The Two Mrs. Grenvilles

by Dominick Dunne

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am,” said Inspector Pennell.

  The afternoon editions quoted Inspector Pennell quoting the Duchess of Windsor as saying that the Grenvilles were an ideally suited couple. Elsa Maxwell, smarting still because she hadn’t been asked to Edith Bleeker’s party and had missed out on what might have been the newspaper scoop of her career, belittled the duchess’s statement in her society column as “extremely odd,” since, as she wrote, “everybody who is anybody knew that Billy and Ann Grenville both had detectives spying on each other for months.”

  “One of us must go to the hospital before the funeral, or it will appear to the press that we do not believe her story,” said Alice Grenville, at the same time going over the list of pallbearers with her daughters. She crossed off one of the names on the list. “I don’t want Neddie Pavenstedt to be a pallbearer.”

  “Mère, he was Billy’s roommate at Groton, and at Harvard, and he’s number-two man at Father’s bank,” said Cordelia.

  “And he had an affair with Billy’s wife,” answered Alice. The daughters, stunned, looked at their mother.

  “How do you know that, Mère?” asked Cordelia.

  “I know,” said Alice. “Which one of you is going to the hospital?”

  “I won’t go,” said Felicity. “I don’t like her. I never did like her. And I was the only one in the family, except you, Mère, who made my position perfectly clear to Billy.”

  “Grace?”

  “I won’t go either. I hated the manner in which she did me out of the breeding farm. Billy was so embarrassed that day.”

  “Rosamond?”

  “I don’t live in this country. I scarcely know her, Mère.”

  “I suppose it’s me, Mère,” said Cordelia.

  “Do you mind?”

  “She’ll ask about you. She was always afraid of you. What will I tell her?” asked Cordelia.

  “Perhaps we should think about having some of these flowers sent to the children’s wards at the hospitals,” replied Alice. “They are now going up the stairs, there are so many. The scent is overpowering. I hate stock. Why do they always put stock in funeral bouquets?”

  “Mère heard from the President and Mrs. Eisenhower,” said Cordelia, making conversation, aghast at the haggard sight of her sister-in-law in the hospital bed. “And Governor Milbank came to call. And the letters, and telegrams, and flowers are arriving by the hundreds each day. Billy’s secretary is there at Mère’s house, trying to keep track of everything, and the bank has been marvelous sending secretaries to help. There is simply no room for any more flowers, and Mère has sent them over to the children’s wards at New York Hospital. The staff is devastated. Poor Cahill has had to take to his bed. He’s old, you know.”

  “Where is my mail?” asked Ann.

  “What mail?” replied Cordelia.

  “My condolence notes. I am, after all, his widow, and all that I am hearing is about the hundreds of messages arriving each day at his mother’s house, for his mother. What about me? It was an accident. They have caught the prowler. Is no one sorry for me?”

  Cordelia, embarrassed, crimsoned.

  “Are there any telephone messages for me?” asked Ann.

  “A Mr. Claud Mertens called from Detroit,” replied Cordelia.

  Ann lay motionless in the bed. No muscle moved to indicate that she had heard the name that Cordelia told her.

  “He said he was your father,” Cordelia went on.

  “My father is dead,” said Ann, shaking her head in a dismissive way.

  “A Mr. Billy Bob Veblen, from Pittsburg, Kansas.”

  “I never heard of him,” said Ann.

  “He said that—”

  “Kooks,” interrupted Ann, and then repeated the word again, although it was a word she had never used before. “Kooks. There’s a certain kind of person who’s attracted to the negative glamour of, uh”—she paused for the word—“this kind of tragic situation. Did Bertie Lightfoot call?”

  “No, Babette Van Degan did,” said Cordelia.

  “Oh, Babette,” said Ann. It was the first name that interested her. She thought of Babette warmly and remembered the friendship they had once shared. “I would like to see Babette.”

  “I will call and tell her,” said Cordelia, getting up from a chair, ready to leave.

  “Is there a policeman outside my door?” asked Ann.

  “Yes,” replied Cordelia.

