Chapter 13

I’ve driven coastal routes before, but none so close and so level with the water. Here there’s no barrier between tide and tarmac, just a grassy verge dotted with benches and strutting seagulls. At one point a wave rears up onto the rocks and sprays our windscreen.

“Now this is where I want a picture of me driving the bus,” Gracie announces as she applies the wipers. “I’m going to send it out with this year’s Christmas card!”

Pamela reaches for her mum’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “I recognize it now—this is where you took that picture with Dad, isn’t it?”

She nods and points to a wall of rocks snaking out to sea. “If you three stood there and all took pictures as I passed by, I’m sure one would be just perfect.”

“We’ll be like paparazzi!” I laugh.

“God how embarrassing!” Ravenna mutters.

“Concerned what all the elderly leaf tourists will think of you?” I raise a brow.

Pamela intercepts any comeback from Ravenna by pointing ahead to a row of little beach houses set upon their own stretch of sand.

“Can you imagine?”

“You don’t have to,” I tell her.

“What do you mean?”

“That’s where we’re staying. Isn’t that right, Gracie?”

“I can’t believe it!” She seems genuinely giddy. “The Castle Hill Inn! What a dream!”

We’re wending down the hotel driveway now. And if I’ve learned one thing in my travels, it’s the longer the driveway, the more exclusive the property.

That said, compared to all the grand mansions we’ve just seen, the main building here looks more like a quirky guesthouse, with its jutting porches, higgledy-piggledy levels and bell-shaped turret. It’s made of wood, not marble, and painted an unassuming beige. But then you discover the pièce de résistance—it stands upon its own forty-acre peninsula. Complete with dinky lighthouse.

Plus there’s the cut-above welcome: Personal. Charming. Privileged. Everything will be taken care of while we enjoy a glass of champagne and that exceptional vantage point . . .

Ravenna brightens for a second as we approach the outdoor bar, until she realizes a) she has been relegated to sparkling cider and b) U.S. cider translates as apple juice and is thus nonalcoholic. What a swizz.

Glasses in hand, we roam beyond the deck, down to the white Adirondack chairs spaced around the slope of lawn that leads, via a tumble of rocks, to the glimmering sea.

Ravenna chooses to sit apart from us, hoodie yanked low over her face, headphones emitting a tinny blare of defiance.

I pretend she’s listening to Frank Sinatra, wooing her reluctant spirit with the laid-back, tilted-trilby vocals of “Summer Wind.” I have that song on loop in my mind as I look out across the bay to the bridge we so recently drove in on. A white sailing boat is sliding by, attaching to my heartstrings as it crosses the golden path laid out by the peach-on-fire sun.

“I’ll say one thing for the super-rich, they sure know how to pick a holiday spot.”

Speaking of which, I can’t believe we’ve never covered Newport on Va-Va-Vacation! Especially with the Downton connection.

Apparently The Elms even offers a “Servant Life” tour. I must talk to Krista about this: I think there’s a definite market for a more genteel experience. Especially one with such pretty skies.

“I don’t know the last time I saw a sunset . . .” Pamela whispers in a trance.

The sky responds by amping up its gold backlighting. The clouds are unusually long and streaky, with random flourishes like the expressions of a modern dance troupe. Blue becomes indigo, orange rages to red, the gold brightens to a glare.

“Best show in town,” Gracie raves.

“A toast,” Pamela leans forward and raises her glass. “To new beginnings in New England.”

“And to old friends,” Gracie adds.

“To Georgie,” I smile. Even though I’ve never met him, I love the sound of him.

We take a sip and then give a rueful look in Ravenna’s direction.

“Do you think she’s going to be like this the whole time?” Pamela frets.

“She is a willful child,” Gracie notes. “She’ll certainly try to maintain the disdain as long as is humanly possible.”

“Well, you never know,” I say, already feeling the effects of the champagne. “Travel has a way of transforming people, even when they are at their most resistant.”

Gracie’s lips purse. “Let’s just hope it’s for the better.”

•   •   •

Even though it’s getting a little chilly, the ever-changing colors of the sunset hold us in position. I don’t want this moment to end. Ravenna, on the other hand, has already headed off to unpack. I should join her; I do have to change for dinner. And I will. Just five minutes more of this burnished glory . . .

•   •   •

Trotting down the path to our beach house in the now dim, powdery light, I decide upon my white linen sundress, the navy cardi with the big anchor buttons and a sheeny red lip. At the very least I shall coordinate with the other wharfies.

“Knock, knock.” I turn the key in the latch but no sooner am I through the door, I find myself stalling. “Oh my!”

