The Gate House

by Nelson DeMille

  “No, I didn’t. I called him a—”

  “I don’t need to hear that again.” She looked at me and said, “He probably deserved all that, but if you love me, you’ll apologize to him.”

  “All right. I love you, so I’ll apologize.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And I’m very glad to hear that they’ve mellowed.”

  She informed me, “Actually, they haven’t. I lied about that.” She smiled and winked.

  I smiled, too, and admitted, “I didn’t believe you.”

  She got serious and said, “We’ll do the best we can, John. It’s not going to be easy, but I promise you this—this time, I will always put you ahead of my parents.”

  That was the first admission I’d ever heard from her that she’d had her priorities reversed when we were married. I understand the power of money, especially when it’s in the hands of people like William and Charlotte Stanhope, but ultimately, if you confront that sort of bullying and manipulation, everyone will benefit, even people like those two. I said, with far more optimism than I felt, “Well, we may be surprised at how they react when we tell them.”

  “We? I’m not telling them. You are.” She laughed.

  I smiled and said, “I will ask your father for your hand in marriage, as I did the last time.”

  “That’s very nice. And don’t forget to tell them that you insisted we not have a prenup.” She suggested, “Bring a video camera. I want to see their reaction.”

  Clearly, Susan was at some point in her life and her emotional development that was causing a belated rebellion against parental authority. This was a few decades late, but I could see that the rebellion was complete in her mind; all she had to do now was follow through.

  I thought, too, of her marrying her father’s older friend, Dan Hannon, and it didn’t take too much analysis to figure out that that was an arranged marriage, and she’d gone through with it to please Daddy. Now she was going to show Daddy a thing or two. I had no doubt she loved me, and that she’d give up her parents and their money for me, but this was also a little bit of payback for Dad.

  Susan had some good news for me. “I don’t want to sound cold, but they don’t have many years left.”

  I let that alone and raised a related topic. I said to her, “I’m also wondering if our remarriage will affect the children’s trusts or their inheritance.”

  Susan seemed surprised and replied without enough thought, “They would never do that to their grandchildren.”

  I didn’t respond, and I wanted to believe that, but I knew the Stanhopes well enough to answer my own question; William, at least, was so vindictive that if he had a family crest, it would say, “I will cut off my nose to spite my face,” and emblazoned on the crest would be the profile of a man without a nose.

  Susan reminded me, “The children’s money is in trust.”

  I didn’t want to upset her, so I said, “That’s true.” But I’d seen the trust documents, and without getting into legalities, I knew that what Grandpa giveth, Grandpa could taketh away. In addition, her useless brother, Peter, was the trust administrator, and William, through Peter, could manipulate the trusts, and basically stop the monthly payments to the children, plus, he’d make sure that Edward and Carolyn didn’t see a nickel of the principle until they were fifty. And of course, he could disinherit his grandchildren anytime.

  I really felt duty-bound to tell her all this because even if she was prepared to give up her inheritance and allowance, she wasn’t prepared to do that to Edward and Carolyn. If it came down to that, then maybe John Sutter would have to go. And I would understand that.

  In the meantime, I’d hope that William loved his grandchildren enough that he would not punish them because of the sins of his daughter, so I said, “All right, but you do understand that you, Susan, may lose your allowance, and you could be disinherited from an estate worth millions of dollars?”

  “Yes, John, I understand that.”

  I asked, not altogether jokingly, “And you still want to marry me?”

  She replied, “Not anymore. You cost too much.”

  I assumed she was being funny, so I said, “Be serious.”

  “I can’t believe you would ask me that question.”

  “I apologize.”

  “But wait . . . tell me again what’s in this for me?”

  “Just me.”

  “That’s it? Prince Charming with no job and no money?”

  “I have a law degree.”

  “Can I see it?”

  We both smiled, sat back, and sipped our drinks. Okay, if that had gone any differently, I’d have been surprised. Susan Stanhope Sutter was in love and wanted me back, and whatever Susan wants, Susan gets. I was in love, too, and had never stopped loving her, so this should work, theoretically.

  Susan crossed her legs, stared out the window, and said as if to herself, “Love conquers all.”

  “Right.” As Virgil said it, omnia vincit amor, which reminded me of my next subject, if I needed reminding.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  With the Stanhope family issues out of the way, or at least out in the open, I was now ready to discuss with Susan the subject of Anthony Bellarosa, past, present, and future. But Susan wanted to take a stroll to the gatehouse, perhaps to see if there were panties on the floor, so we walked down the long drive from the guest cottage to my temporary quarters.

  When I had walked up this drive, six hours earlier, my life was in limbo, and my future plans were uncertain; now . . . well, now I was engaged to be married.

  Susan said to me, “When I grew up here, I never would have imagined that this estate would be sold and divided, surrounded by subdivisions, and I’d be living alone in the guest cottage.” She added to that, “I never really forgave my father for putting the estate up for sale.”

