Tidal Wave (14 page)

“Arabella, right now we’re exploring each other through lust, passion, and sensuality. We are finding love, I know
it. I’m not so sure you do. In bed I recognized in us a touch of the animal — a hint of the bestial — as well as the human and more spiritual. All the things inherent in every man and woman. If we can give ourselves to each other like that, the talking will come in time. Right now, does it matter what we do or don’t tell each other?”

Arabella was so relieved at his frankness she hardly realized that he had seduced her yet again. This time, merely with words, he had managed to arouse her sexually. A flash of desire to break through into the very heart, the core of Nicholas Frayne, tore through her.

She smiled at him. It was a sensual, seductive smile and he squeezed her arm, letting her know that he was grateful that they were together. Arabella regained her self-control and said, “I’ve never been courted quite like this before, Nicholas. You’re full of surprises. What comes next?”

“Ah, I believe a not-too-serious piece of jewelry comes next, a simple token of my admiration. Let’s see what Cartier has to offer.”

They walked across the arcade to the window, passing Monsieur Gerard and Boucheron. He said, “Don’t even bother to look. This is courtship and in the early stages. Those windows are very serious business, not to mention money.”

She laughed, and at that moment the steward arrived with her sable coat.

“What luck!” Nicholas said. “Saved by the coat! Too bad, you lose and we go up for our stroll in the fresh air.”

He teased her as he helped her on with the coat by saying “How sad for you. I was quite prepared to buy you anything you liked if we had the time, but you know how busy life can get on a cruise!” He propelled her by the elbow, down the glittering shopping arcade.

“This is unbelievable,” he said. “It is a mini-version of the Avenue Montaigne, Rodeo Drive, Bond Street, Fifth Avenue, and the Via Veneto all rolled into one.”

The small boutiques were indeed all there — Van Cleef & Arpels, Cartier, Boucheron, Bulgari, Gucci, St. Laurent,
Chloe, Dior, Givenchy, Halston, Armani, Mary McFadden, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Elizabeth Arden with its red door, Germaine Monteil — all directly opposite the ship’s cinema.

Like everything else on the
Tatanya Annanovna
, the shopping arcade and the indoor balcony in front of the theater had a unique charm and atmosphere. It was busy with some passengers having cocktails before going in to see a film. Others were shopping, window gazing. Arabella and Nicholas blended in, just another component of the atmosphere. Though involved with themselves, they were fascinated by their fellow travelers who assembled in this part of the ship from all three classes. It was here they would see and mingle with a real cross section of the ship’s passengers.

Nicholas said, “The atmosphere reminds me of strolling up Fifth Avenue on Easter Sunday, only without the hats. Everyone looking at everyone else, pleasant to everyone else. Strangers meeting and greeting who would never do so elsewhere.”

He bent his head to hers and spoke in a low voice so that the passing parade would not hear him. “It feels as if I’m Fred Astaire and you’re Ann Miller. You should have your four sleek, elegant dogs on golden leashes, and this is Fifth Avenue where we’re out for a stroll after church. The music swells and I begin to sing, ‘In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it, et cetera, et cetera. The most beautiful girl in the Easter Parade.’ Cut, it’s a wrap.”

Arabella could not help laughing and neither could he. She wanted to throw her arms around him for being so adorable, for having a smile that embraced the onlooker, created dimples, and appeared to be hooked up to the twinkle in his eyes.

Still laughing at his little sing-song, she said, “Nicholas Frayne, you sure must have been in front of the door when God went by passing out favors! You’re only just barely saved by your nose!”

“My nose?”

“Yes, your nose. Just when I think you must be the most handsome, perfect movie star in the world, your, shall I say ‘substantial’ masculine nose, a bit askew there to the left, looks like an intelligent nose and it reminds me that you are a man with a purpose, not just a pretty face.”

“Well, I should hope I’m not,” he retorted, feigning hurt — or
was
it feigning? she wondered.

They reached the pair of doors to the outside. He pushed and they were pulled open by two stewards dressed in white yachtsman caps, with black patent-leather visors and the insignia of the
Tatanya Annanovna
emblazoned on the front. They were dressed in thick knitted white wool turtleneck sweaters and dark-brown wool trousers with turned-up cuffs, razor-sharp pleats; white shoes finished off the outfit. Their clothes were reminiscent of what the well-dressed steward on board the tsar’s yacht might have worn.

One of the men tipped his cap and announced the temperature, then offered Arabella a heavy beige silk scarf piped in brown and royal blue, saying “Excuse me, madame, may I hold your hat and offer you a scarf? The wind has turned sharp.”

