The Beaufort Sisters

by Jon Cleary

  ‘I shan’t make myself conspicuous. I’ll fill in my time so that, if nothing else, I’ll look busy. But most of all I’ll concentrate on being a father. Just to make sure Michael doesn’t grow up in my image.’

  ‘Whose image do you want for him?’

  ‘Not your father’s.’ He smiled, but still managed to sound good-humoured.

  She felt bewildered, first by Margaret’s outburst, now by this casual declaration by Tim that he was throwing in the towel. True, she had orginally wanted him to become part of the family, though at the time she had not really appreciated how much that surrendering of his independence would mean to him. But in the three years they had been married she had come to see his point, to share his determination to be his own man and not her father’s. He was not becoming her father’s man now. What was worse, he was settling for being her man, letting her money keep him. Her disappointment in him sickened her, yet she knew that she was the one who had planted the seed of corruption.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ He put out a hand, took hers. ‘Things won’t change between us.’

  ‘But – ’ She gestured helplessly. Michael called Mummy! across the still afternoon, but she didn’t hear him ‘Why all of a sudden – like this?’

  ‘Not all of a sudden. It’s been creeping up on me, ever since – ’ He bounced the ball in his hand, as if he were weighing time. ‘Ever since we were flooded out, I suppose. A lot went down the river that day, though I don’t think I realized how much till a long time later.’

  Then Sally and Prue, dragging him between them while he squealed with laughter, brought Michael across to them. Red-faced and sweating, he rushed at his father, was swept up into the air by Tim. A week ago, even yesterday, Nina would have smiled benevolently at the sight of her husband and son so delighted in each other’s company; now she felt jealous, wished again, with a longing that was almost a physical ache, for another child. Both husband and son smiled at her and, jealousy twisting her vision, it seemed to her that they both looked triumphant.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ Sally said. ‘President Truman has asked Daddy to go to Washington, chair some sort of committee. Daddy’s having a stroke.’

  ‘Mother’s already packing,’ said Prue.

  ‘Let’s go over and enjoy the fun,’ said Tim and, still carrying Michael, taking Prue by the hand, set off towards the big house without looking to see if Nina was following him. But she did, linking her arm in Sally’s.

  Lucas was shouting loud enough to be heard in Washington if the President had his ear turned their way. ‘He’s doing it to humiliate me! He could have picked a dozen men, but he had to pick me! Will I take the job? Of course I will! It’s a man’s duty when Washington calls. Why the hell does it always have to be a Democrat who does the calling?’

  ‘Relax, sweetheart. How long shall we be there? Shall we live in a hotel or take an apartment? We can’t take you girls, of course – ’

  ‘Great!’ said the girls, even Margaret. ‘God, Washington would be just too awful!’

  ‘We can’t leave them here on their own,’ said Lucas. ‘I’ll call that feller and tell him I can’t take the job.’

  ‘They can stay with us,’ said Nina, and Tim nodded. ‘Washington in summer is dreadful.’

  ‘That’s why he asked me!’ Lucas was torn between patriotism, pride and Republicanism. Brought up by a father who had believed that bi-partisanism was the refuge of political cowards, he had none the less felt considerably out of things. Washington had become a nest of Democrats, socialist vipers who were poisoning the country. He had a moral duty to go there and do what he could to stop the rot. ‘He won’t be there, he’ll be down in Florida or somewhere, gallivanting around in one of those dreadful sports shirts he wears.’

  ‘You can wear your grey flannel suit all the time, to make up for him,’ said Edith. ‘You’re being honoured. You should look at it that way.’

  ‘That’s one of the drawbacks of the American system, Lucas old chap,’ said Tim. ‘If you were in England, they’d give you a title and you wouldn’t have to be chairman of anything. Sir Lucas Beaufort. It has an English ring to it.’

  Lucas’ retort was a loud snort. Edith considered, then beamed: she would not have minded being Lady Beaufort. Then, more practical, she said, ‘We’d better decide what you girls are going to do for the summer. Mr Truman has ruined your father’s summer. There’s no need for yours to be spoiled.’

