“Lucy,” he began and then stuttered in a shy way. “I . . . I mean . . . Mrs. Pendleton . . . You know, I never have quite got over being scared, since I got out of the orphanage, you know, of all these forks and things . . .”
He saw her lean impetuously across the table. Her breasts are dragging down, he thought coldly and looked piteously into her sympathetic eyes.
Timothy sighed. Joe Kelly, he saw, would go far. He was a good boy and would be an intelligent politician. What was this about Lucy’s not drinking? Another bid for attention, he imagined. He saw Nan look sharply at her friend across the table.
“But, Lucy dear,” Nan said clearly, “are you really on the wagon?”
For a few seconds there was silence. Honor put down the empty sherry glass that she had brought to the table and looked blankly at the two women who sat catacorner from each other, her face flat. Daniel stared at his older sister and noticed that her mouth was taut under its makeup.
“Of course,” Joe Kelly heard, “we all know what it is to have such a thing forced upon us.”
Lucy teetered self-consciously, like a whore, he thought, boasting of the clap before her uninitiated sisters.
“But Lucy,” Honor said, “just for the party tonight!”
Lucy laughed again, her eyes shining.
Susan Harper spoke suddenly. Her eyes shone, too, and she knew she felt a little crazy, as if nothing mattered but getting all the unwilling attention away from this queer old woman who was in some wordless way trying to taunt Sara Porter.
“What does it matter?” Sue’s voice was high and she laughed. “If Mrs. Pendleton wants to stop drinking—what does it matter? Why is it anyone else’s earthly concern?”
Lucy looked at her. This child had been charming at first before it became clear what she really was, and even then she had seemed very girlish and sweet. She was different now. Perhaps Timothy and his woman had already influenced her by telling her lies. Lucy shrugged.
“Yes,” she said lightly. “As Miss Harper says, what does it matter what I do?”
“But Lucy,” Nan urged, “do drink just a little, won’t you, just for tonight! Everything is so lovely and we all want you to have fun!”
(Oh hell, Timothy thought violently. Why does my Nan go on and on, placating, urging, smoothing? What difference can it make that this tortured woman have her way? She is bent on self-castigation. Nan, Nan . . . let her whip herself.)
“Oh no, never mind about me,” Lucy said, smiling understandingly into the fervent brown eyes of the boy across from her then turning toward her hostess.
“Sara, my dear,” she murmured graciously, “I think that your François has been trying to attract your attention now for several minutes.”
Honor, too, had seen François patiently and discreetly hovering. What did he want, she wondered. Had the meal burned? She hoped not. She was hungry and felt careless and happy, ready to get a little drunk or to talk about dormice. She watched the servant, all the while talking as she was to Nan, whose conversation was queer and spasmodic tonight. Perhaps she feels a little silly, too, Honor thought. Perhaps she knows now that I have found the secret of her flowers. What will she say tomorrow when she learns that Dan and I have run away? Should we say good-bye to anyone?
François was whispering to Sara with his head down. She spoke softly to him. He disappeared and then, while they all talked not too self-consciously, he came back with a green bottle and poured pale golden wine rather tremblingly into each glass except for Lucy Pendleton’s. They lifted their glasses solemnly as François stood at attention.
“To us,” Timothy said and smiled down the whole table without looking to its end. “Better never lived.”
François relaxed, scuttling toward the kitchen.
Sara then leaned forward. “He forgot his collar and tie,” she explained clearly. “Poor man. This is a great day for him and he forgot his collar and tie. I told him to carry on and to simply fold a napkin around his throat.”
“But of course,” Nan cried.
“Why not?” Susan laughed, feeling sillier than ever. Mosca the Gadfly, she cried to herself. That’s me and that’s François too. She looked cautiously sideways at Dan Tennant who sat beside her.
