Pacem.
That night, a little after ten o’clock, there was a telephone call from the Sonoma ranch. A neighboring farmer, noticing the LeBarons’ old Packard parked for hours in the drive, and no lights whatsoever coming from the ranch house, had gone out into the ruined vineyard with a flashlight to investigate. He had found them, lying roughly side by side, each with a gunshot in the temple, and Julius LeBaron’s pistol lying on the ground between them. The instructions for their burial had been found on Julius’s desk in the house on California Street.
And so, a murder and a suicide, and presumably ineligible for interment in holy soil, they had chosen a mode still employed by certain Ligurian peasants to this day, and had asked to be translated into walnut trees in the corner of the vineyard where they died. Church technicalities would not permit them to enter heaven together. But this way, perhaps their souls would wander into some less explicit universal landscape of stars and trees and harvests, and perhaps forgiveness, looking for peace and redemption and transfiguration in some distant Parnassus or Elysian Fields, or in temples of even more dubious design.
“We’re ruined,” Peter said to her, looking hopelessly at the array of evil-worded legal documents that was spread out across his desk. “There’s nothing left. Not even life insurance. He’d borrowed on that, too. All that we can find are a couple of savings accounts, in Mother’s name, totaling about ten thousand dollars, to be divided between Joanna and myself. We’re going to have to sell this house.”
“How can we sell it?” she said. “We don’t even own it yet. And nobody wants to buy a house like this today.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
“We still have the land, don’t we? How much land do we have?”
“Thousands of acres,” he said. “Thousands and thousands of acres that no one will want to buy, either. We’re land poor.”
“Then what we’ll do is go out there and start planting grapes. Prohibition is going to end. It’s only a question of waiting for enough states to ratify the new amendment. We’ll go out and plant grapes, and within a few years we’ll have a harvest. When Prohibition ends, we’ll be back in the wine business. We’re young, Peter, and we’re strong, and we’ll work hard, and Joanna will help us. That’s what we’ll do. It’s what we must do.”
“All that will take money. Vines … labor … cooperage. Where will the money come from? We don’t have the money.”
“Gabe Pollack will help us,” she said. “We did him a favor once. He’ll help us now.”
This was true. Gabe Pollack is an old man now, and he doesn’t like to boast or take more credit than is his due, or even like to talk about such things much. But it was true that, in 1928, when the LeBaron fortune had seemed well-nigh limitless, Sari and Peter had lent Gabe enough money to buy a struggling little newspaper in Menlo Park called the Peninsula Gazette, when it came up for sale.
And had it pleased Assaria Latham LeBaron, a wealthy matron all at once, wife of the millionaire, to play the role of Lady Bountiful to Gabe Pollack, whom, once upon a time, she had envisioned coming hat in hand to her Hollywood mansion, begging for forgiveness, begging for mercy, for having spurned her advances? Oh, more than likely. But Sari is not really a vengeful sort. Actually, it was Sari who had first learned of the newspaper that was for sale, and who suggested that she could lend him the money to buy it. You see, Sari had never forgotten her debt to Gabe.
And the older he got, the more thrifty and frugal Gabe became with his money, a regular magpie. In the summer of 1929, when no one had any notion of the disasters in the offing, Gabe had looked at his balance sheets and decided that enough was enough. “My stocks have more than tripled in value since I bought them,” he had said. “And that’s good enough for me.” And so he had sold everything at the top of the market. For cash. Of course, you could argue that the actions of men like Gabe helped bring on the crash. True enough. But it didn’t alter the fact that, as the Depression deepened, Gabe Pollack was a reasonably rich man.
That, however, is really not the point of all this. The point is that, though he and Sari would always have their differences over the years, he would always love her. And she would always love him. That love provided the core, the quick, of their relationship. They would always try to help each other out, through all calamity. Isn’t that, after all, the simplest definition of love—the little sacrifices we make for one another day by day?
And so Gabe had lent them a hundred thousand dollars. Or maybe is was two hundred thousand. Gabe doesn’t remember, doesn’t want to remember, and it doesn’t matter because his loans were all repaid in due course, years ago.
