To the Manor Born

by Peter Rimmer

  “Simon Haller. That was the newspaperman’s name. Now he should come to America. Whoever said travel opened the mind was right.”

  Glen was smiling and thinking. Even if they did not get a great story out of thwarted love, the expenses of Freya Taylor would be paid by the newspaper. After all, he was the editor of the newspaper. There had to be some perks.

  * * *

  “I can’t do that, Freya,” said Max Pearl to Freya Taylor three days later. They were in his office just off Broadway. “Rosenzweig. He’s big. She’s been introduced to every eligible young Jew in New York. If I interfere, they throw me out of the synagogue. You any idea what that would do to my business, Freya? Tell you what, for coming all the way from the great state of Colorado, I’ll give you dinner at 21. All those celebrities. How does that sound? Robert is such an old romantic. Thinks life is like one of his books.”

  “She hasn’t married one of the young eligibles?”

  “I didn’t hear so. No. She hasn’t. The story about Rosenzweig bringing his daughter out of England to America is well known. Made him a hero among the Orthodox. Smoothed his American banking licence and residence. I would think with near certainty he’s been intercepting her mail and censoring the wrong ones from England by dropping them in the fire.”

  Freya was looking at the portly Max Pearl sitting candidly behind his desk with his plump hands in view, the tips of the fingers joined in manipulative contemplation. He was bald with a black ring of hair just above his ears.

  “They love each other,” said Freya, pleading. “Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “They’ll get over it. Everyone gets over love. Usually when you are married to the bitch. Everyone, Freya. Everyone gets over love. It’s a temporary insanity designed to make young men get married and before they hate each other have kids. Religion and society like nice little-ordered families.”

  “You’re a cynic, Max Pearl.”

  “I’ve had three wives.”

  “I’d love to have dinner with you.”

  “That’s my girl… Tonight? I can swing a table. Some very famous writers on my list, including Robert St Clair… He owes me another good one.”

  “We all do, Max.”

  “What you mean by that?”

  Freya was smiling. Men were so simple.

  “At least you could tell me where Rebecca lives. Has she got a job? Where does she go? I won’t mention a word to anyone.”

  * * *

  By eleven o’clock that night, Freya had drunk a bottle of wine. She was enjoying herself. A sleuth reporter on the job. Max Pearl was as tight as a clam when she brought up Rebecca. By then it did not matter. The speakeasy was full and Max knew everyone. The co-owner of 21, Jack Kreindler, sat five minutes at their table drinking some of the wine that would have cost Freya a month’s salary. Later, Ernest Hemingway sat at the table talking to her and ignoring Max Pearl. He was in his late twenties. Freya liked writers. She had just read The Sun Also Rises. She told Hemingway she had loved it: all the crossed loves and hopes all going mostly to nowhere. Freya liked writers who told the truth, she said. He invited her to his small room at the Brevoort. Max intervened and Hemingway went off to look for another iced daiquiri and another woman. Freya watched him go. Life was good for a young, successful man like Hemingway. She wanted Ralph Madgwick to be successful and Rebecca to have her one and only love forever. There had to be more to love than parting… The drink, Freya knew, was making her sentimental. Max was a dear but both knew she was not going to bed with him. She had found out one thing from Max that she thought came out by chance. Sir Jacob Rosenzweig had been interviewed by The New York Times. The financial editor had done the piece on Rosenzweig. It was enough for Freya.

  Before she drank enough to have a hangover the next day, she asked Max to take her back to the hotel.

  “It was a very lovely evening, Max.” She meant every word.

  “Maybe again sometime?”

  “I’ll ring you the moment I get back to New York.”

  In the years to come, she was to always remember meeting Ernest Hemingway. And whenever she thought of Hemingway, she thought of Max Pearl.

