An Embarrassment of Riches

by Margaret Pemberton

  When he had gone she felt ridiculously bereft. She didn’t ever want to be apart from him, not even for a single moment. She folded her arms around herself, hugging herself tight. She wanted to make him happy as Genevre had made him. She wanted him to love her just as much as he had loved Genevre.

  When Miriam re-entered the room she was already stepping into an afternoon dress of close-fitting, rose-pink whale-boned silk. ‘I have to be ready to leave for Tarna in thirty minutes,’ she said, sliding the dress over her hips. ‘Will you ring for every available maid and ask them to begin packing for me, please?’

  At the thought of only thirty minutes in which to help her new mistress to dress, attend to her hair, and supervise the packing of her clothes, Miriam blanched. If the new Mrs Karolyis was always going to be in such an undignified rush, perhaps it was a good thing that she was going to Tarna. On the other hand, life with such a mistress would never be dull. Haines had told her that Mr Alexander had given instructions that the valet who had accompanied him from Ireland was also to accompany him to Tarna. She wondered if Mrs Karolyis would like it if she accompanied her to Tarna and if she dare suggest the idea to her.

  Maura turned her back to her so that she could fasten the tiny silk-covered buttons that ran from the neck of her dress to the base of her spine.

  ‘I hope you won’t think me presumptuous, madam,’ she said nervously as her nimble fingers hooked button after button. ‘But if you haven’t a lady’s maid, I would be very happy to accompany you to Tarna.’

  It was an offer of friendship as well as of service and Maura recognized it as such. ‘I would love you to be my permanent lady’s maid,’ she said gratefully, turning to face her. ‘Who should I speak to in order to arrange it?’

  ‘There’s no need for you to speak to any one, madam,’ Miriam said, her eyes shining. ‘I will tell Haines that you wish it, and he will arrange for me to travel to Tarna with Mr Alexander’s valet and the baggage.’

  The maids she had sent for could be heard hurrying up the back-stairs and, at the thought of all there was still to do, Miriam was filled with sudden panic. Sensing it, Maura said hopefully, ‘If you can find some pins for me I can do my own hair.’

  With vast relief Miriam rifled through the carrying-bag she had brought into the room with her, setting long black coral pins on the cut-glass dressing-table tray. ‘Are you sure, madam …’

  ‘I’m quite sure,’ Maura said firmly. ‘You supervise the packing and then speak to Haines.’

  The bemused maids were already filing into the room and, as Miriam hastily set about giving them instructions, Maura began to brush her hair, sweeping it with practised ease high off her neck and piercing the neat twist she created with the exquisite black coral pins that Miriam had laid out for her.

  As a fever of packing took place around her she gazed at her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. The neck of her dress was slightly open, tight sleeves ending in a flounce just short enough to reveal the slenderness of her wrists. It was only early afternoon and she gazed at the open neckline doubtfully, wondering what the unspoken rules of fashion were in New York. As if reading her thoughts Miriam hurried to her side, a delicate lace jabot in one hand, a bracelet in the other.

  ‘You must wear some jewellery, madam,’ she said as Maura gave a little frown at the sight of the bracelet. ‘The label in the box this came in says that it is Etruscan gold.’

  Ten seconds later a fall of lace ruffles filled the open neckline of Maura’s dress and the bracelet gleamed seductively on her wrist.

  Miriam surveyed her with pride and then said, in case Maura was in doubt as to what she needed, ‘It’s too hot for a shawl but you will need a parasol, madam.’

  Maura’s eyes were anxiously on the French ormolu wall clock. ‘I don’t think there’s time to look for one, Miriam. The luggage needs to be taken downstairs now.’

  Miriam hurriedly departed to summon the necessary footmen, returning triumphantly with a parasol she had retrieved from the last valise to be packed. It was of white Alencon lace with a gold-and-tortoiseshell handle and was the prettiest thing Maura had ever seen. She took it with a reverent gasp, overcome with the desire to share her pleasure with Isabel.

