An Embarrassment of Riches (41 page)

‘If you accept Henry's offer you'll be doing me a great favour,' Maura said, knowing very well that it was pride that was making him hesitate. ‘I don't know anyone else in New York apart from yourself and the O'Farrells and their friends. If you left the city to look for work elsewhere I would miss you.'

Her voice was soft and smoky, her sincerity such that his throat tightened. He felt a rising in his crotch. He would miss her too, goddammit. For the hundredth time he wondered how he could have been so carnally unaware of her when they had been back home in Ireland. There must have been a moment when any man with eyes in his head would have realized she had changed from being a child and had grown into a dazzlingly desirable woman; when any
eejit
with an iota of sense would have realized that the blood ties between them were not so close as to make marriage an impossibility.

He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the traffic plunging up and down the avenue. ‘Then I'll take it,' he said, not trusting himself to look at her.

‘Wonderful!' She squeezed his arm in exultant affection, wishing she could tell him that Alexander had also offered to find him employment. That she couldn't do so was Alexander's fault.

His response to her request that he immediately force Mr Belzell to effect improvements in his tenements, had been to do absolutely nothing. And Kieron knew it. He would no more accept a job from Alexander than fly to the moon, and if he knew that she had even raised the subject of such a thing she would very likely never see him again.

‘I have to be getting back to work,' he said, wondering if there was another woman in the city who, clad in finery, would have squeezed his sweaty and dust-covered arm.

‘I'll walk with you a little of the way.'

‘And have that creation follow us?' he asked, the corner of his mouth crooking into a smile.

Maura looked towards the waiting Karolyis landau with a surge of exasperation. Alexander had been appalled by her suggestion that she dispense with it on occasions and had given the coachman strict instructions always to wait for her. He was doing so now at a discreet distance. The black postilions were minus powdered wigs and the blue velvet bows had been removed from the squabs, but even in Fifth Avenue the landau was still highly distinctive. In lesser streets it would be embarrassingly so.

‘Yes,' she said determinedly ignoring it.

They began to walk down East 50th Street. ‘Have you heard about the Citizens'Association that has been formed?' he asked, his arm still burning from the pleasure of her touch.

‘No.' She was immediately interested. ‘Have the tenants banded together? Are they going to bring pressure on the landlords to improve conditions?'

He said drily, ‘It wouldn't matter how many tenants banded together, their complaints would never carry any weight.'

‘Then who has banded together?' she asked curiously.

‘A group of highly respected citizens. It seems that at long last a handful of them have realized that if the city is to be spared annual outbreaks of typhoid and cholera, something has to be done about conditions in the slums.'

‘Then there will be legislation?' It seemed too good to be true.

‘Maybe. It depends on the integrity of the association's members.'

‘I don't understand.' She was bewildered. ‘If they are forming an association in order to improve conditions, how can their integrity be in doubt?'

They were nearing the site he was working on and he slowed to a halt, not wanting to expose her to the speculative glances and vulgar remarks of his fellow workers.

‘Some of the founding names are more than a little suspect. Franklin H. Delano for instance, and John Jacob Astor III.'

‘Astor? But he's nearly as big a landlord as Alexander!'

‘And every bit as bad,' Kieron said brutally. ‘It's my guess he's pitched in and joined the Association in order to look after his own interests.'

She had flinched at his remark about Alexander. She said now, determined to see the best side possible of what had happened, ‘But he may not be. He may be genuinely sincere about making improvements, and if he is, then where he leads, the other big landlords will have to follow.'

He looked down at her. Her hair was loose and heavy in the nape of her neck, caught in a fine silk-netted snood. Her dress was of cream silk, the V-neckline edged with ruffles, a score of mother-of-pearl buttons running from the point of the V to her waist. Flounces edged her tight-fitting sleeves revealing delicately boned wrists. Despite the vitality she always exuded there was a heart-stopping fragility about her and he hated himself for what he was about to say.

