Treasures (50 page)

Connie Berg made a stunning widow, slender in black with a single strand of eleven-millimeter pearls around her throat under the sweep of her pale hair. Mourning clothes were old-fashioned, yet for just that reason they had a kind of elegance reminiscent of Jacqueline Kennedy’s widowhood. When the weather turned warm in the second half of the year, she changed to cream color, heavy linen or thin silk. People turned to look after her when, on Nanny’s day out, she walked on Fifth Avenue with Thérèse and the three small poodles.

By the beginning of spring her telephone began to bring discreet invitations for quiet evenings. “Just a few friends at dinner, that’s all, since you are still in mourning.” From such quiet evenings came other invitations, most of which she turned down, from unattached men, some of them too young, some too old, and some just simply fortune hunters. Connie knew about fortune hunters.

Anyway, she was not interested. Still numbed by the unpredictability of death, by the daily immanence of it, which she had quite forgotten since the long-ago death
of her mother, she was now feeling a need only for the protective comfort of the familiar. Lara and Eddy had of course come at once to New York and thrown their arms around her. It was then that she learned how Pam, through Eddy, had rescued the Davis Company. Her feelings on learning of it were mingled of tenderness toward her brother—how changed he was, still steadily optimistic, but with all the cocksure, boastful swagger gone!—and a confused sense of shame that it had been Martin who would have driven Davey to the wall.

“What bothers me,” said Lara, “is my memory of Martin’s last visit to our house. It didn’t end with the most friendly feelings, and I’m sorry.”

There was no way for Connie to answer that, since her own last memory of Martin was what it was. And for a while the three were silent in the red library, where a newly enlarged portrait of Martin in a baroque silver frame gazed out at them.

What a year it had been for the three, each in his own way! A year of trials and tests. It seemed to Connie now that they were merely pausing, resting as the world rests when a terrible winter seems to have passed, but there is still no certainty that another storm might not be on the way.

Drawn by this need for the familiar, she made a few impulsive trips in Martin’s plane to Ohio and Kentucky.

Davey’s plant was going full blast, but Lara worried nevertheless.

“The debt load is horrendous, Connie. To think that Davey had to borrow such a sum to save his own place! We’re making just about enough to meet the payments
he promised Pam. And after that, we barely squeeze by. It doesn’t seem to make any sense.”

“I can’t believe Pam would press him, though. Not with all she owns.”

Lara shook her head. “No, no. But I don’t understand it! Ninety percent of their splendor’s gone. It’s very queer. Wait till you go there, and you’ll know what I mean. It’s almost as if she’d stripped herself when she made the loan to us.”

“That’s too saintly to be real. Nobody does that. And surely not for a brother- or sister-in-law.”

“Well, wait till you see,” repeated Lara.

What Connie saw that first time was a neat white house of moderate size with no grand driveway, columns, wings, or terraces, surrounded by ten level acres of grazing grounds, stables, and riding rings. By the side of the country road above the mailbox a sign read:
OSBORNE HORSE FARM
,
RIDING
,
BOARDING
,
SCHOOLING
. Pam, familiar in boots and breeches, came out and led her around, explaining the new order of things.

“We don’t raise racers, only a few horses for show. Eddy’s turned against racing, and I see his point, because it’s just gambling, really, and cruel to the horses besides. Riding for its own sake is the true sport.”

Connie, feeling dainty and citified, hurried to keep up with Pam’s long stride. “How’s Eddy getting on in the new job?” she inquired.

“Very well. It’s only a three-member firm of accountants, no problem for him.”

Pam’s tone was flat. Connie thought she sensed a reluctance to touch on Eddy’s work. But that was probably
understandable. Osborne and Company, the computers, the consoles, fax machines, row on row of young men, avid, nervous, and concentrated, bent above them, these were what Pam must be remembering.

“Quite a change,” she said sympathetically.

“Yes. Come see the house. You’ll find that quite a change too.”

Here indeed was no southern mansion, merely the usual basic rooms, along with an office decorated by framed photographs of horses. Connie recognized most of the furniture, although some pieces were too simple ever to have been in the New York home; they must have been bought to replace the gilt and marble. However, it was all very tasteful, and Connie was gratified to recognize familiar things, too, some of the finds that Eddy had discovered at auction, a few pieces of the silver that he cherished, and some paintings.

