Deceptions (12 page)

But first she needed a house. She found one in Belgravia, tall and narrow with high windows, like a Victorian lady with eyebrows raised in surprise. It had a red door with a hon's-head knocker. Alexandra loved the outside but hated the dim, cramped interior, so she had everything ripped out, leaving only the shell. 'I want you to redo it for me,' she said to Sabrina. Top to bottom. Have some more wine.'

She blew plaster dust from the bottle and refilled the cut-crystal glasses she had brought in a picnic basket. Sabrina sat on a packing crate, sipping the light firuity Beaujolais and surveying the rubble-strewn expanse that was Alexandra's second floor. With the interior walls gone, she had a straight view fi-om firont to back. All that remained of the original rooms was a marble fireplace with a chipped mantel. Streaks of sunlight, dancing with dust, cut across exposed beams and fragments of wood and marble that reminded Sabrina of the antiques her mother once bought, knowing they would shine with beauty when she polished them. Sabrina felt the same tingling desire she had had in those days when she watched her mother's sure hands with awe and envy. I can make this beautiful, she thought. Eyes shining, she turned to Alexandra. 'Thankyou.*

Alexandra raised her glass. 'I'm planning on us helping each other. You need a commission, but I need more: a house and respectability. I know everybody in London town, but, sad to say, they know me, too. After all those years and all those beds in Monte Carlo and points west, being a princess is not enough. I need to be launched, is what I need.'

Sabrina shook her head ruefiilly.' I 'm not the one to launch anybody. You ought to know that, after last night.'

'Honey, you've learned more than that since you were tagging along behind Denton; you're just shook up by that little eavesdropping and you're not thinking straight. Now, you sit there and listen to me while I lecture at you. You are going to launch me as soon as I launch you. Didn't you hear me say I was taking you under my wing? You will do my

house. We will present it to society with a grand party. And it will be such a sensation that within a week people will be saying that if Lady Sabrina Longworth won't lower herself to be your design consultant, you are nobody. And that will include the Wgh and mighty Olivia Chasson.'

Alexandra drained her glass and strode about the room, leaving footprints on the dusty floor as she skirted piles of plaster and wood. 'And when your rocket goes off, mine does, too, right into respecuble society, which by then is snuggling up to you again. Because I'll tell you, Sabrina, what you don't seem to understand is that people have always raved about you. You're absolutely gorgeous - more than me, which I'd never admit to anybody else - you're fun and nobody can predict what you're going to say or do. There's never been a breath of scandal about you and people who hate each other love you. Do you know when I started hearing about you? Right after you were married. Wherever I went - Rio, Cannes, Majorca-people talked about you. For a whole year I kept waiting to meet you so I could kill you. Then on Max's little boat you were so damned innocent and imhappy I couldn't believe it, and then 1 started to like you. Craziest thing.'

She sat down on her crate and stretched her long legs. *Look, the only reason they're mad at you now is that nobody knows why you and Denton split and what you took him for. You ought to tell them - don't shake your head like that, I'm only saying I think you should. What they believe is that you appeared from nowhere and married one of them and took him for his title and God-knows-how-much money, and then opened a fancy shop as a hobby subsidized by poor Denton; and poor Denton is talking about his broken heart in eveiy bed he can find his way into. I know what you got because it so happens you and 1 used the same solicitor for our divorces, and he was moaning about how much you gave up. It's your story, I'm not telling anybody, but most of them are waiting for you to prove them wrong because they're crazy about you. Sabrina, listen.'

Alexandra poured the rest of the wine into their glasses. The sunlight had faded into late afternoon, and in the pale gray chill she looked like a marble statue. 'You are the

perfect person for me. You have class and style and independence. I give you this house to design; you stand at my side when I give my first party in it. What do you say?'

Sabrina had a faraway look. She had heard everything Alexandra said, but at the same time she was miles ahead, already designing the house, estimating dimensions and wall locations, fUmiture styles and arrangements, art works, draperies, rugs. She couldn't wait to begin. But she had to be sure of one thing. 'Carte blanche?' she asked calmly.

Alexandra's eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. 'Ho, what have we here?'

The grateful Sabrina of a few minutes before was gone; so was the bewildered one of last night. This Sabrina, professional and self-assured, looked beyond Alexandra at the shell of the house and asked, 'How much are you willing to spend?'

