An Embarrassment of Riches (56 page)

‘Wilkes-Booth, the actor,' Henry said tersely, walking with her into the Chinese drawing-room. ‘An account of the shooting was released to the
Post
just after four o'clock. As for why, Wilkes-Booth is a Confederate. There's the reason, the only possible reason.'

Faintly they heard a church bell beginning to toll. Maura sat down unsteadily. She hadn't fully recovered from the baby's birth, nor from Alexander's abrupt departure.

‘Was Mrs Lincoln with him?' she asked, her face bloodless.

Henry nodded. He was seventy-two and he was beginning to feel the weight of his years.

‘Yes, poor woman. She and two guests they had taken to the theatre with them. They were in the President's private box and Wilkes-Booth simply burst in on them …'

His voice began to shake and remembering his advanced age, she said compassionately, ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Henry?'

‘Yes, please,' he said gratefully.

Maura stretched a hand towards the tasselled bell-rope. Another church bell had begun to toll. The sound was in such direct contrast to the joyous pealing of bells only six days ago that her scalp prickled. Lincoln dead. It hardly seemed possible. She wondered what Kieron would make of the news, what Alexander would say.

Kieron wrote her immediately.

I find it incredible that Wilkes-Booth could have entered the President's box without anyone apprehending him. The most humane and merciful man in the North has been slain and God alone knows what will happen to the peace now. My head stable-boy broke down and cried when he heard the news, as well he might
…

Alexander did not contact her at all. She tried hard not to mind. Isabel would be with her soon. She had written with the news that she was sailing on the
Java
and would be arriving in New York on 1 May.

On the night before her arrival Maura could hardly sleep for excitement. It had been twenty-three months since they had last seen each other, twenty-three months since they had parted with so much heartache and so many promises.

The next day she went alone in the brougham to meet her. Where lesser mortals had to pass through the Customs House at Pier 39, Lady Dalziel's luggage was checked by custom's officials aboard the
Java
, as Alexander's had been aboard the
Scotia.

In a fever of impatience Maura stepped out of the brougham at the wharf and approached the foot of the first-class gangplank.

‘I'm here to meet Lady Isabel Dalziel,' she said to a ship's officer. ‘Is there someone who could direct me to her state-room?'

‘Just a moment, madam, and I will …'

‘Maura!
Maura!'
The voice came from high above their heads.

Maura looked up and leaning over the rail was Isabel. She looked exactly as she had done when they had parted. Tendrils of golden curls framed her heart-shaped face, everything about her was delicate and neat and blessedly familiar.

‘Maura, don't you dare to move! I'm going to be right with you!'

In a moment of sheer, unadulterated happiness the years of separation seemed to vanish as if they had never been. As Isabel began to run towards the head of the gangplank Maura ignored her shouted instruction and began to run towards the foot of it.

They met in the middle of the gangplank, throwing their arms around each other, laughing and crying and making it well nigh impossible for other disembarking passengers to squeeze a way round them.

‘Oh God, I've missed you so much, Maura!' Isabel cried, hugging her as though she would never let her go.

‘You can't possibly have missed me as much as I've missed you!'

She meant every word of it. It was as if she had never dared acknowledge to herself how much she had missed Isabel in case the pain would have been too much to bear. Now, safely reunited, the depth of that pain could be finally acknowledged.

They held each other at arm's length, feasting their eyes on each other.

‘You've changed!' Isabel exclaimed, tears of happiness streaming her face. ‘You're wearing your hair far more elegantly than you used to – and is that row of black pearls
genuine?'

‘You've obviously changed as well,' Maura said, laughing. ‘The Isabel I used to know would be able to recognize genuine pearls at fifty paces.'

Laughing and giggling like schoolgirls they made their way down the gangplank to American soil.

‘I've arranged for your luggage to be collected and taken straight to the house,' Maura said, leading the way towards the waiting brougham.

Isabel's eyes widened when she saw it. ‘Heavens, your carriage looks almost royal. I thought America was a democracy? I didn't know Americans had coats of arms and liveried coachmen.'

