Judith Ivory

by Black Silk

  “An interesting woman,” Schild said as they disappeared inside.

  He spoke this not as an observation but as a suggestion. Perhaps he noted Graham’s overlong stares at the widow. Then Schild walked down the steps and heaved himself into his carriage. Once inside, he looked at Graham. “An interesting woman,” he repeated.

  The message was clear, and anything but heroic—a crass invitation to heal his own sorrow at the expense of his wife’s. He might as well have said, “Please take up with her. If I could be of any help—”

  Of course, he could have been. Graham was left wanting to call a shot back, wishing for the man he had fervently wanted out of his house a moment ago now to reconsider, to stay and help deceive the deceiving wife.

  Schild leaned out his window and added, “But then, no one loves where interest might logically guide them.” He paused for a moment more. “If you only knew how I love her—” he finally said. Then he pulled back into the carriage and, with a lurch, it rolled down the drive.

  Graham was glad he was gone. There was something exceedingly foolish about a balding, middle-aged man who spoke so earnestly of love. Graham understood the word only in the context of the wise and worldly: cynicism. Worse still, the “love” Schild spoke of was blandly, unromantically his wife, the object of unconjugal obsession, a woman who did not return even a fraction of the feeling, but gave it blatantly, prodigally elsewhere, where he himself could not understand or tread, except as the gauchest foreigner.

  It was this, Graham realized, that gave Gerald Schild his poignant, ambiguous nobility. For Schild knew his circumstance and bore up under it. He was a fool without the delusions that might have saved him from seeing himself as such. A self-informed fool; it was atrocious. And the man kept going anyway, speaking his feelings with the most inadequate, unoriginal of words, knowing this was all he had—the blurred and smudged reflection of something powerful, ennobling. Heroic. All this in the name of love.

  Of one thing Graham was sure as he watched Gerald Schild’s carriage disappear that day. It became all at once so clear, so evident, he could hardly believe he had entertained notions of anything else: He himself did not love Rosalyn. Not romantically. Not even a little.

  Graham Wessit’s country house was a harmonious construction of reddish stone with patterns of yellow-red brick up the corners, around the windows and doors. The building was centered about a large, rotunda-sized tower, whose crenelations overlooked all other points of the houses’ roofs. This towerlike structure was set symmetrically into the center of the architecture, dividing the left half (rising to three stories plus an attic of windows and chimneys) from the right (a story lower, scattered with taller outlets for fireplace smoke). It could have had the feel of a hodgepodge, not an uncommon English problem with old buildings built in pieces through centuries of differing tastes. But it did not. The arches of the high, paned east windows, the central tower’s vertical succession of round windows, a low line of square, westerly windows, as well as the fanlights and sidelights of the double doors were painted in a unifying, crisp white. All this was nestled in trees and decorated with climbers and flower beds. It was a lovely house.

  As she and Arnold had driven up, Submit had been surprised by the size of the house. It was smaller than she had expected. Motmarche by comparison was a city unto itself. And the estate was more quiet. At first, no one seemed to be about. The side croquet lawn was vacant. There was the usual sort of rural buildings beyond that, a poultry, what looked like dovecotes. On the other side of the house there was a small orchard. Twisting, grey-trunked apple trees ran in neat rows within ten feet of the building itself. She and Arnold had stepped out of the carriage into the driveway of a peaceful little manor house.

  Then the front door had opened onto the awkward, somewhat embarrassing reunion on the front steps. Graham had seemed taken aback to see her, but not unpleasantly so. Submit had felt a rush of guilt at turning up on his doorstep after so curt a refusal only two weeks before. But Graham had seemed gracious, just as Arnold had assured her he would be. Then Submit had felt her embarrassment turn into something else: warm pleasure at seeing someone—a friend, she could not deny—to whom she had spoken of feelings, Henry, life, everything, anything that might come up; her confidant from Morrow Fields. Despite the prickly memories of their disagreements and some of their more-than-simply-pointed remarks, she found herself liking that she had come face to face with Graham Wessit again, liking it surprisingly much. She entered his house with unpredicted ease. The most puzzling thing, on reflection, was that her host and Gerald Schild appeared to be on very cordial terms.

