The Beaufort Sisters

by Jon Cleary

  ‘Is that a Titian?’

  ‘Yes. My father bought it as an investment, but now he loves it for itself.’

  ‘He has some beautiful things here.’

  ‘I’ll tell him.’ He had a better voice than his father, soft and educated. He was good-looking, too, in a quiet, unobtrusive way. ‘He likes his possessions to be appreciated.’

  ‘Possessions?’

  He smiled as he opened the front door. ‘He is jealously proud of them, Mrs Minett. How else do people like us make an impression on people like you?’

  He walked down the steps with her, handed her into the car. Then he nodded at George. ‘Goodbye, Mr Biff. You must forgive my father his prejudices. He was brought up in a district where every ethnic group hated each other.’

  George had never heard the word ethnic, but he knew all about prejudice. ‘Don’t worry me, Mr Gentleman. Down South us niggers never had any time for wops.’

  He got into the car and Margaret looked out at the still smiling Philip Gentleman. ‘I shan’t apologize for George. He’s been ticking our family off for years. Where did you go to school?’

  ‘London School of Economics.’ He continued to smile, but now it was fixed. ‘None of our better colleges wanted me. I was never sure whether it was because I was a wop or a Gentleman. Goodbye, Mrs Minett.’

  7

  ‘Your goddam father put you up to this!’

  ‘My father knows nothing about it. The only help I got was from Magnus – he helped me raise the money. I understand that all the collateral you had in the land deal was $25,000 of your own money. You did very well to raise a million on a stake like that. You must have waved your Beaufort connections pretty high.’

  They were in her bedroom, the door shut. She had waited until the children were asleep in the nursery and the nurse had gone downstairs to her supper in the servants’ wing on the far side of the house. Rich though the Beauforts were, Edith had taught her daughters middle-class values: never give the servants something to talk about if it could be avoided. They would be talking now if they could hear Frank.

  ‘What else was I getting out of my fucking Beaufort connections? No fucking, that’s for sure – ’

  She hated that sort of language: it insulted her as much as if he had spat in her face. And he knew it: he kept on at her until she suddenly shouted at him. ‘Stop it, for God’s sake! Try and talk like a civilized person – ’

  ‘Oh Jesus!’ He sat down on the bed in which he had not been welcome for so many months. ‘You cut a man’s balls out and you talk about being civilized!’

  ‘If I cut them out, you deserved it. You were playing even more dirty than I thought – you were trying to take either me or Daddy for an extra $150,000. What were you going to do with it?’

  ‘Buy us another house.’

  She didn’t know whether to believe him or not; for a moment she was nonplussed. She didn’t want expressions of love, any attempt at reconciliation: she had gone too far from him ever to want to go back. Then the comedy of his remark hit her: he was going to buy a house for them with her, or her father’s, money. So she ignored his answer and waved the legal note at him.

  ‘I’m your creditor. I’ll give you the land and you can sell it for whatever you can get for it. In return you give me the quiet, no-fuss divorce I asked for. And you get out of Kansas City, right out of Missouri. Even if you have to sell the land at a loss, you should get something over half a million for it. That’s more money than you would have made without your Beaufort connections.’

  He stared at her, hating her: the worst of it is, she thought, I deserve it. ‘What about the kids?’ he asked finally.

  ‘They stay with me. They’re young – they won’t even miss you after a year or two.’

  ‘Not even access, eh?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I could do a Tim Davoren – take them with me. Disappear.’

  Fear stabbed her; but it did not show. ‘Not two of them, especially so young. You’d be found. Sell the land, Frank, take the money and go.’

  ‘It might take time.’

  She shook her head, determined to be rid of him: hating herself as much as hating him. But he had to go. ‘Turn it over to a real estate broker. But I want you gone within twenty-four hours. I don’t care where you go, just so long as you are miles away and out of Missouri. I’ve looked up the divorce laws for this State. If you are absent for longer than a year. I can sue you.’

  ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head with slow, continuous emphasis. ‘I’m not giving up the kids.’

  ‘Then I’ll stop the cheque and you can take your chances with Mr Gentleman and his partners.’

  He attempted a last show of defiance: ‘Then we’ll go to court and you’ll get all the dirt you’re asking for.’

  ‘That’s where I’ll have to take my chances,’ she said. ‘But you’ll still have to face the men from Chicago.’

  He sat staring at her, shoulders hunched, hands spread out on the bed on either side of him. At last he stood up, sighed heavily. ‘I really loved you. Once.’

  He went out, closing the door quietly behind him. She heard him go down the hall and into the nursery, but she didn’t follow him. She knew she could trust him with the children.

  8

  The body of Frank Minett was found next morning in his car beside the thirteenth tee on the golf course of the Kansas City Country Club. Death was by a gunshot wound to the right temple; the gun, still clutched in his hand, had been stolen from a drawer in the security gatehouse on his father-in-law’s estate. He left no suicide note and the reason for his death was known only to a select few. And of those all but one, his wife, had only educated guesses.

  Chapter Six

  Margaret

  1

  Frank was buried quietly with no fuss; his funeral got much less space than a Minett-Beaufort divorce would have done. Margaret wept beside the grave. They were not crocodile tears but genuine: now that he was dead, and because of the manner of his death, she at last felt sorry for Frank. She had not meant to drive him so far; indeed, it had never occurred to her that he would even contemplate suicide. She was burdened with guilt, but there was also genuine sorrow. She made a beautifully sad figure beside the grave, but she was unaware of it.

  Next day Jack Minett came to see her. He looked suddenly aged: the pain of grief and shock crippled the broad dark face. ‘Why did he do it, Meg? His mother will never get over it. She thinks his soul is damned forever.’

  ‘I don’t know why he did it, Mr Minett. Things weren’t too happy between us – ’

  ‘He never said anything.’

  ‘We kept it to ourselves. My parents didn’t know. There were other things troubling him – he was in debt – ’

  ‘Couldn’t you have helped him there?’

  ‘He wanted more money than I could raise without going to my father. I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘You should’ve gone to him, your father, I mean. If it meant saving Frank’s life – ’

  Faintly, from the back of the house, came the sound of a radio: Kay Starr was spinning the Wheel of Fortune. Margaret reached for the bell to call one of the servants, have them turn down the radio. Then she changed her mind, turned a deaf ear to the song. There would be a lot in the future to which she would have to turn a deaf ear.

  ‘Mr Minett, I didn’t know he was going to commit suicide. Don’t you think I’d have gone to my father if I’d known that?’ She told herself she would have done just that; but there would always be the nagging doubt. She had felt differently towards him that last night from what she felt now. Guilt was a breath blowing on some dead ashes. ‘If only he’d left a note, we’d have known …’

  ‘Well, don’t blame yourself. Things go wrong.’ He looked around the living-room; he had never felt at home in this house when he visited it. ‘Maybe he should never have asked you to marry him.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Once a month after that she took the children ove
r to the Minett home in Johnson County. Jack and Francesca Minett showed no desire to visit her at Beaufort Park and she never encouraged them. The children were still too young to form any attachment to their Minett grandparents and Margaret knew the Minetts would never become possessive towards them. The least she could do was give them access to the children.

  Nina had not come home for the funeral, but she wrote a long letter of condolence to Margaret. Then she suggested that Margaret should bring the children to Europe: Come over here and live with me for a year. You need a break from that atmosphere at home. I’m moving on to Rome and taking a villa there …

  Margaret wrote back and said she would think about it; but she would not come immediately: Mother is still reeling from the shock of Frank’s death. First, Tim’s and Michael’s disappearance; then this tragedy. I don’t think it ever entered her head that you and I would be anything but gloriously, blissfully happy. I must stay here, at least for a few more months …

  ‘I think we should wear mourning for three months,’ Edith said.

