Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (130 page)

Nobody was about to see what had happened, for which I was supremely grateful. Well, I thought, turning away, I would have to take pains to avoid poor Bobo as much as possible. She seemed to have it in mind to use me as either a confidante or a drinking companion. I didn’t care to be either.

I was back at the breakfast dishes when Peter returned. He took a dishtowel off the rack and started wiping. “She okay?” I asked.

“Yup. On her own bed, where she belongs. Jan, I hope you won’t feel unkindly toward her.”

“Good heavens, why should I? I’m just sorry for her problem. Or her problems.”

“We all have plenty of those,” he said. “Now how about getting dressed and we’ll go somewhere.”

“I don’t know whether I’m up to it.”

“So you
are
upset about this.”

“Not for the wrong reasons. I mean, I’m not judging anyone. It just brings back a time when I had a bad thing in my life, and almost got lushy myself.”

“How’d you escape it?” he asked.

“Discipline. I couldn’t afford to stay home and indulge myself. Jobless was out. I had to work.”

“Yes,” he said. “There’s nothing like that nine o’clock deadline to get you out of bed. There’s plenty to be said for good, honest toil.”

He put the towel back on the rack and asked me where I’d like to go for a few hours.

“I really don’t think I should go anywhere with you, Peter. Eric won’t be here this week-end. Or next. Or probably the next. He’s abroad, on business, and somehow it doesn’t seem kosher for me to gad about with another man.”

“Well I’m not a stranger. I won’t twist your arm, but I hope you’re not going to hole up and play Penelope waiting for Ulysses. You’re supposed to be on vacation, aren’t you?”

“Yes, of course, and I guess I’m being stupid. All right, Peter, we’ll go anywhere you say.”

“That’s a sensible girl.”

“You don’t mind if I just run up first and say hello to Caroline?”

“Not at all. It’s nice of you. I wouldn’t have thought of it.”

“Well, I like her.”

“Is that a discreet rebuke? I have nothing against Caroline, I told you that. It’s just that she’s simply there, like the scenery.”

“I understand that, but it’s different for me. She’s part of your world, but not mine. To me she’s a new, valued friend, and I’m here because of her.”

He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me so that I faced him. “You and I don’t live on different planets. This your world and my world bit. Why shouldn’t you be part of my world? Can’t you consider giving it at least a fleeting thought?”

“That’s a funny question.”

“I didn’t say it to be funny.”

“If not funny, then academic. And not at all pertinent.”

“Please don’t speak for me,” he said. “I’m not generally considered a scrounger for other men’s women, but I insist on the right to put in
some
kind of word for myself. You’re, as yet, a single lady.”

I tried not to be flustered, but I was. His face was so serious and intent, and although he hadn’t stuck his neck out very far, he had still made some sort of vague declaration. He had put me on notice, more or less.

“If we’re going somewhere I’d better get dressed,” I said hastily. “Want to wait outside while I shower and change?”

“No,” he said, smiling. “I have no intention of breaking down your bedroom door. You’re quite safe.”

He put a hand out, riffled my hair, and gave me a push. “Run along now, and don’t be too long. I’ll be out on the patio.”

“Heat up the coffee if you want some,” I said, and left him, saying I wouldn’t be long.

I wasn’t. Nothing to be done to your face if you’re tan; all I had to do after my shower was get into pants and a shirt, sling a shoulder bag over my arm, and I was presentable.

We didn’t go to Caroline’s right away, because Peter wanted me to see his house. “About time you dropped in. Seen Kath’s or Garry’s yet?”

“No, but it doesn’t seem to matter.”

“You’re so right, nothing much to see in any of them except for Caroline’s. Just the usual summer shacks, no Sir Joshua Reynolds hanging on the walls. Sea air would have a deleterious effect. Also insurance doesn’t cover long risks. So there’s nothing much to steal. If it were possible, they’d all surround themselves eternally — even when supposed to be summering in casual comfort — with every luxury imaginable. The Lestranges never did keep a low profile.”

“You’re talking about your family, Peter.”

“I know. They’re mine and I’m stuck with them. But I can’t be blamed for them, can I?”

