by Black Silk
Submit was miffed that he should mention the ride. “In clear view of a dozen people. Again, nothing improper.”
“What were you doing up at dawn with him?”
“He came and got me up.”
“Why?”
More irritated, she replied, “How should I know?”
He hesitated before saying, “Submit. Netham has a tendency to—to reinvent things, to make dalliance, whimsy into something momentarily respectable.” He paused. “How do you feel about him?”
“We are friends.” Then even Submit frowned at this definition of her and Graham’s relationship. “Or something like that. We find each other…interesting, that’s all.”
Without warning, Arnold took her hand and brought it to his mouth. He kissed the backs of her fingers. “Be careful,” he said.
He left her outside to watch the sun rise over the trees, high into the sky, over Graham Wessit’s edible landscaping, his apple orchard.
Chapter 27
Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.
HIPPOCRATES
Aphorisms, Section I, 6
Submit had decided to “write him.” That was the way she phrased it to herself—By God, I’ll write him—the way someone might think, By God, I’ll shoot him right between the eyes.
By the time Arnold left that afternoon, Netham Hall had grown very quiet. Most everyone had retired to rest before dinner. Graham and those who had been up all night had gone to bed earlier and not been seen since. On her own, Submit began to explore the house.
She touched furniture and doors, knowing she was going to make this room, that couch, that Chinese vase into a paper backdrop. Her tour had an odd, almost dizzying effect. A room would suggest ideas or suddenly pop out, amazingly familiar from already having been visualized within the loops and jags of Henry’s close scrawl. There was something circular here, a fiction come to life, while real objects suggested ways to build more fictional plausibility. In her room upstairs, Submit had further notes on the seduction of the upper housemaid—a housemaid Graham had, only four years ago, brought to London to the horror of everyone. He had sent debutantes home early so he could carouse with a heavyset girl with a thick country accent, a girl in service. In service, indeed.
All the servants knew. Eventually, Henry and anyone else who cared to know were acquainted with the situation: Though Graham and his housemaid did not exactly laugh and shriek and chase each other about the bed, she stomped—she had a pronounced limp. Anyone who happened to be in the vestibule below knew when she was upstairs in the master’s room, when she got in and when she got out of bed. Henry’s notes even hinted that she was a bit slow-witted, and she was certainly uneducated. She couldn’t even write her own name. How any man could take advantage of such a creature, Submit didn’t know, but she intended to make a rollicking lesson of it that would last several more episodes.
Anger, rampant curiosity, and a confusion of compelling emotions made her want to lay Graham Wessit’s life back to the bone. She discovered as she went through his house, she didn’t just want to be able to visualize a room, a corner; she wanted the house to somehow give evidence of the man, to give secrets he hadn’t shared.
In the dining room, she picked up teacups from a shelf and turned them over. Chinese porcelain, forty years old. The same with the silver in a chest. Traditionally fine, old; something that had little to do with Graham, more to do with Netham. There was a sideboard laid out with brandy, port, a humidor full of dark cigars. These didn’t interest her. She didn’t know exactly what she wanted, but she knew these weren’t what she was after.
There were several more rooms like this, kept more by the servants than the owner; impersonal rooms as in a dozen other English homes. Parlors, halls, a recital room. A game room was slightly more interesting—nothing like it had ever existed at Motmarche. But the game room was ultimately less remarkable than it promised. It was what it seemed, with card tables at one end, a billiard table (with a roulette wheel currently set up on it) at the other. The room’s drawers and cupboards held only roulette tiles, neatly boxed decks of cards, score sheets, and pens. A few old games on discarded pages had been shoved into one drawer, an offhand written record. Graham’s name was on all of them; he usually won.
