DINNER THAT NIGHT WAS the kind of extravaganza at which Mrs. Romano excelled. Where one entrée would do, she offered three. Where two savories would have sufficed, she produced four.
But as Paulo cleared course after course, bringing down the plates for washing by the local girl brought in for the occasion (her name was Martha, and she seemed to suffer from adenoids), he thought only Sir Adrian might entirely be enjoying the repast.
Jeffrey, who sat in chummy silence watching Mrs. Romano and Martha work, occasionally offering a helping hand with the heavier dishes, listened to Paulo’s bulletins with increasing interest. Really, it was like one of those nighttime soap operas.
Sir Adrian had emerged from his bedroom at seven PM, a cumberbund stretched like a rubber band to breaking point around his colossal perimeter. Trotting into the drawing room, he found his family already amassed, and stretched his rosebud lips into a semblance of a welcoming smile. He skipped over to Violet-it would seem in his present good mood his gout wasn’t troubling him as much-and made too big a fuss of noisily kissing her cheek. Or so it seemed to Sarah, who, with Albert, warily watched the pantomime from near the fireplace.
George sat snaked across one of the Queen Anne sofas, which Natasha stood behind, both of them managing to look disheveled, but in an interesting, expensive way, like an advertisement for Ralph Lauren bed linens. Natasha wore a silk poet’s blouse with long sleeves ending in ruffles at her wrists; George, a velvet coat that recalled Lord Byron about the time England was asking him never again to darken its shores.
Ruthven and Lillian stood apart, looking like the same advertisement aimed at a somewhat older demographic.
Violet, rising to the occasion, was sheathed in gray silk falling to mid-calf, flapper style, with a long string of pearls knotted at her navel. (Lillian spent part of the evening trying to tell if the pearls were real, decided that they were, and the rest of the evening calculating their retail value.) She stood alone beneath the traceried ceiling-high windows, her graceful form framed by French doors. It seemed a deliberate choice; the discreetly lighted formal garden outside provided a dramatic backdrop that drew the eye to her slender, solitary silhouette.
Only Albert and Sarah had been latish in arriving. Albert to all appearances was sober, to the surprise of his family. Albert sober was a rare event, somewhat like a comet sighting. He also appeared to be feeling rather chipper, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Both George and Ruthven eyed him with suspicion.
“Won’t Jeffrey be joining us?” Sarah asked, her voice so studiedly casual it immediately raised eyebrows among the women in the group, with their special radar for love in bloom. For the occasion Sarah wore an embroidered caftan of African origin, unaware that the design included fertility symbols of a particularly explicit and ribald nature.
Her father raked her with a wintry stare, all traces of good humor vanished.
“No. Nor will Watters nor any of the other servants. Good heaven, what an idea.”
Sarah, still smarting from her earlier adventure in the kitchen, said: “I don’t see why not. After all, according to the Bible we are all brothers.”
“Surely that didn’t include Americans,” said George.
Ruthven smiled appreciatively at this witticism over the top of his sherry glass.
“Nor the French,” he said. “Really, Sarah. Lighten, as they say, up. You really can be such a prat.”
“I think you’re just being horrid,” said Sarah sulkily. “He’s quite nice, actually.”
George seemed to twig the situation for the first time.
“Oh, I see.” He chanted the sing-song of the playground: “Sarah fancies Jeffrey. ”
“Stop it. I feel sorry for him, that’s all. Being so far from home and-”
Sir Adrian cut in: “You can all stop it. I get enough of the man during the day. All that perkiness: it’s like having Meg Ryan scampering about the house.” He cast eyes upward, beseeching an indifferent heaven, then glared at each of his offspring in turn. “Whatever did I do to deserve this quarrelsome family?”
“It rather begs the nature versus nurture question, doesn’t-” began Albert.
“That’s enough!” Sir Adrian could bellow, when he wanted to, loud enough to shatter glass. “This is a joyous family gathering and you are all, for once, going to behave yourselves. What must Violet be thinking of us?” He gave her a little hug; her narrow form seemed to disappear somewhere into the folds of the cummerbund.
“It’s just that it’s nearly the holidays, and he’s far from home, that’s all,” repeated Sarah.
Now even Sir Adrian began to twig. He turned on her-or rather, maneuvered twenty degrees more in her direction, like a submarine.
“Don’t even think it,” he said. “No daughter of mine is going to get involved with an American secretary.” From his tone, he might have been contemplating her elopement with a Bedouin tribesman.
