Leon Uris (38 page)

The decision to make a December run to Immigrant Reef smoked with challenge. At best, it was audacious. In the end, Horace Kerr won begrudging admiration for sheer bravado.

Halfway through the 390-mile course,
Lochinvar III
was sideswiped by a nor’easter and thereafter assumed a hero’s role in getting home.

Malcolm navigated brilliantly, sensing the heavy air and direction of the roiling seas, and darted the boat away from the monster’s anger.

The Chesapeake crew, used to finer weather, worked the pressure off the mainmast to keep it from snapping, managed to switch mainsails, and kept a split rudder intact.

It was Horace Kerr at the helm, bullying the bully storm, growling at enemy whitecaps. The man and the moment converged, and
Lochinvar III
limped home to whatever bells, whistles, cannons, and foghorns remained in Newport.

The deck was a tangle of snapped stays, ripped sails, and rigging lines, yet not a man had been lost or badly injured. They got down the gangplank on their own two feet. Was it brilliant seamanship, hand of the gods, or shithouse luck that had brought them through? Some of each. Horace Kerr would certainly convert the incident into a fate that served notice at the New York Yacht Club.

An upscale bed, board, and brothel had been rented for the crew to go cattin’ in the satin and drink from a bottomless well of booze. Damages would be paid, immediately.

Horace had a handsome bonus that he kept in the company safe for his lads until after their party. No one was quite sure what they were celebrating.

The Butterfly? Didn’t work. In simple terms, the movement of the undercurrents flowed through the tabs, relaying information to the sails faster than the balance ball could react. When the storm blew full fury, the balance ball tilted the hull in stuttering misdirection until the system was locked down. The goddamn engineers at Dutchman’s Hook were in for a long winter.

On the other hand, some of the responses from the keel gave encouragement for further experimentation.

Daisy was on the dock, having returned from Baltimore. Horace looked his wife over with a yummy grin that had been missing for some time. A small reward.

Horace, Donald, and Malcolm returned to Tobermory re-invented as brothers.

The Turk was on hand to steam them on hot rocks, lay them out like three slabs of beef, and knead them into a state of stupor. Horace’s early lust was spent by the hot rocks. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he was snoring.

When he came awake, Dr. Quincy was holding his hand and taking his pulse. “Have you seen my brothers?”

“Yes, my partner is attending to them.”

“How are they?”

“Lumps. Up we sit. Take off the nightshirt. Let’s have a listen.”

“My old gal
Lochinvar
was a real warrior. What do we call them, Amazons, Brunhilds . . . ?”

“Damned fools. She’ll run no more match races.”

“Then we shall send her to Valhalla properly. Chrissake, Quincy, don’t poke my ribs.”

The lacerations, knots, and bruises were acceptable, given the fierceness of the ride. His right eye was encased in purple.

“Little beefsteak on that eye. Might want to tape you up later—”

“The devil!”

Daisy tiptoed in and expressed relief with the results of the examination. Nothing broken, nothing badly torn, the usual medications.

“I’ll look in on you again in a few hours,” Dr. Quincy said in departing. “You are very lucky.”

“It’s called seamanship,” Horace shouted after him. “Daisy, get me out of this goddamned deathbed.”

She helped him to his office and to a comfortable easy chair. He uncapped a decanter and babbled about his foolish courage. Not that Horace asked, but Emily was settled in fine down at Inverness.

Horace sat upright suddenly and grimaced.

“Where the hell is Amanda?”

“She went to the theater in Providence and called late last night. She missed her train and stayed over with the Burtons. I expect her momentarily.”

Horace wished to protest further, but loud voice and movement were accompanied by sharp pain.

“I have a surprise for you, meanwhile,” Daisy said, and pulled the service cord.

In a moment two servants entered. One carried a small covered painting, the other an easel, and set them up before Horace.

Daisy drew the cover off. It was a rendering for the portrait Amanda had sat for in her Constitution Ball gown. The artist, John Singer Sargent, had sent it to Inverness for comment, and Daisy brought it back with her.

Horace studied and studied. “Splendid, well done,” he said
softly. “But no one could ever truly capture her radiance that night. She was ethereal.”

