The Great Husband Hunt

by Laurie Graham

  42

  Just a few weeks after Murray's departure, while spring was still holding out on us and even the bedside rug felt damp beneath my feet, Reggie set off for Archie Vigo's to view a litter of retrievers. He climbed astride the Flying Banana and roared away into yet another misty morning. The alarm wasn't raised until he failed to appear at dinner. Archie himself had already gone out to dine by the time we telephoned, but his butler, reluctant at first to give out what he called “private information,” eventually revealed that Reggie had never kept his appointment. The pick of the litter had gone to one of the Burton girls.

  A party of nine set off to search for Reggie. Our outdoors man, and Walter the telegram boy, who unaccountably turned out to be sitting in our kitchen drinking tea with the girl, even though there had been no telegrams to deliver, and sundry peasants rustled up from our nearest tenant farms. Emerald begged to go too, excited by the sight of the rush torches, and when she was forbidden fell into a sulk, refusing either to go to bed or to play spillikins pleasantly.

  It was a clear night, for a change, but with only a little cheese rind of moon. It was after midnight before they found where the motorcycle had left the muddy track and flung Reggie against a horse-chestnut tree.

  They carried him back to Kneilthorpe on a stretcher kept for hunting misfortunes, and laid him on the billiard table. Doctor Liversedge was sent for, and a certain woman who did whatever it is such people do.

  “They'll want to lift him off the nice baize,” I heard her say to the doctor, “before there's any leaking.”

  I stood in the hall, waiting for someone to tell me something.

  “They've tidied him up,” Bobbity said. “Are you ready to go in?”

  “Going in” was what one was expected to do. Bobbity accompanied me and Angelica intended to as well, until she noticed Sapphire and Emerald were halfway up the stairs, watching, white-faced, and ran to bundle them away. In the billiard room an assortment of glass-eyed stag heads stared into the gloom.

  It took only a second for me to see there was nothing could be done for Reggie. The man who had chatted to me so gaily over his oatmeal that morning had somehow gone away and left behind an understuffed manikin which bore a fair resemblance. There was a purple line across his brow.

  I said, “Why did he have to go and do this?”

  “Too beastly for words.” That was all Bobbity could say.

  We joined Neville and the doctor for large whiskeys in the drawing room, and I noticed, before I had taken even the smallest sip, that everyone was talking in strangely hollow voices. They all denied doing it, but I know what I know, and they persisted in it for several weeks.

  Angelica came down from the nursery.

  “I think,” she said, “the tiddlers won't settle until you've been up and had a word.”

  How I wished for Murray to be there. He would have found a way to soften Sapphire's hard little eyes.

  “You spoil everything,” she spat at me. “Everybody goes away because of you.”

  I said, “There was mud on the track.”

  “You sent my daddy Gilbert away, and Mommy Honey and Uncle Murray, and Gray…”

  Gray had been a very disagreeable pet rabbit.

  “I didn't,” I said. “I really didn't.”

  “And now Reggie's gone,” she said. “I hate you.”

  “Maybe he'll come back,” Emerald suggested.

  “You goose,” Sapphire sneered. “You're such a baby. Deads don't come back.”

  She pulled the covers over her head and didn't say another word that night.

  Emerald stood in front of me. Though she was blessed with silky Merrick hair, her ears protruded with the unmistakable hallmark of Minkel blood. Whatever other wrongs I did my children, I spared them the torture of nightly correction bandages.

  “I don't hate you,” she said solemnly.

  The girl had been hovering, with cups of hot milk that had grown wrinkly skins. Em shuddered when the skin touched her lip.

  “Do I have to?” she said. She climbed into bed and I tucked her in tightly.

  “Mommy,” she said, “is Uncle Murray a dead too?”

  I'm sure he might as well have been.

  “No,” I said. “He'll come back.”

  “Yes,” she said, seeming quite satisfied. “And maybe all our daddies will come back, too. One for me and one for Sapphy.”

  The girl couldn't even wait for me to leave the nursery before she began undoing all my tucking in.