‘A few do,' Maura said drily. ‘But not many.'

She wondered when she should prepare Isabel for the fact that Alexander would not be at the house waiting for them, nor was he likely to arrive.

‘Goodness, aren't the streets busy? It's worse than London. Is that a pig over there? I thought pigs disappeared from New York streets in Granpapa's time.'

‘You still get them in the poor areas and the housing around the wharves is very poor, as you can see.'

‘And the church spires!' Isabel exclaimed, ignoring the unpleasantness with practised ease. ‘I had no idea there were so many churches in New York.'

Each and every vista filled her with rapturous delight. When they turned into Fifth Avenue she gasped in astonishment.

‘I might as well be in France,' she said, as they drove past a mansion built in the popular style of a Normandy château.

‘Or Italy,' Maura said with a grin as they approached its neighbour, an extravaganza of Italian baroque.

‘Great heavens, I've never seen such a mishmash of styles. The mansion on the left looks as if it has come straight from the Orient.' She began to giggle. ‘It isn't the Karolyis mansion, is it? I would hate you to be able to tell Alexander I had been rude about his family home even before I entered it.'

‘The Karolyis mansion is built in the style known as Greek Renaissance,' Maura said in mock reproof. ‘And although in extreme bad taste, it is not
quite
as bad as Oriental Gothic.'

While Isabel was looking all around her with passionate interest, Maura was looking at Isabel. What she had said at the pier was true. Isabel
had
changed. Not in herself but in her looks. She had always had a china-doll prettiness, with deep gold hair and mist-green eyes, but in the near two years they had been apart her doll-like prettiness had burgeoned into sophisticated loveliness.

‘There
is the Karolyis mansion,' Isabel exclaimed triumphantly. ‘I recognize it from the gates. You said they had been taken from the Palace of the Dorias and those gates
must
have been.'

‘Go to the top of the class,' Maura said lovingly as the giant gates of iron and bronze were opened for them and their carriage rolled into the courtyard.

‘Heavens,' Isabel said as they walked through the Pompeian vestibule and into the entrance hall.

‘Good Lord,' she exclaimed devoutly as she was faced with the full glory of the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

‘There's more,' Maura said in amusement. ‘Much, much more.'

By the time they were approaching the nursery both of them were in fits of helpless giggles again. ‘Are all American homes like this? Are they all such a mixture of styles and so … so
ornate?'

‘The homes of the American rich do veer to the ornate,' Maura said, thinking fondly of the stylish classicism with which they had both been brought up. ‘Mrs Astor has a throne on a dais in her drawing-room and Gussie Schermerhorn has an artificial pond with two swans on it in hers.'

They were still giggling as they entered the nursery.

‘I think darling Felix is absolutely enchanting,' Isabel said a little while later, bouncing a chortling Felix on her knee, ‘and Natalie Mary Maura is a cherub. They are both such wonderful-looking children that I can't wait to see the gentleman who fathered them. Where is Alexander, Maura? Is he out of town?'

‘No.' Maura's smile faded as she handed Natalie back to Bridget. ‘But you may not see him for quite a while. He doesn't live here any more.'

Isabel's eyes widened. She stopped bouncing Felix. ‘I don't understand …'

‘Let's have coffee in the drawing-room and talk,' Maura said, not wanting to embarrass Bridget.

With sudden gravity Isabel set fifteen-month-old Felix on uncertain chubby legs. He tottered towards Bridget's outstretched arms and Isabel followed Maura from the room.

‘… and so that is the situation,' Maura said an hour later as they sat in the Chinese drawing-room, a silver coffee-service on the low table before them. ‘Alexander refuses point-blank to face up to his responsibilities as a landlord, and his affair with Mrs Brevoort continues.'

‘But … is he in
love
with Mrs Brevoort?' Isabel asked, feeling very much out of her depth.

‘No, I'm almost sure he isn't.'

‘Well then …'

‘He's in love with Genevre, and Genevre dead is far more of a rival than any flesh-and-blood woman could be.'

