‘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 potato 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.
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. Ranged 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.
‘Did you bring us candy?’ she asked.
I dropped down on the rug beside her.
‘No,’ I said. ‘But tomorrow we can buy candy and dollies and anything else you’d like.’
‘Just candy,’ she said. ‘I don’t like dollies. Why do you have a mess on your face?’
Spending so much time around women like Ma and my sister who never did a thing to improve themselves, I suppose she wasn’t accustomed to lipstick and powder.
I said, ‘Would you like a tickle fight with me?’
But she did no more than spit in my eye and run from the room. Aunt Fish was after her like a shot.
‘Well,’ Murray said, ‘it was never going to be easy.’
He got to his feet and swung Emerald onto his shoulders.
‘I guess I’ll carry this one up to her bed,’ he said. ‘You can start over in the morning.’
As he ducked through the door with her, I heard her say, ‘Where’s Mommy Honey?’
I was left alone with my mother.
I said, ‘How are you, Ma?’
‘Bearing up,’ she said. ‘I hope Harry Grace is satisfied, bringing inconvenience to us all. Judah has faced very difficult questions, you know?’
I asked where Harry had been buried.
‘We don’t need to know,’ she said. ‘We’ll just pretend he never happened.’
I said, ‘I remember you thought very highly of him. As I recall, he was always the first person you called for, after Pa was gone.’
‘I don’t remember any such thing,’ she said. ‘He could never be depended on. And now he’s brought us shame and ruin.’
I said, ‘Murray tells me Judah is saving Honey’s house. But I’d have done that. I’d have liked to do something to help.’
‘Well, I’m sure there’s something for everyone,’ she said. ‘You can pay the school fees, so Abe can return to his studies.’
I said, ‘Does Sherman answer you when you call him Abe?’
‘Sherman!’ Ma snorted. ‘That was another of Harry’s silly schemes. Well, now we can use the name God intended for him. Your skin is showing signs of age, Poppy. Are you using the Vinolia every night?’
Dinner was served the instant the nursery fell silent.
Aunt Fish said, ‘Now tell us, Poppy, does Her Majesty sound … German, when she speaks?’
‘Poppy and I already discussed this,’ Ma leapt in. ‘The Queen is so satisfied by Poppy’s credentials she hasn’t needed to send for her.’
I said, ‘One doesn’t simply meet the Queen, you see Aunt? Reggie has never met her. Even Sir Neville hasn’t, and he’s a baronet.’
‘What a very odd family,’ she said, helping herself to another slice of chicken.
‘Is it a good life, Poppy?’ Judah asked me. ‘Are they good people?’
I said, ‘They’re very good. They visit their tenants and ride around in the fresh air a great deal. And they don’t waste money on jewels or anything.’
I threw this in, wanting my stepfather to approve of the Merricks. I suddenly felt an indebtedness to him. When all around were rewriting history, consigning Harry to an unmarked grave, and renaming his son, Judah had faced the difficult questions and dug into his pockets. He must have loved my mother very much indeed.
‘What? No jewels at all?’ Ma asked, most alarmed. ‘Then be sure they don’t get their hands on yours. This family has suffered enough losses.’
Murray said, ‘I think we should get to the point. Are Sapphy and Em going to England?’
I said, ‘They have to.’
‘No they don’t,’ Aunt Fish said. ‘Mr Merrick can come here.’
‘Could he?’ Judah asked me. ‘What’s his situation?’
‘Judah!’ Ma said. ‘I must have explained Mr Merrick’s situation to you a hundred times.’
‘Yes, but never satisfactorily,’ he said. ‘When a man is in business he can’t just follow his wife, like a lapdog. Is your husband in business, Poppy?’
I wished I had come better prepared. Sitting in New York it was difficult to explain Kneilthorpe.
I said, ‘Well, there’s the estate. Sir Neville had a bad war, so Reggie has to assist him …’
‘And correspondence.’ Ma was eager to help. ‘I expect he has a great amount of correspondence.’
‘He does,’ I said. ‘Then there’s tennis. And hunting. And shooting.’
‘Poppy!’ my aunt squealed. ‘Never use
that word again.’
‘It sounds to me,’ Judah said, ‘as though Mr Merrick could easily be spared. Let him come here. If he’s any kind of a man he can make a success of himself in New York. Then those children won’t have to be uprooted and Dorabel will be happy. She won’t have to sail that great ocean, fretting over her grandchildren.’
‘There!’ Ma said. ‘I knew Judah would puzzle it out for us.’
