Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances

by Dorothy Fletcher

  Which someone?

  Emily?

  It could have been Emily.

  It could have been Toussaint, too.

  Who had the keys to this cottage besides me?

  Emily could have them. Emily could have another set.

  Possibly Toussaint could have a set as well.

  Not that anyone who wanted to couldn’t get in with perfect ease. I closed the windows, yes, but didn’t lock them. Why should I? I didn’t anticipate an intruder, and closed the windows simply out of habit. You left a house, you closed the windows against rain, you locked the doors.

  If I had expensive jewelry, or a great sum of money, those things would have been in a vault. And second story men didn’t steal into places to purloin plants, for the Lord’s sweet sake. There was nothing here anyone could covet … nothing I felt I had had to protect.

  I crushed the cigarette, turned out the light, and got into bed again. And I did, in spite of everything, sleep again.

  Although I had worried about the horrid possibility of Toussaint’s being the intruder who had violated my cottage, it was not of him I dreamed.

  It was another man who disturbed my fitful sleep.

  First it was moths.

  I have always had a horror of moths; it goes back a long way, perhaps to infancy. Now there were swarms of moths in a large, bare room, and in the room was a bright light, a chandelier, or a great candle, and the moths flew to the flame, drawn by its brilliant effulgence, and were destroyed.

  Their wings curled into flame, and they came apart, disintegrating horribly; bits of wings and bodies plummeted lightly to the ground. I felt a shudder go through me, and bile rise in my throat. Those suicidal moths kept swarming into the room, masses of them, silver and crazy and flying into the fire, and all the feathery wings and long, worm-like bodies burned and cindered; the insects were extinguished again, and again, and again …

  A voice said, “You like to see them suffer, don’t you?”

  It was Tony Cavendish’s voice, and he was watching me as I watched the dying moths. His face wasn’t judging, or admonitory: he was smiling, almost admiringly, and I became defensive. I said, “I hate them.”

  “And me, too?” he asked.

  I cried, “Oh, no, not you, my love,” and reached for him. His face was close and then I was embracing him, winding my arms around him and plunging my mouth down on his. Our bodies came together …

  I woke.

  I lay shaking … and shattered.

  Finally I admitted the truth. From the first moment. From almost the first moment. Tony Cavendish … my brain had not admitted it, but my senses had, and my deep unconscious. I had almost instantly fallen in love, sexually in love, with Anthony, Caroline’s Viscount and old friend.

  In the morning I got up, bathed, and made my breakfast. I had it out with myself. It was chemistry and nothing more. It was one of those biological things. It had happened before and it would happen again. You had these cravings. Who needed them? But you had them. You got the best of them. Everyone had a libido struggle. If you were intelligent you handled it. You didn’t let it bollux you.

  Now I admitted it, it was conquerable. Deceive yourself and you’re lost. Tony Cavendish was off limits. You had to deny yourself many things

  Otherwise life would be chaos.

  13.

  I drifted over to Caroline’s at around eleven the next morning, after giving Tom breakfast, and found her on the seaside patio. We were having an idle conversation when Emily came out and asked Caroline if she wanted anything.

  “Nothing,” Caroline said shortly. “Do stop interrupting, Emily.”

  “I simply wished to see if you had any requirements,” Emily said stiffly, and withdrew in a huff.

  “Bothersome creature,” Caroline snapped and then, only a quarter of an hour later, said, “Where is that woman, I’d like some tea”

  “I’ll get it,” I offered.

  “Why shouldn’t she? That’s what she’s paid for!”

  “Come, I’ll get us some tea; I’d like it, too.”

  “All right, then, but don’t bother Claire, just ask her where things are, that’s a good girl.”

  Claire, as a matter of fact, wasn’t in the kitchen, or anywhere about that I could see, and I had to forage for myself. But I succeeded in unearthing the Twining’s tea, sugar, lemon and milk, and went back to the patio to tell Caroline that I was bringing the water to a boil and would she be patient

  “Certainly,” she said, smiling conspiratorially at me. “We can manage on our own, can’t we, pet? No rush, and do put some of those lovely tuiles on a plate for us; I had them shipped from Paris. You’ll adore them. They’re sickeningly expensive, but so damned delicious.”

