Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances

by Dorothy Fletcher

  “And I thought you were made of sterner stuff.”

  “I feel a little faint,” he said, “just thinking of it.” He leaned toward her across the table. He reached for her hand. She gave it willingly enough. He held it and stroked it and then turned it over, gazing at the palm. “Look at that lifeline,” he said. “You’ll live to be ninety.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “I’m of a long-lived family too. What do you think we’ll be like when we are ninety?”

  “I’d prefer not to think.”

  “It does seem a bit distant,” he agreed. “Far better to attend to the present. For instance, Saturday. You’ll pass up the operation too, Dinah. I’m taking you sailing.”

  “Oh?”

  “Ever been sailing?”

  “Never.”

  “Time you did. I’ll pick you up at eight in the morning. There’s this boat a friend of mine has. On the Sound. The people at the house, the caretakers … they’ll fix us a picnic lunch. You’ll love it.”

  “I’m not the best swimmer in the world.”

  “No slurs, please. I’m one of the best seamen you’ll ever meet. You stick with me, lass, and you’ll be a sailor yet.”

  “I’d planned to see Dr. Newcombe perform this brilliant feat.”

  “Choose between us. Either Newcombe or Claiborne.”

  “It comes down to that?”

  “It comes down to that.”

  As if there were any question about it. It would be Claiborne, and sailing on Long Island Sound.

  “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

  She sighed. No use. She was hooked. “What shall I wear?”

  “Bathing suit. A cotton shift over that. Bring some little basic things for the evening, so we can have dinner out somewhere. And a tote with face-saving devices. I’ll lend you a comb. Does it sound yummy?”

  It did. If this was unreal, then she wanted unreality. She was so attracted. She wanted to lean over and take his fine, dark-eyed face between her hands, to kiss him on the lips. I’m lost, she thought, and can only hope for the best.

  There was nothing, nor was there anyone, who seemed to matter any more.

  VI

  MIKE CORBY showed up at the Wallaces just before dinner hour on the next evening. It was a distinct shock to see him standing there at the front door, which Dinah opened herself. Mr. Wallace was having his pre-dinner drink of tomato juice and the children were in the living room with him, indulging in their own “cocktails,” Cokes in highball glasses. It was so totally unexpected to pull the door inward and find, of all people, Mike. It was almost frightening, as if she had been caught at a crime for which there was no reasonable explanation.

  The thing was that now, of course, she was confronted with a Very Unpleasant Situation: a situation she’d known would have to be faced sooner or later. With each telephone call, Mike had become more and more quiet and constrained, as Dinah had put him off, made excuses, and finally, lied consistently. And now here he was, come to see for himself.

  “Mike, hello,” she said. For the life of her she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Or even to do. Of course she had to ask him in, offer the hospitality of the house and introduce him to the Wallaces. What she really wanted to do — and she hated herself for it — was to push him out and close the door instantly. I don’t want an argument, she thought. I don’t want anything to spoil my good feelings.

  And then he sort of smiled, trying to keep up a front, and the difficult, rebellious moment passed and she was with it. “Mike, for heaven’s sake, come on in. You’re not going to stand out there all night, are you? Come right in and meet the family. Care for a drink, Mike?”

  “Uh uh.” He came in, still smiling that stiff smile, and said he didn’t want to get involved, or anything like that. He just wanted to talk to her. Could they go to some place private? Was there some place they could go to talk?

  “Yes, we can find some place. I’m sure. Just come in and say hello first.”

  “Okay.”

  Mr. Wallace was very hearty, trying to press a drink on Dinah’s friend and trying not to be curious about who he was. The children however, were another matter, and it was Wendy who let the cat out of the bag. “Who are you?” she asked curiously, circling Mike.

  “My friend,” Dinah said hastily. “This is my friend Mike, Wen.”

  “How many friends do you have?” She stopped circling and looked up at Mike. “Dick always brings us something,” she announced.

