Striding home, invigorated, he forgot all about the stately pleasure dome he’d promised to build for Mr. Marshall Farley.
Fourteen
Newport
September 2
MY DEAREST MICHAEL,
I’m sitting on the big rock at Anchor Point while I write this, thinking of all the evenings I used to wait here for you and Mr. McKie before we took our stroll along the Cliff Walk. I loved watching the people go by, trying to guess what their lives were like. Nowadays there’s hardly anyone to watch, though, because the season is over and everyone’s gone home. I had no idea what a tiny town this was without the resorters! The streets are quiet and the beaches are bare; most of the grand houses are closed up and empty now except for the caretakers. Yesterday I let all the servants go except tor Mrs. Godby and one maid—do you remember Maura?—and they both go home by five in the afternoon. So you can see what a quiet life I’m leading!
I haven’t been to the new house in a few days, but I’ll walk by this evening when I finish this, and either add a postscript or tell you in my next letter how it’s progressing. With Mr. McKie in California, I’ve been dealing with a Mr. Cronin; he’s called the “clerk of the works” in architects’ language, which means he’s Mr. McKie’s assistant. The last time I looked, the house had all its floors and some of the roof, but no walls yet. If Daddy can get away, I hope you and he can come up for a weekend soon to see it. Don’t pester him about it, though, darling. I’ve asked him already, and he’s going to tell us when it’s convenient.
Mrs. Wentworth says to tell you that Gadget got the crayon drawing of the cat you sent and enjoyed it very much. And thank you for your last letter. I’m glad to hear that you like Miss Roberts and that you’re finding school so easy this year. It’s also nice to hear that you’ve inherited your mum’s spelling expertise. But for your sake, darling, I hope you haven’t got her facility with numbers; much better to have inherited that from your father, I assure you. By the way, I had a note from Mrs. Drum, who says you’re studying hard and minding her very well. Do you know how proud I am of you? If I were there, I would give you a big mushy kiss and a giant smothery hug and then I would TICKLE you until you begged for mercy! I miss you every day, my sweetest boy, and I love you very, very much.
All my love,
Mummy.
Sara folded her letter and slid it into her pocket. She wrote Michael every day, at least a postcard but more often a letter, usually enclosing a little gift—a drawing of her own, a photograph, a tiny shell. The pain of missing him was physical, a steady, aching hurt deep inside, unlike anything she’d ever experienced. He missed her too, and told her so with unabashed frankness; and although he wasn’t above saying such a thing purely out of kindness, she knew it was true. Still, she worried that her incessant letters and gifts and telephone calls might oppress him sometimes, make him feel smothered with mother-love. But she couldn’t stop. Newport was a banishment she had willingly accepted for his sake, but she hadn’t known and couldn’t have imagined how lonely her exile would be. Michael was all she had, the only person she was allowed to love; without him, she might as well turn to stone.
Rather than sit there contemplating the rest of her life, which she could see unfolding in a succession of humiliating bargains with Ben over Michael, she stood up, brushed at her skirts, and began to walk along the sandy path toward Eden. The setting sun on the water was blinding; she adjusted her enormous feathered hat— her “three-story hat,” Michael called it—to shade her eyes. There wasn’t another soul on the path behind or in front of her. Out to sea, a quartet of fishing boats bobbed on the horizon, heading inland at day’s end. On her other side, the clipped and coddled lawns of the “cottages” rose above the uneven cliff-walls, stretching to the far-off backs of the opulent palazzos, hunting lodges, chateaux, and manor houses. At the bottom of a short flight of makeshift wooden steps that led up to her own house, she paused for a second to stare.
