Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (119 page)

I reminded her that he was not my husband. “I’m Stewart, he’s Sloane. We have an understanding.”

“In other words you’re living together.”

“No.”

“But it’s serious?”

Eric spoke up. “Very serious.”

I noted that that sounded like an ominous disease, and she laughed again, quite heartily, and threw me an approving glance. “You know,” she said, “I like you very much, young lady. You have spirit. You’d like me too, if you came to know me, because I had spirit, too, many long years ago.” Then, turning back to Eric, she asked about his work.

He explained that he was an editor too. “Not a magazine, though. Books.”

He mentioned his publishing house and a look of genuine respect crossed her face. “Ah,” she said, nodding graciously.

Then Emily returned, with the drinks, and soon we were sipping and nibbling on nuts and chips. And listening. Listening to Caroline Lestrange ramble on. She told Eric he was a lucky chap to have landed a “beauty” like me, whereupon I said
I
was lucky to have found a live one like Eric, and she shrugged expressively. “You’re fortunate in any case. Fortunate to be young.” Her face grew quiet and reflective. “To be young,” she finally said, “is to have everything …
everything
. Ah, when I was young — ”

She let us know about her youth, and vaingloriously enough, yet I couldn’t dislike her for it. She was boastful, self-aggrandizing, but I had taken to her. She was an eccentric in the best sense of the word, and I knew I wouldn’t meet many like her in a lifetime.

There was also a lot about her prestigious family, about their early colonization of this country, and she hinted, with a wink, at some not infrequent shenanigans and skullduggery concerning financial affairs. “Quite a few buried secrets,” she murmured slyly. “It wasn’t all sacred honor and lofty ideals.”

She was a shinto worshiper all the same, proud of her lineage and tossing off illustrious names lavishly. When I asked her about her own generation she said abruptly that they were all dead.

“In the end you’re always left alone,” she said brusquely. “Paying for indifferent companionship.”

God, poor Emily, I thought, and darted a look at her. She made no comment, simply recrossed her sturdy legs and imperturbably sipped her Bristol Cream.

“Were there many siblings?” I asked Caroline.

“Six. Two died in infancy. Four of us survived — I, and three brothers. It wasn’t particularly joyous being the only female. Not in those days. In
those
days a young girl got by on social graces. Rugged individualism was certainly not encouraged.”

She laughed wickedly. “So it came as quite a nasty little surprise to everyone when I broke out of the mold and made a spectacle of myself. Not for
me
needlepoint, calling cards and accepting myself as a member of the ‘gentler’ sex. Indeed, no! I was the black sheep … but hell, I had a wonderful time being naughty!”

She sat back triumphantly. “And I don’t regret one single, solitary thing!”

I caught Eric’s amused look in my direction and I knew he was thinking that I myself (as Caroline herself had remarked) was cut out of the same bolt of cloth as this forthright woman. Eric had dubbed me a filly at the gate; he’d said that I hadn’t been hiding behind the door when self-confidence had been handed out, and that only an innate decency and feeling for the underdog kept me from being too much to handle. He said my colleagues at the magazine weren’t exactly shrinking violets, but I was the one there who wore the pants.

Even this was exaggeration, of course. Like Caroline Lestrange, I kept remembering that there was only one life …
man born of woman is of few days and much trouble
… and therefore one had best make the most of it. Never regret tomorrow what you could have done today.

Which was substantially what Caroline Lestrange had just said.
And I don’t regret one single, solitary thing
.

Eric, who has a “sense,” put his glass down on an end table and rose. He had picked precisely the correct time for our departure. Anything else any of us said would now be anticlimactic. Caroline knew the lightness of this; she said, “I’m sorry to see you go, but you’ve made a pleasant hour for me, you two.”

“It’s been more than pleasant for us,” Eric said. “Well think of this and talk about it for a long time.”

“So will I,” she said, looking a little lost. “I’m alone
so
much of the time.” She got up out of the Princess chair and announced that she would walk us back to the gate.

“
I’ll
see them to the gate,” Emily said officiously. “You’ll only overtire yourself and then it’s I who’ll have to pay for it.”

“Go take these things to the kitchen,” her employer replied coldly. “Get this mess cleaned up and try to remember your place, young woman.”

