He hesitated again, then grinned, and said, “Great, be right with you.”
He dashed off, but was back in jig time, in his beach wear, and we scrambled down the hill. We went at once into the water. As usual, the first feel of it was chilling, but once we had plunged in, we warmed up and it was quite comfortable.
It was a lovely day, as most of the summer days had been. We swam leisurely for a while, but soon Tom had had enough, and he went back to stretch out on the sands.
“Isn’t he a dear boy,” I commented. “He’s at such a vulnerable age. Growing up and a little afraid to. He has so little guidance from his parents.”
“He’s a nice kid,” Eric agreed, swimming beside me.
I murmured, “I love children. Poor things, they have to be so dependent. Eric, I always thought I’d prefer to have a little girl. But I’ve kind of flipped for Tom. I guess I’d be just as pleased with a boy.”
“I would suggest marriage before the blessed events.”
I laughed. “Trying to say, pointedly, that I’m not getting any younger?”
Then, turning, I saw that Tom wasn’t alone on the beach. Peter was there. I waved. “Come on in, the water’s fine, Peter.”
He walked to the edge of the water, braced himself, and plunged in. “Brr,” he said, when he swam up to us. “Not exactly a steam bath.”
“You’ll get used to it,” I assured him. Someone else was walking across the sand. I was a little surprised that Anthony had chosen to join us, too, but as always felt that little tremor as I watched him walking toward the water, where he stood poised at the edge of the waves. That small shock had come again, that quick racing of my pulse, and I tried to look away, but couldn’t.
He stood there for a moment longer. His fair hair took light from the sun. It was like a nimbus around his head. His body was perfect — flawless, and masculine; virile, a body that would be good to love, memorable to love.
I thought, in a kind of deliberate, methodical way, I’m very attracted to him. Being scrupulously honest about it, not burying it, was healthy and honest and safe. Pretending was the dangerous thing, hiding from yourself was perilous. If you knew, told yourself you knew, acknowledged it for what it was — a natural feeling, nothing to be ashamed of — you were the master of that feeling.
Then he walked into the water, with a kind of kingly contempt, as if it were a servant which would do his bidding, and struck out in a fast crawl.
“Hello again, old chap,” he said to Eric when he reached us.
“Hello to you too.”
Then we stopped talking and just swam, after which we all dropped down on the sand next to Tom. We lay and suntanned, smoking, talking idly. I was rather pleased at the status quo. There I was, one girl among four males, who deferred to me, flirted with me, and made me feel about ten feet tall.
Any woman would have enjoyed it. I lay smiling and talking to the others, but my thoughts went on, private and elated. I was realizing that this was a very special summer, a high point in my life. Here were three men vying for my attentions: dear, fine-looking Peter, who had suddenly found it necessary to spend a great deal of time in East Hampton for the first time since his childhood. Apparently because I was there.
And the dashing, handsome, titled Tony, who was dangerously attractive to me. And who had come to join us even though Eric was no longer absent.
As well as, of course, Eric, to whom I had decided to give my life. That wonderful, brilliant, fine editor at a fine publishing house, that splended, charming guy with the Hal Holbrook smile.
I wondered what Eric’s reaction would be if he knew that I had been presented with some options. I was relatively sure I could be Peter’s wife. It might be over his family’s dead bodies, but he was in love with me, I was almost certain.
Even Tony. “Are you screening me as a candidate?” That hadn’t even been a quasi-proposal, and yet … a man didn’t mention the word marriage if the idea were distasteful to him.
Living in a palace, or, next to it. My American friends addressing mail to Mrs. Anthony Cavendish, Viscountess of Surrey. My friends and relatives visiting me for a country week-end. The Gold Room for one, the Blue Room for another.
I lay there keeping up my end of the conversation, with my thoughts inwardly flowing on. I was playing games.
Then I stopped thinking and just felt, sensed, savored. I lay enjoying the fair day, the high excitement of the summer and my special status. It was forgivable, I guess. Everyone cherishes attention and admiration.
