Mistral's Daughter (26 page)

She left Perry alone in the
library looking out at the unfriendly gray
stones of Park Avenue,
touching in his pocket the photographs of Teddy he had brought with him to
soften the heart of this woman
who, he now realized, would only have
been further inflamed
by them.
 
He
was glad Mary Jane had finally gotten angry. Now that she had vented some of
her real feelings, now that she had given up her pose of the saint who was
thinking only of his salvation, they could surely find a way to work it
out.
 
He would be back, in a week, in two
weeks, every week for a year if that was what it took.
 
The essential thing was not to give up.
 
Eventually she must give in.
 
He went back to the Yale Club and tried to
exorcise his frustration on the squash court.
 
It was that or howl out loud.

Two weeks later, on October
29, 1929, the stock market collapsed. "Coolidge prosperity" vanished
as almost seventeen million shares of stock were sold at steadily declining
prices.
 
For the next frantic weeks Perry
had all he could do to help cope with the panic of
the investors whose
money he and his partners handled.
 
He
saw no
chance of leaving New York at any time in the near future, so he
wrote Maggy to leave Paris and come to the United States with Teddy.

"Thank heaven I learned
English," Maggy said to Paula as she supervised the packing of one of her
six steamer trunks.

"Has this American
financial trouble affected Perry's fortune?" Paula asked in concern.
 
In just a few weeks the number of freespending
American customers at her restaurant had dwindled to almost nothing.

"I don't know, but I
shouldn't think so, he's so clever, after all.
 
I've never discussed money with him.
 
It's been like a magic carpet
—
 
often I have even forgotten to ask a price when I buy something."

"No!" Paula was
horrified.
 
It was one thing to be kept
in the manner of a duchess but not to ask a price was un-French.

"But yes." Maggy
giggled.
 
"Like one of those
American tourists.
 
I'm so glad to see
I've finally shocked you. I knew there was something that could."

Paula sniffed
dismissively.
 
She didn't really believe
Maggy...
 
it was too exaggerated to be
true, she thought, looking at Maggy, who was holding a drift, a river of gauzy,
quicksilver luxuriance, the silks and velvets and metallic brightness of her
dresses rustling and shimmering as they dripped softly from her arms.

Maggy dropped the clothes on
the bed and darted over to Paula and gave her a hug.
 
"Why don't you come with me?
 
I invite you
—
you've never been
anywhere outside of Paris, darling sewer rat.

"Thank you but no.
 
I'm too old to displace myself.
 
Why should I travel to see skyscrapers when
I've successfully resisted the temptation to view Mont St. Michel?
 
Paris will always be sufficient for me.
 
But when will you be back?"

"I can't really be sure
—
as soon as all this quiets down."

"I hope it's soon,"
Paula grumbled.
 
"It's bad for
business, this stock market nonsense."

Nine days later Maggy
disembarked in New York.
 
She walked
down
the gangplank holding Teddy's hand firmly, trying to contain her own excitement
and leaping anticipation.
 
Behind her
followed Nanny Butterfield, the pleasant Englishwoman who was
^,
still
Teddy's nurse.
 
The passage had been
quiet and uneventful, the ship crowded with subdued, worried passengers, many
of them expatriates coming back to see what had happened to the investments
that enabled them to live in Europe.
 
Perry had arranged to meet them at the pier and take them directly to
the furnished apartment he’d rented.

Maggy stood under an enormous
letter L in the long, dark customs shed, looking about her with wide, smiling
eyes.
 
She had dressed so carefully for
this reunion.
 
The tiny veil of her green
satin cloche just reached to the tip of her nose. Her slim, sable-collared,
green wool coat had a short attached cape, trimmed in another wide band of dark
sable
—
nothing, she thought, could be more romantic, yet she couldn't
help but shiver in the New York wind, a chill, whirling dirty wind that smelled
so unfamiliar.
 
Her smile faded after a
while as an officious inspector insisted that she open every last trunk and
suitcase.
 
Teddy was whimpering, and
Nanny Butter- field was anxious to feed her lunch.
 
Where was Perry?
 
Why wasn't he here to take charge?
 
All around her people were directing porters
to put their luggage on trolleys.
 
The
gloomy shed was almost empty before Maggy was cleared to leave.
 
Three porters loaded her belongings and one
of
 
them asked her, "Where to,
lady?
 
Is there a car waiting
for
you or do you need a taxi?
 
All this
stuff won't fit in less than
two cabs."

"I must telephone,"
Maggy said distractedly, looking everywhere
for Perry's tall figure.

