Authors: Thomas Tryon
Sunnyside was a domain any monarch would be proud to rule over. And since it was now mine, without the upkeep and the taxes (what must those be?), it was doubly pleasurable to contemplate. From the Cottage to get to the main house you walked up a short, woodsy trail to an abruptly visible set of stone steps, and climbing those—there were 135, I have laboriously counted them many times—you came out on what looked like granite abutments, like old fortifications, built to sustain much weight and green with lichen. Proceeding upwards, you reached an esplanade, beyond which was a wide strip of well-kept lawn, and the pool, with a brick surround and stone statues at the corners—were they the Four Seasons? So it appeared. Across the huge pool that Crispin Antrim had ordered built so he could keep up his muscles, past plantings of clipped yew trees and neat boxwood hedge, sat the house itself. There were flower beds laid out in glorious pattern, banked by
allées
of dark green Italian cypresses, so columnar they seemed to be holding up the sky itself. The handsome sprawling house, built in the Quattrocento style, was imposing but not pretentious. It was reminiscent of the grand villas that dotted the hills of Lombardy and Tuscany, sloping hip roofs of red tile nicely worn, a few galleries and balconies, windows, grilles set into the masonry, tall, narrow chimneys, and vents here and there. Whoever had built the place had known what he was doing.
Between the house and the garages was the famous “Playhouse,” which Perry Antrim and his bride, Claire, had occupied following their honeymoon, and which, my bed-making Suzi-Q informed me, was used these days by Belinda’s daughter whenever she happened to be in town.
The view from the hilltop was magnificent. Down one slope you looked onto the clay tennis courts, and beyond them, across the vale, the red-tiled roofs of the old Harold Lloyd estate, now badly eaten into by land development, growing typical two- and three-million-dollar ersatz chateaux put up for the nouveau riche of the Nouveau Hollywood. On the far side you overlooked Falcon Lair, and I wondered what stories Maude Antrim could tell of fifty years ago. Did she ever wander over to Rudy’s to borrow a cup of sugar? (It was three and a quarter miles to the nearest market; I had clocked it.)
Frank had said I could use the tennis courts, and one day when Jenny was out I went home and got my racquet from the closet, and I encouraged friends to come and play. They came, but were far more interested in being inside the gates of Sunnyside than in playing tennis. Meanwhile, where oh where was the lady of the manor?
I languished, lord of this empty domain hidden behind the gates of Caligula Way. She came at last—in mid-January. The manservant, of whom I’d caught no more than a glimpse, donned his livery, brought out the Rolls, passed my gate as he went down the hill. Two hours later the car was back, and I glimpsed a figure in the back seat. She never saw me, and if I reasoned that an invitation would quickly arrive for dinner, I reasoned foolishly. My invitation must have blown off the porch.
Then the wind really blew, the leaves flew, and it was, in the words of that eminent Victorian Bulwer-Lytton, “a dark and stormy night.” Had been in fact a particularly stormy day, which downed the power lines in the neighborhood, giving us our dark night. My electric typewriter died an ugly death, as well as every light, and I couldn’t find a flashlight. I searched everywhere for even a candle stub but found nothing. Eventually I slipped on a poncho and a rain hat and mushed up the stairs to the big house.
It brooded, the large dark house. No lights showed. Great night for a murder, I thought, as I moved along the side doors, looking for signs of life. Then I caught the faint glimmer of a candle far off; it came nearer and I suddenly found myself staring straight into the face of Dr. Fu Manchu—or better yet, the Asp out of Orphan Annie; there were the inscrutable slant eyes, the yellow skin, the sinister Oriental mien. He must have observed me on my way up to the house and alerted his mistress, for he admitted me without a word and escorted me through a far door, then through a smaller passageway into the large front hall, where he knocked on the door of another room.
“Come in, Ling,” I heard a clear, pleasant voice ring out, and when the servant opened the door I walked in. The room was lighted by at least twenty candles plus the glowing fire, and there in the tall hearthside chair, a picture out of a book, sat the lady herself.
She got up briskly and came toward me; the outstretched hand she offered was warm and firm.
“Well, hel-
lo
. You are Mr. Caine, of course. I am Maude Antrim. Do come in. I thought perhaps you’d be coming up, so I asked Ling if I mightn’t speak to you. I tried the telephones but I think they’re out, too. Are you in the dark down there? Yes, I was afraid so. There used to be some candles but probably they’re all gone and we just forgot to order more. But we can easily let you have as many as you need. Beastly out, isn’t it? Won’t you sit down and have some nice hot tea?”