  Inside, she and Arnold waited for a housekeeper whom Graham had mentioned but who didn’t materialize. Arnold pulled the bell cord again. He stood at the side of the room, more or less at a loss. Submit wandered. The house itself felt almost familiar, welcoming, as if she had been to Netham Hall before. It reminded her very much of the disorganized, unself-conscious man who had come to visit her at the inn.

  A little entry passage gave onto a reception room, which, like the rotunda that housed it, was round. It was informal, a room people lived in. A scallop of bay windows along the back of it lit the room with unexpectedly vivid and gentle light. Wallpaper of willows and roses met dark wainscoting. A dark wood table, pushed against this, had garden roses sitting on it overflowing from a huge bowl. The room was a contrast of rich color and dark wood. There were bookcases lined with bright and dark spines, oak flooring peeking out from under a worn Persian rug, and a chest in the corner beside a chintz-covered sofa and chair. Neither the patterns nor the colors on the sofa and chairs and wallpaper quite matched, though mysteriously they harmonized. An ancient boot remover with an abandoned pair of muddy boots stood beside a brass umbrella stand full of walking sticks, not umbrellas. An insouciant, speckled setter looked them over, then went back to sleep in a basket under the stairs. He could have been out of an eighteenth-century painting—an English setter in an English gentleman’s parlor. There were real Gainsboroughs on the wall. The staircase over the dog rose dramatically, circumvolving half the room on its way to the next floor. It led the eye up to a high ceiling, perhaps forty feet in the air. The room had all the charm of old aristocracy held together with the careless aplomb of a country gentleman, a provincial lack of fuss.

  Submit frowned. The staircase, the dog, something made a sense of familiarity creep over her again, but not in so pleasant a way. She felt an odd kind of preknowledge of this house. She opened a drawer in a small morning desk and knew before she saw that it was filled with a collection of pens and loose change. Pennies, shillings, and gold nibs winked up at her. Submit couldn’t understand how she knew. Her heart gave an erratic beat. The pleasant, pretty room began to feel a little eerie. Though of course, she tried to explain to herself, the desk drawer was the logical place to keep these things—

  “Going through my drawers?” Graham Wessit walked quickly into the room, full of energy, all smiles.

  “I wasn’t—”

  “I hope you were.” His smile became personal, warm. “I would love to be a matter of riveting curiosity to you.”

  Submit closed the drawer, frowning.

  He took her shawl and her hat, as well as Arnold’s. “How very nice to see you again.” He threw Arnold a glance. “Both of you.” He tossed their things on a chair. “Would you like to go upstairs and freshen up?”

  “No,” Submit answered a little awkwardly. “We’re fine.”

  “How long can you stay?’

  Arnold interjected, “Just the weekend. If you don’t mind.”

  “No, no, I’m delighted. Stay longer if you like. Come with me; I’ll take you outside. Everyone is in the back.”

  They went out into a garden, a florid display of color. Opening buds bloomed beside full-blown flowers, along with drooping, unclipped roses with half their petals blown off. Graham said to Submit, “I didn’t expect to see you at all the rest of the summer, after your last rather abr
upt note.”

  She was caught off guard by his seemingly sincere pleasure that she’d come. Her last letter, despite the circumstances and high feelings that had engendered it, seemed all at once rude. “I—I thought better of it, I suppose.”

  “I’m terribly glad you did.” He smiled a wide, ingenuous smile. Submit felt herself being wooed by the infamous Netham charm.

  Arnold came up beside them as they walked. “It was at my insistence she came,” he said. They walked three abreast, Submit in the middle. “I thought, after talking to you in London, it was best if someone browbeat her into coming out to the country for a few days. For her own good.”

  “Ah.” Graham left a pause, then asked, “And how is Mrs. Tate?”

