Fortune is a Woman (47 page)

Her eyes met his in the mirror and he saw emptiness in them and wondered sadly what had happened to their marriage. Their lives were arranged around his work and her ambitions for him. If it were not for the children and his political career he would be tempted to ask her for a divorce right there and then. Instead he said quietly, "Good night Maryanne," closing the door softly behind him as he left.

***

New York in the couple of weeks before Christmas was Buck's favorite place. He liked the strolling Santas ringing their bells outside the stores and the smell of roasting chestnuts from the peddlers on the street corners. He liked the frosty nip in the air that made him tighten his fringed cashmere muffler and brought memories of childhood winters, skating on the frozen duck pond and tobogganing on an old tin tray down the steep slippery slopes at Strawberry Hill, his maternal grandparents' home in New England where his family had spent all their Christmases. He stared wistfully at the clockwork trains and magic sets and wooly animals in the windows of the toy store at the corner of Fifth and Fifty-ninth Street, remembering all those long-ago Christmas mornings with the fire roaring in the grate, the snow falling outside, and mysterious presents still to be unwrapped. He remembered the laughter of family and friends and children and the smell of good things cooking in the big kitchen, wishing himself back in time, wishing he could start all over again.

The last person Francie had expected to see was Buck Wingate. She stopped for a moment to watch him, a half-smile on her face, debating whether to say hello. She had just decided she had better not when he turned and caught her eye.

"Do you remember me?" she said shyly. "Francesca Harrison—we met at Annie Aysgarth's party in San Francisco." She held out her hand and added with a smile, "You looked like a little boy with your nose pressed longingly against the windowpane."

He stared at her, surprised. She was wearing a narrow cream cashmere coat with a huge fox collar and a small cloche hat, her cheeks were pink from the cold and her eyes were the most incredible, deep pansy blue. He thought she looked wonderful. He smiled ruefully. "Was it that obvious? I was just recalling memories of Christmases past." He took her hand, feeling the warmth beneath the soft beige suede glove. "Of course I remember you." He didn't say, "How could I ever forget?" but his eyes did, and she looked away, flustered.

"What are you doing in New York, Miss Harrison?" he asked, letting go of her hand. She told him that she was in town to look at a property for the Lai Tsin Corporation and to do some Christmas shopping.

He glanced at the gaily wrapped parcels she was carrying and said ruefully, "It surely looks as though you're more successful at it than I am. I still haven't found anything for Maryanne—my wife."

Francie thought of Maryanne, so cool and sure of herself. "Jewelry?" she suggested.

He shook his head and grinned. "Another pair of earrings and she would be mistaken for a Christmas tree ornament." Francie laughed and he thought, surprised, how different she looked when she was happy.

"I know what
I'd
like for Christmas if I were your wife," she said, still smiling. "I just saw it in a gallery and fell in love with it."

"Why don't you show me?" he asked, eager for her company.

They walked companionably across Fifth Avenue and around the corner to the little gallery. In the window was a small portrait by Morisot of a blond child, her face serious and her eyes dark with wonder. Francie sighed. "Don't you think the artist has captured the essence of childhood?" He thought again of all those wondrous childhood Christmases and knew she was right.

"I'm afraid it's not exactly Maryanne though," he said regretfully. "Maybe I'll just get her the gray pearls after all." He glanced up as the first flakes of snow began to fall. It was four o'clock and the sky was already dark. "At least let me invite you for tea," he said eagerly, "to thank you for your help?"

She tilted her head consideringly. "I really shouldn't, I still have so much to do."

He'd bet she didn't have a single important thing to do at four o'clock on a Thursday afternoon before Christmas. He said authoritatively, "I won't take no for an answer," and took her arm, hurrying her back across Fifth and into the new Sherry-Netherland Hotel.

The cafe was busy with smart shoppers relaxing after their afternoon's labors. The sound of their high-pitched chatter mingled with the violins of the quartet and the tinkle of silver spoons against fine china and the giggles of overexcited children being treated to ice-cream sodas and chocolate cake.

