By The Sea, Book Two: Amanda (6 page)

"It would be stretching my imagination to
picture you giving away your elegant Speedster to that bunch of
urchins crowded around it right now," he snapped. Hell and
damnation; he'd let her get to him after all. This round was hers.
Shit.

Her face looked as if she'd landed a lucky
punch: surprised, impressed, hesitant about her next move. "So
there
is
a pulse under that British decorum," she said at
last. "I wondered."

"I can be quite obnoxious if you'd prefer,"
said Geoff. "But I see no—"

A hand came down on his shoulder. Geoff
turned in his chair to see a dark-skinned East European with a
thick black beard trimmed close staring down at him. "We have met
before, have we not?" asked the visitor.

"I think not, answered Geoff politely.

"Lajos, this is Geoffrey," said Amanda,
waving a cigarette between them, keeping it informal.

Geoff began to rise for the introduction,
but the European waved him back down. He turned to Amanda. "We have
missed you at our last gathering, Miss Fain. I hope you seem
well."

"Fine, Lajos. I was working on a piece, but
it's finished now. I'll be at the next meeting."

"It will be our honor." He turned to Geoff.
"I have not intend to interfere. Please go on." With a stiff bow to
Amanda, he left them to the remnants of their meal.

"Nice chap," said Geoff. "Has a real way
with words."

"A cheap shot. I'm surprised," said Amanda,
putting out her cigarette in a battered tin dish.

Embarrassed, he accepted the rebuke. "You're
right, of course. Perhaps we ought to call it a night before I
become a total savage." He gave her an ironical, weary smile.

"Oh, forget it," she said angrily.

But back in the car she seemed willing to do
anything but. "I can't believe how true to stereotype you are.
You've just spent a whole evening looking down your nose over a
stiff upper lip at a cross-section of America. You're so
typically
class-oriented."

"You have no idea how typical my
orientations are," he said tiredly. She was so relentless. He
stared ahead, wondering how much longer it was to the Plaza.

"Sir Tom gave me a bum steer," she
complained. "He said you were a very ordinary guy."

"I wish I could oblige." After a minute he
added, "I'm surprised you trust the opinion of a knight of the
realm."

"Knight of the realm! Who can take seriously
someone who calls himself 'Sir Tommy Tea'?"

"You take everything else seriously," he
reminded her.

"Like what?"

"In order of appearance? Your brother, your
father, your sculpture, your Daniels, your gin, your Bolshie
friends, and most of all—yourself."

"That's
not
funny, pal!"

"I rest my case."

"You ungrateful—you pompous ass!" She
brought the Speedster to a screeching halt. "Get out."

"Why do I have this feeling of
déjà
vu?"

"Get out, get out, get out!"

He did, closing the door gently after him.
"Good night, Miss Fain. I do appreciate your showing me the ropes.
So to speak."

She roared off and he was left alone and
grinning on a city street next to a small park. Whistling quietly
to himself, he detoured behind a thick bush, where he unfastened
his trousers and let loose with a long, thin stream into the
greenery.

"I guess I win," he murmured with a
complacent smile.

Social historians have written that
Newport's Gilded Age ended with the war. For one thing, the
greatest among its
grandes dames
had succumbed to the very
real pressures of entertaining nonstop. Mrs. John Jacob Astor
("The" Mrs. Astor to the Newport Postal Service) had died years
earlier, an unhinged recluse who'd taken to wandering around
Beechwood, her elegant Newport cottage, talking with imaginary
guests. Tessie Oelrichs, too, continued to entertain long after her
guests no longer came: alone and pathetic, she drifted through the
vast rooms of romantic Rosecliff serving champagne to ghosts of
Society past.

And poor Mamie Fish. She suffered a fatal
heart attack brought on in part by the frustration of having to
break in yet another butler in time for yet another party. Alva
Vanderbilt Belmont lived to dominate her daughter Consuelo during
her unhappy marriage abroad, but she never returned to Newport or
Marble House. The great white elephant cottages lay empty, having
lost their staffs to the war industry, their hostesses to the
ravages of one-upmanship. What could possibly replace them in the
public's fancy?

