Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (118 page)

Three of the big houses were closed and shuttered, giving them a brooding, somber look. One of them, however — the one on the northwest corner — was occupied, and its chatelaine was Caroline Lestrange Hallowell Muncie Comstock. And if the uninitiated knew little about other Lestranges, they knew plenty about Caroline Lestrange, whose fame was legendary.

She had been a most flamboyant personality in her time, an international beauty, as shameless and glorious as Tallulah, with her three marriages, and lovers galore, including princes, sheiks and the like. She had been a page, really, in amatory history, and had shuttered her life only recently because of advancing cataracts, arthritis, and an overall weariness.
Time
magazine, quoting her in a recent interview (on the occasion of her eightieth birthday) maintained that she called herself
désabusé
.

The French word was typical, for Caroline Lestrange had spent much of her youth in the City of Light, and it was a well-known conceit of hers to speak French whenever English would do. She was like the White Russians of Tolstoi’s time who were so enamored of the French tongue that they spoke it almost exclusively in the magnificent drawing rooms of St. Petersburg.

Désabusé
… there is really no comparable term in the English language. World-weary won’t quite do, nor will jaded, disillusioned. The French word will have to suffice, and it suited Caroline Lestrange, that anachronism in today’s world. A great lady … though she might have been promiscuous in her gilded youth.

It was she who had rented my cottage to me.

• • •

And that had been through a fluke. My very close friend Eric Sloane had noted a newspaper item concerning the Lestrange estate, an article which had followed closely on the heels of the
Time
spread. “Let’s have a look at the place,” he said. “We’ll make a weekend out of it.”

And so we did just that, on Memorial Day weekend, having lunch on the way and, arriving in the late afternoon in East Hampton, lucky to find a room at the Sea Spray Inn.

Next morning we had a late and hearty breakfast, browsed through already milling crowds of people who were enjoying their first spring week-end, did some souvenir shopping and then hunted up the Lestrange estate.

It wasn’t hard to find: we asked, and were told. In fact, we knew this part of the world fairly well. When we came to it, we saw at once that it wasn’t at all like the forbidding fortresses on the Island’s north shore where now — one is informed — Cosa Nostra families sequester themselves behind electrically-wired barricades. There was a girdling fence, but of white picket and more decorative than anything else, as well as a closed gate, but no
Do Not Enter … No Trespassing
signs.

All four houses were visible from where we stood, though partially screened, of course, by their surrounding shrubbery and the many shade trees. All of them had a Tudor aspect, with the obligatory timbering and gabling characteristic of that type of architecture, and off-center chimneys.

The grass needed cutting; it all seemed rather desolate, somehow, as if deserted, abandoned, no longer a living part of the environs. Yet it had a kind of haunting beauty. A great pear tree, newly in bloom, was luminous with starry white flowers of an aching loveliness, with a light powdering of fallen blossoms at its base.

“It looks as if it might be haunted,” I was commenting, when, out of the quiet, we heard a voice. I jumped, and Eric looked up sharply.

“Who’s there and what do you want?” the voice demanded.

We both saw her at the same time, and I recognized Caroline Lestrange from her pictures. There were still traces of her beauty left; she wore her hair the way she had always done, to the shoulders and with slight ripples of waves. It was almost more dark than white, and her face, though lined, was far from raddled. She still gave the impression of glamor, was slim, slight, and somehow striking still.

I had always pictured her as tall and statuesque, but she couldn’t have been more than five three or four. Naturally the arthritis had taken something from her height. But she really didn’t look more than in her middle or late sixties.

She was walking a dog, but it was no guard dog. It was a small Cairn terrier that looked itself as if it had seen younger days; its black coat was heavily streaked with gray. It was a dear little thing, but it was barking dutifully at us, bravely showing its teeth.

The voice came again. “Who
is
that?” the woman repeated, and I saw that she was nervous and apprehensive. At that point she broke into French.
“Allez-vous en,”
she cried, flapping a hand angrily, like someone shooing away a bothersome fly.
“Maintenant … tout de suite … allez-vous …”

She had met her match: my own French is quite advanced … my only linguistic talent. I was as vain about my French as about my legs: well, you have to have
some
ego. I rose to the occasion.