Then at last in a small conservatory Submit caught a breath of something individual, eccentric, though for a time she couldn’t put her finger to what. The earl’s conservatory was the usual sort of addition that over the last three or four decades any Englishman, with any pretension to taste and sensibility, put into an outside wall of his house. It was a room made up of windows and light, giving onto a good view of nature outside, filled with it inside. This conservatory was green with plants and heaped with flowers culled unquestionably for their scent. There were white jasmine, gardenias, and something rare—large, fragrant orchids. Submit found herself staring down the throats of half a dozen large, white cattleyas in full bloom. For a moment their snowy sepals and petals held her attention, white ruffled lips narrowing and blushing pinker and deeper into each flower to a dark throat the fuchsia color of crushed raspberries, the whole giving off a sweet, delicate perfume. The sight and smell of these lush flowers were disturbing, as if each had taken pungent, three-dimensional life from the top of a black-lacquered box.
From here, she seemed to enter a preserve, a personal area. It began with a cloakroom full of not only the expected winter overcoats and hunting jackets, but also a rack of freshly pressed shirts, all Graham’s. A bust of Aristotle stood, presumably stored, in the corner of the cloakroom. The stone head wore a whimsical stack of real hats: a bowler, two straws, a furry hunting cap, topped off with a silk top hat. This was off a library that was very male, filled with dark wood and leather.
The library held the expected walls of dark books, a large heavy desk, a stuffed chair, a lamp. A gentleman’s couch sat by a window, for snoozing or reading. But the half-wall behind the desk was given over to an assortment of loosely bound playbooks, and a glass case at the back of the room contained a particularly fine collection of early Shakespeare quartos. Playbills (none with Graham’s name on them) and opera programs decorated a space over some shelves, as did photographs. She looked at pictures of a theater under renovation. It was the opera house in Covent Garden, currently only half rejuvenated, though operas continued to play there.
More photographs lay in a pile. She flipped through them, looking at scenes from London last June, the group in Rosalyn Schild’s front parlor, various people in front of Rosalyn’s London house. Then, quite surprisingly, she saw a picture of herself. Submit stared at the photograph. Graham had a picture of her watching from the back terrace. She had thought he had been photographing the group in the foreground; but she remembered his taking off his coat, the sight of the bright red vest, his head ducking under the camera cloth. He had focused on her. Disquieted, she set the bundle of photos down.
On the desk was an appointment book, its entries jotted in a neat, elongated hand. The pages were thick with obligations, social commitments. Rosalyn at two; the Carmichaels for dinner on the fourth of last April. Tate on June twelfth. On July third, dinner with Alfred, Minny, Lloyd, and Elizabeth. Submit opened a desk drawer. There she found clips, papers, and the plans to the opera house, a drawing of how the finished façade was supposed to look. He was still involved with theater somehow. Another drawer contained a liniment for sore muscles and a miscellany of old equestrian rosettes; they were prizes for jumping, all the earl of Netham’s, though the most recent was eight years ago. In another drawer was a ledger; Graham Wessit did his own books, it seemed—it was written in the same hand as the calendar. Neat, balanced columns showed Netham, through stock investments, to be running in the black. How surprising. This was nothing in the way of a surprise, however, compared to what the next drawer contained.
In a small side drawer was a little parcel wrapped up in brown bookstore wrap, like a book the earl had yet to open and put on the shelf.
Submit fiddled with the string, trying to see if it would untie in a manner that could easily be fixed back. The string gave. The paper unfolded neatly, but inside was not a book at all. Instead, she found a discreetly disguised half-dozen smaller packages, at first puzzling, then so alarming that Submit dropped them. They scattered all over the floor with a racket, as if she had walked under a tree suddenly shaken of raindrops—pat, pat, pat.
“Well,” she murmured, “I wanted something personal.”
