by Black Silk
He picked up his vest and walked over to the cord by the wall. “Can I summon my manservant now?”
“You are always in a rush.”
“I’m going to be late to Temple Inn.”
Without a trace of a smile, she folded her arms. “You should have summoned your man half an hour ago,” she said. “Just think of the time you’d have saved.”
It occurred to Graham, as his carriage pulled away that day, that he and Rosalyn were not getting on as well as they should.
In fact, his remaining week in London seemed to be characterized by all that didn’t happen, didn’t work, that didn’t go as well as he’d planned. For one, Rosalyn wasn’t staying in London. After cleaning up, there was the great, wonderful dither of closing up. The season was over. Rosalyn was to spend a fortnight with her husband in Kent before retiring for the summer to Graham and Nethamshire. Cleaning quickly gave way to the process of storing and throwing covers over everything. More and more Graham began to avoid Rosalyn’s house. It too closely paralleled the uproar in his own.
Graham was closing the living quarters of his London house as well. Like most with financial wherewithal to do so, he intended to spend the summer in the country. He was opening his house southwest of London in the rather amorphous region known as Nethamshire or Netham. There he would be entertaining a number of friends.
Once, as recently as eighty years ago, Netham had been a real place, a county in the southwest of England; the earldom had had its geographic corollary. During some political redivisioning, however, the land had lost its official designation. It now sat astride two counties, the name retaining meaning only for locals and certain Londoners who associated it with the earl. It was his territory, his domain, relegated to a kind of fictitious standing as a place to live, though he did in earnest own most of what had made up the county.
Somehow, all the places where Graham lived seemed to have this “other” dimension: “I live in a museum,” he told Rosalyn once, referring to his house in London. But he got no sympathy there. Rosalyn, in fact, loved to ride over at dusk, when all the tourists and guides had left, so she could step over the velvet cords. Her favorite naughtiness was to step up onto the platforms and invite him to make love on the exhibited beds. Daring romance, she called it; delusion, Graham complained to himself. He resented that she should be so thrilled with something about him that had nothing to do with him himself.
“On these stupid, musty platforms,” he accused her once, “you are making love to a myth, the English upper-class rake, as if I were a kind of obscene tourist attraction.”
At such comparisons, Rosalyn’s eyes only widened. “Oh, yes!” She stepped happily over the boundary line into the areas of his house he didn’t live in, into a public pretense he didn’t inhabit, leaving him on the other side of the ropes, feeling damned if he refused—alone—and damned if he did not. When he stepped over and made love to her, it was always with the growing unease that his whole life was somehow becoming roped off.
Or roped in. By the end of the month, it was clear that Graham was stuck in London, at least through June. The mess with the billiard table girl dragged on. Not only would he not be able to break for Netham early, as was his custom, but he was going to arrive late. All his guests would be there before him, which sent him into a sulk.
Normally he left before the end of the season to prepare for his summer guests. This was a trick he had learned. He’d found he could gracefully bow out of the last exhausting weeks of London social life by being fastidiously gracious himself. For the last three or four years, he’d been leaving early for Netham. This year, he had to make all the arrangements by messenger—which he found truly annoying—and which led to another grievance for his growing list: He couldn’t keep a full staff in London. It had always been convenient and more economical to keep a skeleton staff at Netham or in London and have the full retinue attached to himself and whichever house he was using at the moment. In this case, his regular household staff had to be broken down a little at a time and transferred ahead of him to Netham to prepare for his guests.
His cooks were the first to go, needing time for the planning and procuring of food in large quantities. The guests who would be joining him would initially number about thirty, plus families. It was a gathering of a wholly different nature than anyone would find in London. Children, dogs, nannies. The thirty or so adults who brought these families with them were hand selected. Over the years, the group had been culled down to about two dozen friends Graham genuinely enjoyed and who seemed to enjoy his company in return. Besides these people, there were also a few who, whether they liked him or not, openly and unctuously courted his good graces. Graham’s summers were as blatantly weighted in his favor as his good conscience and self-respect would allow. He structured them purposely as a kind of antidote to the rigors and protocol of the London season. No testy dinner parties. No operas that put him to sleep. No dancing and talking in circles of etiquette. His summers were informal, he enjoyed them, he was himself—and he sent anyone packing who gave him a hard time over any of this.
The business with Tate and the paternity suit was at the top of Graham’s list of problems during those last weeks in London, though the words “top” and “list” were misleading. They implied an order, something the lawyer and his tactics defied. It was this that held Graham in the city and this that ultimately made him wild to leave. While he tried to organize the Netham house from eighty miles away, tried to close and yet live in an only marginally functioning household, and tried to see the bounding, romping Rosalyn off on not such a bad note that they couldn’t manage a better footing later, Mr. Tate, Esquire, shot through his every day with either worry for or the actuality of one of his legal machinations.
