Maidenstone Lighthouse (2 page)

A
t home came one final daunting task: packing up Bobby's things. I'd left everything just as it had been the morning he kissed me good-bye and then vanished. The dream that he would come sauntering through the door and back into my life was fading along with my sanity.

His clothes and shoes went into boxes for the Goodwill and so did most of his sports equipment. I stacked the boxes near the front door and returned to the living room for the part that would be the hardest. It was these smaller, more personal things that brought on my tears. Holding his battered flight jacket to my face caused yet another rush of memories. How many times had my cheek crushed the butter-soft leather when he held me in his strong arms? I laid it gently in the box as the tears continued.

The dust-covered ski trophy had been a particular source of pride for Bobby and was a warm memory of our first romantic trip together. “Romantic? Are you nuts? You were alone most of the time,” my rational mind—I call her Miss Practical—chided me.

My romantic side, often at odds with Miss Practical, dredged up the memory of that Saturday when a storm had kept the skiers off the slopes—Bobby and I had spent the entire day in front of the fire making wonderful, languid love.

Miss Practical snapped me out of my reverie with a reminder that it had been the
only
trip we took together, not the
first
. She was right: like so many of Bobby's big plans, none of the vacations we had meticulously planned had ever materialized. I tossed the trophy into the box.

This was the box I had intended to keep, mementoes of my life with him, our life together. But it really was just more of his stuff. None of it represented us. I finally decided that it should go with the others and set it atop the stack to be disposed of by Damon as he saw fit. A gesture I greatly appreciated since Damon and Bobby had, in reality, hated each other.

It always saddened me that the two most important men in my life could barely tolerate being in the same room together.

From the beginning Damon had insisted that “there was something not right about Bobby.” He said he was smarmy and insincere. Damon had even gone so far as to claim that he'd seen something evil in Bobby's eyes. Bobby had convinced me that Damon was simply jealous of the time I spent away from him.

That seemingly logical explanation didn't stop Bobby from defaming my eccentric business partner and friend for the way he looked and acted. Bobby even said Damon had an arrogance that made him nothing more than an up-pity N—I was shocked at Bobby's use of the “N” word and he apologized profusely with multiple mea culpas, convincing me, as he so easily could, that it had been a simple slip of the tongue and he was heartily ashamed.

But the truth of it all was that the only time Bobby and I really fought was over Damon. And while I was angry at both of them for making things so uncomfortable I dealt with it the only way I could. Never discussing home with Damon even when there had been times when I could have used the ear of a good friend; for there were times I wondered if Bobby really loved me. At home I no longer discussed work, no matter how exciting a particular estate or single piece that we had been called on to appraise.

Occasionally my resentment and frustration of the enforced silence would get the better of me. A snide remark from Damon or an inflammatory comment by Bobby would send me out into the night. I would walk the city streets alone. Angry that it was necessary to be away from them.

Shutting out the memories I stood in the entryway after depositing the small box with the others and just stared at the door. No, he would never come through that door again. Bobby was gone and I didn't need to walk on eggshells anymore.

I went to bed tired from the effort and emotions.

 

The next morning I threw some favorite research books, a battered case of drawing materials from my art school days, an overnight bag and some casual clothes into the back of my blue Volvo. Thus prepared for travel, and without a backward glance, I abandoned the city and the lonely loft apartment with its overflowing trove of bittersweet memories.

Where do you go when there's nowhere else to go? When you don't want to see anyone to whom you might have to explain why you may suddenly burst into tears at odd moments. When you wish to be alone with the tattered remains of your once happy life.

I couldn't think of anywhere better suited to those particular needs than Freedman's Cove, Rhode Island.

Tucked into a tiny indentation along the rocky Atlantic coastline north of Newport, the village of Freedman's Cove is known locally for its succulent lobsters, a postcard-pretty waterfront and the scores of extravagantly overdone Victorian summer houses that line the surrounding shore.

The Freedman's Cove Victorians, as they are often referred to in New England travel brochures, were built in the late 1800s, a time when America's super-rich were sparing no expense in attempting to outdo one another with their palatial retreats along the beaches of Newport, a few miles to the south.

