AT SIX THIRTY Diana was sitting at her dressing table in a navy gabardine dressing gown, fastened with a single button at the waist, piped in white, monogrammed, still damp beneath the bathrobe, her hair wild from the bath, held back, but only just, with pins, looking at the reflection in the dying light, at her splendid view of acres and acres of the finest riverfront in Virginia, hers now, irrevocably, without strings, or so he said. She smelled fresh as a baby. She smelled like her Roger & Gallet lily of the valley soap, Muguet, and she was at peace. She had plenty of time to dress. The golden dress hung on the back of her closet door. What a beautiful thing it was, and how she had missed it, and, she was ashamed to say, things like it.
She moved to the dress, held it in her hand, and felt the weight of the silk studded with beading from Lesage, a masterpiece really, but the landscape out the window caught her eye, and she just stood there for moments, imagining the herd of cows that would soon ornament the green, the listless way cows had of seeming to do nothing, nothing at all. She would like some sheep, too, equally listless and then suddenly not, suddenly animated as though struck by a lightning bolt, erupting into action, dancing through the rocky green of the land. And beyond that the town, where the lights were beginning to come on now, even though the stores were closing and people were going home, the lights that would give a soft glow as a backdrop to the farm that was now hers again.
She thought of her father in his grave, of how happy this turn of events would make him, of how pleased that his grandson had turned out to be a deeply decent man, giving up Yale and future to take it all on, to bring it back to the way it was before the Crash wiped him out and the great losing began, the selling off from which Copperton had saved them, but at the price of her body and her youth and her life. She had been a slave to this house ever since. Liberation had yet to sink in, and she didn’t believe it, wholly, but she would trust, trust enough, at least, to do her hair and her face, to varnish her nails and put on the dress Ashton remembered, for years wrapped in tissue in its own dark exile.
She had once had herself photographed in each of her dresses, and on the back of each photograph had written, in her fine hand, the times she had worn it, so that she wouldn’t wear it again in the company of the same people. But it was always the same people, so it was rarely worn, perhaps two or three times, so small and constant was their social circle.
She sat again at her table, and continued applying carmine lacquer to her nails. She was halfway done when a knock came on the door. The knock that was to change everything, that was to set a seal on everything for the rest of time. She hastily pulled the pins from her hair and opened the massive door. Gibby stood there, half dressed in his evening clothes, a grosgrain bow tie in his hands.
“I . . . I can’t. I was wondering if . . .” He stood awkwardly, red-faced, trembling.
“I can try. It’s been forever.”
He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. She hadn’t been alone with a man in this room for almost fifteen years. “The best way is to do it from the back,” she said. “Stand in front of my dressing mirror.” She maneuvered him to stand in front of the tall glass, once her father’s. They were almost the same height. She deftly tied the tie, got it wrong, had just done it again perfectly when suddenly Gibby turned around and pulled her to him.
Kissing Gibby was like raising the past from the dead—his mouth, his tongue so fresh, all the sweetness of youth, the parties, the night air on the yacht as they sailed up the river past Port Royal, going to sleep at dawn drunk and happy, the bed rising up to catch her before she could fall, the making love to the Captain, those moments recaptured when she could believe again that she loved him and their life was fun.
It was quick, a coup de foudre, the way youth is quick about everything. Like all athletes, he was expert at getting in and out of his clothes in a second, and her dressing gown had only the one button and then they were naked on the bed and he was on her, in her, and he had done this before, many times, this was no wiser older woman teaching youth, rather the educated, giving lover leading the unloved back to life, the untouched back to the sea of sensuality.
His body was so profoundly taut and thick yet limber, hers still willowy and pliant, her breasts full and high, her skin smooth as the sheets Priscilla sprinkled lavender talc on in the summer to keep them cool and dry on hot nights, his entirely covered in a soft rust-colored down, so different from the Captain’s rough, unthinkable bristle, like being scraped by a hairbrush. Her girlfriends had told her it was sexy. It wasn’t. Touching Gibby was like a woman’s first touch of a sable coat, so soft, so light.
