An Embarrassment of Riches

by Margaret Pemberton

  She said, changing tack, ‘You don’t have to go independently. The Citizens’Association is carrying out inspections and you could go as a member of their organizing committee …’

  ‘For Christ’s sake Maura, you’d try the patience of a saint! I am not going to visit any tenement. I am not going to join any damn fool association. I am not going to serve on any do-good committee. With that understood can we now go to the concert?’

  She had never seen him in evening clothes before and he looked heartachingly handsome. His starched and lace trimmed evening-shirt flattered his olive-toned skin and beneath the light of the chandelier his black hair shone with a blue sheen.

  She had been looking forward to the evening ever since he had first told her where they were to go. Miriam had lavished infinite care on her toilette. Her hair was piled high in curls, threaded with a necklace of diamonds. Her dress was a full crinoline of white brocade, the neckline daringly low, exposing her shoulders. A posy of marguerites was pinned at her waist; her Viennese fan was of eagle feathers; her opera-glasses mother-of-pearl.

  She knew that unless she relinquished the subject immediately, their evening together would be ruined. Always, before, their bitter differences of opinion had been temporarily forgotten in the passion of their love-making. This time there would be no retreat to bed. Alexander fiercely wished to be seen at the concert. Their carriage was waiting.

  She said: ‘Franklin H. Delano has joined the Citizens’Association, so has John Jacob Astor III …’

  His face closed. Patience was not one of his virtues and God alone knew where he’d found enough of it to last him through the last few weeks. He said through gritted teeth, ‘Not one more word …’

  She could feel the blood beating in her ears. She could remain silent; pick up her fan; her opera-glasses. Within minutes they could be once more taking delight in the other’s company.

  She said: ‘I can’t be silent on the subject. Not until you understand …’

  Tight-lipped and cobra-eyed he spun away from her, striding from the room.

  The door rocked behind him on its hinges.

  For a long, terrible moment she didn’t move and then, very slowly, she began to unpin the marguerites from her waist.

  Chapter Seventeen

  There were times over the next months when Maura thought the impasse that now existed between herself and Alexander was very like the impasse that existed between the Yankees and the Confederates. Both parties were passionately convinced of the rightness of their cause; both parties were fiercely determined to carry on the struggle; neither, no matter what the cost, was prepared to give in.

  For several days after Alexander had attended the concert without her he barely spoke to her. When he finally did so it was not to apologize, nor was it to say that he had joined the Citizens’ Association, nor that he had taken any steps whatever to improve the living conditions in tenements that were Karolyis owned, or that were built on Karolyis-owned land.

  Whenever she brought the subject up there would be another bitter battle, another period of estrangement ended only by their fierce physical desire for each other. As her pregnancy progressed love-making became, of a necessity, less abandoned, less frequent.

  There were times when her loneliness became crushing. Alexander spent long hours in clubs fashioned after the gentlemen’s clubs of England. In the Hone Club and the Kent Club and the Union Club, membership was composed of only the very élite of New York’s Old Guard society. Alexander had been a member of all three ever since his eighteenth birthday and although the Union Club was now politely asking all members with Confederacy sympathy for their resignation, an unfortunate marriage was not cause enough for expulsion. As no women were allowed into these male bastions, the question of Maura being acknowledged or unacknowledged was never raised and Alexander was able to pretend, for a short time at least, that his social position was unchanged.

  At home in the Karolyis mansion, alone apart from the servants, Maura found time hanging heavy on her hands. She could not see Kieron with any great frequency. He was now employed by Henry and she knew the kind of gossip that would arise if it was whispered that he was being seen in public with Mrs Alexander Karolyis. Kieron would suffer. Henry would suffer, and the relationship between Alexander and herself would deteriorate even further.

  If it hadn’t been for her pregnancy she would have banished her depressions by riding one of the Karolyis horses in Central Park. As it was, even horse-riding was temporarily denied her and instead she found solace in writing long letters to Isabel and in reading and in keeping abreast with the war news.