“Pardon, Madame,”
I said, with what I hoped was a winning smile.
“Nous ne vous voulons pas de mal. Nous regardons seulement. Comme c’est beau, Madame. Excusez-nous, je vous en prie.”

I saw her expression change to one of astonished pleasure, and was congratulating myself on the fact that my impulsive burst of virtuosity had clearly won the old woman over, when another voice suddenly cut the quiet. It was a deep, male voice, with what I took to be an “Island” accent.

“I will handle this, let me handle this,” the voice said, and then I saw him, appearing like a genie out of a bottle, coming lithely out from behind a tree.

An incredibly tall man, of no age I could pin down but far from old, and coffee-colored, a rich, sepia tone to his skin. He must have been six feet four or five, and he was massive in build.

But what struck me instantly was the dark glasses he wore which, on such a dark-skinned man and with his accented voice, made me think of the Ton Ton Macoutes of the Duvalier regime, those legal thugs whose very name brings terror to the citizens of Haiti.

Even Eric drew back with a quick distaste.

The big man started to brush past the woman, his face expressionless but enormously frightening. He was heading straight for us when the woman held up an authoritative hand in a quick, peremptory gesture, cutting short his progress.

She said,
“Non, c’est très bien. Je peux me debrouiller. Il me semble qu’ils ne sont pas très dangereux.”

“Alors,”
he replied, in a dark, sonorous voice,
“On n’ sait jamais,”
tried again to go past her, at which her expression became very unpleasant, and she glared at him.

“Assez, assez”
she cried, drawing herself up haughtily.
“N’allez pas plus loin!”

He froze instantly, and stood absolutely still, as if graven onto the landscape. Not a muscle moved. The dark glasses, framing the upper part of his face, gave that awesome impression of ghastly mystery. Where were his
eyes?

I was all for leaving on the spot, and started to frame another apology. But the woman seemed intrigued by us, perhaps flattered. She said, “So you think this place is
“très beau,”
do you?”

“It’s lovely,” I assured her. “But truly, we didn’t have any intention of bothering you. I’m very sorry.”

The gigantic man still stood there, watchful behind those dark glasses. “You see him?” the woman asked, looking up at him with an odd smile. “That’s Toussaint. He’s better than a guard dog. Toussaint won’t let any harm come to me.”

“That’s good,” Eric said mildly.

She gave him a considering look. “What are you, a newly-married couple seeing the sights of East Hampton?” she asked. But her gaze was not as insolent as her words.

“Seeing the sights, but not newly-married,” Eric answered. “Just following up an article we saw in the newspaper.”

“That damned article. A few people have rubbernecked. Not many, I’m obliged to say. It’s people like the Kennedys who rouse the curiosity of the rabble.”

She made a wry face. “Forgive me,” she said. “I didn’t mean — ”

“Oh, we’re rabble,” Eric said quizzically. “But rather decent rabble, and hard-working as the day is long.”

She burst out laughing, and turned to me again. “Your French is damned good, young woman.”

“I try,” I said modestly.

“So you came to see this place, did you. Would you care to see more of it? I’m quite at loose ends and wouldn’t mind having someone to share a drink with. That is, if Toussaint will agree to it.”

He was clearly unwilling to drop his truculent attitude, but stood sullenly aside when Caroline opened the gate for us. She gave him an ironic look as we stepped onto the grounds. “And a very good boy you are,” she said to him. “You wouldn’t let the bogie man get old Caroline, would you?”

He bowed stiffly, and walked off. “What I would do without him,” his mistress said, as she led us up a flagstoned path to the right of the property, “I can’t venture to say. I compared him to a guard dog. Well, Toussaint wouldn’t go for the jugular without provocation, but I daresay he’d cut an ill-intentioned intruder to ribbons.”

I shivered involuntarily, and gave Eric a rolling eyeball look, which he returned in kind. Meanwhile Caroline, preceding us on the path, was talking away at a great rate. “Yes, Toussaint’s invaluable, I assure you. I’ve only two other regulars, John and Claire; they’re a couple. She’s the cook and housekeeper, he’s the chauffeur-gardener. Toussaint has few duties, but in the absence of a sophisticated security system he earns his wages, I can tell you that.”

