The Great Husband Hunt (27 page)

I said, “How do you know?”

“It's obvious,” he said. “Everyone loves tiddlers.”

That was what Angelica said, too.

“How many more shall we have, old turnip top?” he said. “Let's have a hyce full.” “Hyce” was the Merrick way of saying “house.”

I douched three times that night, to make sure he didn't make an immediate start on his project to sire a dynasty. Reggie could be very impractical at times.

It was a melancholy scene, the day I left for Liverpool.

Angelica came over, blowing her nose a great deal, Neville delayed going out so he could shake my hand, and Bobbity feigned busyness, coaxing a worm pill into Bullyboy Beluga, in order to maintain her stiff upper lip. Even the girl put on a clean apron and came and stood with the general outdoors man and the stable boy, all looking most affected. When I first arrived, the story that I was a widow, left with two small children, had been allowed to spread by natural means, and so I suppose they felt I had already had more than my share of tragedy.

There was a freezing mist, right up to the windowpanes, and when I turned to take a last look at Kneilthorpe, it had disappeared already.

Reggie went with me as far as Leicester.

“Damn and blast it, I should be coming with you,” he said, kissing me over and over through the train window, until I wished he had stayed on the gravel sweep and said his goodbyes with the rest. I knew my mission was to go to New York and return as soon as possible, but I hadn't the faintest expectation of being able to do it. I hoped, or believed, that by the time I reached her side, Honey would be through her darkest hour.

She would refuse to be parted from her angel lambkins, Ma would beg me to reconsider before I dragged them to a foreign land, and we would reach some kind of mutually satisfactory arrangement whereby she brought them to Kneilthorpe for a holiday each year. I wondered why I hadn't thought of it before.

36

I sailed on my old friend the
Aquitania,
and all the talk was of who was ruined. I even began to wonder whether I was myself. I couldn't understand how people could have money one minute and nothing the next, unless someone broke into the bank and carried it all off. As I trusted, Uncle Israel's complicated precautions had kept my fortune out of harm's way. It was Harry who had come a cropper, cashing in Honey's treasury bonds, mortgaging everything they had, doing something called “buying on margin.” He had driven out to one of his empty Bay Shore properties and shot himself.

Murray was waiting for me with this bleak story. He had come down to the pier to watch the old four-stacker come in to her berth. Whether he'd offered or whether he'd been sent, I don't know. He was very formal with me.

“I'm sorry you've come home to such sadness, Poppy,” he said.

I said, “Thank God Harry had the decency not to do it at home.”

“Well,” he said, “I see being an English lady hasn't softened you any. I'm instructed to take you straight to Honey. Then on to 69th Street. Your ma has the girls there, and I know how eager you'll be to get reacquainted with them.”

I said, “Why are you still mad at me for loaning them to Honey? If you only knew how she begged me to leave them behind.”

He said, “You make them sound like a pair of gloves.”

There was no way of telling, from the outside, that my sister's house had been visited by tragedy. Everything looked the same as usual. As I climbed to the front stoop I could remember feeling just as affronted when Pa had been lost at sea but the milk still got delivered on time.

“Anyhow,” I said to Murray, “why did Sherman Ulysses wire me? Wasn't that your job?”

“Not at all,” he said. “Sherman is head of this house now.”

And I soon discovered what he meant. The stocky red-faced child who had seen off more nursemaids and governesses than I could count, had grown into a man. He had thin coppery hair and an earnest face. Sixteen years old. He was down in the kitchen carefully following a recipe from his Boy Scout Campfire Cookbook.

“Aunt Poppy,” he said, shaking my hand. “Mother's resting so I'm going to speak to you plainly while I can.”

Then he turned to Murray.

“Did you tell her?” he asked.

Murray shrugged his shoulders.

“We haven't had time for much,” he said.

“The thing is,” Sherman said, wiping his hands on a kitchen cloth, “Mother has lost everything. She can't be expected to support you a moment longer…”

I saw red.

I said, “I have never asked
anyone
to support me. And I'm here to tell her not to worry. I still have my fortune. I'll buy her another house or whatever she needs.”

“You're missing my point,” he said. “You have to take your children and raise them yourself. You've been helling around and pleasing yourself for long enough. It's time those girls know who they belong to, and Murray agrees with me, don't you?”