  ‘Mother, you don’t have to – Frank wouldn’t have expected it.’

  ‘Darling, I’m doing it for you. And for him, too, of course.’ But the last sounded like an afterthought, a polite bow to custom. Edith would never understand why her son-in-law had visited such grief and shock on her daughter and grandchildren. And on herself. She had begun to wonder if there was some forgotten sin in her past life that merited all the punishment God was giving her. ‘Your father has his business to attend to. And there will be the election campaign. Thank God he has that to take his mind off what has happened to you.’

  ‘I’m glad for him,’ said Margaret and managed not to sound sarcastic.

  Sally had flown home for the funeral, then returned to Vassar the next day. Now she came home for Easter, bringing a friend with her. Cindy Drake was a small, pretty girl, quiet and almost too feminine, the very opposite of the bouncing Sally.

  ‘We have nothing in common except a crush on our English prof,’ said Sally as Margaret drove them home from the airport. And we both love Europe. Cindy’s father is with the State Department. He’s one of Dean Acheson’s pet diplomats.’

  ‘I shouldn’t mention that to Daddy. Has she warned you about our father, Cindy?’

  Cindy smiled shyly. ‘My mother is a Republican, too. When we were at the embassy in Paris she had to clear everything with Dad before she spoke.’

  ‘Fortunately we don’t have to do that with Daddy,’ said Sally. ‘Though he wishes we would.’

  Another rebel, thought Margaret. And wondered what problems Sally was going to raise for herself and their father.

  Lucas was still stiff-necked in his attitudes; he knew what was best for himself, his family and America. He was not very concerned with what was best for the world, just so long as America was pre-eminent in it and could set the standards. The Beaufort empire within the United States was doing well; the Cattle Company had already almost recovered from the devastation of last year’s flood. Beaufort Oil was now well established in Abu Sadar, had outlets in Britain and was in partnership with local companies in France, Germany and Holland. Beaufort Trust money was being invested overseas in Australia, South Africa and certain South American countries which were governed by the more reliable dictators. Lucas still indulged his xenophobia, but one didn’t have to carry it to ridiculous lengths.

  Despite his obstinate attitudes, he had softened; or anyway was quieter in expounding them. He still blamed himself for what had happened to Nina; he would never forgive himself but he could never confess it to her. He had a recurring nightmare that, when he was dead, Tim would return and tell only half the story, that he had been paid to disappear by Lucas. Now he had a further worry: he knew that, in some way, he had helped ruin Margaret’s life. He had never been close enough to her to ask her to confide in him; and he blamed himself for having failed, too, in that direction. But it was too late for him to change. He could only hope to avoid mistakes with his two younger daughters.

  ‘You girls have a wonderful life ahead of you. When we elect General Eisenhower President in November, there will be a whole new America opening up. Is your father a career officer, Cindy?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Beaufort.’

  ‘Then he’ll appreciate working under a President who knows how to run things properly. He must have been a very disturbed man these past few years.’

  It was Easter Sunday and they had all come back from the morning service at St Andrew’s Episcopal Church. They were sitting out on the wide back porch while George Biff and two of the maids served morning coffee. No one had yet changed into casual clothes and, with the servants hovering around, the table set with a lace cloth, a passing stranger might have been forgiven for thinking that time had slipped back into a more gracious era. The same stranger might have also been forgiven for wondering, if such a scene could take place in President Truman’s day, what elegant graciousness must lie ahead under President Eisenhower.

  ‘I liked Reverend Luckson’s sermon on idealism.’ Edith, like Margaret, was dressed in dark clothes; though she had been relieved when Margaret had vetoed any idea that they should go as far as wearing plain black. ‘We should have more of that.’

  ‘Idealism is what you talk about on Sundays,’ said Lucas, who had thought the Reverend Luckson could have done with a course in common sense. ‘Practicality is what gets you through the other six days of the week. Would your father agree with that, Cindy?’

