Loving (3 page)

"Bettina ... it's Justin. ..." He felt a sob rise in his throat, and he fought it. He had to be strong. For Justin. For her. But she had gone tense in his arms now, and suddenly she pulled away.

"What do you mean? ... Ivo...." Her eyes were frantic, her hands like frightened little birds. "An accident?" But Ivo only shook his head. And then slowly he looked at her, and in his eyes she saw the full force of her fear.

"No, darling. He's gone." For an instant nothing moved in the room as the shock washed over her like a wave, and her eyes stared into his, not fully understanding, and not wanting to know.

"I--I don't understand...." Her hands fluttered nervously, and her eyes seemed to dart from his face to her hands. "What do you mean, Ivo? ... I--" And then, in anguish and horror, she jumped to her feet and crossed the room, as though to get away from him, as though by fleeing him, she could flee the truth. "What the hell do you mean?" She was shouting at him now, her voice tremulous and angry, her eyes filled with tears. But she looked so fragile, so frail, that he wanted to take her in his arms again.

"Bettina ... darling...." He went to her, but she fought him off, unthinking, unknowing, and then suddenly she reached out to him and clung to him as her whole body was wracked by sobs.

"Oh, God ... oh, no ... Daddy. ..." It was a long, slow, childlike wail. Ivo held her tightly in his arms. He was all she had.

"What happened? Oh, Ivo ... what happened?" But she didn't really want to know. All she wanted to know was that it wasn't true. But it was. Ivo's face told her again and again that it was.

"It was a heart attack. At lunch. They sent an ambulance immediately, but it was too late." He sounded anguished as he said it.

"Didn't they do anything? For God's sake...." She was sobbing now, her narrow frame shaking, as he kept an arm around her shoulders. It was impossible to believe. Only the night before they had danced in this room.

"Bettina, they did everything. Absolutely everything. It was just--" God, what an agony it was to tell her all of it. It was almost unbearable for him. "It happened very quickly. It was all over in a matter of moments. And I promise you, they did everything they could. But there wasn't much they could do." She closed her eyes and nodded, and then slowly she left the comfort of his arms and crossed the room. She stood with her back to him, looking down at the snow and the gnarled, naked trees across the street in Central Park. How ugly it looked to her now, how lonely, how bare, when only the night before it had looked beautiful and fairylike as she stood at her bedroom window, dressing for the party and waiting for the first guests to arrive. She hated them now, all of them, for having robbed her of her last night alone with him ... her last night ... he was gone now. She closed her eyes again tightly and braced herself for the question she had to ask.

"Did he--did he say anything, Ivo. ... I mean ... for me?" Her voice was a tiny mouse sound from her vigil at the window, and she didn't see Ivo shake his head.

"There wasn't time."

She nodded silently, and a moment later took a deep breath. Ivo didn't know whether to go to her, or let her stand there alone. He felt he might break her in half with the merest touch of his hand, so taut and brittle and fragile she seemed as she stood there, aching and alone. She was alone now, and she knew it. For the first time in her life. "Where is he now?"

"At the hospital." Ivo hated to say it. "I wanted to speak to you before making any arrangements. Do you have any idea what you'd like to do?" He approached her slowly and turned her around to face him. He looked down at her. Her eyes seemed suddenly a thousand years old, and it was the face of a woman she turned up to him, not the face of a child. "Bettina, I-- I'm sorry to press you about this, but ... do you have any idea what your father would have wanted?"

She sat down again, softly shaking the halo of auburn curls. "We never talked about--about things like that. And he wasn't religious." She closed her eyes and two huge tears rolled somberly down her face. "I suppose we ought to do something private. I don't want"--she could barely go on speaking--"a lot of strangers there to stare at him and--" But then all she could do was bow her head as her shoulders shook pathetically, and Ivo took her once again in his arms. It took her fully five minutes to compose herself, and then she looked up at Ivo with a bleak look in her eyes. "I want to see him now, Ivo." He nodded, and she stood up and walked silently to the door.

