She paused for breath, her face dark with anger and passion. Then she rushed on. “I’ve learned what it means to be unloved and disregarded. I’ve learned that well. I know the difference, now, between hypocrisy and genuine affection. And now it’s time to right the wrong.”
She turned slowly, and gave me a long, meaningful look. This was followed by a slow, satisfied smile as she stared at each of the others in turn, and then she looked back at me again. “Kindness and decency does pay,” she said, almost in a whisper. “And, Jennie, you are kind, you are decent.”
I was conscious of going pale, and also conscious of a sudden, dead quiet in the room. No one said anything. No one had to. Caroline’s meaning was clear.
Why, she’s gone crazy, I thought. Plumb crazy. Her illness has made her irrational and maudlin. She was off the deep end, she was demented.
I looked back at her, speechless. Her face was a mask of revenge. I thought, she’s sick, and she doesn’t know what she’s saying, what she’s doing.
I thought, why she’s an unutterably selfish woman.
I tried to amend my judgment.
She was a sick woman. She had been very sick and she was, apparently, far from well now.
But I couldn’t help my distaste. She had money and power, and in that moment I was appalled at her capriciousness, her despotism. I thought her vicious and corrupt. That her vast means, and the use she could make of them, could let her play God was loathsome to me. That she could manipulate other human beings, watch them suffer, made me almost physically ill.
I thought of Lord Acton’s axiom. “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
“I shall want to go to my room now,” she said briskly, having delivered her bombshell. Her eyes swept our faces: she was brilliant with triumph. Emily, trembling with bitter rage, automatically rose to help her.
Caroline put out an autocratic hand.
“Not you,” she said contemptuously, and turned to me. Her voice softening, she said, “You, Jennie. Please, my dear.”
I helped her up the stairs. She pressed close to me, fondly, dependently, with an almost wooing, fatuous smile on her face. “You’ve been so good to me,” she said, almost babbling. “So good, and dear, and faithful. Dear Jennie, come, let me take your arm, there’s a dear girl.”
And for the first time her proximity was unpleasant to me. She had just told me — substantially — that she wanted to make me an heiress, and had so informed the others. Yet she had lost something in so doing … something that should have been precious to her. My real affection, perhaps even love.
Didn’t Caroline Lestrange know that such things couldn’t be bought? That they were given freely, if at all, and no reward on earth could purchase them?
Apparently not.
If she expected me to show gratitude, to fawn on her, or frame a few words of thanks, she was mistaken. I simply helped her onto the bed, forced myself to kiss her upturned cheek, and after asking her if there was anything else she wanted, took my leave.
I closed the door behind me, and it was like closing a portal on something that had meant much to me. I felt sorry and ill and sad, because I had the impression that, snatched from the jaws of death, she had nevertheless been deprived of something that I knew had been there before — a definite decency and goodness of spirit. A martinet she might have been, but not a merciless despot.
I felt that she would never be, ever again, the Caroline Lestrange I had met and liked all those weeks ago. That that Caroline had died, and only her body remained. It was as if her soul had crossed over, to some nameless region, leaving the purely physical part of her here on earth.
23.
On the following day, Garrison entered the house and bounded upstairs as I was preparing to leave. I had visited with Caroline, who had suffered a minor setback and taken to her bed once more. The doctor claimed it was simply due to her “rushing things,” and said there had been a slight relapse in her progress. Tony and I were exchanging a few words in the hall when we heard raised voices.
First it was mainly Caroline’s voice. Angry, loud, and harsh. I thought, oh dear, what is it now? And then, as Tony and I fell silent, Garrison’s voice came through loud and clear.
“Absolute insanity,” we heard him say. “It leads me, Caroline, to wonder about the soundness of your mind.”
Then Caroline again: “So that’s it! The old and well-worn ploy. The age-old expediency on the part of relatives whenever money is concerned. So you think you’ll have me committed, do you. Well, let me tell you — ”
Garrison’s voice was thick and furious. The urbane and gentlemanly Garrison Lestrange was practically shouting; what he said was so distinct that he could have been beside us. “I’ve heard about things like this; who hasn’t? Some stranger entering the picture and — ”
His voice rose even further. “But such opportunism I’ve never personally witnessed. A girl you had no idea existed a few weeks ago … and now you threaten to — ”
Tony, seeing my shocked reaction, put a hand on my arm. “Easy does it,” he said quietly. “Take it whence it comes, love.”
“He’s talking about me.”
“Pay no attention. Why don’t you run along now. I’ll be over to see you later. Run along now, that’s a good girl.”
But I couldn’t. I had to stay there, listening … listening to the rest. The conversation — the quarrel, the fight — concerning me went on and on. Caroline began to shriek and swear, and Garrison got totally out of control. I hadn’t imagined he could be like that.
The word “opportunism” was voiced several times. In regard to me. “That opportunistic young woman … taking advantage … sheer opportunism …”
I knew I was white-faced. I said, staring at Anthony, “My God, I can’t stay here after this. I’m leaving. I’m leaving today, within the hour.”