  “This won't do, will it?” she said to Emerald. “The Missus doesn't know how we like room to kick about.”

  43

  The day Reggie was to be buried the Vale of Belvoir paid their respects by canceling a meet, and the girls were excused their lessons to be taken by Angelica to Leicester, Leicestershire, to see a real stuffed giraffe. I watched out of the window all morning, until it was time to go to Buckby churchyard. I had a notion Murray might come driving up the gravel sweep, but he never did. Only Walter, with a wire of condolence from Ma and Judah.

  “SUCH SADNESS,” it said. “NO WORD MURRAY.”

  My stepfather had become rather careful. He didn't approve of costly messages when so many people were ruined and having to make do and only get their old furs remodeled instead of buying nice new ones.

  Bobbity brought the wire in to me, and a glass of sherry wine.

  “Fortification,” she said. “I'm afraid Merrick finished the scotch.”

  I said, “I wish Murray were here. I've been trying to remember what we say for the dead. We have our own words, you know? Hebrew words.”

  “Oh, don't trouble about that,” Bobbity said. “Our parson's an Oxford man. If any languages were needed he'd know them. But I'm quite sure they won't be. We always bury in English.”

  Of course I knew that. But my mind kept casting around for the sound of those Hebrew words. Judah Jacoby had said them for my uncle Israel. I could almost hear them, but not quite. They dangled like an annoying little thread that I could see out of the corner of my eye but couldn't quite catch.

  A great crowd of the lower orders were waiting to see Reggie brought into the church, and some of them were weeping. He had been loved for the way he tirelessly rode around from hovel to hovel, inquiring about their milk yields and taking them gifts of cake at Christmas. That was the kind of man he was.

  Gordie came, from his castle, but not Humpy nor the P of W who had become the King of England. Archie Vigo was a pallbearer. And Flicky Manners drove over wearing poorly aimed lip rouge.

  “Darling,” she said, taking me in her arms, “the good always die young.”

  This was precisely what was troubling me most. I was only thirty-eight years old. Ahead of me stretched a long empty road, a theme my mother wasn't slow to take up.

  “I sometimes feel,” she wrote,

  that I have lived too long. To see both my daughters poor lonely widows and both stepsons hiding away when they might be here at dear Judah's side, helping him through such difficult times. Oscar says we are sure to have another war and Yetta says we must all be prepared for harder times yet and sacrifice, but we have already let go the driver and one of our help so I don't see what more can be asked of us.

  Now Poppy, it is certainly time for you to bring Sapphire and Emerald home to New York instead of lingering amongst strangers. I didn't wish to be ungracious when we visited you at Kneilthorpe Castle, but your aunt and I noticed a worrying lack of attention to feminine grooming. Before you know it Sapphire will be a young woman, and valuable time is being lost. Neck whitener must be applied regularly if it is to have any noticeable effect, as you should not need reminding.

  On your return Honey will be only too happy to help you with the great task that lies ahead of you. She has been in low spirits and it will be so beneficial to her to have something to do. Little Abe is a comfort to her, of course, and is very highly thought of at the bank, but a son is not a daughter.

  Which brings me to the main po
int of my letter. Before you sail, you MUST ascertain the whereabouts of Murray and bring him home with you. Picture postcards from foreign parts are a poor substitute for the comfort and gratitude I'm sure Judah is owed.

  We know he has been in a place called the Low Countries, but I fear he also has the intention of visiting Paris, France, and we all know what can happen to a person there. You must make it your job to find him. You will find as I did that duties and industry are a great balm after the loss of a loved one, and, of course, you will restore peoples good opinion of you by retrieving what you have carelessly mislaid.

  By the by, your aunt now has ulcerated veins.

  Please give our fondest regards to Her Majesty. We are following with interest the young King's friendship with a fallen woman.

  Your loving mother

  I had no intention of returning to New York. I was lost and lonesome without Reggie, crying into my pillow for him every night, and I missed Murray, too, but it didn't seem like it was my place to go running after him, dragging him back to his father's account ledgers. His leaving wasn't my doing. He had mislaid himself. I had never said a cross word to him in my life, and besides, I had no idea where the Low Countries were.