Dan seemed quite unaware of her. His long nose and his queer birdlike profile loomed above her. She glanced quickly away. He was the darlingest, but definitely the darlingest, boy she’d ever seen. She was in love with Joe Kelly, however. No, she was in love with this boy Daniel or was it the silver-haired man who sat on her left? Oh, she thought, I so want to be young again waiting for Father to play with me and to comfort me. I want to be old and to not have all these problems.
François passed down the table and up toward Sara again with a fair napkin folded impeccably about his throat over his grimy shirt and under his white coat, and a platter of little cheesecakes balanced on one arm. They were hot and fragrant. The wine tasted good with them. The strangers gathered here together grew easier and began to talk almost merrily as they ate and drank.
The candles fluttered now as the valet, watching from the kitchen steps with his hot black eyes, walked softly to the windows and drew one curtain expertly across the first night breeze from Geneva. Timothy noticed this and lifted his glass. François bowed profoundly.
iii
“It’s Chambertin . . . Gevrey-Chambertin, 1929,” Sara said delightedly. She was like a proud child as Timothy walked without a sound around the table pouring wine slowly from a cradled dirty bottle. To Honor, watching him, it seemed as if he were doing a dance. Whatever he did was that way. She turned her eyes deliberately from him to smile at Joe Kelly.
They ate little roasted cold pigeons and dug into a magnificent aspic all atremble with carrots and radishes and slices of cucumber cut like stars and moons. François had made it, Sara said, and they looked admiringly at him as he pretended not to notice and slipped about the room. The wine was rich and ripe and slid warmly down their various throats in different ways.
Joe felt gay, reckless. This was the first decent food and drink since he dragged little Susan Harper into Germany. His stomach was accustomed now to harsh ersatz sausage and potatoes when they were boiled unto death. All this goodness was too much. Am I getting drunk, he wondered? He looked across the table at Mrs. Pendleton. She smiled at him, reassuringly. Dan Tennant, next to her, grinned slyly at him. Sue was next, sweet Sue, his Sue. She was busy with that wee pigeon wing. Poor kid, this summer has been more than she bargained for, I’d wager. She was hungry. She might be, for cold pigeon and red wine, but by God he’d satisfied her in other ways! He stirred manfully, smiling inside.
Tim at the end of the table looked at Joe and picked up his glass as he spoke. Tim knew what he was feeling, Joe was sure.
Joe looked past him, then drew his breath sharply. Honor Tennant sat there. He moved his chair and leaned forward. Tim’s sister Nan sat next to him. She was a nice little woman in her way, unaffected for such a famous person, but histrionic probably, with her pale popping eyes and a manner too intense for him. He heard himself say something to her, sounding warm, as if it mattered, and then leaned farther around toward Honor.
Honor Tennant gracefully leaned over her plate, and against its Wedgewood birds and palm trees she pressed her knife into a brown-red breast. Aspic shimmered under the silver and on her own chest candlelight fell shimmering, as if she were china, as if she were a bird, as if she were a warm desire-filled woman. Joe turned his head slowly as if on a squeaking screw and smiled at Sara.
Damn Sara, he thought. Honor has a little mouth just like hers. But Honor is cold and snobbish. Damn Sara Porter. But Honor has none of Sara’s ripeness. She needs a good man. Sara has one. Sara knows a lot and lets people alone. Honor still knows nothing. Joe stirred again, thinking of Honor and her ignorance.
The pigeon was good, tender and rich. Lucy ate delicately without picking up the bones, as Sara and the others did, even Nan. She savored each small bite. The aspic was good.
Oh, she was so very hungry. Her eyes now watered in self-pity as she thought of her hunger and of how she would eat almost nothing all day, being the one moderate person here. She knew no one would notice, but she was resolute and resolved to say nothing, especially since she knew how the lack of sympathy for her very pointedly swearing off alcohol had gone. No one understood her, not even Nan. No one realized that she was doing it simply as a protest to save these young people from a wretched influence. How could anyone hope that Honor and young Daniel and even these two pathetic would-be moderns who were visiting at La Prairie would ever know the meaning of decency and moderation unless she showed them? Nan Garton, even Nan Garton, was lifting her glass and flourishing it under the very nose of the servant.
