The Beaufort Sisters

by Jon Cleary

  ‘I don’t know – I suppose it was looking at Nina when she came in to see the baby. I thought she was going to break down. I’m sure she did, but she got out of the room first. Michael would be almost seventeen now, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’ Every year he circled his only grandson’s birthday on a private calendar he kept locked in his study desk. ‘Yes, I still have an agency on retainer. But they never come up with anything.’

  ‘If ever he was found and Nina took him back, Tim I mean, would you accept him? For her sake?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said gruffly and left the room, afraid that he too could no longer contain his true feelings.

  The family went home to Kansas City. Prue, suddenly homesick, afraid of being tempted to go with them, dared not drive to Paris to wish them farewell. The summer came and went in bursts, wore itself out as a sour memory for the vintners; it was a poor year for wine, one of the worst in a long time. Prue, sour herself now, waited for Stephane to blame it on General de Gaulle; but Stephane seemed ready to write the whole year off as something best forgotten. Even her grandchild, not being male, had turned out to be non-vintage.

  Autumn came down from the north almost as a relief. The poplars in the long drive turned to gold and Prue, dispensing for the afternoon with the nurse she had engaged, went for walks, pushing the baby carriage through the crisp yellow carpet of leaves. One morning late in November she asked Guy when they would be moving to Paris.

  ‘I don’t want to spend another winter here. The house is too cold.’

  ‘Mother wants us to stay – ’

  ‘I don’t care what your mother wants. I’m talking about you and me, not her.’

  ‘Darling, be reasonable – ’

  Be reasonable: the gunpowder of so many domestic arguments. She blew up, months of irritation, frustration and disappointment exploding out of her. Guy fell back defenceless: at least, she thought, he has the decency not to go running to Mother for help. She stormed out of the house, taking the baby with her, commandeered the Citroën and took off into the gold-grey day. She drove all day, stopping occasionally on high points to sit in the car and stare out across the countryside, looking for answers that were not to be found in the topography spread out before her. France, for all its appeal, was not her territory. She had never felt so Middle Western as she did today.

  It was dark when she arrived back at the chateau. There was no sign of Guy or Stephane, but she made no enquiries of the servants as to their whereabouts. She turned Melanie over to the nurse to be bathed and fed; then she lay in her own bath, trying to make up her mind about the future. Characteristically, she accepted some of the blame for the disaster of the past year and a half: if only because of her own poor judgement of Guy, she must be blamed. She was not quite sure what was expected of a French wife; perhaps she was lacking there, too: although she could not see Stephane as a compliant wife towards the dead Count. She thought of Guy and saw him now for what he was, the ghost of his father, a shade that Stephane kept alive for her own sustenance.

  She got out of the bath, put on a robe and rang for a light supper to be served in her bedroom. Maliciously, she asked for a bottle of the estate’s 1959 wine to be sent up; if nothing else had improved during her stay here, her palate had. She ate supper, drank half the bottle of wine, then turned on the television set. It was an American luxury, television in the bedroom, that Stephane had frowned upon, but Prue had insisted on being American in her bedroom if nowhere else.

  Later she would not remember the programme she had been watching. Her mind kept wandering, wondering where Guy and Stephane were, wondering what she would do tomorrow and the day after and the weeks and months after that. Then suddenly the programme was interrupted and an announcer, face solemn, voice deep with gloom, flashed on to the screen. It took her several moments to take in what he said. She heard him say ‘The President has been shot’, and her first thought was, Oh God, they’ve succeeded at last! She had spent the day pondering the break-up of her marriage and her husband and his mother had been somewhere plotting the break-up of a regime. Then she heard the word Dallas and a moment later she knew the news was far worse than she could have imagined.

  She sat in the Jeanselme chair in the Empire-furnished room in the chateau on the banks of the Loire, listened to the French voice saying that an era of promise had come to a savagely abrupt end, and felt more American than she had ever felt in her life before. Twice in one day a region and her country had enveloped her in a mood that made her unutterably sad. She began to weep for all the promises that had died that day.

