Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (127 page)

“Why didn’t you ask
before?”
she cried. “Of course I have spare pillows … tons of them. I’ll have Emily or someone see to it during the week. And now, please tell me if there are any other things lacking … please do!”

“Nothing,” I assured her. “And if it’s any bother, don’t give it a thought. I just — ”

“You shall be well supplied with pillows, never fear,” she said, and we hung up.

Then Eric appeared, freshly showered and shaved, and we climbed into his Porsche for our afternoon jaunt.

There are lots of pleasant things to do in East Hampton, and housewatching is one of them. There are wonderful old houses there, and wonderful new ones. Rambling, ancient frame structures that have weathered a century or two, and, on the sites of old potato fields, bold, angled, ultra-modern ones, with solar heating and great cathedral windows, all cantilevered and sun-decked.

Elm-lined Main Street alone is worth the price of admission: it’s as Gothic as any New England village.

But all good things come to an end; we had a five-thirty meal at a modest place, and then drove back to pack up. We started out tailgating each other on the road, but when traffic began to thicken our cars were separated, and it was once more a lonely drive back to the city.

And the dichotomy had begun: now I must throw off the spell of the last few days and come back to earth for the week’s stint of work. It seemed very difficult, almost irksome and even distasteful to lay out my clothes and shine a pair of shoes for Monday … city clothes.

It all seemed such a waste of summer. And the days ahead, before next week-end, loomed, endless. I thought of the Lestrange women. Imagine any of them getting to bed early in order to get up early and go to
work
?

But you love your work, I told myself.

So I did, but some people had no idea what work was, would never know what it meant. All they had to do was look well, and worry about things like what furs to wear for what occasion, fret about things like face lifts when time began to take its toll. It was true that the many worked for the benefit of the few, and I found myself vaguely resenting it.

Oh, rise above it, I told myself, borrowing one of my mother’s endless maxims, and, yawning, turned out the light and got into bed.

I left early on the following Friday afternoon, and reached East Hampton in good time; the traffic was surprisingly negligible. I stowed away my few purchases and then went to the bedroom, where I had the most delightful surprise. Caroline had “seen to it” that I had additional pillows,
and
had provided me with a new bedspread.

Not just any old bedspread, but one of those quilted, down comforters such as you find in good European hotels. It was gorgeous, a soft taffeta in a charming pattern of field flowers.

As for the pillows, Eric and I now had three apiece … fat, firm, jumbo pillows such as I had only found in class A European hostelries. I sank down on the bed in near rapture. Then I phoned Caroline.

“You’re a dear,” I told her. “An absolute darling. I just got here and found these lovely things in my room. I can’t tell you what a joy it is!”

She laughed. “As I’ve said before, you
are
easy to please. Hello, dear. You got here nice and early, didn’t you? What’s on the agenda for you?”

“A swim as soon as I change. Siesta on the beach, lathered in suntan oil. Anything I can do for you before I go down?”

“Nothing. You can come to me for dinner, though. As a special reward for being a considerate hostess.”

“I love you madly,” I said. “You want me for dinner? I’ll be there. I think you’re unbelievably wonderful, and you can quote me on that.”

“Perhaps some day I shall. See you, say, at around seven?”

“It’s a date.”

I tidied up the cottage, house proud, then changed into a bathing suit, and climbed down the dunes.

I dropped my beach bag on the sand, walked to the water’s edge, thrust out my arms, and thought, “the world is mine!” Then, taking a deep breath, I walked into the surf.

You can have your saunas, I was thinking. Your spas and mud baths, the Lido and the Estoril, all those pallid measures for health, happiness and ‘eternal youth.’ For me, it was something different. A bit of a fight, that was what I wanted. My exultant laugh was borne away by the wind. I looked up at the sky through drenched lashes. Blue … blue as a painter’s sky, the clouds free and swiftly scudding.

What a day … what a day.

I fell asleep, glistening with suntan oil, waking only when an arm went numb from lying on it, then turning, lazily, to the other side. I thought once, these are the happiest days of my life, and then I stopped thinking altogether.

