By The Sea, Book Two: Amanda

BY THE SEA Series

A riveting saga/mystery.

--Rave Reviews

In the tradition of Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey, BY THE SEA is a four-book series that sweeps from the Gilded Age through the Gatsby Era's Roaring Twenties and then on to the Great Depression, culminating nearly a century later in Newport, Rhode Island, wealthy and alluring City by the Sea. Set against a backdrop of mansions, the glorious America's Cup Yacht Races, and new money, the series traces the passions and adventures of three families from three different classes. 

Book One:  TESS.  From the wild decadence of late nineteenth-century Newport comes the tale of Tess Moran, a beautiful Irish housemaid in one of the grand summer cottages, who makes a dark bargain with a man of commanding wealth — and falls in love in the bargain.

Book Two:  AMANDA.  Marrying American money to an English title is a tradition of its own; but Amanda Fain, a brash heiress with money to burn, has a fondness for Bolsheviks and bootleg liquor that makes her an unlikely match for the reluctant, ironic, and impoverished English aristocrat Geoffrey Seton, who has been ordered to America to find someone who can pay the bills for the family estate back home.

Book Three:  LAURA.  While the Great Depression grinds relentlessly on, Laura Andersson, a Midwestern farm girl with an improbable love of the sea, embarks on a bold adventure that promises riches but delivers passion, one that threatens all she holds dear.

Book Four:  THE HEIRS  is the dramatic conclusion to the four-book series BY THE SEA.  Economic hard times are a distant memory in high-flying, recent-day Newport, home of the oldest and most prestigious trophy in the world, the Holy Grail of sport--the America's Cup. Here, the descendants of Tess, Amanda and Laura play out their destinies, their paths crossing in unforeseen ways:  Mavis Moran, Neil Powers, his daughter Quinta, and America's Cup skipper Alan Seton all find themselves caught in a web of mystery, sabotage, and conflicting desires.

A quality novel [that] contains many of those little epiphanies, those moments of recognition.  [Part 1, TESS,] is what makes Stockenberg's book stand out from the rash of novels on class conflicts between Irish servants and their Yankee masters.

—Providence Journal

This was my first Antoinette Stockenberg novel.  I read it not long after it was published ages ago, but her writing is so vivid I can still picture some of the scenes from the novel. This [was written] before the ghost or mystery plots were woven into her novels: it is purely a story of life and relationships. I have been a huge fan ever since.

—A reader

Copyright

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

By the Sea, Book Two: AMANDA

Copyright © 1987 by Antoinette Stockenberg

Original title: The Challenge and the Glory

Newly revised and edited, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-9857806-8-5

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

BY THE SEA Series

Copyright

Book Two: AMANDA

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Afterword

More for your e-Reader by Antoinette

About the Author

An Excerpt from BY THE SEA, Book Four: THE HEIRS

An Excerpt from TIDEWATER

Book Two: AMANDA

Chapter 1

Summer 1920

In the northeast corner of the English county of Hampshire, a quietly elegant country house lies tucked away from the view of all but the most intrepid trespasser. Built in 1761 for a wealthy sheep farmer, Seton Place is a nearly perfect blend of form and function: free from the rigid symmetry of the houses that preceded it, free from the extravagant sillinesses of houses built after it. It is not so big as to be wasteful, not so small as to be without influence. Its main rooms are arranged around a central staircase; the visitor can nibble from a buffet in the dining room, dance in the drawing room, take a peek at a game of cards being played in the library, and slip out through the vestibule on his way to another entertainment, all without retracing his steps. Nine generations of eldest male Setons—each, unfortunately, with less land than the last—entertained in this house. Nine generations doted on it, determined to pass it on.

Sir Walter Seton was as determined as all the other eldest males, but two obstacles lay between him and his hope that Seton Place would pass quietly to the tenth generation: he was broke; and his eldest son didn't give a damn, about the house or anything else.

Damn it, Julia, we need an infusion of money fast, Sir Walter fumed as he shoved his account sheets away in disgust. But if we let go of the last parcel of land, it's all up for Seton Place. No land means no tenants and no income. It's as simple as that.

