An Unforgettable Lady(74)
Obviously, Grace was going to have to try again with the man. Perhaps in writing.
It was damned inconvenient to have to fire someone you never hired, over and over again, she thought.
Grace lowered the window, leaned her head into the cool sea breeze and took a deep breath. The turmoil of everything seemed slightly removed as she looked over the ocean and she was grateful for the respite.
"You like it here a lot, don't you," Smith remarked.
"I love it here," she murmured, watching a sailboat charging through the waves.
"Your family's place is right on the ocean, isn't it? "
She nodded. " Willings isn't the largest of the estates, but it's got beautiful sea views and a wonderful garden."
"Interesting name."
She smiled, remembering the story.
"My great-great-grandmother, who was from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, hated the idea of summering in Newport after her marriage. Her family had always spent July and August in the Adirondacks and she regarded the lack of crisp clear air at the ocean's edge as a respiratory insult."
"I can think of some worse ones," he said dryly.
"She was a woman with high standards." Grace looked over at him, pleased that they were talking about something other than the logistics of the job he was doing for her. Since the night he'd spent in her bed, she'd had the impression he'd deliberately kept the conversation professional. "After much cajoling, and some serious architectural planning, my great-great-grandfather presented her with a set of house plans. She indicated that if the place lived up to its potential, she might be willing to come seaside. Two years later, in 1879, the builders were finished, she was indeed willing, and the mansion had its name."
They turned onto Bellevue Avenue, passing Marble House and the Breakers, the former summer homes of the Vander-bilt family that were now open to the public through the Preservation Society of Newport County. A quarter of a mile later, Wilhelm pulled off onto a circular driveway and halted the car in front of a three-story mansion.
Grace hesitated before looking up at the towering white house with its terraces; columns, and porches. It was the first time she'd been back since the funeral. Then, she'd been distracted and overwhelmed by the guests offering their condolences. Now, in the quiet, she could feel the absence of her father much more keenly.
"Your mother is awaiting your arrival anxiously,” Wilhelm said while opening the car door for her.
Grace stepped out and slowly approached Willings's formal entrance. Five white marble steps led up to a pair of massive, wrought iron and glass doors that were set inside a columned portico. Above the doors, dangling down from the ceiling on a thick black chain, there was an old-fashioned, heavy lantern still lit by beeswax candles at night. A pair of boxwood topiaries in stone urns framed the doors and Grace recalled having decorated them with red, white, and blue ribbons on the Fourth of July when she was young.
Wilhelm walked by, holding some of their luggage and glancing repeatedly over his shoulder. Smith was close on his heels, carrying the rest of their things easily and thus breaking one of the butler's hard-and-fast rules. The old man had never been comfortable with guests being self-sufficient and had long disapproved of Grace's own independence. He regarded her unpacking for herself or merely driving into town to get her own groceries as a failure in the natural order of things. His Old World ways were part of the reason she loved him.
Grace followed the men through the front doors and, as the sound of their footsteps echoed through the vast foyer, she tried to see her home through Smith's eyes. The typical response of people as they came inside for the first time was of awe and wonder and the architects had planned for just such a reaction. There were marble fireplaces on either side of the hall with enormous gilded mirrors hanging above them. Massive brass doors opened to the formal dining room and a parlor but neither they nor the glittering chandelier hanging from the ceiling were the main attraction. Ahead, rising up like the wings of a great bird, was a bifurcated marble staircase. Among all the home's details, the stairway, with its two arms joining together to form the second floor's landing, had been photographed the most.
She glanced over at Smith. He wasn't looking at the art or the architectural details. He was marking the doors and windows, and she smiled to herself. For all the interest he was showing the decor, they could have walked into a dim cave, and she liked the fact that he wasn't impressed.
As she shrugged off her coat, she saw her father's stand of walking sticks in the corner. They were a variety of shapes and sizes, some ivory handled and thin, some thick and gnarled as tree roots. She could remember her father taking them on their walks around the grounds, a stylish ornament he would use to point out flowers that interested him or boats on the horizon.