  ‘Her father probably doesn’t have time to be idealistic,’ said Sally. ‘He has to be watching out for Senator McCarthy.’

  ‘Your father isn’t on the Senator’s list, is he?’ Lucas looked startled, wondering what Vassar had sent home this time.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Cindy. ‘Mother wouldn’t have married him if he was even remotely sympathetic to Communism. Mother is a staunch Republican, though I’m afraid she is more for Senator Taft than for General Eisenhower.’

  Lucas relaxed. ‘Either is better than what we have. As I said, you’re very fortunate girls. It’s a pity you aren’t old enough to vote, so that you could claim some credit for putting America on the right road.’

  ‘I think I’ll vote for Henry Miller when I grow up,’ said Prue, all dressed up but for her shoes, which she had kicked off.

  ‘What party does he stand for?’ asked her father.

  ‘The Capricornia Party,’ said Margaret.

  ‘Capri – ? You don’t mean the Tropic of Capricorn Miller?’ Lucas looked in horror at his youngest daughter. Vassar was bad enough but the Barstow School seemed worse, far worse. ‘Are you reading that at school?’

  ‘Of course not, Daddy.’ Prue had never been afraid of her father; she might not be his favourite but she had her own way of handling him. ‘I’ve been reading it here at home.’

  ‘Where on earth did you get it?’ her mother demanded.

  ‘In the mail. In a plain brown wrapper. It was advertised in Esquire and I wrote off for it.’

  ‘What was she doing reading Esquire?’ Lucas turned on Edith, who evidently couldn’t run a clean house.

  ‘How on earth do I know? Darling – ’ Edith looked at her youngest. ‘You had better give me Mr Miller’s book.’

  ‘Oh, let her keep it,’ said Sally. ‘You’re not corrupted by it, are you, Prue?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Prue. ‘I hope so.’

  During this Margaret had been observing Cindy Drake. The girl, demure as a convent novice, hardly took her eyes off Sally except when someone spoke directly to her. Occasionally Sally would look towards her and smile, but Cindy’s answer would only be in her eyes, a secret smile that one had to watch closely to catch. Margaret, disturbed at the thought that suddenly entered her mind, mentally shook her head. She had to be wrong in what she was thinking.

  ‘Time I was getting back to the children.’ She stood up. ‘What are you doing the rest of the day, Sally?’

  ‘Oh, we have plans,’ said Sall
y lightly, after a glance at Cindy.

  ‘May I come over and see the kids?’ said Prue.

  ‘Children,’ said Edith. ‘Kids are what goats have. Go and get me Mr Miller’s book first.’

  ‘I lent it to Sue Harrap.’

  ‘Oh good heavens, what will Helen Harrap think of me!’

  ‘You’d better call her,’ said Lucas. ‘Tell her our youngest daughter is disseminating obscene literature.’

  ‘Am I?’ said Prue, unworried, beaming with braced teeth at her father. ‘That sounds really criminal.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Margaret and took her youngest sister off towards the other house.

  As they crossed the lawns Prue said, ‘Do you like Cindy?’

  Her tone was too innocent, even for an eleven-year-old: Margaret looked at her warily. ‘She seems nice enough.’

  ‘She never says much. Unless you ask her.’

  ‘You could take some lessons from her.’

  ‘Don’t start talking like a mother, even if you are one. I caught them kissing last night.’

  ‘Who?’ But she knew.

  ‘Who do you think? Sally and Cindy. Real kissing, too. Do you think they’re lesbians?’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ She stopped suddenly beside the spaced line of shrubs that curved round the house. Azaleas bloomed red and pink, syringa was a creamy-white hoar frost; early spring hung in the air like an innocence itself. You’re not corrupted, are you? Sally had said. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s a dreadful thing to say about Sally.’

  Prue looked unrepentant. ‘I think it might be true. I don’t miss much, you said that yourself.’

  ‘Well, you should! Miss things, I mean. You’re too damned watchful. Don’t you dare mention this – ’