The Rich Are Different (81 page)

I suddenly sat bolt upright in bed.

‘Cornelius?’

‘It’s all right. I’ve just remembered something I forgot to do at work.’ I sank back on to the pillows. I felt sick. No, I couldn’t do it. One had to draw the line somewhere. My own sister …

‘Poor darling, you work so hard. I’m sure it’s not right for a young man to be under such constant strain …’

After all, Emily did love him and I had no real right to stand in her way. I could spoil her chances by drumming up such a storm of opposition from my mother that Steve would shy away, but maybe that wouldn’t be in Emily’s best interests. Steve wanted a woman like Emily; he would have to marry her since Emily would hardly settle for less; and he might well come to love her very much. Fidelity was out of the question, of course, but if he were to care for Emily and make her happy perhaps the marriage would be the best for all concerned.

‘Darling, are you
awake?’

‘Uh-huh.’ I sat up and switched on the light. ‘Guess I’d better be going,’ I announced, feeling quite my old self again. ‘There are a couple of things I want to discuss with Sam before I go to bed tonight.’

‘Now just a minute!’ She jerked me back on to the pillows. ‘Not so fast! Have you any idea how badly you’re behaving? You invade my house, haul me out of the dining-room, rape me almost before we get to the bedroom, brood here for two hours, rape me again – yes, you were completely selfish, Cornelius! – Brood some more and then without even so much as an “excuse me” you declare “I’m off!” and head for the door! I’m sorry, darling, but it’s just not good enough. It’s not good enough at all.’

‘I’m sorry – really sorry – I just didn’t think—’

‘Well, you should have done! You’re not in your teens any more. If you were I’d make allowances for you since you’d be too young to know better, but—’

I stopped her talking by kissing her but as soon as I paused for breath she continued: ‘—but now you should be capable of more mature behaviour. And talking of mature behaviour I recommend that you don’t tell a woman you love her unless you mean it. It’s a shallow trick and can only make a woman feel angry.’

‘But I do love you!’ I said aggrieved. I felt so grateful to her for responding promptly to my cry for help that I was more than willing to be generous.

She looked stern for three more seconds before she relented and kissed me. ‘I don’t believe a word of it!’ she said with a smile. ‘But I’d like to.’ She ran her index finger lightly over my ribs and across my stomach to my thighs. It felt delicious. As my body moved I pulled her down on top of me and smothered her with kisses.

‘My God!’ she said later. ‘I can’t think why more women of thirty-six don’t take a young lover!’

‘Particularly a rich one,’ I said watching her. The light was still on.

‘Good heavens, Cornelius, you don’t really think I’m after your money, do you? Let’s be honest, darling – what I like about you has nothing to do with dollars and cents!’

I fidgeted with the sheet. ‘But you would never have bothered with me, would you,’ I said, ‘if I hadn’t been Paul’s heir.’

‘Darling, are you really that insecure?’

‘Of course not. I just want to know what you really think of me, that’s all. You do like me, don’t you?’

‘Very much! Oh Cornelius, don’t be so silly!’

‘Do you – do you—’ I got stuck and squeezed the hem of the sheet hard with both hands.

‘Love you? I don’t know,’ she said simply, and for a second I saw beyond the mask of her sophistication to a genuine confusion. This unexpected honesty was immensely attractive to me. I felt it was a gesture of trust which I at once wanted to reciprocate.

‘I really
do love you,’ I said shyly, and for the first time I meant it.

She was touched. I saw her eyes soften and as her hand slipped into mine I realized with shock that this small gesture was the first true communication between us.

Feeling absurdly happy I spent the rest of the night with her and woke the next morning with my hand still clasped in hers.

Vivienne never got up till ten. Leaving her having breakfast in bed I pattered downstairs and was just about to slip discreetly out of the front door when a key turned in the lock and Greg Da Costa slipped discreetly in.

We had not met since the Crash, and although I knew he was still using Vivienne’s house the two of them seemed to lead such separate lives that I had managed to avoid him completely. Our sudden confrontation took us both aback.

‘’Lo, Cornelius,’ he said warily. ‘Haven’t seen you in a while. Bad times, huh?’

‘Yes, terrible. How are you?’

‘Oh fine, just fine. Say … er, no hard feelings, Cornelius?’

