she'll come nicely to the bridle when she's hungry.”

  Humpy did come to Kneilthorpe, just once. He said he'd come to see me, but I believe the truth centered around a rather handsome Johnny called Gordie.

  A party came down for shooting, and the small select group included Gordie, who actually owned a castle, and the P of W, who stood to inherit the whole country.

  Then Humpy arrived looking altogether too debonair for shooting.

  “Look at you!” he said. “You've gone native!”

  I hadn't at all gone native, but when you have slow circulation woolen socks are a great comfort.

  I said, “Are you really going to shoot?”

  “No,” he said. “But I may ride out with the lunch wagon and catch up on old times. Gordie and I go back a long way.”

  I said, “What about the P of W? I'd hoped to get acquainted with him but he hasn't paid me the least attention. None of them have. All they do is count dead birds.”

  But Humpy said he had absolutely no pull with the royals. He asked whether I missed Paris.

  “Not a bit,” I lied. I said, “I'm so happy with Reggie.” That much was the truth.

  Humpy reported that Gil had disappeared from rue Vavin, Hannelore Ettl was living in my house with a Dutch hermaphrodite, and Stassy's neckties were on sale in Samaritaine.

  “And I suppose your babies will be joining you any moment?” he said.

  That was the big unanswered question.

  Reggie wanted us to do the right thing. But “the right thing” could be viewed in different lights. Though Bobbity and Sir Neville had given their full approval to the introduction of children, I feared they would find, as I had, that the reality was more inconvenient than the prospect. Then, perhaps Sapphire and Emerald liked growing up in New York and would react badly to being transplanted. And perhaps my sister wouldn't bear to be parted from them. A photograph had arrived, the two girls posed on cushions side by side, not babies anymore, and Honey behind them, with an arm around each child, and a challenging light in her eye.

  “Come and get them,” she seemed to be saying, “if you dare.”

  “The thing is,” I had explained to Reggie, “my sister will need time to get used to the idea.”

  “Oh, quite so,” he said. “Absolutely. But sometimes what seems cruel is actually kind. I've seen it with bitches. No matter how devoted they are, there comes a time when they're actually pretty relieved to see the back of the whelps.”

  I said, “Perhaps we should go to New York? Kind of ease ourselves in?”

  “I'd have to put it to Merrick,” he said. “See when I can be spared.”

  But another summer came and went. Sir Neville grew more and more gaunt, Bobbity had the girl turn great quantities of sour plums into great quantities of a condiment called chutney, and Bullyboy Beluga was stung by wasps. Then one fall morning, as I looked out of the morning-room windows, I saw a boy riding a pedal cycle up the gravel sweep. He disappeared and reappeared on the gentle wind of the road and it must have been fully five minutes before he reached the door and handed in a telegram.

  “It'll be bad news,” the girl said. “Telegrams are always bad news.”

  The first bad news was the way the telegram was addressed. “To Her Highness Poppy Minton Merrick.”

  “RETURN NY IMMEDIATELY,” it said. “FATHER DEAD.” It was signed “GRACE.”

  “Will there be an answer?” the girl wanted to know. “Walter always waits in case there's an answer.”

  “Yes,” I said. “No. I'll let you know.”

  The fact was, I didn't quite know what to make of it.

  “The Missus can't make her mind up,” I heard the girl say. “Why don't you come round to the kitchen for a cup of tea, Walter, while she's pondering.”

  The signature was “Grace,” which was Harry. But whose father's death was he reporting? Not mine. Not his. And what had possessed him to address me in such a way? I saw Ma's hand in that.

  For the rest of the morning the telegram lay on the table, defying interpretation. Bobbity was out, hecking over to the Bagehot place to look at a hunter that was lame. And Reggie was in Melton Merbrey with Neville, seeing the feed merchant. I was alone except for the servants. Eventually I saw the delivery boy ride away, full of tea and my sultana cake, no doubt.