  “Wendy Wallace, how many times must I tell you not to be impolite,” Mr. Wallace said peremptorily. “You go right to your room, young lady, and don’t come out till I tell you to.”

  “I’m sorry,” she pleaded. “I won’t do it again!”

  “You’re darned right you won’t. March!”

  “Oh, please let it lay,” Mike said. “Please. I know I’ve come at a bad time, but I wanted to see Dinah for a few minutes and I was pretty sure I could catch her around this time. I’m only staying for a sec … as a matter of fact, don’t let me interrupt things. I thought maybe I could just talk to Di for a few minutes. Di, could we — ”

  “Sit down, sit down,” Mr. Wallace urged, grabbing his drink. “As a matter of fact I’m going to take this in to my wife’s room and keep her company. Come on, kids, let’s go cheer up the invalid.”

  “Oh, I don’t want you to — ”

  “Nope. We’re on our way. There’s plenty in the pot, young man. Stay for dinner. Love to have you.”

  “Thanks, not tonight. Thanks very much.”

  “See if you can prevail on him, Dinah,” Mr. Wallace said, and herded the reluctant children out of the room.

  “What’s up?” Mike asked, when they were alone. He was quiet and determined. “I’ve had it with the brush-off. How come the icicles all of a sudden?”

  “Mike, I … I’ve been so busy … and …” She took a deep breath. “I just don’t know what to say.”

  “Is there someone else?”

  “After all, we’ve never committed ourselves, Mike.”

  “You mean you haven’t.”

  “I tried. I wanted to build something. I’m so fond of you; you know that. We’ve had such good times together.”

  “Strong emphasis on the past tense,” he said, and Dinah was sick at the drawn look on his face. Well, what did you expect? she asked herself. You knew he was in love with you.

  Yes, but if you didn’t love back, you never really understood the way the other person felt. It came home to her that she certainly would know now how it felt. If Dick Claiborne lost interest in her, if this was only a passing thing with him, she was going to have that drawn look on her own face.

  It would hurt terribly, she thought. It would be unbearable.

  “There is someone else, isn’t there?” he said. “I heard what the little girl said. Somebody else comes here. Somebody who brings them presents.”

  “All right, there is somebody else,” she said. “I’m sorry, Mike.”

  He didn’t say anything. His eyes looked shocked, though, as if she’d hit him with something. He looked simply awful. He looked dazed and unbelieving. I hate to hurt anyone, she thought. Why did you have to hurt people? Yet it happened all the time. Without wanting to, you made others suffer; it was unavoidable and irrevocable.

  “I don’t even know what will happen,” she said, giving him the only comfort she could. “I have no guarantee. I only know I’m interested … hopeful.”

  He pulled a cigarette out of his pack and lit it. His hand was a little unsteady. He inhaled deeply and then after what seemed a long while the smoke drifted out in streams. “I guess I’m a real klunk,” he said. “It never occurred to me that there might be someone else. I wasn’t thinking along those lines at all. I thought you wanted to make up your mind. Come to terms with things. As a matter of fact, I thought it might be a good sign. That maybe you were fed up with dating like a couple of undergraduates, like a girl pinned by a guy on campus, going steady f
or a semester. I had this naïve idea that you might be telling yourself it was time to take off the fraternity pin and put on a ring.”

  He tapped ashes, with great care, into a receptacle on the table beside him. “Yes, sir, those were my optimistic thoughts,” he said. “Positive thinking, that’s me all over. And all the while …”

  He ground out the cigarette. “How serious is it?” he demanded. He looked flushed and angry now.

  “I told you, Mike, I don’t know anything. I can’t predict a single thing. Don’t make it any more difficult than it is!”

