THE GRAND DUCHESS
He went about it deliberately. According to report, the Grand Duchess
was worth fifteen millions. Corky was not satisfied to accept rumour as
fact, so he undertook an investigation on his own account. From
reliable sources, he soon learned that she possessed but ten millions,
but, he argued, it was better to know it in the beginning than to wait
until she died to find out that her fortune had undergone the customary
shrinkage. Moreover, he ascertained that she frequented half the baths
in Europe in the effort to prolong a fast declining sense of humour--on
the principle, no doubt, that life is a joke and death is not. She had
a family of grown children in the States, but even that did not alarm
Corky. He felt sure there would be enough to go around. Of course, it
wasn't the nicest thing in the world being married to a woman more than
twice one's age, but if everything went as he hoped, it might not be so
very long before he could begin looking about for a wife half as old as
himself. One sickening fear troubled him, however. She might insist on
a house at Newport and a seat in the Inner Circle. She had that look
about her.
He had the shrewdness to treat her with the disdain that his social
position warranted. It was part of his plan of action to make her long
for the opportunity to look down upon people instead of forever staring
up at them from a grovelling attitude. He knew her kind as he knew the
first three letters of the alphabet. On the other hand, he was politely
attentive, incomparably epigrammatic, and as full of exquisite
mannerisms as the famous Brummel himself. In a word, he was THE Van
Winkle, and she but a passer-by.
By day he schemed, by night he lifted orisons to the gods and dreamed
of the fruits thereof. Something seemed to tell him that if he didn't
get her before she was sixty-six the quest would be hopeless.
Experience had shown him that women see themselves as they really are
after they are past sixty-five. Moreover, they become absolutely insane
on the subject of self-preservation so far as money is concerned. They
seem to feel that their rainy day is imminent, if not actually at hand.
No matter how many millions they may possess, they lurk in the shadow
of the poor-house. Men at sixty-five become podagrical and sour,
perhaps, but they are not as much worried by thoughts of the poorhouse
as they are by visions of the play-house.
Corky was to be seen everywhere with the Grand Duchess. (We may as well
continue to speak of her as the Grand Duchess since every one in Paris
was calling her that, now that she had been so aptly dubbed by the
clever Mr. Van Winkle.) He drove in the Bois with her, and he drove
without shame or embarrassment. He was the life of her big and little
feasts at Pre Catalin and D'Armenonville. He sat in her box at the
Opera; he translated the conspicuously unspeakable passages in all of
the lively but naive comedies; he ordered her champagnes and invented
hors d'oeuvres so neoterical in character that even the Frenchmen
applauded his genius. And, through all, he was managing very nicely to
keep his twelve thousand snugly to himself.
There were times when he could have cursed his own father--and perhaps
did--but that is not relevant to this narrative.
In proper sequence he led the Grand Duchess through all the reflected
phases of society and came at last to the juncture where his own
adroitness told him it was time to speak of the glories of Newport and
the wonders of New York as seen only from the centre of the inner
Circle. There was a vast difference between the Outer Rim and the Inner
Circle; he did not say it in so many words, but she had no trouble in
divining it for herself. She was dazzled. She was beginning to
understand that a palace in Fifth Avenue was no more than a social
sepulchre unless it could be filled day and night with the Kings and
Queens of Gotham. She felt very small, coming out of the Middle West.
It wasn't very difficult for him to secure for her an invitation to the
American Ambassador's ball, or to the pacific functions ordered by the
French President, but it was not so easy to bring about introductions
to the New York women of fashion who happened to be in Paris from time
to time during the summer. The Grand Duchess read the newspapers. She
always knew when New York notables were in the city, and she was not
slow to express a desire to meet them. He could arrange it, of course.
And then, on meeting them, she would at once insist on giving a dinner
or a supper at Pre Catalin, or, on finding that they couldn't scrape up
a spare evening,--to make it afternoon tea. Poor Corky shrivelled at
such times.
"If she wasn't so DAMNED girlish!" he used to say to himself.
"Tell me," she said to him late one afternoon as they were driving home
through the Champs Elysees; "is it true that servants' wages are lower
in New York City than any place else in the country? I've always heard
so."