I breathed in the country-sea smells, felt the warm sun on my face and body, closed my eyes. Narcissistically, I ran my hands down the length of my torso, tanned and smooth and young.
I had started, I guess, to like myself. I felt like a princess.
I felt invincible.
• • •
Caroline’s lunch, served on her sunny patio, was fine. And, as if in deference to Eric, her behavior was exemplary. No cruel remarks to anyone, and a delicious meal.
It was a long lunch, after a rather protracted cocktail interlude, and Peter had invited himself, so there were six of us. There was a dinner wine, then a dessert wine and with coffee, brandy.
The liquor, of course, loosened Caroline’s tongue, and she made a point of extolling me, as if I were an objet d’art she had purchased recently and wanted lauded by her guests. She said that, at first, she had thought me merely a pretty girl. “But my dear,” she cried, “with that glorious color from the sun! You’re like a Botticelli or a Burne-Jones.”
Emily declined to look my way, but Peter said, “Hear hear!”
Tony simply smiled his lazy smile.
I had to glance over at Eric. I felt damned self-conscious. Also, he had been rather quiet for the last half hour or so, and I couldn’t blame him. He must be sick and tired of hearing my praises sung. And Caroline’s blandishments were almost sycophantic.
I told myself not to judge her. There was a reason for her adulation. She knew I liked her, genuinely liked her, and it warmed her, made her grateful, so she reciprocated in the only way she knew how.
It was because I drew no distinctions about our age difference. So often the young kiss older people off as finished and boring, of no use. And I understood that, if it weren’t for me, Caroline would be alone with Emily and Tony, instead of with a larger group, drinking, eating and talking animatedly.
She knew that too, of course, and was grateful. When, I wondered, had someone felt love for Caroline Lestrange? Perhaps decades ago. How long was it since anyone had put arms around her and kissed her?
It could happen to me, I thought.
It was quarter of four when we left and walked back along the flagstoned walk to the cottage. I took Eric’s hand, noticed that it was rather cold, and turned to him quickly.
“Are you feeling up to par?” I asked him.
Then Caroline’s dog, in a playful mood, trotted up to us, and Eric stopped to pick it up. He stood there stroking it, and I thought, what a pleasant picture that makes, the big man and the tiny dog; what gentle fingers Eric has … what tenderness he has in his eyes.
I walked ahead, and Eric came up to me as I was going inside. “Wasn’t that a nice afternoon,” I said, heading for the bedroom. “I’m going to change, how about you?”
“I guess,” he said, following me.
I was high, from the drinks, the talk, the good food and just general well-being. I glanced at myself in the glass over the chest of drawers and stood there for a moment.
“Like a Botticelli,” Caroline had said.
Was I?
My face was flaming with color, from the sun and from elation. “Or a Burne-Jones,” Caroline had said.
I had to admit that I was far better looking now than I had been ten years ago. I was more polished, certainly, finer-groomed, and my face had molded itself into more sculptured lines. I suppose I was at the peak of my looks and I was conscious of its being an ephemeral treasure, something I would not ha
ve forever.
I was scarcely conscious of Eric, who was elsewhere in the room. I just stood there looking at myself, almost as if I were gazing at a stranger … and a kind of awe rose in me. I had often said that I wouldn’t recognize myself on the street, because no one can see himself, but only a small portion of what he or she is. And I knew, too, in this analytical moment, that I was looking at a stranger.
And I could truly assess that stranger’s face.
It got, suddenly, rather frighteningly metaphysical, and I turned away quickly, my heart thudding. I was startled to find Eric standing very near me. “You startled me,” I said.
He didn’t say anything back, just stood there looking at me.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. Because he looked so strange … and he was so quiet.
I said again, “Eric, what’s the matter?”
Then he spoke. “You are beautiful,” he said. “You can see that, can’t you?”