Tea with Maude Antrim? I leaped at the chance, saying tea would be perfect.
“Yes, that’s right, that’s a nice comfortable chair.” I sat down beside a fluted mahogany pedestal on which rested a bronze bust of Crispin Antrim as Shylock, a fine likeness.
“Now,” Maude went on, “just give that cord a tug, won’t you, save me getting up. Ling will appear as if by magic, you’ll see.”
I pulled the cord and “rang for tea.” At Maude’s. It was a beginning. Ling entered on cue with the tray, making not a sound as he set it down.
When he had gone, she poured in an elegant fashion and handed me my cup. “Constant Comment?” I asked. She held her sip, put down her cup, and clapped her hands: “You’re—you’re on my team. Only people who know C.C. can get on my tea team.”
“My initials,” I said, “I should know.” She nodded, smiled, showed pleasure, looked lovely, beautiful, was mine. What a coup. I remembered I was a writer and made mental notes. Though she had been all alone and obviously not expecting company, she was dressed. She sat rather tall and straight; her form was slender, even spare, her hair a soft brown and done in the easy style I remembered from so many of her modern films, shaped to the head and softly curled. She wore lipstick and perhaps just a sketch of penciling along the brows. Her suit looked like a Chanel, a becoming cherry-red shade; she’d had it for years, you could tell—one of those outfits that had become her from the minute she put it on. Her wrists were delicate, her hands prominently veined with blue, and brown-spotted, the badge of age. She wore a gold wedding band, no other rings.
But her eyes—how they danced, how they sparkled. And the smile. It was a scene from some familiar movie I couldn’t quite pin down, the dramatic lighting, the play of color, the solitary figure in the high-backed chair—not Miss Havisham, certainly, but there
were
echoes of something, very English chintz, very country manor. A scene without artifice or trickery, yet the candlelight tossed its amber coinage everywhere, onto the Italian marble mantel, the fruitwood boiserie, the panels of billiard-table-green damask upholstering the walls, the different tasseled velvets and brocades on the chairs beside the bookshelves—many many books of all kinds. A little world. She called the room “the Snuggery,” said it was her favorite spot in the whole house, the place she had sat with her lover-husband for so much of her married life. And here she sat now, in cherry red, while the outside world was plunged by wind and rain into turbulent darkness, and made small talk with her boarder.
Easing into matters, she spoke, about the weather—all the rain, her winter garden just into glorious bloom and now more rain. Whole trees were going down outside, she was afraid of damage; one year, half the bill had washed away, cost a fortune to shore it up. The house was half a century old, the electrical wiring was bad and needed redoing, but she didn’t enjoy the thought of coming to grips with things like that at her age. She laughed—oh, that laugh, I knew it so well, bright and bubbly and full of high good spirits: Maude’s laugh. I recalled how someone—was it Louella?—had dubbed her the “Champagne Lady”; the name had stuck.
I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask her, but I refrained. She was amused when I said I’d stayed up late one night brushing up on her. When I said I had her book down at the Cottage, she invited me to bring it up for her signature. I took this as a special favor, since she was famous for not giving autographs.
I felt she was going out of her way to be kind, but on whose behalf? Mine? Frank’s, Belinda’s? Or maybe Vi’s. We spoke of Viola—they were longstanding friends, going all the way back to the old AyanBee days. Those were the days I longed to hear about, and soon I had her reminiscing about “Cowflop City,” which was what the old-timers called the lot, which when it began had been located in the middle of a pasture.
When I noted that both Babe Austrian and Claire Regrett had also had their starts there, she paused and her glance shifted. Had I made a faux pas? I waited through the pause; then she laughed, saying that if their three ages were totaled they’d go back beyond the Battle of Bunker Hill. “Remember, I saw McKinley shot.” Golly; how many people did I know who’d seen McKinley shot? When I mentioned how much I liked the films Babe had made with Crispin, she accepted the compliment gracefully but wasn’t inclined to comment. The same thing with Claire. She wasn’t rude, she just didn’t seem interested.
“And, tell me, do you like the movies?” she asked.
“Oh yes!” I exclaimed. “I’ve loved movies all my life—there’s nothing like the movies, nothing in the world.”
