Princess Daisy (56 page)

Vanessa had not pushed her audacity so far as to seat Daisy and Ram at the same table. Daisy’s dinner partner on her left was Ham Short Stunned into immobility by shock and growing panic, she found she couldn’t begin to eat the first course of ginger-flavored minced squab. Ham attempted to distract her with an account of his own worthless passel of relatives back in Arkansas, but he might as well have been talking to a dead girl, propped up beside him. She sat with her
eyes
fastened on the bowl of tiger lilies, until Ham, in embarrassment, turned to the woman on his left When the second course was served,
Daisy made a half-hearted attempt to pick up her chopsticks, but before her hand touched them she realized that she wouldn’t have the coordination to be able to use them, and that even if she could, the taste of any food would make her vomit. Her dinner companions, who had been forced into a general conversation by her silent presence, tacitly agreed to pretend to ignore this fascinating phenomenon even as they covertly watched her, storing away all their deliciously scandalized impressions for the stories they’d tell once they got off the yacht. As course after course of exquisite food was presented, prepared by the chef the Valarians had hired for the cruise, who cooked in five different cuisines, Daisy touched nothing and talked to no one. Ham Short, who admired her, dominated the conversation and kept it flowing, so that no one turned to her with any questions. At one point he sought her hand, as it lay still on the table, and squeezed it to show his support. Although she returned a tiny pressure, she didn’t remove her unseeing eyes from the tiger lilies.

Vanessa had certainly gone too far tonight, more than one of the women in the room managed to signal delightedly to another during the endless dinner, which proceeded as if Daisy were invisible. Ram, habitual diner-out that he was, presented to them all his normal, handsome, unbendingly correct, indisputably gentlemanly surface. He ate with polite relish and discussed Henry Moore with the lady on his right and the merits of various saddle makers with Topsy, on his left There was well-concealed malevolence as, from time to time, he scanned the room for a split second, searching for his prey like a carrion bird, but no one noticed. To Daisy, the walls of the dining saloon pressed in like those of an echo chamber. The voices of memory, ugly and dangerous, clamored at a distance, sometimes louder, sometimes softer, and the other guests seemed as distant and indistinct as large fish languidly waving their fins behind the wall of an aquarium.

After dinner, Vanessa led the way back to the main saloon. Daisy had been waiting for this moment, and, as soon as Vanessa rose, she flew up from her chair and darted out of the door which led to the deck. Although she moved quickly she felt as if her body were numb and incapacitated, with that helplessness, that slowing down and impairment of all the faculties that appear in a nightmare. She had passed the main saloon, running in the
direction of her own stateroom, when Ram caught up with her.

“Stop! We have to talk. It’s important!” he shouted, but he didn’t try to touch her.

Daisy stopped. It was so impossible that he could imagine that they had anything to say to each other that sheer incredulity overcame her other emotions. She felt safe enough, with a steward in sight, carrying a tray of brandy and glasses, and the door to the main saloon only feet away. She could see people inside, buzzing away like flies in a bottle, but on deck it was quiet and the breeze was warm. She held on to the railing of the yacht with both hands and turned to face Ram, creating a distance between them merely by the way she stood.

“Nothing is important enough for us to discuss, ever again,” she said through dry lips.

“Anabel,” he said quietly, with vulturine watchfulness, “Anabel.”

“Anabel? She has nothing to do with you. Do you ever stop lying? I had a letter from her only a week ago.”

“And of course she didn’t tell you.” Ram was sure of his ground. It wasn’t even a question.

Daisy went white and clutched the rail. He knew something she didn’t know. She recognized the unmistakable expression of repressed pleasure on his face.

“What about Anabel?” she whispered, as if a whisper could soften his answer.

“She has leukemia.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Yes, you do. You know I’m telling the truth.”

“Why didn’t she tell me? Why should she tell you?” Daisy demanded automatically while the shock of his words went inward, surrounded her heart like an explosion of fragments of pointed glass.

“Because she thought that you have enough problems of your own, supporting your sister. She had to have money for the treatments and she simply didn’t want you to know she was in need. She knows you’re stretched as far as you can go, so she came to me.”

