An Embarrassment of Riches

by Margaret Pemberton

  Her own radiant smile faded. ‘What is it?’ she asked, instinctively knowing something was wrong. ‘Is it Stasha?’

  He sat down by the bed. ‘No. Stasha is fine and wearing Caitlin to a frazzle. It’s just that we have to talk, Maura. Now that you are stronger there are things that have to be said.’

  He looked wonderful, his glossy black hair curling low in the nape of his neck, a gold watch-chain across his waist-coated chest, his hips narrow and enticing in his tight-fitting hand-stitched trousers.

  She said, very still, very tense. ‘About us?’

  He nodded. He was suddenly unsure as to whether or not he was going to be able to do it. He wanted to kiss the soft fullness of her mouth, he wanted to brush his lips against the scar at the corner of her eyebrow and her mouth and tell her that they didn’t detract an iota from her beauty. That because of the way she had come by them, they only enhanced it. He wanted to tell her that not only was she the most beautiful woman he had ever met, but that she was also the most compassionate and the most courageous.

  He rose to his feet and crossed to the window. The blind was down in order that her eyes shouldn’t be strained by fierce sunlight. He stared down at the small amount of glass showing at the bottom of the blind. He could just see the cobbled courtyard, the rim of a fountain.

  He said as dispassionately as possible, not turning to look at her, ‘I think it’s about time we thought of a legal separation, Maura.’

  He heard her quick intake of breath and still he didn’t turn. He couldn’t.

  ‘I’ll still want to see the children, of course. Often. But if you want to live somewhere other than New York, I will have no objection to you taking them with you. I can always make arrangements to visit no matter where you are.’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was strained. He could barely hear it. ‘Of course. If that’s what you want.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think it’s for the best.’

  She made no reply and he turned. ‘And now that you’re almost recovered there’s no need for me to stay here any longer. Haines came back this morning and the housemaids and footmen are dribbling back by the hour.’

  ‘And Stasha?’ she asked, her face very pale, her eyes very dark. ‘What is going to happen to Stasha?’

  ‘Stasha will return with me to the hotel. He won’t like it very much after being here, but he’s an adaptable little imp.’ He began to walk towards the door, saying casually, ‘By the way, there’s some more post for you. I’ll have it sent up. Now that your face has healed I imagine there’s no further fear of eye-strain. Have a word with Bridges though, to make quite sure.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will. Are you leaving now?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, not seeing how he could possibly stay after what he had just said. ‘But I’ll call in to see you often. If you want me to.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘That would be nice. Thank you.’

  He didn’t say goodbye. He couldn’t. He wondered when she would read Sullivan’s letter. He wondered what she would do about it. If she wanted to, she could now go west without any fears that it would mean separation from her children. He wondered if what he had just done had been an act of certifiable madness. Then he remembered Stasha. Making possible her own happiness, at the expense of his, was the very least he could do for her.

  He left the house feeling extraordinarily disorientated. There were things he had to do which had been postponed for far too long, the most important being a meeting with Ariadne. He had to tell her that their affair was finally over and he wasn’t looking forward one little bit to the scene that would ensue.

  Maura told her nurse that she didn’t want to be disturbed. She wanted to get over the shock slowly, and in private. It had been stupid of her to have thought that things had changed. Nothing had changed, not between herself and Alexander. Not only did he not want to resume living with her, he was uncaring as to whether he saw Felix and Natalie. Saying that he would want to see them often and then saying that if she wished to leave the city and live elsewhere she could take the children with her was a blatant contradiction. He quite obviously didn’t care about seeing them, nor about where she might take them to live.

  She was too physically weak to feel rage. At the thought of how casually he was prepared to give up Felix and Natalie she felt only bone-deep grief. He had Stasha, and that was all he apparently needed.

