“It’s Jack, you old biddy!” Jack shouted. “Ma’am.”
“Jack! For shame!”
“No, he’s absolutely right. I am an old biddy, as far as a three-year-old boy’s concerned, anyway. Thank God the older fellows take a more liberal view. So this is Honeysuckle Cottage, is it? Very attractive.”
Aunt Vivian shaded her eyes with her hand and took in every detail of the rambling stone house, the overgrown garden, the distant view of the sea. In her mind, she was probably calculating its worth—a habit the Schuylers would have considered unspeakably gauche, if they knew. Maybe they did. They hadn’t exactly welcomed the courtship, after all. The Walkers might have done well in the postwar boom, but they’d lost most of their fortune in the Crash and Aunt Vivian shouldn’t have stood any chance with one of the original Knickerbocker families, the very definition of old New York society. Lucky for her, though, Uncle Charlie was apparently afflicted with the romantic streak that was the downfall of many a Schuyler man, and he had fallen in love with Aunt Vivian at some party during the winter season of 1935. By June, he was absconding regularly from the Schuyler compound in East Hampton—The Dunes, they called it—to the Walker family home in Glen Cove, in order to improve their acquaintance away from disapproving eyes.
Anyway, the story went, Uncle Charlie’s mother, who had been widowed several years earlier, began to panic around the middle of July and paid a call on the Walkers. In a scene right out of some cobwebby old novel, she told them she’d see the entire Walker clan blackballed if That Tramp didn’t renounce her precious only child, the last legacy of her departed husband. So Aunt Vivian said all right, whatever you say, and the next thing you knew, the Walkers had taken ship on the Queen Mary (second class) for a European tour. They were in Florence by the time Uncle Charlie caught up with them, and in a dramatic tableau on the Piazza Michelangelo at either dawn or sunset, depending on whom you asked, while the rising (or setting) sun turned the tiled rooftops fiery orange, he went down on one knee, extracted a four-carat diamond ring from his pocket, and begged Aunt Vivian to do him the honor of becoming his wife.
Needless to say, they were married by Labor Day.
As for the dowager Mrs. Schuyler? Acknowledging she was outfoxed, she presented The Dunes to the new couple as a wedding gift—really sportsmanlike, when you thought about it—and moved down to Palm Beach, never to return. No doubt she was cackling into her bougainvillea right now, Iris imagined. That fiery dawn (or sunset) on the Piazza Michelangelo seemed to have long since faded.
Philip cheerfully unloaded the suitcases from the back of the cart and carried them to the door. Iris noticed him and called out, “No, Philip, you mustn’t! Really, we can manage!”
“Oh, don’t stop the poor man. Can’t you see he’s enjoying himself?”
“Don’t listen to her!” Iris told him.
Philip, who had just delivered the last suitcase to the stoop, made an extravagant bow. “Delighted to be of service. Dare I hope you’ll be settled in time to wander up to the main house for drinks this evening?”
“Drinks? Only if you insist,” said Aunt Vivian.
“Very good. Around six, then? And if you’re wondering about the children, they’re having a jolly adventure in the mud puddles over by the flowerbeds.”
In her letter, which had arrived around the beginning of May, Aunt Vivian didn’t explain why she was bringing her young daughters—but not her husband—to England for six weeks, smack bang in the middle of that time of year when Schuylers traditionally migrate to the eastern end of Long Island. Iris broached the question as she walked with Aunt Vivian down the beaten lane across the meadow for drinks at Philip Beauchamp’s house.
“He simply couldn’t get away,” Aunt Vivian said. “The firm’s got too much work at the moment. So I told him I’d just take the girls and go without him, if he didn’t mind.”
“But what about The Dunes? It’s so lovely there in the summer. I don’t know how you could stand to go anywhere else.”
“Oh, the house is all right, but the crowd, Iris. I just didn’t have the stomach for it this summer. Besides, I figured I should give some other woman a chance at the ladies’ singles at the club this year.”
“That’s sportsmanlike.”
“Yes, I thought so.” Aunt Vivian rummaged in her pocketbook and offered Iris a cigarette, which she declined. Aunt Vivian lit one for herself, put the lighter away, and said, “Anyway, Charlie has been having an affair with poor Theresa Marshall’s daughter—you know who I mean—the orphan—”
“Marie Marshall?”
“That’s the one.”
“But she’s just a young thing! She can’t be more than twenty.”
“Twenty-five, darling. You’re awfully out of touch. I don’t suppose you remember her much, but she’s a real knockout now. I can’t say I blame him—I’d do the same, in his position—though I do wonder what she sees in him.” Aunt Vivian laughed bitterly. “But never mind. It’ll all blow over. Tell me about this Philip of yours.”
“Of mine?”
“I mean he must be thoroughly infatuated with you, if he’s giving you a place like that for the summer.”
“Oh, no. It’s not like that at all. We’re paying rent.”
“How nice. Are cocktails with mine host included in the deal?”
“He’s just being kind. We’re all good friends, up in London.”
“Speaking of which.” Aunt Vivian flicked some ash into a clump of grass. “Where’s your husband?”
“Working, of course. He comes down on the weekends. He’s taking the train this evening—he should be joining us.”
“How very— Good Lord.”
Aunt Vivian stopped in the middle of the lane and stared at Highcliffe, which had just become visible around the bend. Iris followed her line of sight and laughed.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? Philip’s quite rich. He’s due to inherit some kind of title, I think. Sasha told me, but I can’t remember what.”
“You clever little devil.”
They continued up the lane to what Philip apologetically called the pile. In fact, he apologized constantly as he led them from the entrance hall through the various staterooms—served as some kind of army intelligence headquarters during the war, he said, and they still hadn’t put everything to rights—intelligence officers rather like dogs in their personal habits—drank all the good wine and the vintage port, the bastards—should just deed the whole shambles to the National Trust and let them deal with everything, serve them right—right, here we are—invited a friend or two, as you see.
Here was a pleasant, light-filled room with French doors opening to a wide stone terrace and the lawn, on which several cricket matches might be played simultaneously, if you didn’t mind hurdling the odd hedge or flowerbed. The friend or two was really five or six, dressed for the country, but Iris’s gaze went straight to the blond woman in the lean, daring trousers and silk blouse, smoking a cigarette, caressing a damp gin and tonic in the other hand. She was the woman at the Desboroughs’ party, the one talking with Philip and Sasha in the library—Iris recognized her at once—recognized also, like a puzzle piece falling into place, she was the woman in the snapshot that Sasha kept in his desk drawer, a perfect match, except her hair was now a different color.
Philip walked them home around eleven o’clock. The other guests had left after an hour or two, and still there was no sign of Sasha, so Philip had persuaded Vivian and Iris to stay for dinner—roast chicken grown on the home farm—eat all you want, no ration book—plenty of wine to wash it down. Aunt Vivian did most of the talking. She and Philip got on like a mansion on fire. At half past ten Philip had glanced at the clock and suggested that perhaps Sasha had taken a later train and gone straight to the cottage?