by Anne Weale
'The name of the town comes from the industry which a family called Comstock set up. A lot of the ivory keys for pianos and organs were made there,' he explained, as they drove across the Baldwin Bridge to the west bank of the river. 'The Copper Beech was originally the Comstocks' mansion. I'm told that before it was turned into an inn, it was in such a terrible state that the fire department were going to burn it down for practice. Now the food they serve is so good you have to reserve a table a long time ahead, especially at weekends.'
'Didn't Katharine Hepburn start her career at the Ivoryton Playhouse?' said Nancy.
'I believe so. Her family had a summer place at Fenwick which is on this side of the river, down by Long Island Sound.'
'She was always one of my idols,' said Nancy. That incredible voice and those cheekbones. You have them, too,' she told Summer. 'I wish I did. In my modelling days I could make up to look like I had them for the camera, but it took a lot of what my husband calls "plaster" to achieve that effect.'
Remembering the time when her cheekbones and most of her other bones had been invisible, Summer hoped that tonight she would be able to choose what to eat. Last night's dinner at the Pierre followed by three more nights of gourmet eating could do a lot of damage to her figure. If she wanted to stay a size eight, next week she would have to counterbalance this weekend with a few days on programme.
As they drove through Essex with its handsome houses and tall trees she could understand Raoul's liking for all these unspoilt river towns. Like Nantucket and Cranmere, they had the serenity of places which had a long history and where many people who lived there had known each other all their lives, and their parents and grandparents before them.
'Do you live in Toronto or outside it?' she asked Nancy.
'A few minutes' walk from Bloor Street which is the equivalent of midtown Fifth Avenue or Regent Street in London,' Nancy told her. 'But even though Toronto is a big city, somehow it has a nice friendly feeling about it. I wouldn't ever travel by subway in New York. It's dirty and I don't feel safe down there. In Toronto visitors are always amazed at how clean our subway is... the whole city, for that matter. We love living there but I think it may not be long before Andrew has to move to Detroit. Before that happens, Raoul must bring you to stay with us.'
This last remark made Summer wonder if Nancy was under the impression that she was his girl-friend.
She said, 'That's very nice of you. I'd love to see Toronto, but unfortunately I'm not a free agent. I think my pupil's uncle is planning to send us to Switzerland before long.'
'Oh, yes, you work for the man behind Oz, don't you? What's he like?'
'Very nice,' said Summer, making a private joke.
In the sense in which nice was usually used—which was how Nancy would take it—there could scarcely be a less appropriate term to describe the man who employed her. But the true definition of nice was exacting and discriminating, and those were attributes which did apply to him, but Summer didn't feel inclined to give Nancy a more detailed assessment of his character. Apart from the loyalty she owed him as his employee, the ninth Marquess of Cranmere, as James had been for a brief time, was not an easy person to describe.
Charming, when he chose to be. Crushingly sarcastic when he didn't. Sometimes friendly, sometimes withdrawn, the man was a mass of contradictions; an enigma she had yet to solve and perhaps never would.
They dined in the Inn's dark-panelled Comstock Room, making their choices from a menu of interesting dishes which proved to be as good although considerably less expensive than those the best restaurants of New York and Toronto had to offer. The two men decided to begin with baby trout in a mustard sauce followed by Beef Wellington. Summer settled for watercress soup and turbot with shrimps, a choice which made Nancy say, 'I'll go along with that.'
While the men were discussing the wine list, she added, 'Andrew is a gourmet but I'm not crazy about rich food, and especially not anything sweet. I could live for a week on grapefruit and cottage cheese. All my customers are on reducing diets and I have trouble keeping my weight up. Do you have the same problem?'
Summer said, 'Not really. My weight stays pretty constant. But, like you, I haven't a sweet tooth.' Not any more, she added mentally.
She hadn't been slender for long enough not to get a boost from being taken for a naturally slim person.
