I wanted to introduce Paul to Martha’s Vineyard, the island off Cape Cod, that had been such an important part of my childhood. We drove up along the New England coast in his car until we reached Woods Hole, where we took the ferry across the fifteen or so miles to the Vineyard. As the boat rounded the buoy and headed in toward the wharf, the smell of pine trees and bay brush carried across the hot, still water from West Chop.
To starboard we passed a colonial mansion, then considered the showplace of the island. “That’s Thorncroft,” I said as I pointed it out to Paul. “That’s Uncle Herbert’s summer home when he’s not running around at the stock exchange. My grandfather, John Herbert Ware, built it in the 1920s, and the entire family has been coming here ever since. I feel I grew up here, on this island, in this sun.”
“It’s a magnificent mansion,” Paul said.
“It’s just ‘coming home’ to me,” I replied. The Vineyard to me meant magical summers of faded blue jeans; hot summer days in a Wee Scot (that’s a sailboat) in a Vineyard Haven Yacht Club race; a gritty beach picnic in the dunes at South Beach with clams, lobsters, and corn on the cob and a roaring driftwood fire; the snapping off of Coke bottle caps with a fifty-cent piece when some idiot had forgotten to bring the opener; and fierce sunburns that almost ruined the night at the Yacht Club Dance.
As the ferry inched toward the dock, we glided by the yachts, all white and shipshape, and tiny children, in their rowboats or dinghies, waved greetings to us.
Driving up island, we turned off at Lambert’s Cove Road, and drove through miles of oak woods and scrub pine. We passed waving grassy fields and luscious green lawns. Suddenly before us stood a rambling island house, all white, with freshly painted green shutters. This was Wild Acres, Mother’s summer home. We got out at the little cutting garden near the patio and carried our bags to where my two beautiful blond sisters, Nancy and Barbara, and my mother, in a sparkling white dress, stood beaming at the door.
Paul’s room was charmingly done with a spool bed and antique prints, multipaned windows and wide floorboards. The room was on the second floor, with a view overlooking the tiny duck pond, and beyond that, Vineyard Sound toward the Elizabeth Islands.
After an enjoyable family dinner, the girls went with their nurse for their evening walk on the beach. Mother, Paul, and I went to a movie at the Eagle Theatre in Oak Bluffs. We bought popcorn from Darling’s candy shop and walked across the circle to the Flying Horses, the oldest merry-go-round still working in the nation. We tried for the brass ring for a free ride but didn’t catch it.
The next afternoon, Paul and I drove up island to the famous Priscilla Hancock’s to buy her luscious homemade chocolates. Then we walked South Beach in our bathing suits and wondered if there were notes in the bottles drifting ashore. The surf was high, but Paul went into it in a rush. I followed him, if only to prove I wasn’t scared, but I found myself being carried out by a strong undertow. Suddenly helpless, I lost my footing. Paul’s hand grabbed mine just in time. With a sudden strong pull, he broke through the next wave, with me in tow, and we fell laughing on the beach together.
Lying there in the warmth of the sun on this deserted beach, with only the gulls watching us, he reached over and pulled me to him and, in spite of the sand, beguiled by the smell of the sea and the taste of salt water on our bodies, we made love.
We lay there for what seemed like a long, long time. Finally opening my eyes, I saw he was watching me and picking off several little ants that were running up my arms. We both started to laugh, and it flashed through my mind how scandalous it would have been if the police or lifeguards had suddenly appeared.
We dressed, then drove home slowly across the sandspit and the beach to Vineyard Haven, with its shipyards, the ancient Seamen’s Bethel, and the side-wheeler ferry at the dock, waiting to take tourists away from this fantasyland. Then we drove up to West Chop to visit other members of my family, tanned beyond belief, busy having fun, one and all with sun-bleached hair. Like my mother, the other descendants of John Herbert Ware all lived near Thorncroft, the main house. Paul met them all—Betty Bassett, Jack Ware, and my cousins—those two stalwart six-foot-and-more von Colditz boys, who even then gave promise of conquering the world. It wasn’t long ago that one of them, Herbert von Colditz, built his own sailboat in Holland and sailed it, under sail alone, across the Atlantic, bringing his family to call on me in California after a trip through the Canal to the Pacific.
