by Nash, Jean
“Won’t you sit down, Mr. Grainger?” She found her voice at last. As he took the chair opposite her, Susanna gathered her wits about her and asked, “Would you like an aperitif before dinner or shall we order now?”
“Why don’t we order?” His steady gaze was both appraising and appreciative. “I’ve heard so many good things about the Sea Star’s outstanding home cooking, Miss Sterling. I’m anxious to sample it.”
She shifted nervously beneath his scrutiny. Why was he watching her in that distracting manner? “In that case,” she said, “may I suggest the beefsteak with oyster blanket? It’s served with stuffed potatoes and dressed lettuce. It’s honest fare,” she couldn’t resist adding. “The only kind we offer here.”
If he was aware of her ironic tone, it wasn’t evident to Susanna. He merely said pleasantly, “Then I know I’ll enjoy it.”
Susanna signaled to the maître d’hôtel. While she gave him instructions, Dallas produced a silver case and offered Jay a cigarette.
“Thank you, no,” Jay said, glancing at Susanna.
“Sunny doesn’t mind,” Dallas assured him. “I smoke like a chimney and it never bothers her.”
“‘Sunny’?” Jay said, curious.
“That’s what I’ve called her ever since I can remember. It fits her, you know. She’s been my one ray of sunshine in an otherwise dreary world.”
“Why is that?” Jay asked with more than casual interest.
“Well, for one thing,” Dallas explained, “she practically raised me singlehandedly. Our mother ran off with an actor when I was ten, and my father was too busy to—”
“Dallas!” Susanna said as the maître d’hôtel left. “I’m sure Mr. Grainger doesn’t want to hear about our family history.” She turned a daunting look on Jay. “Do you, Mr. Grainger?”
“No,” he said quietly. “Not if it distresses you to talk about it.”
His gentle tone disarmed her. Everything about this man seemed to disarm her. Flustered, she said, “It doesn’t distress me. I just don’t want to bore you with old dead tales that couldn’t possibly interest you.”
He said nothing for a moment; he only watched her in silence. In his eyes she saw not pity—which would have infuriated her—but a tacit understanding that further disconcerted her.
“Perhaps after dinner,” he finally said, “you could show me around the hotel, Miss Sterling. My attorney tells me it’s quite a handsome place.”
There wasn’t the least hint of condescension in his tone, but Susanna, her emotions in a turmoil, answered sharply, “I doubt you’ll find it to your liking, Mr. Grainger. A man like yourself is probably used to more opulent surroundings.”
Dallas kicked her under the table. Susanna glared at him. “What she means,” Dallas said tactfully, “is that the Sea Star—”
“I caught your sister’s meaning,” Jay said, watching Susanna. “I take it she disapproves of our business transaction.”
Susanna turned her glare on Jay and started to respond, but Dallas intervened again. “It did take her by surprise,” he admitted. “She’s used to doing things her own way, you see, and she thinks you’ll force all sorts of new ideas on her.”
“I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing,” Jay said at once. “Miss Sterling, let me assure you that the Sea Star is solely an investment for me. I have absolutely no intention of...” He paused and grinned. “...sticking my nose in your business. That is what you’re worried about, isn’t it?”
For the second time that evening Susanna found herself at a loss for words. Was he being honest? His tone was sincere, although faintly amused. Did he regret what he had done to Dallas and was he now trying to make up for it by giving Susanna free rein over the hotel?
“Do you mean that, Mr. Grainger?” She needed—no, she wanted—to be convinced.
“Miss Sterling,” he said in that low expressive voice that fell so pleasantly on the ears, “when you come to know me better, you’ll learn that I never say anything I don’t mean.”
The evening passed more quickly than Susanna had expected it to do. Jay Grainger was not the monster she had imagined him to be. Far from it. He was warm and charming and such a spellbinding raconteur that Susanna’s antagonism disappeared entirely.
