Despite the prominence of the family, there was very little made in the obituary columns, at the family’s request, about the death of Hubert Altemus, Jr., the son of Mrs. Van Degan Altemus of New York City and Mr. Hubert Altemus of Bedford Village, New York, and the brother of Mrs. Justine
Altemus Slatkin. If it hadn’t been for Ezzie Fenwick, who read the obituary page before he read anything else in the newspaper, not just the prominent names in the news stories of the dead, but the long columns of names in the paid announcements, Hubie Altemus’s passing might have gone undetected, as the family wished, until after the funeral, by which time Lil would have left for Europe.
Ezzie, a surprisingly early riser for one who spent every night dining out, called Matilda Clarke with the news, and then Maude Hoare, and then, in lieu of Loelia Manchester, who had still not returned from Europe, Loelia’s mother Fernanda Somerset, and Matilda and Maude and Fernanda all made their six or eight calls, and by noon everyone who knew the Altemus and Van Degan clans knew that Hubie Altemus had died of AIDS, although that was a word not to be mentioned, under any circumstance, to family members, as the official story was that poor Hubie, who really never had much of a life, Ezzie commented over and over, had died of leukemia.
Leaving Lil Altemus’s apartment after paying a condolence call, Ezzie Fenwick ran into Cora Mandell in the lobby of Lil’s building.
“Oh, Ezzie,” said Cora. “I guess I’m going to the same place you’re coming from.”
“Rather a sparcity of merriment in that household at the moment,” said Ezzie. “Not that it was ever a barrel of laughs at Lil’s, or at any of the Van Degans’, now that I come to think of it.”
“Who’s up there?” asked Cora.
“All the predictables. Aunt Minnie Willoughby. Matilda. Janet and Laurance. Dodo, and poor Justine. Get the pic?”
“Evangeline wanted to come, but she was too drunk,” said Cora.
“Just as well. Lil has enough to contend with, without Evangeline,” said Ezzie.
“How is poor Lil?” Cora repeated.
“Stoic. Absolutely stoic. Not a tear.”
“Lil always does things so well,” said Cora.
“I’m off to Sibila’s cocktail party,” said Ezzie.
Making her way down Madison Avenue to meet with Lorenza about flower arrangements for Hubie’s funeral, Justine Altemus, who had decided to return to her maiden name, ran into Bernie Slatkin, who was on his way to interview Max Luby for a future television segment on Wall Street practices, although that subject did not come up in their brief exchange. If Justine had not been lost in thought and had seen the approaching Bernie before he saw her, she would have ducked into a shop in order to avoid the encounter, as it was the first time they had met since Bernie returned from his tropical-island divorce. In advance, she had agonized over how she would behave when that meeting came to pass. Seeing him, she dropped her eyes and hoped that he would do the same, until they had passed each other, but, alas, Bernie was not born for such subtleties of behavior.
“Justine,” he said, reaching out to touch her arm.
“Oh, hellohoware?” she said, sounding more like her mother than herself, as she withdrew her arm from his touch.
“I’m so very sorry about Hubie,” he said.
“Thank you,” she replied. Her words were polite, but her tone was impatient, as if he were delaying her mission.
“I know what a wonderful sister you were to him,” said Bernie.
“He was a wonderful brother to me,” replied Justine. She made a gesture of moving on. Bernie looked at her, struck by the change in her. Gone was the lovesick attitude he had grown to despise. She had returned to the remote and distant heiress he had first spoken to in an elevator leaving one of Maisie Verdurin’s parties. For an instant she looked beautiful to him again, and unattainable, or beautiful because she was unattainable. She met his eyes, as if understanding his thought.
There were things he wanted to know, even though he was no longer a member of her family: how had Lil taken Hubie’s death, had Uncle Laurance been helpful, what had happened to Juanito? But he dared not ask the questions, and she, once so full of news for him on all the inner machinations of her family, provided no information. He knew that she had ceased to love him, that if he put out a hand to touch her, she, who had craved his touch to the point of humiliation, would reject him, first as a woman rejecting a lover, then as an upper-class woman rejecting an upstart.
Bernie Slatkin was a man who examined his feelings, right at the moment of experiencing them. Within him, he held on to a strange feeling that he did not recognize, not letting it escape until he understood it. What is this feeling, he thought? It was not a pleasant feeling. And then its meaning came to him. It was loss, he realized. He repeated the word to himself. Loss.
“Do you think in time we could be friends, Justine?” he asked.
“No,” she replied.
“I wanted to stay married, and you didn’t, so we didn’t. Now you want to stay friends, and I don’t, so we won’t.”
Bernie nodded. “You’ve gotten tough, Justine,” he said.
“Don’t you think it’s about time?” she answered.
“When is Hubie’s funeral?” he asked.
“Tomorrow.”
“Where?”
“St. James’s.”
“Of course,” he said. St. James’s, where all the weddings, christenings, and funerals of the Van Degan family took place, and had always taken place. “What time?”
“It’s private,” said Justine. With that, she made her move and continued her way down Madison Avenue to Lorenza’s small shop to discuss the flowers. Peonies, she thought. Just white peonies.
Uncle Laurance made the decision that it would be far better for all concerned if there were no eulogy or hymns at the service, just the simple prayers for the dead, to be followed by cremation. Young Laurance, who would have been the logical person to make the eulogy, having been born the same year as his first cousin, was relieved by his father’s decision, because he and Hubie had never, for an instant, enjoyed each other’s company. Hubie’s father, Hubert, was offended that he was not consulted in any of the arrangements, although he would have arrived at the same decisions arrived at by the Van Degan family. He did, however, in a show of assertion, let it be known that he intended to have his wife, Belinda, by his side in the family pew.
