Twilight Whispers Page 8

  So Lenore graduated from high school with a diploma and no husband, which was fine with her, because she was headed for the world. Unfortunately, she was headed for it by trolley, because Greta had her way about her daughter living at home. On the positive side, Natalie had her way about going to college, and had even managed a scholarship, so Lenore and she commuted to Simmons together.

  When all was said and done, they were very much on their own, for they left Watertown at six-thirty in the morning and rarely returned before ten o’clock at night. It was easier to feel and act the part of sophisticated women when they were away from the tangible evidence of their modest means, and sophisticated women were precisely what they wanted to be.

  Between classes and the jobs they had taken near the college they were busy, but not so busy that they couldn’t socialize. There were afternoons spent with friends where the talk over coffee and pastry centered around Brenda Frazier or Alfred Vanderbilt, and movies, where all eyes focused on Clark Gable or Jean Harlow, and parties, where activity revolved around the jukebox and the jitterbug.

  And there were men, many of whom were far more exciting than those either girl had known before, but none of whom fit the specifications for Mr. Right. On the one hand each girl had her share of offers, which was some solace, since the prospect of being old maids and having to provide for themselves forever was terrifying. On the other hand they were willing to hold out awhile longer, convinced that it was simply a matter of time before their patience would pay off.

  So Lenore and Natalie finished their freshman year, then their sophomore year, and both were still single.

  By the summer of 1941 Greta began to worry. Talk of war was rampant, and war would mean the exodus of the best of the available men. “And who knows how long a war could go on? You’re twenty now and getting older every year. By the time the fighting ends there will be that many more and younger women fighting over the men who come home. I was married by the time I was nineteen.”

  “And widowed by the time you were thirty-one,” Lenore pointed out somewhat dryly. “If I rush to marry now and there is a war, I could be left a widow, too, so where would that leave me?”

  “It would leave you with whatever estate your husband had.”

  “Which is why I have to make sure that I find a husband with an estate worth leaving. Don’t worry, mother. I’m on your side. I don’t want to live this way forever. And I’m trying. Really I am.”

  Natalie was trying all the harder. She was that much more practical than her friend, and while Lenore continued to work as a tutor, Natalie left her job in the English department and signed on to work spare hours in the office of a young lawyer who had the uncanny knack of attracting wealthy clients. If ever there was an opportunity to mingle with the wealthy, she calculated, that would be it.

  Her boss, Gilbert Warren, was handsome and available and very definitely on his way to the top. He took her to dinner from time to time, and though she admired him professionally, he was a little too slick, a little too domineering, a little too arrogant for her romantic tastes.

  One of his clients was just right, though. His name was Jackson Whyte, and he was a businessman who had, in six short years, built a flourishing career flying wealthy people from one spot to another in the airplanes that had taken the country by storm the decade before. He was tall and very handsome, soft-spoken but forceful, and when he came near he never failed to set Natalie’s pulse to racing.

  He also happened to be Gilbert Warren’s best friend. The two had met at Amherst, where Jack had been a year ahead of Gil, and, from what Natalie could gather, they were nearly as close as she and Lenore. Jack was in the office often, and during those times Gil was more relaxed than normal. Boisterous laughter would come from behind Gil’s door, telling Natalie that the men were discussing far more than the legal brief she had typed for Gil on a matter pertaining to the Whyte Lines the day before. On one occasion Jack even accompanied Gil and her to dinner, and she saw firsthand how well the two men meshed. Where Jack was a brilliant administrator and businessman, Gil had the rashness to think further, making suggestions for growth that might have paled another man but that Jack was more than capable of realizing.

  Then the day came when Jack asked Natalie out.

  “I’m terrified,” she confessed to Lenore that night.

  “But you like him. You’ve been waiting for this.”

  “I know. Still, he’s … intimidating in a way. He’s.…”

  “Perfect? Your whole face is glowing, Nat. He’s perfect!”

