Authors: Dominick Dunne
“It’s for the front door of the most beautiful house on the Upper East Side of New York City, which happens to be the new home of Mr. and Mrs. Elias Renthal,” said Ruby.
As the dark green Mercedes limousine pulled up in front of the house that was still known as the Tavistock mansion, the bronze front door opened. There stood the new butler, George—who had been Adele Harcourt’s ever-faithful butler for so many years until he had been fired by Adele’s nephew and his wife—waiting to welcome his new employers. Jacques, the new chauffeur, hopped out and ran around to open the rear door. Ruby got out of the car first and then she turned back and directed Jacques in helping Elias get out of the car. Just as he stood on the sidewalk and looked up at his new house, a couple walked past them. It was Ormolu and Percy Webb walking to their apartment on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventy-eighth Street after leaving an impromptu buffet evening at Christine Saunders’s, where they all had found themselves since they were free after the cancelation of the American Ballet Theater’s performance and gala because of Adele Harcourt’s death. Just before the moment when the two couples came face-to-face, Ormolu, who hadn’t wanted to walk home in the first place, whispered to Percy, “Oh, my god, it’s the Renthals, home from prison.” As the two couples’s paths crossed, neither knew what to say.
“Hellohowareyou?” said Ormolu, giving the smile she saved for people who were lesser than she. She and Percy kept on walking without stopping.
“That’s what I call being snubbed,” said Ruby. “I hate that bitch.”
“Is that the way it’s going to be?” asked Elias.
“We can handle it, Elias.” She took his arm. “Ormolu is pissed at me because I’ve tied up Ferdy Trocadero for the last four months doing his special brand of seventeen coats of paint in all the public rooms, and Ormolu wants Ferdy Trocadero to repaint her dining room.”
“Who the fuck is Ferdy Trocadero?” asked Elias.
“And this is George, our new butler. He used to be with Adele Harcourt. He’s in mourning, so be nice.”
“Sorry for your loss,” said Elias, passing George to enter his new home.
Ruby took Elias by the hand and led him from room to room in the magnificent house on East Seventy-eighth Street that was to be their home. “My God, Ruby,” Elias kept saying. “This is beautiful. I had no idea I was coming back to live in a palace like the Vanderbilts used to have, and the Rockefellers, and those kind of people. Where did you buy all this fancy French furniture?”
“All the eighteenth-century French pieces I got at Perla Zacharias’s auction at Boothby’s,” said Ruby. “She got rid of all the furniture that didn’t get burned in the fire at the villa in Biarritz.”
“I recognize some of the pieces that we used to have,” said Elias.
“They didn’t sell everything in the auction of all our stuff when you went to the facility, so I put everything that didn’t sell in storage, waiting for the day you’d be out,” said Ruby.
“These curtains, these rugs, these pictures. How did you put it all together with no publicity?” He looked in all directions in wonder. Every room looked rich, rich, rich, a look they loved.
“That was the whole point. No one knew what was going on in this house for the past ten months except Maisie Verdurin and my friend Charlotte de Liagra, who lives in Paris and knows more about decorating than anyone.”
“So the muff diver’s still in the picture, huh?”
“Don’t screw up our first night in our new house, Elias,” Ruby said with an edge in her voice.
“Oh, sorry.”
“Now comes the real surprise,” said Ruby as she led him into the elevator and pushed the down button.
“How come I smell chlorine?” asked Elias.
“Because you are about to see the largest indoor swimming pool of any private house in the city of New York,” said Ruby.
“Holy shit,” said Elias in delight. “This is not like any ordinary swimming pool.”
“The columns and everything were copied after the pool at the Hearst Castle in California,” said Ruby. “It was Baroness de Liagra’s idea. Like I said, the baroness practically decorated the whole house. That woman has taste.”
“You’re not still sniffing her pussy, are you?” asked Elias.
“Oh, for god’s sake, Elias. I told you that was a onetime thing for the experience. Now we’re just best friends.”
“But you liked it that one time, you said,” said Elias.
“What I said was, it was not unpleasant. You know what my preference is. I can still take both your nuts in my mouth at the same time, if that will get you out of your suspicious mood and make you enjoy this palace that is our home.”
“I like you when you’re cheap,” said Elias.
“So you’ve told me in the past,” replied Ruby. “It’s not my favorite compliment.”
“Where is the baroness? She’s not tucked away in one of the fourteen bedrooms, is she?”
