Newport: A Novel (2 page)

T
he lighthouse on the shore flashed its beacon in time with each rolling heave of Jim Reid’s stomach. His knuckles whitened around the metal railing of the boat as he leaned forward, willing the wicked water to swallow him up whole and end his misery now. “Holy Mother of God,” he groaned.

“Good grief, Mr. Reid. We’re crossing Narragansett Bay, not the high seas.” Adrian de la Noye’s words cut through the nighttime dimness of the ferry deck. Disembodied in the shadows, his silken tone carried the same authority it did when summing up a complicated case before a Boston jury.

For at least the tenth time since they’d boarded Adrian’s Pierce-Arrow town car earlier that day, Jim swore beneath his breath at his own weakness—soft Irish words that he remembered from childhood but could no longer translate.

“Sorry to be such a wet blanket,” he said. “I’m doing the best I can.”

There was a pause as Adrian considered. “Of course you are,” he said. “You always do, my boy. You always do.”

The smell of phosphorus hung on the air as a match arced through the darkness toward the cigarette in Adrian’s mouth. Illuminated briefly by the flame, his chiseled features appeared almost otherworldly, his dark hair and eyes conjuring images more akin to pirates and gypsies than to prosperous middle age. Jim would have traded even his fresh new Harvard Law School sheepskin for some of that smooth coolness. It wasn’t likely he’d ever attain it without some sort of miracle. He was tall and lanky, with fair skin that blushed at the slightest provocation and a sandy-colored cowlick that doomed him to be viewed as more boyish than manly by nearly every female who crossed his path.

“Here.” Adrian handed him the cigarette. “It will settle your stomach.”

Grateful, Jim pulled in a deep drag. Even he could manage some degree of cleverness with a cigarette resting lightly between his fingers. Sometimes smoking felt like the most valuable lesson he’d learned in school. The god-awful queasiness began to subside.

Adrian lit a cigarette for himself and leaned his elbows casually against the ferry’s railing. The lighthouse receded off to the left, leaving the gentle glow of the stars to wash across the deck. Jim pushed his wire-rimmed glasses farther up his nose and let out a long, relieved sigh.

The smoldering tip of Adrian’s cigarette picked up glints in his gold tie pin, making the fine amethyst stone at its center glitter. Jim winced as he remembered one more thing he had to do: search the floor of the town car for his own tie pin, which he’d flung there in annoyance after stabbing himself one time too many that day.

“We’ve almost reached Aquidneck Island,” Adrian said. “Newport is a short drive from the quay. I’ll need only a moment to send Constance a telegram. She’ll want to know we’ve arrived safely.”

“Do you think we’ll find any place open?”

Adrian shrugged. “We’ll manage something.”

For as long as Jim had known Adrian de la Noye—and that was practically all of Jim’s twenty-five years—the man had never seemed ruffled or out of place. Such ease was to be expected in the sanctified halls of Andover and Harvard, which Jim had attended on Adrian’s dime. Adrian had been born to fit into places like that, and he called both institutions alma mater. As far as Jim was concerned, each school could consider itself darn lucky. What surprised him more was that Adrian was equally at home in the Reid family’s noisy South Boston row house, where a seemingly endless number of Jim’s siblings, nieces, and nephews had tumbled across Mr. de la Noye’s well-dressed knees throughout the years. For all his accomplishments, Adrian seemed to require little more than the comfortable life he shared with his wife, Constance, and their two children back in Brookline.

Jim glumly flicked his ashes into the bay. He himself never quite fit anywhere. Overeducated in his boyhood neighborhood, but not of the usual social class found at Harvard, he was a perennial fish out of water, getting by through the sheer power of his mind.

“Ah.” A husky female voice behind Jim’s shoulder startled him. “Real men smoking real ciggies. Please, darlings, tell me those are Fatimas.”

Adrian reached into his coat pocket as both men turned to face the woman behind them. “They are. May I offer you one?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

The woman was of average height, dressed in a light frock well suited to a sweet young thing. She needn’t have bothered. The way she stroked Adrian’s hand as he lit her cigarette marked her as anything but sweet, and it was obvious that she hadn’t been young in years. The stylish dropped waist of her dress could not conceal a matronly thickening about her middle, and beneath her gay cloche and bobbed fair hair, her jawline had begun to sag.

