The Unfortunates

by Laurie Graham

  Murray had not once looked my way or spoken to me.

  I said, ‘And why are you so cross with me? You may as well spit it out.’

  He finished spooning up his jello before he answered. Then his eyes flashed.

  ‘Cross?’ he said. ‘Not me. I’m plain disgusted with you.’

  Silence fell.

  ‘Know something, Poppy?’ he said. ‘You pay more attention to the whereabouts of your vanity case than you do to your children.’

  Ma looked to Judah to rein Murray in but Judah was making a great business of dabbing at the corners of his mouth with his napkin and checking his pocket watch.

  Aunt Fish was usually reticent with her opinions when Judah was around, but she spoke up.

  ‘You are too young to understand,’ she began – a sure way to sour things still further. ‘Poppy’s situation is delicate and complicated.’

  ‘Yes,’ Honey chimed in. ‘And how would you feel, Murray, if she dragged Sapphire and Emerald off to Africa and they died of a fever or got eaten by tigers?’

  I said, ‘What is it to you anyway? They’re my children …’

  ‘And Mr Merrick’s,’ Ma interrupted. Ma was anxious for us all to become a seamless whole with the Merricks as soon as possible, before questions were asked in certain royal quarters.

  ‘Your children?’ Murray snorted. ‘Do they know they’re your children? I very much doubt it. Honey’s been the only mother Sapphire knows. And now you’re doing the same to Emerald. You’re selfish, Poppy. You’re really quite breathtakingly selfish.’

  He pushed back his chair and left the room. Honey reached over and patted my hand, but it didn’t help. I was meant to be the guest of honor. Everyone was meant to be nice to me.

  ‘Well,’ said Judah and Harry in unison, getting to their feet and putting on their business faces.

  Judah shook my hand.

  ‘Safe landing, Poppy,’ he said. ‘And a swift return. You have responsibilities now.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Harry said, but then he pecked me on the cheek because he knew there’d be trouble from Honey if he didn’t.

  Tea was brought in, and the babies, but Murray didn’t return.

  I said, ‘I know why he’s sulking. He hoped I’d stay on. He wanted me to go and bury myself somewhere like Long Island and play house and have a garden.’

  Honey said, ‘He’s a very attentive uncle, you know? I know Shermy would be just the same if he weren’t away at school, but I really must commend Murray. He picked out Emerald’s rocking horse all by himself.’

  ‘A gift more suitable for a boy, of course,’ said Aunt Fish. ‘It will have to be closely supervised.’

  But Honey would hear nothing against my stepbrother.

  ‘He even composed her one of his little verses,’ she said. ‘Did I read it to you, Ma? I have it here in my pocketbook.’

  She took it out.

  ‘GREEN,’ she read.

  Uncle Murray never

  Knew, emeralds can be pink

  Too. Uncle Murray’s green.

  ‘Time that boy settled to something useful,’ Ma said. ‘Like adding up figures. And sparing his father.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  We were quite the toast of the Mauretania on that sailing to Southampton, England. A thousand men fell in love with me and no one could resist my darling Beluga, but we encouraged no one. We lived rather quietly, always taking a novelette with us into the lounges, and turning in early, to get our beauty sleep.

  The crossing was smooth and I felt on top of the world, until we stood off Southampton and the tugs began taking us in. Then my heart began playing the fool and my knees turned to water and I thought I might be going to have a seizure, like Uncle Israel. I’d have taken myself below to the infirmary if I’d felt strong enough to push against the flow of passengers. Everybody was headed upstairs, to line the rail and wave to their loved ones.

  I medicated myself with a small scotch and soda and tried on my chapeau a hundred different angles. But no matter what I did, I still didn’t feel I looked right. My prince awaited me and I wanted to be perfect for him. The problem was, I didn’t know what his idea of ‘perfect’ might be.

  It was Beluga who picked him out in the crowd. He pulled on his leash, yelping for joy, and scrabbled across the shiny floor, to be the first to receive a kiss from Reggie. Beluga was often a help to me at difficult moments.

  Reggie was younger and paler than I remembered him. His hair was cut shorter. And he was shyer, too. We were finally face to face, but it wasn’t how I’d dreamed it would be. I wanted a passionate embrace, of the kind that were going on all around us. I wanted him to tell me how completely ravishing I looked. But all he did was talk about the train schedule and the kind of weather we might expect.

