The Beaufort Sisters Read online

  And Lucas Beaufort returned to Kansas City with his half a million dollars still unpacked. But not before meeting Nina’s brand-new fiancé.

  ‘Are you sure of him?’ The army had given him a room which they kept for VIP’s. Generals, senators, even Bob Hope had stayed in the room, but Lucas was unimpressed. They had left no presence that made him feel he was in better company than himself. ‘He seems rather – cavalier, I think is the word.’

  ‘Wasn’t that what Grandfather was?’

  ‘Not towards your grandmother. Only towards his business partners.’ Lucas had no illusions about his father. ‘Major Davoren says he wants to take you back to England. But he admits he has no prospects there, none at all.’

  ‘I have my own money.’

  ‘I’m sure he knows that.’ Then, seeing the angry flush in her face, said, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t have, Daddy, and I’ll never forgive you for saying it. Not about the father of my baby.’

  ‘Dear God!’ Lucas normally had only a social relationship with the Almighty. He attended Sunday service at St Andrew’s Episcopal Church, where he sat in a reserved pew and wondered why God, if there was a God, answered the prayers of men like Roosevelt and Truman. ‘You mean you’re –?’

  ‘Pregnant. Enceinte. Schwanger. Or as the English put it, a bun in the oven.’ Then, because it hurt her to hurt him, she impulsively put her hand on his. ‘I’m sorry, Daddy – I shouldn’t have said that. But you made me so angry – you’re not being fair to Tim – ’

  Lucas took her hand in his. His face had a handsome boniness to it, but only his family ever saw it softened into his true good looks. ‘Nina sweetheart, all I want is to be sure that you are happy. It’s just that I have to re-adjust – your mother and I always expected you to marry someone from back home – ’

  ‘That’s it, Daddy. You don’t really want me to have a mind of my own. You don’t want me to be anything but a Beaufort – ’

  ‘All right. I’ll talk to Major Davoren.’ Lucas didn’t know how to cope with a daughter who showed such independence. Already back in Kansas City Sally and even young Prue, only five years old, were showing they had minds of their own. Only Margaret, the one to whom he showed the least favouritism (and was ashamed for his prejudice), seemed content to do what her parents wanted. ‘But do you mind if I try to persuade him to come back to Kansas City? There’s no future in England, not under that fellow Attlee.’

  Nina made the concession, now secretly wanting to go home to Missouri. She had had enough of Europe, or anyway post-war Europe. All her charity had been frozen out of her by her fear for her own safety. She was ashamed of her selfishness, but she was not the first to discover there are limits to one’s self-sacrifice; she was even more ashamed that her limits had been so shallow. The older hands had been right: she had just been a rich kid playing at being a do-gooder.

  ‘But don’t press him, Daddy. Let him make the decision.’

  Tim Davoren had stayed in Frankfurt and later that day Lucas, who had been in the city only once before, took him on a guided tour. ‘This is where the Rothschilds began, did you know that?’

  ‘So I understand. Goethe, too.’

  ‘Gurter? Never heard of him.’ Lucas had not been interested in the humanities at college; stick to the money subjects, his father had advised him. ‘I was here in 1936. The Rothschild house was still standing then. Right over there.’

  Tim Davoren knew he was being tested: for Nina’s sake he showed interest. ‘From small acorns etcetera, as they say in Kew Gardens.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lucas, his suspicions rising again. ‘I take it you are not very interested in the making of money?’

  ‘I don’t think I have the talent for it.’

  ‘That doesn’t necessarily disqualify you. Gamblers have no talent, but they are interested in making money. Do you gamble?’

  ‘Not knowingly. But I suppose everyone gambles one way or another.’

  ‘What are your talents, may I ask? I understand you are a good soldier, that you won the Military Cross. It’s not much of a career, though, is it? Not in peace time.’

  ‘I’m getting out of the army. I thought I might try teaching.’

  ‘You’d soon tire of that,’ said Lucas, as if he had known Tim all his life. ‘You wouldn’t think of coming back to Kansas City?’