Though a trial had yet to commence, Tate had everyone marching into court for what seemed like endless technicalities. Each day seemed to bring a new hearing. Tate made a motion to dismiss, a motion for summary judgment, then various motions to strike for redundant then immaterial then impertinent matter. In short, he convinced both sides, Graham included, that on a sheer procedural basis alone going to trial with him would be ghastly. Graham’s pugnacious new barrister intended to fight every inch of the way and on every level, it seemed—from procedure to rules of evidence to the merits, if they ever got to them. As if this weren’t enough, Tate had begun to interview Graham privately for details. “Why would she accuse you?” “How does she know you?” “Have you ever slept with any very young girls?” Graham hoped fervently that the other side was as intimidated and appalled by all this as he was.
The carriage jostled heavily as Rosalyn Schild got into it. It was loaded with boxes and trunks. From the outside, Graham closed the door. He watched Rosalyn arrange her skirts, then lean back toward him. Through the open window, she looked down at him.
“I will be much better company,” he said, “in Netham.”
He had intended this remark to be the end of a conversation, not the beginning of one. But Rosalyn raised her hand, fiddling with the pleats of her bonnet. “I’m jealous.” She delivered this non sequitur deadpan. “She’s had your quiet, attentive company every day for a week.”
She was speaking, he knew, of the courtroom girl, the woman who was taking up most of his time. “You could always come with me to court,” he said.
Rosalyn rested an arm, then her chin, on the open window’s edge. “No, thank you.” She left an irresolute pause, then seemed to make a decision: “I don’t like you much lately.”
Graham stared at her. “I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t either, I suppose.” He waited. “I shall miss you. I feel quite friendless at the thought of your going. To continue alone—”
“You’re hardly ever alone.” She pursed her lips. “Too many people.”
“With all the ‘good-natured’ elbows in the ribs? There is nothing like that sensation for feeling alone.”
“You’re too sensitive.”
“You keep saying.�
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“Will you miss me really?”
“A solemn oath.”
“I could stay, tell Gerald I’ll be a day or two later.”
“I don’t think that would help.”
“In fact, you’re anxious to get rid of me.”
He made a sniff of protest. “Only when you make such shrewish statements.”
She hesitated. He could feel her looking for his face, which he patently avoided giving her. “I’m being honest,” she said, “despite how tasteless and colonial that is.” She left another pause, then said, “You are relieved to have me going.”
He made a louder protest, pff, and rolled his eyes at her. His American mistress was accusing him of being too English, too smooth and sophisticated to appreciate honesty. He mugged a face, wanting to show her this wasn’t true.
He got a weary laugh. “Perhaps not this minute,” she amended, “but in general.”
The carriage leaned abruptly away from him. Her driver had mounted from the other side. Springs and leather squeaked, then rocked back into place. The horses took on an awareness, an agitation.
He heard Rosalyn take a breath. “I’m going to leave Gerald. I’m going to tell him. I have already, haven’t I? Left him, I mean.”
He turned his head sharply. The expression on her face told him she had been waiting, poised to calculate his immediate reaction. He stared at her, not certain what she saw, then shrugged. “Do what pleases you.”
“And what pleases you?”
“You do. Just as you are.”
“Married.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I see.”
The carriage rocked once more. Graham stepped toward the driver, yelling at him—a guttural sound, less than a word, but expressive of his exasperation. As he turned back to Rosalyn, he had not quite calmed his voice. “You picked a fine time to tell me this. Can’t you wait to put me on trial till you come back? I had no idea—”
“A blind man could see—”
“Don’t make me justify myself. I’ve had enough of doing that lately.”
“Well, I’ve had too little explanation, justification, whatever you want to call it. I don’t know where I stand with you.”
“I love you.” He said this so aggressively that she started.
Then her eyes narrowed, and she said nothing. She only stared at him.
“Rosalyn, this is hardly the moment—” Hearing how peremptory he sounded, he reached for her, trying to give her a quick kiss good-bye.
But she pulled back. “On your dresser. I left you something. A little gift. Because it amused me, though I hardly think you will enjoy it now.” There was a crisp break, the back-and-forth movement of wheels and prancing horses. “I want you to read it anyway. Out of meanness now, I think.”
“All right.” He tried again for the kiss.
She jerked away into the shadows of the carriage. “You bloody hypocrite.” She was more put out than he could account for.
Her English expletive registered as odd. He had a second to wonder where an upper-class American woman had heard it. “Bloody” was not a word he himself used very much; he used milder ones or stronger ones. Then the carriage wheel at his elbow churned in the stones. He backed up quickly. The vehicle seemed to wobble under her anger all the way out of sight.
