Those Wicked Pleasures (15 page)

Chapter 11

‘You have the kind of life that dreams are made of.’

‘What do you mean, Marcy? That my life is all walking on air? Do I spot an insult in there somewhere?’

Marcy was alone with Lara. The other two lunch guests, girlfriends of Lara, had left for appointments, one to an afternoon at Elizabeth Arden, the other for a fitting with Halston.

The women had been lunching at the Russian Tea Room on Fifty-Seventh Street, at Lara’s invitation. In the two years since Lara left her preppy life at Smith behind her for a fun life in society, Lara and Marcy had made several efforts to meet. The effort showed and that made them tetchy. Neither of them wanted to admit that they had drifted apart, so they kept trying.

After two hours of listening to Lara and her friends talk little more than inconsequential gossip – fretting about horse trials, bitching about their clothes allowances – Marcy had been ready to walk out on them half-way through the meal. Trite, trite, trite. Marcy found Lara, from in among the caviare blinis and white wine, too superficial to take.

‘No insult intended. Maybe what I should have said was, your life is what millions of girls dream their lives should be. You’ve got it all, and in spades. As if the looks, the money, the right family name, the intelligence were not enough. The world is your cupcake. A playgirl with a
French count and English earl chasing after you. A great guy like Sam waiting in the wings to marry you. And nothing to bother your pretty head but parties, hairdressers and clothes, and winning trophies and men. You behave as if you have nothing to live for but being loved and adored. And the more you are, the less you give of yourself.’

‘All quite true, Marcy.
But so what?
Why so judgemental about it? Why shouldn’t I have ideals and be a playgirl at the same time?’

Marcy pushed her chair back and placed the white napkin on the table. She started to rise from the chair and Lara decided not to stop her.

Lara sipped her coffee. Why, she wondered, had she not put Marcy out of her misery, and saved their friendship? It would not have taken much. Tell her about the hundred-thousand acre cooperative farm programme she had invested in. How she had come to the aid of Hawaiahoo. Because she didn’t mind playing the white knight, but was not prepared to get embroiled in working projects. More to the point, it was none of Marcy’s business, or anyone else’s, how she lived, what she did with her life.

Lara paid the bill and spoke to several people at another table before she left the restaurant. She was not the least bit sad that Marcy and she had perhaps let their friendship die. Relieved, rather. It had been dying for too long.

Two days later Lara made ready to attend the annual family meeting, her second appearance. She was too distracted to look forward to it by men – three interesting men, and that was not counting Sam. She liked them, more than liked them, and all three were giving her a wonderfully good time. Keeping them on a string and at bay was a full-time job. It took lots of plotting and organisation, and looking good. There was fun in all that. Having a good flirt, playing the hard-to-get seductress,
with several men on the chase, gave her a high, did wonders for the ego. With little space left in her life to think of anything else, the annual meeting was a drag. Drag or not, though, she dressed for it and tried to forget her latest admirers. She must focus on the family meeting.

Half-way through the morning session of the meeting (an all-day affair, with an hour for lunch), Lara began to perk up. She was understanding more about the family’s holdings, their wealth, her own, and how really powerful the Henry Garfield Stanton family was, than she had a year before. Two more trust funds had matured and been made over to her. She had inherited, upon the death of her eccentric English cousin, a Tudor manor house, nine-hundred acres of parkland, and thousands of acres of farmland that she had never seen. The realisation that she was rocketing towards becoming one of the wealthiest of the Stantons was a surprise.

Henry topped the list, followed by Emily and then David, who as Henry and Emily’s adopted son had his real father’s estate. It meant he jumped a place or two on the list of family holdings. Steven was next. Then came Lara who had risen above Elizabeth and Max and John. She had learned to take her wealth, not exactly for granted, but in a relaxed manner. Today, however, having been made aware just how far up the list she had risen in so short a time, she had to remind herself that one day, in years to come, she would have to take a more active interest in her affairs. ‘In years to come’ seemed to be the operative phrase as far as Lara was concerned. What she did, however, take for granted was that the family would remain, as they always had, silent about her private affairs. That had been a mistake.

