A ruling passion : a novel (55 page)

"Of course," Rosemary said. She stirred her orange juice and sipped it pensively.

"After all," Valerie went on, still watching the policeman, "no one could get rid of that much money that quickly and that invisibly. That business about Carl gambling is ridiculous. He told me he didn't have the stomach for it; he hated all the unknowns. Whatever he did, it was something else. We just haven't been looking in the right places. It will turn up; it has to."

"Of course," Rosemary repeated. They had been through this conversation before.

"But all that may take a while," Valerie said at last. "And while we're waiting, it looks like I'll have to get some kind of a job."

'Well, I suppose I should, too," replied Rosemary. Another silence fell. Both of them felt a great weariness whenever they talked about jobs; the subject was so foreign to them. They had discussed calling their friends—the bankers, the chairmen of great corporations, the

directors of hospitals, the owners of newspapers—but they had not been able to do it. Each time they reached for the telephone they drew back, hating to ask for favors when they were in no position to reciprocate, and faindy ashamed, as if Carl's disaster was their fault. But their friends were uncomfortable, too. They were sorry for Valerie and Rosemary, but they were a little embarrassed by their own continued good fortune, as if they ought to apologize for having no tragedy to share. It would almost be easier, Valerie thought, to look at want ads.

But when they did open the newspapers and scan them, and thought of making appointments, interviewing, talking about themselves to strangers, it all sounded impossible and demeaning. And even if they managed to do it, what could they say about themselves? They could not type or take shorthand; they had no training as nurses or nurses' aides or teachers or teachers' aides; they had never written advertising copy or newspaper stories or memorized those flmny marks proofreaders make on manuscripts; they knew nothing about bookkeeping; they had no idea how to run a switchboard or work a computer; they had never cooked or waited on tables or cleaned house.

"Information desk in a museum," Valerie said. "Or tour guide. I know the collections."

Rosemary brightened. "You'd be perfect. I could do that, too." Kcr face clouded. "But there don't seem to be many of those jobs around."

"Not many." Valerie yawned. "Well, if if s not that it will be something else, something to fill in. It's not as if I'm looking for a career, you know." She toyed with her pencil. "The odd thing is, except for a museum job, I can't think of anything at all, even as a fill-in. I may have been right about cleaning stables after all."

"Absolutely not," Rosemary declared. "You shouldn't even joke about it!" Her mouth trembled. "Shame on Carlton! What possessed him to do this to us.> He did love us, you know; after Daddy died he said he'd take care of us! Not leave us in the cold... at my age... thinking of jobs..."

Valerie was silent. There was nothing to say.

And it was that week, when they had reached that weary point, that Edgar Wymper called.

He was the wealthy son of wealthy parents whose sprawling farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore had bordered Ashbrook Farms. Valerie had known him all her life, and had found him amusing, especially when they were sophomores in high school and he told her he planned to marry her when they graduated. He had never wavered from that goal, though they had not seen each other since her father sold Ash-

brook Farms. He had never married. He squired numerous women to social events in the great capitals of the world, sent Valerie flowers on her birthday, and waited.

When he called, it took her a moment to picture him; a round face, she remembered; small hooked nose, small chin, close-set soft brown eyes, a happy smile, a pudgy body clothed in the world's most expensive suits. He had just returned from Europe. "I want to see you and do what I can to help," he said in his soft voice. "When would be a good lime?"

"I don't go out much these days," Valerie said. "Come this afternoon, if you'd like."

He arrived at four and stayed until six in a proper first visit, entertained by Valerie and Rosemary for part of the time, alone with Valerie the rest. Once Valerie got used to his beard, which hid his small chin and gave him an almost rakish look, she found him just as she remembered: cheerftil, kindly, interested in everything about her, but with the unconscious arrogance of those who never have to count the cost of anything. That never would have occurred to me before, she thought. I suppose I was the same as Edgar, all these years.

She wore a long silk robe with broad stripes in many colors, and her hair fell in waves to her shoulders. "You're wonderftilly beautiftil; lovelier than ever," Edgar said, his brown eyes shining at her. "I wouldn't have thought that was possible. I'm so sorry about Carl; I liked him. But I condemn what he did. To treat any woman that way! Especially a wife one had vowed to protect! He's put you in a dreadful position. A dastardly thing to do."