  When Reggie and Neville returned from town they brought with them newspapers with gloomy reports about the United States.

  “Things sound to be pretty rocky over there,” Reggie said. “The stock market took a fearful dive.”

  He suggested I send my own telegram to Harry, asking for clarification.

  “I'll rush it over to the telegraphic office, drectly after luncheon,” he said.

  I wanted to ride in the sidecar but he wouldn't allow it.

  “Better not, old bean,” he said. “I'm going to go like the clappers.”

  It was 11 P.M., an extraordinarily late hour for Kneilthorpe House, especially on the eve of a meet, when another telegram arrived.

  “HARRY DEAD,” it said. “RETURN IMMEDIATELY. SHERMAN.”

  And so the facts began to emerge. A tragedy had befallen my brother-in-law, and my nephew, who in my mind's eye still wore diapers, was suddenly old enough to send telegrams and give orders.

  “Well,” said Reggie. “There we have it. Emerald and Sapphire must certainly be brought home now. How often things work out this way. One wonders and wonders what to do for the best, and eventually the answer becomes clear.”

  Bobbity said, “Will they be here before the end of the season?”

  Hunting took up an enormous amount of her time and I could understand she wouldn't want children around, getting beneath horses' hooves.

  But Reggie said, “I hope so. I hope they'll be here absolutely as soon as possible. I think it's going to be rather fun. Don't worry about getting their quarters up to scratch. I'll see to it. I'll have the girl bring in a spare sister, to do some scrubbing and so forth. And I suppose we'd better alert Nanny Faulds.”

  There was then some discussion as to whether Nanny Faulds was merely old or desperately old. In any event, she had nannied at least two generations of Merricks and I was quite prepared to give her a chance with the next.

  How Reggie clung to me in the week before I set off.

  “Do hurry back, old sausage,” he said, curving around me till we were like spoons in a box. “And while you're gone I'm going to look into ponies. One can't get them started too soon, and it'll help to get Bobbity on side.”

  I said, “Isn't she on side already?”

  “Of course,” he said. “But she and Neville aren't accustomed to small fry. I'm sure it's been a disappointment to them. Bobbity would have adored to have children.”

  I said, “How do you know?”

  “It's obvious,” he said. “Everyone loves tiddlers.”

  That was what Angelica said, too.

  “How many more shall we have, old turnip top?” he said. “Let's have a hyce full.” “Hyce” was the Merrick way of saying “house.”

  I douched three times that night, to make sure he didn't make an immediate start on his project to sire a dynasty. Reggie could be very impractical at times.

  It was a melancholy scene, the day I left for Liverpool.

  Angelica came over, blowing her nose a great deal, Neville delayed going out so he could shake my hand, and Bobbity feigned busyness, coaxing a worm pill into Bullyboy Beluga, in order to maintain her stiff upper lip. Even the girl put on a clean apron and came and stood with the general outdoors man and the stable boy, all looking most affected. When I first arrived, the story that I was a widow, left with two small children, had been allowed to spread
by natural means, and so I suppose they felt I had already had more than my share of tragedy.

  There was a freezing mist, right up to the windowpanes, and when I turned to take a last look at Kneilthorpe, it had disappeared already.

  Reggie went with me as far as Leicester.

  “Damn and blast it, I should be coming with you,” he said, kissing me over and over through the train window, until I wished he had stayed on the gravel sweep and said his goodbyes with the rest. I knew my mission was to go to New York and return as soon as possible, but I hadn't the faintest expectation of being able to do it. I hoped, or believed, that by the time I reached her side, Honey would be through her darkest hour.

  She would refuse to be parted from her angel lambkins, Ma would beg me to reconsider before I dragged them to a foreign land, and we would reach some kind of mutually satisfactory arrangement whereby she brought them to Kneilthorpe for a holiday each year. I wondered why I hadn't thought of it before.