  Her head throbbed and there was intolerable pain behind her eyes. If she wanted she could take the children to Kansas, and live near Kieron. She rejected the idea almost the second she thought of it. That wasn’t what Kieron wanted. Kieron wanted to marry her and she could never marry him. The love she felt for him was deep, but it wasn’t the same kind of love that she felt for Alexander.

  When Dr Bridges told her that she could

  glance over

  her

  correspondences and when she read the letter

  from Kieron,

  she

  had no hesitation at all in how to reply to it.

  I’m happier than I can say about the ranch. I know you’ll make a great success of it. As to my joining you there, it isn’t possible, Kieron. Much as I hate the things Alexander’s name stands for, I love Alexander. I don’t understand why, but there it is. I do. Please keep writing to me as a friend, Kieron. You are the best friend I’ve ever had.

  A month ago she could not have written such a thing. Good friend as he had always been, it was Isabel who had always been her best friend. Isabel who had been as close to her as a sister. And it was Isabel who had accompanied Felix aboard the Rosetta. If Felix had caught smallpox, as Stasha had done, then it would have been Isabel’s fault.

  Alexander had long ago made heartfelt apologies for his behaviour of that day and because he was Alexander, she had forgiven him. But she could not forgive Isabel. She had always believed that Isabel’s love and loyalty for her ran as deep as hers did for Isabel. Yet instead of expressing outrage at Alexander taking Felix to an event that it was obvious Ariadne would also be attending, and an event she had given express instructions he should not go to, Isabel had co-operated with him. And the shaming, hurtful, gossip-arousing photographs in the newspapers had been the result.

  As soon as she was strong enough, she began to make plans for a vacation. She would take the children with her and Caitlin and Bridget, and she would rest and recover her strength. She was sure that she was going to need it, for she was sure that by the time the summer was over Alexander would want to take the legal separation he had asked for a stage further. That he would want a divorce in order to marry Ariadne.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  She decided on Niagara as a destination, much to Dr Bridge’s puzzlement.

  ‘Surely your country home in the Hudson would be more restful? You would have a staff that knows you around you. You would be in familiar surroundings.’

  She shook her head. Tarna was the last place on earth she wanted to be. There were too many memories at Tarna.

  ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ve always wanted to see the Falls and I will stay there until I have recovered my strength. Then I think I will visit the Great Lakes and maybe even Chicago.’

  Dr Bridges blanched. Chicago was not a city he would choose to visit in health, let alone if he were recovering from smallpox.

  On the morning of her departure she received an anguished letter from Isabel.

  … I had no idea of how ill you have been! Lottie Rhinelander is visiting Bessie and it was Lottie who gave us the news. Why didn’t someone write to me? Why wasn’t I told? Thank God both you and Stasha have recovered. I’m obviously not going to remain here until the end of the summer as had been planned. I’ll be back in New York within the week. How on earth did the two of you catch such a dreadful disease? Thank goodness Felix and Natalie were spared.

  All love.

  Isabel.

  Maura wondered what Isabel would say when she answered her query of how they had caught the dise
ase, when she told her how close Felix had come to contracting it as well. She wrote a stilted letter back, explaining in full. And she said that it was unnecessary for Isabel to return to New York on her behalf. She, herself, wouldn’t be there. She was going to take a long, recuperative vacation and she was taking the children with her.

  She hadn’t informed Alexander of her destination. He had said she could take the children anywhere she liked and, as he was so obviously uncaring as to their whereabouts, she felt a bitter pleasure in taking off into the blue, leaving only the briefest of notes behind her.

  Alexander had stared down at it feeling sick to the pit of his stomach. I am going away for the summer, she had written. I need to recuperate and I certainly won’t be able to do so in New York’s stifling summer heat. I’ve also taken you at your word and I am taking the children with me.

  He didn’t have a second’s doubt as to where she had gone. And if she didn’t come back? If she remained in Kansas? He felt goose-lumps rising on his flesh. Then it would be his own fault. He would have no-one to blame but himself.

  Both Henry and Charlie kept in touch with her during the months she was away. Henry was spending the summer at the eighty-roomed mansion he insisted in referring to as his ‘cottage’, at Newport.