“Oh, the Winslow Homer!” she cried on entering the living room. “I always loved that so.”

“Yes,” Pam said rather shortly. “Would you like the whole tour? Upstairs?”

“Of course. You know how I love to see houses.”

On the second floor a narrow hall ran across the back of the house. From it there opened a sunny master room at the end, three more bedrooms, and a small office.

“Eddy’s office,” Pam said. “Eddy’s bedroom next to it.”

The women’s eyes met. Connie turned hers away. Was there something Pam wanted her to know? If so, why not tell her outright?

But no more was said. They went downstairs, had tea
with small talk, and waited for Eddy to come home to dinner.

After dinner, when Pam had to talk to a customer in the stables, the brother and sister were for a while alone. And presently, after many circumlocutions, Connie came to her point.

“This retrenchment—I don’t mean that you aren’t living very nicely, but the change is dramatic, isn’t it? What’s the reason? Why?”

Eddy’s faint, short-lipped smile was wry. “Reason? Have you any idea what it cost Pam to outbid P.T.C. Longwood for Davey’s company?” Then as Connie’s flush rose to her face, he said quickly, “It’s a painful subject, I know, but you mustn’t let it pain. It’s past and done with. Business is business. It always was. I blame no one, least of all Martin. Who would I be to cast the blame, anyway?” he finished.

“But I don’t understand,” said Connie in a low, hurt voice, “why she made such a sacrifice. It’s staggering. I can perhaps understand why you would, although even that would be astounding, but why she would hand over almost everything … Was it simply because you asked her to?”

“Because I asked her to.” Eddy’s mouth closed in a hard, stern line.

“Extraordinary.” She looked around the room as if a real explanation might be hidden somewhere behind the curtains. “And you are back where you started. Living on what you earn from day to day, I mean.”

“As most people do. Although for us it’s not quite like
that. We have Davey’s payments. He began making them from the start, every month.”

“It’s terribly hard for them, I think.”

“Pam doesn’t press them. It’s they who insist.”

“They would, of course.”

At that moment Pam came back, and the subject was changed.

“You’ll stay a few days, I hope, Connie?” she asked.

“I’d like to, but I have things to do at home. I try to spend every minute I can with Thérèse, so that she won’t miss her father too much. And then I have to look into colleges for Melissa because she wants to come back and make her home here with me. She says she feels happier here.”

All the way home Connie was bothered by what she had seen and heard. It seemed to her that in some way she had inherited a responsibility for making good the damage that Martin’s firm had done. And she said as much the next time she saw Preston, who had taken her to dinner a few times at the Carlyle Hotel, not far from her apartment. Carefully and courteously he listened, as was his way, considering his reply before he gave it.

“Frankly, I can’t see why you or anyone should feel responsible. Your brother-in-law chose to take the hard way. He could have given in and walked off with a small fortune, plus a salary with P.T.C. Longwood, if he wanted. To be rich is no bad thing, and to my mind he was foolish.”

“That’s what Martin said.”

“And Martin was right. So now he’s struggling.”

Connie interrupted. “I hate to see him struggling.”

“What are you thinking? That you should buy up the loan yourself?”

She regarded Preston’s quizzical, amused expression. There wouldn’t be much one could hide from such a man. “You’re a mind reader, Preston. Yes, I have been thinking that. After all, I’m Lara’s sister. Pam’s only a sister-in-law.”

“A remarkable thing for a sister-in-law to have done, especially since you tell me it meant such a sacrifice.”

“Evidently Eddy wanted her to do it.” Yet they’re sleeping separately, she thought. And the atmosphere in that house had been in some way formal, in some way not quite right.…

“People don’t impoverish themselves, relatively speaking, simply because a husband or wife asks them to. Judging by what I’ve seen of human nature, there’d have to be a quid pro quo,” Preston said.

“Meaning?”

“That she owes him something. You look puzzled.”

“Well, I am. Anyway, I really want to buy the loan from Pam. I really do.”