Lucy looked quickly at François then dropped her eyes. She must be careful. It was only too obvious that he was attracted to her. What was it about her that drew these men on, that brought the hateful look of . . . yes, lust into their eyes? François. Joe Kelly. Daniel . . .
Daniel was leaning toward her. His shoulder almost touched hers.
“Lucy,” he said softly, “I didn’t have a chance to tell you how lovely you look tonight.”
Lucy looked at him sharply—had he read her thoughts? Was he mocking her, under the influence of his sister Sara? Was he like everyone else, against her? But as she saw his ingenious eyes, dark green and glowing far back under his heavy brows, she suddenly knew he loved her. How could she have doubted? It was the fault of this malice-ridden air about her. She shrugged quickly as if to shake such foulness from herself and smiled dazzlingly at him.
“Oh, my dear boy!” Lucy said, her voice going up and down the scale of well-poised graciousness. “You are so charming, really, to tell me! And did I ever tell you about the time the ambassador from Turkey . . .”
François stood at her right. He inserted the cradled bottle carefully under her elbow.
“No!” Lucy said sharply. She felt almost overwhelmed with irritation. She looked despairingly at Sara who returned her look blankly, then spoke with rapid undertone to the servant. How can they tease and insult and torture me, Lucy cried to herself. How can they go on drawing attention to me in this way, deliberately taunting me for being moderate and sensible?
She looked piteously around the table. Timothy was telling one of his stories. Only young Dan now looked at her. Lucy drew herself rigid inside her best girdle and laughed gaily as she went on, in an intimate undertone, about the Turkish ambassador.
iv
They next ate fruit soaked with kirsch in a bowl and little crisp biscuits made in the village for them and drank some champagne. Everything seemed to be easy. Timothy looked around at the faces that lined the table: they leaned this way or that, they spoke effortlessly, and their eyes were candid. Even poor Lucy Pendleton seemed temporarily at peace.
He lifted his glass slightly at François and nodded—François knew what he meant.
Nan knew too. She saw him looking about himself, looking pleased. Then she watched the servant who stood gazing into the long mirror behind Timothy. She saw him glance at the fragile intensity of the begonias brooding there beneath the glass, the flowers that he had carried down from the village, and she felt that he saw them more clearly than he did the people reflected up above them. She lifted her wine to her lips and felt her hand as steady as stone again, stronger than ever before in her life.
François filled her glass. His nails were grimy against the folded napkin around the bottle.
Honor, as his head bent almost level with hers to pour wine, stopped breathing, so strongly did François smell of garlic. She hated that smell. It made her choke. She remembered sitting next to a little girl in grade school and smelling that hideous smell. Now she tried to never breathe when she was close to people for fear it might sweep around her. Even when Jacob kissed her she held her breath for fear . . .
Lucy looked up. François stood at her side again, the champagne bottle cocked. Suddenly, instead of feeling the exasperation that had flooded her at his earlier attempts to pour her wine, she was filled with warmth and love. Poor man, she thought impetuously. Yes, poor man! He may be only a servant but he does know decency when he sees it. He was a valet to a prince once. He is struggling against terrible odds. He is a man. And he sees my bosom and is tormented. I know. I suffer for him. He is utterly shattered.
She smiled at him, conscious of her great heavy breast pulling down and out from her shoulder bones.
François started. He moved quickly behind her, his face discreetly puzzled. He bent over Daniel’s shoulder. His hand trembled a little. Dan looked up at him as a little wine spilled.
“A light, please, François. But do forgive my asking Sara’s man to light my cigarette for me. It is good training for him. It makes him think of another happier incarnation when he was an eunuch.”
Susan laughed. She did not quite know what Daniel had said, nor why he’d said it, really, but felt it harmless and funny and silly. She watched François hold the candle closer to the tip of that boy’s cigarette, then felt the marrow of her shoulder bones shudder as Daniel leaned in close to her and said, “You are the loveliest most unbelievable creature anywhere in the world.”