  * * *

  At nine o’clock the next morning in the offices of The New York Times, Freya Taylor learnt what she wanted to know. By then she had worked out why Glen had sent her and not gone himself to New York. She always wore sexy clothes. Always had the attention of men. Unlike Ralph and Rebecca, she had never been in love. By the time the financial editor took her down the history of the Rosenzweigs, she doubted she ever would. Love was for the very young. Before all the disappointments.

  “They are German Jews. Two hundred and some years ago, the bank was founded in Berlin. Fifty years later, a branch of the family bank now run by Baron Evelyn Rosenzweig, opened in Paris. Sir Jacob runs the London affairs of the bank. Or did until he came to New York. We did the interview as a follow-up to Sir Jacob being granted a banking licence in the state of New York… How is Glen Hamilton? He deserved Matt Vogel’s job. What’s Matt doing with himself in retirement?”

  “Fishing salmon up in Canada. The usual.”

  “He’ll be bored in a week.”

  “He was… Did any of Sir Jacob Rosenzweig’s family come to America?”

  “Only one of them. A daughter. Hannah, I think her name was, stayed in London with the older children. Sir Jacob said he was moving his money out of Europe before this Hitler chap gets his hands on it. The grapevine says it was more about the young daughter. The Jews don’t like their children marrying Gentiles, so I hear. Like to keep the race pure. Don’t we all?”

  “Does the girl work?” Freya had been about to use Rebecca’s name and just stopped herself in time.

  “I have no idea. He bought a luxury four-storey house overlooking Central Park where he lives quietly with the daughter. They say he only mixes socially with Jews… All this bit about Germany going down the drain is a lot of hogwash. We beat them good and proper. They won’t get up again. Why should they? He’s a good speaker, Hitler, I’ll give him that but that isn’t enough. The Germans are good people. I should know. My family came over from Brevoort, in 1793… Are you doing anything for dinner tonight, Freya?”

  “I’ll give you a ring. My schedule is tight.”

  “Why do you ask about Rosenzweig?”

  “We at The Colorado Telegraph think you are wrong about Hitler. We think he’s going to plunge Europe into a second world war.”

  She had had to think of something.

  Five minutes later, she was down in the street and heading for the telegraph office. As she might have expected from a secretive banker, Sir Jacob Rosenzweig’s telephone number was not listed. What she had seen in the office she had just left was a photograph of the man. The editor had found her the newspaper’s article on the Rosenzweig Bank. She had the back copy in her handbag. The article had described the banker as an aristocrat: a tall, thin aristocrat with a nose like a hawk’s beak. The kind Freya thought of as predators. She hoped above all, in her quest to further one true love, she did not meet the man. Men like that gave her the shivers.

  Freya had in her handbag a pair of opera glasses that could fit into the palm of her hand. She headed for Central Park in a cab and found a bench. In The New York Times office, she had glanced down the long article only taking in the photograph with Sir Jacob Rosenzweig at the centre of the page.

  The leaves were falling in the park. For the first time since arriving in the financial capital of America, she was conscious of the sound of the birds. An old man behind her at the side of the broad street was feeding his horse from a horse bag keeping one eye on the passing pedestrians for a fare. The old horse was still locked in the shaft, the buggy ready. Freya made up her mind to take a horse and buggy ride around the park if she found out what she wanted and luck was on her side. Once she found out where the Rosenzweigs lived, she could keep an eye on the entrance through her small binoculars.

  The article she read did
not give the address of the Rosenzweig apartment where it said the banker lived with his beautiful daughter but it did give the name of the fashionable block overlooking Central Park. Sir Jacob lived in an apartment, not a house. Freya Taylor’s heart began to beat faster. She got up and walked across the grass to the pavement sending a squirrel up an elm tree flashing its tail in alarm. The old man had finished feeding the horse. The old horse looked at Freya with doleful eyes that spoke of old age and pain. The horse was quite content to stay where he was.