“The hell you are,” he said. “Let it go in one ear and out the other. He wants you to hear, don’t you realize that? It’s his way of getting rid of you. He’s sure, now, that you’ll go. I think, for some time, he’s been trying to accomplish that. But don’t let it throw you. He can’t physically harm you, after all.”
The words that leapt to my mind said themselves out loud. “He can’t? Someone physically harmed me just recently. Someone tried to — ”
I saw his eyes sharpen, then he whistled between his teeth. “It’s true he was in the house at the time,” he agreed, then tried to pooh pooh it. “Still — it isn’t possible, Jan. He wouldn’t dare to — ”
“Someone dared to!”
“Garrison?”
“Whatever … whoever … the mission has been accomplished. I will not stay in this place where — ”
I had dashed to the door, and now stepped outside, where I almost knocked young Tom down as I collided with him. The boy was standing there white-faced, and I knew at once that he, too, had overheard his father. The windows, naturally, were wide open, and the whole wretched thing had probably filtered down to him from above.
He stared at me, gulped, looked away and then back at me. “I just want to say,” he said rapidly, “that my father doesn’t mean what he’s saying. He doesn’t, Jan. When he loses his temper he says crazy things. He doesn’t often lose his temper. But when he does …”
He said, fiercely, “I’m going upstairs and have it out with him.”
“No, Tom, don’t. I won’t have you in on this. I’m sorry you overheard. I’m sorry about everything. I’ll bow out of the picture. I don’t belong here, I know that now.”
“If you leave,” he said, “it would be worse. Then Caroline would do something desperate. I don’t know what she’d do. Maybe a law suit, or … or she’d kill herself as a revenge against him … against all of the family. It would be like one of those awful things you read in the newspapers.”
“Tom, I — ”
“Believe me,” he cried. “Believe me! My father doesn’t really want a scandal … nobody wants a scandal.”
He drew himself up, and what he said next wasn’t censorious or accusatory: it was simply sober and quiet.
“You shouldn’t have listened,” he said. “When you heard what it was about, you should have gone off, and not listened any more.”
I looked back at him. He was so adult suddenly, so precociously wise. It must have been a rotten thing for him to hear too, almost as traumatic as for me, his father bedeviling a sick woman.
I felt he had been dirtied by it, as I had been dirtied.
“You won’t go?” he asked, after a while.
“I don’t know. I have to think about it. But I will think about it, I promise you. I promise to take everything into consideration, Tom.”
He nodded. “Thanks,” he said, and turned, and then walked away quickly.
I kept my promise.
I was thinking about it, sitting stiffly on the edge of a chair in my living room. Or I was trying to think about it. My head was in such a muddle that no thoughts would coalesce with any degree of coherence. I was by turns stunned, infuriated, and despairing.
Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. A simple friendship had turned into a nightmare. The Lestranges had been wary of me and now they downright feared and hated me.
Eric had left me.
The holiday had become a nightmare.
When the doorbell rang I literally jumped. It was like a whiplash across my overwrought nerves. It brought me to my feet instantly, and then I sat down again.
No, I wouldn’t answer. To whom did I wish to speak? To no one. “Leave me alone,” I muttered, and the bell rang again.
Then I heard Tony’s voice through the open window.
“Let me in, Jan.”
“Go away,” I said.
He pushed open the window and climbed in: I only heard him coming into the room. I sat with my back toward him, stubborn, with my head low, but he sat down beside me.
“Feel rotten?” he asked.
“How do you suppose I feel?” I flashed back at him.
“How do you suppose Emily feels?”
I was sullen. “I’m sure I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. You must have some idea. The woman’s worked, not for a lifetime, but for some years for Caroline. And now she’s been told she’s left out in the cold.”
“You too,” I reminded him. “She wants to leave you out in the cold too.”
“Yes, that’s seemingly her intention.”
“How do you feel?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer, and finally I looked up grudgingly.
“Ah, there you are,” he said. “Do you know you have lovely eyes? Of course you do. You must have had that said to you a thousand times. Perhaps more than a thousand times.”
“Did you come to talk about my eyes?” I asked bleakly.
“No,” he said seriously. “I came to have it out about Caroline.”
“I’m listening,” I said, tensely.
“Jan. Do you know how many times I’ve heard her go on about her millions? So often, and so frequently, that I can’t possibly enumerate the occasions. That lawyer has been in and out of her house more times than I can say. She has a tantrum and threatens to change her will. Someone displeases her, and she contacts Prentiss Alcott. I’m sure he’s been roused out of a sound sleep at three in the morning more often than he can recall. Whenever Caroline has a tiff with someone. Love, you’re a newcomer to these climes. The woman has one thing left. Her money. She’s lost everything else — her pride, her conscience, her raison d’être. She never had babies, never saw babies grow and become men and women, never had an extension of herself. She gave her body to countless men, had admiration, adulation, and the heady excitement of the courtesan’s life. The one pragmatic thing she did was marry Lionel Muncie, and inherit his wealth. So now she has that, and she makes capital of it.”