His range of topics seemed inexhaustible. He spoke of the difficulties associated with owning numerous hotels, the many people he had met, his trips to England and the Continent, the exotic beauty of foreign shores, the Broadway stage, Impressionist art. Rather than making Susanna feel like the feared “country bumpkin,” he drew both her and Dallas into the conversation, asking their opinions, describing the things he had seen and done so vividly that Susanna could actually envision them. By the time dinner was over, Susanna, who had never once left the state of New Jersey, felt as erudite and as worldly as he.
“Which reminds me,” he said as he concluded a fascinating tale of a recent trip to Spain, “I found this in a shop in Barcelona.” He took a slim wrapped package from his inside coat pocket and handed it to Susanna. “I’ve been saving it for a special occasion such as this one. Please accept this, Miss Sterling, as a token of our newly formed partnership.”
Susanna took the package uncertainly and unwrapped it to reveal an exquisite ivory fan with silk tassels. The ivory was worked into a spray of narcissi interspersed with foreign words.
“Mr. Grainger,” she said, stunned, “I can’t accept—”
“I insist, Miss Sterling.”
“But I couldn’t.”
“You don’t like it, is that it?”
“No, it’s beautiful! It’s...well, it wouldn’t be proper.”
“Nonsense,” he said. “If you were a man and I gave you a cigar case to celebrate our partnership, would you consider that improper?”
“No, but...”
“It’s settled, then. Please accept the fan in the spirit in which it was given. I was told that it once belonged to Queen Isabella the First, but the party from whom I purchased it was unable to produce a provenance. Whatever its origin, it’s an interesting piece. The motto says, ‘The truth is best perceived through the discerning eyes of love.’”
“Sunny, accept it,” Dallas urged, calculating the fan’s worth, which, provenance or no, was obviously great. “To refuse such a gracious gesture would be the height of bad manners.”
Susanna looked at the fan, then she looked up at Jay with a sudden self-conscious blush.
“Good Lord!” Dallas exclaimed. “Look at her. She looks as regally beautiful as a Spanish princess. Don’t you agree, Mr. Grainger?”
“Hardly, Sterling.” Jay’s expression was droll. “I met several ladies of royal lineage while I was in Madrid, and your sister doesn’t resemble any of them in the least. What she does remind me of,” he added pensively, admiring her petal-smooth skin and the charming glow of her cheeks, “is one of those creamy narcissi depicted on the fan.”
“Do you really think so?” Dallas was dubious. “But the narcissus is such a plain flower.”
“I once read,” Susanna said softly, her eyes on the fan, “that the narcissus was named for a handsome young man who was so entranced with his own beauty....”
“Yes, go on, Miss Sterling,” Jay prompted. “He was so entranced...?”
“That the gods,” she said, raising her gaze to his, “turned him into a flower.”
“You’re quite right,” he said with a curious searching smile. “What an extraordinary bit of lore for someone from Atlantic City to know.”
His approval pleased her, but she was not unaware of the ambiguity of his statement. “Atlantic City,” she said pointedly, “is not the intellectual backwater you seem to think it is, Mr. Grainger.”
He stared at her, then laughed, caught off guard by her response. “My apologies. That’s precisely what I was thinking. I’m afraid New Yorkers tend to dismiss the cultural significance of any other city.”
The waiter started to clear the table. Jay persisted, “Miss Sterling, you will acc
ept the fan? In spite of my bad manners.”
Susanna smiled—a genuine smile—for the first time that night. How different he was from the insensitive ogre she had imagined him to be. Her mind was awhirl with the pleasurable echo of his voice, with the unexpectedness of his gift, with a sense of well-being and optimism generated by his promise not to interfere with her management of the hotel. Perhaps, she thought hopefully, his part ownership of the Sea Star might greatly improve it. Perhaps, working again with a man who loved his work, Susanna would be able to restore her cherished hotel to its former popularity.
“Mr. Grainger,” she said impulsively, “I accept your generous offer with all my heart.”
“Good,” he said, watching the radiant glow of her eyes.
And as she returned his steady gaze in a silence that spoke volumes, Dallas, also silent, was watching them both.