  “Are there press outside the hospital?”

  “Yes.”

  “What will you say to them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me about your mother.”

  “Mère? What do you want to know?”

  “I have not heard from her.”

  “There are the preparations for the funeral. She is involved in those. It will be enormous, they say.”

  “Will she and I be in the same car at the funeral?” asked Ann.

  Cordelia, stunned, stared at the woman on the bed. “You certainly don’t plan on attending the funeral, Ann?”

  “Why not?”

  “My mother has gone all the way to the President of the United States to get the police to back off questioning you, Ann, until a suitable story is worked out. She has your Dr. Skinner telling the police that you are so hysterical with grief he has had to put you under sedation, so that they cannot question you. If you are well enough to attend the funeral, they will say you are certainly well enough to face the police.”

  Ann covered her face with her hands and started to weep uncontrollably, great heaving sobs. Miss Toomey, who had vacated the room on Cordelia’s arrival, instantly returned. Cordelia quietly picked up her bag and gloves and walked out.

  Charles, her mother’s chauffeur, held open the rear door of her mother’s Packard limousine, as Cordelia made her way through the reporters who waited outside the hospital.

  “She’s been having a terrible time, poor thing,” said Cordelia to the reporters who questioned her. Inside the closed door, she looked out at them staring in at her, flashing pictures of her. What, she wondered, has this woman done to our lives? We have become the kind of people you read about in tabloids. And then the thought came to Cordelia that she dared not speak aloud, even to her sisters: If only Ann would commit suicide. It would make everything so much better. It would be over.

  Ann was distressed to find that the pallbearers who would be carrying Billy’s casket had already been picked without her approval. She felt the feeling that she most hated, that she was being left out by not being allowed to attend the funeral. But she insisted on playing a part, and her instructions were relayed to the family by Dr. Skinner. She wanted a particular hymn sung that she said had been Billy’s favorite hymn from his days at Groton, and she wanted the flowers that covered the casket to be flowers from her. A great blanket of red and orange carnations, the colors of the Grenville stables, arrived at Alice Grenville’s house on the morning of the funeral to displace the spray of white orchids provided by Alice and her daughters. In gold paper letters pasted on a cut ribbon and bow was the message: “To Fad, I love you always, Mud.” Dr. Skinner explained to the family that Fad and Mud were nicknames for Father and Mother that Billy and Ann gave to each other after they became parents. Alice Grenville looked straight ahead. The sisters looked at each other but said nothing. Not one of them could ever remember having heard Ann call Billy Fad or Billy call Ann Mud.

  The flags of the Brook Club, the Union Club, the Knickerbocker Club, and the Racquet Club flew at half-mast on the day of Billy Grenville’s funeral. As the long black cars of the funeral cortege pulled up to the doors of St. James’ Church, where the Grenville family had worshiped for fifty years, the occupants were astonished to see that thousands of people lined Madison Avenue to stare at the procession.

  “Look, there’s Edith Bleeker’s entire staff,” said Felicity to her sisters, looking out the window of her limousine.

  “They say every servant on the Upper East Side
got the morning off,” said Felicity’s husband.

  “One of the policemen outside the house said it’s the biggest funeral in New York since Babe Ruth’s,” said Grace.

  “Poor Billy, wouldn’t he have hated it,” said Cordelia.

  “Listen to this from this morning’s Times,” said Felicity’s husband, reading. “ ‘Not in this century have circumstances combined to produce so sensational a shooting—a tragedy involving people of great wealth, the meteoric career of a poor girl carried to the heights of fame, and elements of mystery that will persist until a grand jury weighs all explanations.’ ”

  “Put that paper away, Dexter,” said Felicity.

  “Look at Mère,” said Cordelia.

  A hush fell over the crowd as Alice Grenville, erect and dignified in black mourning veils, emerged from the first limousine, assisted by her chauffeur. She stopped to speak to Billy’s great friend Alfred Twombley, who was a pallbearer, and then ascended the steps of the church with her granddaughter, Diantha, on one side of her and her grandson, William Grenville, on the other.