He gestured toward the mirror. “You just saw that.”
“Why, I was just — ”
He interrupted me. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve never seen you looking lovelier. You’ve become exceedingly beautiful this summer. I hadn’t realized.”
“Eric,” I protested. “What nonsense are you talking? I was just looking in the glass … at my … at my tan. I’ve got a damned good tan. I was just — ”
For some reason I became nervous. Because he was standing there so stiffly, so unmovingly. So … so almost threateningly. Yet there was no scowl on his face. There was no expression on his face at all. And I suddenly felt that I was looking into the face of another stranger.
I forced myself to speak, to break the weird spell.
“What’s all this?” I asked, trying to laugh. “Why are you looking at me like this? Darling, we just had a lovely afternoon, a fantastic lunch, and we had such a good time!”
“You had a good time,” he said quietly.
I stared. “Didn’t you?”
“No. I had a rotten time.”
“But you — ”
“Put a good face on it? Of course. I consider myself a civilized human being. But yes, I had a stinking time. I might as well not have been there.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You didn’t need me there,” he said. “You would have been just as happy without me. What did you need me for? You haven’t missed me while I was away. Not one damned bit. You’ve been having a high old time with Lestrange, Cavendish, et al.”
“Eric,” I cried. “I can have fun with almost everyone. Strangers on the bus, even. You’re always telling me that. I’m a gabby sort I vibrate with people!”
“This is a little different from rapping with strangers on the Madison Avenue bus.”
I was getting angry. Angrier, because underneath it all I knew exactly what he meant. There was guilt in me. There was quite a lot of guilt. And Eric, of course, was nobody’s fool. He had seen the way the wind was blowing. He had come back and found me surrounded by people, with the telephone ringing, one call after the other … and he probably had not missed the overt admiration in the eyes of Peter Lestrange and Tony Cavendish.
I had a sudden, shocked, almost sick feeling.
Even Tom, young Tom. And for the first time I admitted to myself that even Tom had fallen a little bit in love with me. It had been inevitable — a boy with a stepmother like Bobo, who was no mother at all, nobody he could look up to.
I had known instinctively that Tom’s feeling for me had been more than a young boy’s friendship. Young boys are so impressionable, so susceptible.
But I had to defend myself. Eric had said that this was a little different from rapping with strangers on the Madison Avenue bus; I snapped, “In what way?”
“You’re not a tease on the bus.”
“I’m not a tease at any time!”
He didn’t deign to answer, and I really saw red. I lashed out at him. “I’m not a tease! It isn’t my style. If you’ll remember, it was I who made some advances to you, Sloane. Was that being a tease?”
“What makes me so sure you haven’t made advances to Cavendish, Lestrange, et al.?”
I had to flinch, because this was revealing; he had put Tony first this time. He was nobody’s fool: he saw exactly and precisely that it was Tony who turned me on. I had to give him high marks for perspicacity, for hitting the mark so unerringly.
After that I behaved exactly the way “they” say women behave: wildly and unfairly.
I said, “You’re a dog in the manger! You haven’t twisted my arm to set a date for the nuptials.”
“That’s your story.”
“Furthermore, I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. How do I know what you might be up to? You weren’t in when I called you abroad.”
“What a jackass thing to say.”
“For my money, if you care to know, you’re far more concerned about your kids than you are about me, no matter how you protest, no matter what you say to the contrary.”
His voice rose at last. “Come off it! You’re a Janus character, my girl. Damned sentimental about that kid, Tom. Such a dear boy. With Bren and Kenny it’s a diferent story, right?”
“Bull,” I said savagely. “All they want from me is bug out. I could stand on my head trying to please them. Correction! Kenny’s nice, really nice, so I don’t want to put him down. It’s Brenda, and you know it. She’ll despise anyone you date, that little — ”
“Don’t say it.” Very quiet and menacing. “Don’t say it.”
I didn’t say it.