Three
Later that evening, after Susanna had shown Jay about the Sea Star, he said to her, “This is a fine hotel. It’s hard to believe that you’ve been operating it on your own.”
Dallas had left them immediately after dinner, to keep an “appointment.” They were alone in the lobby, seated on a curved settee near the main entrance. Gas-lit wall lamps shed rose-colored light on potted plants and cheery wicker furniture. Practical hemp scatter rugs covered the oak floor, and the chair and sofa pillows looked plumply inviting. In no way could the room be described as elegant, yet it was as vibrantly warm and welcoming as a house filled with love.
“I don’t operate it on my own.” Susanna was again unaccountably pleased by his approval. “Dallas is a great help.”
“Is he really?” Jay said blandly. “In what way?”
“In many ways,” she hastened to say, although she had to quickly search her memory to think of one. “The wine merchant comes in twice a year, and Dallas orders our stock.”
“Ah, I see. He keeps inventory, then?”
“Well...no. I do that. But he deals with the wine merchant, which is a load off my mind, I assure you.”
Again Jay gave her that curious searching look, as if he didn’t quite know what to make of her. This puzzled Susanna, because she was the one who didn’t know what to make of him. She knew she should be angry because of what he’d done to Dallas, but anger, at this moment, was the last thing on her mind.
Jay Grainger was so far removed from her preconceived idea of him. He wasn’t a greedy Robber Baron. These few short hours had shown Susanna that he was simply a hardworking hotel man, as her father had been. His comments while touring the Sea Star had been succinct and perceptive. He had admired the sparkling cleanliness of the kitchen, the homey decor of the guest rooms, the fine choice of labels in the wine cellar. His sole suggestion, the addition of a ballroom, was something which Susanna had recently been thinking about. It had been so long since she’d spent time with someone who knew and loved hotels as much as she did. This man’s very presence was exhilarating!
“Do you mind if I smoke, Miss Sterling?”
“Not at all. Please do.”
Susanna watched him covertly as he lighted his cigarette. She hadn’t noticed before that there were laugh lines about his eyes and the corners of his mouth. And that was odd, she mused, because at this moment, his mouth clamping the cigarette looked unyielding and stern, as if laughter were a frivolity he didn’t countenance. She noticed, too, as he shook out the match and deposited it in an ashtray, that there were faint ridged scars on the back of his hands. She asked him about them. He said briefly, “They’re from burns.” But a look in his eyes, recollective and stark, contradicted the casual tone of his voice.
For no reason she could imagine, Susanna felt compelled to try to banish the memory that obviously troubled him. “Dallas told me,” she said brightly, “that you’re planning to build a hotel on the Boardwalk.”
His expression changed, warmed. “That’s right. It will be built of reinforced concrete which will make for much sounder construction than was ever before possible.”
“It sounds expensive,” Susanna said.
Jay gave her a smile. “It is. Fifty thousand dollars over the cost of the frame structure I’d been considering.”
Susanna was horrified. To her, who was used to pinching pennies, fifty thousand dollars was an expenditure beyond her comprehension.
“Isn’t that awfully extravagant? If you use clapboard or shingle, the money you save could be used on the interior, which is where the guests spend most of their time.”
“Under ordinary circumstances I’d agree with you. But Atlantic City has had a good many fires in the past several years, fires that break out in one location and go on to consume a dozen or more surrounding buildings. That won’t happen to my hotel, Miss Sterling. The reinforced concrete will make it the first completely fireproof structure on the island.”
There it was again, a sudden dark look in his eyes that caused Susanna to glance instinctively at his hands. What had happened, she wondered, that had affected him so deeply, that had scarred both his flesh and his soul?
Jay extinguished his cigarette and rose abruptly. “I could do with some fresh air. Shall we walk a bit on the Boardwalk?”
She looked up at him, startled by the suddenness of his movement. The dark look was gone, replaced by a vague restless tension. This man, Susanna thought, dislikes being idle. Like Papa, she mused further, and like me.