When it comes to money and fashion some things never change. And, as is still the case today, wherever the truly rich congregate, the near-rich and the wannabe rich are sure to be close at hand.

So, around 1885, when Rhode Island became
the
fashionable place for the very rich to summer, plenty of well-off families with slightly lesser means than the Whitneys and the Vanderbilts were more than happy to build mini-mansions of their own, just up the strand from their financial and social betters. And so, during the hot months of the year the wives and children of prosperous Eastern bankers, factory owners and investors fled the teeming and unhealthful cities for the pleasant seaside community of Freedman's Cove. There, attended by a favorite family servant or two, they resided from June until September, bathing, sailing, picnicking and calling upon one another in idyllic Victorian splendor.

Their industrious menfolk, meanwhile, remained hard at work in the steamy, malodorous canyons of Boston, New York and Philadelphia, commuting up by rail on weekends to join their pampered dependents by the sea.

More than a century later the pattern of summer living in Freedman's Cove has changed only slightly. Entire families of prosperous city folk still escape the heat and humidity by flocking to that pleasant northern shore. But now they generally arrive together—Mom, Dad and the kids renting one of the charming old Victorians with a seaside view for a week or so at a time, then returning as a unit to their modern air-conditioned homes and condos in the cities.

And, nowadays, thanks to easy highway access and ample facilities for dining and lodging, Freedman's Cove also plays host to a new breed of short-term visitors. These are the day-trippers, in town for an afternoon. Or the lovers who come for long, romantic weekends.

However you wish to classify them, from the first of June until Labor Day, hordes of sunburned tourists wander Harbor Street, licking triple-scoop ice-cream cones served up at the magnificent marble counter in Brewster's Ice Cream Parlour & Confectionary or squinting through the wavy mullioned windows of The Ancient Mariner Nautical Emporium. They all stop in at Cora's Olde Tyme Fudge Shoppe and pause to finger the Taiwanese Hummel figurines at Shelly's Victorian Gifts. And most wander down to the old commercial pier to see the lobster boats, or rent bicycles to ride along the shaded streets of brightly painted Victorians on their way out to the historic lighthouse on Maidenstone Island.

Or sometimes they simply drive in to dine at Krabb's Seafood House on the wharf.

But no matter how the tourists have changed over the course of the past hundred years, one aspect of Freedman's Cove remains completely unaltered by time: when summer ends the city people still go home again, leaving the village to face the coming storms of winter on its own.

The day after Labor Day the sounds of clattering hammers echo along the deserted streets, as the tourist shops and B&Bs along Commodore Milton Lane are snugly shuttered and battened down. And when the work is finally done and the beach floats and umbrellas have all been folded and stored for another season, the few hundred full-time residents of Freedman's Cove settle in to enjoy the brief peace of autumn and brace themselves for another harsh New England winter.

By mid-October, chilly breezes are already sweeping south from the Canadian Maritimes. Bulky Fisherman's Sweaters have replaced T-shirts as the favored garment for outdoor wear. The long lines of strangers clogging the checkout counters in the Food Mart with their baskets of beer, suntan lotion and picnic supplies are merely a fading memory. And there are once again plenty of parking spaces out in front of Krabb's, the only restaurant in town that remains open year-round.

Within another week or so the last of the sailboats down at Maury's Marina have been hauled out and had their bottoms scraped and painted for next year. The magnificent old maples in the square are already beginning to shed their colorful autumn foliage. And before the month has fully gone, Freedman's Cove, Rhode Island, has once more become an excellent place to be alone with your thoughts.

My decision to flee Manhattan for this strange little summer tourist destination was hardly accidental. But neither was it based on any particular research or some Manhattan travel agent's slick brochures of quaint New England retreats.

Freedman's Cove was simply the easiest choice. A nobrainer, if you will. Because my great-aunt Ellen had lived most of her long life in one of the town's famed old Victorians. And though it is a place that Bobby once visited with me, the two of us had remained there for only part of one very brief and unhappy weekend.

