Very Old Money

by Stanley Ellin

  “Yes, I will,” said Amy. “Ma’am.”

  There are subtle currents stirring through these halls, Mike reflected. Some dull-witted people? How about Madam Chairperson for one—Miss Dorothy’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Jocelyn, that would be—whose own sentimental little homily had taken the opposite tack?

  Out in the corridor Mrs. McEye said, “Now this next apartment is Miss Camilla’s. She’s already met you. And the one beyond—” She stopped there, apparently caught up in some troublesome considerations. She came out of it abruptly. “Yes. Well. That is Mrs. Gwen’s apartment. Mr. Craig’s daughter. Mrs. Daniel Langfeld. To be addressed that way. Mrs. Langfeld.”

  Which, Mike thought, was inarguable. Mrs. Langfeld was Mrs. Langfeld.

  “What concerns me,” said Mrs. McEye, “is that you may hear gossip by staff about Mrs. Gwen, so, much as I dislike going into such matters, I think it’s wise to give you the facts. Mrs. Gwen and her husband are temporarily separated. A very cordial separation. Absolutely nothing scandalous about it. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Mike.

  “Good. And if either of you is misled by the name into thinking Mr. Langfeld is a Jew, no, he is not. In fact, the senior Mrs. Langfeld is an officer of the DAR.”

  “Neither of us would give the matter a thought,” Mike lied cheerfully. “Not for a moment.”

  “I mentioned it just in case, Lloyd, because staff will gossip. My husband wouldn’t tolerate that past a certain point. Any staff caught at malicious storytelling was fired on the spot. Here’s your final pay, good-bye and good riddance. Unfortunately, it’s not the same nowadays. Not when anyone discharged from staff knows that certain magazines would pay a handsome price for any possible scandal about family they’re offered.”

  “Has that ever happened?” Amy asked.

  “Never,” said Mrs. McEye grimly. “And one of our jobs is to make sure it never does.”

  So this snowy banner shall never be sullied, Mike thought. Blab to the media and next thing they’re dragging the river for your body. And this in an era when most of the high and mighty yearn only to catch the public’s eye no matter how. Fact was, whatever reservations one might have about Clan Durie, it did shape up as a class act.

  The guardian of the snowy banner, her self-starting temper apparently geared back to neutral, moved her convoy along to the door of the nonscandalous Mrs. Gwen and knocked on it but drew no response. On second try, however, the door was partly opened by a diminutive young woman, moonfaced, snub-nosed, and pallid, dressed in a caftan. Behind her, Mike caught a glimpse of blue-jeaned figures seated on the floor, their heads drooping low on their chests.

  The young woman regarded her callers with vague wonderment, then said in a soft little voice, “We’re in meditation, Mrs. McEye.”

  “Oh?” Mrs. McEye made a futile effort to peer around the caftan. “Well, I wasn’t informed about it, Mrs. Langfeld. And we had arranged—”

  Gwen Langfeld pressed an admonishing forefinger to her lips and slipped through the door, drawing it shut behind her. “If we must, Mrs. McEye.”

  Mrs. McEye looked relieved. “Thank you. This is Mrs. Lloyd, Miss Margaret’s new secretary. And Lloyd, who’s replacing Wilson.”

  By now the almost legendary Wilson, Mike thought.

  The moonface turned up to get a proper view of Mrs. Lloyd then briefly took in Lloyd. The luck of the genetic draw, Mike thought. Pure Durie stock but without the least sign of the distinctive Durie nose and eyes. Gwen Langfeld said gravely, “They appear quite suitable, Mrs. McEye. Now if you don’t mind—”

  “Of course not, Mrs. Langfeld. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  “No, I should have told you about the gathering.” Gwen Langfeld turned the doorknob, then released it. “But then you don’t know about Peters, do you? That he’s sharing meditation with us?”

  Mrs. McEye couldn’t seem to grasp this. “Our Peters? The houseman?”

  “Yes. When I called your office for someone to arrange the furniture Nugent sent him up. And he seemed so much interested in the meditative process when I explained it that I invited him to share it.”

  “To share it,” Mrs. McEye echoed feebly. “But he is on duty, ma’am, and might be needed. If you don’t mind telling him now—”

  “In a while,” said Gwen Langfeld, and this time opened the door to its necessary minimum and disappeared behind it.

