“I don’t see what harm there was in that, Cecil. She was only trying to pay him a compliment.”
“Lucie, that’s like saying to Michelangelo, ‘Oh, I put your little sculpture in the garden next to my plastic gnomes!’?”
“Cecil, be nice.”
“I am being nice. I’m saving your mother from embarrassing herself.”
* * *
…
Overheard in the library…
“You know what I love about new money? They serve superb wine at their parties, because they are always trying to impress. And you know my policy: I only drink if it’s very, very expensive wine and somebody else is paying.”
“Ho ho ho! Mordecai, you’re terrible! All the same, this is a lovely d’Yquem.”
“Not as lovely as this little Vuillard. It sits so perfectly on this broken easel.”
“But why is the easel broken?”
“Well, Robert broke it, of course. You know how he is. Every room he’s done must look like it’s not done, as if it had been abandoned half a century ago by some consumptive aristocrats who could no longer afford firewood.”
“Don’t tell me the coffee stains on this Oushak aren’t real?”
“Oh, Robert has the best coffee spiller anywhere. Diego, an absolute genius. Makes every stain look like it’s been there for generations. He’s particularly good at faking dog stains on old chintz. You know, so it looks like your Rhodesian ridgeback has drooled all over that chaise longue for years and years.”
“Hmm…I didn’t realize Robert had a hand in all this. I thought Axel did it.”
“Axel did the kitchens, the spa, and the glorious canal room; Francois did the screening room and the bedrooms; and Robert did the drawing room and the library.”
“Cecil had three of the most expensive designers in the world on retainer?”
“Four, including yours truly. I helped with everything from the Cycladic period, of course.”
“Well, I hope you made out like a bandit. Cheers to you, Mordecai!”
“And cheers to Lucie Churchill, that lucky girl. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on her in Capri she’d make a terrific match, although it turns out I failed to bet on the winning horse.”
“Oooh. Pray tell?”
* * *
…
Overheard in the kitchen…
“Cecil, tell me, where are the appliances? Your kitchen looks like a Zen rock garden.”
“Marian, first of all this is the show kitchen, not the real kitchen in the basement where the real cooking is done. Everything here is centered on the principles of wabi-sabi, about a oneness with things. See this black river rock from Wajima? You just wave your hand over the diagonal slit in the rock, and voilà!”
“Sweet Jesus, what’s that coming out of the floor? Is that the dishwasher?”
“No, it’s a truffle vault. Axel put the dishwashers in the china room.”
“Holy moly! Wait till Charlotte sees this! Can I please bring her over when she’s here?”
“God help us—Charlotte is coming back to New York?”