She plucked the match from Adrian’s fingers and tossed it into the water. Then, insinuating herself snugly between the two men, she leaned back against the ferry’s rail and dragged nicotine deep into her lungs. The exhaled smoke wafted into the air, borne on vapors of alcohol. The woman swayed, evidence more of her own intoxication than of the ferry’s movement. Adrian steadied her before she could tumble into his arms and then took a discreet step to his left. Jim didn’t bother to move at all. It didn’t matter that the woman’s arm had just brushed his wrist. He could drop his trousers and jump up and down on the deck were he so inclined; he was sure she’d never notice.

“I can’t resist Fatimas . . . or the men who smoke them,” the woman said. “Virginia tobacco can’t hold a candle to the . . . virility . . . of a true Turkish blend.”

Adrian flashed a polite smile. “Indeed,” he said.

It was the same everywhere they went. Whether the female was a doll or a chunk of lead, she always chose Adrian. Jim sighed, wondering what it would be like to leave every woman in your wake weak-kneed with desire. Granted, this one wasn’t worth it. But how was it that Adrian was never even tempted to slip? Given the opportunity, Jim would have been delighted to slip nearly every time.

“The name is Chloe,” the woman said. “Lady Chloe Chapman
Dinwoodie to the rest of the world, but you may now consider yourself my friends. Excuse me.” She bent down, lifted the hem of her dress, and withdrew a contraband flask from the garter tied around her pudgy leg. “Drinkie?”

“No, thank you,” Adrian said.

Recognition hit Jim like a smack to the side of the head. “Say, you’re . . .”

Adrian corked his flowing words with one veiled glance. “Mr. Reid has perhaps heard of your father,” he said. “Bennett Chapman’s contributions to the textiles industry are very well known.”

Chloe’s expression soured. “Damn the old coot. I’m missing a weekend of parties in New York to ossify in Newport because of him.” She threw her head back and took a long swig from the flask. Adrian met Jim’s gaze over the swallowing motion of her throat.

“Yes, sir,” Chloe Dinwoodie said, coming up for air. “Let’s drink to good old Pop and his contributions to the textiles industry.”

“His success is admirable,” Adrian said mildly.

“Then let’s drink to good old Pop and his contributions to Chloe’s lifestyle.” She again extended the flask in a silent invitation. Adrian shook his head. “Let’s drink to the family manses in Boston, New York, London, and Newport,” she continued. “And let’s not forget how that money bought me a titled husband, too. A shame the fool’s a fairy, but he does come with benefits.”

She tossed her half-smoked Fatima over the ferry railing. Adrian wordlessly extended another.

“You’re a dear man.” Chloe waited as he lit a match, then pulled his hand closer to guide the flame toward the cigarette now clamped between her bright red lips.

Adrian did not move away this time. Instead he bathed her in one
of those intimate gazes Jim recognized from his mentor’s arsenal of cross-examination techniques.

“Of course you’d rather be elsewhere,” Adrian said. “Newport certainly isn’t the jewel she used to be. What coaxed you away from the glitter of New York?”

Chloe’s fingers tightened around his wrist. “Oh, only dire circumstances could do that, I assure you. My father wants to change his will.”

Jim’s face burned with the flood of a hot red flush. Words bubbled to his lips.

Adrian intercepted them with the graceful stealth of a panther. “I assume the change is not to your advantage,” he murmured.

Chloe’s round-eyed stare resembled a mesmerized trance. “Advantage? It’s a disaster! Nicholas and I—Nicky’s my brother—will be flat out of luck if he goes through with it. Right now we stand to get everything when my father kicks the bucket . . . meets his maker . . . you know. But now Pop wants to marry this . . . this gold digger.”

“Ah. There’s a woman involved.”

“Isn’t there always? Anyway, that’s why Pop wants to change his will. And if he goes through with it, Nicky and I get a yearly stipend apiece, and that’s it.”

“I see your difficulty,” Adrian said. “But how can you stop him?”