O
ur trip to Freedman's Cove three years ago was supposed to have been a glad occasion. Ellen was my father's aunt, making her my great-aunt but for a small child Great-Aunt Ellen had been a mouthful so for the rest of my life she was simply Aunt Ellen, my favorite relative. I spent every summer of my childhood in her big yellow and green Victorian by the sea. So the old place held many happy memories for me, memories that I had wanted to share with Bobby.

But on that spring weekend when we drove up to see her, Aunt Ellen, who was well into her eighties at the time, made no effort whatsoever to disguise her instant dislike for my dashing young pilot.

Bobby and I had arrived late on a Friday night. And the old lady's cranky hostility had been evident from the moment we stepped through the front door. To his everlasting credit, Bobby had handled the unexpectedly awkward situation with grace and understanding—which is far more than I can say for my own behavior that weekend.

But even now I can't help smiling as I recall the gallant wink he gave me as Aunt Ellen, all of five feet tall in her tiny bare feet, her long white hair coiled in a giant, untidy braid atop her head, abruptly announced that she had prepared a nice cot for him out on the sunporch at the rear of the house.

Naturally, I was mortified…and angry.

For though the crafty old girl knew damn well that Bobby and I had been living together for more than six months, and had never once voiced a word of disapproval in her frequent letters to me, that night she'd seemed hell-bent on preserving the illusion of my chastity by pointedly consigning Bobby and me to sleeping quarters at the farthest possible distance from one another.

I hadn't known what to say.

During the whole of the long drive up from New York I had been describing to him in exquisite detail my sweet old auntie and her wonderful house. And I had been especially enthusiastic about the splendid bedroom high up in the turret facing the sea, the room that had always been mine.

From the lovely Italian marble washstand with its painted china bowl and pitcher to the delicate lace curtains that on soft summer nights fluttered like the wings of butterflies in breezes from the bay, I had not left out a single detail of that marvelous room with its breathtaking view of rocky Maidenstone Island, the picturesque Maidenstone Lighthouse and the Atlantic beyond.

Thoughtlessly, I now freely admit, I had assumed that Bobby and I would be sleeping together in that lovely chamber where, by the flickering glow of a tiny blue art glass fairy lamp, I had woven a thousand girlish dreams.

And though I was completely at fault for having failed to take into account Aunt Ellen's Victorian-era sensibilities regarding the matter of cohabitation by unmarried lovers, my embarrassment at her rude and tactless behavior that Friday night had prompted my usually restrained temper to flare.

Fortunately, Bobby had seen the warning glint of fire in my eyes. Before I could open my mouth to complain, he'd yawned theatrically and told Aunt Ellen he was positively desperate for a little shut-eye after the long, long drive from Manhattan, embroidering his huge lie—because he had actually spent the previous hour in the car describing in lurid detail all the wicked and depraved things he was going to do to me the moment he got me alone—by assuring her how much he loved sleeping out in the fresh air.

Great-Aunt Ellen had simply grunted suspiciously and led my poor, deprived lover away through the kitchen to his lumpy cot on the sunporch.

I'm sure she would have had a heart attack on the spot if she'd known what happened after she limped upstairs to her lonely spinster's bed that night. For, less than an hour later, when I was sure from the buzz saw drone of the snoring from her room that she was fast asleep, I crept down from my virginal chamber and went to Bobby on the sunporch.

At the foot of the deep backyard there is a little curve of sandy beach hidden from view by a thick screen of wild rose and oleander. Taking my smiling lover by the hand, I had boldly led him to the water's edge. And there under the stars, on the very spot where once I had built elaborate fairy castles in the sand, we peeled off our clothes and made love until dawn. Then, giggling like the naughty children that Aunt Ellen obviously knew we were, we had crept back to the house and our separate beds.

Needless to say, the planned weekend in Freedman's Cove turned out to be more than a little awkward for all of us. As a result, Bobby had spent virtually no time at all in the house. We had a late breakfast on Saturday. And as soon as it was over he had volunteered to take a long hike across the stone causeway to the lighthouse on Maidenstone Island, so that Aunt Ellen and I could “visit.”