“I do,” Murray said. “But Poppy knows that. There's been bad feeling between us since the day she ran out on Emerald.”

Those two pip-squeaks talking about me like that.

I said, “Save your breath. I have a husband and a home waiting for them in England. I was about to collect them anyway.”

Sherman said, “You make them sound like a pair of repaired boots.”

I saw a little something pass between him and Murray. How they must have rehearsed the way they were going to persecute me. I believed I'd grown accustomed to the world's disapproval but the hurt of their criticism took me quite by surprise. I began to cry. And neither of them rushed to comfort me.

Sherman returned to browning sausages in a pan, and Murray began to arrange a tray for tea.

“Have your cry, Poppy,” he said, “and then we'll take this up to Honey. She's asked for you every day.”

My poor sister. She looked like she had had a quantity of stuffing removed from her. Her hair hadn't been combed. Her wrap was crumpled. She reminded me of Ma during the ups and downs of 1912.

I sat with her awhile and seemingly managed to say every wrong thing in the book.

“Don't fret about money,” I said. “I have plenty.”

“I don't care about money,” she said. “I want Harry back.”

“Why?” I said. “He was nothing but a fool and a thief. I'll bet you never saw your rose pearls again. And all those showgirls.”

“It doesn't matter,” she said. “I still want him back.”

I said, “And don't worry about Sapphire and Emerald. I'll take them to England and raise them as Merricks.”

“No!” she said, and she grabbed my arm. “There's no need to do anything hasty. In a day or two I'll be feeling well enough to have them back here, and you can have Aunt Fish's room and gradually the girls will grow to understand who you are. You have to give them time, Poppy. Lots of time.”

I said, “Have you been preparing them for this? You knew they'd have to come to me eventually. You have been showing them my picture regularly?”

She sank back against the daybed. Her silence confirmed my fears that she had not been following my instructions. I have often found in life that the only way to ensure a job is done properly is to do it yourself.

“Has Sherman told you to take them away?” she asked eventually. “He thinks I can't continue but he's wrong. I shall soon be well enough. Shermy is taking good care of me. It's just that it's been such a terrible shock, Poppy. I didn't know things like this could happen, did you?”

I sat with her till Sherman carried in a plate of potatoes and sausage. Then Murray drove me across the park and down Fifth Avenue.

I said, “Does she really stand to lose her house? There's no need for that, you know?”

He said, “No. She can stay in the house, if she chooses to. My father and Dorabel are taking care of that. But some things can't be replaced.”

Honey's rose pearls were very lovely.

Murray said, “Are you happy in England?”

“Very happy,” I told him.

“Good,” he said.

I said, “And how's the bookkeeping and business and everything?”

“Oh, you know,” he said. “Crazy. Wild, crazy fun, fun, fun.”

I said, “And you must have a sweetheart by now?”

“Hundreds,” he said.

He was still holding out on me.

We pulled up outside the Jacoby house and I felt something gray and suffocating coil itself around me. Ma was in there waiting for me, and Aunt Fish, and no matter that I was thirty-two years old, no matter that I was second in command at Kneilthorpe and had poured tea for the P of W, I was about to be stripped of my rank. I would simply be Poppy and therefore in the wrong. I had kept my looks and my fortune, while my sister had lost both. I was bad for sharing the joys of my children with her and now, no doubt, would be bad whether I wrenched them from her or not. I also had some explaining to do with my mother vis-à-vis Queen Mary.

How I wished I were back in England, waiting for the dinner gong.

Emerald and Sapphire had been kept up to meet me. Judah was out of his seat, in a hurry to greet me and then disappear. My mother's husband recognized women's business when he saw it. Arranged on a couch were Ma and Aunt Fish, and between them, in nightgowns, candlewick wraps and Dora Minkel Ear Correcting Bandages were my babies. They fairly hurled themselves at Murray and he allowed himself to be brought down, and covered in kisses and tickled to death. Ma offered me a dry, papery cheek.

“Murray undoes all my good work,” she whispered. “How was Honey when you left her?”

I said, “Resting. Sherman was making sausages for dinner.”