  ‘I thought we might go up to Minnesota, hire a place on one of the lakes,’ Nina said. ‘We could rent a place big enough for all of us.’

  ‘No,’ said Lucas. ‘I’m not having you go up there unprotected.’

  ‘We’d take George,’ said Sally. ‘And there’d be Tim.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Tim. ‘I just scraped into the security force there.’

  ‘No,’ said Lucas, unimpressed by either of the nominated security guards. ‘If you want somewhere cool, there are other places. Where an eye can be kept on you all. We’re well-known now outside Missouri. People would recognize our name and there’s no knowing whom you’d attract. Crime is on the increase. Socialism breeds crime,’ he added, getting in a swipe at the absent Mr Truman.

  ‘The Davoren name isn’t well-known,’ said Tim. ‘We could be the Davoren family. Unless the girls object?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said the girls. ‘Anything but Beauforts.’

  Lucas looked at the deserters, then at Tim. ‘How long were you planning to take off?’

  ‘A month, six weeks. I’ll call the office every day, but they won’t miss me.’

  The two men exchanged looks: swords were in scabbards, but a glint of steel showed from either side.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Lucas. ‘We can’t have a member of the family taking six weeks off, when the most any other executive gets is two weeks. One week at your level.’

  Nina waited for Tim to argue. But all he did, after a moment of sitting very still, was to shrug. ‘All right, Lucas, if you feel I must set an example. One week.’

  ‘But that will spoil our vacation!’ Then Nina saw that this was a bigger battle between her father and her husband than was apparent on the surface; her father had declared war. She looked at her mother for support, but Edith was suddenly rigid and blind with tact. She turned back to Tim. ‘Oh, all right. But you can fly up each weekend.’

  ‘You can go to Montana,’ said Lucas. ‘The Cattle Company has bought a ranch up there on the Yellowstone River. You’ll have the ranch staff to look after you.’

  ‘Oh yes!’ said Sally and Prue, who welcomed anywhere as an escape.

  ‘I’m not going,’ said Margaret, who had said almost nothing up till now. ‘I’m taking a summer course at college.’

  ‘You can’t stay here on your own,’ said Edith, feeling no need to be tactful with an unmarried daughter.

  ‘Why not? The servants will be here. And I’ll have Frank and Tim to see I don’t come to any harm – ’

  ‘Hah-hah,’ said Sally.

  Margaret ignored her. ‘You can’t object, Daddy, if I want to educate myself further instead of taking a vacation.’

  ‘You might have mentioned it to us,’ said Lucas. ‘Or is this a sudden decision?’

  ‘Frank suggested it a month ago. It will help me at Vassar when I transfer there.’

  Is she avoiding looking at me, Nina wondered, or am I imagining it? But it was none of her concern: she was not her sister’s keeper. She had her own worries, trying to keep the peace not only between her father and Tim but between herself and Tim. She had to resist the urge to declare war on him because of his casual surrender to her father. She was ready to rage at all men for their weaknesses.

  She picked up Michael just as he was about to pull over one of his grandmother’s Sèvres vases; Edith had been smiling indulgently at him, her heart choking her behind her teeth. ‘We’d better go home before Michael wrecks the place.’

  ‘A good idea,’ said Tim, rising from his chair as if a spring had b
itten him. Then added, already on his way out of the room, ‘One wrecker is enough.’

  As they went back to their own house Nina said, ‘What was that last remark meant to mean? Who’s the other wrecker?’

  ‘Go back and ask your father.’

  Tornadoes rolled across Missouri during the next couple of weeks though none hit Kansas City. But the atmosphere at Beaufort Park had its own storms; the individual presences of Tim and Lucas met like warm and cold fronts. Nina and Edith watched for storm warnings while they made out lists of what to take to Montana and Washington. Edith prepared as if Lucas had been made ambassador to some country where he and she would be foreigners; in the capital of the United States she would not let America down. Nina contented herself with lists of exotic foods that Tim was to bring up each Friday: she was convinced that Montanans ate nothing but T-bone steaks and French fries.