So, after we silently cleared away the breakfast things, the old lady and I had sipped herbal tea dispensed from the solid coin silver Shreve & Co. tea service in her claustrophobic front parlor, with its funereal wine-colored draperies, heavy claw-foot furniture and drooping rubber plants.

As was always required on such occasions at Aunt Ellen's, I dutifully pretended to be interested while examining her faded albums of long-dead ancestors by the feeble glow of a prized Tiffany lamp, and listened for the hundredth time to her rambling recitations of who had married whom, who their children and grandchildren were, how they were related and what had become of them all.

Then, after a while, something unusual had happened. Aunt Ellen had casually uncovered a photograph of a pretty, dark-haired young woman in a high-collared turn-of-the-century gown. My anger momentarily forgotten, I had immediately picked up the photo, remarking on the loveliness of the girl and asking who in the world she was. For hers was a face that I could not remember having ever before seen in the familiar ancestral gallery.

The old woman had scowled and her teacup trembled slightly in her frail hand. “Now, that one up and went off to New York years before I was born. Around about 1910 or thereabouts,” she had muttered darkly. Then her thin, creaky voice dropped to a mere whisper, forcing me to lean forward to hear.

“They say she was carrying on with a
man
down there,” she'd continued, pointedly fixing me in her watery, gray-eyed gaze. “A Bohemian artist who painted pictures of naked women…”

…I laughed, suddenly understanding that the mysterious photo was intended to warn me against my current romantic folly. “Bobby is a wonderful man and I am not ‘carrying on' with him, as you so charmingly put it. We're both deeply in love and we are probably going to be married soon—”

“That's what that Bohemian painter promised
her,
but I can assure you that men like that do not marry,” she said, casting a knowing glance out the window toward the island. There had next followed a long silence as Aunt Ellen sadly shook her head and gazed down at the pretty, unsmiling face looking out at us from the sepia background of the ancient studio photo.

“Her father, that would be my mother's uncle George, went all the way down to New York on the train and pleaded with her to come back home,” she finally went on, “for the sake of common decency and the family name.” Aunt Ellen had gazed at the old photo again and then abruptly snatched it from my hand.

“What happened to her?” I asked, by then genuinely intrigued. For the scandalous story, and even the existence of the anonymous young woman in the picture, had obviously remained a closely guarded family secret for generations.

“She came to a no-good end. And that's all I'm going to say about it,” the old lady stubbornly concluded, the somber finality of her tone making it clear that some unspeakable fate had befallen the wayward girl.

Then, as if a lightbulb had been switched on, Aunt Ellen's bloodless lips had suddenly stretched into a semblance of a smile, unappetizingly exposing the pink plastic gums of her dentures. “Now then,” she had said, slipping the scandalous photo into the back of the album from which she had taken it, “I suppose that whatshisname feller you brought up here with you will be expecting me to fix him some kind of a big shore supper.”

“Aunt Ellen,” I said sharply, “since you deliberately trotted out that old photo in order to justify your antiquated and prudish view of Bobby and me sleeping together, the very least you can do is tell me who the girl was and what became of her.”

Her dignity visibly shaken by the harshness of my accusation, the old woman had set her fragile china cup on the magnificent silver tray and rose slowly to her feet. “Why, Miss Susan Marks, I cannot imagine what you are going on about,” she proclaimed innocently. “And you have no call to raise your voice to me, young woman.”

“The name, Aunt Ellen. What was the damn girl's name?” I shouted at her in frustration.

The blood rose to her face then, centering in two bright spots on her heavily powdered cheeks. “That person's vile name has not been spoken in this house for more than eighty years,” she hissed in reply. “And I do not intend to speak it now, or
ever
.”

Then, without waiting for my reply, she had turned her hunched old back on me and hobbled out to her whitewashed kitchen, muttering to herself some inanity about the boiled lobster and parsnips she was planning for supper.

