By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs (15 page)

Gradually the house was looking more
austere, more functional, less like the home Quinta's mother had
made for them all. At first Quinta had secretly resisted, not only
because they were removing long-loved memories, but because each
new decision was another nail in the coffin of hope: hope that her
father would ever again walk without help. But she came to realize
that it did give her father mobility and independence, and that was
the important thing.

She stood there, hands on hips, wanting to
help, not sure if that was right or wrong, in over her head with
responsibilities but determined not to sink beneath them.

"Dad!" she said, and the resolve in her
voice surprised her.
"I'm
going to the ceremony. This is
history,
dad. And the Cup may never come back to Newport
again. Even if the Americans win it back—what if it goes to San
Diego or Miami or somewhere? Dad? It means more to you than
anyone," she said softly. "You've given twice."

Her father's scowl was fierce as he pulled
on his pipe. When at last he got it going he looked up and the
scowl remained. "Why the hell aren't you ever in school?"

She'd won. "Oh, Dad—this is
history
!
"

****

It is no small thing for a paraplegic to be
able to get around town after only a couple of months of therapy.
Fortunately for Neil Powers, his therapy was being conducted on a
carte blanche basis: thanks to the unusually liberal terms of a
prompt out-of-court settlement, Powers had money and then some to
buy not only a specially equipped van but all the pulleys, ramps,
motorized devices, and state-of-the-art electronics that he could
possibly need.

It was little consolation. When things were
going awkwardly—as they were now, with the wheel of his motorized
chair sinking into a soft spot near a just-watered flower
bed—Powers became impatient, self-conscious, depressed. By
temperament he was an onlooker; he hated to be the center of
attention.

Quinta helped to jockey the chair through
the small crowd of several hundred people who had gathered on the
vast manicured lawn of the Marble House, the childhood home of
Commodore Harold Vanderbilt and one of the most significant
acquisitions of the Newport Preservation Society. Very few among
the crowd were from the great unwashed public, Quinta saw. Mostly
they were silver-haired men in dark blue blazers, and crew members
dressed in the colors of their syndicates. A smattering of
well-dressed women was present, and some ordinary citizens in
shirtsleeves. And everywhere cameras and the press.

So intent had Quinta and her father been in
maneuvering his wheelchair over the grass that they hadn't noticed
the America's Cup itself, dazzling in the brilliant September sun,
positioned majestically on a table on the terrace of the Marble
House. Quinta sucked in her breath, as though she'd bumped up
against a ghost in the night.

"Oh my god," she whispered, awestruck.
"There it is. There it really is."

Her father said, "Ah," and that was all.

Like all Newporters, Quinta knew precisely
what the baroque silver trophy, with its serpentine curves and
handles, looked like. Like nearly all Newporters, she had never
actually seen it for real. How could she, when it had been
sequestered in the exclusive, all-male New York Yacht Club in New
York City?

"It looks taller than I pictured," her
father said softly.

Quinta thought it was magnificent. Oh, she
knew it was chic to refer to it as gaudy and inelegant, but in its
intricately curved surfaces polished to brilliant perfection,
Quinta saw the magic. It was no more just a trophy than the Olympic
flame was just a torch. What
was
it then? Surely not a
silver toy for the yachtsman who had everything. A symbol of—what
did the papers say?—of international prestige and technological
supremacy? No. More than that.

"Dad? It's … it's—"

"I know, Quinta," he said sadly. "I
know."

"It makes me want to ... want it," she
murmured.

"I know, dear. I know." His voice had taken
on a sweet melancholy, and the words came out a sad, soothing
lullaby. "I know."

There it was, the America's Cup: an
elaborate silver pitcher, not a cup at all, weighing one hundred
and thirty-four ounces, standing twenty-seven inches tall,
originally offered as a trophy on August 22, 1851, to the winning
yacht of a race around England's Isle of Wight. In one hundred and
thirty-two years, unlimited millions of dollars and countless
buckets of blood, sweat, and tears had been poured freely through
that bottomless Cup—and the mystery of its allure, as anyone could
see, was still there.

There was shuffling and movement on the
terrace: some of the principals in the drama that had ended the
night before were being arranged for their final bows.