  Lucas and Edith finally went off to Washington, where Lucas was surprised and mollified to find out just how much the Beaufort name meant. President Truman, in a blue summer-weight suit, white shirt and plain blue tie, was still in Washington and greeted Lucas like an old friend. Or an old foe who had seen the error of his ways and couldn’t resist flattery. But he didn’t flatter Lucas to his face, being too wise a politician: you only did that with the party faithful. Lucas was to be chairman of a committee to look into new banking regulations.

  ‘They were all expecting me to give the job to one of those Eastern fellers,’ said the President. ‘Rockefeller or one of them. But I said I wanted someone from back home and you were the first name came to mind.’

  ‘I’m honoured, Mr President,’ said Lucas, overcome by the Oval Office if not its occupant. He wondered why it had never occurred to him to run for the Presidency. ‘Really honoured.’

  ‘So am I,’ said the President with a grin. ‘Tom Pendergast always said you had the best business mind in the Middle West.’

  Lucas smiled politely, glanced at the famous sign on the President’s desk: The Buck Stops Here. It wasn’t much of a Presidential motto, but what else could you expect from an exhaberdasher?

  Nina, Michael, Sally and Prue, accompanied by George Biff, went to Montana, where no one knew the Davorens and no one genuflected to the Beauforts. The ranch was far less primitive than Nina had expected; Jim Bridger and the mountain men were long dead and the Montanans had discovered electricity, refrigeration and innerspring mattresses. They did make a fetish of T-bone steaks and French fries, but the mountain air gave all the Missourians such an appetite that anything tasted good. They swam in the cold waters of the Yellowstone and went for long walks through the ponderosa pines on the mountain slopes. It was all idyllic for Nina, particularly when Tim came up each weekend.

  ‘I hate the thought of you slaving down there in that Missouri heat.’

  ‘I’m a privileged slave. The air-conditioner in my office actually works.’

  ‘How’s Margaret? I wish she were up her with us.’

  ‘I hardly see her. Frank must be taking up her time.’

  ‘How do you fill in your time at night?’

  ‘Reading – I’m at last attempting War and Peace. And looking at Milton Berle on TV.’

  ‘Did you miss this?’

  ‘Actually, I’ve been thinking of taking up celibacy as a hobby.’

  ‘Like hell you will.’

  But later, after they had made love, she wondered why he lay awake and did not fall asleep as usual. He lay stiff and silent in the bed beside her. When she sleepily murmured what was keeping him awake, he did not answer but just put his arm under her and held her to him. She was happy enough to accept that as an answer.

  3

  Lucas and Edith returned from Washington after only a month. Lucas was careful to point out that he was not resigning from the committee because of any disagreement with it or the President; he was returning to his home solely for health reasons. Edith, who was enjoying Washington despite the heat and the fact that virtually nobody was in town, asked worriedly what was wrong with his health. He assured her there was nothing wrong with him, but she was to keep her mouth shut. He had sometimes told her to be quiet or not to say anything; he had never before told her to keep her mouth shut. She guessed something had gone wrong, seriously wrong, either politically or with business, and she recognized that, worried as he appeared, he was only trying to protect her. But she wished that, even if only occasionally, he would take her into his confidence more about matters that concerned him.

  Nina brought her sisters and Michael and George Biff back to Kansas City on the same day. It was one of those coincidences that tie knots in the web of destiny, reassure astrologers and are the despair of cynics and rationalists: there was no connecting reason why Nina and her parents should have returned home on the same day. Nina had just suddenly tired of Montana and of being separated from Tim and had packed up and left, despite the complaints of Sally and Prue who had been enjoying themselves as never before. Recurringly in the future she would wonder what would have happened if she had remained in Montana with Michael.

  She came back without warning Tim, was home in the house before she called him at the office. ‘I couldn’t take a cowboy lover, darling. I need you.’

  Even on the phone he sounded remote and when he came home half an hour later she at once saw the difference in him. He kissed her warmly, but she felt his heart wasn’t in it. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’ But he saw she didn’t believe him. He turned away, stood at the bedroom window staring across at the main house. ‘Okay, it’s the office. Things aren’t going well down there.’