“Well, nobody could ever call you a cynic, could they? I’m glad when people get excited about something—even the movies. Maybe you’ll take me some night; pick out something fun and we’ll go.”
A date with Maude Antrim? How much could a fellow take? It wasn’t so very long before the moment came when I presumed to spring on her the lines I’d rehearsed. I straightened in my seat and said, “You wouldn’t remember, I know, but we
have
met before.”
She didn’t bat an eye. “I remember. It was Christmas of fifty-five or -six—at the post office, just before closing, you were driving a gray Ford convertible, you pulled into the parking lot and I had trouble backing out—wasn’t that it?” I stared, speechless with admiration. “You were very gallant,” she pursued. “You said ‘Merry Christmas, Miss Antrim,’ and waved me off. I’ve kept up with you, you know. Frank has few secrets from me; I’m always interested in his clients.”
I sat mired in astonishment; this was nearly twenty years after the fact.
I
could remember, sure, but
she
? She smiled at me as if such computerized memory were nothing remarkable.
Soon she began asking the kind of questions that seemed to indicate genuine interest in me, and as we talked she grew and enlarged in my favor. By now I’d had two cups of tea and had stayed nearly an hour; it was time to drag myself away. “Oh, please don’t go,” she said quickly as I set down my cup and stood up, “I hate sending you out into this mess. Why not stay a bit and we’ll have a little tuck right here by the fire—get acquainted. Ling will broil us a steak, a few steamed vegetables—we can just put the potatoes in the coals. Please say you’ll stay, won’t you?”
I would. I did. And a joyful thing that was, one of the unforgettable evenings of my life. I’d come at six, I stayed well past ten. While the Asp slipped in and out with trays of dinner, quiet as a snake, we talked and talked, shoes, ships, sealing wax, cabbages, even kings. I had to keep pressing her to talk about herself; she couldn’t imagine anyone’s being interested in someone her age. “I’m just a used-to-be, Mis-
tah
Caine.” She was equally reluctant to discuss her films, but was flattered I’d seen so many of them, all the way back to that one with Mr. Cooper.
“Most of the new films are so awful, aren’t they? Really, why can’t they make better ones? I suppose the wonder is that anyone ever manages to make any good ones at all. It’s so difficult. Comes of joint effort, you know, teamwork. You have to have a good creative team, that’s all. Now all they care about are
deals.
Well, I did have some darned good pictures. Crispin and I both were lucky that way. Good writers, we had some good writers. It’s all the story anyway;
you
know that, I’m sure. This film Blindy’s doing—not a terribly good script, I’m afraid. Well, she has a couple of good scenes. Some meat on the bones. And as long as I’ve brought up her name—Blindy—of course I’ve done it on purpose, Mis-tah Caine, because I want to thank you for what you did for her.” When I started to protest she stopped me with a gesture. Imperious Maude. “No, no, I’m sure you don’t want to be thanked—but
I
thank you. Blindy’s very valuable to me. She’s m’girl, you know. She’s hoed a rough row and she’s come through with flying colors, thanks to you and others. Wonderful thing, your group—friends of Bill, hm?” Her look became intimate, signifying that what we were speaking of was just between us. “And what Frank’s done for her!” she added. “I swear to goodness, he’s made another woman out of her. You wait till she gets here, you’ll see what I mean.”
“Have you spoken with her lately?” I asked.
That laugh. It pealed out and rang bells. “You wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t,” she said. “I don’t rent to just anybody, you know. It was Belinda who gave you the imprimatur.”
“I’m flattered you let me come.”
She waved a feathery hand, created a moment out of thin air. “No need, no need. Enjoy—enjoy!”
“Frank tells me she’s in good shape these days.”
“Fortunately, she
is
in good shape, after a very bumpy road, thank you. Gallant, she is. Crispin used to say a gallant horse, a gallant woman, and a halfway decent port were the stuff of life. I’d die if anything happened to Belinda. ’Nuff said on that score.”
When I asked when Belinda would be arriving, I got a shrug. “You know Blindy, she’ll come when she comes. One morning she’ll pop up, who knows when. She has Faun with her these days. I’m sure you know about Faun.”
The way in which she said “Faun” spoke loud and clear. Viola had told me one day that Belinda was experiencing her usual troubles with her daughter, who was now twenty-four years old. Old enough to know better, I thought. At any rate, I didn’t pursue the topic.