There was nothing Isabel could say. She had never been out without a chaperone before her voyage from England to New York and she was overwhelmed by the sophisticatedness of their conversation and the worldliness Maura had acquired.

‘And … do you still love him?' she asked tentatively.

A rueful smile touched the corners of Maura's mouth. ‘Yes. I can't help it. If you meet him you will understand why.'

Isabel met him before the coffee cups were cleared.

He strode through the entrance hall saying briskly to Haines: ‘Is my wife at home? Has Lady Dalziel arrived?'

‘Yes, sir. They are in the Chinese drawing-room, sir.'

Alexander grimaced. The Grand drawing-room would have been a far more suitable room to have initially entertained Lady Dalziel, but Maura had always had a preference for the soft muted colours of the Chinese room. His grimace changed to a grin as he strode towards it, the sea-green and marble depths of the Grand drawing-room, the crimson of the Gentleman's drawing-room, the gold-leaf and gold-brocade of the Summer drawing-room, opening in enfiladed vistas on either side of him.

Maura was going to get a very great surprise. They had not had a long conversation since the one that had taken place a few days after Natalie's birth and she had not told him the date Lady Dalziel was due to arrive in New York. He had found it out for himself by having Stephen Fassbinder check with the shipping lines.

As he approached the lion-carved
portières
of the Chinese drawing-room, silk-stockinged footmen flung them open. Maura was sitting on a sofa and he saw her head turn, saw her eyes widen in shocked surprise. She was wearing a high-necked, heather-blue, silk day-dress that emphasized the colour of her eyes, and a heavy rope of black pearls. Her smoke-dark hair was swept softly over her ears and fastened in a glossy knot low in her neck. She looked like a Raphael madonna and the mere sight of her made his sex stir with longing.

With difficulty he transferred his gaze to the girl sitting beside her. She was astonishingly pretty. Her wheat-gold hair was deeply waved and piled high in a chignon; her eyes were grey-green; her dress crinolined in a manner that fashionable New York ladies had long forsaken for a bustle and a short train.

‘My apologies for not being at the pier to greet you, Lady Dalziel,' he said, for all the world as if Isabel were his guest and not Maura's. ‘Did you have a good trip? I understand that the
Java
does not roll half so much as her sister ships.'

All this had been said as he crossed the room. Now, as he stood in front of her, he bowed punctiliously. In the American fashion he did not extend his hand.

A slight flush touched Isabel's cheeks as she inclined her head slightly in acknowledgement.

‘My husband,' Maura said unnecessarily. ‘Alexander Karolyis.'

Alexander was finding it hard not to stare rudely from Lady Dalziel to Maura and back again. Despite the difference in their colouring the delicateness of their bone structure was uncannily similar. Maura had never mentioned the physical similarity between them. He wondered if she was aware of it. He wondered where it had sprung from.

‘And you are Isabel,' he said, collecting his thoughts with difficulty and not waiting for Maura to introduce her properly.

Maura shot Isabel a swift glance, not wanting her to be offended, wanting her to like Alexander just as she would have wanted her to do if she and Alexander had been happy together and not estranged.

She need not have worried. Isabel's eyes were glowing and a smile was dimpling her cheeks. Far from being insulted by his easy familiarity she was dazzled by him. Just as she herself had been instantly dazzled aboard the
Scotia.

The next few weeks were the strangest Maura had ever experienced. Alexander continued to be resident in his palatial suite at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, but he also escorted Isabel and herself to dinners and suppers and the races, as if there was not the slightest thing awry in their relationship. And he also continued to see Ariadne.

Despite the fact that it was once again summer, and many residents had escaped to the cooling breezes of their country retreats, a surprising number of invitations were extended to Mr and Mrs Alexander Karolyis and Lady Isabel Dalziel.

The
Herald's
society reporter had written quite extensively about Isabel's arrival in the city. Much had been made of her grandfather's visit to the city in the '40s and his friendship with President Tyler. Lord Clanmar's illustrious career as a diplomat and his subsequent long stay at the Russian court, acting as personal adviser to Tsar Alexander II, had also been written of at length.