Peter’s family’s house was filled with as many luxuries as
I
could possibly want at any time, anywhere. To someone who lives in a studio apartment with no bedroom and far from enough space, it was a palace. They were all palaces to me, only Caroline’s was a kind of Xanadu, not only luxurious but imaginative, even thrilling.

I told him his family’s house was lovely, and that I personally was very fond of the Colonial look. “It’s really done quite to my taste,” I told him. “It gives me a nice feeling about your parents, Peter.”

“Yes,” he said, “actually my parents are the best of the lot. Dad’s a very handsome man, but he’s never been a girl-chaser, except, I guess, when he was a young blood, and Mom’s frankly unstylish, no hair coloring, and quite matronly. She likes good, old, designer clothes. She treats them like friends, wears them for ten or twelve years and almost cries when they’re at last worn out. My parents are simple people, believe it or not, and my mother’s considered hopelessly dowdy by the rest of the clan.”

“They do sound like nice people.”

“They are, and they produced at least one sterling son.”

“Which of your two brothers is that?”

“Me,” he said, sideswiping my hair, and then admitted that his brother Lewis was a great guy too. He hunted up Lucy, their housekeeper, and introduced her to me. She was a capable looking, Cockney-speaking, middle-aged woman in her late forties, and she said she would be glad to make some sandwiches for us before we went into the pool.

“We’re not going to the pool,” Peter told her. “I’m taking Jan out for a drive somewhere. She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

“Very pretty,” Lucy said, laughing. “Have a good time,” she called after us.

We went out side and headed for Caroline’s. Peter turned then and gestured toward his house. “All this could be yours some day,” he said solemnly. “Should you decide to give up your mad infatuation for what’s-his-name.”

“Stop snowing me, you joker,” I said, and we rang Caroline’s doorbell.

• • •

If Peter was chagrined about Caroline and Anthony’s joining us, he didn’t show it. As soon as we got to Caroline’s, and she learned that Eric was not going to be on the premises for a while, she said, “Oh, my poor dear, I’m so sorry. Now, to make up for it, why doesn’t Peter take us all some place perfectly delightful? Dear Peter, you’re a godsend. We shall have an elysian day, all four of us. How lovely!”

Peter’s only sign of disappointment was a rueful little smile. And of course it was Caroline who sat in the front seat of his Lancia. Anthony and I sat in the back.

Peter drove at random: it was a brilliant, crisp, dry day with the sun calling for tinted glasses. Caroline was the kind of person who keeps pointing out interesting bits on the road, waiting until everyone’s said, “Yes, remarkable,” or “Isn’t it
gorgeous?”

And then she’d settle back in her seat until the next fascinating bit of watchworthy scenery, or person, or vehicle came along. She was a little like a child, being treated to an outing with the grownups; I wondered how much time the other Lestranges devoted to her, deciding, in view of all she had said, that it wasn’t considerable.

We stopped off at the Inn at Napeague for a hearty lunch. Two cocktails apiece, brandy with our coffee, and Caroline and I had a long heart to heart in the ladies’ room. She was a little mellow from the liquor.

“You have snagged Peter,” she announced, powdering her face.

I said, “What?”

“Oh, don’t be
arch,”
she cried. “You know very well how the land lies. As for me … why, it’s an open and shut case. Peter
never
comes out here after the Fourth … and here he is, squiring you about.”

“I thought he spent the summers here like everyone else.”

“He’s
young
. Why should he languish out here, where there’s nothing? And don’t try to dodge the issue, Jennie. You know very well he’s soft for you, so don’t try to be hedgy.” She snapped the compact shut and sat back triumphantly.

“You’ve made a conquest,” she said, with finality.

“He’s just being nice.”

“Young people don’t have any time to be nice. They’re too busy wanting what they want.”

She pulled out a pocket mirror and began outlining her lips with a red pencil. Then she filled in the rest with the lipstick. After that, she took a tissue, blotted the red, and dropped mirror, outliner and lipstick into her big handbag.

“I couldn’t be more pleased about this development,” she said, now closing the handbag with a bang.

“Caroline, it doesn’t
mean
anything,” I said helplessly.

“Twaddle,” she replied.

“What about Eric? I thought you said you liked him.”