Graham was left frowning in the dust of Rosalyn’s clean exit. The whole conversation seemed to have gone too perfectly her way. It had probably been rehearsed. Women did that. It had probably taken her a dozen practices to get that exit just right. Then he recognized that he was the actor. This affair was about to surpass any involvement he had had in recent years. It was becoming significant, and something in him shuddered at the prospect. A part of him had begun to reenact the familiar, unoriginal play: How to Part Company. Excuses had begun to occur to him. I can’t. I’m sorry. Good-bye. Good luck. Break a leg. Was it only the male of the species, Graham wondered, who was anxious about permanence, responsibility, growing up? Surely not. Then another good reason not to marry Rosalyn Schild occurred to him, though by this time he hardly knew whether to trust his own motives, since it was such an overly suspicious thought: Perhaps Rosalyn wanted to marry him so she could sleep with someone else. (He recalled that Tilney used the word “bloody” all the time.) Part of Rosalyn was happy and didn’t want to be anything but an unfaithful wife.
At home, Graham found three consecutive issues of Porridge, a popular weekly, on his dresser. He thumbed through them, unable to understand what more he was supposed to do with them.
It was more by accident that later in the evening, before going to bed, he came across a serialized novel in the magazine—episodes two, three, and four in these issues, by one Yves DuJauc. The French name implied the fiction would be a little racy. Graham began reading. The story was romantic, the sort of thing Rosalyn would like. Then he became slowly, lividly pale. With explicit, obvious allusion, someone had decided to caricature the worst and most lurid aspects of his life. This was being done in public again, in fiction, in black and white. The hero of the episodes was Wesley Grey, the title, The Rake of Ronmoor, the subtitle, “The Villainous Exploits of an Earl’s Depraved Heir.”
Chapter 10
June 3
Dearest, Dearest,
I am so sorry to have put upon you so selfishly at my leaving. You must forget what I said and only remember that I love you. I shall be with you soon, your bare Rosey with flowers in her hair, flowers up her bum! When you see the bustle I have bought! There is a Frenchwoman here, a couturière, who says by next year all the ladies’ dresses will be pulling to the back—no more hoops like big bells with our legs gonging around inside! And this little bustle will be the trick! Wait till you see. You must imagine your entire London garden tucked into my fanny (what a wicked thought!), draped over with satin. A deep rose gown, I have bought for you. It is so chic, so naked. So little corsetry! I think of you where it touches me. Oh, the bounce of this soft little bustle! Silk pillow-petals stuffed with bits of fine cork, patting my bottom as I walk! Exquisite! I am so à l’anglaise to look at, so yours to the touch. I flush continually when I wear it, from vanity, from memory of you, and anticipation. I have never missed you as now. Gerald is horrid. But he says, and it is true, that my excessive bottom complements my outrageous dress and vice versa. He hates it, and you will love it. I feel as though I have left him years behind me. He stares at me as though in a daze. Oh, and I have bought a pair of drawers. You will laugh when you see. They are black silk! Such fun. I love you, love you, make love with you each night, though he paws me incessantly. He is a bear! A walrus! I feel like a fish next to him, sleek and clean and shimmering, and all he wants to do is devour me like a huge meal in a bite, then pick his teeth. I have not made love with him once, and I won’t. I shall leave him no matter what. But you mustn’t worry.
Your Rose
June 7
Dearest—
I cannot stand that you will not write to me here. Truly, Gerald would never notice. It is not even a matter of pulling the wool—his eyes, his head, are so full of nothing else. Besides, I have many friends who write, even a gentleman friend. The Member of Parliament you met at the party wrote to thank me for the evening three weeks ago. He thanks me also (I have to giggle at this) for introductions to you. He hints he would like to join us in Netham. Actually, his wife, I think, prays and pressures to meet you. But I do not answer, knowing how you like the invitations to come from yourself. Still, wouldn’t a Member of Parliament be nice, so official and sanctioning?
The MP and wife are wild for the serial. (Have you read it? Were you able to laugh?) They, of course, noted the watches and house and height of the villainous hero, not to mention the other similarities. Was the twit ever your laundry maid? Who is Yves DuJauc? Do you know him? He certainly knows you, doesn’t he, dear? Don’t be angry that I am enjoying it. I keep looking for myself, but not yet. Perhaps in future episodes…
In all events, write! I lov
e you and miss you.
Yours,
Rose
P.S. If it will ease your mind, send a note to my London address. I will send someone to check now and then.
June 11
Graham,
Gerald has asked that I stay another week. I don’t know whether it is my vanity or venality (he says I am good for business and buys me a new dress for every luncheon, for every tea), but I have agreed to stay. Or perhaps it is because I don’t hear from you. It is odd how I can settle into the dullness of this place. So like home. Sweet Savage Security. I believe my pulse races when I am with you, my cool English darling, but I must trust my memory for that. You refuse to remind me. Couldn’t you dash off a few understatements for me, darling? I rather miss you, Rosalyn. That would be an understatement, wouldn’t it? It’s so hard to tell with you English. I must go. I am exhausted from doing nothing.
Love,
Rosalyn
June 15
Shall I come at all, you beast? We traveled to Bath, where I ran into Peter Tilney. He implicates me as the writer of your “slow murder,” saying you as much as said so. You idiot. How could you imagine me so treacherous as that? I shall not bother to come unless I hear from you. We are guests of the Adamsferrys in Camden Place.