An Embarrassment of Riches

by Margaret Pemberton

  He smiled reassuringly, beginning to saw at the cords around her ankles. ‘It’s only been thirty hours, ma’am. I’ve never known a kidnapping case take less time than this one to be satisfactorily concluded.’

  She rubbed gingerly at her numbed wrists, saying shakily, ‘Is that because the kidnappers realized the futility of their demands? Is that why they gave up? How did they let you know where I was?’

  Pinkerton had been kneeling in order to cut the cords at her ankles. Now he rocked back on his heels, his eyebrows shooting into his hair.

  ‘They let James Gordon Bennett know where you were being held, ma’am, because your husband paid the biggest ransom in history for your safe return. They got their hands on the money shortly after seven o’clock yesterday evening and a note saying where you were being held was delivered to Bennett at dawn today.’

  The shock was so great that for a moment she thought she was going to lose consciousness.

  ‘Ten million dollars?’ she said faintly. ‘He paid ten million dollars for me?’

  ‘He certainly did, ma’am, and he’s on his way here now.’

  She was aware of how bedraggled she looked, of the smell rising from her urine-stained skirt.

  ‘I need to wash … to change into clean clothes …’

  Had Alexander paid the extortionate ransom because he would have felt publicly shamed if he hadn’t done so? Or had he paid it because her safety mattered to him as much as his safety mattered to her?

  There came the sound of galloping hoofbeats.

  ‘It’s Mr Karolyis, Mr Pinkerton,’ one of the men said from the open doorway.

  She would know as soon as she saw him; as soon as she saw his face.

  ‘Oh God,’ she whispered, brushing back her sweat-soaked hair with her hand. ‘Please, oh please …’

  He stormed into the room like a tornado. For a second she barely recognized him. He had aged ten years. Deep lines gouged their way from his nose to his mouth. The hair at his temples was grey.

  ‘Dear Christ!’ he said fiercely, striding across the room towards her, seizing hold of her and crushing her against him. ‘I thought I’d lost you, Maura! I thought I was never going to see you again!’

  Uncaring of the watching Allan Pinkerton and his men, his mouth sought hers. Her arms closed around him, hugging him so tight it was a wonder either of them could continue to breathe.

  ‘It’s all over, Maura,’ he said thickly when he at last raised his head from hers. ‘No more idiocy. No more partings. I’m going to carry out a massive rehousing programme. I’m going to alter my will again and bequeath Tarna to Felix and I’m never, ever going to say another unkind word about Ireland or the Irish. You can have the Fifth Avenue mansion painted green if you want and have shamrocks growing on the roof. I’m going to do what you said I should have done long ago, I’m going to tell the truth about Stasha’s paternity and we’re all going to live together as a family. And I’m never going to be separated from you again. Not ever.’

  ‘I love you,’ she said, smiling joyously through tears of happiness. ‘Even when I thought you wouldn’t pay the ransom for me, I never stopped loving you.’

  Allan Pinkerton cleared his throat. ‘With respect, Mr Karolyis, I think it’s about time we transported Mrs Karolyis back to civilization. She needs a hot drink and a good square meal.’

  Alexander sniffed suddenly, looking around the bare room puzzled. In horrified comprehension his eyes returned to Maura.

  ‘And a bath,’ he said, his arm firmly around her waist as he began to walk with her towards the open door. ‘I’ve never smelt anything so atrocious in all my life!’

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The next morning the Herald’s front-page headline trumpeted, ‘World record ransom paid for Mrs Alexander Karolyis!’ On the inside pages were the headlines ‘The Herald instrumental in securing Mrs Karolyis’s release!’ and ‘The Herald helps hunt down Karolyis kidnappers’.

  Privy to all the inside machinations of the ransom demand and its payment, James Gordon Bennett was confident he had a front-page story that would run and run. Twenty-four hours later he jettisoned it without a moment’s thought for an even more sensational scoop. ‘Alexander Karolyis acknowledges Love-Child!’

  Even Henry and Charlie were rocked by Alexander’s complete volte-face.

