The Rich Are Different (27 page)

‘I’m Mrs Van Zale. I would like to see my husband, please.’

He looked at me incredulously over the top of his spectacles. My self-confidence faltered. I blushed.

‘Please be seated over here, ma’am, and I shall ascertain if Mr Van Zale is in the building.’

He never asked if I had an appointment. Wives did not make appointments with their husbands during business hours, and good wives never
upset tradition by appearing without warning at the bank in response to some eccentric feminine whim.

Without a word I sat down and tried to recall the anger which had carried me downtown in such style, but now I was only terrified of interrupting Paul in his work. I waited, trying to cling to my composure. It was immensely quiet. I could not even hear the rustle of papers in the great hall nearby. I was just succumbing to panic and wondering if I could tiptoe away before the clerk returned, when the inner doors of the vestibule swung open and Steven Sullivan strode into the lobby.

I tried to hide by shrinking further into my chair, but he saw me and stopped short in surprise.

‘Sylvia! Lands’ sakes, what are you doing here?’

‘Well, I – I—’

‘Who kept you waiting? That little dried biscuit with the wing-collar? Just wait till I see him – ah, here he is! Fullerton, do you know who this lady is? What do you mean by keeping her out here as if she was a two-bit grafter chasing the cheapest loan in town? My God, if you’d tried that on my wife she’d have disembowelled you, wing-collar and all!’

‘I beg pardon, ma’am,’ said the little man, flustered, to me. ‘I meant no incivility. I thought Mr Van Zale had gone out to Reischman’s but it seems he came in through the back entrance. He’s in conference now, sir,’ he added hastily to Steve.

‘Forget it. I’ll take care of Mrs Van Zale. This way, Sylvia.’

I followed him obediently into the great hall. In the old days before the merger the partners had sat at mahogany desks isolated like islands in the vast sea-green carpet, but now that the bank was bigger lesser luminaries had taken over the hall. The partners had comfortable rooms upstairs, and only the senior partner’s room, a large chamber on the ground floor at the back of the building, had remained unchanged by the reorganization.

‘You mustn’t mind Fullerton,’ Steve was saying to me. ‘He’s such a period piece he still refers to the bank as Clyde, Da Costa and even now we’re officially P.C. Van Zale & Company you can bet the most he’ll ever manage is to call it Da Costa, Van Zale … You’ve been here before, haven’t you?’

‘A long time ago.’ I followed him down the aisle. The chandeliers, fully lit despite the hour of day, glowed on the mouldings of the high ceiling and illuminated the oil paintings on the walls. The paintings were of past partners, some lean and melancholic, some rosy-cheeked and benign, some hatchet-faced and inscrutable, but although I looked for Jay’s face I could not find it and later I realized Lucius Clyde’s portrait too was missing.

At last we reached the pair of doors which opened into the back lobby. A superb staircase curved without apparent support to the floor above, and as we emerged from the great hall Paul’s chief assistant Terence O’Reilly appeared on the upstairs landing.

He could hardly believe his eyes when he saw me. An expression of consternation crossed his face as he hurried downstairs.

‘Mrs Van
Zale! Is something wrong?’

‘Is he in his office?’ said Steve before I could reply.

‘No, he’s in the second-floor conference room with Mr Carson, Mr Blair, half Morgan’s and all Reischman’s. I’m afraid the meeting will last till lunchtime.’

‘Go and tell him his wife’s here, will you?’

‘Well, I don’t know if I should interrupt—’

‘Come on, Terence, this is his wife – remember? Of course he must be told she’s here!’

They stared at each other crossly. They were both in their mid-thirties, both Paul’s protégés, and both had Irish surnames, but there the resemblance ended. Steve, who was the youngest of Paul’s six partners, was well over six feet tall with such a muscular physique that whenever I saw him swimming with Paul in our pool I had to make a conscious effort not to stare. He was undeniably a good-looking man, but I must have been one of the few women in New York who found him resistible for I thought his charm was abrasive, his wit vulgar and his physique coarse. However his position as Paul’s protégé had always fascinated me. Most people would have looked at him and seen only his brawn but twenty years ago Paul had looked at him and seen only his brains. He was certainly the only investment banker I knew who might have been mistaken for a football quarterback.