Eden looked more like a medieval castle every day as the sandstone crenellations rose higher and the mullioned windows proliferated. Ben had been persuaded to abandon the majority of his more outlandish follies, but no one had been able to talk him out of his “maze.” American shrubbery wouldn’t do, they had to be Italian yews, fully grown and imported at spectacular expense, along with an ill-tempered, effete English landscape architect to supervise the installation. Picking her way across the rough, rubble-strewn yard, Sara eyed the completed maze with dislike. The tight-packed yews looked black and aggressive, dark swords stuck upright in the ground for no reason except to intimidate. She had no intention of ever setting foot in the thing. Michael liked it, though. He liked the idea of learning its secret and then flaunting his superiority in front of his lost and baffled friends. But Michael was a child. It was depressing to think Ben’s infatuation with the shrubby puzzle derived from exactly the same childish expectation.
“Mrs. Cochrane! Nice to see you!” Mr. Cronin was bearing down on her from the direction of the house. He swept off his hat en route, revealing his shiny, totally bald pate, and stuck out his hand to shake. Fiftyish, finicky, always nattily dressed, he struck Sara as someone who ought to be counting out money in a bank, not building houses. Sometimes she wondered how it set with him to take orders from a man twenty years his junior.
“Hello, Mr. Cronin, how are you? I haven’t seen you in a few days.”
“A week to the day, Mrs. C,” he corrected.
“Oh dear, has it been that long? I didn’t realize.” She glanced around dutifully, scanning the progress. “My, it’s really coming along quickly now, isn’t it? That whole wing is under roof,” she noted, pointing.
“Yes, indeedy. You’ll be moved in by Christmas, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Lovely.” The very thought made her feel tired. “You asked me about the door frames for the reception room, Mr. Cronin—I hadn’t forgotten. I spoke to my husband, and he’s chosen to have the casings of Carrara marble, carved in the pattern you suggested.”
“Very good. If you’ll tell Mr. McKie that, he’ll take it from there.”
“Well, but—he’s in California.”
“No, ma’am,” Cronin laughed. “He’s right over there.”
Sara suffered a small, devastating explosion in the chest while her heart stopped and restarted. Following Mr. Cronin’s pointing finger, she looked across the yard and saw Alex talking to three men in work clothes, all four hunched over a drawing or a blueprint spread across two saw benches. She barely had time to compose her features before he straightened, turned, and looked directly at her. From this distance she couldn’t read his expression precisely, but she thought it looked impassive and unsurprised.
Mr. Cronin was saying something, but Alex was walking toward her and she went deaf. Shock, gladness, worry, and nerves tumbled and rolled inside, finally canceling each other out until there was nothing except unbearable excitement. The sight of his tall, striding body, hard-muscled and lithe, filled her with a dangerous delight. She went dumb as well as deaf until he shook her hand, and then she came alive. He said something casual, she wasn’t sure what, and she managed to greet him with words that sounded halfway appropriate. For Cronin’s benefit, she added, “I didn’t expect you back from California so soon, Mr. McKie. Did your trip go well?”
“Yes, thanks, it went fine.”
“I was just mentioning to Mr. Cronin that Ben finally made up his mind about the marble he wants in the first-floor reception room.”
“Well, I’ll leave you two to that,” Mr. Cronin decided, clapping his hat back on. “A pleasure seeing you again, Mrs. Cochrane, as always. You ought to come around more often.”
“Yes,” she answered faintly, “I certainly will.”
Then he was gone and she and Alex were alone. The living, breathing reality of him still overwhelmed her. “Hello,” she said, wary and unreasonably shy, but unable to stop smiling.
“Hello.”
“It’s good to see you.” He said nothing to
that. “How long have you been in Newport?”
“A week.”
“A week! But—”
She bit back the rest, but he could tell she was hurt, confused, and put out. He came closer. “Do you think I didn’t want to see you, Sara? Do you think this was my choice?” He took her arm almost roughly. “I can’t talk to you here. Come into your new house.”
She let him lead her across the rocky yard, stepping smartly to keep up with his long-legged gait. They went around the gigantic rear section of the house, still framed with scaffolding, and crossed a bare, unfinished courtyard to the main wing’s back double doors—massive studded oak barriers offering the opposite of welcome. Inside, once her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she found herself standing in a huge square hall leading to a wide alabaster staircase at the far end. “What is this? I don’t remember it in the plans.” Her voice echoed hollowly off the cold, glistening surfaces.