  “You can sit there and — ” He glared at her. Then he looked away. He was on the edge of his chair now, and making a visible effort to get hold of himself. He picked at a piece of lint on his trouser leg, scrutinized his wristwatch, got out his cigarettes again. “These things happen, I’ve been told,” he finally said. “You’ll have to forgive me, Di, but it’s just so damned unexpected. I thought we had something. We did have something! The whole thing was my fault. I sat back and waited like a damned stupid slob … just waited. I should have taken control of the whole situation. What kind of a guy sits back and waits? For a whole year … over a year. Without … without …”

  “It wouldn’t have done any good,” she said. “You couldn’t have done anything different, because it was always me. It just wasn’t what I really wanted, Mike. Oh, you know I’m — ”

  “Don’t say it again,” he ground out. “About how fond you are of me. Fond isn’t anything. The real McCoy, that’s what I want. My God, I should have gotten you drunk and into bed. I had plenty of opportunity. Well, live and learn.”

  Words, Dinah thought. They were only words. He didn’t have it in him to do things like that. Mike was the kind that either you were willing or you weren’t. He was a very decent guy. You didn’t come across someone as decent as Mike Corby very often. Look what you’re giving up, she thought. And for what?

  “I can’t,” she said abruptly. It was to herself. She couldn’t marry Mike. She wanted the real McCoy too. Either that or nothing. Maybe you got tired and disillusioned after a while, and then you compromised. But she wasn’t tired yet. She was filled with hope and expectancy, and Saturday she was going sailing with Dick Claiborne. Just the promise of that one wonderful day ahead of her was enough for now. Optimistic, Mike had said. Well, so was she.

  “I’m not bowing out,” Mike said at the door. “I’m not that easily discouraged.” He ran a hand over his hair. “Forget the things I said. I feel lousy as hell. I can’t accept it, I guess that’s about it. I don’t want to lose you. It’s not just physical, Di. It never was just that. Physical you can get anywhere, anytime. You’re what I want; I don’t want anyone else.”

  “Mike, don’t let’s talk about it any more,” she begged. “Don’t beat it to death, I have my problems too. I don’t want to think about the whole thing.”

  “Neither do I,” he said flatly. “Which doesn’t change the fact that I can’t think about anything else.”

  “You’ll survive.” Her attempt at lightness was about as fluffy as a ten-ton truck. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

  “Ditto to you,” he said, and smiled briefly. “And now I’m going out and tie one on. This may be an all-night binge.”

  That was the most haunting thing of all; his desperate bid for pity. And he had something there. Dinah was unable to put it out of her mind all evening. The vision of Mike slurping it up, sitting alone and totally smashed in some dingy bar, was so distressing that she went to the phone half a dozen times, and once actually dialed his number. But she put the receiver back before it had a chance to ring. Pity was no substitute for love.

  It was almost ten o’clock when they got to the house on the Island that Dick had casually mentioned belonged to a friend. Not that they started out late; they left the Wallaces at eight on the dot, but stopped off on the way for breakfast, which Dick insisted was half the fun. And when they left the roadside diner, he insisted that she take the wheel.

  The Porsche was a delight to drive, its motor powerful, and at this early hour the roads were almost without traffic. “Left here,” Dick told her, whenever a branch-off was indicated. “Turn right at the next toll booth.” The smell of the sea reached them after a while, salty and invigorating.

  “You’ll see a mailbox about a quarter of a mile ahead,” Dick finally said. “To our right. Turn in the road when you come to it.”

  It was at once apparent that the road was a private one, and driving up a narrow, steep path bordered by woods on either side, it was further apparent that Dick’s friends lived on an estate of some kind. When at last they reached a clearing, the woodsy path opened up into a circular driveway, and there was the house, a splendid, rambling white structure, with a gambrel roof, a columned veranda, and pale green shutters.

  “Here we are,” Dick said. “Pull up over there, Di, just in front of the house.”

  Almost before she had a chance to cut the motor, the door opened, and a man came out on the veranda. He walked quickly down the steps and came toward them, opening the door on Dick’s side. “It’s a pleasure,” the man said, stepping aside as Dick got out, and then running around the car to Dinah’s side.

