he'd left the next room. He hadn't answered her in several minutes.
“Clayton?” She walked into the room in one of the lace nightgowns he'd bought her the year before in Paris. She gave a gasp as she saw him, slumped on the floor, as though he had fallen, and she ran to his side, and gently rolled him onto his back. But he stared at her with unseeing eyes. “Clayton! Clayton! …” She began to sob as she shouted his name, she slapped his face, she tried to pull him across the floor, as though anything she did might revive him. But he didn't move, he didn't see, and he could no longer hear her. Clayton Andrews had died of a heart attack, the shock of the crash too much, the prospect of losing everything more than he could bear, and as she sank to her knees and cried as she held his head on her lap, she looked down at him in disbelief. The man that she had loved was dead. He had left her. Desolate, and alone, and poor again, the dream that had become her life was suddenly a nightmare.
CHAPTER
31
“Mama, why did Papa die?” Sasha looked up at Zoya with her huge blue eyes, as they rode back from the cemetery in the Hispano-Suiza. Everyone in New York had come, but Zoya had scarcely seen them. She felt as though she were in a daze as she stared down at the child, her heavy black veil concealing her face, her hands in black gloves, with her children sitting in mute anguish beside her.
Nicholas had stood beside her at the funeral, a tiny man holding her arm, his own eyes filled with tears as the choir sang the agonizingly sweet “Ave Maria.” But there were others like him who had died in the past week, most by their own hand, but a few, like him, felled by the blow they couldn't endure. It wasn't fear, it was grief, but whatever it was, she had lost him.
“I don't know, sweetheart … I don't know why … he had a terrible shock, and … he went to be in heaven with God.” She choked on the words, as Nicholas watched her.
“Will he be with Uncle Nicky and Aunt Alix?” Nicholas asked quietly, and she looked at him. She had kept them alive for him, but to what end? What did it matter now? Everyone she had ever loved was gone … except her children. She pulled them close to her as she left the car, and hurried into the house ahead of the chauffeur. She had invited no one to the house, she didn't want to see anyone, didn't want to have to explain, to tell them anything. It was going to be bad enough to have to tell the children. She had decided to wait a few days, she had already told most of the servants that they were free to go. She was keeping only one maid and the nurse, she could cook for them herself. And the chauffeur was going to leave as soon as she sold the cars. He had promised to do everything he could to help her. He knew several people who had liked Clayton's Alfa Romeo and the Mercedes she used, and the Hispano-Suiza had been coveted by all. She only wondered if there was anyone left to buy them.
Old Sava came to her and licked her hand as though she knew, as Zoya sat next to the fire in their bedroom, staring at the spot where he had died only days before. It seemed incredible that he was gone … that Clayton was no more … and now there was so much for her to do. She had called their lawyers the day after he died, and they had promised to explain everything to her.
When they did, it was grim. It was as bad as Clayton had feared, and perhaps worse. His debts were absolutely enormous and there was no money left at all. The lawyers advised her to try to sell the house on Long Island at any price, with everything in it. She took their advice, and they put it on the market for her. She didn't even go back to get her things. She knew she couldn't have faced it. Everyone was doing much the same thing, the ones who weren't committing suicide, or abandoning their homes in the middle of the night, to avoid bills and mortgage payments.