Not because I’ve caught Ravenna in a compromising position (she’s nowhere to be seen), but because I am in the presence of such tasteful, grown-up design.

The floors are a honeyed hardwood, the walls whitewashed, the loft-style ceiling painted the most serene hyacinth blue. The four-poster is hefty and masculine, sans canopy, but with duvet and pillows puffed to cloud status. There’s a stained mahogany armoire, a coffee table and a large brown leather sofa, all of a reassuringly classic persuasion.

I bet Ravenna wants to get out her spray can and graffiti the entire place, including the sea view that now draws me forward.

Oohhh, a fireplace. My hand reaches to touch the textured slate chimney breast. Nothing makes me swoon like a fireplace. And this one is directly opposite the bed. What could be toastier?

There’s even a little kitchenette with state-of-the-art coffee-making facilities, further fueling the fantasy that I have just arrived at my new apartment.

“Yes, I took a place by the sea,” I shall tell people. “Everyone needs a little time away from the city.”

I ease open the patio door and step onto the deck, taking a moment to listen to the waves’ rolling breath and the respondent drag of the shingle. It’s so peaceful here. So soothing. Right up until the point at which Ravenna emerges from the bathroom in a billow of fragrant steam.

“Oh, you’re here.”

“Mm-hmm,” I say as I make a beeline for my suitcase, foraging for my canvas wedges. Got one. I’ll have quite the peg-leg walk if I can’t find the other. I reach deeper within the folds of fabric until my fingertips meet with woven rope.

“So you’re not speaking to me now?” Ravenna snips as I pass her en route to the bathroom.

“I didn’t think you were speaking to anyone,” I say without looking back.

I’ve been here a million times before. The more you pander, the more they pout. Best let them come to you.

“It’s all right for you, you want to be here,” she calls after me.

I stick my head around the door. “Why don’t you just decide that this is what you want too?”

“Like it’s that easy.”

“Says the princess from her four-poster,” I tut. “Take a look around you, Ravenna. There are worst places to be.”

“It’s not the place, exactly, it’s the company.”

“Oh. Thanks for that.”

“I don’t mean you. In particular.”

I frown back at her. “You know, I never met anyone who didn’t like their granny before. Mothers yes, but—”

“She started it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She doesn’t like me.” She tugs at her robe. “She doesn’t want me here.”

“Maybe if you tried showing an interest in the things that mean so much to her . . .”

“Like old buildings?”

“You know, honestly, it’s hokum that you’re planning a career in interior design if you’re not interested in seeing these miraculous time capsules. Not pictures, not artifacts in museums, but a first-hand experience of how people lived—”

“How the elite lived.”

“The elite are your future clients,” I remind her. “Poor folk don’t hire interior decorators. Not unless they’re getting a freebie on a TV show.”

She shrugs. “It’s not my taste.”

“It’s not about you. Are you going to listen to your clients’ needs and wants, or are you just going to give them signature Ravenna every time?”

“If they choose me they’ll be choosing my style.”

“Do you even know what that is?”

She looks affronted. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“No, you don’t.” I really should be getting ready. I return to the bathroom and set my toilet bag on the glossy white sink. Right . . .

“I just don’t see how it’s relevant.”

I know I should just let it go, step into the shower and sluice off my irritation—from multiple directions given all the jet options. But I can’t let it lie yet.

I walk back to the nearest corner of the bed.

“I suppose you like Kelly Wearstler?”

Ravenna concedes a nod. “She’s cool.”

I thought she’d like her—she’s basically the supermodel of the interior design world, with a host of celebrity hotels and clients to her credit. I actually love her esthetic. She did the Bergdorf Goodman restaurant in New York in these sublime hues of duck-egg blue and olive. If I’m going there for afternoon tea, I book way in advance so I can cozy up in one of the French canopy chairs—they make me feel as if I’m on a secret assignation.

“What about her?” Ravenna is impatient.

“I was just thinking maybe you’d like to have your own book or two one day, just like her.”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“Do you know that the author of the first ever interior design book designed the bedrooms down the road at The Breakers?”

She looks mildly curious. “Who was that?”

“Ogden Codman Junior.”

“Who?”

“He was an architect from Boston.” And then I casually add: “He co-wrote the book with Edith Wharton. Have you heard of her?”

She nods. “We did Age of Innocence at school.”

“Well, she summered here in Newport, from when she was a tot.”

I wait for the “coo” of wonder that this is, in a sense, where it all began, but all I get is a “So?”

My jaw clenches. I’m done.