The Lady of Situations (34 page)

"Neither am I. Will you marry me if I'm not a partner of George Haven's?"

She perceived that he was now very serious. And then, suddenly, it was very serious for her, too.

"Will you?" he repeated.

"Yes!" she almost barked at him and jumped into the car.

On the drive up the East River she could only wonder what it all meant. She had a feeling that she had somehow been trapped. But she was also beginning to wonder if she cared if she had been.

I
T WAS AFTER
my eightieth birthday party, in the winter of 1966, that Natica suggested I draw a new will. She escorted me to the foyer of her apartment, after the last of her and Thad's guests had departed, to give me a final hug.

"You should have a new will," she said firmly. "And I fully expect to be around to do the one for your ninetieth. Why don't you come down to my office tomorrow? I use Saturday mornings for odds and ends, so we'll have time to chat at our ease, and then I'll take you out for a very good lunch. Okay? Let me send the car for you at eleven."

I must say, I loved being pampered by my niece. It was a treat to be driven smoothly downtown on a cold day in a big black Cadillac to visit the gleaming new offices of Sturges, Dale, Hickok & Sands at One Chase Manhattan Plaza. In less than two decades Thad had developed a partnership of half a dozen young men into a mighty corporate law firm of more than a hundred attorneys. It was still not, to be sure, quite on the level of the Cravath firm or Sullivan & Cromwell, but the average income of its partners was as high. Thad could have been a federal judge, but he wouldn't leave his practice. Natica had joined the firm as an estates and trusts partner, a position more compatible than others with the duties of a mother. But as the boys, Thad junior and Mark, were both now at Andover and Angelica, aged fourteen, was all day at Miss Clinton's Classes (though now stripped of its too ladylike name and redubbed Clinton), their mother had resumed a full day's work schedule at the office. She had even found time to write a best-selling book of biographical essays on women in American history.

Her office reflected her organization and efficiency. Three Whistler Venetian etchings adorned her creamy white walls. The chairs and tables had minimal black iron limbs. The long smooth oblong surface of her light-toned wood table desk was bare except for a spotless blotter, a gold pen stand and two neatly stacked piles of papers. Natica herself, looking a decade less than her fifty years, was dressed in simple black with a necklace of black jade. Just after I was seated Thad hurried in, alerted no doubt by her secretary, all grinning and affable, to give me a quick peck on the cheek before returning to a conference.

Natica came straight to the point. I was not to leave any but token bequests to her or her children. They would be well looked after, and I should feel free to leave my estate to my school.

"Clinton has been your real life, Auntie. And my brothers have done all right. They can take care of their families."

"I'm sure they can. And Clinton is very well endowed. I was considering it in that nice office car coming down here. I think I've decided to let the old will stand. Twenty-five thousand to the school and the rest to you. I really shouldn't be taking your time at all, but your lunch offer tempted me."

"Well, we can go now if that's all it is. But I still think you should reconsider. People are going to find it odd that you should so favor the relative who is best off. And what, when you get right down to it, is the point?"

"It's not just a question of who needs the money most. And there's so little of mine, anyway. It's more like a demonstration. I want to show what a big part of my life you've been."

"But, Auntie dear, you and I
know
what we've been to each other!"

"And I want my will to state it. To whom or just why I don't really know. What difference does it make? You can give it all away to your nephews and nieces if your children don't need it. I won't care. There won't be any me
to
care."

"But Thad will object to my giving it to my brothers' children. He will want me to use anything I have to make up to our boys for what Mrs. Hill has done for Angelica. Have you heard about that?"

I knew that Angelica Hill, who had recently died, had bequeathed some shares of a family corporation to her namesake, and I had assumed that their value was appropriate to what godmothers customarily left their godchildren. Natica now corrected this misapprehension.

"She's left her a million dollars!"

"Oh, no! How wonderful."

"That's not what Thad thinks. Even if we leave Angelica out of our wills altogether, she'll be ahead of her brothers."

"Anyway, that settles it. You can give my money to your boys. Not that that will really even things up, but it may help a bit. Why do you suppose Angelica Hill did it that way?"

"To make up to me for the way her husband treated me."

"But why just to Angelica and not to all your children?"

"Because Angelica's a woman. Or at least she will be."

"Oh, of course. There always was a bond between you and Stephen's mother in that way of thinking. But tell me something, dear. Don't you think, when all's said and done, that you've done pretty well for yourself as a woman?"

"Moderately well. Of course, it was only as Thad's wife that I obtained a partnership in this firm. Natica Chauncey would still be clerking somewhere. I owe more to my feeble sex appeal than I do to my perhaps less feeble brain."

"But it was you who got Thad out of his old firm! It was you who turned him from George Haven's Number One Boy into the captain of his ship."

"I'm not so sure of that. There's always been something inscrutable about Thad. Do you realize I've never been able to alter even one of his political principles?"

"But do you really want to? It was only Mr. Haven's meanness that made his Toryism so objectionable. Thad accepts the universe so cheerfully! I find a certain charm in his right wing views. They never affect his humanity."

"That's perfectly true. I only mention his views to show you how hard he is to influence. Perhaps he knew, when he left Haven's firm, that the old man was about through. He died only two years later."

"But he left that old man to get you, my dear!"

"And if he did, wasn't that my poor old sex appeal? Oh, don't look so grave, Auntie. I'm not complaining. I'm very happy things turned out as they did. All I'm saying is that what I am and what I've accomplished is more owing to Thad than to myself."

"Well, I suppose we can only cope with the times and conditions into which we are born. But it seems to me you can call yourself a success quite aside from what I regard as your very considerable sex appeal. You profited by your experience with your first two husbands to make your third a very happy man. You were able to put together a useful professional life and combine it with the successful raising of three fine children. You succeeded in remaining friends with Stephen's wonderful mother under circumstances that would have baffled most women, and look what a great result has come of it!"

"Oh, Auntie, stop! Do you realize what you have just described? A monster!"

I rose at this. "Maybe I should have been more of a monster myself. But enough of this. How about that very good lunch?"

I knew I had to change the subject. I knew I had to get out of that room. I decided that I would, contrary to my usual habit in the middle of the day, have a cocktail with my meal. For I had suddenly realized that I hadn't meant what I had said about being more of a monster. I hadn't meant it at all. Whatever my life had been, however constant its anticlimaxes, I could live without the memory of Tommy Barnes at the bottom of the sea and Stephen Hill lying in a grove with a hole in the middle of his pale brow. Maybe it was worth it to have been an old maid. At least in my time.