Eleven
“Here is the menu, Madam, that Cookie proposes for tonight’s little dinner,” Thomas says. “She suggests a cucumber velouté to start, followed by turbans of sole with crab stuffing. Then potted squabs, with peas, mushrooms, and onions, and wild rice. A salad of Bibb lettuce and mandarin oranges, and, for dessert, a dacquoise.” Sari’s current Cookie is somewhat fancier and Frenchier than others have been.
“Oh, good,” Sari says. “A dacquoise. What is that, anyway?”
“I believe it’s a light almond layer cake with buttercream filling.”
“Well, it sounds fine. In fact, it sounds quite elegant. It almost sounds like one of those grand dinners we used to have before Peter died. Now let’s work on the seating. Do you have the place-cards?”
“Right here, Madam.” He wheels her chair across the hall, and into the formal dining room, where Gloria Martino—who has a touch with such things—is already working on the flowers.
“Do you like these tulips?” Miss Martino says. “They’re the first I’ve seen in the markets this spring, and I thought they were awfully pretty. I thought I’d do everything in white, yellow, and green, and then we could use your white, green, and gold Spode.”
“Very nice, Gloria.”
“I’m wiring the tulips, so they won’t flip-flop.”
“Now, let’s see,” Sari says, studying the dining-room table. “I think I’ll put Joanna on my right, since she’s come from the farthest away. And I’ll put Eric at the other head of the table. That should please him, don’t you think?”
“Did Melissa tell you she’s bringing a friend?” Miss Martino asks.
“No! She most certainly did not. Who is this friend?”
“It’s a Mr. Littlefield.”
“Littlefield—the name rings a vague bell. But she wasn’t supposed to do that. Tonight’s dinner was supposed to be just family.”
“It does help balance the sexes a little better, Mrs. LeBaron,” Miss Martino says. “Otherwise, it would have been five women and only three men.”
“But nine is an awkward number. Well, I suppose we just have to chalk it up to Melissa’s perverseness. Besides, we’re trying to be nice to Melissa these days, aren’t we?”
“That thought also crossed my mind,” Miss Martino says.
“Well, then, let’s do it this way,” Sari says. “We’ll put Alix on Joanna’s right, then Peeper, then Melissa, who will be on Eric’s left. That way, we use Melissa as a kind of buffer zone between Eric and Peeper. Then”—pointing to the other side of the table—“let’s put Mildred Tillinghast on Eric’s right, then Mr. Littlefield, and then Harry Tillinghast, who will be on my left.” Though they are certainly old enough to conduct themselves properly at a dinner party, Sari has decided against inviting her twin granddaughters. She wants this to be an adult dinner party, and, besides, she does not want the gentlemen at the party to feel overwhelmed by members of the opposite sex.
“Do you think white candles or ivory, Mrs. LeBaron?”
“Ivory, I think, Gloria. The smart decorators all over town are making their clients use black candles. But I’m old-fashioned. Is Joanna up yet, Thomas?”
“Oh, yes, Madam. Up and gone. She’s having breakfast downtown with Mr. Eric.”
“Hm. Well, I guess we’ve got to allow members of the opposite tea
m to go into their little huddles.”
“Do you think the lime green damask—?”
“No, I think the white with the gold monograms—”
And so it has gone, throughout the day, as the White Wedding-Cake House at 2040 Washington Street prepares itself for an evening’s entertainment and festivity such as it has not seen for some time. Out of the vault in the cellar comes the best and the heaviest silver, the pistol-handled knives and the three-pronged dinner forks, the matched silver epergnes that will be filled with flowers, the heirloom silver candelabra with their candles fitted into flared crystal bobeches, the Baccarat wineglasses, the enameled place-cards and their silver holders, the white damask napkins with the fan-shaped gold monograms, “ALLeB,” the looping serifs of the letters artfully intertwined, the silver service plates, followed by the Spode. It is decided that Thomas will wear his dinner jacket tonight, instead of his customary white coat, and will announce the courses. This, naturally, is all to impress the Tillinghasts. Sari selects a dress of green watered silk.
And now they are all here, all of them, all gathered in the drawing room before dinner, for cocktails, with all the lamps lighted, with the candles in the sconces lit, with bowls of fresh flowers everywhere, and a cheerful blaze in the fireplace with its high marble mantel.