Poor Emily. I was quite embarrassed and sorry. I put out my hand and said it had been lovely to meet her, and thanks so much for —

She ignored my hand and my thanks, muttered something I couldn’t catch, and stood there waiting for us to go. I was still bleeding for her, but at the same time found it difficult to keep a straight face about her being told to remember her place,
young woman
.

But of course to someone over eighty, someone of fifty or thereabouts must seem rather young.

And I comforted myself that after all, her employer couldn’t
physically
abuse her. She wouldn’t dare. Powerfully-built Emily would make short work of delicate and slight Caroline Lestrange should a finger be lifted against her.

And sometimes, as Wilde said, you hurt the ones you love the most. There might, after all, be some strong feeling of warmth between them, whether acknowledged or not.

We left the house and our hostess briefed us on the environs. “You’ve met my man, Toussaint,” she said, and pointed to a sizeable frame structure behind her house. “That’s the garage,” she informed us. “I have only one car, a Rolls Royce. It’s in there, cared for like a baby by John.”

Her finger rose higher. “The apartment above it is Toussaint’s. It’s quite attractive, he has every comfort. He can keep an eye on me there and he does.” She smiled. “As you saw earlier.”

Then she gestured toward the other three houses. “The same arrangement goes for my relatives’ help, over the garage. It’s the lesser of several evils. Comfort with privacy. The day of the backstairs is over. This is a new and expeditious world. Not like that of my young days, when we took an entire floor at the Ritz on the Place Vendôme for the servants.”

We walked back along the flagstoned path, a little more slowly this time because Caroline was telling us about the circular driveway, which was of fairly recent vintage. “Before that,” she said, “the grass was continually being chowdered up by wheels; it looked simply awful. So we had the driveway done, and only three trees had to go.”

Because of our leisurely progress, I had the opportunity to notice, quite near the road on Caroline’s side of the estate, a small, whitewashed cottage at some distance, and off the boundary line of the other houses. There were some small trees sheltering it, and two lovely lilac bushes framed the entrance. I saw at once that, from the back, it would have a view of the water.

“Does someone live here too?” I asked.

She glanced over at the cottage. “Oh,” she said, “Just sometimes one of the children.”

“I see.”

“Why?” she asked abruptly.

“Nothing. It’s just that I’m looking for a beach house to rent for the summer.”

“Oh?”

“To tell the truth,” I said, “something like that cottage.”

There was a rather long silence. I’ve been too pushy, I thought, now she’ll be nasty. Instead, she answered, “It wouldn’t be cheap, you know.”

And before I had a chance to say anything to this, she followed up with, “When would you want to take up residence?”

“You mean you
would
rent it?”

“Why not? You’re looking at it with great fondness. I can see you’ve set your heart on it. You stopped being a stranger an hour or so ago. And I’m a good judge of character, anyone will tell you that.”

“I’d be very grateful,” I said eagerly. “I was thinking of starting on the Fourth. Week-ends, at first, and then later on two straight weeks. You’d really be willing?”

“As I said, I’m a good judge of — now about price. Say … oh, three thousand … four?”

I sagged, of course. Four thousand.

I said I was sorry, that my budget —

A hint of impatience. “How much, then? Come, do make up your mind.”

“You’d think it ridiculous.”

She laughed, tolerantly. “What is it I’d consider ridiculous.”

“What I can spend.”

“What can you spend?”

“A thousand.”

“Well, then, a thousand. What’s money, anyway? The main thing is someone reputable, reassuring.”

She held out a bony, aristocratic hand, heavy with emeralds. “So it’s all arranged, my dear.”

“What about the … the children?”

“What children?”

“You mentioned that sometimes … that the children sometimes …”

“Oh, one or the other of the family brats, college brats. Don’t give it a thought. There are four large houses here, and they only use this for screwing, anyway. They think I don’t know, but I
do
know. You’ll be happy here, and the beach is of course private.”

“I can’t thank you enough, Madame.”

“Call me Caroline if you’re to live here. Why you have to lose your name as you proceed through life I never could understand. First it’s Mrs. Whoever, then Auntie, then Grandmother, and so on. I enjoyed your visit, young people.”