'Whatever it takes to do it right.'

Sabrina nodded. 'Tell me the effect you want and I'll create it.'

Tes, ma'am.* Alexandra grinned in admiration. 'At your service, ma'am.' They laughed and lightly touched glasses before drinking the last of the wine. 'When can you surt?' Alexandra asked.

Sabrina slipped into her coat. *I already have,' she said.

They met for lunch ^nd dinner and so many hours of talk that Alexandra finally moved from her suite at the Connaught Hotel into one of Sabrina's guest rooms. They talked about Alexandra, and as they talked Sabrina sketched rooms that would fit themselves to her. She hired the contractor who had remodeled Ambassadors to supervise the electricians and plumbers and plasterers. Specialists installed the intricate parquet floors she designed. In a few weeks the furnishings arrived: an eclectic unorthodox mixture far more daring than Alexandra realized.

There were neo-Rococo pieces from the 1850s in flowing curves and curlicues with mother-of-pearl inlays, gilt and painted flowers on a black lacquer background. This was the willowy, fiivolous Alexandra of jewelry and parties. Sabrina alternated them with George Jack furniture from the 1890s:

deceptively simple chests with inlaid designs of sycamore and other woods shading into each other. This was the Alexandra who talked wistfully of the 'someday' when she could drop the act she put on for everyone, including herself. And finally Sabrina added a few striking modem Soriana chaises and ottomans by Scarpa: flat to the floor, made of soft leather squished into shape by chrome-plated steel tubing. The Alexandra who is soft and hard at once,' she said as the last chaise was moved into place. 'Calculating and loving, earthy, sexy, holding back, but oh-so-comfortable once she relaxes with you.'

Alexandra whirled through the rooms, up and down the stairs, touching and sitting and leaping up to run again. 'I love it, I love it, 1 want to move in, I want to have a party. Can I move in today?*

Ceremoniously, Sabrina handed her the key she had been using for four months and the guest list for the party she had drawn up the night before. The next day they began to plan Alexandra's launching.

It was a May Day ball, beginning at 10:00 p.m. on the first of May and ending with breakfast on the morning of the second. It was also the triumph of the 1976 season, the only social event given equal coverage on the society and architecture/home-fumishings pages of newspapers and international magazines.

'The educated eye finds the Martova house outrageous and chaotic' wrote Europe's most influential interior-design critic. 'But only at first. In its remarkable ambiance, the eye soon discovers a design refreshing, enchanting, and uniquely the mark of a strong individual who knows herself and her client.*

'As for the ball itself,' wrote a society reporter whose story wound around photographs of the more prominent of the two hundred guests, 'the orchestra was delightful, as were the love songs of the costumed singers and dancers in the salon. The clothes worn by the women were a galaxy of the world's great designers, and the tables were never empty of exotic ifood. Princess Alexandra was a statuesque goddess all in white with a necklace of emeralds. The star of the evening was Lady Sabrina Longworth, stunning in cloth of gold, a

favorite of London society ever since her marriage to her former husband. Lord Denton Longworth, Viscount Treve-ston (who was not at the ball). Lady Longworth was responsible for the brilliant design of the princess' Belgravia abode. Among the guests were Peter and Rose Raddison of the automobile Raddisons, Lady Olivia Chasson and Gabrielle de Martel, daughter of the finance minister of France, who says she soon wiU be looking for her own London flat.'

Sabrina moved from room to room in the house she had created. She forgot the reporters and barely noticed the guests clamoring to congratulate her on her design. She heard eager voices talk about 'getting together soon' and knew that the evening was a triumph, but she moved on. not wanting to talk, just looking at the house, alive with light and talk and laughter, exactly as she had envisioned it. She had designed other places - the house Denton bought her on Cadogan Square, and Ambassadors - but they were done to her own desires. This was the first time she had created for someone else a place to live and love and grow.

Stephanie would be proud of her, she thought; that afternoon she had sent her photographs of each room. One of them, a close-up, showed a small, personal touch, a gesture she could not resist. In a dim comer of the first-floor salon, she had lifted out five tiny sections of the parquet floor and replaced them in a new arrangement, a distinctive S, the only one in the house. No one would ever notice. But she had left her mark.