  Mrs. McEye, a pillar of salt, remained facing the door. Then there were signs of life. She raised an arm and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. And once again, Mike thought, the best thing for those present to say is absolutely nothing. After all, according to the rule book none of this had really happened.

  The face Mrs. McEye finally turned to her charges suggested that none of it had. She glanced at her watch. “Nearly ten,” she said, “and Miss Margaret expects us at ten sharp. One never keeps Miss Margaret waiting, so let’s move right along.”

  Really the final lap, Mike thought, when, having circumnavigated the rectangle of hallways they now for the second time made their way down East Hall, past Craig and Jocelyn Durie’s apartment to what shaped up as the most significant door of all.

  Mrs. McEye knocked, the door was opened by a stalwart, middle-aged blonde who motioned them in, they entered, and there in the center of the brightly sunlit room, seated in a low-backed armchair, sat a woman smiling in their direction. She was small and slight, with snowy hair in a mannish cut and with those Durie facial characteristics shaped here to greatest advantage. Never mind that fold of aging flesh at the throat or the lack of focus in the gray eyes, Mike thought, Margaret Durie was a strikingly beautiful woman. In her youth she must have been an absolute heart-stopper.

  “Mrs. Lloyd, ma’am,” said Mrs. McEye. “And Lloyd.”

  Margaret Durie’s head shifted a little in the direction of the voice. “Good-morning, Mrs. Lloyd.”

  “Good-morning, ma’am.”

  “And,” said Margaret Durie, “good-morning to you, Lloyd.” It sounded almost teasing.

  “Good-morning,” Mike said. “Miss Durie.”

  “And now, Mrs. McEye,” said Margaret Durie, “you and Lloyd may go. And Hegnauer.”

  The stalwart blonde immediately moved toward the door. Mrs. McEye did not. “But I thought, Miss Durie—”

  “Yes. But you’re not needed, Mrs. McEye.”

  Mike hung back, for what reason he didn’t know, and Mrs. McEye started him on his way with a poke in the spine. In the corridor he said to her, “What happens in there now? An introductory session?”

  “I really don’t know. What I do know, Lloyd, is that at eleven you’re to meet with Wilson and a Mr. Sidney Levine at the garage. All procedures will be explained to you there.”

  “A Mr. Sidney Levine?”

  “The cars are kept in a public garage on Third Avenue. He’s the owner. And he and Wilson are going out of their way to meet with you, so be on time. You can start unpacking in your apartment now, but do watch the clock. After you’ve gotten all necessary instructions about the cars, you’re free for the day. As Mrs. Lloyd will be when Miss Margaret dismisses her. And remember tomorrow morning, the arrangements with Hale & Hale for your outfitting.”

  “First thing after breakfast,” Mike said. “And talking about breakfast—”

  At four in the morning in the kitchen of the farm, after not much of a night’s sleep, he and Amy had managed to get down some coffee and toast, and the emptiness in his innards was making itself felt.

  “Mabry’s on duty in the kitchen,” said Mrs. McEye. “The cook. He’ll attend to you. In that case, take the service elevator to the basement, then walk straight through to the kitchen.”

  “Thank you. Do you have any idea how long Mrs. Lloyd’ll be in there?”

  “Lloyd, the sooner you get it into your head—”

  “Of course. Mrs. Lloyd is responsible to Miss Margaret, not me. Technically we are married when off duty, not otherwise.”

  M
rs. McEye grimaced. “And since you have gotten that much into your head, it would help if you now got it into your system, so to speak. Mr. McEye and I were a couple-in-service so, believe me, I do know the problem. A matter of adjustment. And the quicker the adjustment, the better.”

  “I’m on my way to it now,” Mike assured her solemnly.

  Mrs. McEye showed those tiny, yellowed teeth in a smile. “The garage at eleven. Straight down to Third Avenue, and it’s on the corner there. And Lloyd.”

  “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Lloyd is not really alone in a lion’s den right now. As a matter of fact, she may be having a rather pleasant time of it.”