She was terrifyingly quiet on the way to the hospital and she was dry-eyed and poised as she sat in the backseat of Ivo's limousine. She seemed to shrink as she sat there, huddled into a silver fox coat, her eyes huge and childlike beneath a matching fur hat.

She stepped out of the car ahead of him at the hospital, and she was instantly through the door, waiting impatiently for Ivo, wanting to be taken to her father's side. In her heart she had not yet understood the reality, and somehow she expected to find him anxious to see her and very much alive. It was only when they came to the final doorway that she seemed to slow down, the staccato of the heels of her black kid boots silenced on the hospital floor, the light beyond the doorway dim, and her eyes suddenly huge as she stepped slowly inside the morgue. He was there, covered with a sheet, and on tiptoe she went to him, and stood there, trying to get up the courage to pull the sheet down so she could see his face. Ivo watched her for a moment, and then walked softly to her side.

He whispered to her and gently took her arm. "Do you want to go now?" But she only shook her head. She had to see him. Had to. She had to say good-bye. She wanted to tell Ivo that she wanted to be alone with her father, but she didn't know how, and in the end she was just as glad.

With a trembling hand she reached out and touched the corner of the sheet, and slowly, slowly, pulled it back until she could see the top of his head. For an instant it seemed as though he was playing with her, as though she were a child again and they were playing peekaboo. More quickly now she pulled the sheet down until she dropped it on his chest. The eyes were closed, the face peaceful and eerily pale as she looked down at him, her eyes wide and filled with pain, but she understood now. It was as Ivo had said--her father was gone. The tears poured steadily down her face as she bent to kiss him and then took a step back, as firmly Ivo put an arm around her again and led her out of the room.

But the truth of it didn't hit Bettina until after the funeral. Between her father's death and his final ritual were two days of frantic surrealism, picking out something for him to wear, checking constantly with the secretary she had hired to help with the arrangements, talking to Ivo about who had been called and who must be, organizing servants, and reassuring friends. There was something wonderfully comforting about "arrangements." They were a place to flee from her emotions, from the truth. She hurried between the apartment and the funeral home, and finally stood in the cemetery, a fragile figure in black, carrying one long, white rose, which she lay silently on her father's coffin as the rest of the group stood apart from her. Only Ivo hovered somewhere near her. She could see his shadow falling across the snow near her own. Only Ivo had bridged the gap again and again in the painful days after her father's death. Only Ivo had been able to reach out and touch her. Only Ivo was there to let her know that someone still cared, that she was not totally unprotected in the world now, frightened and alone.

He took her hand silently and led her back to his car. Half an hour later she was secure in her apartment again, locked in the safe little world she had always known. She and Ivo were drinking coffee, and outside a bright November sun shone on the fresh snow. The winter snow had come early, and the only place it looked lovely was in the park. The rest of the city had lain beneath a blanket of slush for three days. Bettina sighed to herself, sipped her coffee, and looked absently at the brightly burning fire. It was an odd comparison, but she felt the way her father used to when he finished a book. Suddenly she had lost her "people" and she was out of a job. There was no one to care for and fuss over, to order cracked crab for, to make sure his cigars were at hand, the guest list was to his liking, and the plane reservations to Madrid were exactly as he wanted. There was no one to take care of now except herself. And she wasn't quite sure how to do that. She had always been so busy taking care of him.

"Bettina." There was a long pause as Ivo set down his cup and slowly ran a hand through his white hair. He only did that when he felt very awkward, and she wondered why he should feel that way now. "It's a bit early to bring it up to you, darling, but we ought to meet with the lawyers this week." He felt his heart sink as she turned her wide green eyes to his.

"Why?"

"To discuss the will, and ... there are several other points of business that we ought to talk to them about," Justin had left him as executor, and the lawyers had already been clawing at him for two days.

"Why now? Isn't it too soon?" She looked puzzled as she stood and walked to the fire. She was feeling tired and restless all at the same time. She wasn't sure whether to run around the block a hundred fifty times or just go to bed and cry. But Ivo was looking distressingly businesslike as his eyes followed her to the fire.

"No, it's not too soon. There are some things you'll have to know, some decisions to be made. Some of it should get rolling now."