  I hung on at Kneilthorpe, watching Sapphy sprout bosoms and Sir Neville grow more sallow and silent. Bobbity became joint master of the Belvoir, Angelica moved back to Bagehots, and Mr. Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia. The roof leaked but no one came to repair it. Each rainy day required another pot or bucket to be found to catch the drips, Murray's white garden turned brown, and suddenly, in the fall of 1938, I could endure no more.

  “I think I'll take Em and Sapphy to Paris for a while,” I told Bobbity, quite prepared for her to argue against it. But all she said was, “Probably for the best. Then Merrick can close up the leaky quarters. One spends such amounts keeping the old place heated to American standards.”

  Kneilthorpe had never been heated to American standards.

  I said, “Does that mean we shan't have a home here anymore?”

  It wasn't myself I was concerned for. I have always had the ability to create a home wherever I find myself, with whatever few sticks I can beg or borrow. But Emerald had her ponies, and Sapphire was rather attached to Angelica. Bobbity never really answered me.

  “Well,” she said, “if it comes to another war I suppose we shall be requisitioned, same as in the last lot.”

  44

  Everyone seemed to be talking up a war, but in Paris we found no sign of it. We stayed at the Athenée and had such fun buying witty hats and getting our portraits photographed. Humpy was still in rue Vavin, though looking rather old, Nancy and Orville Lord had fled to California, Coquelicot was a boulangerie, and Ava Hornblower was wearing a trilby hat and affecting to be a war correspondent. Of Cousin Addie, whom I thought my girls might be amused to meet, and Russian Stassy, whom I intended to snub, there was no trace.

  I said, “Humpy, did you happen to run across my stepbrother?”

  But Humpy didn't recall him.

  “Jack Barty's in Tangier,” he said, “and I believe Gil Catchings went to Buenos Aires. Or was that Oca? So many people on the move, Poppy.”

  I said, “The other possibility is the Low Countries. Any idea how I get there?”

  “To Brussels and then bear left,” he said, “but you mustn't go now. It's far too dangerous. And, anyway, I need your help. I need some money.”

  People like the Choates and the Merricks and the Bagehots, they had large houses, and unfortunates to farm their land, but none of them had proper money. They wore the same old jewels every year and had the elbows of their jackets patched.

  “Of course,” I said. “How much?”

  “Well…,” he said.

  I said, “Have you been losing at cards?”

  “Oh no,” he said, “nothing like that. There are people who need to go to America, you see. They have to have tickets and papers and it all takes money.”

  I had always paid my own way when I got the urge to travel.

  I said, “What kind of people?”

  “Your kind,” he said. “Things are getting pretty ugly, you know? For anyone…juif…”

  I said, “Are they? We've found things rather agreeable here.”

  “Please take my word for it,” he said. “You should think of going home yourself.”

  I said, “But we only just left. And I can't tell you how melancholy the place makes me feel, without Reggie.”

  “I didn't mean Kneilthorpe,” he said. “If it comes to a showdown, I'm not sure even England will be a safe haven. You should go home to America. Put as many miles as you can between yourself and the Hun.”

  Humpy made the forthcoming war sound very thrilling. I wrote out a check immediately.

  “Will this do it?” I asked.

  “It's a start,” he said.

  Rescuing people would turn out to be a good deal more costly than I had expected. Little by little I detected signs of war fever. Stores put up their shutters and left them there. Sandbags appeared in the streets. Sometimes, at night, I heard scuffles beneath the windows of our suite, but in the morning there was never any sign of anything amiss.

  Emerald's letters to her ponies dwindled from daily to weekly, and she learned to love riding in the Bois de Vincennes. And Sapphire, for the first time in her life, seemed happy. She liked Paris.

  Humpy had an endless supply of poor artists and writers who needed help in getting to America, and I believe Sapphy enjoyed the idea that we were engaged in dangerous, mysterious work.

