“Who hasn’t? Warren, don’t worry so much.”
“Well, I might have to delay running for the state Senate.”
“Why?” Ansley wanted Warren in Richmond as much as possible. She intended to work nonstop for his election.
“Might look bad.”
“No, it won’t. You tell the voters you’re dedicating this campaign to your father, a man who believed in self-determination.”
Admiring her shrewdness, he said, “Poppa would have liked that. You know, it’s occurred to me these last few days that I’m raising my sons the way Poppa raised me. I was packed off to St. Clement’s, worked here for the summers, and then it was off to Vanderbilt. Maybe the boys should be different—maybe something wild for them like”—he thought—“Berkeley. Now that I’m the head of this family, I want to give my sons more freedom.”
“If they want to attend another college, fine, but let’s not push them into it. Vanderbilt has served this family well for a long time.” Ansley loved her sons although she despised the music they blasted throughout the house. No amount of yelling convinced them they’d go deaf. She was sure she was half deaf already.
“Did you really like my father?”
“Why do you ask me that now, after eighteen years of marriage?” She was genuinely surprised.
“Because I don’t know you. Not really.” He gazed at the horses on the far side of the track, for he couldn’t look at her.
“I thought that’s the way your people did things. I didn’t think you wanted to be close.”
“Maybe I don’t know how.”
Too late now, she thought to herself. “Well, Warren, one step at a time. I got along with Wesley, but it was his way or no way.”
“Yep.”
“I did like what he printed on his checks.” She recited verbatim: “These funds were generated under the free enterprise system despite government’s flagrant abuse of the income tax, bureaucratic hostilities, and irresponsible controls.”
Warren’s eyes misted. “He was tough duty, but he was clear about what he thought.”
“We’ll know even more about that at the reading of the will.”
25
The reading of the will hit Warren like a two-by-four. Wesley had prepared his will through the old prestigious firm of Maki, Kleiser, and Maki. Not that Warren minded. It would be indelicate to have your son prepare your will. Still, he wasn’t prepared for this.
A clause in his father’s will read that no money could ever be inherited by any Randolph of any succeeding generation who married a person who was even one-twentieth African.
Ansley laughed. How absurd. Her sons weren’t going to marry women from Uganda. Her sons weren’t even going to marry African Americans, quadroons, octoroons, no way. Those boys weren’t sent to St. Clements to be liberals and certainly not to mix with the races—the calendar be damned.
Warren, ashen when he heard the clause, sputtered, “That’s illegal. Under today’s laws that’s illegal.”
Old George Kleiser neatly stacked his papers. “Maybe. Maybe not. This will could be contested, but who would do that? Let it stand. Those were your father’s express wishes.” Apparently George thought the proviso prudent, or perhaps he subscribed to the let-sleeping-dogs-lie theory.
“Warren, you aren’t going to do anything about this? I mean, why would you?”
As if in a trance, Warren shook his head. “No—but, Ansley, if this gets out, there go my chances for the state Senate.”
George’s stentorian voice filled the room. “Word of this, uh, consideration will never leave this room.”
“What about the person who physically prepared the will?” Warren put his foot in it.
George, irritated, glided over that remark as he made allowances for Warren’s recent loss. He’d known Warren since infancy, so he knew the middle-aged man in front of him was unprepared to take the helm of the family’s great, though dwindling, fortune. “Our staff is accustomed to sensitive issues, Warren. Issues of life and death.”
“Of course, of course, George—I’m just flabbergasted. Poppa never once spoke of anything like this to me.”
“He was a genteel racist instead of an overt one.” Ansley wanted to put the subject out of her mind and couldn’t see why Warren was so upset.
“And aren’t you?” Warren fired back.
“Not as long as we don’t intermarry. I don’t believe in mixing the races. Other than that, people are people.” Ansley shook off Warren’s barb.
“Ansley, you must promise me never, never, no matter how angry you may become with me or the boys—after all, people do rub one another’s nerves—but you must never repeat what you’ve heard in this room today. I don’t want to lose my chance because Poppa had this thing about racial purity.”
Ansley promised never to tell.
26
But she did. She told Samson.
The early afternoon sun slanted across Blair Bainbridge’s large oak kitchen table. Tulips swayed outside the long windows, and the hyacinths would open in a few days if this welcome warmth continued.
“I’m not surprised,” Samson told Ansley. “The old man made a lifetime study of bloodlines, and to him it would be like crossing a donkey with a Thoroughbred.” Then he smirked. “Of course, who is the donkey and who is the Thoroughbred?”
She held his hand as she sipped her hot chocolate. “It seems so—extreme.”
Samson shrugged. The contents of Wesley’s will held scant interest for him. Another twenty minutes and he would have to hit the road. His stomach knotted up each time he left Ansley. “Say, I’ve got people coming in from California to look at Midale. Think I’ll show them some properties in Orange County too. Awful pretty up there and not so developed. If I can sell Midale, I’ll have some good money.” He pressed his other hand on top of hers. “Then you can leave Warren.”
Ansley stiffened. “Not while he’s in mourning for his father.”
“After that. Six months is a reasonable period of time. I can set my house in order and you can do the same.”
“Honey”—she petted his hand—“let’s leave well enough alone—for now. Lulu will skin you alive and in public. There’s got to be a way around her, but I haven’t found it yet. I keep hoping she’ll find someone, she’ll make life easier—but she has too much invested in being the wronged woman. And that scene at Big Daddy’s funeral. My God.”
Samson coughed. The knot in his stomach grew tighter. “Just one of those things. She leaned over to whisper in my ear and said she smelled another woman’s perfume. I don’t know what got into her.”
“She knows my perfume, Diva. Anyway, when we’re together I don’t wear any perfume.”
“Natural perfume.” He kissed her hand in his.
She kissed him on the cheek. “Samson, you are the sweetest man.”
“Not to hear my wife tell it.” He sighed and bowed his head. “I don’t know how much longer I can stand it. I’m living such a lie. I don’t love Lulu. I’m tired of keeping up with the Joneses, who can’t keep up with themselves. I’m tired of being trapped in my car all day with strangers and no matter what they tell you they want to buy, they really want the opposite. I swear it. Buyers are liars, as my first broker used to say. I don’t know how long I can hold out.”
“Just a little longer, precious.” She nibbled on his ear. “Was there another woman’s perfume on your neck?”
He sputtered, “Absolutely not. I don’t even know where she came up with that. You know I don’t even look at other women, Ansley.” He kissed her passionately.