The Rich Are Different (40 page)

‘We’ll let it chill for a few minutes,’ said Paul as Mayers retired.

This time speech was quite beyond me. I gazed at the red velvet curtains
which stretched from floor to ceiling, the golden carpet, the gilt fixtures, the Louis Quinze (could it possibly be genuine?) furniture. There was even a marble fireplace fashioned by some disciple of Robert Adam. Next door in the larger of the two bedrooms Alan cried: ‘Mummy, look!’ and when I wandered over the threshold I found him clutching the largest toy bear I had ever seen. A round-eyed Mary Oakes had already collapsed on a striped satin chaise-longue.

‘Look, Mummy! Look, Mary! Look how big he is!’

‘What a lovely teddy, darling, but what do you say to Papa? Remember your Ps and Qs …’

The bed could have accommodated four people with ease, and beyond the far doorway was a marble bathroom bedecked with mirrors. Backing away into the sitting-room I heard Alan thank Paul for his present.

‘You like it? Good. Ah, there you are, Dinah! I’ve got a present for you as well.’

He handed me a box. It was dark blue, three inches square and the lid was embossed with the words TIFFANY & CO. Opening the lid I found a pair of earrings.

‘I hope green’s still your favourite colour,’ said Paul.

I stared at the emeralds.

‘Remember your Ps and Qs, Mummy!’ piped Alan.

‘Little monster!’ Smiling at him I kissed the top of his head before turning to Paul. ‘Thank you, darling – for everything … What a wonderful welcome! I feel quite overcome. What can I possibly say?’

‘Say nothing!’ he advised with an erotic alternative effortlessly implied in his extraordinary smile, and bent his head in a flash to kiss me on the lips.

As soon as my mouth was free I burst out laughing. ‘You exasperating man!’ I exclaimed. ‘Keeping me on tenterhooks for three years and then sweeping me off my feet despite all my determination to remain rooted sensibly to the ground! Why am I so incredibly glad to see you again? I must be demented.’

‘Have a little champagne, my dear, and let’s forget the
past three years. May I offer you some caviare?’

Half an hour later he inquired if I still found him exasperating. ‘I can think of no other word to do you justice!’

‘Then I can see I shall have to take time to expand your vocabulary. Obviously you’d like the chance now to settle down but I thought this evening we might have dinner together. I’ll call for you at … shall we say six-thirty?’

We said six-thirty. He left, patting Alan on the head again after shaking hands with the enormous bear, and I sank down on the sofa. In fact I was in such a state of exhaustion that it was not until I took off my emerald earrings half an hour later that it occurred to me to wonder what Paul was trying to buy.

[2]

Paul knew
I was sensitive about receiving his money. He had given me presents in the past but nothing which had matched the extravagance of those earrings, and although he had offered to return Mallingham to me as a gift I had always insisted that I must buy back my home with my own hard-earned money. It was true that I had wanted him to own Mallingham temporarily in order to strengthen the bond between us, but my main reason in forcing the ownership upon him had been because I had wanted security. I had been hedging my bets. If I had ended up a bankrupt my creditors could never have taken Mallingham so long as the title remained vested in Paul, and if the worst did come to the worst I knew Paul would always help me continue to live in my home. I hated the thought of being a kept woman, but I hated the thought of losing Mallingham even more.

However, since I was making ends meet and Mallingham was in no danger, I could afford to be sensitive about taking Paul’s money. For some time I fingered the earrings reluctantly, but then telling myself I was becoming neurotic in my fear of being ‘kept’, I thrust them into my jewel box and took Alan and Mary for a walk in the park. Although I reasoned Paul owed me hospitality in return for the months he had spent as my guest at Mallingham, I was even beginning to feel uncomfortable about my paid Plaza suite, and when I started shying away at the sight of the orchids I knew I needed some fresh air.

‘It’s a jolly odd sort of park, isn’t it?’ I said to Mary later as we paused at one end of a small lake.

‘Oh, it’s ever so foreign, Miss Dinah, all them nasty black rocks and no flowers and hardly any grass to speak of. My dad would weep if he could see that grass.’

We savoured our homesickness together. Mary was nineteen, plump and rosy-cheeked. I hoped fervently she wouldn’t fall in love with an American because Mrs Oakes would never have forgiven me for inflicting her with a foreign son-in-law.