During dinner the conversation was general, but when they returned to the house the two men fell to talking about America's foreign policy and after a while Nancy turned to Summer and said, 'I have to confess that politics bore me. Could I look at the jewellery designs you've done for Raoul'—he had mentioned them during dinner—'or are they strictly under wraps?'
Evidently he had not been completely engrossed in talking to Andrew because, as Nancy was looking at the last of the drawings in the portfolio, he said, 'You must have modelled several million dollars'-worth of rocks in your time, Nancy. What do you think of Summer's ideas?'
'Original. Stylish. I love them.' She showed one of the designs to her husband. 'If you're worrying about a present for our next anniversary, this little bauble would be fine. Listen, Summer, how about designing some clothes for my boutique? There are lots of very elegant women—with very rich husbands!—in Toronto. It could be a good testing ground for your ideas about clothes. I'm sure you have plenty, and I could have them made up for you.'
It was an exciting offer, but Summer wasn't sure how Raoul would react to it. Perhaps he wouldn't like her diversifying; and there was the book about her father and other muralists which James was going to discuss with his publishing contact. Would she have time for all these projects as well as preparing Emily for Smith or Vassar?
Before she could answer, Raoul said, 'Let her sleep on it, Nancy. I think we should all go to bed. You people have had a long day. My plan for tomorrow morning is to take Summer up the river and, I hope, let her see some bald eagles. I also want to show her the Florence Griswold House. You two have already seen it so you may prefer to do you own thing until lunch.'
Early the next morning, Summer sat on a log by the river bank, drinking coffee from a vacuum flask and eating an apple while the sun rose over the river and a salty breeze rustled the reeds surrounding their breakfast place.
Raoul had entered her room at first light and given her a gentle shake—to have set an alarm clock would have disturbed the Sinclairs sleeping next door. Before dressing she had washed her face and brushed her teeth, but she hadn't put on any make-up.
When Raoul snapped a bar of chocolate and offered half of it to her, she said softly, 'No, thanks. May I look through your binoculars?'
He removed the strap from his neck and handed them to her.
'You may have to adjust the focus,' he told her, as she put the strap over her head and propped her elbows on her knees to steady her hold on the glasses.
'No, the focus if fine. We must have the same kind of eyesight.'
She scanned the far bank of the waterway called Connecticut by the Indians, the name meaning long, tidal river. It was certainly long—its source was in Canada. And for some miles upstream from where they were bird-watching, it continued, so he had told her, to be a wide estuary.
'Not only that; we have a great deal in common,' he remarked.
She lowered the glasses. 'Raoul, what do you think about this suggestion of Nancy's that I should try my hand at dress designing?'
'I think you should. I felt you and she would get along. That's one of the reasons I asked them down this weekend.'
As the breeze caught a strand of her hair and blew it across her face, he reached out to brush it aside. Having tucked it behind her ear, he touched her cheek lightly with his forefinger.
'You do have cheekbones like Katharine Hepburn. In fifty years' time you'll still be a beautiful woman.'
She was conscious that this was a moment which would always be imprinted on her memory. No woman ever forgot the first time she was told she was beautiful, or the man who told her.
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br /> 'Is that outside the terms of a working relationship—to say that I think you're beautiful?' he asked, with a slight smile.
'If it is, I can't truthfully say I object,' she answered lightly. 'To be complimented at this hour of the morning, with a bare face, does wonders for anyone's morale.'
'A lovely girl may enhance her looks with make-up, but she doesn't need it,' he said. 'In fact I think a lot of girls spoil themselves by overdoing their make-up. Those glistening lips and sultry eyes on the covers of the glossies aren't attractive from a man's point of view. Who wants to kiss a mouth thick with goo?'
He was looking at her mouth as he said it. She knew he was planning to kiss her but giving her the chance to turn away, if she so wished.
She kept her head still and after a moment he leaned towards her and kissed her, lightly at first and then, in a continuation of the first kiss, with a little gentle persuasion to open her lips.