  ‘I think it admirable that you’ve decided to be honest about Stasha’s paternity,’ Henry said, wondering if the day would ever come when Alexander would cease taking his breath away. ‘But what on earth were you thinking of to allow Bennett to be privy to the facts? Surely you must have known how he would use such information?’

  It was early evening and they were in the Chinese drawing-room. Maura had taken Charlie to the nurseries in order that she could show him how happily Stasha was settling in and how delighted Felix was at having a live-in playmate of his own age and sex. The latest edition of the Herald lay on an elegantly carved lion-legged table.

  ‘Naturally,’ Alexander said with a grin. ‘And it makes things so much easier, don’t you think? The whole world now knows that he’s my son and that Maura and myself are going to adopt him in order to legalize his position within our family.’

  ‘And society?’ Henry asked faintly.

  Alexander’s grin deepened. ‘Stuff society. Society can take us or leave us, neither Maura nor myself care.’

  ‘Then, if you truly don’t care, society will most likely take you,’ Henry said wryly. ‘Have Stasha and Felix been told of their true relationship to each other yet?’

  ‘Maura told them. They are both too young to realize the enormity of what she told them, but Stasha understands that he can now call me Papa and that Maura is to be his mama, and Felix understands that he now has a companion. Both of them are highly delighted.’

  ‘So they should be,’ Henry said, well satisfied. He brought up the next subject with a slightly raised silvered eyebrow. ‘And the tenements?’ he queried. ‘Are you really going to raze thousands of properties to the ground and build afresh?’

  ‘It’s going to be the biggest rebuilding programme on record,’ Alexander said, reaching out for the preliminary architectural plans on the nearby table and spreading them open for Henry’s perusal. ‘The main problem is going to be arranging temporary housing while the programme is being carried out.’

  ‘You’ll have to raze and rebuild block by block,’ Henry said, grateful that he had long ago sold all his real estate and invested in far less controversial money-making ventures. ‘If it will be any help, I can double up on the number of tenement children vacationing on my stud-farm. It will be a drop in the ocean I know, but …’

  ‘Hasn’t Maura told you?’ Alexander was looking at him in surprise. ‘I’ve arranged for special accommodation to be provided for tenement children at Tarna. You won’t have to be inconvenienced any longer.’

  Henry stared at him for a moment and then said, ‘I must confess I only agreed to the arrangement out of affection for Maura, but it hasn’t been an inconvenience. None of the horses have suffered by having children in close proximity. And two stud-farms serving as vacation centres for needy children would be far more useful than one. If it’s all right with you, I think I’ll keep on with the arrangement.’

  ‘You’re not on the look-out for aspiring jockeys, are you?’ Alexander asked, suddenly suspicious.

  ‘Not at all!’ Henry retorted, affronted. He paused for a moment and then said, ‘Although before Kieron Sullivan left for Kansas he did tell me that he’d come across one tenement child who showed exceptional talent as a rider. An Irish boy, aged ten, from County Wicklow …’

  ‘Kieron is marrying Katy O’Farrell, ma’am,’ Caitlin said to her three weeks later, her eyes shining. ‘Ma and Pa are so thrilled. They won’t be honeymooning because there’s so much work to do on the ranch, but Katy says that maybe next year they’ll be able to manage a trip back to New York.’

  The news had not been a shock to Maura for Kieron had be
en writing to her regularly. At first his letters had contained nothing but repeated requests that she rethink the decision that she had made not to join him and then, as he realized he was powerless to persuade her, his letters began to change tone. He wrote to her of the ranch, of the horses he had bought, of the progress he was making. And in September he began to mention Katy O’Farrell in his letters.

  His last letter had arrived two days previously.

  … I’m reading the newspapers daily in the hope there’s news of your kidnappers being apprehended. Thank heaven the scum spoke with English accents. If they’d been Irish I would have died with the shame of it. Patrick O’Farrell tells me there’s talk of nothing else in New York but the Karolyis new housing programme. So you managed to influence him at last. I’m glad to the bottom of my boots, and I’m glad for your sake that you and he are happy together, sweetheart. When I read of the ransom he paid I could hardly believe my eyes. Yet I can’t help regretting and thinking of what might have been. Kansas is a fine state, a man can breathe out here. Life would have been good for the two of us but there, I had my chance long ago and I didn’t take it. I’ve resolved not to be such an eejit again. Katy’s a fine girl and I’m thinking that if I let her slide through my fingers I’ll be a very great fool. The wedding itself will be small but as every man I’ve employed is Irish there’ll be a fine party afterwards. Give my love to Isabel and tell her we’ll have another fine reunion one day.

  Isabel.

  Alexander couldn’t understand her stubbornness in not making up with her.

  ‘Nothing that happened was Isabel’s fault,’ he said to her time and time again. ‘I was the one who insisted in taking Felix aboard the Rosetta. No matter what you may think, Isabel could hardly have stopped me. I am Felix’s father for goodness’sake. As to the photographs, I should have realized that photographers were on the bridge and what capital Ariadne would make out of their presence. Instead of doing so I was too busy collaborating with my captain. Nothing that happened was Isabel’s fault. Stasha would have been aboard whether she and Felix had been there or not. No matter what Isabel’s actions, Stasha would still have caught smallpox.’

  Maura had had to agree with him, yet she still hadn’t taken a carriage around to the Schermerhorn mansion in order to tell Isabel that she was sorry for the harsh letter she had sent her. She knew that she was behaving badly and she knew that she was causing herself pain, yet she couldn’t rid herself of the conviction that Isabel’s behaviour had been occasioned because of illicit feelings for Alexander. Why else would she have followed him to Newport for the summer? Why else would she have arranged to live beneath Bessie’s roof, rather than continuing to live with herself and Alexander? Their falling out over the Rosetta incident was not a good enough reason. If she had returned home in the normal way, then they would, at least, have been able to talk about the issue face to face. They could have been frank with each other, apologies could have been made on either side. But that hadn’t happened and, although their continued estrangement brought her intense

  pain, Maura couldn’t bring herself to make the first move in putting

  things right between them.

  The day after Alexander had urged her again to visit Bessie and Isabel he asked her to join him in a meeting he was having with Lyall Kingston.

  ‘I’m drawing up a new will,’ he said to her when she had agreed with slight surprise. ‘I want you to be with me. I want your approval for my proposed legacies to Stasha, Felix and Natalie.’

  After provision for herself and huge legacies to the Children’s Aid Society and the Housing Improvement Society, he had arranged that Tarna should be bequeathed to Felix and that the remainder of his wealth should be left equally divided between all three children.

  They had come out of the meeting to the news that some of the marked ransom money was beginning to surface.

  ‘We’ll have the kidnappers within days,’ Allan Pinkerton said to them exuberantly. ‘Just don’t let Bennett get hold of the news. I don’t want them knowing how close they are to being captured.’

  All the marked bills had been put into circulation in the Boston area. Allan Pinkerton deployed every man in his employment in a huge operation to track the bills down to source. On an almost hourly basis he kept Maura and Alexander informed as to how the search was progressing.

  ‘Lord, it’s going to be the most sensational trial ever,’ Charlie said, as he waited for news with them. ‘Are you sure they were English, Maura? And well spoken?’

  She nodded. Apart from their accents, and apart from her hazy description of the man who had leapt into the carriage, she had been unable to help Allan Pinkerton in any worthwhile manner.

  ‘Surely they must have addressed each other by name, at least occasionally?’ he had said to her.

  ‘No,’ she had said. ‘Not once.’

  ‘And the man who jumped into the carriage was reasonably dressed? Not roughly dressed?’

  ‘I can’t remember how he was dressed,’ she had said, wishing she could be more helpful. ‘I was so taken by surprise and everything happened so quickly, but my impression isn’t of a roughly dressed man. And he didn’t talk like a rough working-class man.’

  She sat silent now as Charlie and Alexander discussed the likely length of the kidnappers’trial, and their likely sentence when it was over.

  ‘They’ll be executed,’ Charlie said without a shred of doubt in his voice. ‘Kidnapping is a capital offence.’

  ‘But I wasn’t harmed,’ Maura was shocked into interjecting.