For perhaps the first time in her life, real defiance welled up in Sarah. She drew herself up in what she hoped Jeffrey would think of as a queenly posture.
“You think to tell me with whom I may or may not get involved? Under these circumstances?” She cocked her head in Violet’s direction. “Are you forgetting why we’re all here?”
It was the first time any of them had referred even indirectly to the happy occasion which had brought them together. Her siblings stirred uneasily.
“At least he’s not a mur-”
“Not a what?” Violet could match Sir Adrian’s frosty tone, icicle for icicle, thought Lillian. Bravo.
Having come to the edge of the cliff, Sarah found she couldn’t leap.
“Under these circumstances?” Sir Adrian repeated slowly. “Yes. Under these or any other circumstances I will tell you exactly what to do. You’re my daughter and if you expect to ever see a penny from me you’ll drop the whole subject right now.”
“I don’t want-”
Ruthven, seeing an opportunity to ingratiate himself with his father at Sarah’s expense, cut in. “He’s only after your money, Sarah. Don’t be such an ass.”
The fear that what Ruthven said might be true made her lash out. With a nod in Lillian’s direction, she said:
“You should know all about that.”
Albert, who had only been half-listening to the conversation up to this point, said, “I say. That is rather rich, coming from you, Ruthven. I doubt you’ve ever done a deed in your life that wasn’t motivated by money. Same goes for you, George. Just leave Sarah alone for once.”
“Coming from me? Me?” said George. “As if you hadn’t spent all your life sucking up to Father over money.”
“I?
”
Sir Adrian roared: “I said that’s enough.”
He looked at each member of his rancorous brood in turn with steely eyed displeasure, his face contorted like a gargoyle’s on a Gothic cathedral. It had the hoped-for, withering effect.
“Not another word or I’ll see you all regret it.”
To Violet’s amazement, they all-including Natasha-exchanged quicksilver glances, as if relaying some pre-arranged signal. In unison, they clapped their mouths shut, like a perfectly orchestrated firing squad having used up its round.
Paulo, who had been lurking in the hall outside, admiring his long, dark hair in the Louis Quinze mirror while eavesdropping on the conversation, judged it a good moment to step inside and announce, in perfect imitation of the perfect servant, “Dinner is served.”
Sir Adrian offered his arm to Violet and without a word began heaving his slow way in the direction of their meal.
“I don’t know what you mean,” shouted Sarah to Albert.
They sat across from one another in the trompe l’oeil dining salon reserved for formal occasions. Reminiscent of the wedding invitations, and probably serving as the inspiration for same, the decorative panels lining the walls featured cherubs, scantily diapered in clouds, sitting atop Roman columns, the whole in a style that somehow managed to marry the worst of Gothic and Renaissance excesses.
Paulo had by this point brought in the fish with its accompanying wine. The volume of conversation seemed to have increased exponentially with each course.
“What are you saying? You’ll soon have the real story?”
Albert noticed for the first time that Lillian, to his right, had torn her attention away from Violet to tune into his conversation.
“We’ll talk later,” he shouted back. By this time, he had had more than his share of wine, although his eyelids hadn’t yet started dropping to half-mast as they normally would have done by this point. Instead, he seemed animated by whatever news he was hugging to himself.
That sleepy look of his could sometimes be deceptive, Sarah knew. Albert was becoming well-known for giving entire stage performances-some of his best performances, at that-whilst completely intoxicated. Often, it wasn’t until he collapsed backstage after the final curtain call that his fellow actors realized he had been in the bag the whole time.
Somehow they got through the meal, making inconsequential replies to each other’s small talk and surreptitiously watching Sir Adrian and Violet the while. She sat at the opposite head of the table from Sir Adrian-a blatant indicator of her elevated status, which Lillian, demoted to her left hand, had not failed to notice.
George, on Violet’s right, pointedly refused to engage her in conversation, and, most unusually, made small talk with Sarah about her book. Never retiring on this subject, Sarah warbled forth, relieving George of the task of doing anything more than feigning interest as he shoveled in food.
When Paulo began serving the port and Stilton, Lillian quickly rose to lead the ladies away for coffee in the drawing room, precisely as if she owned the place. Sir Adrian waved her back to her seat. He tapped a spoon against his glass and a hush descended. Turning to Violet, he said, “I think it’s time we broke the news, don’t you, my dear?”
“I think it is well past time, as I’ve told you previously, darling,” she said.
Sir Adrian stood and, raising his glass, beamed at them in turn.
“My happy little family, once they hear the news, will understand all and forgive all. Isn’t that right?”