  36

  I sailed on my old friend the Aquitania, and all the talk was of who was ruined. I even began to wonder whether I was myself. I couldn't understand how people could have money one minute and nothing the next, unless someone broke into the bank and carried it all off. As I trusted, Uncle Israel's complicated precautions had kept my fortune out of harm's way. It was Harry who had come a cropper, cashing in Honey's treasury bonds, mortgaging everything they had, doing something called “buying on margin.” He had driven out to one of his empty Bay Shore properties and shot himself.

  Murray was waiting for me with this bleak story. He had come down to the pier to watch the old four-stacker come in to her berth. Whether he'd offered or whether he'd been sent, I don't know. He was very formal with me.

  “I'm sorry you've come home to such sadness, Poppy,” he said.

  I said, “Thank God Harry had the decency not to do it at home.”

  “Well,” he said, “I see being an English lady hasn't softened you any. I'm instructed to take you straight to Honey. Then on to 69th Street. Your ma has the girls there, and I know how eager you'll be to get reacquainted with them.”

  I said, “Why are you still mad at me for loaning them to Honey? If you only knew how she begged me to leave them behind.”

  He said, “You make them sound like a pair of gloves.”

  There was no way of telling, from the outside, that my sister's house had been visited by tragedy. Everything looked the same as usual. As I climbed to the front stoop I could remember feeling just as affronted when Pa had been lost at sea but the milk still got delivered on time.

  “Anyhow,” I said to Murray, “why did Sherman Ulysses wire me? Wasn't that your job?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “Sherman is head of this house now.”

  And I soon discovered what he meant. The stocky red-faced child who had seen off more nursemaids and governesses than I could count, had grown into a man. He had thin coppery hair and an earnest face. Sixteen years old. He was down in the kitchen carefully following a recipe from his Boy Scout Campfire Cookbook.

  “Aunt Poppy,” he said, shaking my hand. “Mother's resting so I'm going to speak to you plainly while I can.”

  Then he turned to Murray.

  “Did you tell her?” he asked.

  Murray shrugged his shoulders.

  “We haven't had time for much,” he said.

  “The thing is,” Sherman said, wiping his hands on a kitchen cloth, “Mother has lost everything. She can't be expected to support you a moment longer…”

  I saw red.

  I said, “I have never asked anyone to support me. And I'm here to tell her not to worry. I still have my fortune. I'll buy her another house or whatever she needs.”

  “You're missing my point,” he said. “You have to take your children and raise them yourself. You've been helling around and pleasing yourself for long enough. It's time those girls know who they belong to, and Murray agrees with me, don't you?”

  “I do,” Murray said. “But Poppy knows that. There's been bad feeling between us since the day she ran out on Emerald.”

  Those two pip-squeaks talking about me like that.

  I said, “Save your breath. I have a husband and a home waiting for them in England. I was about to collect them anyway.”

  Sherman said, “You make them sound like a pair of repaired boots.”

  I saw a little something pass between him and Murray. How they must have rehearsed the way they were going to persecute me. I believed I'd grown accustomed to the world's disapproval but the hurt of their criticism took me quite by surprise. I began to cry. And neither of them rushed to comfort me.

  Sherman returned to browning sausages in a pan, and Murray began to arrange a tray for tea.

  “Have your cry, Poppy,” he said, “and then we'll take this up to Honey. She's asked for you every day.”

  My poor sister. She looked like she had had a quantity of stuffing removed from her. Her hair hadn't been combed. Her wrap was crumpled. She reminded me of Ma during the ups and downs of 1912.

  I sat with her awhile and seemingly managed to say every wrong thing in the book.

  “Don't fret about money,” I said. “I have plenty.”

  “I don't care about money,” she said. “I want Harry back.”

  “Why?” I said. “He was nothing but a fool and a thief. I'll bet you never saw your rose pearls again. And all those showgirls.”

  “It doesn't matter,” she said. “I still want him back.”

