Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances (140 page)

Anyway, it was over, whatever it had been. The nightly visits ceased, and I went back to my virginal slumbers.

The idyl was over.

The weather on the eastern seaboard had been, in the main, perfectly beautiful for all of July. Golden weather, lazy, mellow, beneficent.

Then it changed.

August started off badly, with fog and intense heat, and as the days progressed it became really oppressive. This coincided with the part of my full vacation, and did nothing to improve my already lowered spirits.

It was the kind of breathless atmosphere that prevails in the Midi of France, when the mistral blows its torrid, acrid breath over the countryside, sparking the local inhabitants to all sorts of insane actions, such as arson, mayhem and patricide.

Not to mention that the suicide rate climbs alarmingly.

I had never experienced it, but had been informed about its virulence from certain Provençals, and about the debilitating malaise that undermines the region: the looming prospect of the mistral, they claimed, was like an impending doom which, day after day, casts a dark shadow over that part of the world, a black threat which waits, diabolically, to strike.

So it was with us. One day led into another, each of them more miserable than the last, without surcease, simply dark and airless and gloomy. Every nerve grated with the continual overcast and murk. The humidity was higher, by far, than the temperature, and the sweat stood out, like pearly beads, on one’s forehead.

I thought of what I had been told by the Provençals. “One day the air becomes absolutely still, and even animal life leaves off its cheerful sounds … no birds sing, no dogs bark. Even nature is mute.”

Caroline Lestrange might be an extremely rich woman, but she was also a very stubborn one. She loathed air conditioning, claiming it was one of the curses of modern civilization, like television; she staunchly refused to admit it into her life. “How idiotic,” she often said. “With all those sea breezes?”

All those sea breezes were, for the nonce, non-existent. They had died down to a torrid waft of air, now and again … certainly nothing that made breathing any easier.

My face and neck were continually damp, my blouses sodden, and poor Caroline broke out in prickly heat.

She was still in a foul mood with Anthony, and her disfavor had waxed because — for all his British inuring — he seemed to have inherited his mother’s Greek genes, and so found the sweltering weather not intolerable at all. His smile was as dashing as ever, his wonderful skin — tanned to a deep mahogany, was blistered by no perspiration. He soaked up the vicious heat and seemed to thrive on it.

Even I found that irritating.

But for Caroline it was a personal affront. She found his serene good nature annoying in the extreme, and treated him abominably. If it had not been for the inclement weather he might have found his way into her good graces again, but everything was against him.

She was often so offensive toward him that I cringed. How could she be so unfeeling? I thought that, if the humidity and heat persisted for much longer, she might very well tell him to pack and go home. Or for that matter, he might himself tell her off and go home on his own.

They almost came to blows one day.

First it was Emily. About nothing at all, as usual. For some reason unbeknownst to man, Caroline had excoriated her companion, calling her all sorts of names (one of them had been “self-seeking hypocrite”) and Emily, whom I felt like applauding, got up and screeched, “Why don’t you go jump in the ocean, you old horror?”

Caroline, turning purple, sputtered wrathfully. She dropped her Havilland teacup in her horrified astonishment, choked on her oolong, and turned to me, looking like one of the Furies. “You heard what she called me?” she yelped.

“She didn’t mean it,” I said mechanically. I was becoming hardened to these frays.

“She meant it a hundred percent,” Tony said, between his teeth. “Why shouldn’t she mean it? You treat her like a dustrag, you ridiculous woman. You’re totally impossible, Caroline. You belong in a loony bin. I quite wonder why I put up with you. And I certainly don’t see why Emily does. She’d be treated better in a concentration camp.”

He gestured toward the floor. “Look at the mess you’ve made. Tea all over the floor; like some incompetent ninny. Next thing we know you’ll be urinating on the carpets. This is not very becoming behavior, my dear.”

He got up, looking down at her with a cold superciliousness. “Really, Caroline,” he said. “Is it too much to ask that you observe at the very least the ordinary amenities? Snuffling and snorting, not to mention revolting messes on the floor, do not an attractive woman make. You of all people should be aware of that, narcissist that you are. I think,” he said, looking down his nose, “that I should prefer to remember you in other, better days.”