She was looking at people through her magnificent lorgnon, and people
undeniably were looking at her. There were many wonderful women in the
Bois that day, but none so worthy of a stare as she.
Corky pricked up his ears. It looked like a "feeler."
"Perceptibly lower," he said.
"And food is higher, they say."
"Ah," said he, "but so are the buildings."
"How much do you think I could live on per year in New York!"
"Why do you enquire?"
"For instance," said she. It grated on his nerves when she used such
expressions as "for instance."
"Well, it depends on how well you intend to live."
"I want to live as well as anybody else."
"Then I should say that you couldn't very well manage on less than ten
thousand a year." He knew he was equivocating but was fearful that if
he said a hundred thousand she would take alarm.
"That isn't very much," she said, with a perplexed frown. "I had an
idea that if I wanted to live in style it would cost somewhere around
seventy-five or a hundred thousand. I know a woman from Iowa who lives
at the Ritz-Carlton and goes about some--although not in the real smart
set--and she says it costs five or six thousand a month, just
puttering. Maybe you've met her out in society. Her name is Bliggs."
"Bliggs? Um! Name's not familiar. Of course, you CAN spend a hundred
thousand easily in New York if you get into the right set," he said.
"That's just the point," said she. "If I get into the right set. I've
got ample means, Mr. Van Winkle, if--"
"They scorn money," said he flatly.
She drew in her breath quickly. "I suppose they do," she sighed.
"Sometimes I really believe it's a handicap to have a lot of money."
"I know a good many charming Western women who have married into the
smart set," he said slowly.
"And did they stick?" she enquired.
"Stick?" he gasped.
"I mean, did they make good--that is, were they PERMANENTLY received?"
"Oh, yes! Some of them have become leaders. It's really only a matter
of marrying the right man."
She was silent as they drove across the Place de la Concorde.
"I suppose it's almost out of the question unless one does marry into
it," she said finally.
"Or UP to it," he suggested. His sordid little heart was beating rather
jerkily.
"Won't you stop in and have tea with me?" she asked suddenly.
He thought rapidly. "I'm sorry. I'm having tea with some New York
people at the Ritz. Awfully sorry. People I shouldn't like to offend or
I'd send an excuse. You understand, I hope."
Her jaws were set. He shot a furtive glance at the thickly plastered
face and inwardly pitied himself while outwardly rejoicing.
"Some of the people who entertain baboons at dinner, I suppose," she
said through compressed lips.
He smiled. "And poodles," he supplemented with perfect amiability and
more truth than he knew. She sniffed. "I'm afraid you don't approve of
our little larks. We've got to have something new once in a while or
we'd die of ennui."
"Umph!" was her simple response, but he noted the pensive, wistful look
in her eyes.
She set him down at his hotel. "Can't you dine with me at half past
eight? I sha'n't ask any one else. I'm terribly blue today. You WILL
come and cheer me up, won't you?"
"With pleasure," he said, bowing very low over her gloved hand, which
was amazingly lumpy with invisible rubies and diamonds. "So good of
you."
While dressing for dinner he repeated the oft-repeated process of
reducing the Grand Duchess to a tangible result. Supposing she had as
many as fifteen years longer to live, and supposing her income to be
only $400,000 a year, there was still compensation in the calculation
that he would be but forty-five and that no matter how extravagant she
might become there was small likelihood of the principal ever being
disturbed. (On one point he meant to be very rigid: she should be kept
out of Wall Street.) Furthermore, allowing for the shares that would go
to her three grown daughters and their husbands (if they had them), he
could be reasonably certain of at least three million dollars. Fifteen
into three million goes two hundred thousand times, according to long
division. Two hundred thousand dollars a year is what it came to in
round numbers. He figured it as a rather handsome salary, more than he
could earn at anything else. Of course, if it should happen to be but
twelve years, the remuneration, so to speak, would be $250,000; eleven
years $272,727 and a fraction; ten years $300,000; nine--well, he even
figured it down to the unlikely term of two years. And all this without
taking into consideration the certainty that her fortune would increase
rather than diminish with the years to come.