Neil Powers had been looking around him.
"But … where's Dennis Conner? The winners are up there, sure
enough. Where the hell are the losers?"

"I think I saw someone with a
Liberty
shirt in the back of the crowd, dad," said Quinta, methodically
scanning those around her for the color red. Maybe they're not all
in uniform. Like most Newporters, Quinta had been trained to read
and interpret shirts; it was the quickest way to determine
status.

It was then that she saw Mavis Moran.
Tugging at her father's shirtsleeves, Quinta whispered, "Isn't that
Mavis Moran? The woman with the gorgeous red hair talking to the
two men in blazers? Wow. She's a stunner. The papers don't do her
justice."

"Don't be silly, Quinta," her father
answered. "Your hair is just as nice."

"Oh Dad, really. Look at her clothes. Look
at the cut of that dress. Look at her shoes, that bag.
Big
bucks." Quinta was in jeans and a white blouse. "I feel like a
ragamuffin."

"Well, you yanked us out of the damn
house—"

"Why is she even here, anyway?" Quinta
wasn't alone in resenting Mavis Moran for not campaigning
Shadow
after she'd bought it from Alan Seton.

True, the gossip had it that her funds were
already committed to the other syndicate. But then why buy
Shadow
if she wasn't going to race it?

"I've heard she only wears emeralds," Quinta
whispered. "I wish she'd turn toward us more so that we could
see."

Which Mavis did. Turned, as if on command,
and looked Quinta full in the face, probably trying to place her
face from behind the checkout counter at the supermarket. And, yes,
she was wearing emeralds, a pair of teardrop earrings.

"Oh my cripes," Quinta murmured, aghast.
"She's looking at
us
, Dad!"

"Maybe she's the kind who stares at
cripples," her father answered dryly.

"Dad! Don't
ever
talk like that!"

Quinta's tone was fierce. Her father backed
off and changed the subject. "I've read somewhere that she may yet
marry Alan Seton. Funny he isn't here today; he has as much right
to be as she does." He added, "Neither one did the Cup a hell of a
lot of good."

"Marry! When his wife has just died?" Quinta
said, shocked. "No one falls in love so fast."

"Quinta, you don't have the foggiest notion
of these things." Her father's voice dropped low. "Don't you
suppose they were involved
before
Cindy Seton's suicide? Why
did his wife kill herself, anyway? The public can't possibly have
all the facts. I expect," he added caustically, "that Seton isn't
here for the simple reason that they don't want to distract the
press on what you insist on calling this occasion."

"What a horrible gossip you are, Dad! You're
worse than Mother ever was!" Quinta moved several paces away from
him, really angry now. She could not think of her father's words
without an odd sense of dismay, and so she blotted them out by
focusing on the introductory remarks being made by the Commodore of
the New York Yacht Club.

As for Neil Powers, he felt a pang of
conscience for baiting his daughter. Why take it out on poor
Quinta, his fifth, his most steadfast child? He must try to keep
his bitterness inside. She was handy and so he lashed out at her,
but he shouldn't. Three of his daughters were scattered around the
world like gypsies. The fourth, Jackie, was nearby, true, but
completely consumed by her first baby—a girl, of course, what
else?—so where was she going to find time for a needy father?

Nancy dead and four of the girls
unavailable; the load had fallen on Quinta. Neil was damn lucky
that she'd chosen to go to a local college and live at home.
Economics had been her original concern, but still—damn lucky.

He wasn't hearing a word of the presentation
ceremony. It was too hot, and he was uncomfortable. Besides, his
view was hindered by the crush of photographers who'd squeezed in
front of him. His gaze wandered up to the marble mansion that
loomed over them. He had toured the house—what Newporter had
not?—and of course he knew its history. From the opened window on
the south end of Marble House, young Consuelo Vanderbilt had once
gazed longingly out to sea, locked away from her one true love
before being forced into a marriage with the Ninth Duke of
Marlborough.

Her only ally had been her brother Harold.
Harold Vanderbilt, who had played on that same thick lawn
underneath the wheels of Neil's chair—at least, as much as such
children were allowed to play during the two months their parents
spent in Newport each year. Harold Vanderbilt, the man who grew up
to become an accomplished yachtsman, and who would go on to
successfully defend the America's Cup three different times.