Despite the lateness of the hour the Boardwalk was crowded with fashionably dressed ladies and dapper gentlemen in lightweight suits and straw boaters. An invigorating breeze blew in from the ocean mingling deliciously with the scents that were so much a part of the resort. From stands and cafes the aromas of salt water taffy and a dozen different foods tantalized Susanna. Electric lights glittered everywhere, illuminating open shops selling tinsel brooches, beadwork purses, miniature wooden Indians and shellwork glove boxes.
At one shop, Jay picked up a large conch shell on which was painted a bad likeness of the Mona Lisa. “Miss Sterling,” he exclaimed, “what a find! I never knew da Vinci visited here.”
Susanna laughed and pointed out another shell bearing an equally bad depiction of Blue Boy. “He was here several centuries before Mr. Gainsborough,” she said. “Their visits are two of the city’s best-kept secrets.”
They walked on past gyrating carousels and noisy pavilions and vendors hawking everything from almond pralines to Zeno chewing gum. These were sights and sounds and smells with which Susanna was intimately familiar, but tonight, sharing them with Jay Grainger was like experiencing them for the first time. He seemed genuinely delighted with the carnival atmosphere of the Boardwalk, unlike some out-of-towners who had pronounced Atlantic City “vulgar” or “garish” or “bourgeois.” He seemed to accept it for what it was—a city without pretension, a summer playground for all, regardless of social status.
As they neared the Steel Pier, Susanna could hear the strains of “The Band Played On” from the music hall at the ocean end of the structure.
“Oh, do let’s go in,” she said to Jay. “I’ve always loved to watch the dancers.”
“We’ll do better than watch,” he said. “I shall demonstrate to you, Miss Sterling, that my two years at Mr. Dodsworth’s weekly dancing class were not spent in vain.”
They stopped at the admission gate. Jay purchased two tickets, then took Susanna’s arm and guided her deftly past the crush of tourists who were enjoying the many diversions offered on the Pier. As they entered the brightly lit music hall, the orchestra modulated into a romantic rendition of “The Blue Danube.”
“Ah, Strauss, my favorite!” Jay said, swinging Susanna expertly onto the dance floor.
With a little breathless gasp Susanna picked up a fold of her skirt and began to count off the waltz steps in her mind. One-two-three. One-two-three. It had been so long since she danced, almost three years ago, at the annual Bonifaces’ Ball. Except for her father and his friends, she had never danced with a man over twenty-five. Jay was in his mid
dle thirties, she guessed, and so coolly self-assured that her own youthful confidence seemed a childish facade to her.
He was an accomplished dancer, his movements minimal, effortless. Susanna felt like a weightless flower in his arms. Although he kept the prescribed twelve inches between them, Susanna was intensely aware of his nearness. There was a delicious sea-clean scent about him of sun and sky and open air. She could feel his hand at her back, guiding her lightly but surely through the maze of whirling dancers. She felt his breath on her brow. It whispered through her lashes, brushed the curve of her flushed cheeks, then came to rest like a zephyr on her quivering mouth. She glanced up at him shyly. He looked down at her and smiled. Her heart gave a sudden painful thump.
“You’ve gone quiet all of a sudden,” he said. “What are you thinking about?”
“I was just thinking that I haven’t danced in such a long time. And,” she added reluctantly, “I was also thinking about something my brother said to me this morning.”
“What was that?”
“He said that I’m not a very social person. I think he may be right. My entire life revolves around the hotel— Not that I’m complaining!” she interjected. “But the only thing I do besides running the Sea Star is read. My father was a great reader, too. He left a wonderful library. I wish Dallas had more interest in books, but he always says that, unlike me, he would rather live life than read about it.”
“Does he now?” Jay’s low voice was gentle. “Tell me what you like to read, Miss Sterling.”
“Oh, everything!” she said. “I like Shakespeare and Thackeray and Wordsworth and Voltaire.”
“An interesting melange. Have you any modern favorites?”
“Yes, I like Henry James. His Daisy Miller made me cry. And I like Mark Twain, although I sometimes sense a scornful cynicism behind his humor.”