  “No, he’s not. Not really,” Natalie answered pensively. “He certainly isn’t wealthy, at least, not in the way of old money.”

  “But he’s well on his way there. Do you have any doubts that he’ll make it?”

  “No. He’s smart and aggressive. He took his father’s small business and has really built it into something.”

  “And he’s handsome and charming and available. What could be better?”

  “He’s moving fast. Maybe that’s what scares me. Somehow, when I’m with the two of them I get breathless, like I’ll never be able to keep up.” She smiled sheepishly. “Maybe it’s just that he could be right in so many ways and I’m nervous that he won’t think the same of me.”

  Lenore grew stern. “Natalie Slocum, that is nonsense. If he didn’t like you he never would have asked you out. He’s had plenty of time to talk with you, and he knows by now whether he likes what he sees.” She grasped her friend’s arm and smiled. “This is your big chance, Nat. It’s the one you’ve been waiting for.”

  Natalie knew she was right, but that knowledge increased her apprehension, because there was so much at stake and she did want the date to go well. It occurred to her that things would be better if she could relax, so she spent that entire night bolstering her self-image, convincing herself that what Lenore has said was right and that Jack had to have liked her to have asked her out. She was sure, she kept telling herself, that she would make Jack Whyte a wonderful wife.

  Come morning, she was a bundle of nerves. So the first thing she did when she went to work that afternoon was to walk into Gil Warren’s office and tell him about her date with Jack and, by the way, she had a very dear friend who was just her age and absolutely beautiful and wouldn’t it be fun if the four of them were to do something together?

  The following Saturday night, Jack and Natalie and Gil and Lenore went to the Hotel Brunswick, where they ate dinner, danced and talked the night away. Greta, who had greeted the men when they had arrived and had been as impressed by Jack’s shiny new Packard as she had been by the men themselves, was excitedly waiting up for the girls when they were finally delivered home. Natalie was spending the night, as she often did since her father was courting a widow from Chelsea and frequently never made it home at all.

  “Tell me,” Greta commanded when the girls had stopped bubbling long enough to take off their coats. “Tell me everything.”

  “He was wonderful!” Lenore exclaimed.

  “They both were!” Natalie amended proudly. “They drove right up to the front door of the hotel and left the car with the doorman—did you see the bill Jack slipped him, Lenore?”

  Lenore shook her head. “I was too busy matching my steps to Gil’s. You should have seen him, Mother. He was so gallant—offering me his elbow, helping me off with my coat, making sure I didn’t trip on the steps leading to the restaurant, holding my chair for me. And he knew everyone! The maitre d’ greeted him by name and with such respect. Wasn’t that so, Nat? And the waiter jumped when he raised his finger, and no less than five couples stopped to say hello to us. Did you see the jewels on that one woman, Nat?”

  “I swear, we were the envy of every woman there! They kept looking at our table, and it was all I could do to be calm and cool and take it all in as though I’ve been to the Brunswick a hundred times before.”

  “But you pulled it off?” Greta asked.

  Natalie shared a smug grin with Lenore
. “We both did. They were pleased. I’m sure they were.” She bit her lower lip to restrain an even broader smile, but the eyes she turned on Greta danced. “We’re going out again next weekend. To the theater. The theater. Do you know who goes to the theater?”

  “The best of the best,” Lenore answered proudly. “And you can be sure that we won’t be sitting in peanut heaven, either.”

  They sat in the sixth row center, and Lenore and Natalie could have easily spent the evening ogling the intricate crystal chandeliers overhead, the elegant velvet framing the stage, or the finery worn by the other theatergoers. But they diligently paid attention to the show, determined to sound intelligent during the discussion that would surely follow the final curtain. They managed admirably, though they could only sit in silent awe when Jack and Gil launched into a comparative analysis of the many other shows they had seen.

