O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [34]
Amanda was startled by Daisy’s sudden show of purpose.
“It has been two years since you and your father came to your understandings, but I can see the wheels in your mind once more in motion. You are about to test the waters again, aren’t you, my dear?”
Amanda reddened.
“When one is eighteen,” Daisy said, “there is nothing to compare to the awakening. A roll in the hay against a boy’s strong body, a canoe ride over the lake and down the river.”
“That’s enough, Mother!”
“There’s nothing like first love, I agree . . . I almost remember.”
“Zachary is shanty Irish, an enlisted, Marine-barrack-raised Catholic, the lowest class of merde in the realm,” Amanda snapped, coming to her feet and knocking over her teacup. “Don’t bother!”
“Sit down!” her mother commanded.
She did, with aggravated stiffness and tightly locked teeth.
“Bank your rage, young lady. Do not use the Constitution Ball as a challenge to Horace Kerr.”
Daisy could tell by the look on Amanda’s face that she had read the situation accurately. “You are spoiling for a fight you cannot win. Horace Kerr has too many weapons in his arsenal, too much artillery, too many regiments, too much firepower.”
Amanda slipped back into her chair and tried to pour herself tea, but was too shaky. Daisy did it for her, calmly, and her mother’s calm ruffled her.
“You were, what, seven when you made your first stand?”
“I hardly remember it,” Amanda said.
“Like hell,” Daisy retorted. “You remember every moment of it and you have found and mastered ways to hold Horace at bay ever since, but while that was happening, he lost the family game badly.”
“Are we going to—”
“Yes, we are going to,” Daisy interrupted. “You are clever and you are courageous and I believe quite ruthless, like your father. Over the course he’s had to pasture out an entire clan fit for nothing but racing boats and cashing checks. And, your brother and sister as well.”
Even though she was a female, Amanda felt, early on, that she held the future of the Kerr family. She’d never seen her mother quite like this and it was disturbing.
“As I said, Amanda, I do not take you for stupid. It’s all yours, unless you push him too far. You will lose the game, endure cruel punishment and the precious freedom you’ve carved.”
Amanda fought back. “All my life I’ve watched the daughters of all our proper friends bounce out on the stage like painted puppets being manipulated by their parents working the strings. All of them too frightened to rebel against a system that stamps them out like so many dolls from a doll factory.”
“How very sad for them,” Daisy mocked. “But even bound by the rules, maybe there are five girls on this planet as fortunate as you are.”
“What about you, Mother?” Amanda threw out defensively.
“Huh, I was served up by my family to consecrate the banking end of the business. I learned, very early on, your father was driven by more ambition and lust than any one woman could cope with.”
“And you let him have his doxies?”
“Hell, he probably left the bed of a mistress to marry me. There were times I was delighted to discover that he was too used up to try to get close to me.”
“If this is my welcome to the way things really are, aren’t there some things we need to share?”
“Amanda, you are cleverly tilting this conversation away from its subject.”
“Mother,” Amanda started slowly. “Six months ago, you and I were going into the city for fittings. I waited for you in your apartment, as always, and I idled through your bookshelves. I happened on a book of poetry with a rose pressed in it, nothing more, except it lay on a page of desperately declared love.”
Daisy lowered her eyes.
“Well?”
“Your father is a bit of a brawler in bed and I had never really known a gentle man before. He was English, actually. I met him on my first trip to England. He was, of all things, a theatrical producer with a wife, children, and later, grandchildren. He passed away a few years ago.”
“Oh, Mother,” Amanda said compassionately.
“Obviously we carried out our trysts with extreme discretion. He knew