I was ravenous myself, but it didn't seem the right thing to ask whether I'd missed dinner.

“Murray!” Ma rapped out. “No more stimulation, please.”

Emerald's ear bandages had come adrift. Sapphire had hiccups. Gradually Murray restored calm.

“See here,” he said quietly, hauling them onto his lap. “Do you know who this special visitor is?”

They shook their heads solemnly. Sapphire's hair, formerly Catchings blonde, had darkened to a full brown Minkel frizz. Emerald's hung straight and fine, just like Reggie's. Apart from that they passed for full sisters.

I said, “I'm your mommy.”

Emerald laughed.

“Oh no you're not!” she said. “We already have a mommy.”

“Well,” Murray said, “now you have two mommies. A Mommy Honey and a Mommy Poppy. And this is your Mommy Poppy. Two mommies. Aren't you lucky?”

Emerald said, “That's stupid.”

She turned her back on me and tried to revive the tickling game. Sapphire clung to Murray, watching me, and eventually she spoke.

“Did you bring us candy?” she asked.

I dropped down on the rug beside her.

“No,” I said. “But tomorrow we can buy candy and dollies and anything else you'd like.”

“Just candy,” she said. “I don't like dollies. Why do you have a mess on your face?”

Spending so much time around women like Ma and my sister who never did a thing to improve themselves, I suppose she wasn't accustomed to lipstick and powder.

I said, “Would you like a tickle fight with me?”

But she did no more than spit in my eye and run from the room. Aunt Fish was after her like a shot.

“Well,” Murray said, “it was never going to be easy.”

He got to his feet and swung Emerald onto his shoulders.

“I guess I'll carry this one up to her bed,” he said. “You can start over in the morning.”

As he ducked through the door with her, I heard her say, “Where's Mommy Honey?”

I was left alone with my mother.

I said, “How are you, Ma?”

“Bearing up,” she said. “I hope Harry Grace is satisfied, bringing inconvenience to us all. Judah has faced very difficult questions, you know?”

I asked where Harry had been buried.

“We don't need to know,” she said. “We'll just pretend he never happened.”

I said, “I remember you thought very highly of him. As I recall, he was always the first person you called for, after Pa was gone.”

“I don't remember any such thing,” she said. “He could never be depended on. And now he's brought us shame and ruin.”

I said, “Murray tells me Judah is saving Honey's house. But I'd have done that. I'd have liked to do something to help.”

“Well, I'm sure there's something for everyone,” she said. “You can pay the school fees, so Abe can return to his studies.”

I said, “Does Sherman answer you when you call him Abe?”

“Sherman!” Ma snorted. “That was another of Harry's silly schemes. Well, now we can use the name God intended for him. Your skin is showing signs of age, Poppy. Are you using the Vinolia every night?”

Dinner was served the instant the nursery fell silent.

Aunt Fish said, “Now tell us, Poppy, does Her Majesty sound…German, when she speaks?”

“Poppy and I already discussed this,” Ma leapt in. “The Queen is so satisfied by Poppy's credentials she hasn't needed to send for her.”

I said, “One doesn't simply
meet
the Queen, you see Aunt? Reggie has never met her. Even Sir Neville hasn't, and he's a baronet.”

“What a very odd family,” she said, helping herself to another slice of chicken.

“Is it a good life, Poppy?” Judah asked me. “Are they good people?”

I said, “They're very good. They visit their tenants and ride around in the fresh air a great deal. And they don't waste money on jewels or anything.”

I threw this in, wanting my stepfather to approve of the Merricks. I suddenly felt an indebtedness to him. When all around were rewriting history, consigning Harry to an unmarked grave, and renaming his son, Judah had faced the difficult questions and dug into his pockets. He must have loved my mother very much indeed.

“What? No jewels at all?” Ma asked, most alarmed. “Then be sure they don't get their hands on yours. This family has suffered enough losses.”

Murray said, “I think we should get to the point. Are Sapphy and Em going to England?”

I said, “They have to.”

“No they don't,” Aunt Fish said. “Mr. Merrick can come here.”

“Could he?” Judah asked me. “What's his situation?”

“Judah!” Ma said. “I must have explained Mr. Merrick's situation to you a hundred times.”