His pupils were large and black. Susan looked straight into them and knew he was a little drunk and she wished she were too. She sipped at her cold wine and smiled at him. Tonight she would have fun. Tomorrow is time enough to say good-bye to all this and to Joe and to her own happiness.
v
Lucy took a quick sip from her cup of bitter coffee and shuddered slightly. “But I insist,” she cried, her voice sharp under its tone of badinage.
“What is it?” Honor put down her cigarette and turned from Timothy and Susan. “What are you going on about, Lucy?”
Honor saw her sister’s face freed suddenly from its mask of almost contemptuous impersonality and was now filled with apprehension. Was someone hurting Sara? Had something frightened her?
“What is it?” Honor’s voice was alarmed.
Everyone stopped talking.
Sara dropped her hands. She smiled in a wry way.
“Nothing,” she said.
“But it was!” Lucy cried. Her eyes were sparkling. “Darling Sara admired this silly little necklace of mine and so I have insisted that she accept it. I insist! That is all. Is that a crime?”
She laughed again and looked defiantly all around the table while her fingers pulled with controlled fury at the chain of Florentine gold that hung tightly around her ample neck.
Honor and Daniel each felt their blood freeze and dared not look at one another. All their old horror from their childhood rushed into them, remembering as they now did that Sara hated to have anything around her throat. Each was panic-stricken at the scene this might cause, almost to think of Lucy’s—or anyone’s—trying to put a necklace around their sister’s neck. What would Sara do? Would she cry out, or faint? Would she suffer as they were suffering, those who knew her silent phobia, and were themselves now feeling choked and suffocated?
“It is a lovely necklace, but lovely!” Susan said brightly. She leaned across Dan, who was twirling his glass, his eyes downcast in his face masked by remoteness.
Lucy laughed shortly. “Well, I do think so!” she announced, before turning again toward Sara who sat calmly, her face now very much resembling her brother’s.
“I do insist,” Lucy said again. “This chain will be perfectly beautiful on you, Sara dear, and I’ve been wondering all summer what to give you as a little memento of all our gay good times here. You can wear it with anything. You’ll wear it always.”
Sara looked about the table then at Lucy. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, Lucy.”
Timothy saw that she was looking at him. He stood up.
“You’re a generous darling, Lucy,” he said. “It’s a lovely gift. And now let’s have some brandy on the terrace.” He walked quickly around the table. These Tennants under all their flat-faced calm really were t
oo damned finicky, he thought. He put his hand lightly on Lucy’s arm.
“Are you sure you won’t have a little nip with me?” he asked her softly. “You look very tired tonight, my dear Lucy. You are too sensitive . . .”
Lucy felt herself being drawn toward the terrace. Damn Timothy Garten, she thought. Then she laughed. He was sly. He was fascinating. But she was the one who really knew the power of love. She would keep Nan from him if it was the last action of her own tortured body.
“No brandy,” she cried gaily. “Old as I am, I don’t need that to get myself a good time. Come on, all you young people.”
She felt for the chain that lay at her throat. What was it that she’d stirred by her overly generous offer to that Sara? She shrugged then pulled furiously at the cigarette as Timothy held the candle to light it for her.
vi
Nan lingered in the room after the others had gone out on the terrace. It was quiet there. The candles were low, and lines made by the heavy net across the dark table zigzagged here and there, pulled by a wine glass or a coffee cup. The flowers looked brighter than when she’d picked them.
She lifted her cup to drink her half-cold bitter coffee.
She could see herself in the mirror. It was like an illustration from some storybook, perhaps The Princess and the Goblin, perhaps some other book where the tiny delicate girl stood in the palace candlelight with stars and darkness behind her through the great window. Nan looked small and ageless. She smiled at her own bland romanticism.
To François, who stood suddenly in the kitchen door, she said carefully and in schoolgirl French, “The dinner was excellent. It was beautifully served.”
He bowed and then laughed a little with his eyes twinkling. “Did Madame notice?”
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