  William didn’t really need to sell Stanhope Hall, but the upkeep and taxes cost more than I made in a year and more than he wanted to spend to preserve the family estate for his heirs and their progeny. He couldn’t take it with him, but he hated spending it before he left. So he moved to Hilton Head and eventually found a buyer in the person of Mr. Frank Bellarosa, whom I’m certain was influenced in his decision to own a second estate by the lady walking beside me.

  Now Stanhope Hall—minus Susan’s ten-acre enclave and the developed back sixty acres where Susan used to ride—was in the hands of Mr. Amir Nasim, a man who was not in the Social Register, but who might be on the mullah’s hit list. And Alhambra was subdivided, and its former owner, Frank Bellarosa, was dead. A lot of these changes, if you thought about it, were a result of the actions of Susan Stanhope Sutter, who didn’t like change.

  In any case, we need to live in the world as it is, not as it was. But first, we all needed to tidy up the past a bit.

  Susan, however, was momentarily in the present, and she asked me, “Am I going to find something in the gatehouse that I don’t want to see?”

  “Well . . . did I tell you that I wear silk bikini shorts?”

  “Very funny.” She picked up the pace and said, “I’ll bet you never thought you’d be walking me to the gatehouse when you called on me this morning.”

  “No, I didn’t.” But the house held no incriminating evidence—only exculpatory evidence—and more importantly, I had a clear conscience.

  We reached the gatehouse, and Susan said to me, “You have no idea how upset I was when I saw Elizabeth Allard’s car here all day and all night.”

  I thought, by now, I did have some idea, but I said, “Not everything is as it seems.”

  “We’re about to find out.”

  She preceded me into the gatehouse, and in the foyer she saw the Allards’ personal property that Elizabeth and I had stacked there. Susan commented, “I see you did something other than drink.”

  “There was a lot of work to do here.”

  “What did you do for dinner?”

  “Cheese and crackers.”

  She moved
into the sitting room and saw my pillow and blanket on the couch, which I was happy I’d left there. But Susan didn’t comment on this evidence that I’d slept alone, so I did. “See?”

  She ignored me and looked around the room, then asked, “Does Elizabeth want this old stuff?”

  “I don’t know, but I inventoried everything, and she signed for it.”

  We moved into the dining room, where the table and floor were still stacked with storage and file boxes. She asked, “What is all this?”

  I replied, “Mostly the contents of my law office and my former home office, which I stored here when I left.”

  “You can have your old home office back.”

  “That is very generous of you.”

  “What were you going to do with all this?”

  I was going to store it in Elizabeth Allard’s house, but I replied, “Public storage.” I added, “But you’ve solved my storage problem.” I further added, “And my housing problem. And all my other problems.”

  She agreed, “I have.” She advised me, “After you resign from your job, you’ll need to get rid of your London flat.”

  “Of course, darling. I’ll fly to London right after Ethel’s funeral.”

  “And get rid of your London girlfriend. Before you go there.”

  “I will, sweetheart.” Unless she flies in unexpectedly before then. I needed to make that phone call soon.

  Susan announced, “I’ll fly to London with you.”

  “Great. We’ll stay at the Berkeley.”

  “We’ll stay in your flat.”

  I was afraid of that. I keep a nice, neat place for a bachelor, and Samantha doesn’t have a key, but there might be a few things in the flat, including some of Samantha’s odds and ends, which would annoy Susan.

  She had raised the subject of personal space and privacy, so I said, “Before I move in with you, I’ll give you all the time you need to clear out anything that you don’t want me to—”

  “You can and will move in this afternoon, and you can snoop all you want. I have nothing to hide from you.” She rethought that and said, “Well, maybe I need an hour.”

  I smiled and said, “That’s all I need in London.”

  “I’ll give you ten minutes while I wait in the taxi.”

  I had visions of stuffing a pillowcase with letters, Rolodex cards, interesting photos from my three-year sail, and Samantha’s underwear—the equivalent of an embassy burn-bag, frantically being filled as the rioting mob broke through the compound gates. But I couldn’t burn it, so I’d have to drop it out the window and hope for the best.

  “John?”

  I replied, “Deal.”

  I sensed that I was losing some control of the agenda, and my life. Susan had been far from a jealous or controlling woman, except, as I recalled, in the early days of our courtship and marriage. So this was just a phase. It would pass.

  She looked around the room and noticed that the photo portrait of Ethel and George was not hanging above the fireplace, and she said, “It’s hard to believe . . . they were here before I was born.”

  I replied, “You know, Susan, this estate was one of the last that had been in the same family from the beginning, and there aren’t that many left, so if you think about it, that era had ended even before you were born.” I added, “We were all on borrowed time here.”

  She thought about that, nodded, and said, “Nostalgia is not what it used to be.”

  Susan moved through the dining room into the kitchen and looked around, commenting, “When I was a little girl, George would drive me here after school, and Ethel would give me fresh-baked cookies and hot chocolate.”

  I was sure she didn’t get that at Stanhope Hall, but if she did, it wasn’t her mother who baked the cookies, made the chocolate, or even served it to her. Susan, from what I could gather from Ethel, George, and the servants who were still here when I came on the scene, had been the classic lonely little rich girl. Her parents, I suspect, took not much interest in her until her debutante party, at which time they probably began thinking about a suitable education, and a suitable marriage—they screwed up there—and also began thinking about how their daughter’s social success, or lack thereof, would reflect on them.

