In mid-August 2002, Jack’s wife, Kate, gave birth to a baby girl, Ingrid, another blonde. A month later, Jack won a MacArthur grant. “Good God,” Sam said, “now he’s a certified genius.” Shortly before Christmas, Eleanor flew to Austin to meet her new granddaughter. She rented a car, a convertible; she never depended on Jack for rides. Something more important always came up. “Do you mind taking a cab?” he’d say. “I’ve got a gig.” She arrived at his house late morning and found him outside on the lawn, jiggling the baby and crooning Irving Berlin. “We’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “I could have picked you up.”
They went inside. Eleanor smiled at Ingrid but made no attempt to nuzzle her or hold her. “Do you want her?” Jack asked. Eleanor shook her head. “Let’s give her time to get used to me.”
“I didn’t want a child,” Jack said, settling on the sofa, “but Kate did. I did something, sort of, for someone else.” Eleanor sat in a chair across from Jack. Ingrid stared at her grandmother. “At first, I was afraid I’d be displaced,” Jack said. “The baby would get all the attention. What about me? What about me? Then, I was afraid I’d have one like me.” He gave a half smile. “I don’t know why you and Dad didn’t beat me, or lock me in one of the Hotel’s attic rooms, or ship me off to a military school.”
“Your brothers dented your consciousness, but Dad and I couldn’t,” Eleanor said. “It was good you were the fourth and not the first. I didn’t take it personally.”
“Why is it we’re always afraid of the wrong things?” he said. He looked at his mother, then looked away. “I left Ingrid at home alone when she was only three weeks old. I forgot I was babysitting and went out to a last-minute gig.” He paused. “When I got home, six hours later, Kate and Ingrid were gone. Kate left a note. It was very short: ‘I was half-tempted to call Children’s Services on you.’?” Eleanor said nothing. “We’re still separated, but Kate lets me see Ingrid so long as someone else is in the house.” He paused again. “I hired a full-time nanny. Kate can’t forgive me. She said I was a monstrous egoist. I don’t know what to do.” He started crying. Ingrid looked up at him, then started crying. Eleanor reached over and took the baby from him, murmuring softly, as if to both of them, “It’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK.”
“Kate’s thinking of moving to DC, near her folks,” Jack said. “My playing’s gone to hell.” He looked at his mother, tears streaming down his face. “I’m so ashamed.”
“Did you tell that to Kate?” Eleanor asked.
“I’ve apologized,” he said.
“Did you tell Kate you were ashamed?” she asked. He shook his head. “I’d start there,” she said. He opened his mouth to speak. “No,” she said. “I won’t.”
“I’m an exuberant trumpet player. I need to be happy to play,” Jack said.
He got up and went to the phone.
Eleanor stood up; the baby tucked her head into her grandmother’s neck. “Ingrid and I are going to take the morning air.”
Kate returned with Ingrid a month after Eleanor’s visit. “I’m not optimistic,” she said to Jack. “You’re on parole.”
Jack called his mother. “They’re back. For now.” Eleanor couldn’t remember a call from Jack that hadn’t to do with his trumpet. “I think it was more the full-time nanny than me.” He paused. “My playing’s getting better. I can’t blow this.”
—
Old Gosford, when confronted with the firm’s dilatoriness, was patronizing. “It’s not so easy a thing to do,” he said. “If you give them any money, Mrs. Wolinski will go straight back to the Surrogate and say you’re recognizing her boys’ claim against Rupert’s estate.”
He’s a useless idiot, Eleanor thought, correcting Rupert’s assessment. “Look, Gos,” she said, her tone more kindly than she felt, as if she were explaining bathroom hygiene to a four-year-old for the fifth time. “I’m not giving them any of Rupert’s money. I’m giving them my money, money I got from my father, my McDonald’s money.”
“Oh, yes, well, but,” Gosford stammered, “setting up a Cayman account is dicey. Possibly illegal.”
“I never said anything about a Cayman account. I want to be open about it. Mrs. Wolinski will have to pay taxes. And there will be trustees, people with telephone numbers and addresses in the United States.”
Gosford was silent, out of chagrin or cunning Eleanor couldn’t say.
“I understand,” she said. “The firm doesn’t want to do it. I’m fine with that.” Eleanor’s tone shifted slightly, a cold edge stealing in. “I’m moving law firms, Gos. I’ve retained Carlo Benedetti. That’s why I called.” She paused. Her tone shifted again, into a lower register. “I can’t imagine I owe you money. In ten months, you haven’t done anything.”
Gosford sprang to life. “It’s a misunderstanding, Eleanor,” he said.
“No, Gos, it’s not that. You’ve let me down.”
“We’ll try again,” he said. “We’ll do it right.”
“No,” she said. “If I do owe money, send an itemized bill. We’ll speak again, as friends. Regards to all.” As she hung up, she wondered whether young Gosford had cried when he found he’d backed himself into a corner.
Carlo Benedetti set up the trust. He, Eleanor, and Will were the trustees. Eleanor funded the trust with seven hundred thousand dollars of her father’s McDonald’s money. Interest, estimated at seven percent a year, would go to Vera, giving her forty-nine thousand dollars a year before taxes, thirty-eight thousand after. Taxes would be taken out before distribution. She would be paid monthly. There could be no invasion without permission of the trustees. At her death, the trust would settle in equal shares on Hugh and Iain. Carlo notified the Wolinskis, making it clear that Eleanor, and not Rupert’s estate, was the funder. Hugh and Iain both wrote brief notes of thanks, their surprise almost overtaking their appreciation. “I don’t know what to think or say,” Hugh wrote. “Thank you for looking after our mother.” Vera sent Eleanor a three-lined note: “Your husband should have provided for me and my sons in his will. What kind of man has his wife pay support to his mistress?”
—
Carlo proposed to Eleanor the day he filed the trust. “I can’t marry my lawyer,” Eleanor said. “Conflict of interest.”
“I resign,” he said.
“You’ve already been married three times,” she said. “Why would you do it again?”
“I want to marry you. I’ve wanted to marry you for years,” he said. “I’ve loved you for years. Longer than Rupert. I married the others because you wouldn’t have me. I divorced them because they weren’t you.” He paused. “Tell me again why you married Rupert?”
“I liked the way he danced,” she said.
—
Dominic’s letter to Eleanor came as a surprise. “I’m getting married,” he wrote. “Her name is Bridget Farrell. She’s only forty, but kind and good and plainly not marrying me for my money. She teaches history at a local grammar school. We might even have children. My friends here all call me out for marrying someone so young. I tell them I was in love with a woman older than I, but she wouldn’t have me.”
Eleanor sent Dominic and Bridget a Persian rug, the one from Rupert’s library. “Rupert would want you to have this,” she wrote in her note. “Wishing you happiness and contentment in each other.”
—