Daisy understood she would be demoted to the old dowager mother. She’d known that for a long time, but loved Amanda no less than she loved Upton and Emily; in fact, she rather gloried in her daughter’s independence.

A finished portrait of this rendering would be a powerful statement of Amanda’s ascension. Daisy would handle it gracefully.

Horace leaned back and took a critic’s view of the canvas. He nitpicked here and there. Damned Sargent charged an arm and leg for the commission but was obviously worth it. Horace looked quickly to his wife, then turned his eyes away. Where will we hang the portrait? He dared not say; she dared not ask.

“Father,” Amanda said, breezing in and over to embrace him.

“No, no,” he said, “I’m a little banged up.”

“The news of
Lochinvar
is already up to Providence. You’ve set a few fellows on their ears.”

“Really? What are they saying?”

“Mr. Burton said that you’re something out of Viking mythology.”

Horace rumbled for joy in the back of his throat.

“Dear, I brought up a rendering of your portrait from Baltimore,” Daisy said.

Amanda studied it approvingly. She had instructed Sargent to cover the sadness he had detected. He’d done so, quite well. Amanda smiled to her mother to convey that she would not let Horace take Daisy’s portrait down from the grand entry.

“The Butterfly?”

“I’ll tell you about that later,” he said. “I was hoping you’d be at dockside to see me in.”

“I missed the ten o’clock train last night out of Providence. The Burtons put me up.”

“Oh, yes. Did Daisy say something about the theater? In Providence? In December?”

“It was Brown University and it was a lecture. Dr. Hoftsaddler
gave the most extraordinary talk about the possibility of human life on planets beyond our solar system.”

“Nonsense,” Horace said. “I’ve heard those old wives’ tales from every seaman who works at the Hook. Hoftsaddler? Well, you know those Germans, always seeing elves in their woods.”

There seemed an awkward moment as Horace adjusted himself in his great chair. Daisy could usually feel an Amanda strike coming on before Horace caught it, and she’d rather be elsewhere.

“Why don’t I see to a little tea or something. Soup?”

“Now that we three are together; so many things have gone past us recently, I am filled with a great sense of—what?” Horace said. “A great sense of comfort after an arduous journey. I don’t mean
Lochinvar.
I mean all of us. If I were a Catholic I’d say I’d passed through purgatory, though God knows what my sins might have been.”

Daisy touched his shoulder and he made a kissing gesture to her.

“This sail to Immigrant Reef was the climax of a summer that has restored my faith, revived my spirit as only could happen at the helm during a storm.

“It told me,” he went on, “that indeed the Kerrs are made of sterner stuff. I must say Donald and Malcolm acquitted themselves well. But it is Amanda I speak of now. You, my darling, have shown great resources in turning back raw savage lust. I know you must have called upon every fiber of your being. The road to Jerusalem, to Rome, is always paved in broken glass.”

Damned ribs were really sore! “The beautiful ingathering of Kerrs for Thanksgiving, Amanda’s steadfastness, and my cleansing sail to Immigrant Reef have carried us, one and all, past a new threshold. No . . . no, please let me finish. After the incredible downwind run, I had the chance to talk something over with my brothers.”

“It is so nice that you’re talking things over with them,” Daisy said.

“Lochinvar
! What did the poet write? ‘Set every threadbare sail, give her to the god of storms, the lightning and the gale, etc.’ We learned that although the Butterfly came up short, it did tell us that
some kind of split-winged keel will work. I mean to challenge for the right to defend America’s Cup!”

“Dear God!” Daisy cried.

“Challenge every goddamned yachtsman in the goddamned New York Yacht Club—”

“But Horace,” Daisy interrupted, “all the
Lochinvar
s were built in Scotland, and the rules committee disallows foreign-built boats for the trials.”

Amanda had reached the end of her father’s speech long before he delivered it. He thumped out his words as though he were Patrick Henry in the Virginia House of Burgesses.

“We shall launch a new series of racing yachts, built in America and carrying the name
Amanda K.
And let me tell you, the Constable yard is as good as any with this type hull.”

Daisy grasped at whatever there was to grasp at. Amanda walked to the French doors, closed them, and locked them.

“The Kerr family over Thanksgiving,” she said, “were very nice people, members of an astonishingly successful family, here and in Scotland.”

“And our name will be carved on the cup!”