Oh, Edgar, Valerie thought. She remembered, in high school, accusing him of expressing the obvious with the portentous air of someone discovering gravity for the first time. Still the same, she thought. Amusing and impossible to take seriously.

"It certainly is dreadftil," she said with a solemnity that matched his. "Mother and I are trying to figure out what to do."

"You have no money at all?"

"A few thousand dollars in a checking account. And Mother has her jewels. If she sells them, and we're carefiil, we might get along for a year."

"My God, that the day would come that you would have to talk like this! A woman of the most perfect refinement and beauty, the most exquisite taste, the most elegant understanding of the world; it is impossible that you should have to tarnish your thoughts with anything as crude as money znd £fettin0 alon0."

Valerie broke into laughter, but seeing the sudden narrowing of his eyes, she stifled it. She had forgotten how much Edgar loved drama. Once they had been in a high-school play together, and from then on he inserted dramatic phrases into his daily speech, made broad, dramatic gestures, and strutted like an actor, even in the required after-school sports. No one made fun of him because, in spite of soft eyes and soft smiles, everyone knew Edgar could be vindictive and had a long memory.

"Of course I don't like to think about money," she said, her lids lowered. "But Mother can't seem to concentrate on it, so I'm the one who has to do it. And I'm learning, Edgar; it's amazing how quickly one learns."

"But that's wrong; you must not clutter your mind. You already know how to live well. You need nothing more."

Valerie smiled. "What I need has gone through some changes." She looked up as Rosemary came into the study. "I asked Mother to have tea with us."

"Wonderftil," Edgar said, and he meant it. Everything about him declared that he wanted to be an intimate part of her small, tragically victimized family. He was not a subtle man: he expected Valerie to understand, from the moment he walked into the apartment, that he was there to rescue her and protect her for the rest of her life, and her mother too.

From that day, Valerie was always aware of him. He sent fresh flowers every morning, delicate sprays of orchids, tasteftil arrangements of plumeria, roses, camellias, iris and tulips, or baskets of azaleas heavy with blooms. He telephoned two or three times a day, and took her out at night to restaurants, theaters, concert halls, nightclubs, and to balls and dinner parties given by people both of them had known all their lives.

It was a way of life as familiar to Valerie as the wallpaper in her bedroom, and so it began to seem that nothing had changed very much. Of course Carl was dead, and all her money was gone, but when she was with Edgar none of that had any reality. What was real was a social schedule she moved through instinctively, with never a false step.

Once again, she was transported through the cacophony of New York streets in the hushed silence of a limousine; she whirled through the same ballrooms, planned her days around the same parties and dinners and benefits, dined on caviar and marquis au chocolat on the same gold and vermeil place settings in the same dining rooms hung

with tasseled silk she had known since she was a child, made the same kinds of conversation, and saw the same people. She never once said to herself, I am poor, because she never once felt as if she were. With Edgar's solid figure at her side, in the lulling atmosphere of a world where money could make almost everything right, Valerie sank back, as if into a featherbed. I knew everything would be all right, she thought.

Her mourning became a sadness for all that had gone wrong for Carl and for their marriage; her anger and fear sank beneath the surface of the social schedule Edgar was making for her. And she and Edgar became a famiUar couple in New York: Edgar sleek and rosy in black tie and neat beard; Valerie six inches taller, dressed in last year's silks, her tawny hair gleaming, her gaze often turned inward as she grew quiet during a dance, or fell into a pensive mood at a dinner party. Her friends remarked on that strange, new thoughtfiilness, but it was not unusual, they said to each other, after all she'd been through. Once she married Edgar she'd once again be the lively, careless, laughing social butterfly they'd always been able to count on to keep a party going.

Everyone was waiting for the announcement of Valerie Sterling's engagement to Edgar Wymper. At every party, their friends peered at the two of them, looking for a clue: a ring on Valerie's finger to fill the space left when she'd removed the rings Carlton had put there; a new kind of excitement in Edgar's round face; a speech by Edgar toasting his bride-to-be. But the weeks went by, and soon it was the middle of June. Everyone was preparing to leave New York for cooler climates, and Rosemary worried.

