“That is Mrs. Post to you,” Mr. May said, leaning toward the young woman as he gave a playful pinch to her soft cheek. And then, turning to me with a wink, he added: “My daughter.”
My stomach flipped—his daughter! And yet, for him to have the daughter, there had to be a wife. “Where is Mrs. May today?” I asked, attempting a casual tone.
“Ah, my Sara. She…” Mr. May looked down toward the white tablecloth, clearing his throat a moment before answering: “She is no longer with us.”
Not married, then. A widower. And most likely still pining. “Twenty years ago,” he said. At the front of the room, Adelaide announced the start of lunch, and a fleet of servants appeared from the kitchen bearing trays heaped with salad and bread rolls.
“I am so sorry,” I said, my voice low in the loud, cheerful room. A white-coated waiter placed our salad plates before us.
“Pneumonia,” Mr. May said, nodding. “But I have her,” he said, gesturing with a smile toward Margot, who was now engaged in conversation with the fellow at her other side. “And our three others.”
“Then you are a blessed man in that,” I said.
“And you? Of course I know Adelaide is your daughter. And a lovely young lady she is. Do you have other children?”
“I have three girls,” I said, not attempting to hide my beam.
“Well, I hope for their sake they take after their mother.”
I picked up my salad fork. After a brief moment, Mr. May turned to me and said, “Mrs. Post, do you—”
“Oh, please call me Marjorie.”
“Only if you’ll call me Herb.”
“All right, then, Herb, you have a deal.”
“Marjorie,” he said, grinning as he made a dramatic display of saying my name. “It’s a very musical name. Mar-jo-rie.”
“And to think, my daddy turned it into Budgie.”
He laughed; so did I. “Not as musical, that,” he said.
“Not quite.”
“Well, Marjorie, may I ask you a philosophical question?”
“Goodness. You can try, Herb, but I can’t make any promises about my answer. I usually don’t get philosophical until after the bread course.”
He smiled. And then, after a pause, he went on, “Tell me this: Do you believe that it’s possible to have love more than once in a lifetime?”
That was unexpected. But then, so was pretty much everything about how this luncheon was unfolding. I considered the question for a long moment, finishing my bite of salad before venturing to offer an answer. Eventually, sitting up in my chair and tipping my head toward my dining companion, I said, “Herb, I not only believe it to be possible. I know it to be possible.”
Herb nodded at this, his green eyes flickering as he raised his water glass and took a sip. “I agree.”
By the end of the lunch, as it came time for Adelaide to take to the dais and make her pitch for the fundraiser, Herb and I were consumed in a conversation entirely of our own, and I think it was safe to say that we both very much hoped it would be possible to find love again.
* * *
“Marjorie, my dearest, are we completely dotty?”
It was a clear spring night, the mild air heavy with the perfume of a thousand new blossoms, the sky pierced by a bright scattering of stars over a horizon lit by the nearby monuments. Herb and I lay alone, entangled, on the soft lawn of my back garden at Hillwood, engaged in something that neither one of us had expected to be doing that evening: discussing the possibility of marriage.
Well, perhaps we had both known it might happen that evening, the discussion of marriage, but now that we were actually taking up the topic, it struck me that marriage might in fact be a reality into which we were ready to plunge. Herb had been on his own for twenty years, a widower with four now-grown kids and a successful career. I’d been married three times, was seventy-one years old, had almost $300 million to my name, and homes more grand than any palace—and yet, what did any of that matter if I didn’t have love?
I did love Herb. Even more so because I had not thought it possible that, after the disappointments of Joe and everything before that, I’d ever meet anyone like Herb, so kind and affable and determined to enjoy his life in a way so well suited to my own. I could see him fitting in perfectly with me at Hillwood; he loved my art, he took genuine interest in learning about my gardens, and he admired my priceless jewels with the curiosity and interest of a museum curator. I had my charity work firmly established, and Herb relished the idea of joining my efforts. Like me, he enjoyed supporting schools and youngsters and loved the symphony, and he also urged me to take a greater role in supporting the National Ballet, a cause close to his heart.