  An hour later Guy and Stephane came home. By then, still in her robe, she was downstairs in the drawing-room. ‘You heard the news?’

  ‘Yes.’ Guy sounded detached, concerned with something more important. ‘I’m sorry, if you are.’

  ‘Jesus,’ she said quietly. ‘You’re sorry if I am!’

  ‘We may never know the reason he was killed,’ said Stephane. ‘But you see? We French are not the only ones who wish our President dead – ’

  ‘It’s not the same thing! It was some insane crank – it had to be – ’

  But she saw they were unimpressed. The death of President Kennedy proved nothing other than she had judged them too harshly and unfairly. Presidents were legitimate targets; the point of view just depended on who held the weapon. She knew without asking that they had spent the day with men planning another assassination. I have a fierce row with my husband, she thought, and he goes off with his mother to talk about killing his country’s President.

  ‘I’m going home,’ she said, her voice even and quiet again. ‘To Kansas City.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ said Guy. ‘America will be in shock for a week or two. It will be better to visit your family later – ’

  ‘Don’t be dense, Guy. I’m leaving you and going home for good.’

  For the first time since coming into the room Guy lost his look of remoteness; whatever had occupied him during the day disappeared in the sudden realization that his marriage was over. He frowned and Prue marvelled at his obtuseness. Despite all the warning signs of the past months he was now in his own state of shock: she had assassinated his pride.

  Stephane, expectedly, was the first to recover. ‘Will you be taking the child with you?’

  ‘Naturally. A child’s place is with its mother. Isn’t that how you’ve always felt about Guy?’

  There was almost a glint of admiration in Stephane’s eye. She enjoyed conflict, it kept one honed to an edge. Sometimes she regretted being a woman; she knew she would have been a successful soldier. The one big disappointment of her life had been her son and she recognized now that her daughter-in-law knew it.

  ‘We could get the law to stop you taking the child out of the country.’

  ‘Perhaps. But you wouldn’t want the law asking me questions, would you? I might give them more answers than they were expecting.’ Stephane’s face hardened and suddenly Prue realized she was on very dangerous ground. She retreated from the minefield her tongue had laid: ‘Not that I would. I may not be a loyal wife, but I’m not an informer.’

  Stephane kept control of her own tongue. She respected the proprieties, one did not threaten members of one’s own family, even an in-law, with death. ‘Can we trust you to honour that promise?’

  ‘I’m a woman of honour.’ Prue, sardonic, coolly composed now she had voiced her decision, was tempted to jump to attention. ‘Stephane, you should have had your own regiment.’

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to her like that!’ For a moment Guy looked as if he might strike Prue.

  ‘That was my parting thrust,’ said Prue, glad for once of the French literary style. ‘From now on till I go tomorrow there will only be banalities.’

  She went up to her room, locking the door against Guy; he disappointed and angered her by not coming to pound on it. Crudely she wondered if he had gone instead to his mother’s bed; but though she wanted now to think the worst of him, s
he had her grudging respect for his mother. Stephane had her moral standards, even if she could find excuses for murder.

  4

  Nina came to meet Prue and the baby at the Kansas City airport in a Rolls-Royce. ‘When did you get this?’

  ‘A couple of months ago. I decided I needed something to give me a lift – I was feeling a bit down in the mouth. Does that sound extravagant?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Exactly what Meg said. But she was glad I bought black. She thinks that makes it less conspicuous. She’s very much against conspicuous consumption.’

  ‘How does Daddy feel about it?’

  ‘He humours my every whim. He’s changed. He humours all our whims now. We can do no wrong. Especially you.’

  ‘You mean my coming home?’

  ‘He couldn’t be more pleased. Are you going to tell me about it or wait till we’re all together?’

  ‘I don’t know that I’m going to tell any of you anything.’

  ‘You sound as if you’ve become as French as the French – they never tell anyone anything. You came home just in time. Don’t you think so, George? Since you’ve got both ears pinned back listening to what we’re saying.’

  George Biff, the grey in his hair most apparent now, grinned at them both in the driving mirror. ‘Once upon a time you girls shared all your secrets with me.’

  ‘Not any more, George,’ said Prue, loving the ageing black man, feeling safe as the big car took them along Ward Parkway, trembling with anticipation and relief as home slid comfortingly towards her and the baby. ‘You’re too old now to be burdened with them.’

  ‘Burdened? You mean I can’t tote ’em any more? Maybe you right. You all old enough to carry ’em yourselves now.’

  I’m home, Prue thought. From now on I speak American, think American. One thing could be said for the non-literary style: it was more difficult to be dishonest in it. Lies were more direct and, if you were sharp-eyed as she had once been and hoped to be again, more discernible.

  Chapter Twelve

  Prue

  1

  Sally married Charlie Luman in the summer of 1964. It was a big wedding and the cream of the Middle West flowed into Kansas City for it; some cream came from the East, Washington and New York, but found it wasn’t highly regarded locally and it tended to clot round the edges of the gathering. Ex-President and Mrs Truman came, at Lucas’s special behest, and won more approval from the Republicans present than the President had ever done while in office. The ceremony and the reception took place on the estate and the guests, when they had finished congratulating the bride and groom, admiring the ex-President and his lady and covertly criticizing each other’s dress, wandered around the grounds and stopped to look at the new house that had been built for the newly-weds and the one being constructed for Prue.

  ‘Lucas has got them all together again,’ said one male guest. ‘I was glad to get rid of my girls. And I’ve got only two.’

  ‘I don’t think Lucas was responsible for them all coming home,’ said Magnus. ‘I think they were just naturally homesick. It’s in the Midwest blood. Whoever gets homesick for New York or Los Angeles?’

  ‘Native-born New Yorkers or Angelenos?’

  ‘There aren’t any. They’re all either foreigners or they’re from Ohio or Iowa.’

  ‘I’m from Philadelphia originally,’ said the other man.

  ‘Do you ever get homesick?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  Prue, Nina and Margaret sat together round a table under a large umbrella and watched Sally moving among the guests, leaning on her stick but never making it too obvious. ‘I couldn’t be happier for her,’ said Margaret. ‘And for Charlie, too.’

  ‘I wish Mother were alive to see this,’ said Nina. ‘She’d have been out of her head with ecstasy. A big wedding at home at last and all of us here to enjoy it.’

  ‘You look like Mother,’ said Prue. ‘You could be her twin, except for the colour of your hair.’

  ‘I’ve noticed it, too,’ said Margaret. ‘You’re getting more and more like her as you get older. What are you now – forty? That photo in Daddy’s study was taken when Mother was forty. You look exactly like her.’

  ‘I know,’ said Nina. ‘Magnus remarked on it.’

  ‘Is he starting to court you?’

  Nina laughed. ‘Men don’t court women of forty. They take them to dinner and maybe try to seduce them, but they don’t court them.’

  ‘All right, is he taking you to dinner and trying to seduce you?’

  ‘Mind your own business. Why do you want to know anyway?’

  ‘Just idle curiosity,’ said Margaret, more than idly curious. ‘You could do much worse for each other.’

  ‘Stop match-making. You’re starting to sound like Mother.’

  Margaret got up and went away to see that everyone was being looked after. She was acting as matron of honour, a distinction that Nina, though the eldest, had gladly allowed her to assume. Prue looked after her. ‘She looks happy and content. Is she?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Nina. ‘Or maybe she’s just a better sufferer than the rest of us.’

  ‘How do she and Bruce get on?’ Prue watched Bruce Alburn moving among the guests with the assurance of a man who knew his place was safe in the family.

  ‘They suit each other. He’s nice and honest and hard-working, so Daddy likes him, too. But I just wish once in a while he’d show a little ignorance about something. In his own quiet way he’s the greatest know-all since St Paul.’

  Bruce saw them watching him and he came across, dry smile widening. ‘Everywhere I look, beautiful Beaufort women.’

  ‘Bruce darling,’ said Prue, ‘you old Arkansas hill boys are too flattering. You-all talk to the gals back home like that?’

  Bruce grinned. ‘We-all don’t never say you-all down in the Ozarks. You-all is Southern talk. But you-all is both mighty purty. Any Southern gentleman would tell you that, not only an Ozark hill-billy.’

  Prue suddenly felt uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, Bruce. I didn’t mean to be rude – ’

  He touched her hand gently. ‘Prue, it’s water off a duck’s back. Anyone from Arkansas who’s thin-skinned should never leave home. There are more jokes about us than all the other States put together. But we can laugh, which is more than some of the others can do. You never hear a Texan laugh at a Texan joke when some other feller tells it.’

  He smiled at them both, then went away and Nina said, ‘You see what I mean? He’s as nice as they come. But he had to tell you that you-all wasn’t hill-billy stuff.’

  ‘I knew it wasn’t. I was just testing him.’

  ‘You’re as bad as he is. But how did you know it wasn’t?’

  ‘I once went away for a weekend with an Arkansas boy.’

  ‘This is not the day to ask the question, but how’s your divorce coming along?’

  ‘Guy isn’t going to contest it. I think he might have if Melanie had been a boy. His mother would have insisted that he did.’

  ‘What are you going to do? Go down to Arkansas?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s not like you to go long without a man. But I can tell you from experience, there isn’t a surplus of unattached lovers in Kansas City. Not good ones.’

  ‘I’ll look around. I get the urge every so often, but so far I’ve managed to control it. Are you on the Pill?’

  ‘I want to know more about it before I risk it. Are you?’

  ‘Not yet. But when I have my next man marked out I think I’ll try it. I can’t believe all women’s messy worries are over.’

  ‘They’ll never be really over till you’re out the other side of the menopause.’ Nina smiled, like a cat in a dairy, not looking at all like Edith now. ‘I think I may be a pretty gay old girl once I turn fifty.’

  An hour later Mr and Mrs Charles Luman, the one sexually handicapped, the other finding now that she could do without sex, left for their honeymoon in Japan, Thailand
and Cambodia. A small war was going on in Vietnam, but it was nothing that would worry a honeymooning couple. Their marriage might have been called one of convenience, but it was also one of love. Sally had waited two years before she had finally told Charlie all about herself; or nearly all. He had been shocked at first, but more understanding than she had expected. It had been another six months before he had asked her to marry him.

  In that time she had gone to New York to see Cindy Drake. She had not seen or heard from Cindy since she had left Vassar. The taste of first love lingers, an itch in the memory: would I still love him or her if I saw him again? But she had never gone looking for Cindy or tried to write her; not till, some months after she had told everything to Charlie, she saw Cindy’s name in a theatre review in Time magazine. Cindy was playing in a revival of a Tennessee Williams play on Broadway and had got good notices. Sally went to New York the next day, telling Nina and Margaret that she was going to do some shopping. She got a seat in the third row centre and sat and stared at Cindy all through the show to the total exclusion of the other players. Then she went backstage after the performance, knocked on a dressing-room door, went in and found Cindy with a tall middle-aged woman, handsome and very butch, who bridled at once as soon as Sally came in the door.

  Cindy had looked surprised but that was all. ‘Sally! After all these years – ! This is Rona Freeman.’

  Rona Freeman shook hands with a man’s grip. ‘Cindy has told me about you.’ She looked challenging, feet planted solidly in sensible brogues, ready for any invasion of her territory. ‘Are you only visiting New York? You don’t live here?’

  This is ridiculous, thought Sally. She’s so obvious in every way; how could Cindy have fallen for her? Then she remembered that Cindy had always wanted protection. God Almighty, did she ever see me like this? She smiled disarmingly at both of them, glad now that she had come. The itch and taste were gone. ‘No, I’m just visiting. I’m going back to Kansas City tomorrow. I just thought I’d pop in and tell you how much I enjoyed your performance, Cindy.’