  “It's like catching the smugglers,” she said, “in Spring Term at Tiverton Towers.”

  I still was not entirely convinced by all the whispering and sad faces and wondered sometimes whether Humpy was being taken for a ride and me along with him. I walked around the city all the time and never saw a single Hun.

  I said, “I do hope you'll keep track of these people, so they can pay back their fare.” I could tell by his face he was doing no such thing. He didn't even have a list of their names.

  “If it's bothering you, Poppy,” he said, a little testily, considering how many of his friends I was sending on vacation, “why don't you have some of their work, as collateral. Paintings and so forth. I'm getting quite a collection myself. Frankl. Mellin. I've some interesting pastels by Vblescu. They'll probably be worth something if one waits long enough. Why don't you pick out a few pieces for yourself?”

  This at least added a little interest to the project, but quite often I didn't like what was being offered.

  “Heaven's sakes, Mom,” Sapphy said to me one day, “you don't have to like it.”

  We were looking at some small gloomy oils by Rinkelmann. I hated them.

  “No,” I said. “I'm sorry. No sale. Mr. Rinkelmann will have to find someone else to pay for his jaunt.”

  “A jaunt!” she said. “It's not a jaunt. He has to escape from oppression.”

  I said, “Sapphire, I had to escape from oppression. I had to go to the Cunard office and buy our tickets and arrange for our trunks and all the while your grandma Jacoby and your great-aunt Fish were oppressing me, oppressing me, oppressing me. You are too young to understand.”

  “Mom,” she said. “I do understand. And if you won't buy Rinkelmann a ticket, I will.”

  Of course, Sapphire was nowhere near coming into her money. But she threatened to sell her silver vanity set and her jade egg and whatever else it might take, so I relented and wrote another check. Rinkelmann then promptly disappeared. I don't believe we ever heard of him again, but Humpy was right about one thing. Those little oils fetched quite a decent price eventually.

  45

  They said we were at war but nothing happened. We heard from Angelica that she was going for a driver in the army and I thought of dashing back to do the same myself, but Emerald cried and said she didn't want to be an orphan. We stayed on.

  One of the dividends of war was that Ma's letters stopped appearing on my breakfast tray,
reproaching me for staying away, giving me weekly reminders that Murray was still unaccounted for and probably lay dead and unmourned in some foreign hellhole. Another was that everyone became rather gay while they still had the chance. Some of the juifs had their windows broken and were called unkind names, so I began the precaution of frequently making the sign of the cross whenever I was out and about. I had learned how to do it in England and I found it a very useful habit.

  One day in the spring of 1940 Humpy took me to one side.

  “Poppy,” he said, “I rather think it's time you made a move. I think I'm going to insist.”

  I said, “To New York?”

  “Of course to New York,” he said, “while the going is good. It could be pretty bloody awful for you, if the Germans arrive.”

  I'd never seen him look so worried.

  I said, “I'll leave if you do.”

  “But it's rather different for me,” he said.

  I said, “How is it different? I've been in a war before, you know? I worked for the Red Cross. I can fly a biplane.”

  “Well,” he said, “you have children. You must think of them. You're also too old for war work, real war work. And well, to be perfectly blunt Poppy, you're very obviously Jewish.”

  Humpy was famously inexpert on the subject of female looks. I had once heard him praise Nancy Lord's legs. Still, I knew he cared for me, and for my girls, and I began to wish we'd made a run for Kneilthorpe. He shook his head.

  “England's done for,” he said. “America's the only hope. I may even join you there myself, if I can finish what I've started here. I must get papers for Lionel and René.”

  Lionel was another of Humpy's special young friends and René was Lionel's brother. He played the cello and Sapphire had a crush on him.

  I broke the news to Em and Sapphy.

  I said, “We have to go to New York for the duration.”

  They both kicked up. Emerald said she had to return to Kneilthorpe and rescue her ponies before the Germans ate them. Sapphire said it wasn't decent for us to run away when so many other people couldn't. This was an argument I never could follow.