“I’ve been making some plans, Stone,” Arrington said. “Let me tell you about them.”
“I’d like to hear them.” He sat back and morphed into his listening lawyer mode.
19
Arrington brushed a strand of her blonde hair from her forehead and took a long drink of her iced tea. “I haven’t told you about this,” she said, “and you haven’t visited, so you haven’t seen it.”
“Seen what?”
“My house.”
“I recall your saying that you were thinking of building.”
“That was years ago. I went a little crazy after Vance’s death. I had never had access to huge amounts of money, and Vance was-how shall I put it?-prudent. I looked for a big house in Virginia and didn’t find anything I liked, so I decided to build the house to end all houses, and I did. Twenty thousand square feet of it.”
“Wow.”
“Well, yes. I hired an architect and an interior designer, and I went on a shopping spree all over the South to find just the right pieces to furnish it. The local gentry were peeved, because I was denuding the antique shops in the county and running the prices up on whatever was left, but eventually, I got it done.” She sighed. “Perhaps ‘overdone’ would be a better word.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t, and I don’t want you looking through old Architectural Digests for the piece they did. So, for weeks now, I’ve been tagging pieces in the house, and I’m going to throw the biggest auction anybody in Virginia has ever seen. Sotheby’s is sending down an auctioneer. And-you won’t believe this-I’ve found a buyer for the house whose tastes are probably better than mine. I won’t get all my money out of the place, but I’ll get three-quarters of it and be happy to have it.”
“Where will you live?” Stone asked.
“At Champion Farms,” she said.
“I wasn’t aware there was a suitable house on the property.”
“There isn’t, but there used to be. It was contemporaneous with Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, but it was destroyed by fire in the 1920s. A researcher has been able to find the original plans in the Charlottesville library-no one even knew they were there. So, I’m going to re-create the place on the original spot. It’s wildly overgrown, but there are beautiful trees, including a neglected colonnade of old oaks to the house. I’ll replace the damaged and fallen trees.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
“It’s going to take all my time for the next two years, and then I’ll be looking for another project to keep me busy. I’ve learned that I’m dangerous when I’m not busy.”
Stone laughed. “I can imagine.”
“There’s something else: I want to talk to you about Peter.”
“All right, perhaps it’s time you did.”
“Peter is fifteen, and he’s at Episcopal High School, in Alexandria; it’s the best prep school in the South, on a level with the best New England preps. He is very, very bright, and he’s a grade ahead. He’s also very handsome, and tall for his age.” She retrieved a photograph from her purse and handed it to Stone. “For you.”
Stone stared at the boy-young man, really-and sighed. “He looks extraordinarily like my father.”
“I remember that photograph in your house,” she said. “Anyway, the school was reluctant to accept him at first, but then three of the sen
ior faculty had a long lunch with him-I wasn’t present-and they were impressed with his maturity and seriousness, so they accepted him as a boarding student in the ninth grade. From what they’ve said about him so far, he’ll probably graduate in three years, maybe even two.”
“That’s breathtaking,” Stone said.
“I’m sure you were bright, too, Stone,” she said. “God knows he didn’t get it from me.”
“Now, now.”
Arrington reached into the large handbag resting next to her chair and handed Stone a thick envelope. “This is my will and the trust I set up for Peter. I’d like you and the people at Woodman amp; Weld to look it over and redraw it. My beneficiaries haven’t changed, but I’ll be interested to see if you think the trust needs work.”
“Of course,” Stone said. “We’ll do that as a courtesy.”