  ‘Makes no difference,’ Charlie said, thinking execution a damned sight too good for them. ‘Just think if they had been successful in their original intentions and it had been Felix they had kidnapped?’

  Maura thought, and shuddered. And shuddered still more when she thought of her kidnappers paying for their crime with their lives.

  ‘We’re moving in on them!’ Allan Pinkerton informed them the following day. ‘Rent on a house in Beacon Hill has been paid for in marked dollar bills.’

  Alexander spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon pacing the Chinese drawing-room like a caged lion. Maura visited the nurseries, cuddling and nursing Natalie, playing with Stasha and Felix and the train-set that covered half the floor.

  She didn’t want to think of what her kidnappers’capture would entail. The trial proceedings would be emblazoned all over the front of the country’s newspapers. She would have to give evidence; she would have to face them across a courtroom.

  She didn’t want to know what her two unseen kidnappers looked like. It would make the whole affair harder to forget. And if they were sentenced to death she would never be able to forget.

  She knew the minute she heard the sound of running feet that the hunt was over.

  Alexander burst into the nursery, white-faced and glittering-eyed. ‘The bastards have got away! Pinkerton’s retrieved the bulk of the money, but the kidnappers apparently beat a hasty retreat minutes before his men descended on the house …’

  Stasha and Felix had stopped what they were doing and were looking at him with interest.

  ‘What’s a bastard, Papa?’ Stasha asked curiously.

  Alexander flushed scarlet. He had been so furious with the news that he had forgotten all about the listening children.

  ‘It’s someone who … someone who …’ he floundered.

  ‘It’s a word for someone whose mama and papa are not married,’ Maura said gently. ‘And because no-one can help it if their mama and papa are not married it’s a not very nice word and not one that should be used.’

  ‘But Papa just used it,’ Stasha pointed out reasonably.

  Alexander ruffled Stasha’s thick shock of hair tenderly.

  ‘I did, and it wasn’t the right word.’ He looked across at Maura smiling wryly. ‘The right word would have been one far, far worse.’

  ‘So that’s it,’ he said a week later after Allan Pinkerton had visited them. ‘All the r
ansom money, bar a few hundred dollars, returned. No sign of the kidnappers and not much hope now of their ever being tracked down. I’m sorry, Maura. Truly I am.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she said, and, as shock flared through his eyes, she realized with stunned surprise that he had never realized how much she had dreaded the prospect of a trial.

  A smile dimpled the corners of her mouth.

  ‘I can forget about it all so much easier now, Alexander. Let’s not talk about it again. Not ever.’

  In a gesture that had caused even more of a sensation than a trial would have caused, Alexander donated the entire amount of the returned ransom to charities of Maura’s choosing. Hard on the heels of the furore that his action caused, came news that Isabel was returning to Ireland.

  ‘It was in the society column in yesterday’s Post,’ Henry said to her one afternoon when Alexander and Charlie had taken Stasha and Felix tobogganing in Central Park.

  They were playing chess and Maura’s hand faltered as she moved a bishop, taking Henry’s queen.

  ‘She told Charlie some time ago that she had written to Lord Clanmar asking if she could open up the family house in County Wicklow. He’s quite obviously given his permission as it said in the Post that she was returning to Ireland, not to England.’

  Ballacharmish. Maura clasped her hands tightly in her lap as memories engulfed her. The riotous colour and heavy fragrance of the rose-garden; the sunlight gleaming on the still shining surface of Lough Suir; the early morning rides to Mount Keadeen and Glendalough.

  Henry pushed the chess-board to one side, saying gently, ‘It really is time the two of you made up, Maura. Isabel is looking desperately unhappy and not at all well and I know that the estrangement between the two of you is making you deeply unhappy as well.’

  ‘When is she to leave?’ Maura asked bleakly, her eyes suspiciously over-bright.

  ‘At the end of the month, aboard a Cunarder.’ Beneath his silvered eyebrows his eyes were dark with concern. ‘I know that you feel Isabel betrayed your trust in her, Maura, but if she did so it was a very slight betrayal. You have forgiven and forgotten far worse betrayals from other sources. Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive Isabel for whatever hurt she may have caused you?’