Perhaps, if a heron hadn't chosen that moment to take off with languid wing-beats from a nearby reed-bed, he might have gathered her close. But the wading bird's sonorous croak before it took to the air made them draw apart and look up to watch its slow flight. As, its head drawn back in an S-shape, it headed north, it drew Raoul's eyes to another bird flying over the marshes. With an exclamation of excitement he pointed it out to her; the eagle which was her country's emblem and which, carved and gilded, with an olive branch and arrows in its talons, was to be seen above the lintels of many of the houses in the area.
It was their only sighting, and a distant one, of the birds he had wanted her to see. Presently they drove back to Old Lyme to visit the house which, at the beginning of the century, had been a summer colony for American artists such as Childe Hassam and Julian Alden Weir.
By the time they returned to the house, his sister and her husband had arrived from Boston. The former Giselle Santerre, now Mrs Scott Adams, was two years younger than her brother and very much like him in looks.
Raoul had already told Summer that Giselle had been engaged to the son of a French industrialist when she had come to America for a holiday and fallen in love with Scott, a junior partner in a Boston law firm.
It had taken considerable courage for her to upset her fiancé and her family by breaking the engagement a few weeks before her wedding, particularly as at that time Scott hadn't declared himself. But from the moment of meeting him, she had known that she couldn't go through with a marriage based on liking rather than love. As soon as she had returned to America, this time without an engagement ring, Scott had asked her to marry him.
Giselle had brought with her a typically French picnic lunch of pate, which she had made, crusty bread, good butter, fruit, cheese and—because it was her brother's birthday—champagne.
The six of them sat in the sun in the garden at the back of the house; four people who had found their life partners and two who might be poised on the brink between friendship and love. And yet, enjoyable as it was to be with people who had never known the other Summer Roberts, and with whom she had much in common, she found herself wondering how James and Emily were spending the day and whether they missed her or hardly noticed her absence.
After lunch they drove to the beach and filled their lungs with sea air, the three men walking together with the women following some yards behind. In the course of a conversation ranging over many subjects, Giselle contrived to elicit most of Summer's life history.
It wasn't until she was dressing for dinner that she had a chance to think about Raoul's kiss and what it might or might not presage.
Yesterday, in the train, she had told him she was a virgin and was inclined to remain one till she married. Did he think he could change her mind? Or were his intentions more serious? Judging by his arrangements for the weekend, and that one gentle kiss on the marshes, he was serious.
She closed her eyes, trying to recapture her feelings while he was kissing her. To her dismay she found herself remembering James's kisses, especially the one following his proposal at Nantucket. Merely to remember that kiss stirred her senses, but when Raoul had kissed her it hadn't made her heart stop beating or produced any way-out sensations. It had been more affectionate than passionate; a nice, tender, chocolate-flavoured kiss which had momentarily revived her desire for the taste of chocolate but hadn't aroused any deeper desires.
Perhaps true love, the 'durable fire', didn't burst into flame at the outset but began as a gentle glow. She felt sure that, if he wanted to, Raoul could ignite stronger feelings in her. There might be no rational basis for the idea that as lovers Frenchmen were superior to other men; but somehow she felt sure that he—if and when they went to bed together—would take her with tenderness and skill.
Meanwhile all she had to do was to let him set the pace of their relationship. She had once read an interesting essay by the English writer Margaret Lane— in private life the Countess of Huntingdon—in which she had analysed the nature of amitié amoureuse, the special friendship between a man and a woman who found each other physically attractive but who, for a variety of reasons, preferred to be no more than friends in the old-fashioned sense.
It might be that she and Raoul would never progress beyond an amitié amoureuse, although already, by kissing, they had gone beyond the strictest bounds of friendship. Or it might be that he was the one in whose arms at long last she would experience fulfilment.