He held up a hand as she at first quailed, and then began to rise from her chair in an almost Elizabethan fury. “Don’t,” he said, gently … he was now dangerously gentle. “I prefer to leave the room without hearing any further idiocies.”

He swept her with a positively frigid glance. “I could never abide fishwives,” he said. “I was raised in a quite different manner.”

After that he stalked out.

It left her speechless. If I could have escaped, I would have. But I was, unhappily, a captive audience. Tears sprang into her eyes. “Did you hear, did you hear?” she cried wildly. “And after all I’ve done for them! Emily … like a sister. I’ve been like a sister to her. Tony … my God, I’m his patroness … and he talks to me like that! Dear God, good God, merciful God.”

“It’s the heat,” I said. “Just the heat, Caroline. It’s gotten us all down. You know how it’s been … simply horrid. Oh, Caroline, let it go. Just let it go. Let’s talk about something else. Okay? Let’s talk about — ”

“You heard what he said to me! You heard what she said — ”

“It’s the heat,” I repeated, helplessly.

An hour or two later the storm broke. At four in the afternoon the sky darkened, first slatey and ominous, and then everything became so black that I envisioned the end of the world. “Good Lord,” Caroline said, hushed. “Look at the sky. It’s like pitch.”

It was. Black and fearful; like Gotterdämmerung. Like the end of all human existence. I drew back from the window, slowly, because I could scarcely see the hand in front of my face.

We had been talking about Schubert. Caroline, as well as I, had a passion for my favorite Franz, and the conversation had been about his work and times and his unfortunate adoration for those three sisters who had taken him for a bumpkin, laughed at him, and served him
Guglhupf
and
Kaffee mit Schlag
while tittering over his social ineptitudes.

Caroline had an awesome musical library, and I had put some records on the stereo set, Schubert lieder sung by Fischer-Dieskau. While we were listening, I told her about my visit to his boyhood home on the outskirts of Vienna, in Nussdorf.

“Imagine it,” I told her. “I was permitted to sit at his pianoforte and put my hands on the keyboard — play it, in fact. These fingers touched the keys
his
touched.”

“How wonderful,” she said, but her hands plucked at the neck of her blouse, trying to loosen it. “Darling Jennie,” she complained woefully, “I’m so horribly, miserably
hot
. So wretchedly damp and sticky.”

“It is abominable,” I agreed. “I just hope there’ll be a break soon.”

“If not I shall perish,” she said querulously. “This is so awful, so wearing.”

“Something
must
happen soon,” I said.

“God help us, if there isn’t a change before long, I shall give up the ghost. Where do you suppose the others are?”

“Emily?”

“
And
Anthony. Wouldn’t you think he’d have come down to apologize? After all the things he said.”

I couldn’t help myself. I told Caroline that she had been beastly to him for days on end. And he had only been sticking up for Emily, after all.

“Don’t you believe it. It was just an excuse. He’s like all men, crass and unfeeling.”

“I don’t think
all
men are crass and unfeeling.”

“You don’t know, but some day you will.”

“But just the same, Caroline — ”

“And Emily. Why, you’re sticking up for her too! Can’t you see her motives? Oh, perhaps she was different once. But now she’s thinking only of herself. Don’t think I don’t know what’s in her mind. The good and faithful servant! I dare say she envisions a gracious little cooperative on Park, where she’ll spend her twilight years on my money.”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Caroline. She’s devoted to you. Tony too. I just think it’s a pity that you don’t permit yourself to acknowledge that.”

“You’re a babe in the woods.”

“No, I’m not. Anyway, you wondered where the others were. Shall I go find them?”

“Certainly not. It’s their place to make the overtures.”

“Maybe … a little compromise?” I suggested. “Shall I — ”

“Sit where you are. The subject’s finished. I don’t want to hear any more.
Comprenez?”

“Oui, je comprends.”

“Alors, c’est ça. Rien plus.”

I got up and put some more Schubert records on the machine.

Then the cloudburst came.

First there was a further gradual darkening, and then, within minutes, it was literally as black as night. It was startling, even a little terrifying, yet it was a relief; with the darkness came a bit of wind, and then another, then stronger gusts followed.