Glancing from Steve to Terence O’Reilly, the ex-Jesuit who had left his seminary, quarrelled with his family and arrived in New York with twenty dollars and Paul’s address, I was aware of a great contrast. O’Reilly was slim, not tall, and had some well-combed dark hair which was never out of place, a stiff erect bearing and one of those voices which seem to belong to no particular region or class, although once after a glass of champagne at Christmas he had betrayed the trace of a Boston accent. Paul had put him through Harvard and had employed him ever since his graduation – in fact it was hard for me to imagine how Paul would have managed without O’Reilly, whose job in some ways resembled mine. I managed Paul’s domestic life and O’Reilly managed Paul’s business life while each of us controlled large staffs. Since we were both available to Paul twenty-four hours a day seven days a week, it could even be said that we worked the same hours, and although those hours suited me admirably I could not help but think they constituted a very unnatural life for a young man.

Presumably O’Reilly disagreed with me, although it was hard to guess what went on in his mind. Seemingly incapable of small talk, he was so reserved that I found him unwilling to discuss any matter which did not relate to his job. It had been a surprise to discover he had known Bruce Clayton socially since their days at Harvard. It was not simply that I could not imagine when O’Reilly ever got time for a social life, but I could never imagine him having any inclination to be sociable. He was several years older than Bruce, but since he had gone late to Harvard they had graduated together in the class of ’17.

O’Reilly had a suite set aside for him at our house on Fifth Avenue, and
once when he and Paul had been away on a business trip I had taken a quick look at his room. It had been both immaculate and impersonal, devoid of bric-à-brac, the bookshelf containing only American novels like
Babbit
which were so popular that they gave no real clue to his literary taste. Afterwards I had despised myself for pandering to such curiosity, and had told myself crossly that it was all O’Reilly’s fault for being such an enigma. An enigma he had remained too, and certainly I knew no more about him now, as I stood facing him in the back lobby of the bank, than I knew when he had joined Paul’s staff in 1917.

‘Please don’t worry, Mr O’Reilly,’ I heard myself say embarrassed. ‘I don’t want you to get into trouble by interrupting my husband in an important conference.’

‘Don’t take any notice of him,’ said Steve Sullivan. ‘He’s always like this. He loves to be pernickety. Go on, Terence. The sooner you go the less chance there is of me carrying you bodily up to the conference room and throwing you across the threshold.’

‘That’s just fine, Steve,’ said O’Reilly unperturbed. ‘I don’t mind interrupting Mr Van Zale so long as you accept full responsibility. Mrs Van Zale, would you care to wait in your husband’s office, please?’

The office consisted of two rooms linked by a broad archway. The room we entered was where Paul worked while the far room was furnished as a drawing-room. It was even used as a drawing-room too; every afternoon at four o’clock various carefully selected people withdrew from their labours and gathered there for a fifteen-minute break. To be invited to drink tea with the senior partner was considered an immense privilege. Wedgwood china was used, English biscuits were circulated and if anyone was so crass as to smoke he was immediately asked to leave.

‘I can’t offer you any ladies’ magazines to read while you wait,’ said Steve who had followed me into the room. ‘But there’s always the
New York Times
.’

‘Oh, please don’t worry about me any more, Steve – I don’t want to keep you from your work! Thanks so much for rescuing me in the front lobby.’

‘Any time!’ He gave me his wide smile and I told myself I was unreasonable not to like him more than I did. Underneath his flashy manners he could be very kind.

When I was alone I wandered restlessly to the window. In the middle of the patio beyond stood a fountain which had been imported from Europe, and nearby, rising in gnarled splendour against the fifteen-foot back wall, was an ancient magnolia tree. The wall was surmounted with spikes, broken glass, wire and burglar alarms for it separated the bank from Willow Alley and the outside world. Set in the wall was a door, reinforced with steel, its triple locks glistening in the rain. This back entrance of the bank was seldom used – only the partners had the necessary keys – but Paul occasionally found it convenient to slip in and out of the building unobserved. The patio was inset into the building so that it was surrounded by the bank on three sides while the high wall completed the quadrangle.

