By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs (24 page)

Mavis understood her grandmother perfectly
well.

****

The blue flame in Cindy Seton's eyes burned
bright tonight: this was the ball she had traveled back from
Portugal for. Her body thrummed with pleasure as she reverently
undraped the black-and-crimson satin gown from its padded hanger
and held it up to herself. How perfectly horrible that she had to
dye her hair nearly black. But it couldn't be helped. Cindy Seton
was dead. And anyway, the effect wasn't all bad.

She envisioned the perfect evening that lay
ahead. She had waited for it, planned for it, ever since she'd come
across the America's Cup update in an issue of
Resorts
which
she'd been thumbing through in a small and rather insignificant
yacht club in southeast Spain. It was such an unlikely place for
her to be, such an absurd place to find a magazine tracking the
social scene in Newport that summer, that she accepted it for what
it was: fate.

****

Neil Powers tucked the diary under one arm,
locked his wheelchair into the stair-lift, and pressed the up
button. He hadn't been on the second floor of his own house in half
a year. It was Quinta's apartment now, with its own entrance,
though she rarely used it. But he needed to do this. It had been on
his mind for the last forty-eight hours. He rolled his chair up to
the doorway of his daughter's bedroom. The door was open, of
course; Quinta had no need for doors.

Quinta heard him coming and stuck her head
outside the door, surprised. "Dad! Is something wrong?"

She was all dressed up, this girl-child of
his, this youngest and oldest of his brood of females. She was the
one who had worked hardest to be the son he never had. She was the
tomboy, who once tried to swing a bat that was taller than she was;
who learned to clench her teeth and hook a worm for bait; who
never, ever cried when she was hurt. And now look at her: an angel
all in white, with shimmering spun-gold hair and a free-fall of
stars around her shoulders.

"You look so beautiful, girl," he said,
awestruck. "I wish your mother were here."
Nancy, Nancy, come
look,
his soul whispered, so that their daughter could not
hear.
Come look at our wonderful baby, all grown up. Did you
know that she'd turn out so well? I suppose you did.

"I, ah, wanted you to see something, Quinta.
That's why I came up here," he said diffidently.

He handed her a small, mildewed diary bound
in imitation leather, its imitation gilt edges turned to brassy
green. The lock was pulled away, which hadn't taken much; it was
such a flimsy thing.

"This was my mother's diary," he explained
to his wondering daughter. "She left it behind with a box of books
when she and Colin moved to Florida. I doubt she even misses it,
and I certainly wasn't going to embarrass her by bringing it up. No
one's ever seen it but me. Your grandmother writes about things you
should know. She writes about the gems. They existed, and this is
proof of it."

"Oh, Dad, I'm sure they existed," his
daughter answered quickly. "You don't have to show me this." But
she could not take her eyes from the cover of the diary.

"It's on the last page," he insisted
doggedly.

She lifted her eyes to his. "Is that what
you want me to read? The last page?"

Instead of a yes or no he said, "When I die,
I'll leave this to you. I could never throw it out. You'd have to
decide what to read then, anyway."

A car horn blew twice in the street and
Quinta cried, "My cab! I have to go." Flustered, she kissed her
father on his cheek and grabbed her little beaded bag.

"Let the dog out in the yard when you
leave," he said gruffly. "And have a nice ball."

****

In Newport it is relatively easy to stage a
ball: rent a mansion, set up a tent, hire a band, and you're in
business. Flowers are optional; so is a party theme. The Breakers,
Marble House, Rosecliff, The Elms, Oceancliff—there were a dozen
such temples to extravagance in the area now hustling to pay their
own way.

Quinta sat nervously inside the Cozy Cab as
it approached Ocean Court. Would she have to get the door herself?
No. That was what valets were for. Did she have her invitation with
her? Yes. In her purse. Was her lipstick on straight? She thought
so, but there was no time to look. So far so good, but ahead of
her, lined up like indoor palms on the yellow Siena marble floor of
the entrance hall, stood the receiving line: half a dozen people,
only two of whom she recognized.