“No, she has a horse running in Chantilly this Saturday,” said Ruby.
“Oh, excuse me,” replied Elias.
“Charlotte thinks we should hire the Aquacade show at the Seraglio Hotel to perform in the pool when we give the party of
parties to open this house to New York. The pool filled with gardenias. High dives by great-looking guys. Water ballet out of the Esther Williams movies with beautiful young women, and the guests can stand on that balcony up there. We’ll be the talk of New York again. We’ll be where we were.”
She kissed Elias and began rubbing her hand over his trousers. “You just lean up against that eighteenth-century ormolu cabinet I bought from Winkie Williams’s sale at Boothby’s and unbutton those fly buttons on your Savile Row suit and let me attend to my carnal tasks,” said Ruby.
Elias laughed in delight. “That’s the Ruby I missed, the raunchy Ruby I first fell in love with.” He reached into his open fly and took out his penis. “Here, take it, baby. It’s been a long, long time.”
“Dear God,” she said, looking at the task ahead of her. “How many Viagras did it take to get this?”
Unable to wait one second more, Elias put his hand over her beautiful red hair and pushed her down to her knees.
“Don’t forget. We have to go to Adele Harcourt’s funeral in the morning,” said Ruby.
“Her dying now, just as I get out of prison, was probably her way of thanking me for the couple of million dollars I gave her for the Manhattan Public Library and the Adele Harcourt Pavilion,” said Elias.
“Let’s not go that far,” said Ruby. “I think her age and her broken hip in Lil Altemus’s kitchen had a little more to do with it.”
“That’s going to be some funeral, from what I read in the papers. You’re sure we’re definitely invited?”
“Simon Cabot arranged the whole thing.”
“I can’t wait to take a swim in the morning in my new indoor swimming pool.”
N
EW
Y
ORK SOCIETY HAD GONE INTO MOURNING
. Dinners were canceled. The American Ballet Theater’s opening-night benefit at Lincoln Center was canceled out of respect to Adele Harcourt. Mrs. Zenda, the chairperson, was distressed after seating all those tables, but she understood. Mrs. Zacharias called Simon Cabot in London to arrange for her to be invited to the reception at the Butterfield Club after the funeral. A great deal of the population of New York went into their own sort of mourning, as Adele Harcourt had done more for the city in a philanthropic way than any other person. She had given her entire fortune, which was considerable, to the city of New York over the years. She was possibly New York’s most beloved public figure, a role she cherished, and the
New York Times
carried the story of her death on the front page above the fold, with a long continuation of her good deeds and strenuous social life on the page before the editorials. Her generosity had made her famous, and her name was as well known in certain barrios and slums as it was on Park Avenue, where she lived and went forth each evening in beautiful gowns and jewels to enjoy her role as queen of society.
“I was in the room with Adele when she died,” said Lil Altemus,
whenever the subject came up between Adele’s death and her funeral at St. James’ Church on Madison Avenue and Seventy-first Street. When she recounted the moment of death, she did not repeat that she had just told Adele that the Manhattan Public Library was to be named after Konstantin and Perla Zacharias because Perla had given a lump sum of a hundred million dollars to the library, which had been Adele Harcourt’s favorite charity. “It was so peaceful,” said Lil. “She had such a lovely smile on her face. Beatific, really, and then she simply stopped breathing.” Addison Kent told Ethan Trescher, who had quietly handled Adele Harcourt’s public relations for so many years, and Ethan passed on Lil’s quote to Kit Jones, the gossip columnist, who led off her column with Lil’s touching words.
“How in the world do you suppose that got into Kit Jones’s column,” said Lil, who was secretly thrilled, although she always criticized people she knew whose names were in the paper too much. “At least Kit Jones always handles it so well for people like us now that Dolores De Longpre has retired.”
I
T WAS
Ethan Trescher who ran Adele Harcourt’s funeral at St. James’ Church. St. James’ was the church of choice for the old Protestant families of New York. Van Rensselaers, Vanderbilts, Van Degans all worshiped at St. James’. It was the church where Billy Grenville’s funeral had taken place after his beautiful wife from the wrong side of the tracks shot him to death as he emerged nude from his shower. It was where the funeral of Hubert Altemus, the son of Lil Altemus, had taken place after his death from AIDS, which his mother had never acknowledged as the cause, even when his Puerto Rican lover had shown up uninvited and had been offered a seat in the family pews by Dodo Van Degan. It was the church where the heiress Justine Altemus,
the daughter of Lil Altemus, had been married in a disastrous and very brief union to Bernard Slatkin, the television reporter who was now enjoying great success covering the Middle East for NBC. Justine had moved to Paris to live with a new husband and taken her daughter, Cordelia, by Bernard Slatkin, with her.