For a
time I watched the birds singing by the fountain, but when I became too nervous to stand still I began to wander around looking distractedly at the books, the furniture and the
objets d’art
. Paul’s desk was uncluttered. There were no photographs. The bookcases which rose from floor to ceiling on either side of the Adam fireplace contained works ranging from bankers’ reference books to untranslated editions of Homer and Virgil, and on the Chippendale table by the window a vase of uncertain age and great beauty also bore silent witness to Paul’s devotion to classical civilization. On the walls hung some rare prints of Old New York together with a framed deed recording a grant of land to Cornelius Van Zyl of Nieuw Amsterdam, and one of Rembrandt’s more cheerful self-portraits hung above the fireplace. I was just staring blankly at the brilliant use of the oils when the door opened again.

I spun round but it was only O’Reilly.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Van Zale, but your husband sent me to tell you that he’ll be engaged for a further half hour. May I have some coffee brought to you while you wait?’

My anger returned with a force which took my breath away. I forgot my nervousness, forgot my fears, forgot everything except that I had been humiliated quite enough for one day and was determined not to tolerate my humiliation for one second longer.

‘Mr O’Reilly,’ I said strongly, ‘you will please return to my husband and say I must see him at once. It’s very urgent.’

O’Reilly’s straight back curved sulkily but although he opened his mouth to argue with me he thought better of it. In despair he departed in silence.

Two minutes later, just as all my fright had rolled back to obliterate my brave anger, the door of the office was flung open and Paul swept into the room.

[2]

I stood up. We looked at one another. His face was taut with an emotion which might have been concern but which I suspected was rage.

‘Yes?’ he said.

I suddenly found I was as speechless as Cornelius had been when Paul had started to interrogate him. In misery I groped in my purse, found the Tiffany bill and held it out to him with a shaking hand.

He unfolded the paper. His glance flicked over the words and figures. Not a muscle of his face moved. At last he said abruptly: ‘This is an error.’

‘An error?’ I had to sit down. ‘You mean—’

‘I paid cash with the express intention of circumventing the usual monthly bill. I’ll have O’Reilly call them to set matters right. I’m sorry if you’ve been embarrassed.’

‘Embarrassed!’ I stared at him. My eyes were hot and my throat was aching but my voice was clear and outraged. ‘Did you say embarrassed?’

He was silenced. He looked away, checked the door to make sure it was
shut and ran his fingers through his front strand of hair. It was the first indication that he was upset for Paul was fastidious about his appearance and once he had arranged his hair he took care not to disturb it with a thoughtless gesture.

‘Maybe you’d better have a drink,’ he said, moving rapidly to the bookcase which concealed the liquor cabinet.

‘I don’t want a drink, Paul. I want an explanation.’

He ran his hand through his hair again and abandoned the liquor cabinet. ‘Let’s go into the other room.’

We sat down on the couch. A china clock ticked rapidly beneath a large mirror. Paul looked out of the window at the rain, he looked at the clock, the carpet and the Wedgwood tea service in its display cabinet, and finally he looked at me.

‘The christening mug has no more significance than the silver rattle we sent Steve’s son,’ he said. ‘It was just a gift. My affair with Miss Slade is finished and her child has nothing to do with me.’

‘But he’s yours, isn’t he?’

There was a silence.

‘I’m not acknowledging him,’ said Paul.

‘But—’

‘I told Miss Slade that from the start. I made myself absolutely clear. I—’

‘You broke your promise to me, Paul!’ My voice was suddenly harsh and trembling.

‘My God, do you think I did it deliberately?’ He got up and began to pace up and down the room. ‘It was an accident,’ he said rapidly, ‘a terrible accident. I underestimated both Miss Slade’s psychological need for a child and her indifference to a society which deplores unmarried mothers. I know you must think it’s extraordinary that I should have got myself into such a mess, but Miss Slade was so clever, you see, such a smart, intelligent girl, and I just couldn’t believe she’d be such a blind selfish little fool. By the time I found out she was irrational on the subject it was too late. Of course I tried to persuade her to change her mind – I used every argument I could think of, but one can’t reason with someone who’s irrational. When I repeated that I couldn’t acknowledge the child she wasn’t fazed at all – she merely said she accepted my decision. We had a protracted quarrel on the whole subject of the child. I was distraught.’