‘What about?’ I said, my head crammed with thoughts of Vivienne. ‘Jay and Paul?’

‘Hell, no! Van Zale Participations.’

‘Oh, that.’ I smiled to demonstrate how charitably disposed I was towards him. Vivienne’s cousin! Suddenly Da Costa ceased to be a sinister menace and became just another fellow down on his luck. ‘No hard feelings, Greg,’ I agreed sympathetically. ‘Did the Crash hit you hard?’

‘My head’s still spinning. Say, Cornelius, we can treat that conversation as if it never happened, can’t we? I’ve decided I don’t want to get involved with Van Zale Participations after all – I never really knew what the Sullivan boys were up to anyway, everything I told you was just speculation, you know what I mean? Jesus, I wish I’d stayed in California!’

‘Hm … well, maybe there’s some way I can help you,’ I mused, still floating on a golden chariot across the Elysian Fields.

‘Why should you want to do that?’ blurted out Da Costa with pardonable astonishment.

‘Because I’m going to marry your cousin Vivienne!’ I announced with pride, and leaving him transfixed in the hall I scampered joyfully upstairs to propose.

[2]

‘Cornelius!’ said Emily in a hushed voice. ‘What in God’s name are you going to say to Mama?’

‘I shall say I’ve met a beautiful, charming, well-bred woman who would make me the best possible wife!’ I said boldly, quailing at the prospect.

‘But she’s so much older than you! Are you going to have a long engagement?’

‘What for?’

‘Well … Cornelius, Mama
will want to know why not. You must think of a better answer than “what for”. Oh Cornelius dearest, are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

I was sitting in my office two hours after Vivienne had accepted my proposal. Having expected her to postpone her answer until she had made up her mind whether she loved me or not, I had been stunned by her swift acceptance, but the explanation was simple; apparently despite my repeated insistence that I loved her she hadn’t dared to believe me until I had paid her the compliment of asking her to be my wife, but once the compliment had been paid all her indecision had been swept aside.

She told me she loved me, we made a date to choose a ring and then I soared home in a haze of excitement.

The excitement wilted at the office when I realized my mother had to be told of my decision before my chief aide informed the press, and in the hope that a dress rehearsal might prove helpful I called Emily at Steve’s Long Island home.

‘How did Emily take it?’ asked Sam, entering my office as I hung up the phone.

‘She thinks I’m crazy.’ I tried not to sound glum. ‘Do you think I’m crazy, Sam?’

Sam scratched his head as if I had voiced a question which had long been bothering him. ‘No, as a matter of fact I’ve decided that this is just about the smartest move you could make. You’ll neutralize Da Costa once and for all – he won’t dare upset Vivienne by making trouble for you – and you’ll get a wife who’s smart and efficient in addition to all the other obvious assets. In fact there’s only one thing that’s still bothering me. How did the Crash affect her?’

‘Well, she lost a lot, of course, but she’s still got a big income from her husband’s holdings in South American real estate. She’s told me she’s not even cutting back her servants.’

‘Swell. So she’s not after your money. Let me see. Are there any pitfalls we’ve missed? Oh yes, Da Costa. Did we ever establish who he was sleeping with?’

‘Some high-class call-girl on Park Avenue. God knows how he can afford her. Forget it, Sam! I’m the one who’s sleeping with Vivienne! She hardly gets the time to sleep with anyone else!’

Sam was just saying he had to look after me while I was in love and temporarily not responsible for my actions when the phone rang.

‘Yes?’ I said as Sam drifted out of the room.

‘Mr Van Zale, your stepfather Dr Blackett is calling from Velletria, Ohio.’

‘Oh God! All right, put him on.’ I ran my hand through my hair and wondered if my mother was having hysterics after receiving word of my engagement. I was just asking myself in fury how Emily could have played such a dirty trick on me when Wade said in a quiet subdued voice: ‘Cornelius?’

‘Yes.’

‘Cornelius, I …’ He
stopped, cleared his throat and tried again. ‘I’m calling about, your mother.’

‘Yes?’

‘She—’

Silence.

I suddenly found I was sitting on the edge of my chair and breathing with difficulty. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘She had a stroke. Early this morning. She was rushed to hospital … but …’

I could not speak.