Francie thought tremblingly of Ollie; Christmas was always the hardest time and that's partly why she was in New York, to get away from her memories, but it wasn't always possible to succeed. She thought sadly that he would no longer have been a child—he would have been a young man now and maybe he would have been taking her out to tea instead of Buck Wingate.

He said quietly, "I can see you find Christmas lonely too." She looked at him, her eyes dark with sadness, and he wanted to put his arms around her and tell her it would be all right again one day, but of course he couldn't—and it wouldn't. Nothing could ever compensate her for the loss of her son.

"The children are having such a good time," she said with a smile. "Look at them enjoying all those forbidden treats."

"And what shall
we
treat ourselves to?" he asked gaily. "That fabulous chocolate cake? Or a mountainous icecream sundae? Cherry cake?
Millefeuille?
Or are you the cucumber sandwich type of woman?"

Francie laughed, swinging out of her dark mood. "If you want to know the truth I'm a toasted muffin type of woman," she confessed.

"Then muffins it shall be." He gave the waiter his order and then said, "You see how much I'm learning about you in just a few hours? I know you're buying property in Manhattan, and what you'd like for Christmas, and what you like for tea—better be careful or soon I'll know all your secrets."

She laughed again. "But I don't have any secrets—not anymore. My life is an open book, everybody knows everything about me."

He shook his head. "No, oh no. I'll bet there are very few people who know the
real
Francesca Harrison."

Francie glanced nervously at him; he was too perceptive by far. Looking into his steady brown eyes, she told herself they were getting into deeper waters than they should for two casual acquaintances, but she couldn't help noticing the little lines of laughter around his steady brown eyes and the way his dark hair waved slightly and that there were already touches of gray at his temples. Annie had told her Buck Wingate was too handsome for his own good and it was true.

Then the waiter brought tea in a silver pot and hot toasted muffins oozing wickedly with butter, and he changed the subject to his work. He told her he had loved the world of politics since he was just a kid, and that first the Senate had taken over his life, so he never had time to think of anything else. He told her he hardly saw his children anymore and that he was going to spend Christmas with them in the country and that he was afraid they would treat him like a stranger.

"And where are you spending Christmas?" he asked when the muffins were finished and the final cup of tea had been drunk. "Oh, I'll be at my ranch with Annie and Lai Tsin," she told him. And then she met his eyes. She had never felt the need to define her relationship with the Mandarin to anyone before, but now she said, "Lai Tsin is my friend."

Buck nodded. "I envy him your friendship," he said quietly.

She wouldn't let him take her back to the Ritz Tower, where she was staying, and once again he watched her walk away from him, threading her way through the crowds. He watched until she disappeared and he thought maybe he had it all wrong and it was he who was the lonely one after all.

***

A few days before Christmas a beautifully wrapped parcel addressed to Miss Francesca Harrison was delivered to the house on Nob Hill. She couldn't wait to open it, ripping off the scarlet ribbons like an excited child. Inside was the small painting she had admired in the New York gallery and a card from Buck Wingate that said, "This was meant to belong to you. I shall be thinking of you at Christmas."

Francie ran her fingers lovingly over the carved frame. She held the painting at arm's length and looked at it and it was just as beautiful as when she had first seen it. She thought of Buck going to the gallery and buying it for her, of him writing the note—
thinking of you at Christmas,
it'd said. And then she shook her head and told herself it was far too expensive a gift, that he shouldn't have bought it and of course he wouldn't be thinking of her at Christmas at all. He would be with his family and friends at his wonderful country house three thousand miles away and it might as well be a million.

She went to her desk and wrote him a note thanking him for his thoughtful and extravagant gift and saying that in return for his generosity and kindness she was donating sackfuls of toys and Christmas cheer to a dozen needy orphanages across the country in his name, and that she knew he would enjoy thinking of the pleasure he had given them on Christmas morning.

And then she took the beautiful painting and placed it on a little gilt easel on her bedside table where it would be the last thing she saw every night before she went to sleep.