  Arnold made a misstep over a loose stone in the path. “Fine.”

  “The children? Your oldest is at Oxford now, isn’t he?”

  Arnold’s face grew dour. “Yes.” He stared at his own feet tramping along the path.

  “And you, my dear cousin?” Graham asked Submit. My dear cousin. It was the form of address he had found in the letters. It put him somehow uncomfortably near, a figurative equivalent to finding herself without three feet of hoops.

  “I am doing well—”

  “She’s not,” Arnold broke in. “She’s working too hard, seeing nary a soul, getting thinner and paler by the day—”

  “I disagree.” Graham smiled at her as she passed under his arm—he held back a particularly brambly cane that bounced loose across the path. He came up beside her again just as the path turned and narrowed. Arnold was left to walk a few feet behind.

  In the distance, Submit could see more dovecotes, a little pond covered in water lilies, and a funny little building, a follylike gazebo by a lake. White fences and horses ran along one side. A small, select society, the women spread out in bright dresses, the gentlemen in more somber tones, was sitting inside the folly, at a long picnic table. The tablecloth, red and yellow and orange and green, stood out as brightly as the people’s clothes.

  “What are you working on?” Graham asked.

  “Pardon?”

  Graham smiled at her. “What is it that Arnold thinks you are working on too hard?”

  “Oh.” Submit bent her head. From within the dovecotes, as the threesome passed, came the soft clamor of busy, purring trills, followed by a swell of laughter from the folly.

  She had told no one the details of the wonderful and lucrative new project that was taking up so much of her time. Partly out of a kind of possessiveness, to have it completely for her own. She was finding out something very new about Henry. He liked adventure, foolish, physical, outlandish adventure. At least he admired it in a kind of backhanded way in print. So did she. And partly she had kept quiet because there was no one to tell. Even Arnold would very likely not approve of the marquess’s wife indulging in frivolous fictional escapades. Yet Submit realized, as she walked beside Graham, that she could tell him, that she would even like to.

  For the moment, she held to the generalization she had already given Arnold. She shrugged. “Some of Henry’s old notes, some articles he’d half done. If I finish them, the publisher has promised to pay me the sum he and Henry agreed upon.”

  “Aha.” Graham nodded politely. “That should keep you busy then.”

  They walked across the grass, Arnold remaining unnaturally quiet, resigned to his place a few steps behind. The folly ahead materialized fully over a bramble of grey willow and bryony. Submit paused, unwillingly impressed. It was one of those incredibly contrived vistas that nonetheless was simply beautiful. Someone had picked just the right rise of land, the perfect angle on the lake, then erected stone by stone a fantasy of classical form. It was a miniature, whimsical reconstruction of ancient Rome in decline. The crumbling walls seemed to be held together by little more than ivy. Engrossed, conversational voices came from between leaning Doric columns. From under a sloping entablature, hoots of laughter followed. These were the sounds of a careless social gathering whose members were inured to beauty and complacent toward their own security.

  Submit entered with Graham and Arnold through a doorway with no door. Inside, the building showed its strength. The decay and crumble were an illusion, supported by cantilevers and beams barely discernible through vegetation and architectural disguise. As they entered, several people turned.

  “Graham! There you are!” A heavy woman with a cumbersome body, a chest that could have graced the cutwater of a battleship, got up from the table. The table was long, running the diameter of the circular folly. It was set with flowers, wine, silver, and leftover food, all on a bright, striped tablecloth; a gay, bucolic disregard for formality. “We’ve been wondering where you got off to,” the woman said to Graham, but her eyes settled on Submit.

  In fact, a number of faces turned to Submit, as if they were trying to fathom her connection to the earl.

  Graham established it for them. “My cousin, Lady Motmarche. And Arnold Tate, a barrister at the Queen’s Bench.” People peeked around Graham and Submit. “Lady Stone,” Graham introduced the heavyset woman, then nodded toward a man seated at the table. “Sir Gilbert’s wife.” Several gentlemen stood.