Chloe dropped her voice to a confidential whisper. “Pop’s got his Boston prig of a lawyer coming up to draft the new will tomorrow. Nicky says that if we can prove our father is nuts, the will must legally stand as is. Nicky’s a dull stick, but he’s smart about things like this.”

Adrian’s voice dropped as well. “Can you prove that your father is incompetent?”

“Oh, yes.” Chloe stepped forward until only an inch separated the lace of her collar from Adrian de la Noye’s well-tailored vest. “With what’s been going on around his place lately? Oh, absolutely yes. You know, I don’t believe you’ve told me your name.”

Jim could almost see the noxious alcohol fumes snaking their way up Adrian’s nostrils. Adrian abhorred inebriation, deemed it sloppy and unnecessary. It probably required a supreme act of will for him to stand still, smiling blandly as Lady Chloe Chapman Dinwoodie walked her fingernails up his chest.

A snicker worked its way through Jim’s nose. He quickly turned away, disguising his laughter with an unconvincing sneeze. This tendency to lose his composure at the mere thought of the absurd was yet another bad habit he needed to conquer.

A sudden movement on the deck stopped his sniggering flat. Farther down the rail, a figure crouched, half hidden by a weathered box of life preservers. Startled, Jim leaned forward. The figure jumped under his scrutiny and flattened itself against the box as if trying to disappear. It was too late; Jim had seen plenty. He identified the cap and knickers of a young boy, noted that the figure was small and slight. But, most important, he knew without a doubt that for some reason, this boy had been listening intently to every word.

“Hey!” Jim lunged toward the life preservers, but the boy was faster. The small figure skittered across the deck and out of sight.

“May I offer assistance, Mr. Reid?” Adrian appeared instantly at his side.

Jim’s shoulders sagged as he blinked at the empty space before
him. “I’ll tell you later, when there’s no fear of ears. It’s probably nothing; I’m just a little jumpy.”

“Any particular reason?” Adrian threw a glance toward Lady Dinwoodie, who now slumped against the ferry rail like a deflated balloon, lost in an inebriated haze.

Jim shook his head, hard. “This whole trip reeks, that’s all.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know. It just feels . . . off. Taking this trip to the old man’s summer cottage in the first place—”

“Mr. Chapman has been a valued client of our firm for many years.”

“—then running across his daughter like this . . .”

“An admittedly awkward coincidence, although I found her comments most enlightening.”

“You had no idea that Bennett Chapman’s will might be contested?”

“Not an inkling. Naturally, we’ll readjust our plans accordingly. We’ll stay in town tonight and visit Liriodendron tomorrow. That will give Lady Dinwoodie an opportunity to compose herself.”

Jim removed his spectacles to massage the crease in his brow. “You don’t think she’ll remember us the second we knock on Liriodendron’s door?”

They turned as one toward Chloe Chapman Dinwoodie, but she had tottered away, presumably in search of new prey.

A corner of Adrian’s mouth turned up. “Given the amount of bootleg she’s consumed, Chloe Dinwoodie will be fortunate if she remembers how she arrived at Liriodendron in the first place. I suspect we’ll register as nothing more than a bad dream. Suppose we
wait in the car. That will save us from meeting the charming lady again.”

With a resigned sigh, Jim followed his mentor to the auto. He was no longer particularly connected to his Irish past, no more so than any other first-generation American born and raised in South Boston. Why was it, then, that he could now hear the lilting voice of his departed Granny Cullen, who’d always claimed that the blood of ancient Celtic soothsayers warmed her veins? He’d grown up with her predictions and warnings, and this one trumpeted as loudly as any of them: “Little good ever comes of mixing where you aren’t wanted.” Despite Bennett Chapman’s invitation, it was clear that most of Liriodendron’s occupants would be more than happy to slam the front door in Adrian de la Noye’s face.

“Adrian . . .” Jim stopped still on the deck.

Adrian turned toward him, one eyebrow raised in inquiry.

Jim hesitated. He was indebted to Adrian’s kindness, could never have come this far without his patronage. But it was more than that: dashing, sure-footed Adrian de la Noye was everything he wanted to be. Summoning superstitions from the old country would only further emphasize the differences between them.

“Never mind,” Jim said slowly. “I’m tired, that’s all.”