  ‘What would I do?’ Tim kept his voice deliberately flat, a characteristic he had just before he was about to erupt.

  ‘You could take your choice,’ said Lucas, not entirely undiplomatic. ‘Come back there and see what offers.’

  Tim walked in silence letting his anger subside. He recognized that the older man was only trying to do the natural thing, protect his daughter. But he also recognized that Lucas was already trying to assert some authority over his future son-in-law. And that’s just not in your book, Tim old boy.

  ‘I’ll talk it over with Nina.’

  Lucas walked in silence, too. Then he seemed to accept that he could ask for no more. He nodded, then said, ‘She tells me she is pregnant. How did that happen?’

  ‘The usual way,’ said Tim.

  Lucas stopped, looked as if he were offended, then suddenly let out a gust of laughter, surprising Tim, who had decided that the older man had no sense of humour at all. ‘Of course! Damnfool question – damn good answer. I’ll tell her mother that. You’ll like her mother. Has a sense of humour, something I haven’t got. Gurter? You don’t mean Go-eth, the poet, do you? You don’t like poetry, do you?’

  ‘Only if it rhymes,’ said Tim, and Lucas seemed satisfied.

  That evening Tim had dinner with Nina and her father, then took Nina back to her billet. He had sent the Mercedes and his driver back to Hamburg; they walked home through the ill-lit streets, careful of the ice on the cracked sidewalks. They stood just inside the doorway of her billet and, bundled up against the cold, embraced each other like a couple of bears.

  ‘Darling heart, you shouldn’t have told your father you were pregnant, not yet. You’re too honest. Never be more than discreetly honest with people you have to live with.’

  ‘Will that include you, too?’ She kissed him, silencing his answer. She still had not recovered from her ordeal and she was in no condition to suffer lovers’ truths. ‘Mother would have guessed in time. Girls usually don’t have babies six months after they’re married.’

  ‘Did what happened to you – there won’t be a miscarriage?’

  ‘I think he, or she, is going to be indestructible. I haven’t even felt nauseous.’ Then in the darkness, unable to see his face, she said, ‘You don’t mind going home with me to Kansas City?’

  His head was stiff and unmoving against the light in the windows of the house opposite. ‘No,’ he said quietly.

  But she wondered if he was being only discreetly honest with her. She was too afraid to ask. She drew the dark head towards her, felt for his lips with hers and kissed him, seeking a true answer there. But already she had learned that lips were no more truthful than the tongue.

  Lucas Beaufort went back to Kansas City relieved and satisfied. Nina and Tim were married quietly by an army chaplain a week after he left, with Colonel Shasta and Major McKea as their witnesses. When Lucas arrived back in Missouri it was announced without fanfare that Miss Nina Beaufort, eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs Lucas T. Beaufort, had been quietly married three months earlier to Major Timothy Davoren, only son of the late Mr and Mrs Clive Davoren of London, England. If anyone in Kansas City wondered why a Beaufort girl, the first one to be married, should have wed so secretly, no one voiced their wonder in public. Not even when she arrived home in March 1946 obviously pregnant.

  Word of the kidnapping had got out. However, since the kidnappee had escaped unhurt, the kidnappers had not been caught and no money had been handed over, editors gave the story only a narrow spread in their newspapers. Who in the rest of the world thought anyone from Kansas City was interesting? Even Harry T
ruman was at pains to say he came from Independence, though cynics said that was only a play on words to show he was not Tom Pendergast’s man. Anyone passing through the two places wasn’t sure where Kansas City ended and Independence began.

  Edith Beaufort, adamant that she had to meet her new son-in-law before anyone else in Kansas City saw him, insisted that she and Lucas go to New York to meet the Davorens as they got off their ship. She liked Tim as soon as she met him and he liked her.

  ‘You’ll do,’ she told him. ‘You’re much better than I expected or hoped for.’

  ‘A bad advance report from Mr Beaufort?’

  ‘Just say unenthusiastic. You’re not American, specifically not from the Midwest, that’s the main thing against you. He ignores the fact that he’s only two generations removed himself from England. And his grandfather left under a cloud, as they say.’