  Graham made more introductions, names that passed in a blur. Lord and Lady This. Sir Something and Lady That. Until he came to a guest Submit had simply not expected to see. “Of course, you know William Channing-Downes.”

  William was seated—he didn’t bother to stand—at the far end, smiling his knowing, superior smile from behind a lady with a large fan. He leaned forward, tipped his hand, as if he were wearing a hat.

  Submit’s heart began to thump against the wall of her chest. She couldn’t help but throw her host a look. William was so very comfortable at Graham’s table.

  “Why, Graham, she’s lovely,” the chesty matron declared. She took Submit’s hand, leading her to the table. Submit was uncomfortable hearing the word “lovely” applied to herself. It simply wasn’t true. But the woman went on. “To keep such a pretty cousin all to yourself, Graham.” The woman glanced at Submit’s dress. “And a widow, too. You simply must get to know everyone.”

  Graham turned Submit over to the woman and sat by an empty chair at William’s end. There were more introductions. There had to be fifty people in the outdoor house. Half a dozen Submit knew from Mrs. Schild’s. Oddly, Submit noted, Mrs. Schild herself was not about. She found herself looking at the empty chair beside Graham, not certain if he meant for her to take it or if the American woman were about to arrive.

  Ultimately, people moved down, placing Submit in the chair next to the vacant one, leaving a telling space between herself and her host. Arnold was placed at the far other end. Submit looked to him longingly, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze.

  “Well,” a chicken-beaked man beside her said, as he pushed a glass of wine into her hands, “we were just discussing the likelihood of truth in what that supposed scientist gave to the world last month, the claim that we all came from monkeys.” Several people laughed heartily.

  “Darwin?” Submit asked.

  “You know of him? Good!”

  “What do you think?”

  One slightly inebriated young man in the middle of the table gave his opinion by making a few monkey sounds. Chee, chee, chee.

  “I think the theory of natural selection is valid.”

  “Geoffrey,” the man called to another over a woman’s head, “you have another on your side.” The table broke into more heated debate.

  Submit glanced at Graham. He was looking at her, not taking part. Such a look. Wonder, pleasure, curiosity. Too much interest for her to be comfortable. She looked away.

  The man beside her patted her hand. “It’s always nice,” he said, “to see a widow getting out and about. Nothing so dismal as a member of the gentler sex collapsed in a houseful of black-draped gloom.”

  Submit felt black-draped gloom descend before her eyes. She had as much in common with these people as she did with a jungle of simians
. They laughed too loudly, made light of serious topics, and several of the men—it seemed a popular affectation—wore reams of watch chains and bushels of rings. They could in no way compete with the women, however. Midmorning found them all dressed out in eyelet and feathers and fans.

  These women, from time to time, gave her cool glances. Sometimes not so cool. One attractive brunette threw several heated little glances between Submit and her host. A young girl with a pointy chin and a pouty mouth gave her an overall puzzled look, then glanced away. It was a gesture of relief and dismissal.

  The introductory warmth lasted about sixty seconds. Submit reached for an orange, the only thing in the little folly that seemed even remotely friendly besides Arnold, who was too far away, and Graham, who was too close.

  After a few minutes’ discussion of Darwin and the paper he’d read to the Linnaean Society, William leaned toward Graham and speared a cold piece of roast pheasant with a fork. He talked across three other people to ask, “Do you believe species can transmute, Gray?”

  Graham looked up. “Everything changes. Why not? I suppose.”

  “But why monkeys? Why not”—William paused and glanced toward Submit—“spiders, for instance?”

  A man at William’s left laughed.

  William went on. “Do you remember, Gray, those little jars Henry used to have?”

  “Jars?”

  “In his study on the shelf. Every manner of thing.”

  Graham was staring off, hardly paying attention. “Yes, vaguely.”

  “In one of the jars was an American spider. A tiny little thing.” He shifted his glance pointedly toward Submit. “A black widow.” He added, “Do you remember the jar, Submit?” William smiled at her.