  ‘Well,’ he said eventually, ‘where have the babies got to? Is there a nursemaid?’

  I had omitted to let him know the arrangements I had made for Emerald and Sapphire. I figured it would be an easier subject to discuss once I had him safely in my arms.

  ‘They’ll follow on later,’ I said. ‘When we’ve had time to prepare a place for them.’

  And as soon as I said it, he relaxed. I suppose he had been anxious about having to start right away playing the father, making admiring remarks and not discriminating against another man’s child.

  I said, ‘I thought it might be easier this way.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re right. It’s all been rather a bolt from the blue, frankly. Got back from Nyasaland and well …’

  I said, ‘I thought you’d abandoned me.’

  ‘Hardly, old thing,’ he said, and slipped his arm through mine. ‘Merricks don’t welsh.’

  I saved the photographs until the boat-train picked up speed and there was nothing interesting to look at anymore. Just sky and fields, fields and sky.

  I showed him Emerald first.

  ‘I say!’ he said. ‘I say!’

  Then I showed him Sapphire posed alongside Emerald’s bassinet.

  ‘I say!’ he said again. ‘A foal at foot and a two year old. Well, why not? Ample nursery quarters back at HQ. Ample.’

  I said, ‘Will you really take them both? Just like that?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘The only thing I wonder about … your husband?’

  ‘Ex-husband, Reggie,’ I said.

  ‘But about the child,’ he said. ‘He’ll want a say in certain things. Visits, possibly? Governesses. And is he very very furious? About us?’

  I had heard nothing from Gil.

  I said, ‘Think of Gil Catchings as dead. He may as well be.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ he said. ‘Well, oddly enough I was thinking it might be best to describe you as a widow. Would you mind awfully? It’s just that some of the modern conveniences are not quite … usual yet in Melton Mowbray. Divorce and so forth.’

  I said, ‘But what about Emerald? Is she allowed to be your child?’

  ‘Oh absolutely!’ he said. ‘Merricks have often sired children out of wedlock. The ninth baronet married the nursery maid after he was widowered, and no one could ever see any difference between the ones born before and the ones born afterwards. They were like peas in a pod. And he was highly respected. He was my grandfather, you know? He was Master of the Belvoir until he was seventy-nine.’

  I wasn’t to see my new home immediately. We were to stay at a small Belgravia hotel until we could be married by special license. Then I was to be sprung on the Merrick family. A foreign person, with two children and difficult hair.

  I suppose Reggie and I had had our honeymoon at Cap Ferrat, without even realizing it. What had seemed easy on a moonlit beach, came less readily between damp English sheets, but he was tender enough with me, and when I cried, from relief and fatigue, he fetched me a monogrammed handkerchief.

  ‘Chin up, old sausage,’ he said. ‘I’d say it’s all going to be rather fun.’

  I asked if we were going to Africa.

  ‘I think not,
’ he said. ‘I looked into tobacco. And coffee. Coffee does have its attractions, but there’s Neville to consider.’

  Neville was his brother.

  ‘He lorst an arm in Mesopotamia and has been pretty middling ever since.’

  ‘Lorst’ was Reggie and Humpy’s way of saying ‘lost’. In England many different languages are spoken and very few of them are intelligible to Americans. I resolved then to study hard and learn Reggie’s native dialect.

  I said, ‘So we’ll stay in England and help Neville?’

  ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think so?’

  I was nervous of asking what kind of help we’d be giving Neville. Reggie took it quite for granted that I understood what he meant. Still, I had learned from my dealings with Stassy, better to get things on a clear footing right from the start.

  ‘And what does Neville do?’ I asked.

  ‘Runs the estate,’ he replied. Which left me none the wiser.

  I said, ‘My Ma’s most eager to meet the Queen.’

  He laughed. ‘No one meets the Queen, Poppy,’ he said. ‘Possibly not even the King.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘That will discourage Ma from visiting us.’

  ‘But she’d be most welcome,’ he said. ‘A girl needs a mother around. At certain times.’