  “Do you know where to find the Abercrombie apartments? They say it’s rather small.” She gave the old man her best smile. He seemed as little interested as the horse. Her luck had run out: there must be hundreds and hundreds of apartment blocks overlooking Central Park. Even the ones stuck a bit behind would claim they overlooked the park when it came to talking to friends.

  “Don’t need me and old Nell for that lady. You look right across the road you see the Abercrombie over there.” The old man was pointing. “Sometimes I pick up on that side of the road. I keep the feedbag tied to the iron rail this side. She doesn’t eat enough. Likes a beer at the end of the day.”

  “The horse?”

  “Sure, the horse. Holds her head up sideways so I can pour the beer from the bottle down her throat. We both have one. Then we go home. Slowly.”

  Freya took the newspaper from her bag. It was folded at the Rosenzweig article. She found a dollar bill. With her thumb holding the bill next to the photograph of the banker, she showed it to the old man.

  “You’ve seen this man?”

  The old man removed the dollar bill from under her thumb and put it in his pocket. The horse had stopped looking at Freya. Freya put a second dollar bill under her thumb.

  “You know what his daughter looks like?”

  Again, the dollar bill was removed from under her thumb. Freya put the newspaper back in her bag.

  “With Nell fed, you can wait the other side of the road?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Take me to the other side of the road where we await. You point out the girl, you get fifty bucks. No girl, twenty bucks. Old Nell here will give you a kiss with the beer at the end of the day. I’ll even give you one if you point out the girl.”

  “What’s she done?”

  “Fallen in love. An Englishman. Her father doesn’t approve. I want to put this letter from him in her hand. To make sure the father doesn’t lay his hands on it. Then I’m going back to Denver.”

  “You came all the way from Denver to give a girl you don’t know a letter? Lady, you’re nuts. Get in… Come on, Nell. See how good you are today working your way across the traffic. Most people are good people, lady. They like horses. Give us room. I can smell that fifty-dollar bill as if it were right under my nose. She walks out every day to the park at eleven o’clock. That’s in half an hour.”

  “How do you remember?”

  “She’s pretty. Real pretty. What’s her name?”

  “Rebecca.”

  “Pretty name. Real pretty. On Sundays, she walks the park with the old man in the paper. Eleven o’clock. Always took him to be the father.”

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Freya was walking behind Rebecca towards the pedestrian crossing. People up ahead were waiting for the policeman to signal them across when he stopped the traffic.

  Earlier, Nell had managed to cross the road and stand outside the Abercrombie. Freya had waited in the buggy. The old man had put up the top as much to make her less conspicuous as to keep out the autumn rays of the morning sun.

  When the girl came out, even Freya knew it was Rebecca without being told. The small, dark girl had the most beautiful brown eyes Freya had ever seen. Full of sadness. She gave the old man the fifty-dollar bill, hoping it would not lead to her own crucifixion. She would not have anything to show for the expense in the form of a chit.

  “Real pretty.”

  “Real pretty,” Freya had agreed.

  She had to walk quickly to come up close behind Rebecca to stand with her and the others waiting to cross the road. The policeman was wearing white gloves. Freya turned and smiled at Rebecca. The brown eyes smiled back and then the girl turned to look at the crossing that would take her into the park. The girl had a book in her right hand, a light cloak over her shoulders.

  “Rebecca! I have a letter for you from Ralph.”

  “Who are you?” The voice was husky. No wonder Ralph was smitten. Freya quickly gave Rebecca the letter. The policeman had stopped the traffic. They were all about to walk.

  “I hope it works out,” said Freya.

  “Walk with me into the park.”

  “Better not. Your father.”

  Freya turned as the pedestrians began to stream across the wide road, towards the calm of the park where the leaves were falling in the gentle morning breeze.

  She walked back past the old man and the horse. Neither had moved. The old man did not look at her. Further down Freya hailed a cab and went to her hotel where she packed her bags. The cab was still waiting downstairs and took her to Grand Central station where she caught the first train that would take her back half across America to her home. She had never felt so sad in her life.