She took her place in the slow-moving queue
of guests and introduced herself to each member of the receiving
line, most of them sponsors of the
Pegasus
campaign: a short
fat man from Dexter Paint Company, and a tall thin one from North
Sea Weathergear. A friendly young woman from something Industrial
Corporation, and a grouchy old man from the Sleptell Hotel Chain.
It was a Dow-Jones receiving line, no doubt about it, except for
the handsome couple at the end.

"Hello... Alan," Quinta said, shaking his
hand.

"You were able to come."

"Yes."

He turned to the stunningly beautiful
redhead, nearly as tall as he was, who stood next to him. "Mavis
Moran, this is Quinta Powers, a writer for
Cup Quotes."

Mavis smiled. "Quinta Powers? Aren't you the
one who wrote that pretty little tribute to Mr. Seton?" She shook
Quinta's hand briefly.

"I think I might have," replied Quinta
inanely, as if she couldn't keep track of the thousands of pretty
little tributes she'd written that summer.

Mavis smiled a second time, a knowing,
perfect, green-eyed smile. "It was
so
sweet."

With that, Quinta was bumped by the next
arrival into a French-style ballroom floored in parquet and paneled
in a subdued gray, and edged in gilt and silver. Unlike the great
marble monsters that were built after it, Ocean Court was not quite
palatial. But in its heyday the owner, a merchant in the China
trade, had thrown a good shindig or two, and tonight the tradition
lived on. True, most of the assembled guests had shelled out hard
cash to be there, and the cold shrimp were not nearly so impressive
as the pickled oysters and
pâté de fois gras
for which the
original chef had gained renown, but by the electrified light of
the gilded bronze sconces it all looked pretty spectacular.

Especially to Quinta. She was aware that she
was a fraud, a neighborhood urchin who'd scrambled over a high
brick wall to see how the other half partied, but that didn't
diminish the pleasure she got from watching all the glitter, all
the gold. In a way she was grateful to them for putting on such a
show. To her they were actors and actresses hired by some
mysterious Newport public relations manager to keep up Newport's
image. If she squinted, which she did, she could see a hundred
years into the past.

****

If Quinta Powers was adept at seeing what
she wanted to see, Cindy Seton was an expert. When Cindy arrived,
clad in crimson and black, she felt utterly confident that she
would be the belle of the ball. It did not occur to her that anyone
would have a more beautiful dress. It did not occur to her that
anyone would have a more beautiful face or figure. It did not occur
to her that she'd need an invitation.

"I'm very sorry, Miss, er, Delgrave," said
the elderly committeewoman who had agreed to man the table in the
entry hall. "But without a ticket you really cannot be
admitted."

"I can't imagine why not," answered Cindy in
an ice-cold voice. "I know everyone inside."

"Yes, I'm certain you do," the blue-haired
lady agreed, not without irony. "But the ball is sold out; there
are no available tickets."

"I had no intentions of buying one," Cindy
retorted, amazed. "Is Alan Seton inside?"

"Of course he is. Ah, you'll excuse me." The
committeewoman looked up at the new arrivals. "Good evening. May I
have your invitations, please?"

While the gentleman patted the pockets of
his tuxedo, Cindy edged away. Either there was no receiving line,
she thought, or it had dispersed. All the better. Someday she would
laugh about this insult, but not tonight. She was about to cross
into the great hall that lay beyond the entry hall when a ham-sized
hand wrapped gently around her thin arm.

"Now, this won't do, ma'am. There's no
getting in without an invitation," said the moonlighting policeman
who seemed to have dropped down from the chandelier. "You young
ladies are all alike. You think the Cup crewmen are standing around
inside with their thumbs up their noses and nothing to do. Let me
assure you, they all have dates. If you want to crash a party, try
The Breakers," he offered. "They're probably having a heck of a
bigger fund-raiser over there."

Cindy stared at the hairy, sunburnt hand
that lay across her pale forearm. "How disgusting," she murmured.
She brought up her right hand and coolly, quietly, slapped the
policeman's face.