Sunday was a day of recovery. And on Monday morning, as she dusted the furniture in the showroom, Sabrina heard the small oriental chime that rang when the fi-ont door was opened. She looked up and then moved forward with a smile to welcome Lady Olivia Chasson to Ambassadors.

Chapter 8

Sabrina and Stephanie stood together on Cadogan Square in the chill October morning, near the end of a long row of five-story red brick Victorian mansions. Across the street was a locked park belonging to the owners of the mansions overlooking it. Sabrina's was one of them, embellished, like the others, with Gothic turrets and gables, balconies, pavihon roofs and pointed stained-glass windows.

Mrs Thirkell took Stephanie's suitcases upstairs. 'Do you want the grand tour now?' Sabrina asked, and Stephanie nodded, already feeling the cool elegance wrap itself about her as they walked through the ground-floor reception hall, dining room and kitchen. The drawing room took up the second floor; on the third floor a study and billiard room were separated by a bookshelf wall that swung open to make one large room; the bedrooms were on the fourth floor. Stephanie hngered in each room, in the harmonious balance Sabrina had achieved between sunlight and shadow, soft hues and brilliant colors, loose weaves, shimmering silks and sensual velvets, polished woods, muted wallpaper and glowing veined marble. 'I could live here,' she sighed. 'My fantasy house come to life.'

On the fourth floor she looked into Sabrina's bedroom suite, brown and gold when Denton was there, now peacock and ivory, and the two guest rooms. 'Chooseyours,' Sabrina said, and Stephanie walked unhesitantly into a room that was a spring garden in pale pinks and greens.

'The fifth floor is Mrs Thirkell's apartment, and storage,' Sabrina said, helping Stephanie unpack. 'Now, how about lunch? It's so wonderful that you're here at last... what is it? What's wrong?'

Stephanie was standing before the tall pier glass, shocks of dismay running through her as she watched Sabrina bend and move. Once she had looked like that. But no longer. 'Not even nicely rounded/ she said with desperate honesty. 'Just

plain dumpy. And stoop-shouldered. At Juliette they'd say I don't look hke a lady. And they'd be right. But they never taught me how to stand straight while I'm scrubbing floors or watching for stray crayons and hockey pucks that could kill me if 1 tripped over them.' But there were other things, too. 'My hair/ she said mournfully. 'My nails, my hands... well, I don't have the time you have to soak and steam in beauty salons.'

It wasn't fair and she knew it. For three years, ever since designing Alexandra Martova's house, Sabrina had worked harder than anyone Stephanie knew, managing Ambassadors, buying at auctions all over Europe, visiting estates to design new rooms, even flying to New York, where Stephanie had met her twice for brief visits while she was buying for clients. And through it all she stayed vibrant and lovely while Stephanie, at home in Evanston, grew faded and worn.

Sabrina put her arm around her. 'Can't you take some time? Don't you and Garth play tennis any more?'

'Not for ages. He used to ask, but I was always busy in the house or with the kids, so finally he got up some regular games with friends.'

They were silent, looking at their images. 'How did it happen so suddenly?' Sabrina asked.

'It wasn't sudden. It's been downhill since I saw you last year.'

'But you didn't tell me you were having a bad year.'

'I didn't know what to say.' Her world had seemed so precarious; she had been afi^aid that if she talked about it, everything would collapse. Penny and Cliff were growing up and she hardly saw them; Garth was deep in his work. She had started her own business, organizing estate sales in the North Shore suburbs. For a while it had grown so fast she could barely keep up with it, but then it slowed down, and she didn't luiow why.

'How's the estate business?' Sabrina asked, and Stephanie jumped. 'I was just thinking ... not as good as it was.' She turned to finish unpacking, and Sabrina sat on the arm of a chair.

'But you're good. You know what you're doing.'

*With everything in a house except the people who live there. I keep thinking how good you'd be, telling Mrs Somebody her soup ladle isn't Georgian, it's early Wool-worth, and you're tagging it at one-ninety-five instead of a hundred and a quarter. Have I time to change before lunch?' Sabrina nodded. 'Well, I don't feel comfortable enough to tell people they haven't got the fortune they thought they had. I hedge and tell them I'll get a second opinion, and after awhile I guess they think I don't know my business. Is this sweater and skirt all right? I feel so dowdy.'