Authors: Barbara Delinsky
The Vineyard (10 page)
“Please.”
She lifted the receiver. “Seebring residence.”
“Is this Olivia Jones?” asked an authoritative voice, and for a split second Olivia feared she had unknowingly committed a crime and been tracked down by the FBIâor, worse, by
Ted
.
But it wasn't Ted's voice. Besides, she had barely
arrived
. Nonetheless, such a call would be typical Ted. Perhaps he was using a friend as a foil?
“Who's calling?” she asked guardedly.
“Greg Seebring. Is this Olivia?”
She relaxed. Natalie was right; Susanne must have given him her name. No crime committed, and even better, no Ted. She was free. “Yes, this is Olivia.”
“I'm Natalie's son, and let me tell you, I don't have the time to make this call. I have problems of my own right now, but my sister is
driving me nuts because our mother is driving
her
nuts. I just want to tell you this. Natalie is behaving oddly. This marriage is inappropriate and untimely. I suspect that with Dad gone she's just needing someone else to lean on, and the nearest one for that is Carl. It could be that there's a Burke conspiracy to take over the vineyard, I don't know yet, but if so, it won't work.”
Olivia had been thinking merger, as in an amicable union of two powerful families. She didn't have to be a finance expert to know that a takeover could be hostile. “Perhaps,” she said, “you ought to talk to your mother.”
“I don't have time for that. I also don't have the
energy
for it. My mother and I function on entirely different levels. I just want
you
to know that
we
know what's going on, and that if you do anything to aid and abet the Burke cause, we'll consider you part of the conspiracy. Good God, you may be anyway. Did Carl hire you?”
“No, and I know nothing of what you're talking about.”
“Honey,” he said with a dark laugh, “I deal with political animals day in, day out, and one thing I've learned is that when they insist they know nothing, like you just did, they know plenty. I'm wise to the situation. Consider yourself warned. Give my regards to my mother.” He hung up.
Replacing the handset, Olivia wondered for the first time about the exact nature of the hornet's nest Natalie had mentioned. One vineyard taking over another was serious stuff. The family could be torn apart. Natalie could move to Napa. Asquonset could fold. Olivia could be implicated in a lawsuit that could drag on for years.
“He's angry,” Natalie said.
Her voice put Olivia's speculation on hold. “I think he's worried.” That sounded gentler.
“But not worried enough to get on a plane and fly up here,” Natalie charged. “Did he mention his conspiracy theory?”
“Um ⦠in passing.”
Natalie's eyes grew sad. “This should be a happy time,” she said and for a brief moment succumbed to the sadness. Then she drew herself up and regained visible resolve. “It
is
a happy time. Come, I'll show you around. Then I want you to meet Carl.”
Â
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RECONCEPTIONS LINGERED
. Olivia had already seen that the Great House wasn't as large as she had imagined it to be, yet the interior startled her. Through all these months and so many pictures, she had envisioned room after room, alcove after alcove, sofa after settee after Louis XVI chair, with the ghosts of guests mingling, eating, talking, sleeping. What she saw in reality was smaller and simplerâexquisitely decorated, with designer furnishings and every modern convenience, but far more casual than formal.
Undaunted, she amended her thinking from grand and large to charming and small. There would be no indiscriminate galas in this place. Visitors would be carefully selected. Parties would be intimate.
The first floor consisted of a dining room and kitchen on one side and a living room on the other. Branching off the living room were a parlor and a den. “These were intially bedrooms,” Natalie explained. “When the family grew, we added the second floor.”
That second floor housed four bedrooms. The door to one was shut, but Natalie showed them the others, one more beautifully outfitted than the next, again in an inviting and livable way. The best, though, was yet to come. At one end of the hall was a narrow staircase.
It led to an airy room that looked out from the back of the house over rolling vineyard-covered hills. It was Natalie's personal office, replete with a cat named Achmed.
“Achmed?” Tess echoed, heading straight for the cat.
“He's Persian. My vet thought he'd be a dignified addition to her office, but he wreaked havoc with the other animals. That's why I told you no pets. Bring a dog in here, and fur would fly. Achmed is a temperamental son-of-a-gun. Takes to you, though, Tess. Look at that.”
Tess was on her knees, on eye level with the Persian, which sat straight and tall on a brocade footstool and didn't seem to mind at all the small stroking hand.
“He stays up here,” Natalie said. “Doesn't mix with the hoi polloi down below. Achmed. The name seems to fit, don't you think?”
“I
do,”
Tess said appreciatively.
“I call this my loft,” Natalie told Olivia. “We'll be working here.”
Olivia was as charmed with the setting as Tess was with the cat. Skylights and a computer were the only modern concessions. The desk was of dark wood, the two side chairs were upholstered wing-backs, the sofa was of thick velvet, and the walls were shelved with a vintage collection of books. The lamps were brass with aged shades. The carpet was faded and fringed. Even Achmed had an air of age.
Time stood still in this room. Olivia couldn't imagine a better place to write a tale of the past. The place even
smelled
old, in the richest possible sense. She easily could have stayed here for the rest of the afternoon.
But Natalie had other ideas. Assuring Tess that there would be more cat time later, she led them back to the second floor, down the hall, and off through a short corridor to the new wing. This, too, was smaller than what Olivia had envisioned. Rather than many rooms with a central gathering area, even a minikitchen, it was a mere three bedrooms built over the back patio. What these rooms lacked in size, though, they oozed in quaintness. They were simply but beautifully appointedâbed, easy chair, bureau, and dressing table in eachânot too much, just enough. The window dressings were floral to match the comforters on the beds. The carpets were a solid color and plush.