  ‘Gel’ was how he said ‘girl’. I was getting the hang of things already. I have always been blessed with a keen mind.

  Humpy came from Paris to be a witness to our marriage and it was he who explained the Merricks to me.

  ‘Neville’s the eldest,’ he said, ‘so he inherited. That makes him Sir Neville. He’s a baronet, you see?’

  I said, ‘Like the one who married the nursery maid?’

  ‘Precisely,’ he said.

  I said, ‘So what does that make Reggie?’

  ‘Reggie’s just Reggie,’ he said.

  I said, ‘So I shan’t be a ladyship?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘not as such. Not unless Neville goes to his reward. Which he may do. He had a pretty bad war, you know?’

  Reggie had been too young for the war. He was a child really.

  Sir Neville, minus one arm, was married to Bobbity.

  Humpy said, ‘She’s been awfully good for Neville.’

  I said, ‘Is she a ladyship?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘she is Lady Merrick, but I wouldn’t labor the point. Bobbity certainly doesn’t.’

  This was very hard to comprehend. It would be like owning very fabulous diamonds and leaving them in the bank vault.

  ‘And where does the Queen come in?’ I asked.

  ‘The Queen?’ Humpy seemed to be overlooking their special connections. I began to suspect that the English were far too casual about things.

  ‘Oh that!’ he said. ‘Well, Reggie and Neville’s mother was a Choate. Perhaps she was my aunt. I don’t remember. The Choates were very numerous. So she had a stepfather and he was related to the Herzog von Teck who was practically almost a total Hun, although he did have a place in Kensington. Not that it signifies anything now. We’re all English these days.’

  ‘So complicated,’ I said. ‘But I will master it.’

  ‘I shouldn’t bother,’ Humpy said. ‘Once you’re there it won’t seem at all important.’

  I said, ‘Now tell about Melton Mowbray. Is it like Paris? Or Cap Ferrat?’

  A little smile played around his lips as he lit a cigarette.

  ‘The first thing you must learn,’ he said, ‘is how to say it. Not Mow-Bray. Merbrey. Meltun Merbrey.’

  I tried it a little.

  ‘But is it fun?’ I asked.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Some people think so. I saw Gil, did I mention?’

  I said, ‘Did he ask after me?’

  ‘Not as such,’ Humpy replied. ‘He called me a home-wrecking little queer.’

  Gil always had trouble with logic. All I could learn was that my automobile had been sold, and that Hannelore Ettl had moved into my adorable little house, in order that she and Gil could collaborate more closely on their paradoxes.

  ‘Oh, and Nancy Lord is learning to fly,’ he said. ‘She’s quite plaguing me about taking me down to Flicky’s next summer, to see what she can pick up. See what you’ve done, Poppy? You’ve started a trend.’

  Nancy Lord never had an original idea in her life.

  ‘I shan’t go though,’ Humpy said. ‘I’ve heard she’s not terribly bright at flying.’

  Reggie and I were married at the Caxton Hall, with Humpy Choate and a clerk from our hotel as witnesses and a ring from a used-ring store. Afterwards we went to a chop house, with divine glass ceilings, and had a wedding breakfast of broiled beefsteaks and treacle sponge, and then to a matinée at the Lyric Theatre, before we began our journey home.

  We left Humpy in a cab at St Pancras railroad station. I’d loved having him around. It had brought back memories of our golden summer.

  He shook Reggie’s hand and kissed me on both cheeks.

  ‘All the best, my dear,’ he whispered.

  I said, ‘You will come to visit? To Meltun Merbrey?’

  ‘Not bloody likely!’ he laughed. And off he drove.

  I was wearing one of my new asymmetric hemlines, in Egyptian red, with a coiled asp bracelet above my elbow, and stockings trimmed along the seam with tiny rhinestones, and Beluga had a quilted jacket in the same shade of red. It was a cold evening, the railway car was unheated, and the long journey preyed on my nerves and made me tremble. When we changed trains, at Leicester, Leicestershire, my darling new husband wired ahead so we could be met with blankets.

  Reggie’s family home was Kneilthorpe Hall, pronounced Niltrup, in the Vale of Belvoir, pronounced Beaver. It was a pretty house built of pinky-golden stone and stood on so much land you couldn’t see the neighbors, who were Bobbity Merrick’s people, the Bagehots, pronounced Bajuts.