She stared for a moment at the little parcels lying innocently in the light from the window on the carpet. The scrolly print on each could be easily read, right-side up, sideways, upside down: Freeman’s Safety Sheaths for the Prevention of Conception. She stooped down and began picking the things up, dropping them delicately into her skirt. Her hands shook slightly. She could feel the device inside, light as air, like a piece of paper or skin. What did it look like? No wonder the immoral creature was so sure he wasn’t the father of the new twins—
She got a moment’s warning. A noise, a yap. Submit hardly had time to stand and dump the packets into their wrapper. As she was knotting the string again, she had a witness—the earl’s English setter bounded into the room. Like a clumsy tocsin sounding the alarm, his tail whacked the legs of tables, the backs of chairs, her dress. “Easy, there,” Submit murmured, trying to keep the dog’s nose out of places it didn’t belong. She had to push his head out of the way in order to close the drawer, her heart thudding all the while, matching the rap of the silly dog’s tail.
She went out quickly, heading for the back of the house and outside, walking through a part of the house she had never seen. She got as far as the next room, a little vestibule that gave onto the back garden. There, she was stopped by Graham Wessit himself. The room was small, with a table in the middle of it. He was sitting on the far edge of the table, taking off a pair of muddy boots.
“I thought you were asleep,” Submit blurted.
Graham looked over his shoulder with an expression of pleasure and surprise. The dog circled them both. “No.” He took hold of the dog’s neck and gave the animal a shove. It went under the table and lay down.
It was a funny room. Messy. Muddy. Used. On the table were a set of spurs, some wood boot stretchers, and a pair of boots dulled by setting polish. A tin, rags, and brushes indicated servants used the room as well.
Graham turned around and looked at Submit. His smile was hospitable. “Well, how nice. I was so sure you would leave with Mr. Tate. I’m glad you didn’t.” He leaned on the corner of the table and peeled off a wet sock. He wiggled his toes. He threw the first then the second sock into a sink. The room appeared to be a kind of back wet-entrance. He offered by way of explanation, “I was out riding.” Looking down at himself, he added, “Through the mud, I’m afraid.” He had dirt on an elbow and mud down one hip.
“You look as though you crawled through it.”
He laughed. “Blasted horse.” He took off his coat. His vest was spattered. “The one from the inn. Do you remember? Mean as the devil. Fast as the wind. I don’t know whether to sell it for glue or enter it at Ascot.” At the sink, he washed his hands, glancing over his shoulder. “How long are you staying?”
“Another day.”
“You should at least stay through next weekend. It’s the fall regatta. There’ll be people, boating, nice weather with picnics. It’s really fun.” He gave her a tormenting look as he grabbed a towel. “You understand the word ‘fun’?”
She frowned at him, then was distracted. He reached the sole of his bare foot over to nudge and pet the rump of the dog.
“I’ll be taking the train back tomorrow afternoon,” she said.
“You’d be welcome to stay longer.”
“Thank you, but I only brought a few things. And I have work to do.”
“Ah, yes.” His eyes rose past her, toward the direction from which she’d come. “Been walking through the house, have you?”
“I—ah, no—”
Without a moment’s concern, he took this for yes. “It’s a wonderful old house. Nothing so grand as Motmarche, of course, but with its own charm. Would you like a tour?”
“A tour?”
“Come on. I’ll show you through.” He came round the table and moved her by the elbow. “Sit here a moment while I change my shirt.” He left her on the day couch in the library, walking barefoot into the cloakroom beyond. These rooms, with him in them, seemed very much his domain. Submit was left staring at the walls of playbills and the huge desk, its drawer of contraband.
He came back a moment later, wearing a fresh shirt, a fresh vest and carrying a pair of clean boots and half-stockings. He sat on the couch beside her, pulling the stockings on.
“Would you like some tea? I could have some sent ahead of us to the conservatory.”
“What?” She looked down. “No, thank you.”
Graham pushed his foot into a boot, stepping his heel into it, tap, tap, tap. He seemed so open, like a man who didn’t have a thing to hide. How very awkward she felt. “Did you see the Ronmoor serial this week?”
He made a sound of displeasure. “Pffs, yes.”
“What did you think?”
“That I’d like to throttle the chap who’s doing them.”
She let her eyes drift along the wall. “You must have an idea who.”