‘Including Alexander?'

Her eyes held his unwaveringly. ‘Yes.'

When she had married she had hoped that Alexander and Kieron would become friends. Instead they could barely utter each other's name in a civil manner. Alexander loathed and detested her continued meetings with Kieron and only permitted them with the deepest reluctance, Kieron regarded Alexander as an oppressor of the poor, no different from the hated absentee landlords of Ireland.

More than anything else in the world she longed to prove Kieron wrong. She said now, passionately; ‘Alexander will want to be a member of the Citizens'Association, and not for the reasons you ascribed to Astor. What you don't understand, Kieron, is that Alexander has never
seen
poverty. When he has, he won't hesitate to bring about change and improvements.'

‘And when will that be, sweetheart?' Kieron, asked wryly, well aware that she had been trying to get Alexander to visit the tenements for weeks, and without success. ‘This week? Next week? Sometime? Never?'

‘Soon,' she said fiercely. ‘I promise you, Kieron. It will be soon.'

‘Never!' Alexander exploded vehemently.

It was a Monday night and they were about to leave for a concert at the Academy. It would have been the first time she had been and Alexander had left her in no doubt as to the importance of the occasion.

‘Society will
have
to come to the Karolyis box to pay their respects to you,' he had said forcefully. ‘It would be absolutely unthinkable for them not to do so. And when they have been forced into doing it once, the next time will be easier. By the end of the month this whole farce of being ostracized will be over.'

‘Never!' he repeated, as Teal obsequiously held out his opera-cloak and hat for him.

‘Just
once
,' she pleaded tautly.

She had long since ceased to regard Teal's or Miriam's presence as a bar to their personal conversations. Alexander always behaved as if they did not exist and she had soon learned that if they were to have any conversation when they were preparing to go out anywhere, then she would have to do likewise.

‘It doesn't have to be the Bowery. We could go to Five Points. There are tenements built upon Karolyis land at Five Points …'

‘There are tenements built upon Karolyis land in every goddamned area you wish to name!'

He snatched his opera hat from Teal and she saw that his initials were embroidered in gold on the dull silk of the lining.

It was true. Although she hadn't been able to persuade him to visit the tenements, he had agreed to verify whether or not he was Belzell's landlord, and he had also asked for a full listing of all real estate in his name. The list had been staggering. Countless blocks of tenements, thousands of residences, a host of hotels, scores of commercial buildings, miles of waterfront property, acres of vacant lots, all Karolyis owned.

She said, changing tack, ‘You don't have to go independently. The Citizens'Association is carrying out inspections and you could go as a member of their organizing committee …'

‘For Christ's sake Maura, you'd try the patience of a saint! I am
not
going to visit any tenement. I am
not
going to join any damn fool association. I am
not
going to serve on any do-good committee. With that understood can we now go to the concert?'

She had never seen him in evening clothes before and he looked heartachingly handsome. His starched and lace trimmed evening-shirt flattered his olive-toned skin and beneath the light of the chandelier his black hair shone with a blue sheen.

She had been looking forward to the evening ever since he had first told her where they were to go. Miriam had lavished infinite care on her toilette. Her hair was piled high in curls, threaded with a necklace of diamonds. Her dress was a full crinoline of white brocade, the neckline daringly low, exposing her shoulders. A posy of marguerites was pinned at her waist; her Viennese fan was of eagle feathers; her opera-glasses mother-of-pearl.

She knew that unless she relinquished the subject immediately, their evening together would be ruined. Always, before, their bitter differences of opinion had been temporarily forgotten in the passion of their love-making. This time there would be no retreat to bed. Alexander fiercely wished to be seen at the concert. Their carriage was waiting.