“Oh, dear God,
not
Anabel,” Daisy moaned. Anabel, who’d come closer to being a mother to her than anyone, Anabel, the dear friend and counselor and confidante of her youth, Anabel, whose presence in her life warmed it with generous laughing love and still lent it a quality that
even today was almost like having a home, Anabel who kept her from feeling utterly orphaned.

“The doctors have told her that with luck and care she can expect to live for many years. It’s chronic leukemia, not acute. She’s not sixty yet—she can still live the rest of her life in comparative comfort and security but … it’s a question of money.”

“
You
have money!”

“Anabel threw me out of her house ten years ago and told me she never wanted to see or hear from me again. She’s never changed that position—except now, to ask for money. I don’t feel I have any reason to give her anything unless I choose,
choose
to be generous. Anabel is merely a former mistress of my father’s. He left her a sizable estate which, since she declined to take advantage of my advice, she let slip through her fingers. She held on to her Rolls stock as long as you did. I have no sympathy for people who can’t take care of their money.”

“Anabel was so good to you!” Dasiy almost shouted, but he ignored her words.

“If I should choose to help her it means taking on heavy and unforeseeable expenses for an unknown amount of time—hardly the act of a prudent man. Obviously, she can’t keep
La Marée
any longer by taking in paying guests—she won’t have the energy. When she sells it she’ll have some money, but it won’t last long since she has few other sources of income. After that’s gone, it’s a question of finding a place to live, either a nursing home or an apartment, depending on her physical condition. She’ll need help, later if not immediately. And there will be constant doctor bills. It could last ten years, fifteen years—even twenty. There’s no way for Anabel to pay for these things … the expenses will have to be met as they arise.”

Daisy struggled to keep to practicalities while the points of glass pressed deeper into her heart with every word he spoke.

“Why should she sell
La Marée?
You know as well as I do that if Anabel can live for years there is no other place in the world she would be as happy. You have the money to support her without thinking twice about it … and she’ll have to live somewhere … since she’s come to you for help,
why
should she be forced to sell? You are going to help, aren’t you …” Her voice faded as she looked at his face, locked in brooding righteousness.

“I feel no moral obligation at all to become financially
responsible for Anabel. None. However I have a proposal which can solve the problem. I’ve been disturbed for years by reports from my friends who visit the United States for the hunting that you go about visiting at their hosts’ houses trying to drum up commissions for your little paintings. I know, of course, although they don’t, why you need the money. The only way I would undertake the support of Anabel for as long as she lives is with the absolute understanding that you give up your shoddy job and your hand-to-mouth sideline of portraits and come back to London.”

“You really are insane,”
Daisy whispered slowly.

“Nonsense. I’m asking nothing in return for what will prove to be many years of heavy expenses except that you live in a way in which an unmarried sister of mine should live, properly and respectably. I’m even prepared to let Anabel keep
La Marée
since you feel so sentimental about it. And naturally I’ll take over your sister’s support as well.”

“I’d be your prisoner!”

“How absurd. Don’t be so melodramatic. I simply want you to fill your normal place in society in a country in which society still means something. Your life in New York is disgusting—a vulgar world full of vulgar people. It happens to embarrass me among my friends. I offer you protection and security. I want nothing from you—I have my own life to live.” His voice was cool and reasonable, but Daisy saw that his eyes had never ceased their urgent assault on her face and body. Like furtive cat burglars, they snatched and grabbed. Lust lay like a dry powder on his thin, fine lips. She had been in the presence of his madness before and nothing had changed except that this time she knew him for what he was.

“Every word is a lie! You’d be after me again the way you were before—I
smell it on you!
You say my life in New York is disgusting—-I say if my father weren’t dead, he would have
killed
you and you know it!” Her voice rose dangerously.

“Shut up, shut up! People will hear you!”

“Why should I? So that you won’t be embarrassed? Do you think I give a damn … do you still think I’d ever let you force me to do anything against my will?”

“Anabel …” he began again.

