Murder at Rough Point (28 page)

I had never been so happy to be there, so much so I smiled down at the threadbare hall rug, the bald spots on the banister where years of use had worn away the varnish, and I barely flinched at the crash as Patch apparently knocked over something in the parlor. The others followed him in, but I remained in my front hall feeling at home and at peace. Mrs. Wharton had been right, Gull Manor
was
the home of a young woman of independent means. Not only was the place mine free and clear, but unlike Howard Dunn, I wanted nothing more.
Needed
nothing more. Not in the way of material possessions, anyway. And
that
, as Mrs. Wharton had said, was worth more than all the satin brocade and fine velvets a fortune can provide. Of all the Vanderbilts, I felt myself to be the luckiest.

Happy voices drew my attention to the parlor, but before I turned into that room, I noticed a missive lying on the mail salver on the hall table. It hadn't been there when I left on my adventures, and given the weather I surmised it had been delivered today just prior to my arrival. The Western Union stamp on the sealed page raised my guard. Bad news? I thought immediately of Uncle Cornelius, still so frail after his stroke. But no—upon opening the telegram I saw the message had traveled the wires from much farther away than New York. It had come from Italy. From Derrick Andrews.

That was all, but it was enough to start me trembling and to drown out the voices in the other room beneath the rush of my pulse points. Suddenly, my independent, well-ordered life tumbled into chaos. I forced myself to breathe, to be calm, and to remember that I had not made my choices yet, and that one choice open to me was to make no choice at all. Not until I felt completely, contentedly ready. I folded the telegram and stuffed it into my drawstring purse, and laid that on the hall table. With a lift of my chin I took two steps toward the parlor doorway, then stopped short when the conversation I had been hearing but hadn't
listened
to suddenly presented itself to my ears.

“Ask her, Jesse.” Mother's voice held an eager note. “Arthur, tell him. Give him your blessing.”

Father cleared his throat. “We'd be pleased to have you as a son-in-law, Jesse.”

My breath burned in my throat and a tingling like a thousand pinpricks swept up my neck and across my face. I wished to simply melt away where I stood.

After a pause, Jesse said, “I appreciate that. But the time isn't right.” I could all but see the blush creeping up his face and scorching his ears. My own were flaming.

“Nonsense.” This from Mother again. “There is no time like the present. I've seen the two of you together. Jesse, as Emma's mother, I can assure you it's perfect. There could be a spring wedding. . . .”

My stomach tightened into a ball of misery and mortification.

“If you'll excuse me.” A creaking of the sofa was followed by footsteps advancing in my direction. I had nowhere to hide, no time to traverse the hall to the back rooms. Jesse appeared a moment later and drew up short. “Oh, uh . . . I suppose you heard that.”

As I had expected, his cheeks were aflame, the tips of his ears glowing. Poor Jesse. Poor me. I nodded and stared down at my feet. “I'm sorry,” I whispered. “They mean well.”

With a light touch he raised my chin. “Of course they do. And don't think I won't take your father's blessing to heart. But I meant what I said. The time isn't right. Someday it might be, and on that day I'll be here. Until then . . .”

His normal complexion returned and he grinned down at me. My misery suddenly forgotten, I grinned back, and together we made our way to the kitchen to see how we could help Katie with dinner preparations.

W
hile Rough Point is somewhat less well known compared to some of the other Newport cottages, it's nonetheless one of my favorites. Relatively isolated at the end of Bellevue Avenue, Rough Point for many years held a certain element of mystery, sitting on its rugged headland behind high walls and solid iron doors that blocked the property from view. Those doors have since been replaced by gates, and Rough Point, maintained by the Newport Restoration Foundation, welcomes visitors to tour the house and learn about the woman who owned it for nearly seventy years, from the mid-1920s until her death in 1993.

Although tobacco heiress and philanthropist Doris Duke was Rough Point's most famous resident and the focus of Rough Point's tours, the house was originally built by Peabody & Stearns for Frederick William Vanderbilt, son of William Henry Vanderbilt, and brother to Cornelius II and William Kissam Vanderbilt, who are both featured in The Gilded Newport Mysteries.

The house in Frederick Vanderbilt's time looked rather different from the house we see today. The far north wing that presently houses the Music Room did not exist originally, and was instead a covered, open-air piazza. Likewise, two covered porches once flanked the open veranda along the back of the house. One opened onto the drawing room, and is now the solarium. The other opened onto what was the billiard room. The drawing room was also later expanded by the removal of the wall that separated it from the library, resulting in one large room. This is now called the Yellow Room. As mentioned in the story, the house was as Gothic and dark as any Tudor-era manor house from the English countryside, and was lightened up considerably by its two later owners. I was sad to discover the fabulous stained glass windows at the half landing of the main staircase, depicting the coats of arms of the signers of the Magna Carta, were not original but added later, by the Dukes. I will admit I took some creative license in adding a couple more bedrooms than existed in Frederick Vanderbilt's day.

Rough Point was groundbreaking in that it was the largest Newport “cottage” built up until that time, and thus paved the way for even larger and more ornate houses thereafter. Yet not long after its completion, Frederick and Louise tired of the house, and of Newport, and began renting it out before selling it to the Leeds family in 1906. They, in turn, sold the property to the Dukes in 1922. Frederick and Louise Vanderbilt never had children and, upon their deaths, their fortune was divided among their many nieces and nephews.

Edith Wharton's book on interior decorating,
The Decoration of Houses
, co-written with Ogden Codman Jr., was published in 1897. As I've indicated in the story, her marriage to Edward Wharton was not a happy one. Teddy Wharton suffered from acute depression, which began a few years into the marriage and steadily worsened, ending their travels and leading to their divorce in 1913 after doctors declared him incurable. They had no children. Their Newport home, Land's End, still stands on Ledge Road overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, not far from Rough Point. It is privately owned, unmarked, and fairly well obscured from the road by trees, at least enough to frustrate would-be photographers.