“Not really.” He tapped his heel into the other boot, then caught her eye. Another teasing look. “What about you? Could you write scathing fiction, Lady Motmarche?”
“Yes. Probably I could.” She looked away.
“That’s what I like about you,” he said. She saw a leg stretch out. He’d leaned back. “You’re so damned honest.”
At this, she felt truly awkward, then alarmed. His hand touched her back. Lightly, he ran his finger down her spine. It sent chills and made her back arch. She looked around at him. He was slouched against the wall, one knee up, eyeing her. No more smile, no teasing, just staring at her with his large, dark, morose eyes.
“I like that you’re here,” he said. “I like that you’re wandering through my house.” Before she could protest, he continued, “Trying to figure me out. When I think of your being curious enough to stay, curious enough to touch things, open—”
She stood up. “I was lost.”
“I know the sound of my own desk drawer closing.”
She looked around at him.
“Which one were you in?” He laughed and answered his own question All of them.”
He was playing with her. Honest, indeed. He knew she’d been prying and was intentionally punishing her a little for it.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
She shook her head, irritated, outmaneuvered. It was a strange sort of punishment.
He began patiently. “I was born in 1820, right here in this house. I don’t remember much, except a constant shifting of nannies. My mother and father, when I saw them, seemed rather nice. When I heard they were dead in London, that seemed a little sad, but all right too. I didn’t know them.
“Henry came on the scene somewhere after that. You know a lot in between. I married at twenty-five, had three children, one died. My wife died miscarrying our fourth. Let’s see—”
“Oh, stop—” She turned her back.
“No. I’m trying to tell you. I’m completely at your disposal. You don’t need to look around. Or read a bloody serial. I’ll tell you, show you anything you like.”
She looked at him. “Why?”
He gave the question more consideration than she expected. “Because, I suppose, I’d like a friend.” He left a pause. “And you need one.”
“No I don’t.”
“You do.”
Submit wet her lips and looked at the carpet, at the Persian patterns of red, indigo, and ivory. “I’m not sure of our friendship,” she said. “You shouldn’t trust me so much.”
“I see.” There was another long pause. “If you aren’t sure, then what were all those tal
ks at Morrow Fields?”
She didn’t know what to answer. She remembered the talks as events that had oddly thrilled her. His arrival had always meant wonder, pleasure, a peak of interest that far outreached anything else happening to her there. Even Arnold’s visits, their discussions of the machinations of the courts that bore so directly on her future, were not so enthralling. Yet there had been a burr in every conversation. Their exchanges had often been trying, sometimes mean, once out-and-out bitter. Morrow Fields had been a funny world, an unnatural place where an impossible, overstimulating friendship had existed for a few weeks.
Something made her pursue what he offered. Curiosity. Opportunism. The desire for accuracy, she thought perhaps, detail in the written text. She asked, “Why did you marry your wife? Were you in love?”
“No.” He shrugged. “I was exhausted. And tired to death of fighting all that was expected of me. It was a brilliant match. It meant money and prestige—her mother was a duchess in her own right.” He paused. “Even Henry couldn’t disapprove.”
Submit frowned as she thought for a moment. “She was the one in the serial a few weeks ago, wasn’t she?” she asked. “The society daughter of the old duchess?”
He sniffed but ended by giving her another wan, self-mocking smile. “I would protest, except the reality was not much better than the caricature.”
“What was the reality?”
Graham put his arm along the back of the couch. He crossed his legs and looked at her. He seemed to be further assessing her interest—assessing and finding it somehow all right.
“There’s not much to tell. Elyse—that was her name—had a pedigree that easily outreached the notoriety of a few ink drawings. Being sheltered from the specifics, she was deeply in love with the notion of winning a scandalous man. The duchess, at first, did not approve. In the end, I more or less courted the mother. I played a part, the engaging, raffish role associated with me since my theater days. It was a kind of bridge on which I walked back across into acceptance.”