  The longing was so overpowering it brought an uprush of tears to her eyes. She blinked them back fiercely. Although they couldn’t share their pleasures and disappointments with each other at the moment, the day would come when they would be able to do so again. When Isabel came of age she would be able to visit them in America, when Isabel returned to Ballacharmish, she and Alexander would be able to spend months at a time with her there. They would be able to ride together to Glendalough; walk the foothills of Mount Keadeen and Mount Lùgnaquillia; fish in Lough Suir; do all the things that she and Isabel had done with Lord Clanmar and with Kieron.

  A knock on the door put an end to her comforting daydream. As Miriam opened it, Maura heard a footman say, ‘Mr Alexander is downstairs and waiting for madam.’

  Before Miriam could turn and inform her of the message, she was at the door. The footman stared at her goggle-eyed. He hadn’t been one of those who had run with Haines to the Chinese drawing-room so he had not previously seen her. He had heard all about her though. News of how the new Mrs Karolyis had been described by her father-in-law as a scummy Irish emigrant had swept through the household like wild-fire.

  ‘Tell my husband that I am on my way down now,’ Maura said to him, pulling on a pair of lace gloves that matched her parasol.

  The footman swallowed, nodded, and spun on his heel. There was a colossal mistake somewhere. If the new Mrs Karolyis was a scummy emigrant then he was a Dutchman.

  ‘I’ll see to everything, madam,’ Miriam said, aware that an uncommon number of the household staff were stationed along the corridor and at the turn of the stairs. No doubt the entrance-hall would also be massed with servants as everyone strived to get a glimpse of her.

  Maura set off in the footman’s wake as aware of the scores of curious eyes as Miriam had been. She wondered how on earth she would have coped if she had been the peasant Alexander had assumed her to be. She reached the turn of the stairs and began to descend the magnificent staircase. Presumably she would have been totally over-awed. She wondered how Alexander would have dealt with the situation.

  Another thought came to her and she stumbled, clasping hold of the mahogany banister for support. Would Alexander have preferred that situation? Were her education and upbringing a disappointment to him? She began to walk downwards once more, this time more slowly. They must have been a disappointment to him. He had wanted his bride to utterly shame his father. The only things about herself that Victor Karolyis could possibly find shaming were her nationality and her religion.

  She remembered something else, something that caused her to halt in absolute horror. Victor Karolyis had accused Alexander of intending to pay her off and Alexander had never denied it. Surely the accusation couldn’t be true? If it were, then it meant Alexander had made a mockery of the Holy Sacrament of Marriage. It meant he had sinned in a way she found almost unimaginable. And it meant he had never had any intentions of regarding her as truly his wife.

  She stood transfixed, staring down the crimson-carpeted stairs to the marble-floored rotunda where he was waiting for her. But she was his wife. They had been married by a priest according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church. They were married until death should separate them.

  Her throat tightened. From where she was standing she could see the top of his head; his broad shoulders. When they had married she had believed him to be as sincere about the vows they were making as she had been herself. And if he hadn’t been? Looking down at his shock of blue-black hair she felt so much desire for him that she hardly knew how to contain it. If he hadn’t been, then they would still be married until death separated them, for she would never renege on the vows she had made, not for all the money in the world.

  With rock-hard determination and fast-beating hea
rt she descended the final flight of stairs. He turned at her approach, his grey eyes widening.

  The fashionable whale-bone silk dress accentuated the slenderness of her waist, the erotic curves of her breasts and hips. But it wasn’t her beauty that rooted him to the spot. It was her effortless self-possession. She was as at ease in her palatial surroundings as any Stuyvesant or De Peyster.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said brusquely. Outside the giant gold leaf encrusted gates were a pack of newsmen. He had intended parading in front of them a gauche, overwhelmed Irish girl. Instead he was about to appear before them with a girl who carried herself with the assurance of an aristocrat.

  He handed her into an open carriage drawn by four magnificent greys and with two postillions in Karolyis livery in attendance.

  ‘Drive straight past the crowd outside the gates,’ he instructed the coachman.