  I suppose I could be more charitable about how I thought of William and Charlotte, and I could blame some of their many faults and failures on their own upbringing—but I’ve known a lot of the old gentry, and many of them were fine, decent people who loved their children, and were generous with their friends and those less fortunate than themselves. A few were total swine, but if the Four Hundred Families in the Social Register got together to award a prize for the biggest swine, William Stanhope would win the Blue Ribbon, and Charlotte would get an Honorable Mention.

  Susan opened the refrigerator and observed, “There’s nothing in here.”

  “Less to move.”

  Susan suggested, “We should take some photographs before everything is cleaned out.”

  “Good idea.”

  I glanced at the cuckoo clock, which showed it was 3:30, and I said, “How about tomorrow morning?”

  “All right.”

  I thought the house tour was over, so I said, “Let’s sit on the patio.”

  “Let’s see the second floor.”

  I followed her into the foyer and up the stairs. She opened the door to Ethel’s bedroom and entered.

  The drapes were pulled, and the room was dark and had a musty smell to it. The doors of the armoire and closet were open, as were the dresser drawers, and most of the clothing was lying on the bare mattress. It was an altogether depressing scene, reminding me of what the priest at Frank Bellarosa’s funeral had said at the grave, quoting from Timothy: We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.

  Susan did not comment on Ethel’s bedroom, and we left, closing the door.

  She glanced into the bathroom, and seeing the piles of towels on the floor asked, “Is the washing machine broken?”

  “I don’t know. Where is it?”

  “I’ll have my cleaning lady come here and get this place tidied up for Elizabeth tomorrow.”

  “That’s very nice.” How could I forget that a cleaning lady came along with my new house and bride?

  Susan asked me, “Did she shower here?”

  “The cleaning lady?”

  “John.”

  “I believe so. Yes.”

  Susan went into my bedroom, formerly and lately Elizabeth’s bedroom, and looked around without haste. She stared at the bed, then noticed the empty bottle of wine on the nightstand, and focused on the two wineglasses, which I should have gotten rid of. She inquired, “Why are there two glasses here?”

  I thought of several replies, including telling Susan about Elizabeth’s imaginary childhood friend who drank wine, but to keep it simple and close to the truth, I said, “Elizabeth wanted to sleep in her old room, so we had a nightcap before she retired.”

  “That is so lame.”

  I took a deep breath, and, remembering that the truth is the last defense of the trapped, I said, “All right . . . so, we . . . had too much wine, and we thought about it, but decided we’d be making a big mistake.”

  No reply.

  So I went on, “Your name came up, and Elizabeth felt . . . uncomfortable about, you know, and to tell you the truth, so did I.”

  Again, no reply.

  You should quit while you’re ahead, but I didn’t know if I was ahead. To play it safe, I concluded, “That is the whole truth.”

  “That’s not quite what you told me earlier.”

  “Right. Well, now you have the details.” I was a bit annoyed at myself for being so defensive, and remembering, too, that the best defense is a good offense, I pointed out, “I was a free man last night, Susan, and even if I’d slept with her, it would be no business of yours.”

  She turned and left the bedroom, then started down the stairs. With Susan, it’s hard to tell if she’s angry,
indifferent, or if the trolley has jumped the tracks. Sometimes she needs a few minutes to figure it out herself, so I took the opportunity to tidy up the room.

  I heard her call up the stairs, “I’ll be on the patio.”

  I gave it another minute, then came down the stairs with the two glasses and the empty wine bottle, which I deposited in the trash under the sink.

  I went out to the patio and saw that Susan was walking through the vegetable garden.

  I called out to her, “I have to be someplace at four.”

  She didn’t reply.

  I continued, “But I need to speak to you first.”

  She looked at me and asked, “About what?”

  “Sit here, Susan. This won’t take long.”

  She walked back to the patio and inquired, “Where do you have to be at four?”

  “That’s what I want to speak to you about. Have a seat.”

  She hesitated, then sat at the table, and I took the chair beside her. I began, “This is going to sound . . . well, a little unbelievable, but, as I told you—”

  “So, you didn’t sleep with her because you were thinking of me?”

  Apparently, we hadn’t finished with that subject, so I replied, “That’s correct.” I expanded on this and said, “It didn’t feel right. Especially after I saw you in your car. I can’t explain it, but even without knowing how you felt about me, I just couldn’t do anything like that before I spoke to you.”

  I thought that should put this to rest, but women examine these things on levels that men don’t even think about, and Susan said to me, “So, you were attracted to her?”

  “Not at all.” I explained to her, “Men don’t need a reason—they just need a place.”

  “Believe me, I understand that. But she is obviously attracted to you.”

  “Everyone is.”

  “You’re a total idiot.”

  “I know that. Can we—?”

  “Well, maybe she was so drunk that you looked good to her.”

  “I’m sure of that. So—”

  “I thought she was my friend.”

  “She is, Susan. That’s why she—”