The Beaufort Sisters Read online

  ‘Yes, do that.’ Lucas’s voice was a cool note in the afternoon warmth.

  ‘Well, it’s only come up in the past week. I was going to discuss it with you, Lucas, but Pop’s jumped the gun.’

  I was wrong, Margaret thought, he is still as deferential as ever.

  ‘Better late than never,’ said Lucas, voice still cool.

  ‘Well, as you know, I’ve lived over in Johnson County for the last twenty years, except for the time I’ve lived here. If we, I mean Meg and I, if we moved back there now, I’d still be classed as residentially qualified. I mean, to run.’

  ‘Run for what?’ Lucas shook his head at the glass of iced tea which Edith, sensing the stiffening in her husband, had offered him.

  ‘Well, as I said, it’s only come up in the last week.’ Margaret noticed that Frank hadn’t once looked at her. But then he was also having difficulty in looking Lucas in the eye. ‘Pop thinks I could get the Republican nomination for Congress and he thinks with my connections I could win the election.’

  ‘They’ll be looking for Republicans in Washington next year,’ said Jack Minett, who hadn’t brought his political nose with him this afternoon or he would have noticed the change in climate. ‘Frank could be a shoo-in.’

  ‘What connections were you thinking of?’ said Lucas.

  For the first time Jack Minett felt the chill on the wind. He had been carried away by the ambience, thinking that this was the life he’d like for himself and Francesca: tea on the lawn, servants, not a demanding voter in sight. But now: ‘Well – I mean, I’d been led to believe – ’ He looked at his son, wondering how he could have been so dumb as to listen to him.

  ‘I don’t think this is a topic for a Sunday afternoon,’ said Magnus on a nod from Edith. ‘As my English grandmother used to say, tennis anyone?’

  ‘In Dodge City?’ Lucas smiled, stood up. Margaret recognized that he was furious about something, but he had always tried his best to be a gentleman. A gentleman did not engage in political argument in front of the ladies: if only because he was convinced that the ladies wouldn’t understand the argument anyway. He drank the iced tea that Edith offered him again, then nodded towards the court at the back of the estate. ‘Let’s knock the ball about. You can lend your father some tennis clothes, Frank.’

  ‘Just a pair of sneakers,’ said Jack Minett. ‘I’ll be okay in these pants.’

  ‘No,’ said Lucas. ‘I prefer the proper clothes on my court.’

  The men went away and Prue, ten now and still the sharpest observer in the family, said, ‘Daddy’s blowing up a storm.’

  ‘That’s enough from you,’ said Edith. ‘Go see if you can help Nurse look after your nieces.’

  ‘I don’t think I like being an aunt at my age,’ said Prue. ‘It makes me feel so old.’

  But she went off and Edith sighed. ‘That one is going to be a headache when she grows up. You’re fortunate, Francesca, that you don’t have any daughters to worry about. No offence, darlings,’ she added.

  ‘Hah-hah,’ said Sally, whose repartee hadn’t improved as she grew older.

  ‘Prue was right – Daddy is in one of his moods,’ said Margaret. ‘I think Frank has sprung some sort of surprise on him. You know how he hates surprises.’

  ‘Leave them be,’ said Francesca, still looking for her two grandchildren that she might smother them in their right, a grandmother’s affection. ‘Men will always sort things out between themselves.’

  ‘Exactly my sentiments,’ said Edith, glad to be able to favour Francesca with agreement. She was always uncomfortable with Frank’s mother and was glad that Francesca did not expect to be included as part of the Beaufort social circle. Egalitarianism, a newly fashionable word she had seen cropping up lately, was something she felt would work better if kept away from Ward Parkway. ‘More iced tea?’

  The men played tennis for an hour, then came up from the court and went straight into the house and to Lucas’s study. By then Margaret was back in her own house, in the nursery, breastfeeding Emma and watching Francesca fuss over the spoonfeeding of Martha. A car horn tooted outside and Francesca straightened up and put down the spoon and bowl.