He put a hand under my chin. “Love, it’s the only hold she has on anyone. That money. And she’s giving us all hard times about it.”
He smiled into my eyes. “You’re the one who, at the moment, stands to get most of it.”
“Which is mindless!” I cried. “If she cares so deeply about her money, why would she treat it so lightly? I can’t see her wanting to be taken for a fool! Like any witless spendthrift, leave the bulk of her estate to a stranger?”
“Such things have been known to happen,” he pointed out.
“Not to someone like her! Doing something like that would leave her open to ridicule, and Caroline wouldn’t want to be laughed at, even in death. Tommy Mansfield, maybe. No, Tony. She’s just … she’s sick, she’s still sick. There’s no doubt in my mind about that, only — ”
“Yes?”
“It makes me feel ghastly. To be put in this position. I liked her so much. And now everything’s gone so sour.”
“Sour?” he repeated, smiling. “Being told you’re to be richer by several millions is having things turn sour?”
“Why, yes,” I said passionately. “I came here for a vacation. All I did was rent a house on the Island, and now it comes out like this.”
I got up and walked the floor. “My God, is this really happening?”
He sat back. “Apparently it is,” he said calmly. “Whether you like it or not. Whether Emily likes it or not, and whether or not I like it. Not to mention the Lestranges. At the moment, the wires are almost undoubtedly humming. Caroline talking to her lawyer.”
“You think so?” I said savagely. “Well, I don’t give a damn, and I’m not going over to that house for dinner. You can tell her that.”
“Is that any way to show your appreciation?”
“Just tell her I won’t be there for dinner.”
“I won’t either,” he said affably. “And so, since we both seem to be at loose ends, how about dining together? I know a rather pleasant, modest little place in town. I can’t promise you pheasant under glass, or terrapin in Amontillado sauce. But it has a decent kitchen and there’s something English about it, which is why I’m partial to it.”
“Okay,” I said, abruptly.
“Delightful,” he drawled. “Say at about seven?”
“Seven will be fine.”
“Thanks awfully. I say, we shall have to go in your car.”
“What difference does it make?” I asked.
“To me, none at all.”
“Then why should it to me?” I asked again.
“I can’t think of any reason it should matter to you.”
“Then why bring it up?”
“Oh dear, are you being prickly again?”
“No!”
“Very well, then it’s all arranged for this evening?”
“Apparently.”
“Jolly good.”
“I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Why, love?”
Because I’m far too attracted to you, I thought, but didn’t voice it.
“Just because,” I said, instead.
“You’re a most perplexing person,” he said, as he let himself out the door.
• • •
So we drove to the Huntting Inn for dinner. It was very civilized and quiet and nice. We had lobster, with bibs around our necks, and two cocktails beforehand. I kept thinking … if it weren’t for Eric.
Because Anthony Cavendish was so attractive. So British, so masculine and so other-worldish. My thoughts kept straying to London, that fine city, with its Regent and Bond Streets, and Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square, St. Martin’s in the Fields, and Bloomsbury, where Virginia Woolf plied her craft.
But of course Tony’s estate was in Surrey.
“I’ve never seen Surrey,” I told him. “I had a creamed tea at Windsor, but of course I know that’s not really in the provinces.”
“Not really,” he agreed.
“It was nice, though.”
“Windsor’s charming,” he agreed. “But hardly representative of the outlying districts. I can see you’ve barely scratched the surface. Next
time you’re in England, give me a buzz. I’ll show you properly around.”
“That would be nice.”
“For me it would be splendid,” he said. “You American girls have such marvelous long legs. Not to mention slim hips and thighs.”
“Are you leading up to a seduction?”
“Now you mention it, perhaps I did have that in mind.”
I went weak in the legs. He had such a way with him.
When we drove home, and were in front of my cottage, I had it out with myself. I could invite him in. There was no one monitoring me. And he was undoubtedly waiting for it. Why not? I asked myself. I had been deserted, abandoned, left to my own devices. There he stood, all six foot four of him, with his golden hair, his fine face, and those narrow hips …
For a second I wavered.
Then habit reasserted itself. There was Eric. He wasn’t here, but he was here. Damn it, he was here.
I could see his face, feel his warm breath, remember the first time we —
“Thank you for a very nice evening,” I said.
“Thank you,” he replied. “Are we ending it now?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“You’re quite sure.”
“Yes.”
There was one more moment when I wasn’t all that sure.
I looked into his face and almost said, “Oh, don’t go …”
For a moment I wasn’t sure I hadn’t actually uttered the words, then I knew, by his face, that I had been silent.
And I knew why.
I had suddenly thought of a time when Eric and I had walked, through the aftermath of a winter blizzard, across Central Park to the Tavern On the Green.
Trekking it, in our snow boots, over the mounds of white; and we’d sat in the glassed-in terrace of the restaurant, facing each other over Grinorcos, cocktails of Eric’s invention.
The bartender had listened, with smiling interest, to Eric’s listing of the ingredients.
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 120