The movies, that was what. D. W. Griffith
had invented the close-up, and the sight of Mary Pickford and
Douglas Fairbanks larger than life on the silver screen proved far
more entrancing than the black and white print of
The New York
Times
society page. The art of illusion had replaced the real,
decadent thing for Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Citizen. Who cared if the
jewels were fake and the backdrop painted? (By 1919 a Hollywood
feature film might cost $125,000—the price of a ball in Newport a
quarter-century earlier.) Newport Society had been hell-bent on
notoriety, but it was upstaged.

Not that Newport rolled over and died after
the war, but the most flagrant excesses were over. In June
entourages still arrived from New York, but the motorcades were not
as long. In July balls were still held, but they were more elegant
than extravagant. In August attendance at the Newport Casino during
Tennis Week was still
de rigueur,
although the national
tournament had long since moved to Forest Hills. The rich in
Newport were more discreet about enjoying their wealth—but it was
definitely still theirs to enjoy.

Matt Stevenson was a socialite whose sole
occupation was to manage the money he inherited. For that he had an
office in New York and salaried employees; he was free for tennis
and golf most anytime. Not long after he met Geoff at the ferry
landing, he had his friend decked out in plus fours and driving off
the first tee at the Newport Country Club.

"So you've come all the way over just to
root for the old man and his
Shamrock,
hey? Well, well, I
won't let it get around."

"Will I be run out of town if it does?"
Geoff asked, slicing his ball into the rough.

"From
this
town, certainly. Lipton
may be the choice of the proletariat in the mill towns, but you're
walking on the hallowed lawns of super-patriots. It's in the air;
has been, ever since the war. "

"Thanks for the tip."

The next day found them on the clay tennis
court of Matt's lovely Victorian stick-house at the ocean end of
Newport. Geoff, at a disadvantage in the July heat so unlike his
cool, damp England, lost two straight sets. He began to think life
might be easier in New York.

"Why are you
really
over here,
Geoff?" asked Matt later as he poured drinks on the shaded
veranda.

Geoff leaned back in his wooden lounge
chair, tore his gaze away from the blue ocean at the foot of the
rolling lawn, and put on a comic leer. In a heavily Slavic accent
he said, "I vant a vooman. Rich vooman," he said, rolling his r's
devilishly.

"The old homestead needs a new roof, I take
it?" asked Matt.

"Something like that," Geoff answered. "Did
you know that a decade ago it was estimated that a few hundred
American heiresses had combined to export two hundred twenty
million dollars in dowries abroad? That could affect your country's
balance of payments. And, of course," he added wryly, "Seton
Place's."

"They're still around, the heiresses. But
there's been a backlash against the selling of white flesh for an
empty title; it's not the same as before the war," said Matt,
crossing his feet on the stone banister.

"I can't imagine why not," said Geoff.
"Divorce is so common nowadays. The beautiful white slave gets to
dump the man but keep the title—which is all she wanted in the
first place—while the young Count skulks back to the Black Forest
with nothing but the clothes on his back. I call it bloody unfair
to the fortune hunters," he added ruefully.

Matt laughed. After a comfortable silence he
said, "Must your prospect be well-born?"

Geoff shrugged. "I don't care. My mother
might."

"Oh, indeed. Otherwise, I'd have a prospect
for you. The little 'cottage' I pointed out that's just been
sold?"

"The one with a dozen bedrooms overlooking
the sea? What about it?"

"'Beau Rêve' went—for a song I might add—to
a very shrewd and very single businesswoman. She hasn't moved in,
yet, of course. But the Avenue is agog over the transaction."

"Because?"

"Yup, there's a story, all right. As it
happens, she worked in the very same mansion when she landed here
as a girl from Ireland. As a laundry maid or a lady's maid, the
versions vary. Worked her way up from there—with the help of a
lover, of course. He shot himself, no one quite knows why, but he
left her well provided for. The rest, as they say, is history.
She's done well for herself, apparently, making a bundle in
textiles; she owns a string of mills in Fall River. Anyway, we do
know that she's never married. How old are you?"

"Must you ask?" Geoff said, reminded anew
that he was thirty-one and what a mess. "Just past the three-decade
mark."

"Hmm. No, it wouldn't really work. She must
be—doing the math—in her mid-forties. And then, of course, you do
have your mother's wishes to answer to."