  He wrote at the end of June.

  Alexander is also here for the summer, as is Isabel. She came back to New York when she heard of how ill you had been, but apparently missed you by inches. She’s staying with Lottie Rhinelander. There’s no sign of Ariadne.

  Much love.

  Henry.

  She knew

  Alexander

  that Henry had meant to cheer her by his letter. If was vacationing at Newport and if Ariadne was

  conspicuously absent, then it could only mean that their affair was over. And if it was? It was impossible to imagine Alexander without a woman in his life. Who was the new woman?

  As she sat on the hotel terrace, looking towards the Falls, she was suddenly sickeningly sure of her identity. Ever since her initial stunned reaction when she had first seen the photographs in the Globe, she had puzzled as to why she had felt so intensely betrayed by Isabel. Certainly Isabel had behaved irresponsibly, but as Henry had pointed out to her, she had behaved no more irresponsibly than Alexander. Now, staring down at Henry’s letter, she thought she knew. It had been primeval feminine instinct. She remembered Isabel’s reaction on first meeting Alexander. She remembered how she had likened it to her own. Isabel hadn’t protested at Alexander’s action in taking Felix aboard the Rosetta because she was too infatuated with him to do so. And now the two of them were both at Newport for the summer.

  Henry’s second letter, some weeks later, only confirmed her tortured suspicions.

  … as I think I told you Alexander is here with Stasha. As they spend most of their time on the beach or in the sea I see very little of them. Isabel is being a great success and has been taken up with a vengeance by Mrs Astor and her rival, Mrs Stuyvesant Fish. Young Bertie Van Cortlandt seems to think he may have the honour of taking her to the altar next year but Alexander is keeping a very close eye on her and I think Van Cortlandt is counting his chickens before they have hatched.

  Henry obviously didn’t see anything suspicious in Alexander’s and Isabel’s relationship, but then Henry didn’t have the benefit of female intuition. Nor was he in love with Alexander, as she was.

  In August, at the hotel they had moved to on the shores of Lake Michigan, Caitlin came to her with a letter she had received from Katy.

  ‘She’s left New York and gone to a town called Wichita in Kansas, ma’am. She’s working as a waitress in a hotel there and Ma says she’s safe enough for Mr Sullivan is near by and he won’t let any harm come to her.’

  Maura had smiled and said she was glad that Katy was making a fine new life for herself. She wondered how long it would be before Katy wrote to Caitlin and Bridget saying that she was marrying Kieron. She wondered what her reaction would be when she did so.

  At the beginning of October, after leisurely touring the Great Lakes, she returned to New York. She knew from Henry that he and Charlie and Alexander were all already back in town. Only Isabel was still absent, delayed from returning by a bout of influenza.

  For reasons she couldn’t define, she didn’t inform any of them of her return. Instead she sat with Stephen Fassbinder and diligently responded to the shoal of invitation cards waiting for her attention. Despite hers and Alexander’s now open estrangement there were even more than there had been at the beginning of the previous season.

  Henry had long ago predicted that there would be. ‘Society can’t afford to snub you now, Maura. Not after the changes the war has brought. The most flagrant war-profiteering nouveaux riches are having to be accepted at Old Guard balls and soirées and under those circumstances, there’s no way Mrs Alexander Karolyis can be snubbed, no matter what her background and nationality.’

  ‘Mr Bennett, of the Herald, would like to meet with you, Mrs Karolyis,’ Stephen said as they sifted through letters and engraved cards. ‘I think the purpose of his request is something to do with the Citizens’Association.’

  Maura had made time to see him at the first opportunity. James Gordon Bennett breezed into her drawing-room as if he owned it. There was a distinct smell of cognac on his breath even though it was scarcely eleven in the morning and he shook her hand with vigorous over-familiarity.

  More than a little startled, Maura asked him what it was he wanted of her.