Outside, Madison Avenue in the Seventies had to be closed off with barriers to deal with the throngs of people who simply wanted to watch Adele Harcourt’s casket—covered with thousands of lilies of the valley, arranged beautifully by Brucie, the florist in the Rhinelander Hotel—pass by in the newest of hearses, provided by Grant P. Trumbull’s, the most prestigious mortuary in the city. In the driver’s seat of the hearse sat Francis Xavior Branigan, the assistant funeral director and secret lover of Dodo Van Degan, whose heart beat with excitement at the importance of his position in what he would later tell his friends Brucie and Jonsie had been the funeral of the year. “The spray of lilies of the valley on the casket was bliss, Brucie,” he would say.
Ethan Trescher stood in the back of the church watching every entrance, waiting to spot the people who were to be given special treatment, making eye contact with the sixteen ushers who were seating people. Ethan Trescher was the master of seating. He was a gentleman of the old school. Adele Harcourt had counted on him for years to arrange her great charity events and to call Dolores De Longpre when it became absolutely necessary to deal with an issue.
He had instructed the ushers, of whom Addison Kent was one, that dignitaries such as former first lady Laura Bush, as well as the Duke of Chatfield, who was representing Prince Charles, a very special friend of Adele’s, were to be seated in the first row on the left side of the aisle. The mayor, the governor, the two senators, the president of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, the president of the Manhattan Public Library—whose board, as Toby Tilden had announced in that morning’s
Post
, had approved its change of name to the Konstantin and Perla Zacharias Public Library since Perla Zacharias had donated one hundred million dollars in one lump sum. It was a matter causing great dismay in upper-class circles, many members of which whispered thanks that Adele Harcourt had not lived to hear the news. There were also various dignitaries of the city, whom Ethan would recognize, who were to be in the twelve rows behind Laura Bush and Bunny Chatfield, who was accompanied by his duchess, Chiquita. Everyone loved Chiquita.
“The prince was so sorry not to be able to come and sends you his warmest regards,” said Chiquita to Ethan when he was personally showing the duchess to her seat. Chiquita chatted all the way up the aisle. “Camilla sends her love. She’s been staying with us at Deeds Castle. Diana’s butler, that awful Paul Burrell, shudder, shudder, shudder, is taking the stand tomorrow at that awful trial at the Old Bailey—they say he stole all those things from darling Diana—and the prince simply can’t be out of England, even though he adored Adele.” Ethan, who was used to that kind of conversation, later passed it on to Kit Jones for her column.
The right side of the aisle was reserved for family and close friends. Under normal circumstances, Adele Harcourt would have lain in state at the Armory on Park Avenue and Sixty-sixth Street, where she had celebrated her ninetieth birthday, but the Winter Antiques Show had booked the space and couldn’t be moved on such short notice. However, out of respect for Adele, who always attended the opening night, the Antiques Show closed its doors for the hour and a half of Adele Harcourt’s funeral.
“She was like our own Queen Mum,” said Gert Hoolihan, standing in the crowd as the hearse went by, to a young lady by
her side. She took a Kleenex from her bag and wiped the tears in her eyes. Gert had cooked many a meal for Adele Harcourt over the years, when she had been Lil Altemus’s cook. “Mrs. Harcourt always loved my fig mousse. She’d come back to the kitchen after dinner to tell me. ‘Gert, you outdid yourself,’ she’d say. No airs from her, like some of these people have, no names mentioned here. Let’s move up closer to the entrance so we can watch the important people go in.”
Lil Altemus, even when she was still rich, never used limousines, which she thought were vulgar. “They’re all right for movie stars and rock stars and all those new people nobody ever heard of before who have so much money these days and are ruining Southampton,” she often said. Instead, she used her Buick station wagon, which was driven for years by her chauffeur, Jimmy. After leaving her Fifth Avenue apartment, she had to sell the Buick station wagon and let Jimmy go. She had become dependent on old friends for rides to the theater, to the opera, and to weddings and funerals. On the day of Adele Harcourt’s funeral, she arrived at the church with her friend Kay Kay Somerset in a Lincoln Town Car from a car service, which Kay Kay was paying for.