Lady Seton, not so gray as her husband, turned the pages of the latest issue of Country Life and said absently, Look at the bright side, dear. No income means no beastly income tax. You do hate taxes so.

A reassuring thought. Here's another, then: when I starve to death and Geoffrey inherits Seton Place, he won't be able to pay the death duty.

You're not going to die, dear.

I can't afford to! Sir Walter said glumly.

"Well, eventually, perhaps. If Geoffrey gets over his postwar malaise. He does seem to be taking his time about it. After all, other young men are getting on with their lives. Look at his younger brother. Henry seems quite happy with the bank. And of course with Marjorie. She's so very pretty, don't you think?"

She's so very rich. That's all that matters.

It's one thing, certainly. I'm sure after they're married Henry will be able to pour mountains of money into Seton Place.

Sir Walter gazed at his wife with sadness, but without surprise. After more than thirty years, he understood her thought processes pretty well. It was not that she wasn't intelligent or perceptive. It was just that she considered logic to be one of the lower faculties, like a baby's urge to spit up after eating turnips.

Still, he couldn't resist. Julia. Why would Henry pay for a house he doesn't stand to inherit?

Without looking up from her magazine Lady Seton answered, He's a Seton, dear.

I see. Blood before greed, hey?

Lady Seton looked up then. Of course.

Lady Julia Seton believed infinitely in the power of blood; she came from very good people. Her husband had married her for that: for the aristocratic bend of her nose and the way she said Of course. Still, her serenity annoyed him at times, and this was one of them.

Perhaps you've not noticed, he said, but Henry isn't the same wide-eyed lad who once hung on every word of his older brother. The war's changed him, too, thank God for the better. He understands the value of a passing day now, and of a pound. Henry, at least, is on his way. Gad. Only eighteen months between them. Why couldn't we have switched them in their cradles?

Lady Seton thought about it and smiled. It would have worked, you know. Henry has always looked so much more robust. I suppose it's too late now? One can have all sorts of documents forged nowadays .... She trailed off with a wistfully droll look.

It was her fanciful humor, after all, that had enabled their thirty years of marriage to pass with relative ease. Sir Walter nodded affectionately and fell in with her whimsy. Their nanny is dead, and with the chambermaids long gone—

"Oh darling, which reminds me. Old Preston simply dodders about the garden nowadays. I'm afraid he's going to fall nose first into a bramble-patch—there are so many now—and hurt himself. Couldn't we have just the tiniest under-gardener to help him along?"

Sir Walter's bubble of humor burst. "Have you heard anything I said, dear lady? We cannot afford another servant. We cannot afford the three we do have—"

He was interrupted by the arrival of the son who, as his mother so succinctly put it, had taken lately to hiding all his light under a basket: Geoffrey Seton, thirty-one, ex-officer of the Hampshire Regiment of the British Army, spare, gray-eyed, withdrawn; using up what little energy he had to get out of bed and drag on his trousers, usually no earlier than noon. It was now half past the hour.

Hullo, Mum, Pop. Has Sancha cleared breakfast?

We're about to go in to luncheon, darling, said his mother, accepting a kiss on her cheek.

You sleep a lot, Sir Walter said by way of a greeting.

Geoff dropped into the nearest chair. The bard said it best: 'Some must watch, while some must sleep: So runs the world away.' Right now Henry's watching, and I'm sleeping.

Sir Walter grunted. While his elder son took up the morning paper he went back to his spreadsheets. His eye fell on the dismal totals for the month of May, which suddenly infuriated him. Filled with a sense of grievance, he turned to Geoffrey and said, See here, Geoff, you could look over these accounts if you had half a mind.

But half a mind is all I've got, Pop, and I need it to read the society page.

Don't torture your father, dear. He wants you to worry along with him over the fate of Seton Place. He'd feel so much more relieved if you did.

It's not a laughing matter, Julia, said Sir Walter testily. Please don't encourage him.

I'm not laughing, Pop, but really: Seton Place has stood around forever, filled with Setons. They go together like bangers and mash. No one will split 'em up.

Have you looked at a tax schedule lately? He waved one in front of his son's face.

No time. Look, I think I'll catch lunch in town. Don't have Sancha set a place for me.

Where are you off to this time?

Geoff shrugged. I may scare up Teddy for a game of tennis.