I spent all the afternoon there, and then, gathering up my belongings, climbed the dune. In the kitchen I devoured a juicy tangelo, drank a Tab, and showered.

Dinner was once more on Caroline’s patio.

She indicated a chair beside her, and when I was seated, put a hand on my arm. “It’s good to see you,” she said. “Are you well, dear?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Well and happy. Everything’s coming up roses, Caroline.”

“What a pleasant sound that has,” she said, appreciatively. “Coming up roses … how nice! You’re very sunburned, child.”

“Noxema will take the sting away. I feel pleasantly drowsy; I’d better be careful with my drinks.”

She laughed. “You’re a rather funny little girl.”

“I’m no longer a little girl,” I remonstrated.

She laughed again.

“You’re a child. A little child. I can scarcely remember being a child.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can remember that! How are you, Caroline?”

“Not bad for an old cocker. People get on my nerves a bit, but there’s little I can do about that.”

She looked straight at Emily, who raised her head slightly, then lowered it again with an expression of disdain.

Caroline snickered, and then had the grace to add, “Well, I suppose I get on their nerves too.”

“Only when you’re absolutely impossible,” Anthony said blandly, and this time Caroline gave an almost vulgar snort of loud laughter.

“The natives,” she said, winking at me, “are getting restless.” Turning to Anthony, she asked him if she was absolutely impossible often.

“I refuse to answer on the grounds of being incriminated,” he said affably, and John, who was serving drinks, caught my eye and grinned.

“But you love me just the same,” Caroline prompted, to which Anthony responded, “To the bitter end, my sweet.”

I didn’t stay for very long after dinner. I was end-of-the-week tired, and I was glad to be back in my own quarters at just after ten-thirty. I had left a light burning in the living room, which I switched off after I locked up, then I went right on to the bedroom, intent on a good night’s sleep among my new bounty of pillows. I turned down the taffeta bedspread, lingering over it, and arranged the pillows into a great, luxurious hump.

My mind was filled with odds and ends of trivia, the events of the day, of the past week, and many, many thoughts of Eric. I slowly shed my clothes, and then went to the armoire to hang up what I had been wearing.

As usual, the doors stuck. I had an armful of clothes; I was tired and I was impatient. I must remind Eric, I thought, to whittle these doors down. It was suddenly too much — I was really exhausted.

Damn it, I thought, and gave a might heavey at the antique brass knobs.

The armoire shuddered ponderously, there was a dull creak, and the doors yielded.

I don’t know what made me jump aside … whether it was a sound … a whisper of sound … a premonition … or some lateral vision. But I pulled the doors open, something made me jerk away … and the thing missed me by inches. Something very massive and weighty hurtled just past my head and came to rest, with a terrible plunk, on the planed beams on which I stood.

The breath hissed in my throat, and I stared down. The object which had slid off the top of the armoire was enormous, ponderous, and certainly heavy enough to have broken my skull — or my spine — and left me an invalid for the rest of my life.

If it had not killed me outright.

It was a gigantic earthenware pot, or urn, something that belonged in a garden, not in a house. It was mammoth … and only such a monolithic piece of furniture as the armoire could have supported it, could have concealed its presence there. It was a great, burdensome weight. Although cracked in places now, it was still intact, still unshattered.

As was I … thanks to some primal instinct for survival.

I knelt down and examined it, then attempted to move it. I could move it, yes, but only with great effort. It was not a ton weight, of course, but it
was
horribly heavy.

Heavy enough to have scattered my brains instantly all over this floor.

My initial reaction was one of immense relief. I hadn’t been injured. My pulse was racing, I was breathing stertorously, and I was muttering, “God … oh, my God …”

I knew, when I started thinking, that it hadn’t been Caroline who had brought over the pillows and the bedspread. She had ordered it done, but someone else had executed her command. Emily, John, Claire, Toussaint … one of them had made the trip over here.

And I was relatively sure that the thing on the floor had not been Caroline’s idea. Obviously this great, unwieldy urn had been in the way somewhere, and someone had tried to get it out of sight, put it away and chosen the top of the armoire in my cottage.

It would be out of the way here …

A dimwit’s idea.