  She stood looking about her after Dick made the introductions. “Dinah, this is Harris. Harris, this lovely girl is Miss Mason.” Intimidating was the word that came to her; it was like something from an Elizabeth Taylor film. Or perhaps something out of a dream. Quiet, sheltered, handsome and opulent, it was the kind of house to which she had never been, or even imagined seeing the inside of. And Dick seemed very much at home there, though she herself felt vastly out of place.

  “Sit down and make yourself comfortable,” Dick said, when they were inside an enormous living room with the beams stripped and exposed, and a gargantuan fireplace over which a richly-framed French Impressionist canvas dominated the room. “A brandy will put some zip into us before our expeditions on the main,” Dick told her, and left her to her own devices for a few minutes. She walked over to the fireplace and scanned the signature on the painting.

  Renoir.

  An original Renoir? We may presume so, she thought, turning to survey the rest of the room. Just a cozy little cottage, she thought dryly, and her darkest suspicions were confirmed. Richard Claiborne came from the landed gentry. His friends owned places like this.

  Well, and what of it? You were brought up to regard the lilies of the field with distrust. Good and honest toil was a requisite to a place at the right hand of the Kingly Throne; a camel could sooner pass through the eye of a needle than that the rich man should enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

  But that’s middle-class morality, Dinah thought … if you pricked them, did they not bleed? Assuming that Dick Claiborne came from a background such as this … did that mean he was a cad and a bounder and lacked all humanity? Just the same, she was apprehensive and suspicious, with the feeling that she was trapped, feeling out of her depth and defensive. “Drink deep of the cup,” Dick said, returning with a dusty bottle and two snifters. “I understand the water’s roughish. According to Harris, there’s a wind coming up from the north.”

  “Is it safe?” she asked, sipping the brandy he poured for her.

  “I told you I was an able seaman,” he said. “I’m only trying to test your mettle. You’ll love every minute of it, and there isn’t a single, solitary thing to be afraid of.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Harris and Clara … that’s his wife … are making us a lunch. We’ll be off and away in another half hour.”

  The brandy lulled her, and when Dick slid down in his chair, stretching out his long legs, she thought what a different person she was when she was with him. It was as if something which had been held captive in her had finally found its way to freedom. Perhaps, she thought, that was exactly what happened when you fell in love.

  The Sound was spanking blue, like glass, until you were actually sailing in it. Then it was another matter entirely.
Dinah was quite unprepared for the fear of it. Hands trembling, she followed Dick’s succinct orders.

  “You take the tiller, Dinah, and point her into the wind.”

  “Which way is the wind?” she asked in a tremulous voice.

  “Take a look at the telltales.”

  “What are they?”

  Explanation revealed that the telltales were two little pieces of strings, like knitting wool, which were tied about seven feet up the halyards. Fluttering in the wind, they indicated the direction the wind was taking.

  “Hauling the main,” Dick called, and soon the white canvas fluffed out dramatically. “Haul the mainsheet,” he bellowed. “That’s right, Dinah … you’re doing fine.”

  Remembering his instructions before they boarded, she pulled the end rope to tighten the sail so that it would get power. “Keep her into the wind, Di …”

  Dick was busy raising the jib, cranking away. Orders came thick and fast after that, with Dinah completely forgetting her briefing. She was here, doing his bidding, and then she was there, and suddenly the boat was a swift, thrilling instrument of power, heeling to starboard, one end lifted high above it, the other scraping the waves that pounded at the sides of it. “Now we’re on a nice even tack,” Dick shouted, and suddenly it was like being a butterfly skimming the surface of the water.

  It was beautiful, wonderful, Dinah thought, beside herself with elation. They were gliding, almost flying, and it was so quiet, with only the velvet slush of the water rushing by, the wind singing in the stays, the slight creaking of the mast. “How do you like it?” Dick asked, beaming at her.

  “It’s heaven.”

  Heaven, however, didn’t last for long. According to Dick, you only stayed on that tack for a while, then you adventured once more, changing direction. “Well, all right,” Dinah said, resigned, and Dick barked out. “Ready about … hard alee …”

  “I’ll loose the main,” he called out. “You loose the jib.”