  As the gates were opened for them Maura saw notebooks and pencils being waved high. ‘Will there be newsmen at Tarna as well?’ she asked apprehensively.

  ‘No, not unless they are invited. Tarna is too far for it to be worth their while.’

  The carriage was bowling between the open gates and she was nearly deafened by shouted questions as to her maiden name, her place of birth, the circumstances in which she had met Alexander.

  ‘How far is too far?’ she asked, raising her voice in order that he could hear her.

  ‘Nearly a hundred miles.’

  ‘And we’re going there by carriage?’

  She looked so bewitching with her eyebrows high and her eyes wide with disbelief that his irritability at not being able to parade her as a bog-Irish peasant vanished. There were two sides to every coin and he certainly wouldn’t have taken a bog-Irish peasant with him to Tarna. She was Irish enough, illegitimate enough and Catholic enough for him to be able to achieve all that he had intended achieving. She was also well bred enough and beautiful enough for him to be able to enjoy their necessary time together. All in all her attributes made a very satisfying combination and he was beginning to think himself more fortunate than cheated.

  ‘No,’ he said affably. ‘We’re going by boat. Tarna is on the banks of the Hudson.’

  Maura’s interest in the coming journey deepened. The voyage on the Scotia had been intensely disagreeable, but a boat trip up a river would be fun.

  He shot her a sudden, wicked smile. ‘The story of our marriage will be in all tomorrow’s papers. My Schermerhorn relations will have heart attacks. Even Charlie is going to be cross-eyed when he reads that you’re Irish, illegitimate and Roman Catholic!’

  The pleasure she had begun to feel at his affability was crushed instantly. She looked across at him, wondering how he could be so totally insensitive. Keeping her voice as steady as possible she said, ‘Are you still going to permit that information to be printed?’

  A satanically winged brow quirked in astonishment. ‘But of course! Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop it. The Herald and The Times aren’t in anyone’s pockets, not even Karolyis pockets.’

  She looked away, staring unseeingly across to where an enormous new building was being erected. He had told her enough for her to be able to understand why he had said what he had to the Press. If she now asked him how, as a married couple, they were to face the world socially with the facts about her birth common knowledge, she might hear things she had no wish to hear. He might tell her that it had never been his intention that they should live together. He might even begin to discuss the pay-off his father had automatically assumed he intended making. With great difficulty she remained silent, her hands tightening on her lap. To force such issues into the open would be foolishness. The longer the time they spent together in amicability, the greater the chance of those subjects never ever being raised.

  Seeing where her glance was directed he said enlighteningly, ‘What will be the finest cathedral in the western world, is being constructed there.’ His grin widened. ‘You should take an interest in it. It’s to be a Catholic cathedral.’

  ‘Then I’m glad to see that it will take up an entire block,’ she retorted tartly.

  He laughed, tempted to delay their departure to Tarna by calling in on Charlie, impatient to enjoy Charlie’s reaction to his act of revenge. He resisted the urge. It wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that his father was already at the Schermerhorn mansion, forewarning his relatives by marriage of the headlines that would be in the next day’s newspapers, trying to minimize the social damage that would be done to him in any way that he could. Stopping off there was out of the question. Charlie would have to come to them; to Tarna.

  At the prospect of being back at Tarna within hours his pulse began to race. He had missed it almost unbearably. He wondered how many new foals there would be. The year’s breeding season was just about at an end and as every stallion covered on average forty mares, and every mare foaled at least once a season, the paddocks would be thick with new livestock.

  He leaned back against the silk squabs. He wasn’t happy. Without Ginnie he would never be happy again. But with the scene with his father behind him, with sexual gratification his for the taking and with Tarna to look forward to, life, incredibly, was beginning to seem almost bearable again.

  He took out his fob-watch, estimating the amount of time until his personal steamboat arrived at Tarna. Teal and Miriam and Maura’s luggage were following in another carriage and he hoped to God that it wasn’t too far behind them. He didn’t want to be delayed at the pier, waiting for them. The minute he stepped aboard the boat he wanted to be able to give the order to depart.