The other steward offered Nicholas a cap. Arabella left her hat but they declined the replacement, saying thank you but they were out there for the nip in the air. However, they did have a pair of deck chairs set up.

They walked around the deck, the wind playing havoc with Arabella’s hair. The gold and silver strands flew up and danced to the wind’s tune. She loved the sensuous feeling.

They were passed by a pair of joggers in blue tracksuits. Arabella and Nicholas looked at each other, said nothing, but picked up the undeclared challenge, the pace and beat, and jogged behind the couple for twenty yards. Arabella was the first to give up. Winded, she leaned against the wooden rail and stared down into the heavy dark-blue waves as the ship cut through them. Nicholas felt her absence and jogged back to her. Standing beside her at the polished rail,
he kept the beat and pace up while staying on the spot, tousled her hair, and teased, “Not your scene, jogging?”

“No, not my scene.”

He stopped, reached out, and touched the tip of her nose with his finger. “I can’t wait to find out what else you can’t do.” He went on. “Come on, let’s go and sit down in what’s left of the sun.”

There were about twenty people lying on their deck chairs forming an arc against the wall. Arabella and Nicholas were tucked up among the other passengers. They looked at each other, then up at the sun. They closed their eyes, luxuriating in its warmth. After a few minutes, Arabella sighed heavily. The kind of sigh that comes with pleasure, deep, relaxed pleasure. She said softly, “Nicholas?”

He answered, “Mmmm?”

“I want to tell you something.”

“Mmmm?”

“I’ve missed a great deal in life. A great many simple things. Things that many people take for granted. Like sitting in the winter sun with nothing on my mind. Like jogging. Like long, luxurious vacations. Like taking a boat instead of a plane. Like being close to nature, people, beauty. Now I’m going to learn the names of flowers; know one bird from another; watch the stars and learn their patterns in the sky. I’m going to spend endless hours swimming with the fish, cultivating a garden, learning to bake bread, enjoying poetry, maybe even playing the piano or watching a ball game — oh yes, burn up time playing games.”

“Didn’t you do any of those things when you were growing up?”

“Oh, I don’t want you to think I had a deprived childhood or bad parents. Quite the contrary, I’ve been lucky enough to have had extraordinary parents and a wonderful relationship with both of them.”

“Your mother must be wonderful, extraordinary, and beautiful. I can’t imagine her being anything else,” said Nicholas, reaching between the two deck chairs and taking Arabella’s hand.

“Yes, she is. Her name is Raine.”

They turned away from the setting sun. Arabella, feeling relaxed and lazy, looked at the handsome Nicholas and thought how very much Raine would like him. She wondered what her father, W.R., would have thought about him.

She said, “I was blessed, I think, to have had a very intelligent father and a mother, just as you guessed, beautiful, intelligent, and courageous. In fact, both of them were.”

Arabella thought about her parents for a moment. It had been years since she had wanted to tell anyone about her background or since anyone had asked. In the business world, no one cared where you’d been. They only wanted to know where you were going.

“I’d like to tell you their story,” she said.

“I’d like to hear it,” said Nicholas.

Chapter Ten

Arabella began.

“My father, William Rothberg Crawford, known to everyone as W.R. Crawford, was fifty-nine years old when I was born. He was a political columnist in Washington, and his best friend was the President of the United States —”

Nicholas interrupted. “W.R. Crawford — America’s finest political journalist of the thirties and forties? Franklin Roosevelt’s lifelong friend? Arabella, it’s unbelievable!”

Arabella nodded and said, “Let me tell you about him.

“W.R. was born in 1882, the same year as his best friend, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. At that time America was an entirely white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation with a huge melting pot of minorities, called, usually disdainfully, the ‘ethnics.’ This group included the Irish, Italians, Jews, Catholics in general, Spanish-speaking peoples, Orientals, and millions of blacks in the South. But until 1935, America was a WASP country in all significant respects. A country of WASP history, culture, economy, with only a small percentage of the economy controlled by Jewish Americans.

“W.R.’s family was part of that small percentage. He was a third-generation American Jew who took on the WASP protective coloration because of his family’s material wealth and success. The Rothbergs had always been included in the one percent that went to Groton, the ten percent allowed at Harvard. They were the almost-WASPs.

“It was at W.R.’s father’s suggestion that he changed his surname from Rothberg to Crawford. The intelligent shrewd Daniel Rothberg understood that in the WASP world they lived in there was little room for a political journalist called Rothberg.