In unison, they folded their hands politely, no one but George making a move to prepare to raise a glass in toast.
“You’ve all journeyed far to be here and to share my happiness on this day. Do not think your joy in the occasion has gone unnoticed. To have my own flesh and blood in my home to share this moment is… well, it is a happiness beyond description. Without further ado, I ask you all to drink a toast to my wife, Violet, the woman who has made me the happiest man in England.”
“Father, you mean, future wife, don’t you?” said Sarah.
“Trust Sarah to nail it on the head. No, my dear, I do not mean ‘future.’ I mean ‘wife.’ Violet and I were married in Scotland last week, in a small private ceremony at Gretna Green.”
There was a silence in which, suddenly, no glass clinked, no spoon rattled against saucer, no foot shuffled. Even Paulo stood stock still, except for his ears, which Sarah imagined she could see flapping. They all-with the exception of Violet, who looked down at her plate-stared back at him, their mouths rounded into small circles. It was Ruthven who spoke first.
“You don’t mean it,” he said flatly.
“Oh, but I do. We are lawfully man and wife. Violet is your stepmother. It is what I believe Jeff would call a ‘done deal.’”
“Yes, all right, fine, but-Why? Why not tell us?”
“Why not tell you before?” Sir Adrian looked at him. There was a cold glint in her father’s eyes which Sarah, usually perfectly attuned, could not read. “Oh, my dear boy, I think you know perfectly well why not. You would have tried to talk me out of it. Tried to talk me out of marrying the most wonderful woman I’ve ever met in my life. Not that it would have done a bit of good. But I simply did not want to listen to you on this subject.” The “you” was perhaps just that bit too nicely shaded to be polite.
“I did want to tell you all,” said Violet, looking beseechingly around the table. “It’s quite awkward, I realize-”
“And I forbade it,” said Sir Adrian. “Much better this way, I said. And I was right.”
Lillian, meanwhile, whispered furiously to Albert.
“It’s just a stunt, I tell you. He’s pulling a stunt. Like Agatha Christie, when she disappeared.”
“Except that people could actually be bothered to look for Agatha.”
“No, my dear, it’s no stunt,” said Sir Adrian, whose hearing, as Lillian unfortunately had forgotten, was excellent, particularly for the higher ranges at which Lillian excelled.
Sarah and Albert, meanwhile, were telegraphing frenetic glances across the table. Only George looked unperturbed. He’s planning something of his own, thought Ruthven, who caught and accurately read the cat-in-cream expression on his brother’s face.
“I say, Father,” said George. “This is excellent news. Congratulations. Congratulations are due all around. Paulo-” and here he waggled his fingers as if to signal a maitre d’-“more champagne. For Natasha and I have news of our own.”
Ignoring the frantic appeal in Natasha’s eyes, he stood.
“It gives me great pleasure to announce that Natasha and I are expecting the first addition to the next generation of the Beau-clerk-Fisk line. Sometime in July. A boy.” He lifted his glass to his father. “A boy who shall naturally be named Adrian, in honor of his grandsire.”
He looked around his audience to gauge the reaction, and was not disappointed by the pole-axed stares of his siblings. Violet seemed uncertain what to do with her expression, then, remembering perhaps that babies were supposed to be good news, she beamed a smile down the table at Sir Adrian.
“I say,” George continued. “Isn’t this truly the family occasion we’ve all so longed for? Paulo, I said to fetch some champagne. What’s the matter with you, man?”
Paulo turned to Sir Adrian for direction in this unprecedented situation. There was a silence now that went deeper, if possible, than before.
But Sir Adrian, having like Violet tried on several poses, seemed finally to settle on that of avuncular squire. At least, he pulled back his lips in a fearsome smile and said, “Well, well-well! Another wedding in the works. I must say, George, I am pleased. Well done.”
It may have been the first time George had ever done anything right in his father’s eyes. As he was basking in the unaccustomed glow, a voice shot coolly across the table.
“Oh, no,” said Natasha. “I don’t think so.” She tucked her silken dark hair behind her ears, the better to hear any objections.
Sir Adrian, giving the waiting Paulo the high sign for champagne, said, “You don’t think so what?”
“A wedding is not in the offing. Baby, yes. Wedding, no.”
George, to whom this clearly was news, and whose thoughts had been miles from the altar in any event, flushed an ever-deepening red. He was not used to being rejected before he had even thought of proposing. He especially didn’t like the public style of her rebuff. What woman in her right mind would turn down marriage with George Beauclerk-Fisk?
“Nonsense,” said Sir Adrian gruffly. “A child needs a name. A quiet ceremony is in order to be sure. Perhaps right here, in the conservatory? I’ll have to ask Mrs. Romano. Now, the invitations-”
“I really don’t think-”
“I’ve told you my views. The subject is closed. Now, you could take a leaf from my book, but as Violet can tell you, Scotland doesn’t have a lot to offer this time of year.”
“Far too cold,” agreed Violet.
“Perhaps the Round Church in Cambridge. Quite romantic, but intimate. Do you have a large family, m’dear? I do think a small-”
For his part, Albert could only seem to take in one bad piece of news at a time, and decided to tackle the bad pieces in order of appearance.
“You got us up here on a wild goose chase over this wedding of yours,” he began. “Even for this family, it’s a new low.”
“A wild goose chase?” Sir Adrian’s jowls quivered in mock, hurt outrage. “Surely your joy must be twice as much, to hear the happy event has already transpired. This way you don’t have to come up with a suitable present.”
Albert managed to focus his eyes into a glower. Only by firmly clenching his jaws together could he still the trembling that had set in around his features. Unfortunately, this pressure started off a tic in his right eye. Decades of his father’s indifference had not made betrayal, as he saw this, any less painful.
“I gave up an important meeting for this weekend. With-” (and here he invented wildly)-“with Agnus McGee, the producer.
Just to be here for this momentous non-event. This non-wedding.
At the very least you might not have wasted all our time.”
“Agnus McGee? Really?”
“Yes. It’s about his new play. That he wants me to be in.”
“Spear-carriers being thin on the ground in the West End?” said Sir Adrian.
“Not as a spear-carrier, goddammit.” His fist hit the table and a fork careened into a glass. Red wine spread slowly across the immaculate white tablecloth. Already, he hated himself, but he could not seem to stop. “I was never a spear-carrier.”
“Agnus owes me a favor. I could put in a word.” This from Ruthven.
Albert swung on him, unleashing the hounds of fury he could not quite bring himself to set loose upon his father.
“Shut. Up. I don’t need any favors from you.”
Anger pushed him further, desperately, to extremes. As he turned again to his father, he said, with elaborate insouciance:
“As it happens, Agnus wants me for the role of Clarence in his new play. A pivotal part, he says. He came to me”-and at this point, Albert stepped into role, completely forgetting he was invent-ing-“ to my flat. Last Monday night.” He nodded and set down his drink, as if having just settled a difficult point about the earth’s being round. “For a meal, he came. We had an Alsatian stew he’d told me was his favorite.”
“Oh!” cut in Sarah, knowing he was making it all up, and trying to shovel him out before he got in too deeply. “Bacheofe. Is that difficult to make?”
“Not at all. You know me, not much of a cook, but I just managed.”
Lillian and Ruthven exchanged glances.
“How very odd,” said Ruthven. “Lillian and I dined with Agnus Monday night.” Ruthven, busy dissecting the Stilton as he punched a new hole in his brother’s ego, did not even bother to look up.
“Then it must have been Tuesday night,” Albert snapped.
“Besides,” Ruthven went on inexorably, “isn’t Agnus a vegetarian? Rather tiresome of him, I think. It took us forever to agree on a restaurant.”
Sarah glanced from brother to brother in alarm, wondering if Albert’s eyeballs might actually detach from his head as he wound himself into an apoplectic froth. She didn’t need to look at her father to know what his expression would be.
For she could easily trace the thread of the conversation back to its source. Anyone without experience of Sir Adrian might have thought he had played a passive role in the conflict, with Ruthven the aggressor and Albert the easily aggrieved. An outsider might have been forgiven for thinking her father’s look of bafflement genuine: the hapless parent, mystified by the cutthroat, murderous dislike among his children, in spite of his own best efforts as peacemaker.
How, she wondered, did Father always so easily ignite the spark that led to a full-fledged conflagration?
“You have no right to say anything to me,” Albert was saying now.
“Oh, really. And you have rights?” Once again, Ruthven couldn’t be bothered to look up from his meal, which only pushed Albert nearer the edge.
“As a matter of fact, I do. Yes, I do have rights, dammit to hell.”
But Albert, catching the plea in Sarah’s eyes at that moment, with a monumental effort held his tongue.
“Don’t be tedious,” said Ruthven. “I was only trying to help.”
“I’ve had enough of this-this Happy Meal,” said Albert. For the second time that day, he stood and stormed with great dignity out of the room, only slightly spoiling the effect by tripping over the carpet fringe and nearly landing on his head.