I was unsure how long we would stay in New York. Paul and I had never discussed the exact duration of my visit, but I had told my friends I would need two months to complete my investigation of the American cosmetics industry with a view to opening a salon in New York. ‘For after all,’ I had said glibly, when all my friends had deplored my decision to return to Paul, ‘one might as well combine business with pleasure.’ Two months would take me until the middle of June, a sensible time to embark for home since the weather would be becoming unpleasantly hot and Paul would be making his plans for his annual sojourn in Bar Harbor, and in two months I should certainly be able to judge whether there was any future in continuing our affair. If there were none then that, of course, would be that. No matter how much I hated the idea of defeat it would be suicidal to turn a blind eye to reality. But if some future existed I was confident I could lure him back with
me to Mallingham. All I had to do was to be calm, detached and sensible as I followed my plan of action without the smallest deviation in strategy.

Unfortunately anyone less calm, detached and sensible than I, as I prepared for my first night with Paul for three and a half years, would have been impossible to imagine. I was trembling with anticipation yet quivering with dread, one moment dreaming of moonlight, roses and whispered ‘I love you’s’ and the next sweating in horror at the thought of stifled yawns, awkward platitudes and the hideous epilogue ‘I’ll telephone you some time’. Filing my nails in a frenzy I told myself that both the romantic dream and the nauseous nightmare were equally unrealistic. He had never once stifled a yawn when making love to me – and he had never once said ‘I love you’ either – so it was most unlikely he would start now. Probably we would make each other laugh and rip a sheet or two and afterwards say how much we had missed each other.

Yet I could not help wondering if he had missed me at all. I realized that after he had returned from England he had at once found someone else; it was the only plausible explanation for his long silence and his attempt to end our personal relationship, but although the thought of that was distasteful I no longer minded it. Obviously there could be no other woman in his life at present or he would never have sent for me. For the hundredth time I speculated fruitlessly about his true feelings. If Paul had actually said to me: ‘I love you,’ I would probably have disbelieved him, yet I knew he had loved me at Mallingham and although I could admit the love had faded I preferred to think it was dormant rather than dead.

I hoped I was avoiding the sin of wishful thinking.

The thought of sin cheered me up and the next moment I was quivering again, not with fright but with lust. It was odd to think that in Victorian days lust had been considered an exclusively male vice. I reflected on the ghastly heroines of Tennyson with their pure alabaster brows, and wondered what they would have thought of a nude male. After thanking God I hadn’t lived seventy years ago I spent some time day-dreaming of myself with a pure alabaster brow and some disembodied male organ, and then with reluctance I tore myself away from my stimulating thoughts to choose a dress for the evening.

Thanks to the gourmet cuisine of the
Berengaria
I could hardly squeeze myself into an evening dress which would match my earrings, but where there’s a will there’s a way. The dress had narrow shoulder-straps and dropped straight from the bust to the hips in a bead-encrusted green tube while at the hips the satin hung in draped folds to form a dipped hemline somewhere around the knees. Unfortunately my hips destroyed the elegant tube-like effect by bulging at the exact point at which the beads ended, but I told myself that since Paul had never cared for the masculinity of post-war women’s fashions he would be glad to see my hips were still much in evidence. Wriggling into my slave bangle I grabbed my ostrich feather fan, pursed my lips into a Clara Bow bee-sting and did a little Charleston in front of the looking glass.

By the
time Paul arrived I was again standing before the glass as I admired my brand new flesh-coloured rayon stockings.

‘My God,’ said Paul, ‘what’s that peculiar stuff on your legs? And why are you wearing a bracelet above the elbow?’

‘Oh, I’ll take everything off—’

‘So soon? Even the Romans waited till after the stuffed dormice!’

‘But if you think I look awful—’

‘My dear, you look riveting! I hope I’m not so old that I can’t resign myself to modern feminine fashions. Peterson, you’re the expert on repulsive American slang – could Miss Slade be described as a jazz-baby?’

Peterson laughed. He was not in the least dour as bodyguards are popularly supposed to be, and I had never once felt embarrassed by his presence when Paul and I had spent our long summer together in 1922.