  I said okay, and went back to the kitchen, where I bumped into Claire just leaving it.

  “Claire, do you know where I can find the tuiles?” I asked her. “Caroline wants some with her tea.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, smiling her warm, Jamaican smile. “I’ll put some out on a plate. Shall I do the tea for you, miss?”

  “Thanks, but I was told not to bother you.”

  She laughed and dimpled, and said all right, if I could manage by myself she did have some things to do. Then she left, going off in a soft cloud of some scent she used, spicy and fresh and very feminine, as she was.

  I liked being in the sunlit kitchen, with its two shining ranges, six burners on each, and the center table where, I supposed, Claire and John, that worthy couple, ate their meals in privacy and talked about their lives. A kitchen is the very heart of a house, I have often thought, and I remembered ours, in the house in which I grew up, with its spaciousness, and the breakfast nook where we gathered before going off to school or work, or whatever. My mother singing hymns: Oh, Jesus, thou art standing, Bringing in the sheaves …

  And a pot roast searing in the iron vessel …

  I picked up one of the tuiles, the cookies Claire had set out, and nibbled it. It was delicious, a wafery pasty with almond slices set into it. Then the whistle came from the kettle and I started pouring the hot water into the teapot; just then Dommie, Caroline’s little Cairn terrier, bounded into the room and leapt up onto my legs.

  This made me lose my balance, and I spilled some of the hot water.

  “Bad dog,” I scolded. “Now look what you’ve made me do.”

  Unrepentant, the dog looked up at me expectantly. Play with me? her black eyes beseeched.

  “Caroline wants her tea,” I told the dog, and began mopping up. Dommie watched me with some petulance, intent on romping, her feet braced for playtime.

  I could have sworn she was grinning at me.

  “All done,” I said, and looked about for a trash can. I found it in a corner near the window, a giant, spotless white one with a step-on lid. I had dropped the soaked paper toweling inside when something caught my eye.

  Something clay-red, and below it something green.

  I looked, and couldn’t believe my eyes, but there it was, the shattered remnants of my clay pot, all smashed and into bits … and loose, dark, rich soil … long, eely, snakelike roots, and last of all the green, lush, shiny leaves of my dieffenbachia.

  I groped inside and pulled out bits of clay, bits of loose earth, and the pitiful fronds of roots.

  Dommie came up beside me, peering with me, her furry little face perplexed. She raised inquisitive eyes to mine, but I looked back unseeingly at her.

  I released what I was holding, closed the can, and placed the tea things on a tray.

  “Took you a bit longish,” Caroline said, grinning impishly. “I doubt I’ll hire you for a girl of all work.”

  “I have other charms,” I confided, and tried not to seem abstracted, but I simply could not keep my thoughts on any conversation. Someone in this house had been inside my cottage, when Caroline and I were in Montauk. Someone who, after wrecking my plant, had carried the remains to Caroline’s house.

  Who else but Emily?


  It all seemed very clear to me at the time, but later, at night, when the lights were out and my defences were down as I lay all alone, I had other ideas.

  Supposing it had been Toussaint?

  For what reason, or how, didn’t seem to matter. The idea in itself, of that great, massive, enigmatic man inside this place where I lived, ate and slept was so repellent and so loathsome that it made my flesh crawl. Those hidden eyes, which I doubted I’d ever really see, and the silent threat of him was in itself loathsome. But to imagine him walking these rooms, silent and frightful, nearly drove me out of my mind. I didn’t doubt that he had a job to do here, and that he did it well. It was his inscrutability. It was his ghastly mysteriousness. It was something about his maleness.

  I told myself I was getting Freudian again, failed to amuse myself, and had to admit that I was merely, after all, a rentee on the place, and that, as such, there was a certain caveat emptor about it.

  But it was so strange.

  My last thought, before falling asleep, was, please don’t let it have been Toussaint.

  • • •

  That marked a kind of turning point in my relations with the Lestranges. It suddenly became impossible for me not to acknowledge that my presence on the Lestrange compound had become a disturbing influence.

