Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (150 page)

Jean — her sister — called her a collector. A collector of lame ducks, to use Jean’s phrase. That was because she “kept up” with past patients; not always, naturally, but so often that there were a great many people with whom she visited on her time off, to check on the progress of their lives. There was no reason to call such people lame ducks, but Jean didn’t understand the powerful pull that forged a very special kind of bond between a nurse and the person whose health, both mental and physical, was in her hands for a space of time. When they were well you felt a compulsion to follow up to, observe what had happened after you were gone. You wanted to reassure yourself that you had done a good job, to see with your own eyes that your services had benefited your patient.

That was why Dinah was calling on Miss Blanding this morning. Victoria Blanding had been her patient-before-the-last; she had nursed her through a broken hip, which in people of Miss Blanding’s age (seventy-eight) was no joke.

Victoria Blanding, though, was a stalwart character, British to the bone in spite of her American citizenship, and determined that no sacroiliac injury was going to do her in. Ramrod straight, even with her two canes, she had willed herself back to health, and the tea she had made Dinah with her own hands and was now pouring out of the Georgian pot, was strong enough to knock you over.

“I have a damned good cook,” Miss Blanding said, when Dinah praised the tea. “But she can’t make a decent cup of tea, so I must do it myself. It isn’t right at that. You can’t get the proper results in this miserable country. It’s the water, you know.”

Miss Blanding would never regain the weight she had lost, and her leathery skin was a good bit more seamed than it had been before the accident. Or so she claimed. “But I have my health and I shall live to be a hundred,” she declared, as she passed the
petit beurres.
“And a good deal of it is due to you, Dinah Mason. One doesn’t find young women of your caliber on every street corner. Especially these days.”

“Not a bit of it,” Dinah assured her. “You have guts, Miss Blanding, and a constitution like an ox.”

“We British are a hardy race. You can’t keep us down for long.”

“So I’ve observed.”

“If you’d come this afternoon instead of this morning you would have missed me. My nephew is taking me somewhere for tea.”

“That sounds nice, Miss Blanding.”

“Actually, it’s my grand-nephew. You must have met him.”

“I don’t believe so.”

“No, come to think of it, he and his father were off on some trip or other at the time of my broken hip.” Miss Blanding, in fact, had had very few visitors during Dinah’s tenure. Pitifully few, if it came to that.

“He’s driving his fiancée to the airport. She’ll be abroad for most of the summer. Camilla. A good name, but a quite dreary girl. Jet-set type of young woman, the kind I can’t stand. No blood in her at all. Well,
I
don’t have to marry her, so I shan’t think about it.” She gave Dinah a speculative look. “Pity you couldn’t have met him first.”

Dinah laughed. “Why, Miss Blanding, I didn’t know you were interested in that kind of thing.”

“What kind of thing?” her hostess asked blandly.

“Matchmaking.”

“Every woman’s interested in that kind of thing until the day she dies. The single ones, like me, are the worst. Why don’t you stay for lunch and come with us this afternoon?”

“Thanks, but he’s your date,” Dinah smiled. “And he won’t do me any good if he’s already spoken for. Well, I mustn’t keep you any longer. Thanks very much for the tea.”

Miss Blanding didn’t say it, but she thought it. Dinah Mason, this generous creature, had an
exquise de politesse.
She made it quite clear that hers wasn’t a charity visit. This girl had grace and style.
Anyone with eyes could see I’m a lonely old monster
, she told herself.

It was a rotten business getting old, when you had to be grateful for a few kind words from a stranger.

“Do drop by again,” she said. “I always love seeing you, Dinah.”

Dinah left the Park Avenue apartment cheered. Miss Blanding, who was obviously cushioned by a lot of money, was nevertheless one of the lonely ones. People of her age so often were, having outlived most of their contemporaries. Comfort and the devoted care of servants were poor substitutes for love.