Tennis. That tears it! You'll not go anywhere until you've put in an hour at this desk. For God's sake, man, you've passed the thirty-year mark. When I was your age—and don't tell me I never fought in a war! Every young man in England fought in this war, and the ones that survived are back to running trams and hotels and the stock exchange. Your wounds are healed and your arm's as good as new, if you can play tennis. So don't tell me I never fought in the bloody trenches!

"That's just—"

"What your father is trying to say, Geoffrey, is that perhaps you need a change of scene to lift your spirits. I think—we think—it would be just the thing if you sailed to the States for the America's Cup Races next month."

Sir Walter, heart still thundering in his breast, gaped at his wife. This was all news to him.

"After all, you've met Sir Thomas Lipton once or twice, and if we still had the yacht you'd be certain to bump into him even more. I understand that New York Society is ignoring him now, as it always has. Grocer or not, he is an Englishman. In any case, after mounting and paying for three different Cup challenges, he's entitled to their respect, if not their affection. If he's good enough to sail with the King of England, he's good enough for the American Four Hundred. Perhaps you can teach them some manners."

Now it was Geoffrey's turn to gape. "I'm not sailing to the United States, Mother."

Her clear blue eyes held his troubled ones in a look of bewitching reasonableness. Lady Seton never took no for an answer. Why not? she asked.

How would I know why not? It wasn't my idea. He sounded idiotic, even to himself. His mother knew precisely how to turn his aimlessness to her advantage. She had a plan; he had none. He felt like a petulant brat. Point and set to Lady Seton.

And now his father had begun warming to the idea. Your mother may have something, Geoff. What you need is to get out more with young ladies, that sort of thing.

There are plenty of young ladies in England, said Geoff sullenly.

There certainly are, his mother agreed, alarmed. That nice Jane Marylsworth who was over to tea last week—

She's poor as a churchmouse, said Sir Walter abruptly. So, apparently, is everyone else in this county. What Geoff needs is something fresh, something new. There's always London, of course, but that would mean taking a flat—and a job, he added in a hopeful voice.

We've gone over all that, Father. I need a bit more time.

Yes, yes, quite. More time. In that case, it's settled. You'll book passage for next week to New York, he said with stony resolve.

Flushed with anger, yet too paralyzed to resist, Geoff said, I know what your game is, Father, and I think it's absurd. I refuse to shop for an heiress while I'm over there, so you can nip those hopes in the bud.

Shopping for a wife in America, said Lady Seton faintly. What a frightening idea.

Oh come, Julia, said her husband impatiently. It's not as though they swing from trees over there.

But dear, we never can understand them, Lady Seton argued, distressed by the possibility of being made to try. The boys swallow their food whole and the girls charge through one's drawing room like buffalo. And their parents' manners are even worse.

He's not marrying the blasted parents!

They'll have to be faced sometime.

It was your idea to send Geoff over!

For a bit of amusement, that's all. To put things in perspective. Lady Seton turned to her son, who had slouched deep in his leather chair, put up his feet, plowed his hands into his pockets, and was watching the match with grim amusement. Miss Marylsworth is a very fine young woman, she said. Much finer than you realize, Geoffrey.

After a pause Geoff said, Let me see if I have this right. Father wants me to cross the Atlantic to see what a wonder crop of wives they grow there, and you want me to go so that I can see what rotters they all are in comparison.

His mother smiled brilliantly. Yes. We're quite unanimous.

****

Ten days later Geoffrey Seton steamed out of Southampton on a White Star liner, bound for New York, new perspectives, and new money. Perversely, he did not expect to be able to satisfy either one of his parents, but he thought that a week at sea might let him sleep without dreams. That was all, really, that he wanted from life these days. So he bundled up in his heaviest country tweeds and began a ritual of pacing the promenade, mercifully unaware that his aloof, military bearing was creating a minor stir among some of the overly elegant first class Americans on board. They knew the who of him—that he was the elder son of a British baronet—but not the why.

Was he traveling for pleasure? They took in his absently mournful air and decided not. On business, then? No, they decided; his clothes were too carelessly functional for a man who needed to command respect. Could he be on a mission of mercy? Perhaps.