But I had brought him out of his controlled fury. His face darkened and I saw him clench his hands. When he spoke again his voice was loud, very loud, and thick with rage.
He said, “This is some summer. Great, just great. A great big lousy bust. I was looking forward to it, to getting away from the ratrace and relaxing, just relaxing. The two of us biking and swimming and adventuring. Look at the time! It’s almost five on a Saturday afternoon and we’re heading for home tomorrow at around the same time. Isn’t this just one hell of a week-end? This whole, livelong day spent with other people about whom I don’t care one stinking damn.”
He leaned toward me, like a rattler about to strike. “This was supposed to be a fun summer, this quiet little house and the two of us. I was looking forward to it. Lots of laughs, lots of love, lots of sex — ”
“And?” I demanded icily. “Since when have I stinted you on that? When did I ever beg off with a headache? Can you tell me one single time?”
He gave me a look of pure hatred. And suddenly everything got very quiet. He simply stood still there, stony and still, staring at me as if he had never seen me before and didn’t particularly care to come across this thing that had crawled out from under a rock ever again. I forced myself to stare right back at him. We were still facing each other in that hostile way when he finally shrugged, put his hands in the pockets of his slacks and said quietly, “Don’t do me any favors.”
Then he turned abruptly and started to walk to the door. I hadn’t meant the last thing I’d said to sound the way it did … as if having sex with Eric was a duty and no pleasure to me. And damn it, he knew that wasn’t true.
“Eric,” I started to call to him, but before I could speak, he turned again, just as abruptly, and walked back to me. Very slowly and deliberately he raised his right hand and smacked me in the face.
It hurt like the devil; it brought tears and dazed me. I was absolutely stunned. No one had ever slapped me before in my life. No one had ever raised a hand against me.
Once more he turned, on his heel, like an Austrian Junker, and stalked away. “You animal,” I screeched. “You pig … you stormtrooper!”
I heard him go through the rooms. Then there was the sound of the front door closing.
I started to shake. He hit me, I told myself as I stood looking blindly out the window. Eric hit me. My God, he hit me.
The quiet was ghastly. Not a sound, not a movem
ent. Eric was outdoors, somewhere. I stood waiting, not able to envision what was going to happen next. I stood there in the same spot, not moving, and occasionally I would look at my wristwatch. Ten minutes ago he hit me … twenty minutes ago he hit me …
A half hour ago he hit me.
Then at last a sound did come. It was footsteps crunching over the gravel. I perked up a little. I thought I knew what his intention was. He was going to walk around to the window, look in, and then smile his slow, easy Hal Holbrook smile and …
I’ll forgive him, I decided instantly. He was sorry, of course he was sorry, and I would forgive him.
A tremulous smile stole over my face.
And then I heard a car door slam.
Transfixed, I heard a motor start, then a spinning up of the gravel, and finally the zoom of a car racing away.
I moved rapidly, sprinting out of the bedroom to the front door, just in time to see Eric’s Porsche turning into the road in a cloud of dust and whirling gravel.
16.
Eric, of course, would return. He was driving around somewhere, having it out with himself. And before long, he would drive up again, hurry inside, and say he was sorry, that he had been goaded beyond endurance, but he was sorry, terribly sorry.
Maybe he’d go to town, have a few beers, and cool off. Talk to the bartender, who would say, “If you love her, go back with flowers, women like flowers. Get some perfume from the drug store. Women love perfume.”
That was the way it would happen.
The first couple of hours crawled by. I sat on the window seat in the living room and looked outside, at the glowing sunset, at all pinks and purples and gold. And then the first hints of cobalt as the Turner colors faded and the austerity of night came on.
It was still day, though. Blackness was a long way off. And while there was still light, there was still hope. Not merely hope, but certainty.
Because of course Eric would be back.
I never in my life had wanted to hear something as much as I wanted to hear the sound of Eric’s car pulling up on the gravel. My ears were aching, listening so hard.
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 114