‘I wonder,’ Murray said, carefully peeling an apple, ‘whether Poppy’s husband is going to fall in with your plans so easily? What do you say, Poppy? Didn’t you tell me Reggie was counting the days till your return? Didn’t you tell me ponies were being purchased?’
‘Why does that boy have to spoil everything?’ Ma cried.
‘Of course …’ Murray wasn’t finished. ‘Of course, if Poppy doesn’t want to raise her own children she can always make them over to Honey, with a legally binding instrument, and then we’ll never need to discuss the matter again. Reggie can stay where he is, doing whatever it is he does, and there’ll be no more confusion, on any score. Because I do feel,’ he said, looking directly at his father, ‘that a child is entitled to know where it stands. Don’t you?’
He stabbed a quarter of apple and ate it from his knife. Then the door swung open and Sapphire appeared, urged from behind by Emerald. They seemed to be carrying empty jam pots.
‘Uncle Murray,’ Emerald said, ‘we forgot to measure our beans.’
Judah chuckled, and encouraged by this my two girls stepped right up to the table. Each jam pot contained a roll of blotting paper, and sandwiched between the paper and the glass, what looked like a squashed beetle, with blotchy broken wings and pale fleshy legs.
‘So we did!’ Murray cried, and he brought out a folding wooden rule from his inside pocket.
‘See, Mommy Poppy?’ he said. ‘I’ll bet you didn’t know these girls are gardeners.’
I looked closer and he explained it all to me. How there’s more to a bean than meets the eye. It can just sit in a canister for years, being a bean, until the help turn it into soup. But if you give it water and sunlight it’ll grow roots and shoots and God knows what else.
‘And today’s winner is,’ Murray announced, ‘the bean belonging to Sapphire Catchings. Take a bow Miss Catchings!’
And everybody applauded. Even Aunt Fish.
‘Don’t be sad, Em,’ I heard Sapphire say as they processed back to the nursery with their bean pots. ‘Yours’ll probably catch up to mine by tomorrow.’
Murray winked at me. I believe he was trying to effect a reconciliation.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Reggie was impatient to have me back by his side.
‘The nursery is freshly distempered,’ he wrote.
Bobbity dragged our old rocking horse out of the attic and has polished him up beautifully. I believe she’s rather excited about being an aunt. It transpires that Nanny Faulds moved to Cleethorpes to live with a niece, so we’re getting a person from the village. By the by, Angelica has had napkin rings engraved with S and E. So do hurry home old thing. Kneilthorpe seems terribly dull without you.
But getting away from New York wasn’t so simple. Emerald had a quinsy of the throat, Sapphire developed sticky eyes, and Honey made my task of establishing myself as their rightful mother all the harder by appearing at unexpected moments with candy. I bought them candy, too, but they always preferred hers. I bought them adorable poke hats, too, and sateen bloomers and took them to Stouffer’s for chocolate egg creams, but sometimes looking at their wary little faces you’d have thought I had grown horns. Sometimes I thought it still might be easier to leave them behind and let them be a project for my widowed sister, but I kept the thought to myself. Murray’s approval of my efforts as a mother meant more to me than I can explain. He and I were friends again.
I lunched with Bernie Kearney one day. She was now Mrs Wendell Tite, looking pretty soignée in plover gray jersey trimmed with lapin. Her mother had passed away. Her sister Ursula had left Macy’s and gone for a nun in Guatemala. And she and Wendell had lost two little babies, never even saw the light of day.
It seemed that no one had anything light or amusing to report.
‘I have my womb in back to front,’ she said. ‘So you count your blessings.’
I only made the offer I did out of sympathy for her situation. Some people long for babies and never get them, some people seem just to catch them off tram seats and then wonder what to do with them. Bernie had lost two infants, I had two and I wasn’t at all sure I was cut out for raising them. I was only trying to help.
She leapt up, grabbing her pocketbook.
‘You are disgusting!’ she yelled. ‘How did you turn out so unnatural? I’ve a mind to report you. There’s a law against selling people.’
Bernie could be so excitable. I wasn’t suggesting selling her my girls. I was offering to loan them to her. I hated to quarrel with an old friend, but I’m sure it wasn’t me who flew off the handle. It wasn’t me who ran out of the restaurant and left a Waldorf salad untouched.
I remained where I was and finished my meal and smoked two cigarettes, to demonstrate to all those rubbernecks at the neighboring tables that I was perfectly calm. Then I went looking for Murray, in the little cupboard he occupied at Jacoby Furriers.
I said, ‘Am I unnatural? Tell me the truth.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I have every hope for you.’