The high point of the annual meeting for Lara was dinner. The trustees and advisers gave the dinner in honour of the family. It had been policy for twenty years that it
should be a semi-formal affair and a mystery: after a tense and sometimes tedious day, a degree of levity and surprise was needed. Surprise and levity had been the recipe ever since.

The family left the boardroom of the Stanton building on Park Avenue and Fifty-Third Street in the two family Rolls-Royces. At their town house they bathed, changed and met for drinks in the drawing room. At eight o’clock exactly they returned to the cars and were swept away to a gastronomic destination, not to be revealed until their arrival. The trustees could boast that the family had never been disappointed.

The surprise to them of Chinatown as this year’s location lay in their own incongruity there. Spruced up, they were transported to one of the more seedy-looking Chinese restaurants on one of the busier, neon-lit streets. They were indeed a sight in their elegant evening clothes: the men in black tie, the women in floor-length dinner-gowns and furs, Emily in emeralds and Elizabeth in sapphires. They glided past pyramids of smelly trash in cardboard boxes, piled against the restaurant’s plate-glass window that was hung with grimy Chinese lace-curtains. They attempted nonchalance as they passed into and through the restaurant. Harland Brent, one of the family trustees, met them. He led them past large round tables crowded with Chinese families rapturously eating off paper table-cloths under the cold fluorescent lighting. They filed up the narrow staircase for two flights to the private dining room. The trustees waiting here were gratified by the relieved and approving smiles as each family member arrived. Another successful surprise, this year at any rate.

The room was a magnificent piece-by-piece transplant from an eighteenth-century palace in Hang Chow. The furniture matched the period. Certain objects, fifteenth-and
sixteenth-century pieces of breathtaking beauty, were as fine as any museum could boast. The view absorbed the roof tops of Chinatown. The chef had been jetted in from Hong Kong to prepare this meal, and with him had come the waiters, while Chinese peonies – masses of them, now the centrepieces of the long dinner-table – had filled most of the rest of the plane. It was levity of a high order.

The food was delectable and they dined from white jade plates and pale lavender jade bowls, manipulating ivory chopsticks and sipping tea from sixteenth-century celadon porcelain cups. During dinner they were entertained by a young Chinese girl playing a harp, and after dinner were given a mini-concert by the harpist and a flautist. With them was a brilliant Chinese boy whose Stradivarius had been bought for him by the Stantons.

At home again, before the family retired for the night, they had a nightcap together, and reviewed the day. They were all well pleased by the evening.

Henry filled Lara’s glass with her latest discovery. Tia Maria was sniggered at by her father and brothers: for them it was ‘Deb’s Brandy’. Henry then interrupted her conversation with Max, who was sitting on Lara’s other side.

‘What would you like to do with your life, Lara?’

She was flummoxed. ‘What a question, Dad. I don’t know. Pretty much what I am doing, I suppose. As it happens, I’m having a very good time.’

‘I am glad to hear it, dear. You do look happy. You are certainly busy enough.’

Her father sounded quite satisfied and Lara heaved an inward sigh of relief. But what had prompted him to ask such a question? His persistence unsettled her when he asked again, ‘Would you like to take a job of some sort? There is an opening on the acquisitions committee of our
art fund. You would, of course, have to have some work experience. As, maybe, an assistant to one of the curators for a year. Does that appeal?’

‘I don’t think I’m ready for that, Dad; or that the art world interests me all that much, just now. Maybe later on.’

‘You could do some charity work, Lara. I have been rather surprised that, in these two years you have been out, you have taken no step in that direction,’ said Emily.

‘Oh, Mother,’ interceded Elizabeth, ‘leave off. Lara’s having the big rush on several continents. Let her enjoy it.’

Nice of Elizabeth to come to her rescue. Could that be the end of it? It wasn’t.

‘Maybe there’s a project of your own you would like to take an active interest in? Is that it, Lara?’

‘No, Dad.’

‘Is there anything that interests you, other than the life you are living?’

‘La wants to sail around the world one day, Dad. Don’t you, La?’

Lara sensed that John was trying to distract her father, to pre-empt other suggestions. Henry picked that up almost as if he had been thrown a life-saver.

‘I know you do, dear. Something I have always meant to do myself. You know we approve and will give you all the support you need. Help you plan it, if you like. I suppose you will want to do that before you marry?’