I was enraged. After all, this cottage was no junk shop for storing unwanted objects.

God damn it!

Who, in the name of heaven, had taken it on himself to put this lethal object on top of my armoire?

Of course, I reasoned, John wasn’t the wonder brain of the century. Maybe John, in his simplicity, had thought it a sound idea. And he probably hadn’t realized that the doors were warped, that a good yank on them could dislodge a big urn on top of it. Maybe it was John.

Yes, perhaps … but in all the vast space of the compound, surely there was a niche for discards? The garages — anywhere, in fact. Anywhere, a hundred places.

Why here, in a rented cottage?

I finally stood up, and I realized that I was perspiring. There was moisture on my forehead, my neck, and running down my back. It was anger now, inside a kind of quiet, methodical questioning. Not precisely fear, but something very much like it. I kept thinking, though not wanting to, of what would have happened if I hadn’t leapt away.

I kept thinking of an inert body on the floor.

A body drenched in blood.

I finally decided I was being ridiculous, and went to the telephone. I would call Caroline, she should know about this. After all, I could have —

Then I caught sight of the bedside clock. It was almost eleven. I hesitated, then put down the receiver. I couldn’t call her now. Not at this late hour, I couldn’t do that.

So I didn’t. I looked at the great, earthernware pot on the floor, had to skirt it now and then as I made ready for bed, and left it there.

Once I kicked it in a childish rage.

In the morning I phoned Caroline’s house; Claire answered. I said, “I wonder if some time during the morning John could come over and take something away that doesn’t belong here.”

She said, “I beg pardon, Miss Jennie?”

“It’s a big, heavy pot and I’d like it taken away. As soon as he’s able, Claire. Okay?”

“Oh, yes,” she answered. “Right away, if it suits you, Miss Jennie.”

“Right away would be fine,” I said.

Inside of ten minutes John made an appearance. He was in his falling-down pants again, with a big, cordial smile on his leathery face. He entered my bedroom, nevertheless, with a high degree of decorum, as if there might be feminine things around which could prove embarrassing to us both.

He was, in fact, the soul of gentlemanliness, and I asked him outright if perhaps he had thought my armoire was a good place to put the urn.

He seemed astonished that I could think such a thing.

“That’s a cockeyed thing to do,” he pronounced, frowning. “Anyone could see that that would be dangerous.”

“I was just wondering,” I said.

“You gotta be kidding,” he assured me. “I got better sense than that … what a dumb, cockamamie idea it was!”

He shook his head. “Maybe Miss Emily, she’s none too bright.”

“Was Emily over here last week?”

“Sure was. Me too. And Claire. Everyone, mostly. Miss Caroline, she say you want the pillows. Then she gets the bright idea about that spread.” He eyed it admiringly. “Ain’t that right beautiful?”

“Yes, it’s lovely.”

He hoisted the earthenware pot. “This ain’t no featherweight,” he assured me. “But I’m a big-muscled man. I can heft this. Something else I can do for you, Miss?”

“Not at the moment,” I said. “Thanks, John. Thanks very much.”

“Any time,” he said, shaking his head, and struggling off with the earthenware pot.

I sat down and thought about it. I was sorry now that I had asked for the pillows. Sorry indeed … because there apparently had been an open house at my cottage during the week. Anyone could have planted that punishing object on top of the armoire … anyone, I realized soberly, at all.

Someone’s gross stupidity.

I suppose that, in my deep subconscious, a word other than stupidity must have occurred to me. A much more sinister word. But it was only in my subconscious. In the main, I was simply angered, simply upset, and not happy about people wandering through my cottage during my absence. Which, when it came right down to it, seemed silly. I
had
asked Caroline for the pillows, and she
had
said that, during the week, she would see that they were furnished.

So I wrote the whole thing off. I didn’t say anything to Caroline, and only mentioned to Eric that I had a kind of narrow escape with a heavy urn on top of the armoire.

“Thanks for reminding me,” he said, and drove to the village for some tools.

He worked for an hour or so, humming as he always did when he was engaged at physical labor, and when he had finished, the armoire doors opened as smooth as silk.