From her command post at the center of the room, Sari surveys her dinner guests. Mildred Tillinghast, as usual, is wearing too much jewelry—a diamond dog collar, diamond chandelier earrings, a diamond bracelet, and her famous emerald-cut diamond solitaire, which is so heavy that it inevitably slips downward into the palm of her hand, and has to be twisted back into a position where it can be displayed. It is Harry, Sari thinks, who likes to see his wife go out in the evening decorated like a Christmas tree; as a self-made man, he believes in showing off what he has made. “You look very pretty tonight, Mildred,” Sari says. “I like your dress.” Lifting one fold of her skirt slightly, Mildred says, “Jimmy Galanos. Your house looks beautiful, as always, Sari. You have such good taste. I’ve always said that about you—Sari has such innate good taste.” Was there something a little condescending in that word, innate? Never mind.
Melissa is wearing a very simple, long black belted sheath, which flatters her, and has also kept her jewelry simple—two jet clips at her ears, nothing more. Melissa does have innate good taste. But Sari does not know what to make of her young man, Mr. Littlefield. He seems very young indeed. He seems not even to have begun to sprout a beard, and is a rather underfed-looking creature with frightened-looking eyes, wispy hair neither long nor short, and a manner of not seeming to want to talk at all. He is not the least bit attractive, not the least bit sexy, though Sari has learned from Thomas this afternoon that Mr. Littlefield appears, at least temporarily, to have moved into Melissa’s apartment downstairs. What Melissa sees in him Sari cannot imagine, and all Melissa has said about him is that he has “tremendous talent.” Talent at what? Not talent at dressing, surely, for though he is wearing a dark blue suit that looks brand-new, it looks as though it had been tailored for a somewhat larger person, and his black wing-tip shoes are of a style Sari has not seen men wear for years. The shoes look somehow familiar and so, all at once, does the suit. Melissa has outfitted this young man in Peter LeBaron’s old clothes! Clothes that have been packed away since 1955 in the basement storage caves! Though he is standing a little distance away from her, Sari can suddenly smell the distinctive scent of mothballs. Melissa, Melissa, what are you up to now?
“Hey, man,” she hears the young man say to Peeper, “you look just like that other guy over there.”
“Eric’s my twin brother,” Peeper replies with a smile.
The twins, handsome as always, have not yet to Sari’s knowledge greeted each other. In fact, they are standing at opposite sides of the room, Peeper chatting with Littlefield and Melissa, and Eric in conversation with Joanna. And yet, looking at both boys, Sari is struck by an oddity that she has been aware of all their lives. Even though they had never been dressed alike as children, somehow they always turned up looking as though they had—almost as though an extrasensory sartorial message passed between them. If Eric came down for breakfast wearing a brown tweed jacket, Peeper would appear a few minutes later from his own room, in brown tweed. Tonight, though the two had dressed for dinner miles apart—Eric in Burlingame and Peter on Russian Hill—it is their neckties that are not quite, but almost, identical: dark red, with small, darker, figured patterns. It was a riddle Sari would never solve. Now she watches as—ah, good for him!—Peeper takes the initiative, and crosses the room toward his brother. “Hey, Facsi,” she hears Peeper say, “remember me, your old facsimile? I haven’t heard from you in days. You’re not sore at me for something, are you?” Good old Peeper.
But with dismay she watches as Eric spurns Peeper’s outstretched hand, and sees Peeper’s open, handsome face fill with an expression of deep hurt. “So you are sore at me,” he says.
“Not sore at you, you ass. Just amazed at your goddamned insensitivity.”
“Why? What’ve I done, Facsi?”
“You seemed to expect me to do handstands over your being made co-marketing director. Did it occur to you that it meant taking half my job responsibilities away from me?”
“But Mother said—”
“Mother said. That’s our little mama’s boy. And I suppose you’re going to take her side in Harry’s bid for the company?”
“I wouldn’t go for anything she didn’t want.”
“Well, I’m sick and tired of working for my mother. And so would you be, if you were half a man.”
“I’m half of you, Facsi,” she hears Peeper say quietly. “We were a split cell.”
“Oh, cut the crap,” Eric says. “If you ask me, you got half a brain.”
Now Peeper’s face is red. “Well, bugger off, Eric!” he says sharply.