But she had a nephew who was taking her out to tea, and Dinah went away satisfied. She had no plans for the day, except to buy herself some goodies. Something to make her feel womanly again. She had been all business for the past eight weeks.

A frilly blouse? They were wearing them again. Or some frothy lingerie … such as a very daring black slip? She rejected the latter out of hand. Who’d see the slip? You didn’t indulge in sexy underwear unless you had a husband or a lover. Regrettably, she had neither. When you were edging twenty-six (heavens, next month!) you ought to have one or the other.

She had dates enough to satisfy her craving for fun, and one particular “steady,” but it seemed rather a waste to settle for good night kisses when you had a yen for romance. But if you weren’t the casual type you drew certain lines. Especially when you had a family in back of you, and Dinah lived with her sister and brother-in-law in a shared apartment in Yorkville. That kept the wolves away from the door.

“Mr. Right isn’t dead,” Dinah always said when Jean and Doug demanded to know when she was going to find him. “He’s in Miami … or somewhere. We just have to get together.”

She settled for buying a new hat, the classic anodyne for boredom and vague disaffections. It was a big, floppy affair in a vivid shade of orange, and it did wonderful things for her skin, bringing out latent apricot tints. The pale blonde of her hair melted into it in a rather luscious way.

“How does it look?” she asked the girl, just to make her work for the sale.

“Terrific.” She was one of those girls who took jobs in boutiques, with a Joan Baez face. She was typically flat-chested, as these strange new kinds of girls were, but with good, long legs.

“Um. I like it too.”

“It’s really
wild.
” The ultimate compliment.

“I’ll wear it. I hope it isn’t too expensive.”

“Twenty dollars plus tax.”

Expensive enough to feel a little extravagant but not too costly to knock a hole in her budget. She really enjoyed handing over the money, even though it meant she had only a dollar and some odd cents left in her handbag. She left the shop feeling like a
femme fatale.
And people turned to look at the hat.

It was rather wild, at that. She was confident though, that they were looking at the
girl
in the hat and that was a feeling you couldn’t beat.

She went downtown as far as Fifty-Seventh Street, then headed over to York, eyed the river from across the avenue and when the light changed went over to the other side. That was how she found the park, for when she came to Sutton Place she walked down to the embankment, saw the unexpected little enclosure, a kind of gracious square such as you saw in photographs of London, and made her way down the ramp.

There were a fair amount of idlers there, sitting on benches, some in the shade of trees, some holding faces up to the sun. Nursemaids were congregated in groups, gossiping with an eye on their small charges. A couple of teen-age girls were eating sandwiches out of brown paper bags.

The view was superb … the river, rippling along at quite a good clip — for it was a cool breezy day — glimmered in the sun, and there were many pale green, delicately-twisted trees planted about. A great white stone pot held a slender birch; the birch was surrounded by brilliant yellow mums.

Richer foliage rose in the background, where the land climbed on either side of the sun-drenched square; and the residences overlooking the water at the top of the incline were handsome row houses. Mayfair-style with varying window treatments. Imagine living in a style like that, Dinah thought, envious.

A curved, red-brick wall enclosed the complex of houses up above, with a black arched doorway at its center. There was a glimpse of a garden behind the wall, with a sprinkler sending diamond-bright spray into the air. Then some sapling fencing, with a trellis of espaliered trees facing the park.

She crossed the square and sat down nearest the river. A little boy in a tattersall jacket went past her, caught her eye and paused. “Hello,” Dinah said. He murmured a shy answering greeting and went on. She settled down to light a cigarette and began leisurely studying the people in the square, making up stories about those of them who looked promising. It was diverting to speculate about the lives behind the façades.

She began to feel hunger pangs after a while, and began thinking about lunch. A cocktail first. There were plenty of attractive restaurants in the vicinity.

Then she remembered that she had practically no money left in her purse and would have to wait until she got home. It didn’t seem to matter particularly. She was resting, gathering energy for the next job, and anyway she liked sitting here, facing the water and watching the boats go by.