"Right over there."

She was in the phone booth
before she realized that she had no American money in her handbag.
 
How could Perry be so late?
 
So inconsiderate?
 
It was inexcusable.
 
Maggy went back to the porter.
 
"Could you please lend me the necessary
coin for the telephone?
 
And
please,
could you also show me how it works?"

"Sure, lady.
 
Your first visit, right?
 
Come on, follow me."
 
He put the nickel in the slot for her and
gave the operator the number she told him, that of Perry's office in Wall
Street.
 
Then he shut the door of the
phone booth and 'waited outside, wondering with what she expected to tip him.

"May I speak to Mr.
Perry Kilkullen, please?"

"Oh.
 
Oh, I'll let you speak to his secretary.
 
Who may I say is calling?"

"Miss Lunel."

"Just a moment."

When a second woman's voice
answered, Maggy said impatiently, "Please, this is Miss Lunel.
 
Can you tell me where Mr. Kilkullen is?
 
He was supposed to meet me hours ago."

"Is this one of Mr.
Kilkullen's clients?" the woman asked, uncertainty and caution in her
voice.

"Certainly not,"
Maggy said in mounting anger.
 
"Are
you a friend of his, Miss Lunel?"

"Yes, of course,"
Maggie snapped.
 
"Now may I speak to
him?
 
This is absurd!"

"You don't know,"
the voice said blankly.
 
It was not a
question, yet not a statement.

"Know...
 
know what?"

"I'm sorry to be the
one...
 
it's most...
 
everyone here is so upset...
 
Mr. Kilkullen had a heart attack playing
squash four days ago.
 
I'm afraid...
 
he didn't survive."

"Mr. Perry
Kilkullen?" Maggy said mechanically.
 
It must be one of his relatives, one of the other Kilkullens.
 
The mouth of the telephone gaped at her, like
a crucial organ that has been chopped in half.
 
Blood would gush from it.

"Yes. I'm so sorry.
 
The funeral took place yesterday, it was in
all the newspapers.
 
Is there nobody else
here you'd like to speak to?
 
Is there
anything I can do to help you?"

"No, no, no."

12

If it had not been for Nanny
Butterfield, Maggy asked herself when she was again able to think coherently,
how could she have lived through the next minutes, the next hours, the next
days?
 
The sensible Englishwoman had
taken over
completely, coping with all the practical necessities while
Maggy
was made mute and blank with shock, and all but paralyzed by a
disbelieving grief, a rending anguish that snapped through her flesh and bone
like the metal jaws of a trap set for an unwary animal.

Nanny Butterfield hunted up
the ship's purser and changed Maggy's
sum of francs into dollars, she
asked him for the name of a hotel and settled them in two adjoining rooms at
the Dorset and she put Maggy to bed with the aid of the hotel doctor.
 
For the next few days she treated the
shattered woman as if she were the age of Teddy, coaxing her to eat a few
mouthfuls and sitting with her until she fell into a drugged sleep.

When Maggy woke in the
morning it was to raw pain, so brutal that she couldn't bear to remain under
the covers because of the thoughts that attacked her there.
 
Trembling with cold, no matter how warm her
robe, she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, afraid to meet her image,
tears draining from her eyes into the washbasin for long moments before she
could bring herself to make the necessary movements to brush her teeth and wash
her face.
 
Every detail of grooming was
like a pinnacle of ice over which she had to haul the burden of her bruised,
aching body.

Getting dressed was
impossible.
 
Maggy spent the week in a
nightgown and robe, pacing her overheated room gazing at the walls obsessively,
as if their bland cream surfaces could blot out the unbearable.
 
For hours on end, with the curtains tightly
drawn and the lamps lit all day long, Maggy walked, shivering, shoulders
hunched, toiling back and forth, as if she might die of the torment if she
dared to stop her ceaseless movement.
 
She was afraid to go to bed until she dropped on it from exhaustion.

Only when she was worn out
did Nanny bring in Teddy to cuddle for a minute in her arms. Maggy held the
child in weary blankness until Teddy, lively and easily bored, climbed out of
her arms and ran off to play.
 
Her baby
was the only
warm thing in the world, Maggy thought, her brain working
slowly.
 
Her hands were freezing
even when she put them in her armpits to warm them.
 
Her feet were icy, although they were snug in
her fur-lined slippers.
 
She was
like
someone who had been skating, fearless and agile, on a sunlit silver lake,
until, in
the space of an instant, she had fallen through the ice into
the lethal chill of Arctic water.
 