That evening after dinner, Paul, Mother, and I sat out on the sun porch facing the Sound, and watched a beautiful day turn slowly into a magical night. We could see the gulls flying over the sand dunes to their nests in the cliffs beyond and small sailboats heading homeward, their sails catching the freshening breeze, with spinnakers bulging out. We could even hear the voices and laughter of those on board as they sped past.
A perfect Vineyard day was coming to an end. How I loved it, and how I longed to stay there and never leave the peace and the unique privacy of Wild Acres . . . the green lawn leading down to our private beach . . . the view of the mainland in the distance . . . the barn at the entrance to our road, where my brothers and I had held dances and parties every summer as we grew up . . . the adorable playhouse that my sisters practically lived in. I turned to Paul and asked, “Do you really like our island?”
“It’s perfect,” he answered. “And Wild Acres is a great tribute to you, Louise. I hope you will let me come for a visit again.”
“Not without me,” I said. Mother smiled. I decided to leave them together, so I excused myself and ran upstairs to kiss my sisters good night.
Of course, they wanted to know all about Paul . . . and especially his silver car—a sleek DeSoto Airflow. It looked like a bullet, and they couldn’t wait to go for a ride. The next morning, he took them on the road through the woods leading to our house and amazed them by steering the car with only his pinkie on the wheel. To this day they have never forgotten.
Later, when I joined Paul, he told me that Mother was not too happy about my marrying a man twice my age, who had been married four times and divorced four times.
“Your mother is really quite right to object, since you are so much younger and have never been married before. And of course, my record isn’t that good, but I told her I love you and would like us to be engaged, since I have never been engaged before . . . and I asked that she approve.”
“Did she?”
“Yes,” he said. “She did,” and then he laughed. “You know, when I asked her to tell me what she thought you would need for an allowance to run a house . . .”
“But, Paul, we aren’t going to have a house,” I exclaimed, “not yet. We’re only going to be engaged.”
“I know, but I wanted her thought.”
“So?”
“ ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘it depends on where you are going to make your home. If it is a New York apartment, that’s one thing, a log cabin, another.’ ” As he told me this, he smiled a very understanding smile and said, “Teddy, I realized right then that your doll of a mother would never interfere. She is a great lady.”
On our last day, we rented a small sailboat in Edgartown, slipped out of the harbor, and sailed over to Chappaquiddick Island. “Someday we’ll come back here, Teddy,” Paul said. I knew he loved his own California beach and this was a new experience for him . . . a test for me, too, because had Paul not liked the island lifestyle, I might have been slightly turned off. I was so happy he liked my island.
That afternoon, we drove to Menemsha, a fishing village with fresh lobsters and clams. Nestled into the surrounding hills, the quaint community of small graying summer homes was known for its picturesque fishing fleet. We walked out to the Coast Guard Station at the end of the dock. As we walked, shells crunched underfoot. “Let’s try the clams,” he said, and we made a beeline for the clam bar, where we each finished off twelve little necks on the half shell.
“And now?” Paul asked.
“To Gay Head.” Gay Head was the Indian reservation where the harpooner in Moby-Dick came from. We headed for the cliffs topped by the huge lighthouse at the end of the island. We climbed, digging our toes into blue, black, red, and yellow clay. Time and the pounding surf had finally worn away most of the colored clay into the sea, which stretched below. Paul bought a clay ashtray from an Indian. He also presented me with a ninety-eight-cent beaded ring . . . “Till Flato’s is ready,” he said.
At sunset, we drove home to a feast Mother had prepared. We left Wild Acres the next morning, and I fought back tears as we said good-bye to my beautiful mother and adorable, teasing sisters. We hurried to catch the first ferry to the mainland, then drove to New York.
On the way, I noticed Paul made notes occasionally in a little book. Though we were together constantly, he never discussed his business with me, and I knew little of his wealth and power. It was only later that I discovered that each corner where he had made a notation was the future location of a Tidewater Oil gas station.