  Which, Mike reflected on his way down to the basement in the elevator, still didn’t ease his guilty feeling that he, a Daniel, had somehow slid to safety between the bars of the lion’s cage leaving Mrs. Daniel to cope. And that he was on his way to nourishment while she, a hearty trencherperson, would have to abide with hunger pangs until the lion—no, make that lioness—was in a mood to release her.

  How much of a lioness? Well, judging by that shoulders-back posture and the suggestion of steel behind that sweetly modulated voice, enough. And from the bits and pieces picked up during that tour of the second floor, it was obvious that Margaret Durie, as sister, as aunt, as doyenne of the household, had a lot of people devoting a lot of thought to her well-being. A beautiful young girl blinded for life just as she was entering womanhood. And, no fool she—one look at her told you that—she’d know just how to exercise the tyranny of the handicapped.

  A delicate flower, said chilling Jocelyn Durie. A tough one, said handsome Dorothy Durie in her Sunday homily. And one way or the other, said wisdom, she’d get exactly what she wanted from anyone in her orbit.

  And that room, Mike thought, as the elevator trundled basementward, what was there about it? He narrowed his eyes trying to see past the image of the old lady in the low-backed armchair and suddenly recognized what it was. Not Federal, not traditional, not anything seen in any other Durie apartment. Art Deco, for God’s sake. Right out of all those Fred and Ginger movies. The obtrusive curves of the glossy white furniture. Chromium trim. Tubular chairs. White carpeting. The whole thing as purely and extravagantly Art Deco as the spire of the Chrysler Building.

  And for someone who couldn’t even see it?

  The elevator hit bottom with a small thump.

  There was a slender cane leaning against the arm of Margaret Durie’s chair, ebony black, tipped with silver, and with a mother-of-pearl knob. Margaret Durie took it in hand, reached out, and pressed its tip into the carpet.

  “Stand there, Lloyd.”

  Amy followed orders with a feeling that, really, treading on this snowy-white expanse of carpet she should be doing it shoeless. That Durie face now seen close up revealed a fine web of wrinkles at the corners of the unseeing eyes and on the upper lip, a mesh of them taking the smoothness out of the cheeks. The facial makeup was curious, the lips too brightly red, a circular patch of rouge imprinted on each cheekbone. Still, Amy thought, this was a remarkably beautiful woman.

  The tip of the cane moved, touched Amy’s shoe and was withdrawn. “Some advice, Lloyd,” said Margaret Durie. “Always walk firmly in my presence. I’ll never be put off by good firm footsteps, only by furtive sounds. That doesn’t mean thumping around to indicate where you are. I’ll know where you are. Despite my age, Lloyd—I am seventy years old—I have extraordinarily acute auditory and tactile senses. Compensatory. Do you know what all that means?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What does it mean, Lloyd?”

  “Well, that as compensation for your—your blindness, you’ve developed an acute sense of hearing and touch. Ma’am.”

  “Very good indeed, Lloyd. But learn not to stammer when referring to my blindness. It always conveys to me—I don’t pretend to speak for all blind souls on earth—that one is indicating guilt for not sharing another’s misfortune. That is foolish, don’t you think? You wouldn’t want to share it if offered the opportunity, would you?”

  “I—well, no, ma’am.”

  “Very sensible. And it leads me to warn you about those back stairs you may use at times. They can be deadly dangerous if you’re in a flighty mood running down them. Detachment of both retinas was the price I paid for that mood, Lloyd. And where sometimes the operation to repair this may succeed, sometimes it may not. So always keep a hand on the rail when you use that staircase, Lloyd. More to the immediate point, I prefer to speak bluntly, whatever the subject, and I want to be spoken to bluntly. I regard any other kind of communication as verbal tiptoeing. Let’s have none of it.”

  Easy for you to live by, ma’am, Amy thought; perhaps not so easy for the likes of me. Try bluntness at the wrong moment, and the next thing you have your head handed to you on a platter. Poor Mike had undergone a couple of such wrong moments with the McEye, each time giving his ever-loving wife the feeling that her stomach had been abruptly dislocated.

  “Now, Lloyd.” Margaret Durie gave evidence that the cane was not needed for support by rising effortlessly from her chair. She held out an arm, fingers extended. “Take my hand and place it on your shoulder. No, no, don’t take it as if you’re preparing to clamp handcuffs on it. That way. Yes.”