  The two young women were on a cloud that night, and there they remained for the next few weeks. Escorted well, they dined at one posh restaurant after another, went to Pops concerts at Symphony Hall, spent days at the beach, took drives through the country. Sometimes the couples were together, other times they went separate ways. Neither Lenore nor Natalie minded that, because each was enthralled with her own special man.

  Lenore adored the fact that, when she was with Gil, she felt like a princess again. He treated her as though she were fragile. There was a gentleness in the way he touched her hair, an admiration in his eyes when he looked at her. He told her that she was beautiful, and although she had heard it from other men before, she prized it from one as suave as Gil. She rather liked the way he took control, thinking him not domineering but strong, and if he could be as tough as nails when discussing professional matters with Jack, with her he was unfailingly respectful.

  Likewise, Natalie adored Jack. Where once she had been intimidated, his outward affection boosted her confidence. When they were together he was easygoing and indulgent. He hesitated to talk about business when he was with her, as though he wanted to protect her from the more mundane matters of life. Of course, she found his business anything but mundane, since it reeked of success, so she frequently asked him about it, then took delight when he smiled and offered her one small tidbit or another. More than once when they had been with Gil she had seen Jack lose his temper over business matters, yet he was an icon of good humor with her. She truly believed that he was the answer to her prayers.

  The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December threw the fate of those prayers into question. Lenore and Natalie spent many a frantic hour wondering what would come of their blossoming romances. Within days of the declaration of war, Jack and Gil made their decisions to enlist, and the women felt that their own futures had been besieged.

  Then Jack proposed to Natalie.

  And Gil proposed to Lenore.

  While the rest of the world seemed to be coming apart at the seams, Natalie and Lenore were ecstatic. Gil’s connections with a local judge facilitated the waiving of the standard five-day waiting period, and in a small double ceremony, Natalie became Mrs. Jackson Whyte and Lenore Mrs. Gilbert Warren.

  Natalie and Jack went off on a two-day honeymoon in the country, which was a luxury given the circumstances. If Natalie had hoped for something longer, she didn’t complain. She had what she wanted; Jack was hers, legally bound. Wildly in love with her husband and the future she envisioned as his wife, she pushed from mind the knowledge that he would be going off to war and immersed herself in his undivided attention.

  Her initiation into womanhood was gentle but fierce. She discovered that her husband was as astute in love-making as he was in business, exhibiting a keen sense of timing, being daring when daring was called for and conciliatory when conciliatory was wise. She let herself go far more than she had ever imagined she could, but she sensed a need in Jack to stake his claim before he left for the war. With that instinct unique to womankind, she knew that at some point during those two days he had given her a child to keep her company until he returned.

  Lenore and Gil stayed in the city. They spent their wedding night at the Ritz, and though Gil had legal business to clear up the next day, he returned to her quickly. In truth, she appreciated the brief respite. Gil was intense, far more so with her than she had expected. Though he treated her with care as she had been given every reason to believe he would, he was a man of passion. Surprisingly, while Natalie had been the one without the mother for guidance, Lenore knew less of what to expect in physical matters than her friend. Greta’s sole concern had been with getting her daughter married; once the papers were signed Lenore was on her own.

  And that was exactly how Lenore felt, at least when it came to making love. Gil held her and kissed her, touched her slender body with an expertise that did, indeed, arouse her, but he reached his peak of pleasure quickly and was done, leaving her to wonder whether the stories she had heard of shooting stars were merely a fairy tale.

  Still, she was happy. She had a husband who was respected, who would see that she was taken care of while he nobly went off to war. And when he returned—for she refused to believe that he wouldn’t—she would have the world on a string.

  Three days after their weddings, Natalie and Lenore kissed their husbands good-bye. They had both decided, with Jack and Gil’s encouragement, to continue at Simmons, but rather than living at home, they moved into Gil’s house on Mt. Auburn Street in Cambridge. Natalie had offered to spend her free time in Jack’s office, helping her father-in-law manage the airline, which would be running on a heavily curtailed schedule during the war. Likewise, Lenore insisted on doing what she could by way of secretarial chores to assist the older lawyer in whose hands Gil had left his practice.