  The next week-end, four of us went to a deck party on the Snow Goose. The day began innocuously enough, with a pally breakfast with young Tom, then a morning swim, after which I went to say hello to Caroline, who took a walk with me on the grounds, where we ran into Lester.

  “Good morning,” Lester said. “Oh, by the way, Caroline, would you care to join us for a drink late this afternoon with Gordon and Martha Comstock? The Snow Goose is lying in for repairs, and they’re having some guests. What do you say?”

  “Bugger and bother,” Caroline replied. “I should die of boredom with those arrivistes. Though forgive me, I know he’s a client of your firm, Lester. I shan’t go, but take Jennie, and Peter will want to go too, as he’s smitten with my young friend.”

  I had no idea who the Comstocks were and in any event said I wouldn’t go without her. “Nonsense,” Caroline put in, as if that settled it, and started for the house. “I shall ring up Peter; what time are you leaving, Lester?”

  “Four thirty or so.”

  “Good. Then it’s all arranged.”

  “But Caroline,” I objected, and Lester intervened gallantly. “I’m sure you’d enjoy it,” he said to me. “In spite of what Caroline says, there will be good things to eat, and plenty of bubbly. It’s a stunning boat.”

  “You’ll have a nice time,” Caroline assured me.

  “But won’t you come too? I won’t know anyone.”

  “You soon will, and without Tony and me. These people aren’t his style any more than mine. Or yours. But as Lester says, it’s a smashing boat and you’ll have plenty to eat and drink. A small diversion which you deserve. You can tell me all about it this evening.”

  “Suppose we pick you up at about four-fifteen,” Lester suggested to me. “If you’re thinking about what to wear, just anything at all. No sweat about this.”

  We went in the Mercedes, Kathy in a sparkling shortish skirt with a spanking sailor blouse, a genuine middy with stars on the square collar. Lester wore rep pants that were skin tight over his narrow buttocks, and a Lacoste shirt. Peter was in levis and a Guatemalan shirt. I myself had donned a new jumpsuit that Kathy noticed at once: she said, “My dear, you’re a knockout!”

  “My sister’s handiwork. She ran it up on her trusty Singer. An Yves St. Laurent copy.”

  “I adore it. I adore it!”

  The Snow Goose, riding at anchor and stirring gently in lapping water, was a gorgeous craft, enormous and glittering white in the sun. We were greeted by its owner, Gordon Comstock, with a backslap and a kiss on both cheeks.

  He was not a tall man and he knew it, so he stood as straight as he could, and he had decided, for the sake of glamor, to grow sideburns and wear his hair as long as a hippie. He was in his early or mid-sixties, and with that unruly shock of white hair, resembled Hemingway. I’m sure he traded on this likeness; he had adopted the Hemingway shark smile and the great white hunter stance. He was a vain man, about himself and about his possessions, and not long after our introduction took it upon himself to brief me on his boat.

  His wife was one of those slimmed-down, middle-aged women who have let their faces go in favor of their silhouettes. She wore a size six or seven, and had nice, slim legs, though shortish, but her face was as wrinkled as a prune. Her hair was done just so, all spray and shape, and you knew that, between sets, it never saw a comb or brush. She had that gravelly, drawling speech that you hear on the upper East Side of Manhattan, and the affected pronunciation to go with it — tomahto, cahviar.

  Money and no polish, but who cared? Everthing was gala, including the guests. A lot of glossy girls, tossing their shining hair, eyes glittering behind false lashes, and the kind of clothes models wear while modeling. The young men (everyone was young except for our hosts) looked like Mr. Americas, and as if they showered several times a day.

  You met these people at gallery openings, or first nights at the Met, or slumming in Soho, or jamming in Maxwell’s Plum. They were not fascinating, but they were pretty, like the Snow Goose.

  The Snow Goose was truly magical; splendid and majestic, and there was a touch that was enchanting. About fifty little flags, colorful and brilliant, were run up on the halyards; he called them cocktail flags. “Kind of a tradition,” he said They fluttered in the breeze and looked like confetti.