The pressure was mounting. Reggie was waiting. Bobbity had polished the rocking horse. And Murray was looking to me to do the right thing. Then Ma informed me that both girls had started powdering their noses in their beds and the help were complaining about the extra laundry.
I said, ‘What are help for if not for extra laundry?’ and she replied that times had changed.
I booked three berths on the next sailing of the Berengaria.
‘So,’ Honey said, crestfallen, ‘it’s decided.’
‘Now, Mother,’ Sherman said. ‘I’ll come home every weekend. We’ll go for walks and I’ll cook.’
Walks. Sausages. Sherman was nothing like his father.
I was standing gazing at our waiting, empty steamer trunks when Murray came looking for me.
‘I’ve been wondering,’ he said, scratching his chin, ‘whether you couldn’t use some help?’
I said, ‘Don’t worry. Ma’s Irish is going to do it.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not the packing. I mean the journey, and England and … everything.’
I looked at him.
‘How would it be,’ he said, ‘if I came with you?’
‘Please do,’ I begged. ‘Oh please, please do.’
But I had no expectation that Judah would agree to it. As long as Oscar stayed resolutely in the country, mending broken chairs and suffering from nerves, all business hopes were pinned on Murray. He had learned how to add up and carry forward, and he did it from Monday to Friday without fail, even when there were much nicer things he might have done, like skating or taking a sweetie to lunch.
‘Give me an hour,’ he said, running out with his coat collar tucked in.
He was gone for three.
‘It’s done!’ he said. ‘I’ve been to Thomas Cook. I’m coming with you, Pops.’
‘Well,’ said Ma. ‘Yet again Judah has been too soft-hearted for his own good. I hope you’ll reflect on that, Murray, while you are gallivanting. That your father isn’t getting any younger.’
‘And neither are you, Dora,’ added Aunt Fish. ‘For if Judah is overworked and falls sick, whose shoulders will it fall upon? Yours.’
‘Ma,’ I said, ‘I promise to send him back to you just as soon I’ve done with him.’
‘Like a library book,’ he whispered.
We drank a nightcap together after we’d measured the beans and settled the girls and the ancients had gone to their canasta.
‘At Kneilthorpe,’ he said.
‘Niltrup,’ I reminded him.
‘At Niltrup, I suppose I might
do a little gardening?’
I said, ‘Murray, it’s an awfully big garden.’
‘Yippee!’ he cried. And he stood on his head, criss-crossing his feet like an inverted ballerina, until he got a taste of second-hand scotch and thought better of it.
I said, ‘We’ll probably put you in the Pomegranate Rum, unless the P of W is expected, in which case you’ll get bumped to the Willow Rum. And Bobbity will be determined to find you a congenial horse, but you must stand up to her, because no such animal exists. Tell her you have an allergy. I’ll tell her. Also, she makes unspeakable soup so be prepared to fill up on bread. And when we have people staying to hunt, be sure to take your bath early. If you don’t there’ll be nothing left but a miserable trickle of lukewarm water.’
‘Phew!’ he said. ‘I think I’d better take notes.’
All at once I was looking forward to taking Sapphy and Em home to England.
THIRTY-EIGHT
The day of our sailing Aunt Fish escorted Honey to the matinée of a light musical comedy, to keep her from melancholy thoughts. Judah didn’t come to our farewell either.
‘Times are hard, Poppy,’ he said. ‘Your Pa was a businessman, so I know you’ll understand. I know you’ll excuse me.’
We had never advanced to kissing terms. Neither of us would have wanted that. He just shook my hand, and then Murray’s.
‘Remember,’ he said. ‘Use your time profitably. And don’t remain there longer than you have to.’
It was the last time either of us saw him. I have often wished his last words to Murray hadn’t amounted to a lecture.
I had had the girls’ hair cut in Dutch boy bangs and created smock dresses for them in satin charmeuse, shamrock green for Em and Stars and Stripes blue for Sapphy. They raced up and down the promenade deck and Ma wept a little, but not too much, wondering whether she would ever see them again. They rang ‘All ashore’ and I watched my mother retreat down the gangway, a stout little body on the arm of Judah’s driver. She was going home to her husband, and I was going home to mine.
Murray turned out to be no sailor. He lay in his cabin with his head beneath his pillow and even Emerald’s singing, of little songs she made up as she went along, failed to cure him of his wish to die. By the time we berthed at Liverpool he had slenderized by several pounds, Emerald had ceased asking for Mommy Honey, and Sapphire had drawn and colored a great quantity of boat pictures.
The Unfortunates Page 22