“Blackmail!” she raged at him. “How can you live with the filth you are?” She turned and strode rapidly back in
the direction of the main saloon. She opened the door and stood there for a second, panting, open-mouthed, searching for Vanessa. When Daisy saw her, sitting at the backgammon table, she walked straight toward her and put a hurting hand on Vanessa’s shoulder.

“I want to talk to you.”

“Daisy, love bug, wait till the game’s over, hmmm?”

“Now.” The pounding, molten emphasis in Daisy’s voice summoned Vanessa to her feet. “Outside,” Daisy ordered. Vanessa followed, smiling broadly and flittering her hands as several inquiring looks were directed at her.

“Daisy, just what is it—how dare you?”

“Vanessa, tell the captain to turn this boat around and put me ashore.”

“That’s impossible. Now just calm down …”

“You’ve collected on your debt. Whatever I owed you, I’ve paid. Vanessa—I’m
warning
you.”

Vanessa, experienced, astute Vanessa, didn’t have to think twice. The menace, almost out of control, that she saw on Daisy’s face could only lead to trouble. And, in Vanessa’s brilliantly balanced life, that life of so many delicious but dangerous secrets, risk and consequences had to be eliminated as quickly as possible.

What could Ram have
done
to her, she wondered to herself, as she hurried to the bridge to speak to the captain. Oh, how she’d love to find out

“What’s all this?” Patrick Shannon demanded of his executive secretary as he sat down behind his desk. He had just come back from Tokyo and he expected, as usual, to find the clean desk he’d left. Each of his three secretaries would have compiled dossiers of matters to be attended to, but he hadn’t sent for the folders yet.

“Mr. Bijur asked me to put them where you’d see them first thing.”

Shannon lifted the six photographs, each of which had a sheet of paper attached to it. “They’re all princesses, Mr. Shannon. Mr. Bijur thought you’d like their family trees, too. There are two Belgians, one French and three Germans. He said to tell you that he’d gone over every white princess in the world and these were the only really beautiful ones. Princess Caroline and Princess Yasmin won’t return his calls, but he’s still trying, through channels.”

Shannon roared with laughter as he looked over the photographs.

“Oh God, oh God,” he groaned as he laughed, “he must have worked like a son-of-a-bitch—poor Hilly—doesn’t he know when I say unforgettable I don’t mean merely beautiful? Miss Bridy, will you put me through to Daisy Valensky at North’s studio? If she’s not there, find out where she is and get her before you try any other calls.”

Daisy was standing with her arms akimbo, eying both of her production assistants severely.

“Do you mean to tell me that that grip just walked into Central Park and sawed a limb off a tree without either of you telling him to do it? It couldn’t possibly have been his own idea. Don’t you creeps realize that there were five people trying to make citizen’s arrests following him? We almost had a riot.”

“It was just a little branch.”

“It isn’t as if there were leaves on it.”

“We needed it in a hurry—the tree on the street was too puny.”

“No excuses,” Daisy said. “If it ever,
ever
happens again, you both go back to robbing graves.”

“Daisy, phone,” one of them said, grateful for the interruption.

“Studio,” Daisy answered, as she always did.

“Princess Valensky, this is Patrick Shannon.”

“How was Tokyo?” she said in a neutral tone, watching her two assistants slink off as inconspicuously as they could.

“Too far. Listen, I didn’t get a chance to apologize to you for the way I talked to you the last time we met.”

“Or the first time we met either.”

“That’s exactly what I was about to say.… I feel that somehow we’ve gotten off to a bad start—all right, two bad starts—and I’d like to do something about it. Is there a chance that I could persuade you to have dinner with me? I promise not to say a word about Elstree. This is not an attempt to get you to change your mind. I wouldn’t be that obvious—or devious.”

“Just a friendly meal?”

“Right. I don’t like leaving the impression that I’m a heavy.”

“Would you admit that you’re aggressive?” Daisy asked sweetly.

“Aggressive—sure, but not a heavy. Will you be free for dinner sometime this week?”

“I think I might manage dinner,” Daisy said.