She hesitated. “Well, Eric, yes,” she finally said. “Yes, of course. And he is a remarkable young man, and most attractive.”

“Well, there you are,” I said. “There’s Eric, and that’s that.”

“Nothing is ever that’s that,” she said sagely. “Take it from one who knows. Man proposes, God disposes. There’s no plan of life, Jennie. Things change inside a minute. As you’re bound to find out.”

“But I don’t want them to change,” I said.

“What we want and what we’re dealt are two different things. Do you think I wanted to get old? Yet I got old. Do you think I ever wanted bad things to happen? But they happened. And all the good things that happened; why, I didn’t
plan
for them to happen. You can’t make a graph of your life, Jennie.”

She got up, smoothed her skirt and grasped her handbag.

“You remember what I’ve said,” she told me at the door.

“Fair enough,” I replied, and we went out to join the others.

Next morning I got up at the ungodly hour of seven and, instead of crawling right back in bed when I saw the time, decided to stay up. I thought that if I started snoozing again I would in all likelihood brood about Eric’s not being here this week-end, and end up feeling badly.

I went to the kitchen and put on coffee.

Apparently it was too uncivilized an hour even for Tom; he didn’t show up, and, after doing up my dishes, I got into beach wear and clambered down the hill.

It was quiet and peaceful and deserted, with a blue sky overhead daubed by vaporous clouds, and sandpipers darting over the beach.

I didn’t stay in the water long, just long enough to salt my body, and then lie on the sand to deepen my tan. I lay on my back, still and unmoving, and a kind of serenity stole over me. I loved young Tom Lestrange, but this, I felt, was a morning to be alone, to commune only with myself, and with nature.

I must have fallen asleep, but was awakened by a sound. I woke abruptly, and I knew that someone was climbing down the hill. Resigning myself, I raised my head, expecting to see Tom.

It was Anthony Cavendish.

He walked toward me, his shadow following him like an imprint on the fine, white sand, and from my prone position he seemed to loom larger than life, with a kind of startling grandeur, looking stupendously tall, lofty even, like an Olympian, a splendid, golden god.

Why must I think in these absurd and trite terms, I asked myself crossly. Put him in a bowler hat and business suit and he’d be just another upper class Briton. It was the Basque shirt, the long, finely-muscled arms, and the almost naked body which gave him his aura of the moment.

“Thought I might find you here,” he said, and dropped down beside me onto the sand. He did it without effort, every movement coordinated, a union of grace and agility.

“Hello,” I said, almost angrily.

“Caroline’s a bit under the weather today. A migraine.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“She prefers me out of the house. She’s very much a woman; she doesn’t care to be seen except at her best.”

“That’s only natural.”

“She has some super pills for it. Something that sounds Irish. Fiona? At any rate, something like that. I don’t suppose you would know about migraines? Being so young and fair. All that’s in the far off future for someone of your tender age, I daresay.”

“Youth isn’t forever,” I reminded him.

“Ah, but we mustn’t think of that, must we?”

“Maybe once in a while we should.”

“Love, must we be macabre on this heavenly day?”

Any American man talking that way would be instantly pegged as a fag. Swish talk. But it was also British talk. Coming from Anthony Cavendish, it didn’t sound swish. Affected, yes. But not flouncy.

Americans, I thought, were so nice and
blunt
.

Yet as always I reacted, reluctantly, to his clipped accent and resonant voice. Perhaps if his range had been tenor rather than baritone? But the fact remained that it
was
baritone, very masculine — as he was.

“I’m trying to get as brown as possible,” I said brusquely. “You’ll forgive me for not gabbing, I hope.”

“I’d forgive you a great deal, love,” he said.

When I peered up at him he was smiling, looking amused, as if he sensed I was fighting his proximity. As if he knew he had an effect on me … an effect I resisted … and all that was amusing and entertaining to him.

“Thanks,” I said, shortly, and turned over onto my stomach.

Then there was total silence. For a long, long time.

In that long time, instead of being grateful to him for allowing me to lie in the position I had chosen, without interference on his part or any attempt at conversation, I was instead restless, even jumpy. I was too
conscious
of him. I could have lain for hours like this if it had been Tom or Peter. I would have forgotten their presence totally.