One of the rooms stood alone. The other two were connected by a large bathroom. These were the two Natalie guided them toward.
“I want the blue one,” Tess whispered excitedly, tipping her head back to eye Olivia through her glasses.
Olivia was so delighted that the child seemed pleased with Asquonset that she would have given her whichever room her little heart desired. She actually preferred the other room, herself. It was green, which was her favorite color, and it was slightly larger than the blue room. Best of all, there was a window seat, from which the view was breathtaking. Past the awning below, she saw the tail end of the back patio, bordered by vibrant-colored flower gardens and paths. She could see the spill of vineyards down the hill to the far woods andâthe pièce de résistanceâoff in the distance, a hazy view of the ocean.
Forget Natalie's office. Olivia would have been content to spend the rest of the day on that window seat.
Again, Natalie had other ideas. She had arranged for the daughter of one of the office workers to take Tess exploring. The girl was thirteen, with a mass of long blonde curls, a halter top and jeans, and full smiles for Tess, who seemed immediately to respond. As soon as the two set off, Natalie directed Olivia back up to the loft.
She took a picture from the desk, one that Olivia hadn't seen before. It was small and grainy, a black-and-white snapshot of a young boy resting against the edge of a horse-drawn cart filled with barrels. The boy wore a shirt that was dirty and thin, and overalls that were torn at the thigh, faded at the knee, and so lengthened at the shoulder straps that the bib reached only midchest. Even then, the pant legs were short enough to show dirty socks and worn leather shoes.
Olivia had lived through enough old photographs to guess that this one had been taken during the Depression. The clothes were the same, the bleak background, the boy's somber expression. He looked to be thirteen. He was probably ten. Hard times did that, she knew.
Then Natalie began to speak. Her voice was so clear, the flow of her words so smooth that Olivia could see the narrative of the book taking shape even then.
Have you ever tried to pin down your earliest memory? I've tried often over the years, because I wanted mine to be different. Sometimes I pretend that it is. Sometimes I remember being four
years old, hearing the silence between my parents and feeling the tension. But I can't visualize an actual scene. I can't see myself standing in one particular spot or looking at one particular thing.
I should have been able to do that at four, even at three. You probably can. But the upheaval in our lives was so total in the days following Black Thursday that those earlier details were wiped out.
I repressed them. I did. The remembering was too painful. We had been rich. Suddenly we were poor. Any recollections I have of that early silence and tension are simply a reconstruction of what I later learned to be fact.
My earliest memoryâthe one that I can conjure up in living color, right down to the time, the weather, and the clothes I was wearingâtook place when I was five, on the day when we moved to Asquonset.
“You were
five
when you came here?” Olivia asked.
“Yes. Five.”
“Then
your
family was the one that owned Asquonset?”
Natalie smiled. “Ah. You thought I married into it. No, don't be embarrassed. You aren't alone. Alexander has always been the public face of Asquonset, so people assume that he was here first. Let it be the first of many misperceptions that my story will correct.”
Another certainly had to do with financial means.
We had been rich. Suddenly we were poor.
Even after working on those early pictures, Olivia hadn't put poverty into the tale. She was in the process of mentally shifting to a riches-to-rags-to-riches angle when Natalie went on.
Nowadays, moving from city to country is in vogue, but in November of 1930, in that tier of society whose underpinnings were tied to the stock market, it was a sign of failure.
My father had owned a bank. It was one of the many that collapsed after the crash. Could he have saved his? Oh, he tried. He sold our house in Newport. He sold the Pierce-Arrow. He even sold our family heirlooms. But the bank had issued too many loans to too many speculators. Besides, we had been buying on margin, too.
The losses caused by the crash were just too large. My father sold the house in New York, the car, even my mother's diamond
ring, all to pay off debts so that we could start again free and clear.
Try to imagine his pain. He had failed people who had entrusted their money to him. Many of them had been personal friends. Some sold their houses and any possessions of value, as we had. Some were seen on breadlines. Others suffered worse fates. I remember the hush that came over the dinner table, years later, when one name or another was mentioned. My parents had lost more than one friend in the days immediately before and after the crash, men who had chosen suicide over suffering the humiliation, the embarrassment, the pain of total ruin.
My father suffered all three. Not only had he failed his friends, but he had failed his family. We had had money, but it was gone. The farm was all that remained. We left the city in disgrace.
She stopped talking. Her expression was pained, her eyes faraway.
“And you were able to feel it?” Olivia asked softly.
Natalie was slow in answering, slow in returning from that place so long ago. “The disgrace? Yes. I felt it.” It was in her voice even now, a self-consciousness that hadn't been there before. Her eyes didn't meet Olivia's.
“Did people say things to you?”
She studied her hands. “I don't know. I was either too young to understand or too young to remember. My brother never mentioned anything specific. Maybe I blotted it out.”
“You had a brother?”
“Yes. Brad was four years older than me.”
“Yet you inherited the vineyard.”
“Brad opted out early on,” Natalie said and grew silent again.
Olivia wanted to ask more, but she wasn't sure if this was the right time. Natalie had explicitly said curiosity was a must for the job. But at what was clearly a painful moment?
The silence felt right. She sensed that Natalie needed it. Indeed, after several minutes, the older woman returned to the photograph of the boy and seemed to find new strength.