Shocked, he dropped her arm. She turned and
began walking away, and he gave a jerking, automatic lurch after
her, then checked himself. Breathing hard, he watched her stroll
magnificently down the marble steps and toward the iron gates.

He turned to the committeewoman. "Didn't see
any point in causing a scene," he said in grim tones to her. He
clenched his jaw, then growled, "I've turned away dozens of
crashers from these things in my time, some of them a lot better
dressed than she was, and never once have I been slapped for my
trouble. That little—"

Bitch,
he thought to himself.

****

Quinta had finished her tour of the disco
tent on the grounds, as well as the several rooms that were made
available to guests: the somber paneled library, the exquisitely
delicate music room, the east-facing breakfast room, the
his-and-hers reception rooms. All in all, she preferred the
simplicity and logic of twentieth-century living. It was fun to
imagine a life of extravagance, but living it seemed like an awful
lot of work. Besides, look at what a fascination with the good life
had done for her father. No: it was better not to pine.

Nonetheless, steeped in extravagance and
Strauss waltzes as she was tonight, Quinta discovered that she was
pining a lot. When Alan Seton took Mavis Moran in his arms and
whirled her around the dance floor, Quinta felt surprisingly awful.
When someone cut in for Mavis and Alan retired to the sidelines,
Quinta still felt bad: Alan was staring at the auburn-haired woman
far too intently. Then he and Mavis danced together again, and
Quinta felt her spirits sink still more.

After that, a young man who wrote for
Yachting Magazine
recognized Quinta and asked her to dance.
That made her feel even worse, because she didn't know how to
ballroom-dance. It never occurred to her, as she disentangled her
feet from her partner's, that maybe the young man was making a
botch of it

After the waltz was over Quinta excused
herself to go to the powder room. She took up her place in a line
of gowned and jeweled beauties and thought,
At last, the great
equalizer—the line to the john.
It made her feel better.
Looking back over the evening so far, Quinta decided that her
sorrow had begun when she stopped being a nicely dressed member of
the audience and tried to join the players on stage. She never
should've stepped out on that parquet floor. This was not the
Regency period, and she was not a character in a Jane Austen novel.
Absolutely, positively, she had danced her last dance. There was
only one thing to do: find the host, thank him for having invited
her, and get the heck out. Enough was enough.

After Quinta emerged from the powder room,
she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and steamed full
speed ahead for Alan Seton, who was standing off to one side of the
dance floor, talking with someone commodore-ish. He saw her
coming.

"I was looking for you," Alan said with a
smile she hadn't seen for three years. "Are you free for the next
dance?"

Free? To make a fool of herself? To set her
heart on its ear for nothing? To tear out another strap of a
brand-new pair of shoes?

"Free as a butterfly," she answered.

As it happened, the gods conspired to
prevent Quinta from having anything so rational as a second
thought. The orchestra struck up a waltz, and she found herself
being led gently but very firmly toward her personal Armageddon.
She knew without looking that every eye was naturally focused on
Alan Seton, the star of the show. And tomorrow over brunch they'd
all rehash the ball and speculate about the bimbo in the polyester
skirt. Not only that but—

Not only that, but she was dancing! Dancing
pretty well! Never mind Alan's knock-down nearness; never mind the
society photographer who stuck a camera in their faces and flashed.
Suddenly she was dancing, getting neither underfoot nor overfoot,
gliding in three-quarter time to heavenly strains with the
handsomest man in the ballroom. Suddenly it was all coming together
for her: the rainbow swirls of long gowns, the flowers, the music,
the lighting, the laughter. Suddenly she understood; and—polyester
or no polyester—she belonged.

The waltz was nearly over, and they hadn't
exchanged a word. Quinta wondered whether Alan was always this
way—so focused, so intense. Maybe that was how America's Cup
skippers were. But no: she'd seen him murmuring pleasantly with
Mavis Moran as he danced with her, and with the young woman in the
receiving line from something-Industrial Corporation. So it must be
Quinta's fault: he was assuming she couldn't dance and talk at the
same time.

Well,
she thought happily,
he's
right.
She wanted the moment to stay perfect, and who knew
where chit-chat might lead them.