“Boys! Boys!” Sari cries. “We’re not going to have that sort of talk in my house tonight. This is to be a pleasant little family dinner.” She thinks that the evening is getting off to a somewhat rocky start, and she signals to Thomas. “More drinks! More drinks for everybody.”
“Of course, we’re all dying to know what you think of Harry’s offer,” Mildred Tillinghast says. “That’s the burning question on everyone’s lips.”
Overhearing this, Harry says, “And maybe you’ve heard I’m prepared to sweeten it a bit, Sari.”
“No business talk tonight,” Sari says firmly. “Tonight is for fun. Tonight is just party.”
“Of course, you have wonderful business sense, Sari,” Mildred says. “I’ve always said you have an innate business sense.”
Raising her glass, Sari says, “I’d like to propose a toast—to Joanna, who’s come all the way from New York to be at our little family gathering tonight. Welcome home, Jo.”
“Hear, hear … welcome home, Aunt Jo.”
Alix LeBaron, languishing on one of the long sofas in front of the fire, wearing a white knit caftan of nubbly wool and many gold chains and bracelets, looks as though she is waiting to be photographed by Town & Country. She is also clearly trying to catch Peeper’s eye. When he finally turns to her, she says, “Well, Peeper, it’s about time you said hello to me.”
“Oh, hi, Al,” he says easily, and she rewards him with a sulky smile.
It is clear to Sari that Alix is trying to make some sort of play for Peeper. “Alix,” she says, “how is Sloanie coming along with the orthodontist?”
“Oh, it’s endless, Belle-mère,” Alix says.
“Mother,” Peeper says, “didn’t there used to be a beautiful Baccarat millefiori paperweight on this table?”
“It had an accident,” Sari explains, careful not to look in Melissa’s direction.
“Ah, that’s a shame,” he says. “I loved that little piece.”
“Maids,” Alix agrees. “They break everything.”
Of all the expensively dressed and coiffed and groomed people in this room, Sari thinks—wit
h Mr. Littlefield something of an exception—it is Joanna who is the wonder of the world. Though her blonde hair is now silver, the famous dark blue eyes still flash, and the dark double eyelashes, aided now no doubt by mascara, still create an extraordinary effect. The skin, for a woman of Joanna’s age, is still remarkably smooth and clear, and the voice is even deeper and richer. A truly beautiful woman, Sari sometimes thinks, never really ages to the point of losing her beauty. It has something to do with the facial bones, the cheekbones in particular, and of course the eyes. It doesn’t matter what Joanna wears—one hardly notices clothes on her—because one so quickly becomes caught up in Joanna’s face, and the way her hands move. She is a toucher—always reaching out to touch, with just a dab of a gesture, the person she is talking to. She even sits youthfully, legs crossed at the knees, leaning forward, her chin in her hand, listening to what the person she is talking to has to say. She is, Sari is forced to admit, nothing short of miraculous, and she is weaving her spell now as she always did, holding the room with her famous charm. “Wheel me a little closer to Joanna,” Sari whispers to Peeper, who is standing closest.
“Now, I want to propose a toast,” Joanna says. “To Sari, my oldest and dearest friend. Sari, I just want to say that whatever the outcome of all this is, you’ll always be that to me.”
“Hear, hear … to Mother … to Sari … to Belle-mère …”
“The old wine barrel in the portrait gallery,” Joanna says. “That was what touched me most, when I came into this house again and saw that there. Grandpa had it in his house in Sonoma, and Daddy kept it on California Street, and then Peter brought it here. It’s a symbol of continuity, isn’t it, but not a monument. It’s still simple, still a simple, classic example of the cooper’s art. When I walked into this house yesterday—your beautiful house, Sari—and saw the old wine cask, I thought for a minute I might burst into tears. And everything else—the portraits of the children, all of us, in the long gallery. It would keep the house young, Daddy used to say. And it has, Sari, it has, and of course Peter carried on that tradition, too. This house is so full of so many memories for me—my brother’s pipe collection, the Roman bronzes in the front hall, the elephant’s foot with all his walking sticks, all the things he loved—I finally felt home again. I finally felt that some things don’t need to change. That’s what you’ve maintained here, Sari—an island of continuity, of permanence and tranquillity in a sea of change. But the old wine barrel said it to me most.”
The LeBaron Secret Page 30