And then, with a heave she thought would kill her with pleasure, it was over. He was slightly damp, and she rubbed him dry with her dressing gown, noticing a small carmine streak of lacquer on his cheek, which she rubbed with polish remover, the lace handkerchief crumpled in her hand as though covered with blood. Standing naked, his skin glistening red as a plum, she helped him dress again, the studs, the suspenders, the tie, her naked body pressed against his back, her thin arms around his massive shoulders, her adorable face on his shoulder in the looking glass, his funny face with his green eyes only on her. Dressed, she sent him off, not even a kiss.
At the door he turned. “Tonight, after everybody is asleep, at three, I’ll come back. And every night after that. If you’ll have me.”
Not looking at him, staring at her face in her mirror, she whispered, “Yes. Yes. Yes.” And then she heard the door close behind him.
She repaired the damage to her makeup and slipped the scandalous dress over her naked body, heavy, liking the weight because it reminded her of him, of Gibby, the way he rode her, like the ducks on the river, and she slipped out of the room, the disarray, the faint but unmistakable smell a man and a woman leave behind, the stains on the sheets, knowing Priscilla would know everything and say nothing. Diana moved to the top of the stairs, where she waited until she had caught their attention, drinking cocktails in the downstairs hall, a third man with them now, and then she moved down, step by step, stately, as though nothing had happened.
As though her whole life had not been pulled apart and put back together as a crazy quilt.
As though his cologne could not still be smelled on her skin.
As though that damned button had not been unbuttoned.
As though.
As though.
Dear God.
As though.
15
WHEN SHE CAME downstairs, she realized Lucius the Librarian had arrived. He was short and portly, bearded, perhaps twenty-seven, and his girth strained the material of his shabby evening clothes, yet he wore them well, as though everybody should look like that, as though he were to be envied his obesity, so well matched by his jocularity.
From his first words—“Mrs. Copperton, there are many, many things Lucius Walter can’t do. I can’t play tennis or catch butterflies in a net. I can’t solve the problems of the world. But give me a damaged book, and I will give it back to you good as new. I have two talents, and that is one of them”—all the anxiety slipped away. He stood in the great front hall, surrounded by many and massive pieces of luggage, and followed his opening remark by saying, “I’d like a view of the river, and do you have a large freezer?”
“A freezer?” asked Diana, amazed.
“Yes, the books cannot be saved without a freezer. How many are there?”
“Freezers?”
“No, ma’am. Books.”
“Thousands. Well over two thousand. Not all are damaged.”
“Well, then, a very, very large freezer.”
“We have a walk-in freezer from when . . . yes. And two other, smaller ones, I think. I hope they still work.”
“Let’s hope they do. Show me the library.”
She led him down the long hall, the two boys following, and opened the high double doors. Lucius stood in shock for a second.
“Great God in heaven. What the hell happened?”
/>
“A tree fell through the windows.”
“Yes, yes, I see now. This is a great tragedy. Would have been a great tragedy, had you not called me so quickly. Get me every dishcloth in the house. Tear up any sheets you don’t want anymore. I need fabric. Lots of fabric.” He took off his jacket. He turned to Gibby and Ashton. “Well? Are you going to help or watch?”
“You have to tell us what to do,” said Ash a bit sullenly, jealous of any man who took his mother’s attention away from him, even for a good reason. “These books are my mother’s dearest possession. This has to work. This isn’t some crackpot magic trick, is it?”
“The University of Virginia does not teach, nor does it practice, voodoo or witchcraft. If you’d like me to leave, the last I heard, trains go both ways.”
“Sorry. Truly sorry. I meant . . .”
“I know. It seems strange. But it’s how it’s done. At the moment, this is a lost world, Atlantis. We’re going to raise it from the bottom of the sea.”
Diana and Priscilla appeared at the door, their arms loaded with cloths.