Into the deadly silence that ensued Sir Adrian, having turned Cain against Abel once again, said:
“My book is going well. Quite well indeed. My publisher, that slave driver, will be very pleased. Would you like to hear a brief synopsis?”
“No.” This from several voices in unison. Only Violet said, “That would be lovely, dear. I confess I am rather curious.”
Only Natasha noticed when Sarah crept away from the table, missing her favorite pudding, in search of Albert.
She found him in the bottom of the garden, in the boxwood maze, sitting on the cold stone bench in the center. This bitterly cold night the plants wore a dusting of ice that sparkled under the moonlight like broken glass. The back of the house rose in the distance, a thin, undisturbed coat of snow resting like sifted sugar atop its crenellated towers and across its vast formal lawns. The wind that had shredded the sky earlier in the day had dropped, allowing thick, snow-laden clouds to lour overhead; a light powder fell in a steady perpendicular curtain. It all looked more than ever like the enchanted garden that had been part of their make-believe games as children.
Albert wore a heavy coat against the cold, along with padded mittens like boxer’s gloves. She was surprised he’d had the presence of mind to protect himself from the weather. He clenched and unclenched his fists in the outsized gloves, whether in anger or in an attempt to keep warm, she couldn’t tell. His face in the moonlight was planed in shadow and light, more like marble than flesh.
“I’ll kill that shit some day,” was all he said.
“Which one?”
Albert emitted a harsh laugh, shaking his head.
“You could always make me laugh, Sarah. Sometimes even intentionally. My God, I am afraid for you sometimes. The world will tear you to pieces.”
“Don’t worry about me, Albert. I may be tougher than you think.”
He eyed her doubtfully.
“Which one, you ask? Such a wide field to choose from, isn’t there? But at the moment, Ruthven. The world would be such a better place without him.”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve often thought so myself. Him or George. At least, the universe would register that an irritant had been removed, somewhat like getting a cinder out of one’s eye.” She tapped an index finger against her upper lip meditatively, like a housewife trying to decide whether to paint or wallpaper the sitting room. Ruthven or George? George or Ruthven?
“I really didn’t mean George, at the moment,” said Albert.
“One of the great romances, there,” said Sarah.
“George and Natasha? You must be joking. And now, baby makes three. Great God. A little niece or nephew for us all. I don’t suppose Father will waste any time changing the will again, now there’s a Beauclerk-Fisk dynasty in the offing.”
“I actually was speaking of George’s love for himself. Now, there is a love that will last ’til the end of time.”
“Ha! Quite right. Still, Natasha seems to have got a leash on him, for the moment. At least, she seems to know how to play against his ego.”
“It won’t last,” said Sarah sadly. She traced a heart in the snow on top of the stone bench, then roughly obliterated it. “George is too unstable. The child will only make things worse, and I think Natasha knows it. But-it’s Father who is the center of the storm, as usual. Playing us off against each other, playing with us. It’s so silly, this whole charade about the marriage. Why does he play these stupid games?”
Albert tore his gaze away from the house, which seemed to have held him spellbound.
“I’ll kill that shit some day,” he said again.
“Albert, you mustn’t even think such a thing, much less say it. About any of them.”
“Why not? What difference does it make?”
“I don’t know. I suppose because-because people may believe you mean it.”
“I do mean it.”
“No! Whether you mean it or not, you mustn’t say it aloud.
People mustn’t know, don’t you see? I mean, if anything were to happen to Ruthven, or George, or Father, you’d be blamed. Don’t you see the danger?”
Albert looked at her closely, at the lines of anxiety furrowing her brow. She was frightened, he could see that. But why? Did she seriously think he was going to kill someone? Or was it simply frightening to hear him vocalize her own wishes and desires?
“Sarah,” he said gently. “The thought doesn’t necessarily become the deed, you know. But I agree, it doesn’t pay to let people into one’s mind too much. Look, anything said between you and me goes no further, right? Like when we were kids?”
Sarah nodded, putting on a brave smile.
“Like when we were kids. You tried to protect me, Albert. From Ruthven and Father both, and from George. Whenever they remembered I existed, that is. All in all, I was happiest when they forgot I did exist. I haven’t forgotten what you did.” Her voice rose in intensity. “I’ve forgotten nothing.” She wrapped her arms tighter against the cold. “Maybe, some day, I can repay you.”
A faint alarm sounded in the farther reaches of Albert’s brain.
“Sarah, exactly what is it you have in mind?”