“Go ahead, you can certainly afford to. Especially if you plan to sell all that property. Do you?”

“Yes, what do I want with a huge house in London? It’s just a responsibility. And an Arab has offered me an enormous profit.”

“Take it. The real estate market is about to drop, all over the world. What about Palm Beach, and the ski house?”

“I’m selling them. It’s so much easier to take a suite
in a hotel when you want to go somewhere. All I want to keep are the apartment and Cresthill.”

“You’ve done well for yourself in this world, Connie.”

“I guess I have.”

“You guess! You know you have. But you deserve it. Beauty deserves its rewards.”

“Thank you.”

“And you’ve got a lot more than beauty. You make people feel happy when they’re with you. You’ve got heart.”

“Heart? Funny, that’s a thing I really think I haven’t got enough of.”

“What? Why, Berg was mad about you. He talked about you constantly.”

She thought, you’re missing the point. For all the man’s shrewdness he had failed to see that she had not loved “Berg.”

“And look at the good heart you have for your sister, now.”

“That’s different. That’s a blood tie, like Thérèse.”

“It must have been a touchy business for Martin, having to deal with his wife’s family. We all appreciated that in the firm.”

“I’m sure it was.… I was thinking, Preston. I could take Davey’s repayments, after I’ve assumed the loan, and put part away for Lara’s children. It would have to be secret because he and Lara would never accept it otherwise. Can that be done?”

“Easily. We’ll set up a trust. Just tell me when.”

She smiled at Preston. “It’s good having you as a friend. I hate dealing with lawyers. They always come in
batches of three or four, and they’re so pompous, taking ten words to answer when two would do.”

She meant what she said. It had become easy to talk to Preston. Even as recently as a few months ago he had still been the slightly forbidding patrician gentleman, a little too distant, too chilly, for a woman who was accustomed to the ebullience of Martin. Something had changed him.

“Then let’s be friends. I’d like that very much, Connie. I was rather waiting for you to emerge a bit from your first mourning.”

They were a distinguished couple. In restaurant and theater lobbies, wherever there were mirrors, Connie glimpsed them in passing, he with the elegant white head and aquiline young face above her head. Women stared at him. Women had never stared at Martin. Once when she heard a woman whisper, “Look at that stunning couple, the woman in white,” a shiver of excitement ran down her back. Power. Preston was power, and unlike some who had it, he looked the part.

One evening in late May, when it was still light after dinner, he said abruptly, “How about driving to my place in the country for a nightcap? It’s only about an hour and a half away.”

“I’d love it. I was never there,” she remarked.

“Well, you know—how shall I put it? My wife had her ways.”

Preston’s Buick sedan was not new. An old blanket had been tossed on the backseat. “For the collie,” he
explained. “I took her to the vet yesterday. She sheds like the dickens.”

It was a soft night. Preston put on a tape; the music was as soft as the air; the car whirred softly northward. Neither spoke until they came to a familiar intersection and went past it, when he said, “The road to your place.”

“I know. I’ll be there for the summer as soon as Thérèse’s school is out.”

“We’re only twenty minutes apart.”

“That’s all?”

Invisible from the road, Stonycroft lay behind a massive border of wild growth that, to Connie’s eyes, appeared unkempt.

“Observe the hedgerow,” Preston said. “It’s not like the ones you see in France or England—they’ve taken centuries to grow—but I think this is pretty good for only seventy-five years’ growth. My grandfather began it.”

It seemed odd that such a tight-woven tangle should be preferable to a landscape architect’s pattern of rare shrubbery, but Connie made no comment. Nor did she remark upon the sheep who were cropping the grass right up to the stone balustrade that encircled the house, nor upon the flagstone entrance hall with its boot racks, dog beds, and foul-weather gear hung on clothes trees.

In the long drawing room two great Newfoundlands and a shaggy collie sprang up from the sofas and came forward to greet them. The chintzes were faded, and next to a wing chair an Oriental rug showed a large hole.
Connie, quite taken aback, followed Preston through halls hung with portraits, past a two-storied library darkly paneled, through a vast dining room lined with cabinets in which massive silver gleamed, and finally into an enormous kitchen that had not been altered since the 1920s.