I drew a deep breath. A burdensome weight seemed to have been taken away, and for the first time in days I was able to breathe without difficulty.

A surge of air billowed through the windows and lifted the curtains. Things smelled suddenly pungent and sweet, and I heard Caroline say, “Thank God for small favors,” and give a throaty little laugh.

We sat there talking for a few more minutes in that eerie darkness, thankful just to enjoy the drafty gusts that were blowing in. “Isn’t it
lovely
,” Caroline murmured in an almost sensual way.

“Lovely indeed,” I answered.

And then the full force of the storm struck.

There was abruptly a maelstrom of wind and hail. The temperature, in that brief time, must have dropped ten degrees or more. I heard Caroline’s, “Oh, this is a hurricane! My God.”

I dashed across the room and started closing windows, crashing them down as fast as I could. The rain smashed against the glass, threatening now to break the panes.

It was a fantastic inundation, coming in layers, thick and impenetrable. The room, which such a short time before had been steamy, became cool, then chilly.

I saw Caroline throw back her head and suck in air. “God, how good that feels,” she cried.

“I’m afraid the curtains are sopping wet. And the floor as well.”

“Tont
pis
,” she said airily. “The hell with the curtains. At least we can breathe again.”

I said I had better turn on some lamps.

“Yes, do,” she urged me.

With the soft light, things became cozy again. “How nice to be inside during a horrendous storm,” Caroline remarked smilingly. “I’m beginning to feel quite myself again.”

“It’s fantastic how this weather can change from one minute to the next.” I said. “Just moments ago we were — ”

A blinding flash of lightning streaked across the black sky, and its unearthly light — yellowish and almost Satanic — flashed into the room. The soft glow of the lamps were no match for its fiery brilliance. The room was suddenly lit with an eerie glitter much like a giant flashbulb, making us blink, and bringing a sharp pain behind my eyeballs.

I heard Caroline gasp: I myself clenched my hands tightly. It was like a mighty whack from a titanic hand, bringing with it an almost visceral reaction.

My guts tightened up and my muscles contracted.

And when the thunder came right after it, it was like a second blow. I don’t think I’d ever heard a sound so loud. It was as if all the gods had shot their bolts at the same time, from high on Olympus: the blast of it hit my eardrums like a mallet.

“Lord,” I said, awed. “That was a whopper.”

Then the lamps flickered out, and we were plunged into darkness again.

“God damn it,” Caroline cried wrathfully. “Now the bleeding electricity’s gone!”

“You think the storm has shot the current?” I asked.

And for the first time she turned on me.

I was unprepared for her outburst, and unnerved by it.

“What do you think, they went off by themselves?” she demanded. “Because they simply felt like going off?”

“Oh dear,” I said.

She mimicked me. “Oh dear, she says!”

And then, subsiding, apologized. “Jennie, forgive me,” she said contritely. “It’s just that … for days, that ghastly pall over everything, and now this. Bother and damn. Jennie, like a good girl, call Garrison, that’s a dear. Tell him to get his duff over here. Bring candles, and so forth. A man’s what’s needed now.”

“The phone will be working?” I asked.

“Hopefully, yes,” she said, but tautly. She was unnerved and trying to be pleasant.

The phone, thankfully, was working, and I called Garry Lestrange, being instructed to look in her “little blue book” for his number.

Bobo answered. “Our lights are out,” she announced.

“Ours too. Is your husband there?”

Garrison’s voice came on right then, apparently from an extension. “Garry here,” he said. “What?”

“Could you come over with candles, Caroline wants to know.”

“As soon as I can,” he said.

Caroline interposed. “What does he say?”

I turned to her, the receiver over my chest. “He says as soon as he can.”

“What are we supposed to do in the meantime, sit here in the dark?”

I talked to Garry again. “Tell her very shortly,” he said impatiently. “Tell her I only have two arms and legs.”

It was about ten minutes later that the doorbell rang. I groped my way in the darkness, and he stepped inside. “I called the utilities,” he informed me, disgusted. “They don’t know anything. Where’s Caroline?”