“All the more reason for a good night’s sleep before we visit Liriodendron. I’ll need that sharp mind of yours, Mr. Reid. I’ve grown to depend upon it.”

Jim followed along in silence, trying to forget that his granny’s predictions had seldom been wrong.

A
drian de la Noye navigated the Pierce-Arrow down Bellevue Avenue as if he’d done so only yesterday, a fact that irritated him no end. His last visit to Newport had been some twenty-three years ago. He’d been around Jim’s age then, recently graduated from law school and just back from a Grand Tour of Europe. It would have pleased him now to find that memories from that time had faded into oblivion.

Newport had changed, and unwelcome memories or not, Adrian approved of the shift he’d noted while driving from the ferry last night. The patina of pretension he remembered from years ago had dulled somewhat, lessened as society wealth siphoned away either to other resorts or to former President Wilson’s reviled income tax. Still, one needed only to look at the lavish mansions lining either side of Bellevue to realize that, despite the more pronounced presence of the navy, despite the increased influx of immigrants and the
workingman, Newport would always keep a soft spot for the glittering doyennes of the social order—the ornaments who’d made the town sparkle in its heyday.

Adrian tamped down his distaste and, for the fourth or fifth time since they’d docked the night before, reminded himself that he’d been rescued long ago from that mindset.

In fact, he’d spoken to his favorite personal angel just last night.

“You sound worried.” Constance’s lilting tones had soothed like honey. He’d have paid the hotel clerk twice over for the privilege of using the telephone. “What’s wrong?”

He knew his wife well, knew he had interrupted her evening cup of tea and the
New York World
crossword puzzle she enjoyed working after Grace and Ted kissed her good night and disappeared into their bedrooms. She’d most likely taken a cookie or two up the stairs to enjoy with her tea, probably the rich, buttery shortbread she baked to perfection. The thought had made him smile: wise men did not interfere with Constance and her sweet tooth. In truth, wise men rarely interfered with Mrs. de la Noye at all. Her ethereal prettiness hid a steel trap of a mind, and those who underestimated her once never did so again.

He’d pictured her so very clearly: telephone receiver grasped loosely in one graceful hand, candlestick body of the phone raised close to her soft lips. He’d longed for home so badly then that it had nearly robbed him of breath. He’d ached to envelop his wife in his arms, to brush away the blond tendrils that always escaped the casual twist of her hair, to gently kiss her cheek.

“Adrian?” Constance’s voice had crackled through the wire.

He’d quickly submerged his yearning. “It’s . . . unpleasant . . . here without you. It feels wrong.”

“You’ve been away on business before.”

“This is different.”

“Is it Newport, then?”

He’d licked dry lips. “It might be.”

“I see.” There’d been silence as she absorbed his words, but it had been a comfortable silence. Constance never required excessive explanation. “Adrian, listen to me. I don’t know the source of your unease, but I’ll swear to this: you’re a good man with a good heart. Nothing can change that unless you allow it. Just finish the task at hand and hurry back. I miss you.”

He’d lost the line then, listened as Constance receded into a field of sputtering noise. But it had been enough to remind him of the man he meant to be.

Jim’s drawl brought him back to Bellevue Avenue and the midmorning sun. “Can you imagine walking through that front door at the end of a hard day?”

The chateauesque lines of Belcourt filled the passenger-side windowpane. Adrian remembered seeing that mansion go up back in the 1890s, listening to tongues wag over the eccentricity of its owner.

“Actually, Mr. Reid, that’s the back of the place. The entrance is on Ledge Road, around the other side.”

Jim let out a low whistle as his gaze took in the massive house. “It’s obscene. Is Liriodendron like this?”

“I’ve never been. But I wouldn’t be surprised. Summer cottages built in Newport were meant to impress.”

“Summer cottages.” Jim’s snort was understandable. One of these “summer cottages” could have housed his entire family—parents, siblings, nieces, and nephews included.

“It’s a different world, is it not?”

Jim slid him a sideways glance. “But one with which you’re familiar.”

Jim Reid had yet to recognize his own many gifts, one of which was an innate sense of observation. Adrian took great pleasure not only in this but in the young man’s ability to effortlessly gather clues and weave them into a fine tapestry of reason. Watching Jim’s mind work was almost worth his own slip into momentary transparency.