***

Christmas at the Wingates' country house, Broadlands, was a traditional but elegant affair. There was a vast fir tree trimmed by the staff with gilded pine cones and lit with tiny red candles, mountains of expensively wrapped gifts, and log fires in every room. Maryanne had invited her brother with his wife and children, and a dozen important Republicans and their wives. "I can't tell you how pleased they all were to be invited," she told him happily. "This was such a
good
idea of yours, darling."

Spending Christmas with a bunch of politicians was not Buck's idea of "friends" at all. On Christmas morning he shook his head gloomily as Maryanne handed out the expensive, tasteful little trinkets she had bought, and the children squabbled over their toys. His fingers touched the little note in his pocket from Francie Harrison; he didn't need to read it again, he'd read it so often he knew it by heart. He thought of the orphan children she had sent gifts to and he smiled, and he thought of her having Christmas at the ranch with her friends, just as he had said he would.

CHAPTER 35

The Lai Tsin Corporation headquarters in Hong Kong towered a lofty fifteen stories. The best geomancers had studied the site carefully and made their pronouncements and the white granite, many-columned building stood at a slightly off-angle to the street with its main doors also placed off-center to prevent the good
ch'i
from escaping. Eight broad marble steps, a lucky number, led up to massive red-lacquered doors, which were guarded by a pair of fierce bronze lions. The magnificent reception hall was paved in different-colored marbles and decorated with columns of malachite, wonderful mosaics, statues, and carvings. Lai Tsin's office was not tucked away on the top floor, but at ground level off the main hall where he could be easily accessible to all who wished to see him, from the grandest taipans to the humblest worker, and it was as simple as his first office in the warehouse in San Francisco.

True, the walls were not old wooden planks anymore, they were of plaster lacquered his favorite dark plum. His desk was not made of teak but of ebony wood, and there was no ugly old iron safe lurking in the corner because he no longer needed it, since there was now a safety vault in the basement. But it was still as neat as the old one with the Chinese inkpad and brushes, the Western inkstand and pens and the sheaf of papers lined up neatly on his desk.

More than ten years had passed since Francie was last in Hong Kong and this time she stayed with the Mandarin in his white villa overlooking Repulse Bay. The exterior was neoclassical in style but inside it was Chinese with pierced window screens, exquisite blackwood furniture, and a carefully chosen collection of ancient wall hangings, calligraphy, porcelain, and paintings. Francie had created the house on Nob Hill, but this was Lai Tsin's heritage.

He studied her carefully over dinner one evening. She had been in Hong Kong for over a week and he had shown her the wonderful headquarters, the fleet of ships —no longer just shabby steamers bought cheaply from Swires but the latest from the shipyards of Japan and the fastest in the world. He had shown her his mansion and all his treasures and now he said humbly, "Everything you see is yours, Francie. Without you, I would be nothing."

She looked at him, shocked. "Surely it's the other way around."

He was silent while the soft-footed servants removed their dishes and placed small fragrant pots of tea in front of them.

"Tomorrow we shall journey to Shanghai," he said, "and from there we shall sail upriver to my home village." She looked at him astonished because in all these years he had never suggested such a trip, and he added, "I would like to show you my village and the ancestral hall of Lilin, so that you may better understand what I have to tell you. I travel there twice each year to remind myself of my humble beginnings, lest I forget that the luxury surrounding me is merely temporal. I go to cleanse my heart of acquisitiveness and to refresh my soul." He paused, then added, "It is important that you come with me."

He looked down at the bowl of tea in front of him and she watched him, puzzled. She had never seen him like this before, nervous and unsure of himself. "Of course I'll go with you," she said. "I am honored you wish to show me these things."

They sailed for Shanghai the next morning and when they got there they boarded Lai Tsin's shiny white steamship, the
MV Mandarin.
As they sailed upriver Francie hung over the rail, exclaiming at the sights, but Lai Tsin remained strangely silent.

When they reached Nanking he took her ashore and they walked together along the same streets he had once run through with his young sister, fleeing from the flesh-peddler. Francie heard the depths of grief in his voice as he spoke of Mayling and she guessed each time he took the journey he still hoped he might find her, even though he knew in his heart it was impossible.