Drowned...
 
drowned. But Teddy was
warm.
 
She could not drown, she must not
drown because Teddy was still warm.

"Are we to return to
Paris, Madame?" Nanny Butterfield asked, seeing that Maggy was ready to
face the future.

"How much money do I
have left?"
           

"About three hundred
dollars, Madame."

"I must cable Maître
Hulot for more
—
that won't be enough for the tickets," Maggy said
dully.

His answering cable arrived
the next day.

DEEPEST REGRETS FOR YOUR LOSS.
 
MR. PERRY KILKULLEN LEFT NO INSTRUCTIONS TO
DISBURSE MONIES BEYOND THAT OF PAYING HOUSEHOLD AND PERSONAL BILLS ON A MONTHLY
BASIS.
 
THESE HAVE BEEN ALL SETTLED.
 
NO FURTHER SUMS CAN BE ADVANCED.
 
HAVE TURNED ALL ESTATE MATTERS OVER TO HIS
NEW YORK ATTORNEY MR. LOUIS FAIRCHILD OF 45 BROADWAY, ADVISE YOU CONTACT HIM
FOR ANY FURTHER ASSISTANCE.
           
  
MAÎTRE JACQUES HULOT

"Look at this,"
Maggy said, handing the cable to Nanny Butter
 
field, too stunned for indignation.

"He's washing his hands
of us," the Englishwoman said bluntly.
 
"I'd better go and see Mr. Fairchild," she said listlessly.

"Quite so
,
and
soon..."
 
She looked at Maggy, dead
pale, standing helplessly, her eyes raw and rimmed with red, her face swollen
from the endless, futile tears.
 
"Why don't you write to him and make an appointment?
 
And, Madame, today you really should get
dressed and take a nice walk with Teddy and me.
 
It's very pleasant in the park and it will make a change for you.
Lovely, brisk weather they have here."

"Oh, no, Nanny, I
couldn't."

"Indeed you
must
,"
she said with a mild authority that no child and few adults had ever
questioned.

Three days later Maggy faced
Louis Fairchild in his office
.
 
She
had spent hours every day in the park with Teddy and that morning she
had
had her hair done in Richard Block's salon where they were able
to set
it almost as well as Antoine had in another life.
 
Maggy had put on her bravest red lipstick for
this interview.

"Thank you for making
the time to see me," she said to the worried-looking, gray-haired man.

"Not at all.
 
I must say I was astonished when I received
your letter..."

"You
do
know who
I am?" she asked anxiously.

"Of course, but poor
Perry never told me you were coming to New York.
 
May I say how terribly, terribly sorry I
am.
 
He was a very
good friend, a
dear friend.
 
I
still can't
believe it... such a young man and with no history of..."

"Mr. Fairchild,"
Maggy begged, "please stop.
 
I can't
talk about it.
 
I've come to you for
advice.
 
Would you read this cable and tell
me
what I am to do?"

He looked at it carefully for
long, considering minutes and then shook his head.
 
"I told Perry to make a will!
 
I told him once if I told him a dozen times,
but he just never got around to it.
 
Like
most men of his age he thought he had all the time in the world."

"I don't
understand...
 
just tell me please what
is my
position
?"

"Position?
 
I'm very much afraid that you have...
 
none."

"But he was getting
divorced!
 
We were going to be
married!" she cried.

"He died a married man,
Miss Lunel.
 
Legally you don't have any
claims.
 
Unfortunately there's nothing on
paper."

"But Teddy, our
daughter!
 
What about her?
 
Doesn't she have any rights?"
 
Maggy's voice was incredulous.

"I'm sorry
—
but
no."
 
Louis Fairchild thought that
if Mary Jane Kilkullen wasn't so bitter he might have been able to persuade her
into giving the child something, however little.
 
But it was because of the bastard, she
insisted, that her husband had died in a state of mortal sin, that Frenchwoman
and her bastard.

"
But he promised...
"
Maggy broke off.
 
The only emotion she
had felt since she had arrived in New York was loss, endless loss.
 
Now rage closed her throat.
 
She saw herself as she must look
,
sitting
there keening "he promised," like millions of other women
since
the beginning of time.
 
Foolish women,
childlike women, victimized women, stupid,
inexcusably, criminally stupid
women who believed in their men, those careless men who took what they
wanted, those loving men who failed to make the most basic provisions for the
women they should have protected.
 
Men
who lied and lied and lied.
 
Julien
Mistral and Perry Kilkullen.
 