  In the face of his continued good humour Maura’s hurt anger subsided. If Tarna was a hundred miles from New York, then it must be the Karolyis country home. Perhaps it would be like Ballacharmish, a house scores of miles from any other residence, surrounded by woods and mountains and water.

  By the time they reached the pier she was relieved to be able to take advantage of the river breezes. The heat of the afternoon sun was hotter than anything she had previously experienced and sweat prickled the back of her neck. She wondered how long a New York summer lasted and for how long they would remain at Tarna. If Tarna was high in the mountains, then it would be much cooler there and far pleasanter.

  She stared in puzzlement at the magnificent white-and-gold steamboat they were to travel in. There were no other passengers in evidence aboard. No other passengers waiting to board.

  ‘Will we have to wait for other passengers to board before we leave?’ she asked, not looking forward to the prospect.

  He laughed as he led her towards the gangplank. ‘No. The Rosetta was my grandfather’s boat. Now it is mine.’

  The ornate grandeur of the Fifth Avenue mansion had left her serenely unimpressed. The Rosetta didn’t do so. It was a magnificent boat. Two decks high and with every available white surface embellished with gilded scrollwork, it was a floating palace. As they stepped aboard she couldn’t help but wonder what Tarna would be like.

  ‘Is Tarna in the mountains?’ she asked curiously as they stepped inside the main saloon, the ceiling decorated with cherubs, the carpet inches deep, the draperies pale-lemon silk.

  ‘There are mountains near by. The Catskills and Mohawk Mountain and Mount Everett. The foothills are great for riding.’

  ‘Do you do a lot of riding?’ she asked, her interest quickening.

  He laughed again. ‘You could say so. Tarna is a stud farm.’

  ‘Oh!’ She gave a gasp of sheer joy. ‘Why ever didn’t you tell me before? I was brought up with horses at Ballacharmish. The finest horses in the world are bred in Ireland.’

  ‘Correction,’ he said, his mouth crooking into an amused smile. ‘Tarna breeds the finest horses in the world.’

  She smiled back at him radiantly. She wasn’t going to argue with him. All that mattered was that at Tarna she would be once more in a familiar environment.

  As the Rosetta began to move away from the pier and into the centre of the river she
went out on to the deck Smaller boats, ketches and dories and market boats were busily making way for them. There were larger boats, too. Schooners and steam packets, and the docks on the banks were a hive of fevered activity.

  She raised her face to the cooling breeze, glad that they were leaving the heat of the city for the freshness of the mountains. After a little while he came out of the saloon and stood at her side pointing out things of interest.

  ‘That’s Yonkers over there,’ he said, pointing to the east bank. ‘From now on we can gather speed.’

  The countryside through which they passed bore no relation to the Irish countryside. There were no gentle blue-grey mountains; no still dark loughs; no mud-walled, thatched-roofed cabins. Everything was on a much bigger, far more expansive, scale. Even the sky seemed higher than an Irish sky, and certainly far bluer.

  They ate lunch in a dining-saloon as lavish as the main saloon and then went on deck again as the countryside began to change and mountains began to loom.

  ‘Those are the Catskills,’ he said to her as she sighed with pleasure. ‘The river begins to narrow now. In another hour we will be at Tarna.’

  The banks were thickly wooded, the enormous chain of mountains beyond deep purple against the cloudless blue sky. Maura felt her stomach muscles tightening. Every inflection in Alexander’s voice betrayed his excitement. Although he hadn’t said so, it was obvious it was Tarna he thought of as home, not the claustrophobically ornate mansion in Fifth Avenue. Tarna, where horses were bred.

  The steamer began to veer towards the western bank.

  There was a pier, a waiting brougham, a trap and a narrow track leading into the woods. Intrigued, she stepped ashore.

  A young man was standing beside the trap, but there was no coachman for the brougham. Alexander handed her into it himself and took the reins.

  ‘This is the best time of year to be at Tarna, when the mares and foals are in the fields,’ he said, flicking the reins. ‘You’ll see it in another ten minutes or so. When we are out of the trees.’