"Or ignore."

"Oh, yeah. Just the way I do." Matt smiled
at his friend and tossed him a cigar. "So. Want me to line you up
with some of Newport's finest?"

"Actually, I wish you would. All I've been
able to come up with so far is a hopelessly ill-bred ruffian whose
money is so new it sizzles."

"Really! I don't suppose I know her?"

"Not a chance. The father's humming along
building ships for the Navy, but that's a hell of a volatile
industry; I have to wonder whether he won't fall on his face sooner
or later. The girl's a sculptor, and her brother works—when he
works—in the brokerage end of the company."

"Any extenuating circumstances for pursuing
the girl—extraordinary beauty, brilliant wit, loose morals?"

"No, no, and maybe. Really, she's not worth
mentioning. My encounter with her left me with an odd … afterburn,
that's all."

The following evening Mrs. Matthew Stevenson
was having an at-home. Geoff had his first real chance to look over
Newport's white slave market. On the whole, he found the offerings
reasonably presentable: pretty, bubbly, mostly blond, not a
Bolshevik among them. They were irreverent and high-
spirited—"frisky" and "coltish" came to mind. One or two played a
decent hand of bridge. Geoff decided to stay in Newport at least
another week.

The next day he strolled down to Thames
Street into a stationer's and bought a small index file with
alphabetical dividers. Under the name of each new debutante he met
during the next week, he sketched a brief physical description and
a profile of genealogy, expectations, education, likes, dislikes,
spoken and written languages, and favorite sports and foods. He
cross-referenced family connections, business associations, and
club memberships. It began as a game, a way to while away his quiet
hours and a basis for amusing his mother when he got back home, but
it ended as a scientific pursuit.

Gloria, for example. On an index card Gloria
looked impressive: good education (Concord Academy, Pembroke); good
skills (watercolorist, floral themes—Newport Art Association); good
athlete (equestrienne, Polo Club); good voice (choir, Trinity
Church); good family holdings (real estate, Florida, New York,
Rhode Island); good family memberships (Bailey's Beach, Reading
Room, Newport Country Club); good languages (French, smattering of
Italian); good personality (likes children, pets, Debussy,
Elizabeth B. Browning); good disposition (dislikes nothing, but
allergic to shellfish). And her stock was good for grafting: she
was tallish, with straight teeth, clear skin, slender hands, and
narrow feet. A son's mother's dream.

All he had to do was to stand in line, which
he had no intention of doing.

After a week he bid Gloria a more pensive
farewell than he felt, held her look a little longer than was
strictly necessary, and high-tailed it back to New York. He'd been
up to his ears in American gentility; he needed a breather.
Besides, he had promised Sir Tom he'd be aboard the
Victoria
with him, cheering his beloved
Shamrock.

Geoff headed back two days before the first
race, driving Matt Stevenson's superb new Brewster town car, which
he agreed to take back to his Manhattan townhouse for him. The
Brewster was everything that Amanda's flashy Daniels Speedster was
not: quietly elegant, comfortable, meticulously appointed, a
pleasure to drive. If Geoff had the money, he'd consider one for
himself.

He decided to take the long way back, just
to draw out the driving experience. Up along the bay and eventually
through Fall River he cruised, past dozens and dozens of mighty
mills—America at its most industrious. He'd not seen anything like
it. Huge buildings with many hundreds of windows to let in passive
light, virtually all of them built of granite, enough of them to
rival anything in the mill towns in the north of England, were
crammed cheek by jowl. Knitting mills, cotton mills, hat mills,
leather mills; mills that produced fabric for curtains and drapes
and clothing for both sexes and their children in every class of
society: it was an incredible concentration of manpower and
economic muscle.

One, newer than all the rest, caught his eye
because its signage was more prominent than most: Moran Mills. He
drove past at least three other large mills boldly blazoned with
the name "Moran" and a fourth older and smaller one, whose more
modest sign said simply "Moran Millinery". Wouldn't it be ironic if
the mills were owned by Matt's Irish laundress? Geoff resolved to
get her name the next time he saw his friend. In any event, whoever
this Moran was, the person was clearly raking it in.