She pulled
herself up tall in her chair and looked at the unhappy lawyer.

"Please, Mr. Fairchild,
what precisely do I own in the world?"

"Your personal property,
such as jewelry and furs and any other specific gifts Mr. Kilkullen may have
made to you, a car perhaps?

"Our apartment in
Paris?"

"It will be disposed of,
with all its contents, before the estate is settled."

"Disposed of,"
Maggy said, fury making her voice calm and businesslike.
 
"I hope somebody remembered to pay the
servants"

"
Maître
Hulot
is in correspondence with me about that."

"They, I trust, will get
some compensation for being thrown out of work without warning? That's only
proper, is it not?
 
And, fortunately for
them, they have lost only their jobs.
 
Tiens
, I
should
have taken lessons in something useful."

"What are you going to
do?" Louis Fairchild said.
 
He
really didn't want to know, he didn't want to sit and contemplate the future of
this dazzling, but utterly dispossessed woman.
 
However, mere decency demanded that he try to be helpful.

"Ah, that is something I
shall have to consider carefully."
 
Maggy gathered her silver fox furs about her and began to put on her
long, gray gloves.

"If there's any advice I
can give you..."

"Perhaps you could give
me the name of an honest jeweler.
 
I think
that it would be sensible to get rid of some of those small pieces I never seem
to find time to wear," Maggy said as casually as she could.
 
The hotel bill was due again at the end of
the week.

Fairchild scribbled a name on
his card.
 
"This is the fellow I
always go to for my wife's birthday.
 
Tell him you're a friend of mine.
 
Look..." he hesitated, embarrassed to propose a loan to the most
desirable woman he'd ever seen in his life, "if you need some cash,
I'd be glad to be of service..."

"Thank you, that's very
kind, but it won't be necessary," Maggy said with a reflex of pride. There
were some things she just could not do.
 
Not yet at least.

Louis Fairchild saw her to
the elevator and then returned to his desk
miserably.
 
What an unholy mess.
 
He supposed she'd go back to Paris and find a
husband.
 
Girls like that could always
find husbands.
 
And if he were to be
honest with himself, he didn't really blame Kilkullen.
 
If he'd had a chance at a girl like that
himself, he'd have grabbed it too.
 
Only
he'd have had the common sense to make a will.
 
At least he hoped he would.
 
A
girl like that could make you forget a lot of things you were supposed to do.

That night Maggy opened her
jewel case for the first time since he'd been in the United States.
 
The pretty, flashing pieces looked like
childhood toys, long forgotten.
 
Thoughtfully she put the real jewels into one pile.
 
In another heap, much larger than the first,
she laid the costume jewelry she much preferred for its cleverness; the lapel
pins and necklaces she had collected from Chanel, who dictated, "Wear
anything you like so long as it looks like junk."

Nevertheless, there should be
enough here to keep them in comfort for a long, long time, she mused.
 
Perry had loved to take her into a jeweler's
for no reason at all, when they were out walking in the neighborhood of Place
Vendôme, and demand that she pick out something to celebrate the sheer joy of
the moment.
 
"To celebrate Teddy's
fourth tooth," he'd declare, or "Because you have the pinkest nipples
in Paris."

Resolutely she took all the
real jewels, with the exception of her pearls
—
a woman had to have her
pearls
—
and her favorite bracelet, out of their velvet cases and tucked
them into her handbag.
 
She couldn't
afford to be sentimental and, besides, she was finished, utterly finished, with
sentiment, finished with an emotion that led, sooner or later, to mortal
weakness.

Maggy found it impossible to
forgive herself.
 
She had been a "
poire
,"
that classic French laughingstock, the foolish true believer, the butt of
practical jokes, the person who almost asks people to take advantage of
her.
 
Since her interview with Louis
Fairchild, Maggy felt as if she had grown centuries wiser and harder.
 
She would never believe in a man again, Maggy
knew in her soul, and as the knowledge flowed into her she felt warmed,
strengthened and oddly alert.
 
It was not
a happy thing to find out, at twenty-two, that no man
—
whether he loved
you truly or not
—
could ever be trusted.
 
It was not a happy thing to finally realize
that you could depend on no one but yourself.
 
But it was a clean realization without the possibility of question marks
or exceptions.
 
The dirty, freezing
winter water in which she had been struggling receded, leaving on dry land,
barren and unwelcoming land perhaps, but so much less frightening now that she
understood that she had only her own two feet to support her.
 
She had been in that situation before and
survived...
 
it was familiar territory.