She sighed in answer and nodded as she went back to the couch. "All right. We'll see them, but I don't understand the rush." She looked at Ivo with a quiet smile and he nodded and reached out a hand. Even Ivo didn't know the full extent of what the lawyers had on their minds. But twelve hours later they did.

Ivo and Bettina looked at each other in shock. The lawyers looked at her gravely. No stock. No investments. No capital. In brief, there was no money. According to his attorneys, Justin hadn't been upset about it because he always expected things to "come around," but the turnaround had not yet come. In fact it hadn't come in several years, and he had been living on credit for too long. Everything he owned was heavily mortgaged or had been put up as collateral and it turned out that he had fabulous loans to repay. His last advances had all been spent, on cars--like the new Bentley, and then shortly afterward the 1934 Rolls--antiques, racehorses, women, trips, houses, furs, Bettina, himself. The winter before he had bought the country's most extravagant Thoroughbred from a friend. Two point seven million he had paid for it, the papers had said. In fact it had been slightly more, and the friend had allowed him to defer payment for a year. The year wasn't yet over, and tie debt was still unpaid. He knew he would cover it, there would be more advances, and he had his royalties, which never failed to come in, in six-figure checks. What Ivo and Bettina then learned as they sat there was that even his future royalties had been borrowed against, from some of his wealthier friends. He had borrowed to the hilt from everyone, bankers, as well as friends, against real property, future income, and dreams. What had happened to his investments, to the snatches of conversations she had heard about "sure things"? As the hours with the attorneys wore on, it became clear that there were no sure things, except his astronomical debts, they were sure. He had kept much of his borrowing private. He had dispensed with his investment advisers years ago, calling them fools. It became increasingly confusing and Bettina sat baffled and stunned. It was impossible to make heads or tails out of what they were saying except that it would take months to sort it all out and that the vast estate of the illustrious, charming, celebrated, much adored Justin Daniels amounted not to a king's ransom, but to a mountain of debt.

Bettina looked at Ivo in confusion, and he looked at her in despair. He felt as though he had just aged another ten years.

"And the houses?" Ivo looked at the senior attorney with fear.

"Well have to look into that, but I assume that they'll all have to be sold. We've been recommending that course of action to Mister Daniels for almost two years now. As a matter of fact it's quite possible that once we sell the houses, and ... er"--there was an embarassed cough--"several of the antiques and artifacts in Mister Daniels's New York apartment, it's possible that we will have brought matters back into the black."

"Will there be anything left?"

"That's difficult to say at the moment." But the look on his face told its own tale.

"What you're saying then"--Ivo's voice was tense and angry, and he wasn't sure if he was angrier at Justin or his lawyers--"is that after all is said and done, there won't be anything left except the apartment here in New York. No stocks, no bonds, no investments, nothing?"

"I believe that will prove to be correct." The elderly man fingered his glasses uncomfortably, while his junior partner cleared his throat and tried not to look at the slender young girl.

"Was there no provision made for Miss Daniels?" Ivo couldn't believe it.

But the lawyer spoke one word. "None."

"I see."

"Of course there was"--the senior partner checked some papers on his desk--"a sum of eighteen thousand dollars in Mister Daniels's checking account on the day he died. We have to clear probate of course, but we would be happy to advance a small sum of money to Miss Daniels in the interim, to enable her to pay whatever living expenses--" But Ivo was steaming by now.

"That won't be necessary." Ivo snapped closed his briefcase and picked up his coat. "Just how long do you think it will take to let us know where things stand?"

The two lawyers exchanged a glance. "About three months?"

"How about one?" Ivo's look was not one to quibble with, and unhappily the elder attorney nodded.

"We'll try. We do understand that the circumstances are somewhat trying for Miss Daniels. We'll do our very best."

"Thank you." Bettina shook hands with them and quickly left the office. Ivo said almost nothing on the way to the car, he only glanced anxiously again and again at her face. She was ivory-pale, but she seemed quiet and very much in control. Once they were in his car again, he raised the window between them and his driver and turned to her with a look of sorrow in his eyes. "Bettina, do you understand what just happened?"