  The slender fingers moved lightly along Amy’s shoulders as if determining their span, then were withdrawn. “You are tall, aren’t you, Lloyd?” There was satisfaction in the voice. “Does that make you feel any the less feminine? Truthfully.”

  “Truthfully no,” Amy said.

  “Because your husband is even taller than you? And well set up?”

  As if it’s any of your business, ma’am, Amy thought. “He is well set up, ma’am. But not taller than I am.”

  “Oh? A man of firm self-assurance, I’d say. Is he?”

  This could be a trap, Amy thought. She said cautiously, “He is very mature, ma’am.”

  “A pretty tribute, Lloyd, if delusory. No male, however he may huff and puff, ever attains true maturity.” The fingers fluttered, dismissing the subject. “Now seat yourself there.” The fingers fluttered in the direction of the low-backed armchair.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Sit down, Lloyd. In that chair.”

  Amy gingerly sat down on the edge of the chair.

  “Let me explain something, Lloyd,” said Margaret Durie. “Before my blindness I demonstrated talent as an artist. Authentic talent. Do you recognize the name John Singer Sargent?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ve seen—”

  “What is relevant, Lloyd, is that when Mr. Sargent was shown a few of my youthful efforts he remarked that I might have more than an innocent flair for art, I might actually have a true talent, the kind to be nurtured by proper instruction. En passant, he brought up the name of Mary Cassatt and her youthful demonstration of talent, a glorious compliment I was then too young to appreciate. Have you also heard of her?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How pleasing. Not only bright, but with at least a smattering of culture.”

  What made this a little less offensive, Amy found, was that her condescending majesty did sound pleased.

  “What I’m getting at,” said majesty, “is that when I reached age seventeen and the talent remained quite exceptional I was given instruction by an artist who had been one of Mr. Sargent’s protégés. An instructor who demanded both talent and a passionate dedication to art. When I demonstrated both it became evident that, in my turn, I would become his protégée. This should make clear to you, Lloyd, that I may have been on my way to becoming a Mary Cassatt or, considering the period, a Georgia O’Keeffe. Another name familiar to you?”

  “Yes, it is,” Amy said apologetically.

  “I am impressed. But the point is that while my eyes are dead my mind is not. Given the necessary clues, I recreate a vivid world in that mind. The fingertips provide those clues. I trust you won’t object to my learning your features through those fingertips.”

  “
Learning my features?”

  “Seeing them through touch, Lloyd.” A hint of impatience there. “Drawing a mental picture of you that way. Now just guide my hand to your forehead. That’s right. You do learn quickly, don’t you?”

  What she was learning quickly, Amy thought, was that the darkly handsome, tousle-haired Dorothy Durie had something there when she warned against pitying her old Aunt Margaret. A tough old birdie, auntie, a falcon permanently blinded, but a falcon to the bitter end.

  Margaret Durie stood behind her, a hand resting on each of her shoulders. “Sit straight, Lloyd. But at your ease.”

  Amy shifted a little to indicate, untruthfully, that she was at her ease. She closed her eyes as those fingertips met in the center of her forehead, then parted and traced the outlines of forehead, eyelids, cheekbones, and the line of the nose. A not unpleasant sensation really, but a little creepy in a way. An insinuating feathery searching, which, if you wanted to let your thoughts ramble off in that direction, hinted at the sensuous. Let them ramble far enough and you might nervously wonder if Ma’am here, never mind her age and condition, didn’t have Sapphic inclinations.

  Didn’t have? Observe that the room had been cleared of all other company. Observe that it was the campiest Art Deco kind of room. And, Amy thought with mounting tension, if those fingers worked their way down to check Mrs. Lloyd’s brassiere size, Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd would be giving up this employment any minute now.

  She went rigid as the fingertips moved along her jaw to her throat and then, not fingertips alone but the whole hand cupped the throat. Under the pressure Amy gulped, and the hand was instantly removed.

  “There now,” said Margaret Durie. She touched her subject’s ear, then surprisingly tweaked it. “The ordeal is over. But what about your coloring? Your hair?”

  “Auburn,” Amy said. It came out as a croak of relief. But because that tweak of the ear had been no grope at all, only a display of goodwill, she felt an amendment was due. “Actually, it’s quite red. Natural red. Ma’am.”