  ‘That’s Jack. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’ She kissed Margaret and the babies. ‘It’s been a nice day, Meg. I’m so happy for you and Frank.’

  The car horn tooted again. She beamed at the children, then went out, not hurrying but not dawdling, a wife who, as far as Margaret could tell, didn’t mind in the least being dutiful.

  The older Minetts drove away and Frank came upstairs to the nursery. Margaret saw at once that he was dark with anger, the banked Sicilian fires suddenly burning again. She had never seen his temper before and she felt a moment of fear.

  ‘Your father – do you know what he can be like?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The flat emphasis in her voice seemed to surprise him ‘He can be a real son-of-a-bitch – Jesus, I didn’t believe anyone could be so – so autocratic in this day and age!’

  ‘Your father is pretty autocratic towards your mother.’

  Again he looked at her and all at once she saw his father in him. ‘That’s the way he is and my mother wouldn’t want him any different.’

  She made no comment on that, went back to seeing that Emma was properly fed. She had not really wanted to breast-feed either of the babies, but had done so to please her mother. ‘What happened with Daddy?’

  Frank hadn’t yet showered: he smelled of sweat and anger. ‘He cut me down – right down! Jesus Christ, you’d have thought I was some goddam office clerk! In front of my own father – ’

  ‘What did your father say?’

  ‘That was it – he said nothing!’ She could see that it hurt and angered him to admit his father’s cowardice. ‘He just sat there as if your father was God Almighty.’

  ‘What was Daddy’s objection?’

  ‘That I’d even thought of running for office without consulting him. I’ve got to have a drink.’ He rang the service bell.

  ‘You weren’t very sensible or diplomatic, if you ask my opinion.’

  ‘I’d expect you to take his side – he’s got you all under his thumb.’ One of the maids appeared at the door. ‘Get me a beer.’

  ‘Please, Ellen,’ said Margaret and waited till the girl had gone. ‘Don’t speak to the maids like that. My father may be autocratic, but he knows how to speak to the servants.’

  He made a gesture of apology, but he was still too angry for any conciliatory words. ‘He treated me like a goddam servant this afternoon!’

  ‘Did Magnus say anything?’

  ‘He just looked embarrassed. Does your father put him down, too?’

  ‘I think we should have Magnus over for supper. Is he still over with Daddy? I’ll call him.’

  ‘Why do we want him?’

  ‘I think he may be able to explain a few things about Daddy that I’d find embarrassing.’ She finished feeding the baby, rang for the nurse. ‘Take Martha’s spoon and plate away from her. She’s made enough mess.’

  He picked up the food-spattered Martha as both the nurse and the maid came in. He handed Martha to the nurse, took the beer from the maid. ‘Thanks, Ellen. Sorry I was a bit grouchy a moment ago.’

  ‘That’s all right, Mr Minett.’

  But Margaret, watching her closely, saw that the maid had made up her mind who knew how to handle servants and who didn’t. Frank had a lot to learn about living with the Beauforts, at both ends of the scale.

  Magnus McKea was still over in the main house and said he would be delighted to come over to the Minetts for supper. He arrived half an hour later, looking cool and English: dark blue blazer, cravat at his throat, grey slacks. I couldn’t have picked a better spokesman for us, Margaret thought.

  After supper, when they were sitting out on the back porch having coffee, she said, ‘You were there this afternoon, Magnus, when Daddy let fly. Explain to Frank why he did that.’

  No lights had been
turned on on the porch and they sat in the evening gloom. Magnus was silent for a while, then he said, ‘Am I here as a family friend or the family lawyer?’

  ‘You’re here because you’re one of us,’ Margaret said and was sure he would understand whom she meant by us.

  Magnus wasn’t going to be hurried. He took his time about lighting a cigar, then at last he said, ‘Frank, I suspect you really don’t yet appreciate what you have married into.’

  Frank took his own time about replying. ‘Maybe not, I just don’t know why Meg has asked you to explain it to me.’

