An Embarrassment of Riches

by Margaret Pemberton

  Henry Schermerhorn approached him and he said savagely, ‘Are you going to make your apologies too, Henry?’

  Henry ignored him. He took Maura’s gloved hand, saying something Alexander couldn’t catch. Then he said in answer to Alexander’s query, ‘No, my boy. One of the benefits of being a bachelor is that I don’t have to take feminine sensibilities into account.’

  Later, on their return carriage ride, Alexander said tautly, ‘It isn’t the men, Maura. If it weren’t for their wives they’d all have paid their respects to you. But you won’t suffer such humiliation again, believe me you won’t!’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She slid her hand into his, her face much paler than normal.

  ‘It matters like the very devil!’ There were white lines around his mouth and a pulse had begun to beat at the corner of his jaw. ‘A Van Rensselaer snubbed me back there, for Chrissakes!’

  Her hand tightened in his. ‘But isn’t this what you had expected?’ she asked, not understanding why he was reacting so violently. ‘Charlie told you how tough everyone had been on your father.’

  ‘I wanted them to be tough on my father,’ he exploded furiously. ‘But my father’s dead now! Surely you can see that it’s going to be as inconvenient as hell if this kind of thing continues?’

  There was nothing Maura could say. He was being totally unreasonable and he couldn’t see it. Nor would he appreciate it if she pointed the fact out to him. Together they were going to have to come to terms with New York society’s snobbish ostracism. Perhaps, after a little while, Alexander’s peers would begin to accept her. Perhaps after the baby was born things would be different. She hoped so, for Alexander’s sake. Her heart ached with love for him. He was such an odd mixture. Outwardly his careless self-assurance bordered on arrogance. Inwardly he was touchingly vulnerable. Never in a million years would she have imagined he would care about social slights and snubs and he had again surprised her. He did care. He cared very much.

  As they stepped into the grand entrance-hall a footman approached her with a silver salver. ‘A letter for you, ma’am,’ he said dutifully. ‘It came via Tarna.’

  The hand-writing was Kieron’s. The postmark was that of New York.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Elation suffused her. She would soon be reunited with the only person, apart from Isabel, who represented family and her old way of life. With Kieron around to laugh and reminisce with, her two separate lives, Irish and American, would merge into a complete whole. She turned joyously to Alexander but he was saying crisply to Haines: ‘Is Mr Kingston waiting for me in the Chinese drawing-room?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then tell him I will be with him right away. When Mr Charlie Schermerhorn and Mr Henry Schermerhorn arrive direct them to join us.’ He returned his attention to Maura, explaining, ‘Charlie and Henry are both family, however distant. It’s only correct that they attend the reading of the will.’

  She nodded. In her delight at being handed Kieron’s letter she had forgotten all about the will. She slid the letter into her dress pocket. It would be inappropriate to begin discussing it now. She would talk about it with him later. She said hesitantly, thinking of the cold collation laid out in the dining-room, ‘Should I remain here to greet any mourners that arrive?’

  His face tightened. ‘I doubt if anyone else will arrive and if they do so, Haines will take care of them until we are free to join them.’

  She was still unsure as to what she should now do. Did he expect her to accompany him to the Chinese drawing-room? She didn’t particularly want to be so vividly reminded of the bewilderment and then the horror that she and Isabel experienced when listening to the reading of Lord Clanmar’s will, nor was she particularly interested in being privy to Victor Karolyis’s last wishes and bequests.

  There came the sound of a carriage rolling to a halt in the courtyard. ‘That must be Charlie or Henry,’ she said, looking at him for guidance. ‘Should I join you later, in the dining-room?’

  ‘No.’ He took hold of her arm. ‘You’re my wife. Your place is with me,’ and without waiting to see who was about to enter he guided her firmly towards the Chinese drawing-room.

  Seconds after they had seated themselves, Charlie and Henry were shown into the room. It had never occurred to Charlie that Alexander would expect him to be present at such a formal, and potentially embarrassing, occasion and he was highly discomfited. What if Alexander were to find himself cut off without a dollar to his name? What if Victor had left his vast fortune to a mistress, or a dog’s home? What if his Last Will and Testament was full of vitriolic abuse?