“Yes,” Adrian said simply. “I spent some time in Newport in my youth. I had friends here.”

Jim left a wide-open pause just perfect for filling. Adrian declined the invitation, guiding the town car into a smooth right turn instead. To their left, the ocean opened out in sparkling ripples of deep blue and white.

Jim turned to study the sea. “I noticed you booked the hotel room for another night,” he said. “How long do you expect we’ll be in Newport, given the unforeseen complications?”

Another gift: the young man knew when to change the subject.

“I don’t know yet,” Adrian replied. “It’s hard to tell exactly how much of a complication Lady Dinwoodie will be once sober. And we’ve yet to meet brother, Nicky . . . also known as the ‘dull stick,’ I believe.”

“Do you think the old man is afflicted, as they claim? What’s he like?”

“The ‘old man,’ as you so succinctly put it, can be difficult. Still, he’s made more money for our law firm than half our other clients combined. Do you know much about him?”

“Some.”

“Bennett Chapman made a fortune in cotton textiles after the Civil War.”

“Gainfully?”

“Now that’s a question I’ve never asked. Breathe deeply, Mr. Reid. There are few sensations as cleansing as a lungful of fresh salt air.”

Jim obliged, dissolving into a fit of coughing as his chest expanded beyond its usual habit. Adrian gave him a moment to fumble for his missing handkerchief, then passed over his own without a word.

“Thanks.” Jim made use of the neat silk square, crumpled it up, and shoved it into his pocket. “Mr. Chapman must be rather up in years.”

“Eighty next month.”

“Hmm.” Jim’s fingers tapped out an impromptu jazz rhythm on the dashboard of the automobile as he considered. “Well, then, there’s a chance that Lady Dinwoodie is correct. What if the man’s truly not right in the head?”

“Then I suppose we won’t be drafting a new will after all.”

“Bennett Chapman might take his business elsewhere.”

“I know.”

“Could the firm absorb the loss?”

Adrian hesitated. “That would remain to be seen.”

The younger man nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer.

Jim Reid had been slightly more than a toddler when they’d first met, but Adrian had recognized the boy’s sharp intelligence even then. He’d have funded the child’s education no matter what his ability, but it had taken no more than a few minutes of watching the boy scrutinize him from the safety of his father’s lap to realize that any money spent on the lad would be money well spent. Indeed,
what had begun as a favor—compensation for a debt that Adrian had known he could never fully repay—had reaped so much more than expected. Years of shepherding Jim Reid through the halls of academia had provided Adrian with not only a law associate, but a friend.

Jim tugged at his too-short jacket sleeve in a futile attempt to cover his knobby wrist. It was well past time for a trip to a tailor. No man—especially one of Jim’s imposing height—could expect to find well-fitted perfection hanging ready-made on a rack at Filene’s. Adrian filed away a mental note to make arrangements with his own tailor once they returned to Boston.

“This is the place,” Jim said, staring through his spectacles at a circular driveway to their left.

A large white mansion sat planted at the apex of the drive, a northern paean to southern antebellum architecture. Adrian took in the graceful white columns that guided the eye from porch floorboards to ceiling, the well-manicured lawn with its early summer flowers in riotous bloom, and the expanse of ocean rolling behind the house in an endless carpet of motion. He’d never set foot in this house before, couldn’t even recall what had once occupied this prime ocean-view site. But that didn’t matter. The indulgent opulence of Liriodendron transported him back more than twenty years in time, back to a place where he’d never wanted to find himself again.

“You’ve stopped in the middle of the road,” Jim said.

Adrian thought of Constance, of the solid dining room table where he, Grace, and Ted enjoyed their breakfasts before departing each morning for the office and school. He thought of the soft quilts on their beds, the worn leather chair just waiting for him by the
fireplace in his study. He had a place there, a family eagerly awaiting his return.

“Just getting my bearings, Mr. Reid.” Eyes steady on the horizon, Adrian gave the Pierce-Arrow’s steering wheel a firm spin to the left.

Newport hadn’t changed nearly enough.

Fortunately, he had.