“You’ve been
so
gracious.”

“A few minutes of joy in a joyless life.”

“And I must give you a deposit.”

“A
what?”

“For the house,” I said resolutely. If this grand, quirky old woman was in any way a bit addled, or forgetful, I had to know now.

“Good heavens, that’s not necessary, and it would only be a bother,” she said, and then, perhaps noticing my distressed look, her own became rather gentler. “I’m not senile,” she said, with a chuckle. “I’m old, but not dotty. I’ll take your silly deposit, Jennie.”

“It’s Jan. Anyway, you’ll have my name on the check.”

I wrote it out leaning on Eric’s back, a check for two hundred, sizeable enough to be of some account. She took it without giving a glance at the amount. Later, I decided that, after all, Caroline Lestrange was still somewhat vain. The film over the handsome old eyes gave her impaired sight away. Probably she wouldn’t have been able to see what I had scribbled without holding it close to her face.

“And now,” she said, “you’ll want to see the inside.”

“It would be helpful,” I agreed.

But the front door was locked. Eric volunteered to go around to the back and see if there was open entry there. “Yes, do,” she agreed, and he walked past the side of the house.

He was back shortly, “Back door is locked too. And the windows seem tight; I checked them.”

“Bother,” Caroline said peevishly. “I’ve no idea who has keys, but probably John. He’s in town, however, and won’t be back until a good bit later. Oh, bother,” she said again.

“We won’t be leaving until tomorrow afternoon,” I told her. “Could we call you in the morning?”

“But of course,” she said heartily. “And then I’ll give you lunch. Oh, that will be so nice for me. And if the weather’s better we’ll have it outdoors. This has turned out to be something of a bonanza for me. How nice of you to take it into your heads to investigate our compound!”

“I don’t know why you’re being so very nice to us, but please let me say it’s sincerely and gratefully appreciated,” Eric said warmly, and she gave him a lingering look. “You’re really a most attractive chap,” she told him. “You remind me of a man who … I can’t think: which one, at the moment, but someone I was
very
fond of.”

“He was fortunate to have attracted you,” Eric murmured, and she laughed.

“Maybe, maybe not,” she said, and opened the gate for us.

“Until tomorrow, then.”

“Until tomorrow. And many, many thanks.”

So, on the following day, the Sunday, we lunched with Caroline Lestrange and Emily, where we heard more about the former’s life, past and present, and saw, at last, the inside of my cottage.

It was cheerfully furnished, a little chintzy perhaps, but that was what would have been expected, and there were no
objets d’art
to worry about. It was a simple, pleasant, uncluttered place, and there was a lovely little terrace at the back that was made to order for grilling steaks and fish. There were linens, bedclothes, china and glassware, and a catchall closet with brooms and a vaccuum.

The one really beautiful piece of furniture was a handsome old armoire in the bedroom. It was enormous, certainly eight feet high, exquisitly fashioned, and in golden-brown fruitwood. When I exclaimed over its mellow charm, Caroline Lestrange murmured vaguely that it was just an ordinary piece of no value; she supposed that she or Emily had picked it up at a country auction, though she couldn’t recall when it had been.

When I tried the doors, nothing happened.

“It’s locked, I think,” I said, but Eric came over and eyed it judiciously. “It’s not locked, the wood’s warped, that’s all.”

He banged smartly on the doors, then gave a sharp tug. There was another moment of resistance, and then the doors reluctantly yielded. “Needs some sanding down,” he said. “I’ll get to it one of these days. Meanwhile, use a little elbow grease, Jan.”

He closed the doors and stood aside. “Try it again.”

This time, after a momentary struggle and a protesting shudder from the armoire, the doors opened when I yanked. “There you are,” he said. “Anyway, there’s adequate closet space. We won’t need this.”

“You may not use it, but I will,” I said lovingly. “I’m crazy about it. You can have the closet. I’m preempting this.”

Caroline Lestrange laughed. “You
are
easy to please. It’s a quite undistinguished item, that armoire. But if you like it, I’m happy.”

“It’s so European,” I explained. “All the hotels I’ve stayed at, when I’ve gone abroad, have had these for closets. I’m afraid I have a romantic streak.”