“He chose Crawford for his son, saying, ‘If you are a Jew, Willie, you are a Jew. If you are a political columnist and a Jew, you had better have a WASP name — not to hide who or what you are but to ease the pain the public will feel having to accept your work.’

“That was quite a piece of advice to come from D.R. Crawford was the maiden name of his wife, William’s mother, my grandmother: a magnificent Protestant beauty who embraced the Jewish faith before she and Daniel were married. She was long dead by the time W.R. took her name, and he was proud to have it, knowing full well how happy it would have made her.

“The Rothberg family had the wealth of the Warburgs or the Goulds, but unlike those Jewish millionaires, the Rothbergs had made their fortune through commerce, not banking.

“They were Jewish settlers who saw the potential in what America needed, went in and satisfied the market, investing their hard-earned profits in railroads, timber, coal and oil.

“They had their forty-room summerhouses in the Berkshires — Massachusetts — next to the WASP robber barons of the time. There was the town house on Fifth Avenue near the Vanderbilts and estates in Virginia and stables in Kentucky.

“Going back three generations, they had participated in their country, were part of the American dream and history they so fervently loved and supported, believing wholly in its future, democracy, and especially the Democratic Party.

“My father and F.D.R. first met as youngsters at Groton in Connecticut, then the finest prep school in the country. My father spent many weekends at Hyde Park, a place he truly loved, with its breathtaking views of the Hudson Valley, the gardens and stables.

“Their friendship was sealed forever when they became close at Harvard. Franklin became editor of the prestigious school paper, the
Harvard Crimson
, and wrote about what he knew best — social amenities, football scores, and school spirit. He brought his friend Bill on board to be ‘the
real
reporter.’ And W.R. Crawford loved it. They had a healthy respect and admiration for each other. Those years were the foundation for the deep friendship and loyalty that remained with them all their lives.

“After graduating, W.R. broke away from the two opportunities ready and waiting for him in business or law. He felt that there were enough competent people to handle the family’s financial empire and that there were enough lawyers, judges, and professors from the Rothberg clan at leading universities.

“Bitten by the taste for journalism, with a love for his country like his father and grandfather before him and his best friend, F.D.R., intrigued by political events, the thought of spreading the word to the people through writing captivated him.

“Roosevelt and my father often laughed together because they were both called a traitor to their class. Despite his twelve ancestors who came over on the
Mayflower
, Roosevelt was sometimes a thorn in the side of his very own WASP society. He claimed the government was responsible for every American’s financial security and went on to change his country, giving tens of millions their rightful share.

“As for W.R., his own people labeled him a turncoat, more WASP than Jew, and a snob for mingling with the men of political clout like Roosevelt. He became a famous and familiar figure in the background of American politics and international affairs. He was said to have had more political understanding than most, and his syndicated column was respected and read by millions.

“Anyhow, on one of his fact-finding missions to Singapore, this handsome, well-known bachelor met and fell in love with a twenty-five-year-old English beauty named Raine Russell. She was the daughter of the retired Surgeon-General in the Far East for His Majesty King George VI, Lord Richard Charles Winkfield Russell. My maternal grandfather was one of those Englishmen who earned his title by becoming an important figure in one of His Majesty’s Far East outposts. Although I’m told he was a fine doctor
and scientist, I know for sure that he was handsome, charming, and dedicated — with Raine’s mother, Lady Caroline — to the machinations and proceedings of the upper echelon of English society in the Far East.

“Lord Richard and Lady Caroline were the Beautiful People of the twenties and thirties. Their only child, Raine, my mother, was brought up in a home along the lines of those migratory British stationed in the Far East. The constant voyage back and forth to England regularly made the P&O Steamship Company as much a part of their lives as England and Singapore.

“However, until adolescence, Raine was spared the P&O trips and remained in Singapore with her father and an endless stream of Chinese and Malaysian servants, nannies, and Lord Richard’s Eurasian mistresses who magically disappeared on Lady Caroline’s return from home leave.

“It was a childhood of contradictions, of formal English gardens and lush jungle, ponies and tigers, restriction and freedom, until Raine was shipped off to boarding school in England. She only just tolerated her time in those schools in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, but she adored the times she had with her mother.

“Beautiful, blond, and lithe, Caroline, so elegant and amusing, pampered her daughter with beautiful clothes, all too brief holidays in Paris, Nice, and Monte Carlo. She shared her many friends — male and female — with her daughter, several becoming foster uncles and aunts. Raine was brought up loved and adored by her parents. She always had the best of both worlds laid out in front of her — the Far East and the civilized, elegant West.