We followed after her, and I knew both of us were just a shade unwilling. It was an adventure, yes, but one we hadn’t counted on and suddenly, for some reason, I wanted to be away and on our own again. I couldn’t have said why. It was, perhaps, a foreboding that came from the whole surroundings … the four houses, with three of them closed and silent, and the vast, unpeopled grounds. And, decidedly, that huge, enigmatic Haitian.

The door of the house we at last approached stood open, and the woman sailed regally through. She turned, beckoned for us to follow, and called out imperiously, “Emily!” Then she bent, picked up the little terrier and looked expectantly at us as we gazed around.

I ceased being uneasy or reluctant as soon as we were inside; I immediately fell in love with Caroline Lestrange’s house. It had an
open
look. The grand foyer led directly into an enormous drawing room, with a lovely staircase along the left-hand wall. There was a profusion of intricate wood-carving, and high, paneled dados, as well as high, high ceilings with a richness of moldings made up of cherubs, sunbursts, festoons of grapes, ailanthus leaves.

Everything was in a soft, white-gray color, even to the chairs and sofas; they were of a pearly, light gray, almost like nacre. The sun, shining in, reflected the colors of the greenery — huge, potted ferns and cacti in woven basket tubs — and the hues of innumerable, delicate objects of virtu. There were more of these exquisite ornaments in a fine vitrine that stood against one wall — lots of Chinoiserie, and some pieces that looked like Nymphenberg beside some mouth-watering majolica. There was no orderly placement of these art objects, or any attempt at selectivity, but the overall effect was dazzling — eclectic and imaginative.

There was a beautiful fireplace with an equally beautiful mantel over it, a lovely Coromandel screen, and elaborately-molded archways led into other rooms. The floorboards were like sepia satin, and not concealed by any abundance of carpets. Only three or four small Orientals were scattered here and there, and one that looked like an Aubusson.

“What a marvellous house,” I said.

“Yes,” she said complacently. “It is. Now may I know your names, please. I’m Caroline Lestrange and this is Dommie, my terrier.”

Eric introduced us, and she nodded and gestured. “And now that’s done, let’s go into my sitting room. You can see the water from there. There’s an outdoor lanai, but it’s a bit windy today, and my old bones feel it cruelly.”

She led us through one of the ornate archways, and we came to a charming little salon, with scaled-down pieces of furniture, much in white-painted bamboo, colorful cushions in bright royals and greens and, as she had promised, a view of the sea and sky. “Make yourselves comfortable,” she bade us, and sat down in a lacy Princess chair.

I heard footsteps approaching, first on the stairway in the distance and then over the polished floor outside. “There you are at last,” Caroline Lestrange said. “What took you so long, dammit?”

The woman who came through the archway was fiftyish, with iron-gray hair drawn severely back from a high, shiny forehead and tied up into a chignon at the neck. She looked to be exactly what we soon learned she was: a companion. She looked also, however, as if she could take care of herself as well as someone else, for she was very tall and rawboned, with broad, strong shoulders, and she wore an expression that read,
no one’s going to get the best of me
.

“I said, what kept you so long,” our hostess repeated; she didn’t wait for an answer, which in any event was not forthcoming. “We shall want a tray of liquors,” she instructed. “These are some young friends of mine, perhaps admirers, who knows?” And to us, “This is Emily, she lives with me. As I said, we’re few in staff here, just the couple I mentioned and some indifferent girls who come in to clean — sporadically, I must say with some bitterness. It’s all become a rather rough and ready life, but that’s progress for you, my dear people; no one wants to stir their stumps any more. Welfare’s at the bottom of it. That and food stamps. A disgrace, I say.”

Meanwhile Emily had gone off to see to the “tray of liquors.” Caroline went on chatting in her stream of consciousness way. She asked about us, what we did. I said we were not on Welfare, and she laughed appreciatively, murmured, “Touché,” and inquired about my career, if career it was.

“I guess it’s a career,” I said. “I’m a magazine editor.”

“Magazine? Which one?”

I said
Les Elles
.

“Oh? That’s not a bad publication. Rather better than most, as a matter of fact. It’s brought some decent authors to light. And your husband?”