  In the train, Freya decided not to write to Robert St Clair. They were older now. Too much older. Trying to make old embers spring to life had never worked before.

  * * *

  Sir Jacob Rosenzweig came home to Abercrombie Place at seven o’clock that night. He was tired and irritable. He had reached the new office in Wall Street at seven o’clock that morning. With all the undercurrents of fear among the Jews in Germany, many were trying to get their money as far away from Adolf Hitler as possible. The bank was swamped with work: the decision to open a bank in America the best he had made in his life. The British knew as well as he did there was a terrible chance of another war with Germany. The way Sir Jacob read the news was the people in Whitehall were frightened. Some were calling for rearmament. In the British Parliament, they were trying to sweep the problem under the carpet, ignoring the warnings. Civil servants in Whitehall usually knew more than most politicians who only wanted to talk about the good news to keep themselves in office. The senior civil servants stayed in their jobs whichever party ran the government, unlike in America.

  Within ten minutes of reaching home, he knew there was something wrong with Rebecca. She was keeping something to herself. Almost bursting with excitement to tell him. Putting aside all the problems of Europe, Sir Jacob smiled at his daughter. They were comfortable on their own. No Hannah to incessantly nag him and make him irritable. The apartment at Abercrombie Place was a small haven of peace. Somewhere in the Bible, he had read it was better to live on the roof than inside with a nagging wife. That was when the houses in Israel had flat roofs. Those old writers knew what they were talking about he told himself.

  The whole evening and the next day Sir Jacob waited for his daughter to tell him what was going on. Then it came to him like a bolt of lightning as they were taking their walk together in Central Park. It was the best part of his week. Somehow, despite all his efforts to stop it, his daughter had received word from Ralph Madgwick in England.

  “Is he here in America?” Sir Jacob asked his daughter. He could feel his temper rising. He had enough problems for one man.

  “No, father. He’s coming in a year’s time.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A girl gave me a letter in the street from Ralph yesterday.”

  “Who was she?”

  “I don’t know. She walked away when I crossed into the park. She knew my name. I’m sorry father, I should have told you yesterday.”

  “The one thing you did not do to me Rebecca was lie. You have never lied to your father. Just never lie to me. There are enough problems in my life without being lied to by my family.” Rebecca had put her hand lightly on her father’s elbow. The gesture always calmed him down.

  * * *

  The voyage to
America on the MV Glasmerden had been the worst journey of his life. The small cargo ship had rolled and pitched its way across the Atlantic to the port of St John’s in Newfoundland where the captain had been taken sick. They had waited a month in the freezing cold port for a new captain they said was being sent to them from Liverpool. None of the other officers had a master’s ticket. Even the cod fishing boats stayed in port most of the time. The sea was frozen around the coast and gales lashed the shore. It gave them both the time to recover from the debilitation of chronic seasickness.

  When the new captain finally arrived and took the ship out of the harbour, father and daughter both had a great fear of the swells. The gulls’ calls over the head of the parting ship were the cries from hell. The new captain was a man of few nods at the dining table. There was some animosity with the ship’s engineer that was felt by everyone on board though no one said a word aloud. Five days later after first hugging the shore of Nova Scotia and then America, the ship sailed into New York harbour.

  They were moored at an obscure dock where the dockers were on strike. The crew had to carry their baggage off the ship into a shed that had more open doors than a barn. The cold wind whipped through the shed where Sir Jacob waited two hours for a man from customs to look at his luggage. Having packed in a hurry before leaving his home in London, there were only five suitcases between the two of them. The man, who seemed to double up as an immigration officer, had taken Sir Jacob and Rebecca’s passports. The strike had produced a lot of bad tempers.

  “Here you are, Jake,” said the man giving him back their passports. Sir Jacob bridled and looked at the man. There was no malice in the man’s words. “What kind of name is sir?” asked the American.