‘What happened to O’Reilly?’ I asked idly, remembering Paul’s other employee who had accompanied him on all his visits to Mallingham. We had said goodnight to Alan and were walking outside to the Rolls-Royce.

‘He was promoted,’ said Paul in exactly the same tone of voice as if he had said: ‘He died,’ and began to talk about the restaurant where we were to have dinner.

‘It’s across town on Park Avenue,’ he was saying, ‘and it’s called the Restaurant Marguery. In my opinion it’s even better than its namesake in Paris, but we’ll see what you think of it.’

By that time I would have been enthralled by a workers’ café, but the Marguery would no doubt have satisfied the most discriminating of epicures. The decoration was formal with grey panelled walls in the style of Louis Seize; evidently the French kings were popular among the interior decorators of New York. The pale green furniture was decked with rose and ivory brocade and the lighting came from sparkling chains and pendants of crystal reminding me of a series of elaborate fountains. There were secluded nooks for dinners
à deux.
Ours was decorated with pink and white carnations, and beneath a napkin another illegal bottle of the best French champagne reclined in a silver bucket.

‘Whatever happened to Prohibition?’ I could not resist asking as the champagne was uncorked. ‘Isn’t it against the law to drink like this?’

‘Welcome to Mayor Jimmy Walker’s New York, Dinah, where even the law is for sale to anyone who can afford it! Now what would you like to eat? The filet de sole Marguery is the speciality of the house …’

I decided that Ancient Rome was not dead after all but reincarnated in the Western Hemisphere.

‘No, I think eighteenth-century England would be a closer parallel,’ said Paul, and as he talked, littering his explanation with philosophical, historical and literary references I felt my mind sharpening against his until it seemed to expand with exhilaration.

Some time later we were deep in a discussion about obscenity in literature, but it was only after I had lost the thread of my masterly argument
three times that I realized he had been drinking water while I had consumed almost the entire bottle of champagne.

‘Paul, you villain, you’ve got me drunk!’

‘That’s so that I can now ruthlessly cross-examine you on how you’ve spent the last three years!’

‘You know exactly how I’ve spent the last three years! I was the one who always wrote. Remember? I never indulged in long rude baffling silences!’

‘My dear, Americans forgot the art of letter-writing as soon as the telephone became popular, but when it becomes possible to phone London from New York I promise I’ll make amends to you.’ He finished his coffee and when he replaced his cup I saw to my astonishment that his hand was shaking. ‘Shall we go?’

‘Back to the hotel?’ I said confused, as he thrust his hands out of sight beneath the table.

‘No, I have a
pied-à-terre
near here by the river – I thought we could drink some brandy while I point out the famous landmarks to you.’

‘How divine! I’d love that,’ I said, baffled by the discrepancy between his casual invitation and his unmistakable signs of tension.

‘Dinah,’ he said as soon as we were in the car, ‘I’m really sorry about those letters.’

‘Which letters?’

‘The ones I didn’t write. Are you angry?’

With astonishment I realized he was beside himself with nervousness because he thought I was nursing some dark satanic grudge. It seemed so funny to think of Paul – of all people – being even remotely ill-at-ease in a woman’s presence, that I laughed out loud. It’s remarkable how the least humorous facts can seem amusing after one has consumed nearly a full bottle of champagne.

‘Well, Paul,’ I said frankly, ‘I
was
absolutely livid with you but after I decided to accept your invitation to New York I also decided to let bygones be bygones. And of course as soon as I saw you again I immediately forgot there had been any bygones at all.’

He gave me a worried little smile. ‘So everything’s forgiven?’

‘For God’s sake, Paul, what’s the matter with you? Don’t pretend you don’t know how beastly attractive you are, because I loathe false modesty.’

‘You didn’t think I’d changed?’

‘Well, when I first saw you I did think you looked as though you needed a holiday. Have you been working too hard?’

‘I regret to say I have. It was foolish of me … You got O’Reilly’s letter last summer telling you that I was ill?’

‘Paul, I wrote three times to ask if you were better!’

He looked confused. ‘I’m sorry. Mayers was dealing with my personal correspondence by that time and O’Reilly must have forgotten to tell him your letters had to be acknowledged.’