“Good,” said Lucius. “First, pick up each book by its spine, gently, and let any excess water drip out, just like this—” He picked up a leather-bound volume and watched as the water dripped and dripped from the pages. When the dripping had stopped, he grabbed one of the cloths. “Next, the book is wrapped very gently, with a clean piece of cloth inserted every twenty pages or so.” He showed them. “And then it goes into the freezer, upright, as close to each other as you can get them without touching.”
He busied himself, book after book.
“And then?” Ashton awkwardly mimicked Lucius’s actions.
“Then we wait. The water freezes and contracts like an ice cube in a tray and cracks off the pages, leaving the pages pristine. Voila!” he said, pulling a silk handkerchief from his pocket. “Mr. Mephisto has spoken. Do we ever eat around here?”
Priscilla raised her head from watching water drip from a book. “Dinner will be at eight.”
“Black tie,” said Diana. “I see you’re already prepared.”
“Madame, I am always ready for any eventuality. If you told me it was a Venetian ball, you would not find me lacking.”
The twilight passed into darkness, with its labors and its secrets and one slash of nail lacquer on Gibby’s cheek, and the gown opening so effortlessly, and her whole life opening like a lotus blossom to bloom for an afternoon, a night, forever, there was no way to tell, and the peculiarities and particularities of new passion passed into the politesse of the long table with its six gleaming candelabra and the golden gown not worn for fifteen years, a boy who sat in the upstairs hall window and kissed her as she twirled by and never lost his love for the woman, and requested that dress because he was still in love with that woman, there had been no other, hers the only kiss good night, and because he dreamed only of her, in the night, in the day, he was sent down from Yale and changed his name, to be with her, to be closer to her, not knowing that she was down the hall in bed with his best friend, his imaginary lover, not knowing what tragedy would come of that for him, for all of them, or the deep pleasure of the body that had come to her at forty-two, she, in a golden gown, now sitting at the head of the long and long unused table, blood rushing through her ears, Gibby, twenty years her junior, still inside her, do not go away, please don’t, and sitting among them, straining at his Windsor-blue tuxedo, odd Lucius Walter.
Between courses, when conversation lagged, as though it were the easiest thing in the world to do, Lucius Walter picked up his heavy sterling dessert spoon and deftly hung it from his nose. The laughter that erupted around the table among the four of them was like the sound of a dinner fork hitting the side of an empty crystal water goblet. Lucius was immediately part of this odd family.
“My other talent,” said Lucius Walter, the breath from his mouth causing the heavy spoon to sway slightly.
So they all picked up their spoons and tried, but nobody could do it, so that finally the trick became stale, the humor passed, and they sat speechless and bored, waiting for Ash to pour the sauternes.
16
THE NEXT MORNING at ten, Rose de Lisle arrived with the force of a hurricane. She had a look about her that women would kindly call handsome, meaning ugly, but she was ugly in a monumental way: sharp chin, beaked nose, thin fingers covered with enormous rings set with stones that could not always be identified—aquamarine, citrine, topaz. She never appeared without some elaborate turban, always black, on her high forehead, often pinned in place with some ornate Indian jewel. She was never without it.
Ugliness that grandiose had to be respected and admired. There was no saving her, no making her fit in. She was what she was, an ugly woman with impeccable taste, and the most commanding person in any room. Rose de Lisle, however you felt about beauty, was imperial. She was tall, threatening to everybody in the house, with the possible exception of Ash, who like his mother wanted grandeur, a return to the simplicity and elegance remembered from childhood, an elegance that in fact might never actually have existed. But he wanted order. He wanted beauty. Everybody he consulted—college chums, actually the mothers of college chums, who dotted Park Avenue like bees in a hive—said that Rose could do magic for him as she had done for them. Just look, they would say. See how the light catches the Turner. See how the sofa harmonizes with the rug. And yes, there is a smoking room for the men, with stags’ heads and a pool table and silver humidors. Rose knew both the lives of women and the lives of men.