  ‘No cloud over me,’ said Tim. ‘The sun shines on me all the time. Especially when Nina is around.’

  ‘Your charm is obvious, but I like it,’ said Edith. ‘If there is any charm from our local men, it’s accidental and biennial. My husband is a good example. But I love him, Tim, and I hope you will love Nina just as much.’

  They rode back from New York in a private railroad car. Nina and her mother watched the two men gradually thaw towards each other, but the thawing was slow, like two polite icebergs cruising down from Greenland. They were half-way between Columbus, Ohio, and St Louis before Lucas slapped Tim on the knee at one of the latter’s jokes. By the time they got off at Kansas City they were Tim son and Lucas old chap and moved in a common cloud of cigar smoke. Nina and her mother felt the future was secure.

  There were four cars at Union Station to meet the train. One car contained the other three Beaufort sisters and Edith’s secretary, Miss Stafford; one car was for Lucas and Edith; another was for the newly married couple; and the fourth took the luggage. They moved out to a fanfare of flash-bulbs from the press photographers.

  ‘Do you usually travel in convoy?’ said Tim as he and Nina settled back in the pre-war Packard.

  ‘Only for weddings and funerals. Darling, please – take it all for granted. Please?’

  He laughed: nervously, it seemed to her, though she had never thought of him as having nerves. ‘I’m not overwhelmed, but I’m certainly whelmed. Even that – ’ He nodded at the glass partition which separated them from the chauffeur. ‘We have those in England still, but I thought it had all gone out in democratic America.’

  ‘Don’t refer to it as Democratic America,’ she said, misunderstanding his adjective. ‘Daddy is a Republican. This car belonged to my grandmother – you can see how old it is. She didn’t believe in servants listening to their mistress’ conversation. Neither do I. What’s wrong with a car with a glass partition?’

  ‘It’s not just the car. It’s just everything. The private railway carriage, your father bringing half a million dollars to Germany in a couple of suitcases … Take it for granted, she says.’

  ‘It’s the only way.’

  ‘You were born to it. I’ll try, my love, but don’t blame me if I occasionally get a glazed look in my eye.’ Then a little later he said, ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Home.’

  ‘Well, I suppose King George has to say the same when someone asks him about Buckingham Palace. Where are we going to live?’

  ‘We’re having our own suite for the time being, in that wing there. Daddy is going to build us a house in the park. Something smaller,’ she added as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

  ‘Let it be as big as you want,’ he said expansively. ‘If I’m going to take it all for granted, I may as well not be cramped.’

  Nina was relieved at how her three sisters took to Tim. ‘He’s absolutely out of this world!’ exclaimed Margaret. ‘He’s thrilling!’

  Sally, equally thrilled, rolled her eyes in ecstasy. ‘And he’s got you pregnant – already! He’s a quick worker.’

  ‘Most husbands are,’ said Nina, wondering how much her mother had told her sisters. ‘That’s what wedding nights are for.’

  ‘Are you going to have a baby?’ asked Prue, already that mixture of shrewdness and romanticism that would plague her all her life. ‘You’re a bit fat. I’ll look after it if you don’t want it.’

  ‘We’ll look after it together, darling. What do you think of Tim?’

  ‘He’s got funny eyes. They’re always looking at things.’

  Tim’s eyes were indeed always looking at things, Nina noticed as the weeks went by. He made no comment, but his eyes were too sharp and observant for someone who was resigned to taking everything for granted. And, as if his eyes were a mirror of her own, she began to see things from a new angle and in a different light. For the second time since meeting him she saw the family wealth as something not to be taken for granted. You think you’re worth that much? the kidnapper had asked her. And she wondered just what she was really worth in Tim’s eyes.

  He had refused to take a job in the Beaufort bank or the oil company or the lumber business or with the railroad. He considered going to work for the granary company, but that would have meant living away from Kansas City and Nina refused to do that; small town living, or even small city, was not for her. The same reason ruled out living and working on the cotton plantation down-State. So he went to work for the Beaufort Cattle Company in the stockyards.