  ‘I think I understand. She’s part of everything you ran up against this afternoon with Lucas. Tribal customs are often better explained by someone who knows the tribe but isn’t a member. I think it would be better, Meg, if you left us for a while.’

  Margaret, without a word, got up and went inside. Magnus stubbed out his cigar and looked at the dark shape of Frank. He had felt sorry for the younger man this afternoon: Lucas had been coldly brutal.

  ‘Frank, Lucas is one of a breed that I think is going to die out in this country in my lifetime. He’s only two generations removed from a man who had very little money and certainly no position. Now he is one of the richest men in America, but nationally he doesn’t really have much position. Not compared to the rich men in the East, the old money. But he likes to behave like an aristocrat. We have an American aristocracy, but again you find most of them in the East. Lucas aspires to be one and he has a code you should have acquainted yourself with. He is interested in making money and always will be – that’s not un-aristocratic. Some of the English and French nobility are just as money-minded as Lucas will ever be. But he believes money, or the possession of it, has certain responsibilities. One is that it should not be used to buy political power. Money does buy political power in this country. Some of our so-called better families have done it unashamedly, but Lucas is not like that.’

  ‘I wasn’t asking him to buy anything for me.’

  ‘Frank, you were going to use the Beaufort name – and that’s synonymous with money. Your father spoke of connections – the only connections you have are with the Beauforts. Sooner or later some political columnist would have commented that, supposing you were elected, you were Lucas’s man in Washington, that you had been put there with a purpose.’

  ‘I’ve been lobbying for the Beaufort interests – what’s the difference?’

  ‘Frank, that’s a dumb question and you know it. Paid lobbyists are a recognized part of our political system. Congressmen with a vested interest are also a part of our system, but they are not officially recognized. Lucas himself has several times been asked to run for office – as Senator, as Governor. I’ve heard his answer – that he would willingly have done so if he had been someone other than who he is. Of course, then they may not have asked him. But it doesn’t alter his point – that when you are rich and powerful as he is, you don’t run for office. You work for the government if you are asked, but that’s public duty. If you are a Beaufort – and you are one now, by marriage – you serve your country without reward or thought of political prestige. It’s what the French call noblesse oblige.’

  ‘It’s bullshit,’ said Frank.

  ‘It may be. You’re the professor of political theory, not me. The fact remains that it is the way Lucas thinks. There’s something you don’t realize – and I don’t think Lucas or his family realize it, either. He has an inferiority complex. No, don’t laugh. It is a common disease here in the Midwest among the rich. They would never admit it, but they feel inferior towards everyone East of them, the inferiority feeling growing as the distance increases from Kansas City or Tulsa or wherever. There is a reverse complex. The rich in St Louis look down on us, Cincinnati looks down on St Louis and so on and so on. We have one of the most beautiful cities in America right here, but the rest of the country thinks of it as a stockyard full of Wyatt Earps. We’ll grow out of our inferiority complex, but it may take another twenty-five years or more.’

  ‘I don’t suffer from that.’

  Magnus smiled in the dark, but said nothing.

  ‘I’ve always had political ambitions – I was brought up to have them – ’

  ‘Did you explain that to Lucas when you asked for Meg’s hand?’

  ‘Asked for –? Jesus, Magnus, what’s with you? She asked me. Sure, I wanted to marry her, but I never got the chance. We went to her father and she told him we were going to be married and that was that. I’ve always had it in mind that I’d run for something – Governor, Congressman – ’

  ‘Not any more, Frank. You could run for President, a Republican President, and Lucas would spend money to see you weren’t elected. Anything to prove that you weren’t his man.’

  ‘I am his man, don’t you see that? Or he thinks I am. Telling me what I can and what I can’t do – ’

  ‘You’d better adjust to it, Frank. You’re not the first son-in-law who thought he could be his own man in this family.’

  ‘What about you? Are you his man, too?’

  ‘Only on a professional level. You forget – I’m not married to one of his daughters.’

