The Beaufort Sisters. Jon Cleary
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rights?’ said the retired general. ‘If they’d been important they’d have been discussed at Potsdam. Right, Ethel?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said his wife. ‘Permission to stand easy now?’
Nina moved through the froth of party talk, feeling a pride that was new to her: hostess in her own home. The party was already a success, an instant house-warming; Nina took smug secret pride in the knowledge that it had been due solely to her own efforts. She had chosen the caterers, showing her independence by ignoring her mother’s usual choice; she had made out the guest list, splitting it between her parents’ friends and her own. It had disturbed her that she had created an awkward moment by asking Tim if there was anyone he would like to invite.
‘Only Bumper Cassidy. But I don’t think he’d fit in. He’s my sidekick down at the yards.’
‘Darling, invite him!’
He had shaken his head. ‘He would only feel out of place and so would his wife. She’s a waitress in a joint on 12th Street.’
‘My, how you get around when I’m not with you. Sidekick. Joint on 12th Street. You’re becoming more American every day.’
‘Tell your father. It’ll make his year.’
She approached her father now, sliding into his arm as he crooked it out for her. ‘Nina, it’s the best party I’ve been to in years. Where’d you get that band?’
‘George was my talent scout. I got them specially for you.’
‘Great. I haven’t heard music like that since I was a young man and used to go to the Old Kentucky Barbecue down on the Paseo. How much are you paying them?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘Don’t spoil them. I can remember when you could get Hot Lips Page for three dollars a night. Where’s Tim?’
‘Out on the veranda dancing with Sally.’
Tim had already danced with Miss Stafford, Edith’s secretary, a plump plain woman who was a snob but likeable and who thought Tim was a real-life version of Ronald Coleman. She lived in the past and Tim played up to her with a courtliness that made her laugh but didn’t offend her by mocking her. She was only one of his conquests among all the women, family and staff, on the Beaufort estate.
Now he was charming Sally who, at her first adult party, was in seventh heaven and Tim’s arms, floating inches above the floor. ‘You dance like Ginger Rogers. Or a ballerina. Why don’t you become a dancer?’
‘I hate indoors. You know what my ambition is? To win the Indy 500.’
‘Sally my love, don’t be a racing driver. Stay feminine.’
‘I’m not a lesbian, if that’s what you’re thinking – ’
My God, what happened to the innocent girls of my youth? ‘Nothing was further from my mind. I don’t think they allow lesbians into the pits at Indianapolis.’
Sally shrieked, clutching him. ‘Oh Tim, I adore you! Divorce Nina and marry me!’
‘A child bride – just what I’ve always wanted. But don’t they hang a man for that here in Missouri?’
‘Daddy would fix that.’
‘Just the man I’d ask. Can I tear myself away now and dance with Meg?’
‘Oh God, her. Look at her – all those boys hanging around – ’
‘You’ll be like that yourself some day.’
‘Oh God.’
Tim left her, moved across to Margaret and took her away from the six boys hanging around. ‘Thanks for rescuing me. Boys that age are so gauche. I think I like older men.’
‘We have our uses. Would you mind backing off a little? Your sister, my wife, is watching us.’
She blushed and was embarrassed, proving she was still only seventeen going on eighteen. ‘Oh God. That’s the way boys expect you to dance.’
‘The gauche ones. Some older men, too. But not this one, not in front of his wife.’ They danced sedately for a while, Jane Austen set to A Good Man Is Hard To Find. Then he said, ‘Let’s head down towards your mother.’
‘Are you working your way through the Beaufort women tonight?’
‘All of them. I have a date with Prue at midnight in her room.’
‘I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s man-mad. At six.’
Smoothly as a gigolo he left Margaret and took Edith in his arms. They moved back down the veranda to There Goes That Song Again, which someone had requested and which the band was playing as if they had been insulted.
‘Tim, we don’t seem to talk to each other very much these days.’
‘I’m so busy being a bread-winner, husband and father, I don’t have time for other women. But let me know when Lucas is out of town and I’ll pop over.’
Edith didn’t respond to flirting. ‘Were you a philanderer before you met Nina? You have a way with women.’
‘Would you expect me to admit it if I had been?’
‘Unhappy men sometimes do stray, just as a diversion.’
‘What makes you think I’m unhappy?’
‘Oh, I don’t mean you and Nina. That part is happy enough. But you don’t really like America, do you?’
‘America is a very big country.’
‘All right. Kansas City. You don’t like it, do you?’
He smiled, took her through some intricate steps which she had a little difficulty in following. ‘That would be tantamount to saying I don’t like the family, wouldn’t it?’
‘Tantamount. You sound like Walter Lippmann. Yes, I suppose it would be tantamount to saying you don’t like us. But I don’t believe that.’
‘Edith – don’t worry. I love you all. I’d love you even more if we didn’t live quite so much on top of each other. Offended?’
‘No, I just missed my step.’ The band, on orders from Lucas, had thrown There Goes That Song Again out the window and had started in on Make Believe Rag. Lucas stood by the band, foot tapping, face thirty years younger. ‘You can’t blame me, Tim. I’ve never tied Nina to my apron strings.’
‘Edith, when did you ever wear an apron? I’m not blaming anyone in particular. It’s the circumstances – ’ He appreciated her intelligence and tact in not asking for an explanation of the circumstances. ‘Nina and I should have gone down to live on the plantation. I think I’d have made an ideal Massa Tim.’
‘You can still go down there. Do you want me to talk to Nina?’
‘Take your apron off, Edith.’
‘What? Oh. You mean stop interfering? It’s difficult for a mother like me not to interfere. I grew up in a social frame of mind where mothers expected their daughters to marry within their own circle. Their own class, I suppose you’d call it in England.’ Despite her respect for perspective, Edith’s world was still small and she felt safe in it. The kidnapping of Nina had had an effect on her, the depth of which not even Lucas suspected. She had presented a brave, calm face to everyone at the time, but in her secret self there was wreckage, the realization that the world was full of enemies for people like themselves. ‘You’ve met all our friends – there are practically no outsiders. Some of the younger ones, maybe, have other ideas – Nina, for instance. The war changed things. I try, Tim, but it is difficult for me. Lucas and I are selfish,