‘Marry?’

‘Well, you are going to marry one day, aren’t you?’

‘Well, yes, of course I am. One day.’

‘Well, Sam won’t wait forever, Lara.’

‘Don’t be so sure of that, Dad,’ chimed in Max. ‘He sure is in love with our La.’

Smiles of approval on the family’s faces. Not Lara’s: she had had enough. She rose to stand next to her father
who was leaning against the fireplace, glass in hand. She faced the family lazily sprawled out in deep, comfortable, worn-leather Chesterfields and chairs. Each of them was silent but inwardly admiring the girl whom many hailed as the most beautiful deb high society had recently produced on either side of the Atlantic. Her hair, tied back in a large red chiffon bow, added a touch of innocence to her creamy complexion, set off by provocative red lips. Khaki-coloured eye shadow made her emerald-green eyes and dark lashes seductive. Her chiffon evening dress was also red. Its plum-coloured, beaded, bolero jacket sparkled in the firelight and showed off her figure, no longer a girl’s, but that of a voluptuous young woman. And the still-fresh and feisty spirit she exuded also proclaimed her a woman.

Her beauty and her charm had always harvested their love for her. All along, she had been able to wind each of them – maybe not always Emily – around her little finger. Not just by the superficial elements like beauty, but the happy, incredibly loving qualities she possessed as well. They expected more, always more, from Lara, and she had never disappointed them. She was, or would be one day, a credit to them all. The seeds were there.

‘Dad, marriage is not in this season’s appointments book for me. Nor is it in Sam’s. We aren’t ready to settle down, together or with anyone else. And I certainly don’t want the responsibility of work. I haven’t the time for it. I’m too busy having a carefree, irresponsible, good time, just living. I like what Mother has moulded me into. I’m having a wonderful life. I was reminded only a few days ago by a friend that I have the life every girl dreams of having. I just hope it goes on and on. At least until I am bored.’

This sort of announcement was unlikely to surprise or disturb Henry or anyone else. They took it as the Stantons
always took such things. They had a sort of code: live and let live. And, with family, the code also entailed support and loyalty.

‘So be it, Lara. It seems all of my children have a flair for playing hard. They have also, with time, understood how lucky they are. They have found the concept of “duty” has meant something to them. And all of them, without exception, have felt they have to put something back in, with no prodding from either their mother or myself. I have no doubt that when you are bored – if, indeed, you ever are – you won’t be an exception. Just out of curiosity: what would you do if you were bored?’

She placed an arm around her father and smiled at him. In a teasing manner, coyly even, she kissed him on the cheek and said, ‘Leave my frivolous life behind me.’ Then, more seriously she added, after going to sit on the arm of Max’s chair, ‘I might want to work as an agronomist in the Third World. The science of farming has always fascinated me. Or I might buy a large estate somewhere near the sea, then farm it on a grand scale. I mean, a really grand scale. Some place in Italy or Spain, or France even. Yes, maybe on the coast of France, so no more summer resorts can pollute the area any more than it already is.’

Emily’s laughter drew all eyes. ‘What’s so funny, Mother?’ A note of annoyance crept into Lara’s voice.

‘You, darling.’

‘Well, it’s a gift to be able to make people laugh.’

‘Oh, Lara, there’s no need for you to get all huffy. I simply find it amusing that you should see yourself as some sort of earth-mother. Darling, you may have what it takes to be a class-A student, a scholar. That is, if you pursued the intellectual life, which you have so far clearly proved you have no interest in. A scholar and a beautiful deb, yes. But, really, darling, you lack what it takes to be in command of that kind of project. The Third World!’

Already angered by her mother, Lara got to her feet to hide her feelings. She went to the fireplace again and rammed another log on to the fire. Henry placed a hand on her shoulder. If it was meant to reassure her, it didn’t because he added, ‘What Mother means, Lara, is that to be successful with the poor of the Third World, or with less well-to-do country people, you have to be able to adapt to them. Then maybe you can draw the best out of them. And you, my dear, may be good with the groom and the maid, but you are better with polite society: competing in yachts, riding Biscuit and Azziz, and being the belle of the ball. It’s there you were made to shine. It’s been a long time since you have taken a holiday in the real world, and you have never lived in it.’