“When Raine’s parents were together, they were a powerful presence in the English society of Singapore, and in time all Singapore knew that if they wanted to cut through bureaucracy to accomplish something, their best hope was Lord Richard Russell. Respected by Eastern potentates and English authorities alike, there was little denied the dashing doctor and his vivacious wife.

“So you can imagine it came as a great blow to all
Singapore as well as Lord Richard and Raine when Caroline died of a heart attack at the Ritz in Paris. Richard never married again — not his English society ladies nor his exotic mistresses. After his retirement, he remained in Singapore working on tropical diseases. He became one of the most prominent men in that area of medical research. He established hospitals and services, research centers for tropical diseases and medicines. Once she had qualified as a doctor herself, Raine returned to Singapore to work with him.

“The life and manners in Malaya in 1941 for Raine and all other well-placed British was not all work. Far from it. It was an elegant, happy social affair with the dance floor at Raffles filled with beautiful people. It was a life of good manners, many servants, handsome lovers, gin slings, rattan furniture, and home leave.

“Raine Russell was one of Singapore’s darlings. Her beauty and elegance was talked about constantly. W.R. and Raine’s was a simple story at the beginning. They met and fell in love. Raine filled his heart as no other woman ever had. He was fifty-eight years old and she was twenty-five. He had much more to offer than the other men in Raine’s life. With his big, handsome good looks, his powerful connections, his maturity, and intelligence, he had no difficult task in sweeping her admirers away. They married less than a month after they met, at the White House, with only her father, Eleanor, Franklin, and W.R.’s publisher as witnesses.

“Those were tough and busy days for the President and for America, trying to stay out of the Second World War. W.R. and Raine understood how important it was for them to stay close to Roosevelt during those difficult times and so they honeymooned at the Crawford House on the banks of the Potomac, not far from him.

“Six weeks after their wedding, Raine discovered she was pregnant. The couple then separated, as Raine had to go back to Singapore to tie up her affairs and train colleagues to take over her work and housekeepers and assistants to keep her father’s life ticking smoothly.

“They met several times over the next few months, when
W.R. paid quick visits to see her. He was much relieved when Raine arrived home for good to have her baby.

“Those days before my birth were probably the happiest of their lives. Raine went into labor, and, like everything else in Raine’s life so far, my birth was easy. W.R. insisted on being there and, having watched the miracle of birth, was even more in love with his young, beautiful wife than ever. Only one thing marred their joy: I was born on December 7, while the bombs from the Japanese imperial forces were falling on Pearl Harbor. On December 8 the Japanese Imperial Army began their invasion of the northeastern coast of the Malay Peninsula. Twenty-four hours later the first bombs fell on Singapore.

“It was a double tragedy for my parents — both their countries were at war. Both countries were unprepared. Both of them were desperately needed by their countries. Their personal joy was immediately put aside.

“For W.R., it was a desperate, depressing time because he had a hollow victory. He had, for four months, been advising Franklin of facts that should not have been ignored. He had advised him and his cabinet of moves that should have been made and had not been.

“For Raine, there was no way out. She insisted on returning to Singapore to help her father move the research hospital up into the hills where it would be safe. She felt duty-bound to save a lifetime of his work.

“Assured by the highest British military personnel and reinforced by conversations between Churchill and Roosevelt that Singapore was impregnable, my parents parted once again. My mother promised to return to her infant and husband in a month’s time. I was only three months old when Raine flew out to Singapore. I was nearly four years old when my mother was released from a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp on the island of Sumatra.”

Arabella paused and shifted in her chair. Nicholas remained silent, totally absorbed in Arabella’s story, not wanting to interrupt or distract her.

“W.R. had been a man of many love affairs and mistresses
and had waited a lifetime to fall deeply in love. He was determined that no Japanese or missing wife was going to destroy that love. He was singularly bullheaded, patient, realistic, bold, and decisive. Having been given the gift of a beautiful daughter in the waning years of his life, there was no way that he would allow her to be separated from him.

“You see, he couldn’t bear the house on the Potomac without Raine, and since he had to be in Washington, he moved my Malaysian nurse, Yap, his chauffeur, and the both of us into a six-room suite on the top floor of the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. W.R. was determined to spend every possible moment as both mother and father to me until Raine returned home. Never once did he think she would not, in spite of the fact that the last word he had from her for three and a half years was a cable sent on February 10, 1942. The cable said:

“A week later a letter arrived through the diplomatic bag of the Australian Embassy.” Arabella could visualize it scribbled in a soft lead pencil on scraps of different papers. She could quote it from memory. It read: