The Dark Lady Read online

  "He wants to marry this woman?" David shouted. "He must be mad!"

  "Your father always knows what he's doing."

  "Then he's wicked. How can he throw you off—like an old shoe?"

  "I suppose there will be some legal difficulties."

  "Let him go!" David jumped up and stamped about the room. "We don't need him. I'll look after you. Who wants his filthy money, anyway?"

  "Is it really a question of that? Your father has already settled money on me. Long ago."

  "Let's give it back then. Let's fling it in his face!"

  "I don't think we can. It's in trust."

  "We needn't take the income!"

  Clara began to see that things were not going to be at all as she had imagined. She and David were not going to build a citadel against the world, not because he didn't want to, but precisely because he did. For how could she allow a young man with everything in life before him to tie himself down to a penniless old woman maintaining a futile stand against a husband's philandering?

  "My God, is it Ivy Trask's world, after all?" she muttered.

  "What has Ivy to do with it?"

  "Nothing." Clara shook herself, as if to shake off the image of Ivy. "Or rather I mean everything. It was she who plotted the whole thing. She wants to put her creature in Broadlawns. Well, as you say, let her. But don't make things harder for me, darling, by asking me to be poor."

  "I thought it would make them easier! Wouldn't you be happier owing Dad nothing?"

  Clara closed her eyes for a moment in silent recognition of how well he knew her. Then she arrayed her forces to assist her with the needed lie. "One changes, dearest, with age. I am used to my creature comforts. It would be difficult for me now to do without them. And you mustn't break with your father. He's going to need you now. More than ever before."

  "Need me!" David snorted in disgust. "When he has his Elesina? I'll wait, thank you very much, until she bleeds him and fools him and leaves him. And then maybe the poor old besotted fool will crawl home to me for comfort!"

  "David! He's still your father!"

  "What do Lionel and Peter say about it?"

  "Oh, they're horrified, of course. For the moment they won't speak to him. But they'll come around. You'll see."

  "Of course," David sneered bitterly. "They're in business with him, aren't they? They won't want Elesina made senior partner."

  "Oh, my child, I'm sorry about the way the world is. But we didn't make it, did we?"

  "We certainly didn't!"

  And Clara realized sadly that there was more love in David's bitterness, even for his erring father, than in all of Lionel's and Peter's shrugs. Once again life had refused her an adventure. Once again her way would be remorselessly smoothed.

  9

  When the world of Irving and Clara Stein learned that he had actually moved out of the 68th Street house and was living alone in one of his brownstones, the furor was immense. Not a voice was raised in Irving's behalf; everyone who had ever been to Broadlawns, it seemed, came to reaffirm their allegiance to Clara. One would have thought that Irving had invented the idea of divorce, that it was somehow essential for the security of their own marriages that they drag him to trial, crown him with a heretic's cap, burn him at the stake. Clara, usually so calm, so serene, seemed for the first time a bit flustered, perhaps a bit annoyed, as if she were inclined to resent so marked a disturbance of her customary detachment. She was still the gray-robed priestess chanting at the altar of the chaste goddess, but now she had occasionally to turn her head, interrupted by the murmuring of the congregation behind her, and to frown, or at least to pucker her brow, as if to remind the disrespectful throng that to those who exist in the divine presence the rantings and infidelities of mere males are to be brushed aside.

  Ivy Trask was very discreet when she encountered members of the Stein court. She refused to condemn Irving's conduct, but neither did she condone it, simply nodding her head as one too well informed by high sources to indulge in idle chatter. She was quick to perceive that the new social vacuum in Irving's life had better be filled by herself before the sons, temporarily not on speaking terms with their father, should deem it prudent to resume relations. She filled the ears of the dazed Irving with accounts of the scathing denunciations issuing from his offspring, magnifying their threats and warning him that if he failed to be firm he would be sold back into conjugal slavery and made to stand, a domestic dunce in a stale domestic corner, at the beck and call of an eternally aggrieved, never pacified wife.

  "Your sons seem to have forgotten one of the commandments," she observed to Irving tartly. "I hope you will find occasion to remind them of it. Don't Lionel and Peter depend on you in the firm?"

  "They're partners. I can hardly fire a partner."

  "But I'm sure you have a voice in their percentages. Be strong, Irving. Let them know who's boss."

  "But everyone seems so against me, Ivy. I feel bewildered. Not myself."

  "Just hang on. Things will straighten out. I've observed the institution of marriage for a long time, and I have the advantage of being single. People don't really object to divorce any longer. They just think they do. Things change so fast today that our moral posturings have to scamper to keep up with the facts. Everyone's on Clara's side now, but Clara's a bore. She'll never hold them. It is the rising star that will lure them all."

  "The rising star?"

  "I mean Elesina Stein!"

  "Ivy, you're being ridiculous. I told you that Clara would never give me a divorce."

  "Get one yourself in Reno. Marry Elesina out there! What can Clara do but sue you? And what can she get but the money you're already willing to give her?"

  Ivy even proceeded to redecorate Irving's brownstone. The house was filled all day with painters and plasterers, and she hoped that the hammering would symbolize to the distracted owner the driving of nails into the coffin of his union to Clara. But she had had no communication, not even a postcard, from Elesina, and when she went down to the Hudson pier to meet the returning cruise ship she was ignorant of the mood in which she would find her friend.

  Elesina and Mrs. Dart were still on board, but Ivy had a pass that admitted her to the vessel. She found them in the large first-class suite that had been given to Mrs. Dart by her ill friend. Linda, in tweeds, packed and ready to disembark, was sitting smoking while Elesina hung garments listlessly in a tall trunk. Both greeted Ivy casually, without the smallest expression of surprise or pleasure at the pains which she must have taken to meet them so far from her office in the middle of a working day.

  "I was less than pleased, Miss Trask, at what I heard from friends in Nassau about this distressing Stein affair." Mrs. Dart's tone was contained, cool, faintly hostile. "I gather that Elesina's name has been bandied about in it. Of course, it's all nonsense, but I hate to have her involved with that kind of thing and that kind of people."

  "Irving Stein is a very distinguished man, Mrs. Dart."

  "Spare me such distinction! Of course, people know that he backed Elesina's play, and I suppose malicious minds will always draw odious conclusions from that."

  "I grant it's all very distressing."

  "I understand that you have some acquaintances in the Stein world. Perhaps, if you ever have the opportunity, you will be good enough to deny Elesina's involvement."

  Ivy glanced at her friend, but the latter seemed interested only in her packing. She looked back at Mrs. Dart and took her measure. Should she take issue with her? She knew that Elesina was inclined to discount the maternal influence, but she had observed enough of the world to be aware of the persistent tug of the umbilical cord. No matter how frayed and chafed, it had a way of suddenly tightening and throwing the most seemingly independent child off balance. Linda Dart's contempt for Steins and Trasks, her well-bred scorn of all that was at once public and disorderly, might still affect Elesina.

  "I already have denied it, Mrs. Dart. Nobody has more concern in the matter than I. But woul
d you mind if I took Elesina out on deck, just for a minute? There's a question I have to ask her."

  "Of course." Mrs. Dart rose at once. "Please stay here. I have to see the purser, in any event."

  When she was gone, Ivy hurried over to her friend.

  "Elesina!" she exclaimed. "What's going on? Don't you care?"

  "About what?"

  "Don't you care that he's left his wife, that he's ditched himself with all his friends, with his own children, just for you?"

  "Oh, Ivy, don't be dramatic."

  "It's true! How can you treat him so?"

  Elesina left the trunk now to light a cigarette. She seemed bored, impatient, but Ivy noted nonetheless that the hand which held the match trembled slightly. "I'm not treating anybody any way."

  "You mean you won't marry him?"

  "Ivy, you're out of your mind! He hasn't even asked me. And how could he, in his position?"

  "As if his position couldn't be changed! Elesina, don't you care about him at all? Don't you care about yourself? What do you care about?"