  Within two months after Jack’s departure, Natalie’s pregnancy was confirmed. She was delighted, as was Jack when he learned of it on his first leave from training camp. Lenore was envious and told Gil as much, then graciously endured his fervent attempts to remedy the situation when it was his turn to have leave.

  By the spring of 1942, when both men had completed officers’ training and were shipped overseas, the first of the Whyte and Warren heirs were on their way.

  Chapter 5

  “They never saw active duty. Either of them … the bastards.” Robert Cavanaugh was sitting in the living room of his Charlestown apartment with a lapful of papers, as he had been every night for the past ten days.

  “You’re muttering again, Bob.” The gentle scolding came from the woman he lived with, Jodi Frier, as she strolled in from the kitchen. Propping herself on the arm of his chair, she studied the papers. “More history?”

  “Mmm.”

  She slid her eyes from the papers to Bob. His shirt was rumpled, collar open, tails out, sleeves rolled to the elbows. He’d kicked off his shoes and his slim fitting trousers had long since lost their crease. With his hair curling irreligiously and his jaw darkly shadowed, he looked like a modern day pirate.

  Only he was one of the good guys. Jodi knew that, even if she sometimes resented his reverent attitude toward the white hat he wore. She also knew precisely how much the Whyte-Warren investigation meant to him. “Anything interesting?”

  “Lots. They came home from the war like conquering heroes, yet neither of them ever saw the front. They went through officers’ training school—Whyte in the navy, Warren in the army. Whyte spent the war years at Pearl as a procurement officer. His job was to see that the ships were supplied.” Cavanaugh grunted. “Probably had his hand well into the black market.”

  “Come on, Bob. That’s unfair.”

  “And Warren viewed the war from the safety of a cushy office in England. Pretty easy stuff if you ask me.”

  “If you ask me, I think you’re wishing your father had had it as easy.”

  Cavanaugh’s eyes flew to her face, then he caught himself. He sometimes forgot how perceptive she was. It was one of the things he liked about her. Not having to spell everything out, as he’d had to do for his ex-wife for years, w
as a relief, as was not being constantly pestered for details—which made it that much more pleasant to offer them. He supposed it had something to do with his ego; he liked to be the one in control. “Damn right I am. He took shrapnel in the back and was in pain every day until he died. A purple heart was small consolation for what he suffered.”

  Jodi kneaded the tense muscles at the nape of his neck. “You were proud of him, though, weren’t you?”

  He gave her a wry smile. Her touch soothed him. “I’m not that old.”

  “All right,” she drawled. She knew he was sensitive about the twelve years between them. “In hindsight. You were proud to know that your father had held his own in combat. And he was proud of himself. I doubt either Gil Warren or Jack Whyte could have felt the same kind of pride.”

  Only the low drone of the window air conditioning unit broke the silence until he spoke. “Don’t bet on it. Minds like theirs are capable of building up any little thing they do to make it seem earth shattering.”

  “You do have to admit that they’ve done well in life.”

  “But at the expense of so many other people!”

  Jodi knew from the twist of his lips that he was thinking of his father again. He did that a lot when it came, in particular, to Jack Whyte. She wanted to know what else he was thinking, and while she respected his privacy, she had spent a full ten days watching him brood over his files, so she figured she had earned the right to a few questions.

  In addition to which, giving him a neck rub could only do so much. He needed to air his thoughts. And that was her specialty.

  “You haven’t told me much,” she began softly. “When did they get started on their present course? Was it after the war?”

  “Uh-uh. It goes back further. Whyte’s father was a pilot in World War I. When the war was over he turned to designing airplanes. He was a sharp guy.” Cavanaugh made no attempt to conceal his sarcasm. “He saw that there was a lucrative market in building planes for bootleggers who were smuggling stuff in from Canada and Mexico.”