“No, it’s new; Ben thought of it right after we finished laying the parquet floor. It’s a sculpture gallery. All marble, as you can see.”
She nodded in glum agreement. Marble floor, marble wall panels, marble ceiling slabs. Marble lintels, cornices, and Corinthian columns. “What keeps it all up?” she asked dispiritedly.
“Fireproof brick partition walls from the basement to the roof,” he answered shortly. “Mortared floors over brick-arch construction supported by iron joists. It’s not going anywhere.”
His tone of voice put her on guard. He stood away from her, hands on his hips, cool blue eyes narrowed. “It’s good to see you,” she said again— and once more he didn’t respond. “Michael asks about you all the time.” What a timorous thing to say, she chided herself.
“Where is he?”
“In New York.”
“Not Germany, then.”
“No. Ben changed his mind.”
“Good. But I never thought he’d do it anyway.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No. Not even Ben could send his own son away without your consent.”
“Is that what you think?” But there was no point now in telling him what Ben was capable of. She pressed her hands together tensely, bewildered by his mood.
“Do you want to see the house?” he asked suddenly.
“No. I’m sorry. No, I don’t.”
“It’s all right.” He came toward her, and now she saw the first sign of softness in his expression. “How are you, Sara? You look…”
“What?”
“Sad.”
Instinctively she backed away. “No, I’m all right.”
“What happened that day, after I left?”
“Nothing. Tasha didn’t really see anything. Anyway, who would she tell? I was upset, I made too much of it. It was nothing.”
“Nothing. That’s right. You must be used to it by now, men telling you they’re in love with you. How tiresome for you—”
“Alex!” He turned his back on her. “Why are you angry with me?”
He walked a few steps away before turning around to face her again. “Sorry.”
But there was no sincerity in his voice, and nothing but antagonism in his face. She was on the edge of anger herself, and she had no idea why. “What is it you expect from me? What do you want me to do? Have an affair with you?”
“I’d like you to be honest with me.”
“I’ve always been honest with you!”
“With yourself, then.”
“What does that mean? That’s just words, Alex. No, what you want is to seduce me.”
“ ‘Seduce’ you?”
“Yes. Don’t laugh at me! Am I the first woman who’s ever resisted you? Is that the appeal, is that why you won’t leave me alone?”
“Won’t leave you alone?” Incredulous, he came close enough to seize her by the arms. “I didn’t even know you’d be here. What are you doing here anyway? Why the hell didn’t you stay in New York?”
“I’m here because my husband insisted on it. He’s got a new mistress and he wants me out of the house.” The sudden sympathy in his eyes didn’t comfort her; for some reason it made her even madder. “Why can’t you leave me alone?” she repeated illogically. “Every time I turn around you’re there—touching me like this—”
“Damn it! I’ve done everything you ever asked me to do. That night Michael was hurt, you told me you wanted me, Sara. Unless it was a lie”— he pulled her back when she pushed at him and tried to escape—“Was it a lie? I didn’t think so then. And some men might have tried to take advantage of it, but I never did, I let you—”
“And that’s something you’re proud of, that you didn’t take advantage of my feelings?”
He ground his teeth. “All I’m saying—”
“That must have been hard for you, not at all what you’re used to. Unhappily married women are your specialty, aren’t they? Other men’s wives? I’m sorry I’ve proven such a difficult case—surely you must be ready to give up on me.”
He dropped his arms. “I must be. Because if you care for me, Sara, then you’re a coward. If you don’t, you’re a liar. Either way, I’ve made a mistake.”
She was blinking fast, ready to cry. “How dare you call me a coward. You don’t know anything about me.”
“If that’s true, it’s because you don’t give anything.”
“I can’t! You know I’m in love with you. Why do you treat me this way? It’s cruel, Alex, and it’s selfish—”
He reached for her again. “You love me?”
“Let me go, it doesn’t change anything. You knew it anyway.”