At this moment she only knew that she felt more for him than for any man she had met—other than James, she thought wryly. He was kind and considerate, and also very attractive, and she always felt comfortable with him. What more could one ask?
Scott and Giselle were staying at the Old Lyme Inn which was where that night's dinner party was held. It was an elegant establishment with a reputation for haute cuisine and a strict dress code.
However, as among the families who had summer places or winterised houses in the area, those with old money still predominated, dressing up was low-key. Overdressing signalled the presence of tourists.
On Sunday they went to the Hunt Breakfast at the Griswold Inn in Essex. The breakfast was actually a superb buffet lunch.
These breakfasts are supposed to have been started by the British when they captured The Gris in the war of 1812,' Raoul told her, as they helped themselves from an appetising display which included bacon and eggs, sausages, kidneys, kippers, chipped beef in creole sauce, lobster kedgeree and turkey hash.
The waistband of her butterscotch cotton pants was feeling too snug for Summer's liking. She seemed to have been feasting for days and wished there was some way to avoid doing justice to the lavish spread. But with Raoul at her elbow there wasn't. She could only eat very slowly, and plan to revert to programme the moment she got back to New York.
Unable to stay a second night, at mid-afternoon his sister and brother-in-law began their journey home.
'I've told Raoul he must bring you to stay with us in Boston, so I'll only say au revoir, Summer,' said Giselle, before they drove away.
To Summer's relief, instead of going out to dinner that night, they stayed in and had omelettes and a green salad.
It was not till Monday, on the train, that she was alone with Raoul again.
'Next time you come down we'll take a ride on the Valley Railroad's old stream train. It's touristy, but fun,' he told her. 'And we'll try to get a closer look at the eagles.'
As he said this, she could tell by something in his eyes that he was remembering their kiss.
He didn't kiss her again till the day before she and Emily flew to Geneva.
As he had an important business engagement that evening, Raoul asked her to lunch with him, and suggested she come to his apartment.
It was a few days before her birthday. After lunch, when they had left the table and were having coffee on the sofa, he produced a small gift-wrapped package.
It contained a cornelian box, carved in the form of a pumpkin with a removable segment rimmed with tiny rose diamonds. She knew instantly that it must be a p
iece of Fabergé.
'It's beautiful, Raoul—but I can't possibly accept it. Not only because of its value, but because of its associations. It should be kept in your family.'
He said, 'This is a piece which I found on a visit to England, It was in a little back-street junk shop, and the dealer didn't know what it was. She thought it was plastic and marcasite, and I bought it for a song. If it had any workmaster's initials, they've been worn away.'
'You're not making that up to overcome my scruples, are you?' she said doubtfully. How could anyone mistake this exquisite object for a cheap trinket?
'I would never lie to you, Summer.'
He removed the little box from her hand, put it on the coffee table and then took her gently in his arms.
Today he didn't kiss her on the mouth but put his lips lightly against her forehead and began to brush many soft kisses all over her face. Her eyes closed, she felt him kissing her temples and cheeks while the fingertips of his right hand stroked her neck and explored the delicate skin behind her ears and under her chin.
At last his lips came to hers and found them already parted and eagerly responsive to his long, tender kiss.
'I wish you weren't going away,' he murmured presently. 'It will seem a long two months without you... more than two months if you're not coming back till September.'
She rested her cheek on his shoulder, one arm round his waist and her other hand playing with a button on his shirt.
'Don't you go to France every summer? While you're there, why not come and see us? The chalet we're going to stay in is quite large. I think it has six or seven bedrooms.
He stroked her hair and her back. 'Perhaps I will.'
She was suddenly filled with a longing for more than these gentle caresses. Lifting her head from his shoulder, she slid both arms round his neck and pressed herself against him, offering her mouth for another kiss.
This time he embraced her less gently. But just when she was beginning to feel all kinds of pleasurable sensations spreading through her entire body, he suddenly broke off the kiss and put her away from him.