  ‘A favour, Mrs Karolyis. A favour that could do both of us a good turn,’ he said, sitting down opposite her on a silk-covered sofa. ‘It has occurred to me that you would be exceedingly good copy, Mrs Karolyis. You are the most successful and without doubt the most beautiful fund-raiser for charitable causes that the city has ever known, yet you are married to the man largely responsible for there being need of such charities. And you’re Irish to boot. It’s a great story. If you would allow me to exploit it, I think the Herald could bring great pressure to bear on City Hall and could well be instrumental in bringing about the kind of legislation that the Citizens’Association is striving for.’

  She had done nothing constructive for the association since she had given Frederick Lansdowne her report on Washington’s housing. It was more than time that she did something else. Something that would dramatically boost the association’s aims.

  ‘What would you like to know, Mr Bennett?’ she asked decisively. ‘In what way can we best effect some action?’

  On the evening of the day that the Herald published its sensational double-page article on the city’s slums, she attended her first ball of the season.

  She knew before she went that Alexander would also be in attendance, but the prospect of a reunion in a public place was preferable to the prospect of one in private. If he and Isabel had fallen in love, then he wouldn’t be able to tell her so on Mrs Beekman’s ballroom floor.

  Her first impression when she saw him was that he looked tenser than she had ever seen him. He crossed the crowded floor towards her, impatiently acknowledging Astors and Rensselaers as he did so.

  ‘You’re back,’ he said unnecessarily when he reached her side. ‘Why didn’t you write? Why didn’t you send a message?’

  He looked magnificent in his white tie and tails, a gardenia in his buttonhole, his skin sunburned to a tone even darker than usual.

  ‘I didn’t think you would be interested,’ she said as coolly as her racing heart would allow.

  ‘Of course I was damned well interested!’

  Elegantly coiffured heads began to turn in their direction and he seized hold of her hand, leading her out on to the ballroom floor. ‘I thought you’d gone to Kansas, for Christ’s sake! It was only when I returned to New York that Henry told me you’d been at Niagara and the Lakes.’

  ‘Kansas?’ Her eyes flew wide. The orchestra was playing a Strauss waltz and as his arm closed around her waist she felt desire shoot through her with shoc
king intensity. ‘Why on earth would I have gone to Kansas?’

  At her sincere mystification he felt light-headed with relief. His assumptions had all been wrong. No matter how much Sullivan loved her, she was not in love with him. Or not to the extent that she wanted to marry him one day. He had had no need to tell her she could take the children wherever she wanted to and that he would not object. He had had no need to spend a tortured summer without her at Newport. And now there was only one more thing he had to clarify with her.

  ‘You didn’t willingly co-operate with that bastard Bennett, did you? Have you seen the rubbish he’s printed today? Have you seen how free he’s been with your name? We can sue him, of course. Take him for every damned dollar possible …’

  ‘We can’t,’ she said as he waltzed her past a fountain of cologne-scented water. ‘Because I did co-operate with him and I have absolutely no regrets at having done so.’

  Alexander was so stunned that he stepped on her toes. ‘You co-operated with a scandalmonger like Bennett! Do you know what the insane money-grubber intends to do next? He’s going to list the properties owned by every tenement landlord in the city. Not only that, he also intends publishing what he thinks we’re all worth!’

  ‘That will be interesting,’ Maura said, hardly able to bear the anguish of being so close to him and yet being so much at odds with him ‘I wonder if he will do it in alphabetical order or in numerical order according to the estimated sum of each landlord’s wealth?’

  Alexander forgot all about the wonderful reunion he had been so looking forward to. He could hardly speak for rage.

  ‘Do you realize what you’ve done?’ he hissed as the waltz came to an end. ‘You’ve made me an absolute laughing-stock! And when Astor and Rensselaer and Stuyvesant realize Bennett’s bloody list has been drawn up with your approval, they’ll never speak to me again! Not ever!’ and he spun on his heel, walking away from her.