Lil Altemus, in the front row next to Justine, looked up at the rose window that Alice Grenville had given the church in memory of her son, and fanned herself with a letter she took from her bag. In the extreme summer heat the black linen dresses and black straw hats that she, Justine, Dodo, Janet, and other female members of the family wore looked wilted, and perspiration scents could be detected through deodorants, bath oils, powder, and perfume. “Wouldn’t you think they’d air-condition this church?”
“Yes, Mother,” said Justine.
“The peonies are lovely,” said Lil.
“Yes, Mother,” said Justine.
“There’s no one like Lorenza for flowers,” said Lil.
“Yes, Mother,” said Justine. She didn’t tell her mother the idea for the white peonies had been hers.
“Wouldn’t you know Belinda would wear white instead of black?” asked Lil.
“I think she looks very nice,” said Justine.
“Make sure you ask. Boy Fessenden back to the house afterward,” said Lil.
“Yes, Mother,” said Justine.
“And Gus Bailey. Didn’t I see Gus Bailey? Sweet of Gus to come.”
Juanito Perez walked up the center aisle to the front of the church where the small congregation of mourners were gathered in the front ten rows. He looked on both sides to see where to sit. Juanito nodded to Lil Altemus who took no notice of him, nor did Hubert Altemus, seated behind Lil and Justine with Belinda, when Juanito nodded to him. Juanito was not one for going unnoticed and genuflected, in the Catholic manner, and crossed himself in the abbreviated fashion of a former altar boy, a point of his forefinger to his brow, his chest, his left shoulder, and then his right. “Name of the Father, Son, Holy Ghost,” he could be heard whispering. Lourdes Perez, Lil Altemus’s ladies’ maid and sometime confidante, had never until that moment laid eyes on the lover of Hubie Altemus, and was aghast to realize he was the runaway son of her brother, Duarte, in Puerto Rico. Lourdes dropped her eyes and concentrated on her rosary, although she was in an Episcopal church.
“Who is that man with the diamond in his ear?” asked Lil.
“That’s Juanito, Mother,” answered Justine.
“What’s he doing here? Who asked him?”
“You don’t have to be invited to a funeral, Mother. A church is a public place. And he has as much right to be here as we have.”
Dodo Fitz Alyn Van Degan, who could be counted on to annoy everyone in the family, waved a little wave at Juanito and signaled him to sit next to her, while Laurance and young Laurance and their wives looked straight ahead as if they were unaware of his presence.
Behind them all, Ezzie Fenwick, who never missed a funeral, and enjoyed social drama above all else, nudged Matilda Clarke and Cora Mandell not to miss the family snub of Juanito Perez.
“I do not want that man back at my house afterward, Justine,” said Lil, measuring her words.
“I’m not going to tell him that, Mother,” answered Justine.
“Tell Uncle Laurance to handle it,” said Lil. “One thing, we’ll never have to hear from him again.”
“That’s what you think, Mother,” said Justine.
“What do you mean by that?” asked Lil. The minister, the Reverend Doctor Harcourt, Adele Harcourt’s nephew, came out onto the altar.
“Hubie left everything to Juanito, Mother,” said Justine, quietly, picking up the book of psalms in front of her in the pew.
“What?” said Lil, in a voice loud enough that all the Van Degans heard her. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper. “You must be mad. Hubie wouldn’t have done anything like that.”
“Will you please rise?” asked Reverend Harcourt.
Justine lifted up the book of psalms and did not reply to her mother.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” said Reverend Harcourt, and the small congregation read along with him. Lil Altemus acted out giving her full attention to the service, but she was only half listening.
“Did you know Hubie Altemus?” Ezzie Fenwick asked Babs Mallett at Baba Timson’s party.
“Yes,” said Babs. “They lived near us in the country growing up.”
“He died, you know.”
“Yes, I know. Poor Hubie. Sort of a lost soul, didn’t you think?”
“He didn’t leave a thing to his family. Not even a memento.”
“Oh, dear.”
“All that furniture, all those pictures, and the silver were all Van Degan things his mother gave him. They say Lil is furious, all that family furniture going to that friend of his, Juanito quelquechose. Wears an earring.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Now, this is what I call a perfect crème brûlée.”
“I don’t understand how Herkie Saybrook could have allowed this to happen,” said Lil.
“Allowed what to happen, Mother?” asked Justine, who knew perfectly well what her mother was talking about.
“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about,” snapped Lil. “Those Charles the Tenth chairs came from the Altemus side via Aunt Minnie Willoughby. Imagine that ghastly Juanito having them.”
Justine had heard the conversation over and over again since the reading of the will in Uncle Laurance’s office. She had pretended not to hear when Uncle Laurance called Juanito “your brother’s catamite.”
“I’ve known Herkie Saybrook all his life,” Lil continued, with or without a reply from Justine. “His mother and I came out the same year. He should have told us that Hubie was going to leave everything to Juanito whateverhisnameis, and we could have done something about it.”
“It’s what’s called client privilege, I believe. Hubie hired Herkie. Hubie paid Herkie.”
“But Herkie Saybrook is one of us,” said Lil.
“So was Hubie, Mother,” replied Justine.
Lil turned away from her daughter.
“I’ll never speak to Herkie again,” she said, after a moment. “I think Uncle Laurance should talk to him about this will. I also think Uncle Laurance should have him put out of the Butterfield. I never liked him anyway. Arrogant.”
“You wouldn’t have minded if I’d married him at one time, I seem to remember,” said Justine.
“Let’s not get into whom you should and should not have married, if you please. I can only concentrate on one thing at a time.”
“What are you concentrating on now, Mother?”
“I’m concentrating on that horrible man with the earring performing unspeakable acts in Grandmother Van Degan’s bed from the house in Newport.”