  ‘Are you going to have to leave?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is that why Daddy’s come home?’

  ‘I don’t know that, either. But he wants to see me in his office at the bank tomorrow at ten.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No, you won’t. I’ll tell you all about it when I come back. This is between me and your father.’

  ‘Don’t give in to him again.’ It was a plea, but somehow it sounded like an accusation.

  He looked at her. ‘I’ll try not to, this time, But I wish you wouldn’t expect so much of me.’

  They went out to dinner, came home, went to bed and made love. He was as passionate as ever; brutally so and she welcomed it. Her only regret, which she didn’t voice, was that tonight, as every other time, he could make not her pregnant again.

  4

  Lucas was standing waiting for Tim as the latter was shown into the big office. Thaddeus Beaufort had built the bank on 11th Street and this corner office had been his; Lucas had changed nothing, not even the old prints on the walnut-panelled walls. The huge leather-topped antique desk, the leather chairs, even the old-fashioned upright telephone on the desk: Thaddeus could have come back from the grave and felt thoroughly at home. For Lucas it was a constant reminder of a past whose values, he was convinced, were truer than those of today.

  ‘We are not to be disturbed, Miss Plummer.’ He waited till his secretary had gone out and closed the door behind her. ‘You’re on time.’

  ‘Punctuality is the courtesy of kings, my mother used to tell me,’ said Tim.

  ‘It’s a good rule for businessmen, too.’

  ‘I’ll keep it in mind in future.’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to see you about. Your future.’ Lucas was not one to stare out of windows looking for the right words in an awkward situation. Instead he stared directly at Tim, as if sizing up a stranger who had come to him seeking a job. At last he said, ‘I’ve had a private investigator following you for the past month.’

  Tim kept his voice level. ‘On my business trips?’

  ‘No.’ For the first time Lucas looked as if he might be at a loss for words. A big hand moved restlessly on the desk, as if searching for something to pick up; but the desk was clear of papers and finally his hand settled on a heavy brass ruler. He picked it up, tapped it in his other hand. He looke
d like a school principal, less formidable than the hard-faced, hard-voiced executive he had been a moment ago. Uncertainty invaded him, something Tim had not expected to see. ‘You’re finished with the oil company. That was decided before I went to Washington.’

  ‘Thank you for telling me.’ Tim himself was suddenly beset by all sorts of uncertainty, doubts and fears. He felt himself beginning to sweat, though the room was air-conditioned almost to chilling point.

  ‘You are also finished as far as the family is concerned.’ Lucas waited for some comment, but Tim was now the one lost for words. Or hoped, without much hope, that silence would give him some sort of defence. ‘The private investigator reported that you have been seeing another woman while Nina has been up in Montana. Do you deny it?’

  ‘How reliable is your private eye?’ The private eye sounded flippant, though that wasn’t Tim’s intention. He knew all at once that everything was coming to an end. He had been a good soldier during the war, but now he had forgotten how to attack. Already surrendering, he said, ‘But then you employ only the best, don’t you?’

  ‘Not in your case,’ said Lucas, not meaning to be witty.

  Tim held his ground, if only for a moment: ‘Was I employed as a junior executive or a son-in-law?’

  ‘No whimsy.’ Lucas held up the brass ruler: light from the window shone on it, cold as his own eye. ‘The report has the dates and the names of motels where you met this woman.’

  ‘Does it have the name of the woman?’

  ‘No. That’s immaterial. I’m not going to bring the matter to court.’

  ‘You amaze me, Lucas.’ Tim knew he was whistling into the wind, which was blowing at gale force; but, already defeated, it was still in his nature to be whimsical. ‘I’m unfaithful to Nina and you’re the one who’s charging me with adultery. You’re like something out of the Old Testament.’

  ‘You admit you were unfaithful?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tim sighed, but said nothing further.

  ‘Do you want to tell me who the woman was?’ Lucas couldn’t resist his curiosity, like a sneak glance at some pornography.