Neil had been spoon-fed the Vanderbilt story
from infancy, which was why as a boy he had been so dazzled when
his own father, Sam Powers, was asked by the legendary Commodore
Vanderbilt himself to crew aboard his magnificent
Rainbow.

Something about the hot, blinding sun,
something about the urbane accents of the men who were speaking,
something about his own helpless state, catapulted Neil Powers
fifty years into his past.

It was a hot, calm morning in July of 1934.
Neil was eight, a bold age. He had rowed the little cedar dory that
his father had bought especially for him straight up to the
Rainbow,
which was destined to become the America's Cup
defender that year, and which was lying quietly in Newport Harbor,
waiting for the afternoon sea breeze. Neil's father, who was
crewing that summer belowdecks, had warned him before that the deck
of a J-boat was no place for a tomfool boy to even think of
stepping foot on, and Neil had accepted that.

Still, no one had said anything about rowing
around
a J-boat. For one thing, it let you understand, well,
the sheer size of it. Neil had pushed his cap back, and with his
oars winged above the water, his elbows resting on the looms in
counterbalance, he was squinting up at the masthead, a hundred and
seventy-odd feet above the water, where a speck of a man was
working on some rigging. He wondered whether it was his father and
shaded his eyes with his hands to see, but the sun blinded him.

The voice that shattered his reverie wasn't
a voice at all; it was the fierce grunt of a charging rhino.

"You, boy! What're you up to?"

In a heart-thumping panic Neil shifted his
look to the
Rainbow's
rail, where a crewman in white was
leaning over, scowling. Groping for a reason to be so close to the
yacht, Neil stammered, "I have a message for my father." Which
wasn't a complete lie, though his mother would've boxed his ears if
she'd known where her son was. "But I can tell him later, sir."
Stealthily Ned shipped his oars, preparing for a getaway.

"And who might you be?"

"Neil Powers, sir." He felt inexpressibly
small, and he thought his voice sounded hideously squeaky.

"Sam Powers' boy. All right then. What is
it? I'll pass it on."

"Oh no, sir, really. Later will be—"

"Well, well. A pint-sized sailor in a
pint-sized skiff." The clear, cultivated voice belonged to a second
man at the rail, dressed more formally in a dark blue blazer, and
much taller and handsomer than the first. "But aren't you a bit
young to be navigating on your own?"

"Pardon me, I've been rowing since I was
four,
sir," Neil returned, wounded.

"Oh, well, in that case ..." And he looked
gravely down at Neil and saluted.

Rather self-consciously, Neil returned the
salute.

"It's Sam Powers' boy, Mr. Vanderbilt. With
an urgent message for his father."

Urgent! Who said urgent? Distressed, Neil
stared wide-eyed at the gentleman in the blazer.
Mr.
Vanderbilt
, the crewman had said.
Not Harold Vanderbilt, oh
please
, he thought.

It was.

"Let's have Powers up on deck, then," Mr.
Vanderbilt said to his crewman. "And, son? Just bring your dory
around to the gate, there's a good chap. And come aboard."

Pop-eyed with fear, Neil said, "Yessir,"
and, still under Vanderbilt's interested eye, rowed around the
Rainbow
in his most grown-up manner, even feathering his
oars, though there wasn't a breath of wind and the water was flat.
He would be absolutely killed, that he knew. If his father didn't
do it, then his mother would. At the very least—worse, really—he'd
be denied access to the dory for a week or maybe for the rest of
his life.

Feeling miserable and an alien thing, Neil
walked timidly up the ramp of the great yacht, until at the head of
it he paused and waited stubbornly for permission to come aboard;
he might not have heard Mr. Vanderbilt right. He glanced up and
down the gleaming starboard deck, miles and miles of brightly
scrubbed teak and neatly payed seams. Two men were running out huge
manila lines; two others were posted at the foot of the mast, ready
to assist the man at the head. And there was a photographer with a
tripod on board, taking pictures of the boat's fittings, which
seemed truly strange to Neil.
Rainbow
was brand new and
perfect and all the brass was sunshine bright, but it was still
just a sailboat, no more so than his father's cargo schooner, the
Virginia.