On another point he meant to be firm, even adamant. If they were to be
married at all, it would have to be without the least delay, In fact,
he would advise making rather a secret of it until after the ceremony.
Two weeks at the outside for the engagement period, he should say.
Something told him that if her daughters got wind of the affair they
would have the Grand Duchess locked up in a sanitarium for the
remainder of her days. Besides, the suspense would be terrific.
They dined tete-a-tete. She had gorgeous apartments in the Elysee
Palace Hotel; a private dining-room and a beautiful view of the great
avenue. The evening was warm. The windows were open and from the
outside came the noises of a Parisian night. A soft July moon lent
radiance to an otherwise garish world, and a billion stars twinkled
merrily. It seemed to Corky, as he looked up into the mellow dome, that
he had never known the stars to twinkle so madly as they twinkled on
this fateful night. There were moments of illusion when he was sure
that the moon itself was twinkling. He laid it to his liver.
The little gold clock on the mantelpiece was striking ten when he began
clearing his throat for action. He always remembered that it was
precisely ten o'clock, because he had to look intently at the
diminutive face of the thing to make sure that it wasn't striking
twenty or thirty. It seemed to go on forever. They were still in the
dining-room and quite alone. For some uncanny reason the Grand Duchess
had not giggled once since the coffee was served. She was ominously
patient.
"I've been thinking about what you said this afternoon," said Corky
irrelevantly. She had just mentioned the weather.
"Indeed?"
"Yes. You put an idea into my head. Now, please don't say it! It's such
a beastly banal joke, don't you know, that one about ideas. Would you
mind answering a few questions?"
She began fanning herself. "If possible, Mr. Van Winkle," she said.
"But I can tell you in advance that I never tell any one my age."
"Quite right," said he in a matter-of-fact tone. "It's nobody's
business." He appeared to be thinking.
"Well, go ahead and ask," said she.
"I don't know just how to begin."
"What is it you want to know?" she enquired encouragingly.
"How old are your daughters?"
"Oh!" she exclaimed, leaning back in her chair in a sort of collapse.
"What do you want to know that for?"
"Well, I'm leading up to something else, if you must know."
She brightened up a bit. "They're rather young, of course."
"Naturally," said he. "But HOW young?"
"Mary is--let me see--I can't just recollect--"
"You needn't be afraid to tell me the truth," he said graciously. "It
won't make the least difference."
"Well, Mary is thirty-three. She's the married one. Edith--"
"Is one of 'em married?" he exclaimed, his face clouding.
"She's divorced at present. She married a scamp in the East who wanted
her for her money, and--"
"Never mind," interrupted Corky hastily. "I don't care to hear the
family scandal. Where does she live?"
"New York City, most of the time. You may have seen her. She goes out a
great deal, I hear: I'm not certain whether she's gone back to her
maiden name or retains her ex-husband's. His name is Smith." "I see,"
said Corky, abstractedly. "Good looking?"
"Mary? Yes, indeed. Stunning. I'm sure you'll admire her, Mr. Van
Winkle."
"I wish you'd call me Courtney."
"I suppose I might just as well begin," she said resignedly. He
started, and was silent for a moment.
"The others: are they married?"
"No. Edith is twenty-five and Gwendolyn twenty-three. They're at home."
"Why don't they travel with you?"
She looked positively aggrieved. "They are really very domestic in
their tastes," said she. "They were over with me three years ago, but
prefer America."
"Are they engaged?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"They'd tell you if they were, wouldn't they?"
"If they thought it was any of my business," she said sharply. Corky
was in no condition to flush. It was a pallid hour for him.
"I suppose they have ample means of their own," he ventured.
"They manage pretty well."
"Was nothing left to them outright?"
"Some real estate."
"I see. Everything else went to you?"
"Oh, dear, no. He left $10,000 to his only sister. I sued to get it
back, but lost. I always hated her."
"There was considerably more than $10,000 in the estate, of course," he
said quickly.
She smiled and closed one eye very slowly. "I should rather think so,"
she said. He was silent, pondering deeply. "Can you think of anything
more to ask?"