  In a pew behind the family—bereft, forlorn, only she knowing the extent of her grief—sat Esme Bland, just returned from vacation, tanned still amid the white faces of November.

  Later, after the Reverend Dr. Kinsolving’s eulogy, after the hymns and prayers, after the filing-out while the organ played “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” in the Grenville family plot in Woodlawn Cemetery, close by the graves of Vanderbilts and Whitneys and other great families of the city of New York, the body of William Grenville, Junior, was laid to rest in a grave marked by chrysanthemums and carnations.

  * * *

  Even sedated, Ann noticed things. She noticed that the paper around the yellow roses Babette Van Degan brought her had been squeezed tight from nervous fingers. She noticed, beneath Babette’s Sen-Sen–scented breath, the whiff of gulped gin and knew it had been downed for courage in this encounter. Is this how people are going to react to me from now on? she wondered, observing the only visitor outside of Cordelia and Dr. Skinner and Sam Rosenthal allowed to visit her closely watched room.

  Babette occupied herself filling a vase with water in the bathroom and then jammed the dozen and a half roses into the vase in an untidy arrangement, cutting her finger on a thorn in the process.

  “Shit,” she cried out in exaggerated pain and wrapped toilet paper around the bleeding finger. The moment relaxed the two old friends, and Babette dropped her huge mink coat on a chair and dragged another chair up to the side of the bed, and they began to talk. Other than what she had read in the few newspapers she was allowed to see, Ann had heard nothing about the funeral the day before.

  “There wasn’t an empty seat. Even the choir loft was full, and there were so many flowers there wasn’t enough room on the main altar.”

  “What flowers were on the casket?” asked Ann, fearful that hers might not have been used.

  “Awful. Red and orange carnations. Like something you’d put on a horse after a race,” answered Babette. “Afterward everyone who wasn’t going to Kitty Miller’s lunch for the Duchess of Windsor made a beeline for the bars at the Westbury and the Carlyle. Only the family went to the cemetery.”

  “Was Simonetta d’Este there?”

  “Simonetta d’Este’s in Italy.”

  “Italy? How long has she been in Italy?”

  “A couple of weeks. Fydor Cassati told me.”

  If Simonetta d’Este had been in Italy on Saturday night, who had Billy been talking to on the telephone during Edith Bleeker’s party? Ann wondered. If she hadn’t flared out, as she had, she might not have set in motion the terrible events that followed.

  “Babette, tell me something.”

  “If I can.”

  “What are people saying about me?”

  “They’re saying you fought with Billy at Edith Bleeker’s.”

  “Anything else?”

  “They’re saying at El Morocco that Billy cut you out of his will,” said Babette.

  “Who’s saying that?” snapped Ann.

  “They.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “The ladies’-room attendant.”

  “You believe me, don’t you, Babette, about the prowler?”

  Babette looked at Ann. “Sure, kid,” she answered.

  “I don’t know which I’m more afraid of, Babette, the police or my mother-in-law.”

  “Can your life bear close scrutiny, Ann?” asked Sam Rosenthal.

  “What do you mean?” asked Ann from her hospital bed, knowing full well what he meant.

  “Just what you think I mean,” said Sam. She was beginning to see the rough side of him that she had heard about. “Are there infidelities?”

  “I don’t think I need to answer that,” she said with indignation, as if she were in a situation in which she was in charge.

  “Please know I am undeterred by your arrogance and haughtiness, Mrs. Grenville.” His assumption of her full name was not lost on her. “Nor will the district attorney be, should he put you on the stand.”

  She turned her head away, terrified. Tears sprang into her eyes. She was overwhelmed with fear at the thought of the police or a trial.

  When Sam Rosenthal continued, his voice was more gentle. “You must remember that I am on your side, and it is my job to prepare you for the worst, Mrs. Grenville.”

  She nodded her head. “Call me Ann again,” she said.

  “Can your life bear close scrutiny, Ann?” he repeated.

  “Whose life can bear close scrutiny?” she answered in a conciliatory tone.

  “I’m only interested in yours at the moment.”

  “Have you, uh, have you heard things about me?”

  “Yes.”

  “From whom?”

  “From several of Mrs. Bleeker’s guests.”

  “That’s not true. Mrs. Bleeker’s guests were unanimous in describing my husband and me as an ideally suited couple. I read that in the paper.”

  “That’s so.”

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  “That is what they said to Inspector Pennell and Detective Kramer, who questioned them. However, several of those same people, anonymously to be sure, wrote letters to Inspector Pennell, saying they had been pressured to make the statements that they had made.”

  It occurred to Ann as she looked around the flowerless room that she should ask to have pictures of her children brought to her. She poured herself a glass of water from a carafe on the hospital bed table and sipped it as she watched a barge on the East River outside her window. She speculated who had written the anonymous letters. Kay Kay Somerset, she imagined. Basil Plant. Names went through her mind.

  Finally she spoke. “Did you say the letters were anonymous?”

  “Yes. They won’t hold up in court, but there is information in those letters that could be tracked down.”

  “What sort of information?”

  “Names of men who have been your lovers.”

  “What men?”

  “Ali Khan. Viscount Kingswood. Edward Pavenstedt.”

  Ann continued to look out the window. She was relieved that Billy Bob Veblen’s name did not mar the magnificence of the list.

  “Imagine the headlines,” she said simply, still not looking at him.

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  “Are we talking adultery, Sam?”

  “We are.”

  “What about Simonetta d’Este? Or that little mouse Esme Bland? Or a certain Miss Winifred Plegg, also known as Bootsie, who runs an establishment catering to bizarre tastes on West End Avenue and Ninety-first Street?”

  “Have you been there, Ann?”

  “I only go to the West Side on my way to Europe,” she answered.

  Sam Rosenthal picked up his hat and put on his overcoat.

  “Sam,” she said. “It’s very silly for the police to investigate the marital lives of my husband and myself. In the marital lives of anyone we kn
ow on the North Shore, they would find reasons for murder.”

  “Don’t try to impress me with how swell you are. I’m interested in the other part of your life, the part you outgrew, the part people say you never talk about. You got any dark secrets there, Ann?”

  “No,” she answered.

  * * *

  With the unexpected entrance of Alice Grenville, all activity ceased. Tall, erect, her hat covered with veils of mourning, she stood in command of the room, an in-person reminder of the tragedy that still absorbed the city. Miss Toomey, wordlessly, abandoned her task of changing pillowcases and retreated to the hallway outside.

  Ann, unprepared, looked like a ghost. She was thin and drawn, even plain in her appearance, and her hair, often described as her crowning glory, looked, to Alice Grenville, lank and even dyed. Alice wondered, as she often had, what her daughter-in-law’s age was. Older certainly than Billy, although she claimed to be younger. Of that Alice was certain, but this was not the time for age speculation.

  “How are you feeling, Ann?” Alice asked finally. She made no attempt to sit down. It was to be a standing visit.

  “Oh, Mère,” said Ann. Her eyes, which looked as if she had wept for a week, filled with tears. More than any person, Ann Grenville feared her mother-in-law. “Oh, Mère, I am so sorry. I have dreaded this moment, having to face up to you. I know how you loved him, your only son, and you must believe me that I loved him, too. It was an accident, Mère, I swear to you, what happened was an accident. It’s true what they said, we had argued at Edith’s, but every couple argues. There was a prowler, Mère. And we had guns. It was Billy who insisted we go to bed with guns in our rooms. He even said to me, ‘If you hear anything, shoot first and ask questions later.’ Let me tell you exactly what happened.”

  Alice Grenville raised the veils from her face, unpinned and removed her hat, and placed it and her bag at the foot of Ann’s bed.

  “I know how it happened,” she said, “but I have chosen to believe your story. I will stand behind you from this day until the day I die, as will my daughters. You will be welcome in my home and theirs. We are prepared to accept this tragedy as the accident you say it is.”

  Ann, speechless, stared at Alice.