  “They’re lovely,” I said, and he replied, “Yeah, well we do that; yeah, they do look nice, I guess.”

  I asked him what kind of boat it was.

  He launched into an enthusiastic explanation. “This is a Palmer-Johnson Swan 43. That means it’s forty-three feet long It’s a sloop Got that?”

  “A sloop.”

  “It’s made of fiberglass, and the sails are dacron. Now, as you can see, there are two spinakers. That’s for sailing downwind. Got it?”

  “I’ve got it.”

  “And there, see? Those are the jibs This boat has three.”

  He poked me in the arm. “See the emblem on that spinaker?”

  I had noticed it. Clear at the top of one spinaker was a beautiful abstract of a snow goose, sparkling white against its background of pale blue, riding high, like a proud proclamation.

  “It’s gorgeous.” I said politely.

  He preened. “Comes with the territory,” he whispered, and poked me in the arm again. “I’m not a penniless man, little girl.”

  “I imagine not,” I told him; his eyes sharpened, and he got a predatory look, reminding me of a barracuda. I wondered how many of these glossy girls he had had a go at, and as I didn’t plan to be one of them, changed the subject hastily and said I guessed I was ready for another drink.

  That didn’t get rid of him, however. “Daddy will take care of this little girl,” he said and, slinging an arm around my shoulders, led me to the buffet table on the foredeck, where he asked me what my poison was.

  I said Canadian Club; he splashed liquor into a glass, dropped in some ice cubes and handed it to me with a flourish. Then he urged caviar and hors d’oeuvres on me. There were also prosciutto and melon, good cheeses, turkey, salmon, and what not.

  Everyone was chattering and laughing and trying to outdo each other with witticisms. It was like a Warner Brothers spectacular, an over-budgeted opus. The stars were Mrs. and Mrs. Comstock and the rest of us were extras. We were background, like the cocktail flags.

  Mr. Comstock, who had vanished suddenly, was at my side again. “You’ll want to see below. Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  I followed him. We went down the narrow flight to the main salon underneath, where there was another buffet and more people looking just like those on the upper deck. There were seating arrangements ranged around the wall, covered in aprico
t-hued naugahyde, and at the portholes were apricot-colored drapes on traverse rods.

  “How many people does this boat sleep?” I asked Mr. Comstock, still polite.

  “Six … eight … twelve, if you want. All very compact. These wall seats open up into berths, too, you understand. On a boat you don’t waste space. Everything’s built in.”

  I caught Peter’s eye and he grinned, shrugging.

  “The powder room?” I asked, and Mr. Comstock poked me in the ribs, then looked into my eyes, chuckling. “The little girl wants the little girls’ room? Come on, honey, Daddy will show you.”

  He opened the door of a john for me and put his face close to mine. “Tell me, honey, how do you do it in that kind of one-piece thing?”

  “You take it off,” I said. “You take it all off.”

  “Sure you don’t need any help?”

  “I think I can manage, but many thanks.”

  He let me go reluctantly, and once inside I locked the door.

  There was a skylight in the ceiling that made everything inside the room look gilded and mellow. In fact, there was some real gold: the faucets were gold, ornately designed with big-busted mermaids, and the Sherle Wagner trough, all water lilies and gilt, made me want to wash my hair in it. The toilet seat was in matching water lilies and gilt fronds, and the tiling was in the same vein.

  I could hear the steady drone of voices from afar, and high-pitched laughter, and then suddenly I heard voices quite close, as far, I would say, as outside the other john. I stopped dallying, not wanting to keep anyone waiting, and slithered back into my jumpsuit; then I recognized the voices.

  There were two of them; one was Kathy Lestrange’s, the other, Mrs. Comstock’s pretentious Manhattanese. Mrs. Comstock was saying, “Who’s that girl you brought?”

  “Some person Auntie took a fancy to.”

  Mrs. Comstock said, “That’s peculiar.”

  “My dear, you don’t know,” Kathy said. “She’s beginning to get on my nerves. It wasn’t my idea to cart her along. Caroline arranged that. Really, that woman is in her dotage. It’s too irksome, the things she does. Something will have to be done one of these days. Lester and I — ”