  ‘What do you know about cattle?’ Nina asked.

  ‘Nothing. But your father tells me he knows nothing about lumber, but he’s president of the company. Is that right, Lucas?’

  ‘He’s got you there, sweetheart.’ Lucas smiled at his daughter, telling her how pleased he now was with her husband. He had half-expected Tim to settle for the cushiest job offered him, but he had turned out to have a wide streak of independence in him. ‘But I have fellers who know the business and they see I don’t make any mistakes. I’m putting Tim in as a vice-president of the Cattle Company and he’ll soon learn.’

  ‘I think you misunderstood me, Lucas. I don’t want to start as a vice-president. I’d rather go in as an ordinary worker, right at the bottom.’

  ‘Cutting off the bull’s knackers,’ said Prue. ‘George took me down to see the man doing it.’

  ‘I think you had better eat alone in the nursery from now on,’ said Edith. ‘And, Lucas, I think you had better have a word with George.’

  They were in the big panelled dining-room where Lucas insisted that they eat every evening. The table could seat thirty, but two leaves had been taken out of it, reducing it to a size that did not ridicule the family sitting at it. Nina and Tim sat on one side, the three younger sisters on the other, and Edith and Lucas sat at the ends. Thaddeus and Lucy Beaufort had always dressed for dinner, but when they died and Edith took over the running of the house she had abolished that rule. She loved dressing up, but the fun went out of it if one had to dress every night.

  ‘George is only teaching her the facts of life,’ said Sally. ‘It’s the new society. I was reading about it in Time magazine. Things are going to be different. Are you going to be a modern mother, Nina?’

  ‘I’m not going to take the baby down to the stockyards, if that’s what you mean. And I think I’ll do without George’s help.’

  George Biff, standing in for the butler on the latter’s night off, came in with the dessert. He was not a handsome Negro, but he had a broad friendly face and he moved with the light grace of a man who had been both boxer and musician.

  ‘Caramel custard tonight, ma’am. Just poor folks’ stuff.’

  ‘It’s crème caramel, George. French and not poor folks’ stuff. And Mr Beaufort would like to see you in his study after dinner.’

  ‘It’s about the bull’s knackers,’ said Prue.

  ‘Could we change the subject?’ asked Tim. ‘Otherwise I’m likely to lose my taste for this delicious crème caramel.’

  Later Tim and Nina walked round the park, unconsciously following the paths and habi
t of Nina’s grandparents. A warm breeze blew up from the south and the maples that screened the house from the parkway whispered secretly in the darkness. Twice the Davorens passed security guards patrolling the big railed fence, but Tim made no comment on them. Nina now took it for granted that he was taking everything for granted. Including guarding against any further kidnapping of a Beaufort.

  ‘How did George come to work for your father?’

  ‘He’s Daddy’s favourite charity, though charity is never mentioned. When Daddy was a young man his one passion was jazz – ’

  ‘You’re pulling my leg. He seems more like Gilbert and Sullivan.’

  ‘No, really. He used to go down to 12th Street almost every night. Even after he married he used to go down there at least once a month. That was where he met George. George used to be a prize-fighter, but he also played trumpet in several bands. He used to stand in sometimes with Count Basie, when the Count was just plain Bill Basie.’ She giggled. ‘George once told me that Basie’s signature tune in those day was called Blue Balls, but he had to change its title when his band went on radio.’

  ‘George seems to spend a lot of his time instructing the Beaufort sisters in genitalia. I hope he never showed you his own.’

  ‘That’s a dirty remark and I should kick you in yours for talking about George like that. He loves the lot of us and I think he’d die for any one of us.’

  ‘Sorry. Go on.’

  ‘Well, one night he got into some sort of argument with a gangster we had here in the Thirties, a man name Johnny Lazia. The next night Lazia sent two of his men back to the Reno Club and they shot off all the fingers on George’s right hand. Daddy was there and saw it all. He took George to the hospital in his own car, paid all the hospital expenses, then he brought George home and he’s worked for us ever since.’