The man in the worn tweed jacket and shabby trousers got up and changed his seat. He did it to accommodate three people who could sit together only if he moved. He acknowledged their thanks with a brief nod and moved farther up the bench.

Now he was sitting alongside the girl in the orange hat. She was a very pretty girl and he had noticed her when she had crossed the square and sat down. He was past the age of lechery and he wasn’t interested in pretty girls per se; he did enjoy, though, resting his eyes on beauty, and the girl in the orange hat was radiant in her youth and health.

The river was beautiful too. Especially today, which had gone cooler, so that there were arrows of movement on the blue-green surface of the water. He watched it for a while and then turned to his book again. It was a volume of poetry. He didn’t select the poems from the index; he simply opened to a page and read whatever it was he came to. It didn’t matter. Anything would do, as long as the words were splendid, and most of Baudelaire’s words were.

And the poem ended:

A movement next to him made him look up. The girl in the hat was lighting a cigarette. She blew out the match and their eyes met for a second. The girl smiled amiably, he smiled back and then looked away. He picked up the book again, a trifle embarrassed.

The scent of a faint perfume came to him. Not insisting, but subtle and elusive. Instinctively, he raised his eyes from the book. Instantly the girl looked away. He knew she had been reading over his shoulder.

“It’s Baudelaire,” he said, astonishing himself. He wasn’t a particularly communicative man.
“Fleurs du Mal.”

“I couldn’t help noticing,” she apologized. “I’m fond of poetry too.”

The man cast about for a final phrase, something that would end the colloquy. Instead he found himself saying, “It’s very good weather, isn’t it?”

“Perfect. Do you come here often?”

“Yes, often.”

“I never hit on this place before. It’s hidden from the street.” She looked down at his book again. “You don’t often find people reading him, you know.”

“I suppose not. He’s rather out of fashion.”

And suddenly they were chatting freely. She was a private-duty nurse, he learned, and had just come off a case. Now she was refueling for a few days. She would go out with someone named Mike this evening and tomorrow she would probably see a film and have another date in the evening.

The girl did most of the talking. The man was pleased just to listen. He had no daughter and the son he did have seemed to be going to marry a girl the man vaguely disliked, one of the high-voiced, affected kind who had no sex appeal that he could see.

For a second or two he imagined a girl like the one beside him becoming interested in him as a man, and then, abashed, dismissed the thought as rather obscene. And somewhat surprising. The fire had been put out some time ago. At any rate, it had been only a flicker of curiosity. For a moment he had remembered what it had been like to be young and in love.

“I guess I’d better be getting along,” the girl finally said. “I have things to catch up on and I’ll be back on another assignment the early part of next week.” She picked up her handbag from the seat beside her. “I hate to go,” she said, smiling.

“Yes, it’s a place that draws you,” he agreed. “As I said, I’m often down here.”

“It must be a blessing for you,” she said, and then colored slightly. “I mean, it’s good to get out of a small place and sit outdoors in the sun.”

He was decidedly taken aback. He saw her eyes travel discreetly over him and was suddenly conscious of his appearance. He didn’t know exactly why it was that he chose to hang onto old and limp tweed jackets when he was away from the office and lounging around, or why he cherished baggy pants that were shiny in the seat and a little frayed at the cuffs. It was undoubtedly a rebellion of some kind. There were the quiet months, July and August, when he stayed home most of the time, finally ending up on Newport. He went in for comfort during the summer … and comfort meant familiar old sweaters and slacks.

I must look like an old tramp
, he thought. This girl took him for someone who had seen better days. A down and outer. He was wryly amused, and decided to let her think what she would. He watched her drop her cigarette to the ground and crush it out with the toe of a smart black pump. Then she got up, gave him a friendly smile, and said good-bye.

He stayed there for another hour or so, looking at the river, not bothering with the book of poetry any longer. He was chuckling to himself. It would be a good story to tell at the Club. “I was taken for a derelict,” he imagined himself saying, and could hear the laughter that would follow.