 

Bobby and I left Freedman's Cove shortly after he returned from his hike out to the lighthouse that afternoon. As I angrily tossed our belongings into the car, Aunt Ellen had stood on her front porch, stubbornly pretending not to comprehend what she had done or said to drive us away.

Anxiously wringing her gnarled old hands, she had at the last moment even partially swallowed her stiff-necked New England pride by begging us to at least stay on until after supper.

She was still standing there in the chilly afternoon breeze as we drove away, a tiny, bent relic from a bygone age when the universally accepted wisdom of one's elders allowed and even encouraged them to lecture their foolish young folk when and as they pleased.

“You sure you don't want to go back and give the old girl another chance?” Bobby was looking at me with genuine concern as we drove slowly down the charming, sundappled street.

I turned then and glanced back at the frail, white-haired figure standing there small and alone on her big old-fashioned porch. I could feel the hot tears of frustration and anger welling up in my throat as I shook my head and fumbled in the bottom of my purse for a crumpled cigarette, even though I'd quit months earlier. “Oh, to hell with her,” I sobbed, punching the lighter on the dashboard. “Just drive.”

That was the last time I saw Aunt Ellen alive.

 

A few weeks later I received a call from the town constable, informing me that my aunt had suffered a massive stroke and passed away in her sleep. She had been discovered dead in her giant four-poster bed, by her cleaning lady.

When the news came, Bobby was somewhere far out in the North Sea on a mysterious, monthlong assignment for the oil company. So, overwhelmed with guilt at the horrible way that Aunt Ellen and I had parted, I drove up to Freedman's Cove alone and made the arrangements for her funeral.

Nobody else was at the gloomy service but the cleaning lady, a few other old people that I didn't know and my aunt's elderly lawyer. Following the burial in the little cemetery behind the stern whitewashed Unitarian Church, the lawyer took me aside and informed me that my Aunt Ellen had left me her entire estate, which consisted mainly of the house and all its contents.

Feeling absolutely rotten, for, despite our last ugly encounter, Aunt Ellen had for most of my life been like a mother to me, I had called and asked Damon to come up and stay with me while I dealt with the house. And though he loathed flying, my dear partner had bravely caught the first commuter flight to Newport.

Surprisingly, Tom Barnwell, the boyish real estate agent I had called, mostly because we'd dated for part of one breathless, hormone-charged summer right after high school, also immediately came to my rescue. Driving a new BMW convertible and looking far better in faded jeans and crew-neck sweater than he had any right to, he had arrived at the house bright and early the next morning.

Touring the cluttered rooms with Damon and me, Tom had suggested I brighten up the old place, whether I wished to sell or turn it into a summer rental: Aunt Ellen's house, with its secluded private beach and spectacular sea views was the last of the Freedman's Cove Victorians that had not yet been converted to a summer rental. And, according to Tom, it would command a handsome weekly rate.

Later, as we lunched together in a window booth at Krabb's, Tom had offered to find reliable workmen to do the necessary remodeling, and said he'd personally take charge of the house after I returned to New York.

Initially I was baffled at the extraordinary attention Tom Barnwell was lavishing on a potential realty client. Then Damon had excused himself to go to the restroom and my old beau's motivation suddenly became clear.

“Sue, I've never forgotten that night we spent together on Dad's boat,” he said huskily.

I felt myself flushing bright crimson as he suddenly leaned across the table and squeezed my hand.

“Well, Tom,” I replied, patting his big, capable hand and injecting what I hoped was a carefree tone into my voice, “we were a couple of wild and crazy kids, weren't we?”

In fact, I had never forgotten that night, either. But then, I don't suppose many people do forget their first genuine sexual encounter. For that was what the night aboard his father's sleek new motorsailer had been for me. And, I suspected, it had been the first time for Tom as well.

Thankfully, Damon had returned quickly, ending the awkward moment. Tom had sheepishly gone back to discussing the lucrative summer-rental market in Freedman's Cove, sparing me the necessity of reminding him that he was married, or boring him with tales of my handsome and fabulous lover.

The next day we went to work on the house.