‘… died half an hour ago … So sorry, Cornelius.’ The wretched man was crying. I wanted to hang up.

When I could speak I said clearly: ‘I’ll catch the first available train. My secretary will inform you of the time of arrival. Goodbye.’

After a while I realized I was still sitting on the edge of my chair and still having difficulty with my breathing. Memories of my asthmatic childhood flooded back to me and I had to make an effort not to panic. I undid my tie but by the time I had unbuttoned the neck of my shirt my breath was coming in gulping gasps. Praying that no one would enter the room while I was in such a humiliating condition I tried to breathe as I had been taught years ago in hospital, and after three sweating, agonizing minutes I began to improve. I felt shaken when I had recovered. I thought I had put all asthmatic seizures behind me and the knowledge that I was still vulnerable was unpleasant.

I thought of Paul. At least I had escaped epilepsy. I was two generations away from that disastrous family taint – three if one traced my ancestry back to my great-grandfather who although healthy himself had transmitted the disease to Paul. I felt convinced there wasn’t an epileptic gene in my body, yet I couldn’t help thinking how strange it was that I should suffer from asthma in much the same circumstances as Paul had suffered from epilepsy.

I sat at my desk for a long time and remembered him saying to me: ‘I see myself in you.’ The memory calmed me but when eventually I had no choice but to think of my mother my breathing rapidly deteriorated again. Having no medication I decided I must break my rule about abstaining from liquor at the office, and Sam not only brought me a bottle of Scotch from Lewis’s liquor cabinet but sat with me while I drank myself into a calm numb state. My breathing improved but my mind became fuzzy. I was in bad shape.

‘You’d better see a doctor before you go,’ said Sam concerned.

I told him about the wheezing, the struggling, the terror of suffocation. I told him about lying awake all night and fighting for breath. I told him about countless airless seconds and blacking out.

Sam gently removed the Scotch from me, asked my secretary to find out about trains to Ohio and called my doctor himself to make an immediate appointment. He even volunteered to break the news to Emily but I knew I had to speak to her myself.

We agreed
to catch the evening train. Emily was so upset by the news that she fortunately never noticed the cold voice in which I conducted the conversation, but Vivienne heard my distress at once and offered to come with me to Ohio.

I thanked her but said she should stay in New York. Vivienne belonged to the present and future, and Emily was the only person who could travel back with me into the past I had left behind. Nerving myself for the ordeal I clutched my medication in one hand and Emily’s arm in the other and dragged myself aboard the train to Cincinnati.

[3]

‘Oh look, Cornelius!’ exclaimed Emily. ‘Aunt Dora’s samplers! Do you remember them hanging on the wall in the front parlour of the farm?’

We were in the attic of my old home in Velletria. Around us were the possessions which my mother had accumulated during the twenty-five-year span of her two marriages, and we were engaged in sorting out the clothes for the local charities, the trash for the junkman and the family memorabilia for ourselves.

‘Do you remember?’ said Emily, arraying the five framed texts against a dusty brass bed. ‘When I learnt to read I used to recite them to you – poor little boy! But you loved them and learnt them by heart. That’s odd – surely there were six and not five? Which one’s missing?’

‘The mills of God,’ I said. ‘I keep it in my office, but it hasn’t been very popular since the Crash.’ With a sigh I turned back to the trunk full of old photographs and the next half hour passed very pleasantly as we were reminded of pre-war Thanksgivings, forgotten toys and my mother’s exotic selection of Easter bonnets. A glow of nostalgia cocooned us from the pain of loss.

Suddenly Emily said: ‘Look! Papa!’

We stared curiously at the man who had begotten us. He was standing stiffly, ramrod straight, in his black Sunday suit before the front door of the farmhouse. His fair hair was parted severely and plastered to his scalp while his mouth, which neither of us had inherited, turned down fractionally at the corners. His light eyes were cool and watchful.

‘My God!’ I said startled. ‘What a tough customer he looks!’

‘But this picture doesn’t do him justice!’ said Emily who remembered him much better than I did. All I could remember was his large western hat which he had worn indoors and outdoors to make him look taller. ‘He was really rather good-looking,’ she added, after I had remarked how odd he looked without a hat. ‘And he had the sweetest smile.’

We flicked through the remaining photos in the album, but in every other picture the ubiquitous hat shaded his face.