  "Isn't it a question of what you care about, Ivy?" Elesina seemed now to draw herself up. Her listlessness had been the costume for a scene that was now finished. "Isn't it a question of the restoration of Ivy Trask to her beloved Broadlawns? Don't you see yourself there as a triumphant Catherine de Medici with a puppet king and queen under your sway? Hasn't it been your scheme all along to undo poor Clara Stein and replace her with a creature of your own?"

  Ivy smiled at the absurdity of the misconception. She walked over to Elesina deliberately and reached up to place a firm hand on each of her shoulders. "Don't you know that I love you more than anyone or anything in the world? More than anyone has ever loved you? Or could love you? Don't you know that you're my child? Don't you know that I am never going to rest until I see you rich and famous, one of the greatest women in the world? And happy, too, Elesina. Happy!"

  When Elesina turned her head at last to gaze back with something between alarm and curiosity into her friend's burning green eyes, Ivy burst into a shrill laugh. She knew that she had won!

  PART TWO

  DAVID

  1

  ELIOT CLARKSON was not only David Stein's cousin and closest friend, he had been his classmate through the Sheldon School, Yale and Harvard Law. In most friendships there is a cultivator and a cultivated, and Eliot occupied the former role. David's feelings were composed of respect, affection and gratitude; those of his friend came closer to a restrained adoration. To Eliot, a thin, dark, cerebral man, in marked contrast to the shorter, stockier, blond David, the latter was a Romantic hero. Eliot admired David's impulsiveness, his easy generosity, his independence, his courage. It was not that he himself lacked such qualities. But Eliot was one of those who, though possessed of many virtues, missed the fire to make his engine race. His sustained attitude of judicious reserve implied the choice, early made, of a secondary position from which he might watch and perhaps coach contenders for the first. But he had never had more than one candidate: David.

  Although they were second cousins, and both of New York families, they did not meet until their sixteenth year, when David was sent to Sheldon, a boarding school in northwestern Connecticut where Eliot had been enrolled for a year. Large New York clans like the Clarksons tended to spread out and lose sight of each other, and the Stein connection had not been one to induce a reversal of this process. Eliot's parents were amiable, easygoing persons who liked Irving and Clara Stein, but they were true to their philistine type in finding Irving's artistic and social pretensions a bit ridiculous. In New York Eliot had gone to the conservative Buckley School, and David to the more liberal Bovee. There had been little occasion for the boys to meet.

  It certainly never occurred to Irving Stein that Sheldon would prove an ordeal for his son. He was well aware that it was a Protestant church school with hardly any boys of acknowledged Jewish origin, but he was determined that questions of race and religion should not bar David from social advancement. He had been privately disappointed that Peter and Lionel, whom he had sent to Grover Academy, a school supported by the New York German Jewish community, should have become so enthusiastically Jewish in their looks and associations. Secretly, he hoped for a different future for his youngest son. Being eminently a man of reason, he did not believe that a social prejudice which he regarded as basically superficial would persist long enough to spoil the school life of an intelligent child. And indeed it might not have, but for two factors that he failed to take into account: David's own passionate nature and the violence of his cousin Eliot's support.

  Eliot took an immediate interest in his new form mate, appointing himself as a guardian "old kid" over the affairs of the "new kid." He was a serious boy, tall and very thin, with a long, lean, nobbly, slightly pockmarked, intellectual face, short black scrubby hair and large, evasive, sensitive eyes. His air of standing off, of waiting to see how you would take his approaches— if he approached—suggested, or might have been meant to suggest, that if one broke through, one would find a loyalty more intense than that provided by less special souls. He appeared in David's cubicle while the latter was unpacking and introduced himself.

  "We are second cousins, I believe. That means that out of eight great-grandparents we share two. At home it is de rigeur to see one's first cousins, at least while one is young, but with seconds one may pick and choose. I suggest you pick and choose me, David. As an old kid, I may be able to help."

  David searched for sarcasm in the bland expression of his caller. "Will I need help? Everything seems so pleasant here."

  "Appearances can be deceptive. And boys can be vile."