  4

  Frank had another talk with Lucas, but Margaret never learned what was said. However, there was a change in Frank that soon became apparent; he had suddenly learned he was more alien than he thought in the world of the Beauforts. There was no sullenness or any further outburst of anger; rather, he began to show a cool control that Margaret had never suspected in him. She did not know that he had had talks with his own father and that Jack Minett, who took the long view that no man, not even Lucas, was immortal, had counselled Frank not to make any more waves.

  ‘The only place to shoot your mouth off is when you’re at the top,’ he had said. ‘Politics is full of the corpses of guys who started shouting too soon.’

  ‘Joe McCarthy’s doing all right.

  ‘He won’t last, that’s my bet. He’s got his uses now, but he’ll be kicked out on his ass when we get into power. The time to be in favour is when your party is in office. You play it cool and bide your time – you’re still young. You’re gonna need money of your own, so go out and make some. Lucas didn’t say anything about not using your connections with the family to make money. Make as much as you can and in ten years’ time we’ll send you to Washington.’

  ‘Ten years!’

  ‘You’ll be – what? Forty, forty-one. You can stay there for thirty years if you play the game properly. By then you’ll be your own man and it won’t matter a can of piss whether Lucas approves or not. Start learning to be cool and how to make money.’

  ‘That’s easy to say. Where do I start making it?’

  ‘Look around you. This part of the country is gonna grow. We’re gonna have new highways. They’re talking about a major airport. An old Missouri boy once said, Buy land, son, they’ve stopped making it – that was Mark Twain. It’s still good advice.’

  ‘If you know what’s going to happen here, why aren’t you buying up land?’

  Jack Minett smiled. ‘When it comes to money, I’m an honest politician. I saw what happened over in Tom Pendergast’s territory – greed brought all those guys down. I make a little extra on the side, but not dishonestly. Everybody thinks all Italians belong to the Mafia – I try to prove they’re wrong. Some Mafia men have come to offer me money, but I’ve turned them down. I’m safe here and I’ll be here till the day I die, because everyone trusts me.’

  ‘What about me? If I make money on land deals, who’s going to elect me?’

  ‘Ten years I said, remember? You make your money soon and by the time you run for office people will have forgotten or won’t be interested. All they care about is whether you made it in office or just before you got in. Make your fortune in five years and you can spend the next five years being respectable.’

  So Frank made no more waves. He was once more respectful of Lucas, though less deferential; their relationship had cooled a little but Luca
s did not seem to mind that. He’s brought Frank to heel, Margaret thought, and he’s satisfied with that. What worried her was that she had begun to feel no loyalty to either her father or her husband.

  The year faded away. In Washington some Puerto Rican revolutionaries tried to assassinate President Truman. Lucas, genuinely horrified that such a thing could still happen in America, buried his animosity and telephoned the President to congratulate him on his escape. ‘I thought all that was behind us, Mr President – ’

  ‘I wouldn’t put money on it, Lucas. There’ll always be cranks and fanatics.’ The President chuckled. ‘We’ve even had a few back in Missouri. But thanks for calling. We must get together for a chat when I come home.’

  ‘When will that be, Mr President?’ Was Truman hinting that he was not going to run next year?

  Again the chuckle. ‘Some time, Lucas. I’ll be in touch.’

  Nina came home in early December, looking much better than when she had gone away over a year before. She was changed in subtle ways that her parents and her sisters did not at once appreciate. Her appearance had altered: she looked older than her twenty-seven years but not in an unflattering way. Her blonde hair was in a chignon, her clothes were French and understated in their chic, her make-up was different and more sophisticated. That was the difference that they all came to recognize very soon: that all round she was much more sophisticated than the Nina they remembered. They had yet to find out whether it was just a shell hiding a still troubled and unhappy woman.

  ‘I’ve dismissed the private detectives,’ she told Margaret. ‘They’ve come up with nothing new in the past twelve months. If ever I find Tim and Michael, it’s going to be by accident.’