  We were expected. A car had been sent to meet our train. And yet somehow we were not expected. No one greeted us at the door and Bobbity, my new sister-in-law, only came running when she heard the sound of a dog in distress. Beluga had been set upon by a small terrier.

  I attributed her failure to welcome me correctly and her staring long and hard at my wedding ring to the fact that the asymmetric hemline had not yet arrived in the Vale of Belvoir. She herself was dressed for some kind of menial work and in her hand she was brandishing a large steaming fork.

  ‘Snapper!’ she shouted. ‘At ease!’

  And the terrier withdrew, still grumbling under its breath.

  ‘Boiling tripes for the doggies,’ she said. ‘I suppose you’re hungry?’

  It was Beluga she was addressing.

  ‘He’s an interesting little chap,’ she said, crouching down to inspect him. ‘Carrying too much weight, but bags of character. Better get him out of this foolish garment, though. My boys will think he’s a rag doll.’

  Reggie was walking up and down with his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Bobbity,’ he said. ‘The most extraordinary thing. Poppy and I got hitched.’

  ‘Reggie!’ she said. ‘You’re far too young. Go and tell Merrick. He’s in the Smoking Rum, brooding.’

  ‘Rum’ was the Merrick way of saying ‘room’.

  The pattern on the stairhall rug was quite worn away. Bobbity’s hands and face were ruddy, like an old Irish. And although Kneilthorpe was capacious, it had neither turrets, nor suits of armor, nor priceless tapestries. I was relieved Ma and Aunt Fish weren’t there to see the castle I had promised them.

  An old, old version of Reggie appeared. An empty sleeve hung at his side. It was Sir Neville, who had gone to Mesopotamia and left behind an arm.

  I wondered whether I should drop a curtsy, but my frozen knees, tangled in Beluga’s leash, wouldn’t co-operate and, in any event, formality seemed not to be the order of the day. Reggie didn’t bow to his brother, nor even introduce me properly. I had been prepared to have my hand kissed, but no such thing occurred. And though Bobbity did ca
ll her husband by his last name, I felt it was probably a strange English mark of affection rather than a point of protocol.

  I decided almost immediately that I liked my new family, and those first instincts turned out to be right. Merricks never flapped over anything, or collapsed onto couches or threatened to write new codicils. And if they ever complained to Reggie about his marrying me, I certainly never heard about it. They accepted my foreignness and my sudden appearance, and eventually even the news that there were two small girls in New York, waiting to complete the picture.

  ‘Poppy is a very good friend of Humpy Choate,’ Reggie told them over a late supper of sharp cheese and dark beer.

  ‘Humpy!’ they both laughed. As though that explained everything. The only moment of discord I remember that evening was when Reggie mentioned I was in possession of a fortune.

  ‘Steady on,’ Sir Neville warned him. And the subject was never touched on again. I had no idea about Reggie’s money. I believe he may not have had much, but, anyway, there was very little to spend it on in Melton Mowbray, England.

  Supper was served on trays which we balanced on our knees. Bobbity provided me with a knubbly hand-knitted garment to wear over my Egyptian red, and an outdoors man was sent up with my luggage.

  ‘I shall put you in the Acorn Rum,’ Bobbity said. ‘It’s drectly across from Reggie’s old rum. And Bullyboy had better be put in the Boot Rum. Give my boys time to decide about him.’

  She refused ever to call Beluga anything but Bullyboy. The girl who brought me a dish of oatmeal next morning, a kind of local Irish, told me he had howled and whined all night, bereft of my company and the comfort of my eiderdown, but he soon recovered. Within a week he became convinced he was an English terrier.

  He frolicked in mud and ate unspeakable things brought by a butcher’s boy and boiled in a cauldron, and the only time I ever tried to coax him back into his Hermès collar, for Murray’s wedding, he sank his teeth deep into the ball of my thumb.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  The daily routine at Kneilthorpe was unlike anything I’d ever known. Sir Neville visited farms, of which there seemed a great number, and looked at milk yields, which always seemed satisfactory but never satisfactory enough to cheer him, and Reggie tagged along behind.