“Sara—”
“Stop, don’t!” She pushed at him violently until he released her. “I can’t stand this. Don’t talk to me anymore.” She stalked to the heavy doors and hauled on one until it opened. “Mr. Cronin has been keeping me informed about the house perfectly well. I want to continue to deal with him, not you. He can relay messages back and forth between us.”
A plasterer’s trowel lay on the floor at Alex’s feet. He kicked it hard and sent it sailing toward the marble staircase, where it landed with a sharp, echoing clatter.
Sara jumped. “Do you think that’s cowardly of me? All right—I don’t care! Leave me alone, Alex, don’t come near me. I can’t bear it.”
She wasn’t by nature a door slammer, but anger and frustration seemed to have localized in her arm muscles. She stomped over the threshold and gave the heavy oak portal a push that rattled the amber glass in the windows and startled the workers laying tiles in a fourth-floor bathroom.
Mrs. Godby had left potato soup, tomato aspic, and a piece of grilled chicken in the icebox for Sara’s supper. She picked at it, sitting in the kitchen, while she read the note from Michael that had come in the afternoon post. Sometimes his letters cheered her up, sometimes they deepened her despondency. This was one of the latter kind, even though it was full of his lovely, irresistible silliness. He wanted her to start eating lots of oatmeal and sending him the flag card inside the box; if he got the full set of twelve flags, he was entitled to a handsome prize of large but unspecified value. Instead of making her smile, his letter made her weepy.
What had she done? Although she’d replayed the scene in her head a dozen times by now, she could still hardly believe what had just happened. She felt ashamed and filled with sadness and regret. She loved Alex. She wasn’t that mean and shrewish to Ben. What had gotten into her? Him, too—he’d been furious with her almost from the moment they’d met. She kept trying to see what had happened as for the best, a blessing in disguise, but she couldn’t. Now it just seemed wrong.
She stood up and went to put water in the kettle for tea. What if she apologized to him? Would that only make everything start over again? Not if she did it right, if she controlled it and just said she was sorry and nothing else. She owed him that much.
The telephone was in the front hall. “Four-oh-one-one,” she told the operator, and after a few seconds it rang. And rang. She waited a full minute before bangi
ng down the earpiece and going back to the kitchen. Her depression turned black. Where was he, what was he doing? She’d imagined him at home, alone, as miserable as she. But he wasn’t, he was out—probably dining in a restaurant, talking to people, not thinking about her at all. Not enough, anyway.
Oh, what a bitch she was turning into. Was this what love did? She’d been much nicer to Alex before she’d fallen in love with him. She began to pace, restless. On one of her circuits she stopped before the cabinet over the icebox and took down the bottle of brandy that had been there since June. She opened it and poured some into a glass. The pungent fumes startled her. It was a good brandy, but the first sip made her shudder. All at once, without a thought, she tossed the rest into the sink. Why had she done that? she wondered helplessly. Silly—she wouldn’t have gotten drunk, she’d only wanted a drink. One drink wouldn’t have turned her into her mother. It made no rational sense; she only knew she’d have gagged if she’d tried to finish the brandy in that glass.
She made tea instead. Staring at her reflection in the black window over the sink, she remembered the night Alex had kissed her. Here—right here where she was standing. She touched her fingers to her lips, eyes closed, filled with yearning. And today she’d accused him of trying to “seduce” her, as if she were some chaste, innocent victim—as if he had ever touched her when she hadn’t been longing for him to. Hypocrite. He was wrong—she wasn’t a coward or a liar, she was both. She set her cup down with a clatter and marched back into the hall. She snatched up the telephone—and whirled with it in her hand at a knock at the door.
She hadn’t turned on the porch light, so she hoped but didn’t know it was Alex until she opened the door to him. “Oh, Alex—”
“Sara, listen—”
“Come in!”
“No, this won’t take long. I should’ve called, but—”
“Will you please come in? I can’t talk to you like this.”
He came in. He looked wary. She could understand why—two hours ago she’d told him to leave her alone, not to come near her.