Men. She had probably slept alone for all of her fifty-some years, and it only made her backbone straighter, her smile less frequent, her judgments more immutable. How did she know so absolutely what men wanted? Intuition mixed with bitterness and envy. It was rumored that in her own apartment on Park Avenue, she had a room just like this, and here her tuxedo-clad lady guests would retire after dinner to smoke her robustos and shoot pool until the birds began to sing, when they would rush home to put on their dresses and their low-heeled shoes. So many people in so many prisons.
So Ash was included in every discussion of what was to be done. Diana cherished these sessions, and Ash loved working on a project with his mother. It drew them together in a way they had never been together before, and finally they felt like mother and son again, completely and entirely, bonded by an affection beyond blood, two minds set on the same quest, under Rose’s guidance.
“I know everything about this house,” said Rose at their first sit-down, after her sixteen bags were put into her room and her tiny dog, a papillon named Butch, had been fed and had peed on the first of the many rugs he was to defile in his long stay. “Designed by John Ariss in 1787, it was at the time the biggest house in America. Ariss also designed Mount Airy, just up the river, ancestral home of the Tayloe family. It is said he helped George Washington design Mount Vernon. The examples of his work are few but choice. Saratoga is still one of the most perfect examples of Georgian architecture in the country. And by far the biggest. It is a tragedy, my babies, what it has fallen into, the disrepair, the rot, the lack of love. I did a lot of reading with all these vulgar, fat, horrifying people snoring and belching and farting all night long on the train, up and down the corridor. I had to open the window of my compartment, so I froze to death all night, even in my sable coat.
“Poor people have a terrible time trying to be grand.” Rose spoke with just a hint of sympathy and more than a touch of disdain. “It’s all desire without means. But have no fear. Ashton has buckets of money—I’ve done my homework, sitting up all night in my freezing compartment, a sleeper they laughingly call it—the books, the pictures, the debutante balls, the engagement ring, the faux captain, unhappiness piled on unhappiness and then, and then nothing for all these years, until Ashton’s friend in New York”—she raised one eyebrow knowingly—“called me and the ticket arrived and here I am, driven at breakneck speed by some Neanderthal through the lovely dawn until the house came into view. Butch shat in the
car, which made me enormously happy. Where was I?”
“Excuse me,” said Diana. “I don’t mean to be rude. But who are you?
“I am Rose de Lisle. Most people of taste know who I am. Generally I need no introduction.”
Ashton broke into a conversation that was clearly taking a turn for the worse. “I told you about her. I knew she had to come as quickly as possible. I had my friend buy her a ticket on the night train—”
“Disgusting,” said Rose, lighting a cigarette.
“—and she’s going to stay and help us put the house back together. I hope . . . I mean, I meant to surprise you. I’m sorry. I should have—”
“No. It’s perfect,” said Diana. “Forgive my rudeness. I was just confused. You’re most welcome here, Miss de Lisle.”
“Madame, but call me Rose. It’s more intime.” She had a low, sultry voice, entirely masculine, and a way of drawing out her vowels that made it seem as though she were speaking a foreign language, although she clearly wasn’t.
“So we’re five for dinner now. I’ll tell Priscilla.”
“Don’t go to any trouble for me,” Rose said. “I hardly eat anything.”
Gibby chafed under his exclusion from these meetings, realizing that there was a bond between Ash and his mother that he could not, would not, ever be a part of. Soon Ash was rising early to look at paint and wallpaper swatches with Rose and his mother while Gibby rode alone through the forest trails and did his daily exercises on the rings and bars he had set up, keeping up his remarkable prowess in gymnastics, the strength and grace that had made him captain of the Yale team, smiling front and center in the team picture, medals around his neck, while Ash stood in the second row, sheepishly too tall, unnoticed. He could tell Diana’s mind was elsewhere, and that Ash had a place in his mother’s heart that he could never hope to enter.
Rose had put her stamp on Park Avenue from Seventy-Second to Fifty-Ninth, and sad was the couple who couldn’t afford her outrageous fees, or stand her imperious manner. Many, many people found her repellant, a mannish lonely lady with a pushy way and a mysterious background. Her relations with these people always ended badly and quickly.
The Dying of the Light Page 12