  Henry seated himself without any such anxieties. Victor may have been ruthless and vindictive but he hadn’t been a fool. Other than Alexander he had no direct family member to bequeath his estate to. Whatever the strings and conditions attached, the legendary Karolyis fortune would go in its entirety to his son. Wondering who he would leave his own much less, but still substantial fortune to, he settled himself comfortably on a deeply cushioned sofa and waited for Lyall Kingston to begin proceedings.

  Kingston did so without any unnecessary theatrical pauses for effect. ‘The late Mr Victor Karolyis’s will is, despite the complexity of his holdings, extremely simple,’ he began almost apologetically.

  Charlie stuffed his thumbs in his waistcoat jacket and looked up at the ceiling, hardly able to bear the suspense. Henry’s boredom was relieved by a flicker of amusement. Simplicity was not a word he had ever associated with Victor. Alexander, knowing very well what was to come, tapped a foot impatiently on the rose-garlanded carpet. ‘There are no extraneous bequests,’ Lyall Kingston continued, carefully keeping the shock he felt out of his voice.

  There was certainly not one to himself. When he had first read the will he had almost choked over its paucity of bequests. The richest man in New York State, almost certainly the richest man in America, possibly the richest man in the entire world, had not left one cent to any charitable institution or to any long-serving employee. It almost beggared belief. The wording of the will was starkly simple. Everything that Victor Karolyis possessed was to pass to his son.

  He read the brief formal words in as dispassionate a voice as was possible. Charlie let out a vulgar whistle of relief. Henry’s thin nostrils flared in annoyance. He had been wrong to have thought Victor anything but a fool. Only a fool would have left nothing to charity or to the city. When the Press got to hear of it there would be an uproar. Not one hospital or school founded and funded; not a public library bearing the Karolyis name; not an art gallery, complete with donated art treasures. The opprobium that would fall on the rest of his family, however distant, would be immense. They would all be vilified for meanness, for lack of civic pride; for lack of any show of gratitude at all to the city that had given them so much.

  Maura felt only bewilderment. Although Lord Clanmar’s will had perplexedly omitted any reference to herself, it had been full of caring bequests to those who had served him. Had Victor Karolyis assumed that Alexander would rectify the omissions? Were such bequests perhaps not read out publicly in America? At least there had been no bitter reference to herself, and for that she was grateful.

  ‘I’ll meet with you tomorrow morning at nine,’ Alexander said curtly to Lyall Kingston.

  Lyall nodded. It was going to take lots of morning meetings to appraise Alexander of the complex ramifications of the financial empire he had inherited.

  ‘As there is no-one present but ourselves I think the sherry can be dispensed with, don’t you, my boy?’ Henry said to Alexander as he rose to his feet. ‘A decent claret will be far more agreeable.’

  Alexander fully agreed with him. He felt suddenly quite extraordinarily tired. ‘Claret and brandy,’ he said, leading the way not into the formal dining-room, still laid for an army of mourners, but into a smaller, more intimate, dining-room next door to the library. It didn’t occur to him to be surprised that Haines had already anticipated his wishes and that an oval rose
wood table had been exquisitely laid for them.

  ‘I rather like this arrangement,’ Henry said with sincerity. ‘I’ve always hated the hypocritical conversations that take place after a funeral over the sherry. All false syrup and eulogies about how worthy the deceased had been. This is far more civilized. I shall demand that no more than a handful of relatives gather after my own demise.’ Charlie grinned. He had previously never understood Alexander’s bizarre friendship with old Henry but he was beginning to do so now. It had been decent of Henry to behave as if Alexander’s marriage was one that was perfectly proper. His courtesy to Maura at Victor’s graveside had eased the potentially explosive situation. There had been a moment when Charlie had thought Alexander had been going to deck Van Rensselaer. He took an appreciative swallow of his wine, his grin deepening at the thought of the furore that would have followed such an action.

  With the will-reading behind her, Maura was able to turn her thoughts once more to the letter in her pocket. She wondered where Kieron was staying. He hadn’t any relatives in New York, nor did he have any friends in the city, apart from herself. Her fingers itched to open the envelope. She wondered if he had found employment and if so, what kind of employment. There was certainly no call for land-agents in New York. What else would he be able to do? She remembered his fierce intelligence and adaptability and did not even begin to worry. Kieron would be able to succeed at anything he set his mind to. The envelope crackled tantalizingly as she responded to Henry’s genuinely interested queries about life in Ireland. The minute Henry and Charlie departed she would read it. And tomorrow she would be hostess to Kieron.

  ‘Land’s sake! You can’t invite him here!’ Alexander had disposed with the services of his manservant and was struggling to undo his collar-stud himself.

  ‘Why ever not?’ Maura put down her hairbrush and stared at him uncomprehendingly.

  With an exasperated blasphemy Alexander wrenched his stiff waxed collar free and flung it down on the bed. ‘He’s a Paddy, for Christ’s sake! Do you want us to be the joke of the city? He wouldn’t know how to behave …’ He pulled his shirt over his head. ‘He wouldn’t know what to say …’

  He tossed the crumpled shirt to the floor and began to unbuckle his belt. He had been looking forward to this moment all day. The only reason he was struggling out of his clothes without Teal’s assistance, and in the bedroom not his dressing-room, was because he was beginning to begrudge every moment Maura was out of his sight. He loved watching her prepare for bed and at his request she now often did so without Miriam attending her. He loved the grace and suppleness of her body as she stepped out of her clothes; brushed her hair; climbed into the high, vast bed. And now she had shattered his mood of happy carnal anticipation by crassly suggesting that a lay-about Irishman pay them a house call!

  She didn’t move from the dressing-table stool. ‘Kieron knows exactly how to behave, and what to say …’ Her voice was very quiet. Too quiet.

  He was carelessly oblivious. ‘He may know how to behave and what to say in a bog in Ireland, but he certainly won’t know how to comport himself in a New York mansion!’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  For the first time he realized that her voice was unsteady.

  ‘You’re tired and you don’t mean that. We’ll talk about it again tomorrow.’

  He was tired. The funeral had been emotionally exhausting. It would be a long time before he would forget the snubs that he had suffered, if ever. Those snubs had been merely on Maura’s behalf. God alone knew what would happen if he began to hold open house for all her Paddy and Mick friends.

  ‘Like hell we’ll talk about it tomorrow!’ he said savagely, sitting down on the bed with his back towards her, yanking off his boots, wishing to God he’d had the sense to have undressed in a proper manner, with his valet’s help. ‘I’m a Karolyis! I own this city! And I’m not having any truck with Irish scum!’

  The words were out before he could stop them. He groaned, swivelling to face her, intending to make right his wrong and for the first time he became aware that the shake in her voice had not been occasioned by distress but by fury.

  ‘What you say about Kieron, you also say about me!’ In the lamp-lit room her eyes were blazing violet-dark. ‘We’re kin. Just as you and Charlie are kin. We were born in the same kind of mud-walled, thatched-roof hovel and we escaped a life-time of living in those hovels through the actions of the same benefactor. Kieron entered Ballacharmish on many an occasion and he knows how to behave in society just as well as I know how to behave …’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Alexander had had enough. Tears he could have coped with. Outraged fury, on a day when he had suffered humiliation at the hands of a Van Rensselaer, was just too much. ‘Kieran or Keenan or whatever his name is, wasn’t brought up by Lord Clanmar as you were. He wasn’t educated as you were …’

  ‘We’re cousins! We have the same history, the same …’

  ‘Then it’s a history you’re going to have to damn well forget!’ Van Rensselaer’s sneering face burned in his memory. ‘It must be obvious to you after what happened this morning that we can’t continue with this fiction of you being illegitimate Irish …’

  She sucked in her breath, her face draining of colour. ‘It isn’t a fiction! Like it or not, it’s the truth! You know it’s the truth …’

  He was on his feet now, facing her across the bed, his tensed chest muscles golden in the lamplight. ‘Have some sense! Do you want our child to be a social outcast? I shall speak to James Gorden Bennett tomorrow. I’ll get him to run a piece in the Herald to the effect that my previous statement about your family and nationality was nothing but an irresponsible joke. From now on you’re English, Anglican and I’ll have Bennett come up with an appropriate family background for you.’

  ‘Never!’ Her breasts were heaving, her eyes flashing. ‘I’m Irish and Catholic and I’m not one little bit ashamed of my family background!’

  He strode around the bed towards her. ‘Then you ought to be!’ he blazed. ‘As long as you cling to it, in this city you’ll never be known as anything other than scum Irish and nor will your child!’

  She slapped him across the face with all the force that she could muster.

  There was a terrible moment of silence. In horror she saw the imprint of her fingers rising in ugly weals on his cheek.

  ‘God damn!’ he hissed, and then his arms were round her like a vice and his mouth was on hers, hard and insistent.

  She couldn’t have resisted even if she had wanted to, and she didn’t want to. She knew why he had said such hurtful things. She knew how he had smarted under the social cuts he had received at the funeral. She knew that she had been a fool to expect him to welcome Kieron into their home with open arms. And she knew that he didn’t want to fight with her. He wanted to love her; to make love to her; and she wanted him to do so more than anything else in the world.

  He didn’t say sorry the next morning and nor did she expect him to. He had shown his contrition in his physical need of her. All he said in reference to Kieron was: ‘If your friend has any trouble finding employment let me know and I’ll find a place for him somewhere.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She was still safely ensconced behind her breakfast-tray, surrounded by a myriad of lace-edged pillows. He was fully dressed, standing looking down at her with a glass of fresh orange juice in his hand, about to leave for his meeting with Lyall Kingston.

  She smiled up at him, knowing how much the offer to help Kieron had cost him. It was as far as he would be able to go and she had no intention of reopening their quarrel by once again suggesting that he and Kieron meet. She would meet Kieron by herself. They could rendezvous in one of the city’s many eating-houses, or in Union Place or the corner of East 50th Street where the new Catholic cathedral was being built.

  He put his glass on her breakfast tray and pulled the tray a little away from her. ‘Bye,’ he said, and as he lowered his head to kiss her his hand s
lid down over her still unrounded stomach.

  Her own hand covered his. The baby. She wondered if it would have Alexander’s jet-black hair or if its hair would have a touch of Celtic red. A smile curved her lips as she wondered if the baby would inherit not only Alexander’s impulsive hot-headedness but her own Irish temper as well.

  When Alexander finally tore himself away from her she re-read Kieron’s letter and wrote an answer to it. He was staying in a lodging-house in a street she had never heard of and she didn’t suggest that she visit him there in case lady visitors were not approved of. Instead she wrote:

  If you can meet me this afternoon be on the corner of Fifth and East 50th Street at two o’clock, and if you can’t make it today I’ll be there every day at the same time until you can make it. Simply can’t wait to see you again! Much, much love, Maura.

  She sent the letter to his address by hand and an hour later the messenger returned bearing an answering note. It read merely: Sure, and while I’m waiting I’ll lay a stone for St Patrick.

  She laughed out loud. He hadn’t been in the city five minutes and he already knew of the Cathedral being built and why she had thought the corner of East 50th Street a suitable meeting-place for two Irish expatriates.

  She asked her coachman to set her down at East 48th Street, knowing that Kieron would crack with laughter if he saw the tastelessly ostentatious Karolyis carriage, complete with hypothetical coat of arms and liveried postilions.

  ‘Don’t wait for me,’ she said crisply to the startled coachman. ‘I’ll make my own way back.’

  As she turned away from him and began to walk along the side-walk she was filled with a sudden, heady sense of freedom. For the first time since setting foot in America, she was unaccompanied. She turned her face up to the sun, revelling in its heat. Suddenly she didn’t even mind the city street smells; the traffic plunging chaotically up and down the avenue; the sweat prickling her neck, the dust tickling her nose. This crowded, rutted side-walk was the real New York.