“Father, you are babbling.”

“Don’t you speak to your father that way.”

“Hardly babbling. Daisy, I think our daughter is overcome by the moment.”

“I am not worthy of the honor,” Amanda said.

Horace laughed. “Hell, daughter! You were
the
Kerr from the moment you were born.”

“Father, there is no kingdom of Kerr except in your frightening mind.”

“Do not dare to speak to your father in this manner, particularly in his present condition,” Daisy declared.

“You’ve been pounding me all my life, and all my life I’ve known the reason. The truth, Father?”

“This is no time for truth,” Daisy said, throwing her hands in the air.

“The truth is that you have blown me up out of all human dimension for the simple reason that I’m your lone surviving child, the only one left you feel is worthy to ensure your immortality!”

Horace Kerr gasped and flung his head back as wave after wave of shock ripped through him. The room seemed now a shallow empty box with high white walls and white ceiling and white floor and two fuzzy white fixtures before him.

Then.

Amazing how rapidly Horace Kerr recovered! No one caught him in a tactical surprise, no admiral, no labor union, no president. He mulled until the shock went along its way, then pointed to his humidor and wordlessly ordered Daisy to prepare him a cigar. He sucked in, grunted, and blew the smoke directly into Amanda’s face.

Daisy watched her daughter, unflinching. As for Horace, she had witnessed him at one time or another operate on every level of rage and intimidation. Dear Lord, she thought, he is entirely too calm.

Horace groaned as he stretched his hurting limbs and reorga-nized his mind into an art form of cold taunting cynicism.

“A little port, I think,” he said to Daisy. “Mmm, good stuff. Is there something you wish to tell me, Amanda? An abdication speech?”

“I haven’t sent Zachary off. He has a one-month furlough at the beginning of the new year. I am leaving Tobermory today to wait for him.”

“That’s marvelous!” Daisy cried.

“Go to your room, Daisy,” he commanded softly.

“No!” she answered.

Horace thought it out deliberately, poured another large jigger of port, and whacked it down. “I am hearing screechy sirens from hell, screaming Valkyries. So, we have a full-scale rebellion.” He laid down his next words, detached, with precision. “Glen know about this?”

“Yes.”

“No matter. You’ll be far too soiled for him or anyone of a proper family. Dirty pants. Do you think you can survive a fish
wife’s life after the gates of Tobermory and Inverness are locked to you? You shall suffer every minute of your life. You will never come back.”

“I have no intention of coming back.”

“Amanda will not be in need,” Daisy cried.

“Oh, yes, the Blantons, that blight on humanity. God bless the Blantons, who traded you off in order to indebt me.”

“I have remained loyal to you through the disasters of our other children . . .” Daisy fought back as she had never fought before.

“Loyalty is hardly your long suit, Daisy. All your years of trotting back and forth to England. For what? To see Upton?”

Daisy sank into a chair, shaking, but was aware of her daughter’s strong hand on her shoulder.

“Amusing,” Horace said, “but the Hook was on the brink of a four-ship contract when your little dillydally in London first reached my ears. I wasn’t going to lose that contract. Later? I could have made a public fool out of you but I needed you as a head housekeeper to run my mansions. What did that lover ever want with that beggar’s snatch of yours? So I remained decent, publicly decent. Actually, I was midway through treatment for a social medical embarrassment. Aren’t you pleased that I spared you? Lord, can a man have no protection from female vileness?”

“Keep talking,” Amanda said. “It makes me love you.”

“Loyalty. You knew about your mother and her limp-wristed English faggot?”

“The closets of Inverness are full,” Amanda said. “We’ll have to start storing skeletons up here in Tobermory.”

“You are glacial, Amanda, but what a fool. Where will you and your shanty-Irish taig boy be able to hide?”

“We do not intend to hide.”

“Be careful, Amanda!” Daisy screamed to her. “Emily did not become the way she is from falling from a swing. Norbert Jolly took advantage of her innocence and made her pregnant before the cotillion. We had it aborted.”

“I demand you say nothing further,” Horace roared, crimson-faced.

“To hell,” Daisy said, and turned to Amanda. “To my everlasting disgrace, I took part in the ritual! I took her to New Orleans, to the bayou, where some witch butchered her.