  David turned back to his half-empty suitcase. As he did so his eyes took in the gentle green roll of the countryside. It was a beautiful site. He shrugged. "I guess I can take care of myself."

  "But you won't reject my proffered assistance?"

  "Oh, I reject nothing!"

  Life started easily enough. The masters were kind, and the work was not difficult. The hazing of new kids had been reduced by a new and benevolent head to a mere handful of formalities. David's form mates observed each other critically, like leashed dogs in a park; their sniffs did not necessarily imply hostility. Some even made overtures of friendship. But the episode with Nelson Weed changed everything.

  Weed, like Eliot, was an old kid, and the undisputed social leader of the form. His appearance was pleasant enough, and there was apt to be a little smile on his handsome, rounded face that suited his rounded figure and lolling gait, but he could be cruel if his authority was questioned. One day, between classes, accompanied by a group of his sidekicks, he paused before David, who was reading a letter from home.

  "I hope all is well with the Steins, Stein."

  David looked up in surprise. "Very well, thank you."

  "Are your family enjoying their riches?"

  David flushed. "What do you mean by that?"

  "I thought it a simple question. I asked if your family were enjoying their riches. One asks if people are enjoying good health. Why shouldn't one ask if they are enjoying good wealth? Your parents are wealthy, are they not, Stein?"

  "I don't know what you mean by wealthy."

  "You don't? Dear me." Here Weed glanced about with a mocking eye at his fellows. "Then let me tell you precisely. I did not mean to imply that the Steins were Rockefellers. It is a banality for minor Croesuses to claim they are not rich because they are not as rich as Rockefeller. But I should be surprised if your old man couldn't lay his hands on ten million bucks. What do you think?"

  "I don't think."

  "You don't or you can't?"

  "I don't care to discuss it."

  Weed's tone became very mild at this. "I'm afraid you're being impertinent, Stein. Haven't you been told about new kids?"

  "It's not my fault. You drove me to it. You have no right to make remarks about my family."

  "Is it making remarks to say they are rich? I beg your pardon. I tho
ught it was a compliment. At least in Jewish circles. Isn't it considered a great thing for a Jew to be rich?"

  "No more so than a Christian!"

  "Really? But again I beg your pardon. I forget that you're a Christian, too. It's quite a feat."

  "My mother's Episcopalian. My father belongs to no church. I haven't decided what I want to be."

  "Well, to me, Stein, you'll always be one thing." Here Weed's voice dropped almost to a whisper. "And would you like to know what that one thing is?"

  David stared at his tormentor, hypnotized in spite of himself. "What?"

  "A Jew boy. A fresh Jew boy."

  David flew at him and blacked his eye. Such retaliation in a new kid was a scandal, and Weed's gang felt no compunction in proceeding to beat him up. It might have gone very badly indeed with him had Eliot Clarkson not intervened. He was not a strong boy, but his fury made up for the deficiency, and when the bell for the next class brought relief, he and David were in a corner, still holding the group off.

  Weed, however, had no idea of letting the matter drop, and the sympathy of the form was on his side. Most of the boys came from families where social anti-Semitism was taken for granted, and they did not see why David Stein should get so excited at being called what he so evidently was. Besides, for a new kid to strike an old kid, no matter what the provocation, was intolerable insubordination. And for that new kid to be supported by an old kid was a compounding of the scandal. Was nothing sacred?

  David and Eliot found themselves not only ostracized but subjected to myriad petty persecutions. Their desks would be messed up before inspection; their beds would be found soaking wet; the pockets of their overcoats would be filled with oozy mud. David wanted to write his parents to ask to be taken out of the school. He could not see the point of trying to survive the unpleasantness in order to be accepted by boys whom he did not like anyway. But Eliot saw the matter differently and persuaded him to endure it all. To Eliot the persecution was a glorious challenge. Nelson Weed and his cohorts were simply the forces of evil; to defeat them, to come out with one's heart and mind unscathed by their machinations, was to prove that decency was stronger than rottenness. There was a jubilance in the way he took up the crusade that at first fired but ultimately bewildered David.