  I said, “And don't worry about Sapphire and Emerald. I'll take them to England and raise them as Merricks.”

  “No!” she said, and she grabbed my arm. “There's no need to do anything hasty. In a day or two I'll be feeling well enough to have them back here, and you can have Aunt Fish's room and gradually the girls will grow to understand who you are. You have to give them time, Poppy. Lots of time.”

  I said, “Have you been preparing them for this? You knew they'd have to come to me eventually. You have been showing them my picture regularly?”

  She sank back against the daybed. Her silence confirmed my fears that she had not been following my instructions. I have often found in life that the only way to ensure a job is done properly is to do it yourself.

  “Has Sherman told you to take them away?” she asked eventually. “He thinks I can't continue but he's wrong. I shall soon be well enough. Shermy is taking good care of me. It's just that it's been such a terrible shock, Poppy. I didn't know things like this could happen, did you?”

  I sat with her till Sherman carried in a plate of potatoes and sausage. Then Murray drove me across the park and down Fifth Avenue.

  I said, “Does she really stand to lose her house? There's no need for that, you know?”

  He said, “No. She can stay in the house, if she chooses to. My father and Dorabel are taking care of that. But some things can't be replaced.”

  Honey's rose pearls were very lovely.

  Murray said, “Are you happy in England?”

  “Very happy,” I told him.

  “Good,” he said.

  I said, “And how's the bookkeeping and business and everything?”

  “Oh, you know,” he said. “Crazy. Wild, crazy fun, fun, fun.”

  I said, “And you must have a sweetheart by now?”

  “Hundreds,” he said.

  He was still holding out on me.

  We pulled up outside the Jacoby house and I felt something gray and suffocating coil itself around me. Ma was in there waiting for me, and Aunt Fish, and no matter that I was thirty-two years old, no matter that I was second in command at Kneilthorpe and had poured tea for the P of W, I was about to be stripped of my rank. I would simply be Poppy and therefore in the wrong. I had kept my looks and my fortune, while my sister had lost both. I was bad for sharing the joys of my children with her and now, no doubt, would be bad whether I wrenched them from her or not. I also had some explaining to do with my mother vis-à-vis Queen Mary.

&nb
sp; How I wished I were back in England, waiting for the dinner gong.

  Emerald and Sapphire had been kept up to meet me. Judah was out of his seat, in a hurry to greet me and then disappear. My mother's husband recognized women's business when he saw it. Arranged on a couch were Ma and Aunt Fish, and between them, in nightgowns, candlewick wraps and Dora Minkel Ear Correcting Bandages were my babies. They fairly hurled themselves at Murray and he allowed himself to be brought down, and covered in kisses and tickled to death. Ma offered me a dry, papery cheek.

  “Murray undoes all my good work,” she whispered. “How was Honey when you left her?”

  I said, “Resting. Sherman was making sausages for dinner.”

  I was ravenous myself, but it didn't seem the right thing to ask whether I'd missed dinner.

  “Murray!” Ma rapped out. “No more stimulation, please.”

  Emerald's ear bandages had come adrift. Sapphire had hiccups. Gradually Murray restored calm.

  “See here,” he said quietly, hauling them onto his lap. “Do you know who this special visitor is?”

  They shook their heads solemnly. Sapphire's hair, formerly Catchings blonde, had darkened to a full brown Minkel frizz. Emerald's hung straight and fine, just like Reggie's. Apart from that they passed for full sisters.

  I said, “I'm your mommy.”

  Emerald laughed.

  “Oh no you're not!” she said. “We already have a mommy.”

  “Well,” Murray said, “now you have two mommies. A Mommy Honey and a Mommy Poppy. And this is your Mommy Poppy. Two mommies. Aren't you lucky?”

  Emerald said, “That's stupid.”

  She turned her back on me and tried to revive the tickling game. Sapphire clung to Murray, watching me, and eventually she spoke.