"I'm trying to think if there is," he replied frankly. She gave him a
few minutes. "I can't recall anything more at this moment," he
announced. "Oh, just a moment! Was there anything mentioned in the will
about your never marrying again?"
"Not a word," said she triumphantly.
"Good!" said he, and arose somewhat unsteadily from his chair.
The Grand Duchess held up her hand to check the words on his lips.
"Sit down," she said brusquely. "I've got a few questions I'd like to
ask of you, Corky."
"Corky! Good Lord, don't call me THAT. Where did you hear that name--"
"I saw it in the Herald. It's the only thing I have against you. I
can't help thinking of you as a sort of monument to my poor dead
husband. Have I never told you that he had a cork leg? Well, he had. He
lost a real leg at Gettysburg. My husband was a big, brave man,
Courtney. He wasn't a polished society chap and he didn't know much
about grammar, but he was as fine and honest and noble as any man who
ever lived. But this is no time to discuss the qualifications of a man
as big and grand as my husband. It--it seems like sacrilege. What I
want to know is this: how old is your father?"
"What?"
"What is his age?"
"My fa--What's that got to do with it?"
"To do with what?" sharply.
He stammered. "Why,--er--with the qualifications of your husband."
"Nothing at all."
"Well, he's about sixty."
"Vigorous?"
"Good Lord! Certainly."
"And very rich, as I'm informed."
"All this is very distasteful to me."
"And your brothers? Are they worthy young men?"
"Of course," angrily.
"Don't flare up, please. And now, what is your income?"
"MY income? Why, this is positively outrageous! I--"
"Maybe I should have said 'allowance.'"
Corky swallowed hard. "I'm not a rich man, if that's what you want to
know. I'll be perfectly honest with you. I'm horribly poor."
Her face brightened. "Now you are talking like a man. You must not
forget I am from the West. We like frankness. And yet, in spite of your
poverty, you really are received in the Smart Set? How do you manage
it?"
"Men are always in demand," admitted Corky, making a wretched error in
diplomacy. He was thankful to see that it went unnoticed. "That is, men
who are worth while."
The Grand Duchess settled back in her chair, and softly patted her
coiffure, choosing to stroke the curls immediately above her ears.
"Well?" she invited, calmly, deliberately.
"I'd like to marry you," said Corky.
"Do you expect me to say 'yes'?"
"I do."
"Well, I'll let you know in the morning."
"I prefer to have my answer now."
"I've got to think it over."
"Haven't you been thinking it over for some time?" he demanded
impatiently.
"I'll admit that I am in love with you," she said coyly.
He shuffled his feet uneasily. "And you also will admit that I am in
love with you, won't you?"
"Are you?"
"How can you ask?"
"Well, prove it."
"Won't I be proving it beyond all question if I marry you?"
She sighed. "That isn't the way I was wooed years ago."
"You forget that it was long before my time. Custom changes, my dear. I
love you in the present, up-to-date fashion, not as they did in the
unsettled West."
She pondered. "How much of an allowance will you expect?"
"Whatever you choose to settle upon me, I shall be happy to divide
equally with you. That's the only way we can carry on our social
campaign."
"Well, I'll marry you, Corky."
He blinked his eyes two or three times. "When?" he enquired, and
absently looked at his watch.
"Next Saturday," she said.
"Good!" said he.
When he got back to his hotel he found awaiting him there a letter from
his brother Ripley. The news it brought caused him to thank his lucky
stars that his fortune would be safe on Saturday.
Jefferson and Ripley were making their fortunes in a middle-west city,
following the ancient and honourable pursuit of the golf-ball as
instructors in rival country clubs. They seemed to be a bit uncertain
as to what they would follow during the winter, but both of them were
thinking rather seriously of getting married.
The news that caused Gorky's eyes to bulge came in the last casual
paragraph of the letter. "Oh, by the way," wrote Rip, "the governor has
just been married. I suppose you haven't heard of it. He had his
appendix out six weeks ago and married his night nurse as soon as he
was up. Well, so long. I'm giving a lesson at 10:30. Good luck."