  After the Union successes of early summer at Gettysburg and at Vicksburg, it had been popularly assumed that the tide had turned and that the war would be over by Christmas, with the North the victors.

  Instead of more victories, there was stalemate, with both armies settling for caution and digging in. The lull lasted until September, when Confederate forces clashed with Union forces in Tennessee.

  Reports of the fighting left little to the imagination. It had taken place some twelve miles south of Chatanooga alongside a creek named the Chickamauga.

  ‘The name itself should have told the generals to fight shy of engaging there,’ Henry had said to Maura when news of the Union rout had reached New York. ‘It’s a Cherokee name meaning “River of Blood”.’

  He had long ago ceased to think of her as being ignorant as to the causes and consequences of the war and he had begun spending far more time discussing the war with her, than he did with Alexander or with his elderly contemporaries.

  ‘The Herald says the fighting took place mainly in thick woods and tangled underbrush,’ Maura had said, spreading a map of Tennessee out on the low table fronting their easy chairs, ‘Communication between officers and men must have been nearly impossible. How can the movement of large numbers of men be co-ordinated in thick woodland?’

  Henry had leaned forward, stabbing Chatanooga with an arthritic finger. ‘They can’t,’ he had said succinctly, enjoying their rehashing of the battle hugely. ‘Although you can see why Northern forces were there.’ He moved his finger, circling a large area. ‘If they could drive a wedge between the South’s positions in Virginia and Mississippi then perhaps headway could again be made.’

  Maura enjoyed such afternoons just as much as Henry did. They reminded her of the lovely, long-ago afternoons at Ballacharmish when she had sat in the rose-garden with Isabel and Lord Clanmar, discussing anything and everything from Darwin’s theory of evolution to the reason for the Russian defeat at Borodino.

  On 19 November President Lincoln dedicated the military cemetery at Gettysburg and when Maura read a report of the speech that he made there, she wished fervently that Lord Clanmar had still been alive in order that he could have appreciated it. In urging the North to dedicate themselves to the unfinished work which the Gettysburg dead had so nobly advanced Lincoln urged his listeners to ensure that ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth’.

  ‘It’s a definition of democracy itself,’ she had said to Henry admiringly.

  By Christmas, instead of being over, the war was entering a new phase. The North was busy turning Chatanooga into a massive supply base from which it could advance towards Atlanta. The South was once again tenaciously digging in.

  ‘We’ll spend Christmas at Tarna,’ Alexander said to her as they ate dinner in the cavernous, marble-floored dining-room.

  Only the presence of the footmen behind their high-backed tapestry-covered chairs prevented Maura from running down the length of the twenty-foot table and throwing her arms around him in delight.

  At Tarna the rooms, although spacious and splendid, were also inviting. At Tarna the servants treated her with pleasant courtesy, not cool hostility. At Tarna there were meadows and woods to walk in, horses to feast her eyes on. At Tarna she and Alexander had been happy.

  At the sight of her glowing eyes he felt
his heart twist in his breast. Why couldn’t it always be like this? Why was she so obsessed with the goddamned poor?

  ‘Have I to ask Charlie and Henry if they’d like to Christmas at Tarna?’ he asked, putting his napkin down by the side of his plate and rising to his feet.

  His footman eased his chair away from the table. Another two prepared to open the double doors leading into the adjacent drawing room.

  ‘Oh, that would be wonderful! We could have a tree and decorate the rooms with holly and ivy and make paper-chains …’

  He began to laugh. ‘I can imagine a lot of things, but not Charlie and Henry making paper-chains.’

  He moved towards her, taking her hand as she rose from her chair. Her fingers interlocked with his. Their eyes met, violet-dark answering the heat of burning grey.

  He was gentle with her, mindful of the baby. As they lay in their vast bed, their bodies satisfied, their minds temporarily in tune, one with the other, he ran his hand lovingly over her bulging stomach.

  ‘Have I told you that I’ve asked Henry to be the baby’s godfather?’ he asked musingly, feeling deeply at peace, both with himself and with her.

  She laid her hand over the top of his, tenderly stilling it, smiling with pleasure as she felt the throb of the baby’s movements through his palm.

  ‘And have you asked Charlie as well?’ she asked, turning her head towards him.

  There was a bead of sweat on his olive-toned neck and she kissed his flesh lingeringly, licking it away with her tongue.

  His sex began to stir again and he shifted slightly, raising himself on one elbow so that he could look down at her.

  ‘Yes,’ he said in amusement, ‘although what sort of a godfather Charlie will make I can’t imagine. Godfathers are supposed to keep godchildren on the straight and narrow and any godchild of Charlie’s will find themselves at the races before they are old enough to walk.’

  Her hands slid over his well-muscled chest. ‘As will any godchild of Henry’s,’ she said, her voice thickening as she saw the intention in his eyes.

  He lowered his head to hers, kissing her hairline, her temples, the corners of her eyes. ‘Then I’ll break the news of his forthcoming responsibility gently to him,’ he said softly, his mouth moving towards her lips, silencing any response that she might have made.

  He had been wrong to have laughed at the very idea of Charlie and Henry setting to and making paper-chains at Tarna. On their first evening there they applied themselves to the task with such gusto that even he condescended to make the occasional contribution himself.

  ‘The turquoise and silver chains are for the hall and the dining-room and the lemon and green chains are for the drawing-room,’ Maura said, cutting up coloured paper and distributing it to her willing workers.

  ‘I like the glue,’ Charlie said disarmingly. ‘It smells of cloves.’

  ‘Then we’ll all be smelling of cloves, unless you stop waving that glue brush around,’ Henry said in mock querulousness. He picked up a cut piece of turquoise paper and laid it against a lemon piece, studying it with the kind of care he usually reserved only for fine horse-flesh. ‘Couldn’t we have turquoise and lemon too, Maura? Looks damned fine, doesn’t it? Perhaps I should change my racing colours to turquoise and lemon.’

  They were all sitting around a large, low table in front of a roaring log fire in the drawing-room. Alexander reached for the bourbon bottle at the side of his chair and refilled his glass. ‘Perhaps we could put smaller turquoise and lemon chains on the tree,’ he suggested agreeably, wondering why such a childish, menial task was proving to be so enjoyable.

  ‘And my bedroom,’ Charlie said, chains garlanded around his neck and reaching almost down to his feet. ‘Do you know that Willie Rhinelander has a life-sized peacock picked out in turquoises and emeralds on his bedhead?’

  ‘I hear his sister is putting mourning behind her with a vengeance,’ Henry offered, his brow furrowed in concentration as he linked a yellow chain with a green one. ‘Birthday balls for widows are in poor taste in my opinion and the forthcoming Rhinelander Ball sounds as if it’s going to be the most lavish social event to take place since Marie-Antoinette presided over Versailles.’

  ‘Brevoort,’ Charlie corrected, laying into the glue pot with relish. ‘Ariadne Rhinelander married a Brevoort.’

  Henry surveyed his completed yellow and green chain with pride. It had been the first thing he had ever made with his own hands and he had found the simple task amazingly satisfying.

  Raising his head he realized for the first time that neither Alexander nor Maura were taking part in the conversation and he inwardly cursed himself for being a tactless fool. Any mention of the social life from which Alexander now found himself excluded always met with his stony silence. In order to remedy matters he laid his chain on top of the other chains piling the table, saying with genuine interest: ‘Both Charlie and myself are highly flattered at having been asked to stand as godfathers for the coming baby, but who are you going to ask to stand as godmother?’

  Alexander shrugged. ‘We probably won’t bother with one as there isn’t anyone glaringly obvious to ask.’

  ‘But there is.’

  Maura’s interruption was serenely confident.

  Alexander stared at her. ‘Who, for God’s sake? There isn’t a woman in New York who has even deigned to pay us a visit!’

  ‘The baby’s godmother doesn’t have to live in New York, does she?’ Maura asked, busily disentangling Charlie from his reams of not very carefully colour-matched chains.

  Alexander ran a hand through his hair, suddenly fearful that he was about to be confronted with a bog-Irish female from Maura’s dim and distant past. ‘No, but she’d have to be here for the christening,’ he said unencouragingly.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Henry interposed. ‘Someone could stand proxy for her. It’s been done before.’

  ‘I don’t think …’ Alexander began in rising consternation.

  Charlie cut across him. ‘Who are you thinking of, Maura? Someone in Ireland?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. The friend I was brought up with lives in London.’

  She looked across at Alexander. ‘Isabel would love to be godmother to the baby. Do you think there is some way of arranging it?’

  Alexander sagged with relief. As far as he was concerned anyone would be suitable as long as their surname wasn’t Irish.

  ‘It won’t be a problem,’ he said truthfully, remembering that Isabel was Lady Isabel.

  A log crackled and fell on the fire. Maura began to happily scoop up the mass of finished paper-chains, saying apologetically, ‘I’m tired. You don’t mind if I leave you to the bourbon and go to bed early, do you?’

  They shook their heads, understanding that in her now advanced pregnancy she had need for rest, but regretful at losing her company. To Henry, Maura was the daughter he had never had. To Charlie, she had become a sister. Both of them loved her. Both of them found life more pleasurable when she was present.

  Alexander’s dark eyes followed her to the door. From behind she looked as slim and supple as she had the day he had first set eyes on her. He thought back to that moment aboard the Scotia, trying to remember if he had had any intimation then of how passionately he was going to desire her.

  Incredibly, there had been none. He had seen only an impoverished Irish girl, little different from those around her, apart from her shining hair and pin-neat clothes. He had thought only that she would serve his purpose; that she would enable him to revenge himself upon his father. All his other thoughts had been for Genevre. With a stab of guilt he realized that he couldn’t remember the last time he had allowed his thoughts to dwell on Genevre. He was just about to do so when Henry’s voice penetrated his consciousness, saying impatiently: ‘For the third time, Alexander, do you want to play a hand of poker or not?’

  In the pretty chintz-curtained bedroom in which she and Alexander had first made love, Maura was also thinking about the past. This tim
e a year ago she had been at Ballacharmish with Lord Clanmar and Isabel. Her mother was still alive. Kieron had still been Ballacharmish’s land-agent. It had been Kieron who had felled the Christmas fir tree and brought it into the drawing-room. It had been Isabel who had helped her to decorate it. Everything had been as it had always been at Christmas time, ever since she had been eight years old. There had been no intimations that her life was about to be drastically changed. No intimations of the grief that lay ahead, or of the incredible happiness that had followed hard on its heels.

  She sat up in bed, reaching out to her bedside table for pen and paper. Dearest, darling Isabel, she began in her large, generous handwriting. How would you like to be godmother by proxy to the new baby…?

  It was the quietest Christmas any of them had ever experienced, and for Alexander and Charlie and Henry, by far the most enjoyable. There were no parties, no other guests. During the day there were toboggan and skating jaunts at which Maura was a well-wrapped and happy spectator. In the evenings there were card games and quizzes and charades in which even Dawes, to his stupefied amazement, was invited to take part.

  Henry had originally planned to stay only until the first week in January. By the last week in January he was still there, as was Charlie.

  ‘Couldn’t we stay here for ever?’ he said ruminatively to Alexander when Alexander intimated that it was time all four of them returned to New York. ‘We could become hermits and forget all about New York and society and the boring old war.’

  At Charlie’s flippant reference to the war, Alexander frowned. Like Charlie, he had paid three hundred dollars substitution money to avoid being drafted, but unlike Charlie it was an act about which he had occasional pricks of conscience. There had been a time when he had wanted, very much, to take part in the fighting. The fierce pleasure that he had derived in his marital bed had changed all that. He hadn’t wanted to forgo it for the less obvious pleasure of risking his neck on Lincoln’s behalf, and he was ashamed by the knowledge that he still didn’t want to.