"What will you do if he doesn't ask you.>" she asked as she and Valerie dressed for the last party of the season. It was being given by Edgar's mother and father in the Plaza ballroom.

"He'll ask me," Valerie replied, slipping on her dress. "He expects to marry me."

"And of course you'll say yes."

"I suppose so." Sitting at her dressing table, Valerie looked at her mother's reflection beside her own. Rosemary, dressed and arranging her bracelets, was stately and elegant in black and white lace. "It's Edgar or someone else; I can't think of any alternative. Can you?"

"Well, but, my dear, you do like him. You're fond of him; he's pleasant to be with; you have a good time... don't you.>"

Valerie smiled rueftilly. "Those are the words I used with Kent and

Carl. I liked them, I was fond of diem, diey were pleasant to be with; I usually had a good time with them."

"And you loved them."

Valerie ran a comb through her hair, debated pinning back one side with a gold clasp, then decided to leave it loose.

"Valerie, you did love Carl!"

Their eyes met in the mirror. Valerie's were somber. "Sometimes I thought I did. Sometimes I thought I could love him much more, if we gave ourselves a chance. But mosdy, I felt sorry for him, and I'm not sure how much I was confusing love and pity. He always seemed to be a litde bit lost. One minute he'd make me feel I ought to be mothering him, and the next he'd be forcefiil and sure of himself, and I'd relax and we'd have a good time. No, I don't suppose I really loved him. I liked him. Most of the time I thought we were good friends. I think—I'm a litde afraid—I don't know how to love anyone. I haven't—"

"Don't say such a thing! It's not true!"

"I hope not," Valerie said quiedy. "But it's been a long time since I felt I loved someone in that lovely, deep, magical way the poets write about." She ran a comb through her hair.

"And Edgar?" Rosemary asked.

"I like Edgar. I'm fond of him, he's pleasant to be with, we have a good time. He keeps me entertained and he likes to do things for me." She stood up and surveyed her image. "Edgar lives in a wonderful world. Mother, where no one worries about survival. And he loves me and he'll take care of us. Doesn't that sound like the perfect man?"

Rosemary ignored the irony in Valerie's voice. "You'll learn to love him," she said firmly, certain in her own mind that it was a good thing, as well as a necessary one, for Valerie to marry him. "He may not be perfect, but he sounds just right for you."

Three hundred people came to the Wympers' party at the Plaza, for dinner and dancing and to say their farewells before scattering about the world on their summer jaunts. Valerie wore red, a strapless, sinuous silk sheath that set off her creamy shoulders and gave her face a glow that looked like happiness. Edgar's mother had lent her jewelry for the evening, since she knew Valerie had sold most of her own, and so she wore diamonds and rubies at her throat and ears. Everyone told her she was stunning: the real Valerie, back with them at last. And at eleven at night, as the guests sat at round tables finishing their coffee

and creme brulee, Edgar st(X)d at his parents' table, and the orchestra gave a small fanfare to bring quiet to the room.

"I have an announcement," he said.

In quick protest, Valerie put her hand on his arm. They had not talked about this. It had to be a decision the two of them made together.

Edgar paid no attention; the first time in six months he had ignored her. "Not really an announcement," he said. His voice carried to all thirty tables; there was a quiver in it, but still it had the slighdy pompous drama he had cultivated so successfully. "It's really a request. I decided to make it here, because our friends and our families are here, and it's the end of the season when we make plans for the future." He looked down into Valerie's eyes. "My darling Valerie, I made the decision to speak to you here without asking you, and that may trouble you, but I promise you now that it is the last decision I will ever make without you, if that is your desire. I've been thinking about these words since I was sixteen years old; a long time, a faithful time, as you know, and they are so momentous they require a grand and proper setting. I could have spoken them at any time in the past six months— I know, and so do you, that everyone has been waiting for me to do so—but it seemed clear to me, and I hope it will to you, that the only way to emphasize the significance of this moment is to do it before witnesses, for all time, for eternity."