I 've Heard That Song Before

29

If anyone had peered into the window that evening and observed us having cocktails in the parlor of the mansion, I am sure they would have thought how lucky we were. Of course Peter and I said nothing about the brief sleepwalking episode but sat side by side on the couch that faced the fireplace. Elaine and her son, Richard Walker, were in the fireside chairs, and Vincent Slater, who always preferred a straight chair, had pulled one over to join the group.

Gary Barr was serving drinks. Peter and I had a glass of wine, the others cocktails. Without being asked, Gary had drawn the doors that separated the parlor into two rooms, making our half more intimate, if you can call a twenty-seven-foot-long room intimate.

On our honeymoon, Peter had told me that he wanted me to hire a decorator to do anything I wanted to refurbish the house. He seldom talked about Grace, but I did remember one comment about her, apropos of decorating: “When Elaine was married to my father, she did a lot of redecorating, and I must say she knew what she was doing. She had a great decorator working with her. Of course she hemorrhaged money in the process. You should have heard my father complain about it. Grace really didn’t change anything. She preferred staying in the New York apartment. During the eight years we were married, she spent most of her time there.”

All of that was going through my mind as we sat in that lovely room, staring at the fire in the fireplace. Elaine was beautiful as always, carefully made up, her sapphire eyes sympathetic and loving as she looked at Peter.

I liked Richard Walker. He was not good-looking in the traditional sense, but there was magnetism about him that I am sure attracted women. Except for his eyes, you would never have dreamt that, given his rugged features and stocky frame, he had come from the womb of Elaine Walker Carrington. Peter had told me that Richard’s father, Elaine’s first husband, had been born in Romania and moved to the United States with his parents when he was five or six years old. He anglicized his name when he went to college and was a successful entrepreneur by the time she married him.

“Elaine would never have married a guy without big bucks,” Peter had told me, “but in a way she lucked out both times. I gather Richard’s father was smart and rather charming but gambled everything away. The marriage didn’t last long, and he died when Richard was a teenager. Then Elaine married my father, who was so frugal, the joke about him among his friends was that he still had his First Holy Communion money.”

Obviously, Richard must have gotten most of his physical traits from his father, and something of his charm, too, I suppose. Over cocktails, he told us about the first time he had come to the mansion for dinner, and how formidable Peter’s father had seemed to him. “Peter was a freshman at Princeton, Kay,” he told me, “so he was away at school. I had just graduated from Columbia and had my first job as a trainee at Sotheby’s. Peter’s father was not impressed. He offered me a trainee job in one of the divisions of Carrington’s. I forget which one.”

Vincent Slater, who certainly is no conversationalist, began to laugh. “It was probably in the brokerage division. That’s where I started.”

“Anyhow, I turned him down,” Richard said, “and that was the beginning of the end of a beautiful relationship. Your dad always thought I was wasting my time, Peter.”

“I know.” Peter smiled, too, and I could see that Richard’s attempt to divert him from the grim reality of the day was working at least a little.

We went into dinner, and I was grateful to see that Peter responded to Jane Barr’s pot roast by saying, “I didn’t think I was hungry, but this looks awfully good.”

As we ate, Richard talked about his first tour of the mansion. “Your father told me to have a look around,” he said. “He told me about the chapel, and I went up to see it. It’s unbelievable to think that a priest actually lived in it in the seventeenth century. I remember wondering if it was haunted. What do you think, Kay?”

“The first time I saw it, I was six years old,” I said. Noting his astonished expression, I explained, “I told Peter about it the night my grandmother fell at the reception, and he stayed with me at the hospital and brought me home.”

“Yes, Kay was an adventurous child,” Peter said.

He hesitated, and I sensed he didn’t want to talk about my father. I made it easy for him. “My dad had come back on a Saturday to check on the lighting. There were a lot of guests coming that night for a formal dinner party. I was left on my own for awhile, so I went exploring.”

The atmosphere at the table changed. I had stumbled into talking about the night Susan Althorp disappeared. Trying to divert the subject, I rushed on: “It was so cold and damp in the chapel, and then I heard some people coming so I hid between the pews.”

“You did?” Vincent Slater exclaimed. “Did you get caught?”

“No. I knelt down. I hid my face in my hands. You know how dopey kids are. ‘If I can’t see you, you can’t see me.’ ”

“Did you catch a pair of lovers?” Vincent asked.

“No, the people were arguing about money.”

Elaine began to laugh, a harsh, sarcastic sound. “Peter, your father and I were arguing about money all over the house that day,” she said. “I don’t particularly remember that we were in the chapel, though.”

“The woman was promising him that it would be the last time.” I was desperate to change the subject.

“That sounds like me, too,” Elaine said.

“Well, it’s certainly not important. I wouldn’t have thought about it, except that you began talking about the chapel, Richard,” I said.

Gary Barr was standing behind me about to pour wine into my glass. An instant later, to our mutual dismay, the wine was cascading down my neck.