She said: ‘Franklin H. Delano has joined the Citizens'Association, so has John Jacob Astor III …'

His face closed. Patience was not one of his virtues and God alone knew where he'd found enough of it to last him through the last few weeks. He said through gritted teeth, ‘Not one more word …'

She could feel the blood beating in her ears. She could remain silent; pick up her fan; her opera-glasses. Within minutes they could be once more taking delight in the other's company.

She said: ‘I can't be silent on the subject. Not until you understand …'

Tight-lipped and cobra-eyed he spun away from her, striding from the room.

The door rocked behind him on its hinges.

For a long, terrible moment she didn't move and then, very slowly, she began to unpin the marguerites from her waist.

There were times over the next months when Maura thought the impasse that now existed between herself and Alexander was very like the impasse that existed between the Yankees and the Confederates. Both parties were passionately convinced of the rightness of their cause; both parties were fiercely determined to carry on the struggle; neither, no matter what the cost, was prepared to give in.

For several days after Alexander had attended the concert without her he barely spoke to her. When he finally did so it was not to apologize, nor was it to say that he had joined the Citizens' Association, nor that he had taken any steps whatever to improve the living conditions in tenements that were Karolyis owned, or that were built on Karolyis-owned land.

Whenever she brought the subject up there would be another bitter battle, another period of estrangement ended only by their fierce physical desire for each other. As her pregnancy progressed love-making became, of a necessity, less abandoned, less frequent.

There were times when her loneliness became crushing. Alexander spent long hours in clubs fashioned after the gentlemen's clubs of England. In the Hone Club and the Kent Club and the Union Club, membership was composed of only the very élite of New York's Old Guard society. Alexander had been a member of all three ever since his eighteenth birthday and although the Union Club was now politely asking all members with Confederacy sympathy for their resignation, an unfortunate marriage was not cause enough for expulsion. As no women were allowed into these male bastions, the question of Maura being acknowledged or unacknowledged was never raised and Alexander was able to pretend, for a short time at least, that his social position was unchanged.

At home in the Karolyis mansion, alone apart from the servants, Maura found time hanging heavy on her hands. She could not see Kieron with any great frequency. He was now employed by Henry and she knew the kind of gossip that would arise if it was whispered that he was being seen in public with Mrs Alexander Karolyis. Kieron would suffer. Henry would suffer, and the relationship between Alexander and herself would deteriorate even further.

If it hadn't been for her pregnancy she would have banished her depressions by riding one of the Karolyis horses in Central Park. As it was, even horse-riding was temporarily denied her and instead she found solace in writing long letters to Isabel and in reading and in keeping abreast with the war news.

After the Union successes of early summer at Gettysburg and at Vicksburg, it had been popularly assumed that the tide had turned and that the war would be over by Christmas, with the North the victors.

Instead of more victories, there was stalemate, with both armies settling for caution and digging in. The lull lasted until September, when Confederate forces clashed with Union forces in Tennessee.

Reports of the fighting left little to the imagination. It had taken place some twelve miles south of Chatanooga alongside a creek named the Chickamauga.

‘The name itself should have told the generals to fight shy of engaging there,' Henry had said to Maura when news of the Union rout had reached New York. ‘It's a Cherokee name meaning “River of Blood”.'

He had long ago ceased to think of her as being ignorant as to the causes and consequences of the war and he had begun spending far more time discussing the war with her, than he did with Alexander or with his elderly contemporaries.

‘The
Herald
says the fighting took place mainly in thick woods and tangled underbrush,' Maura had said, spreading a map of Tennessee out on the low table fronting their easy chairs, ‘Communication between officers and men must have been nearly impossible. How can the movement of large numbers of men be co-ordinated in thick woodland?'

Henry had leaned forward, stabbing Chatanooga with an arthritic finger. ‘They can't,' he had said succinctly, enjoying their rehashing of the battle hugely. ‘Although you can see why Northern forces were there.' He moved his finger, circling a large area. ‘If they could drive a wedge between the South's positions in Virginia and Mississippi then perhaps headway could again be made.'