The Touch

by Colleen McCullough

  “Papa,” he said, bowing and kissing Sung’s hand.

  “My dear boy, you look wonderful.”

  “Come on, all aboard!” said Ruby impatiently, hand ready to press the electric bell that signaled the engine room high above.

  She’s hungry to have us all together, thought Lee, helping Sung into the car. My mother just wants everybody to love everybody else, and everybody to be happy. But that is impossible.

  IT WAS ELIZABETH at the door to welcome them in, and Ruby, dying to see Elizabeth’s reaction to the unexpected guest, pushed Lee in front of her and Sung.

  How is it to see the one woman after so long? For Lee, it was pure pain, a twisting of everything inside him that sent agony and grief and sorrow and despair winging to his mind, so that he saw a blurred phantom composed of all those emotions, not Elizabeth.

  Smiling, he kissed the phantom’s hand, complimented her on her appearance, and passed on into the drawing room to leave her greeting Ruby and Sung. Alexander and Constance Dewy were there, Constance coming to kiss him, squeeze his hands, look at him with a speaking sympathy that puzzled him. Only when he was safe in a chair did he realize that he had not seen Elizabeth.

  Nor did he, really, at dinner; with only six sitting down, Alexander elected not to fill the end places, so Lee was at one end of his side and Elizabeth at the other. Sung was between them, Alexander opposite him, Constance and Ruby beyond.

  “Not socially acceptable,” said Alexander cheerfully, “but in my own home I’m at perfect liberty to put the men together and leave the women to their feminine conversation. We won’t linger here for port and cigars, we’ll go out with the ladies.”

  Lee took more wine than was his custom, though the food, as excellent as ever—Chang was still master of the kitchen, he was told—kept him reasonably sober. Back in the drawing room for coffee and a choice of cigars or cheroots, he foiled Alexander’s plans for a seating arrangement by pushing his chair back from the others, isolating himself from the merriment. The room was glaringly lit, the Waterford chandeliers now equipped with electric bulbs instead of candles, the gas wall sconces converted to electricity too. It’s so harsh, thought Lee. No lovely pools of shadow, no soft greenish glow from the gas mantles nor caressing gold light from candles. Electricity might be our fate, but it isn’t—romantic. Merciless, more like.

  From this position he could see Elizabeth with startling clarity. Oh, so beautiful! Like a Vermeer painting, brilliantly illuminated, every detail defined. Her hair was still as black as his, its soft waves coaxed into a huge bun on the back of her head without the rolls and puffs that had come into fashion. Did she ever wear a warm color? Not in his memory, at any rate. Tonight she was in a steely dark blue crepe dress whose skirt was fairly straight and lacked a train. Most such were beaded, but hers was plain and devoid of tassels, held in place by straps across her shoulders. The sapphire and diamond suite of jewels sparkled around her neck, in her ears, on her wrists, and the diamond engagement ring dazzled. The tourmaline, however, was gone; her right hand was bare of any rings.

  A spirited conversation was going on between the others; Lee drank in her face and spoke to her.

  “You’re not wearing your tourmaline,” he said.

  “Alexander gave it to me for the children I would have,” she said. “Green for the boys, pink for the girls. But I didn’t give him any boys, so I took it off. It was so heavy.”

  And, to his amazement, she reached into a silver box on the table next to her chair, withdrew a long cigarette and groped for the box of matches encased in a silver jacket. Lee got up and took it from her, struck a match and lit her cigarette.

  “Will you join me?” she asked, her eyes lifted to his.

  “Thank you.” There were no messages for him in that glance, just courteous interest. He went back to his chair. “When did you begin to smoke cigarettes?” he asked.

  “About seven years ago. I know ladies don’t, but I think your mother has rubbed off on me—I find that I don’t care very much what other people think these days. I confine them to this after-dinner sojourn, but if Alexander and I are in Sydney and eat in a restaurant, I smoke my cigarettes, he smokes his cheroots. It’s rather amusing,” she said, smiling, “to watch the reactions of the other diners.”

  And that was the end of their talk. Elizabeth smoked her way down the cigarette with dainty enjoyment while Lee studied her.

  Alexander had collared Sung and was talking shop.

  Flexing her fingers unobtrusively, Ruby prepared to go to the piano; an annoying stiffness was creeping into her hands, an ache that was worst in the morning. But Alexander and Sung had come to some contentious point and wouldn’t thank her for playing at the moment, and Constance sat dozing over her glass of port—she was acquiring elderly habits. Having nothing better to do, Ruby stared at her jade kitten with an enormous rush of love. He was gazing at Elizabeth, who had turned to listen to Alexander and Sung, presenting Lee with her flawless profile. Ruby’s heart crashed to the bottom of her chest so tangibly that her hand went to it, clutched her waistband. Oh, the look in Lee’s eyes! Naked longing, total want. If he had gotten to his feet and begun to tear Elizabeth’s clothes off, that would not have been any clearer a statement than the look in his eyes. My son is utterly in love with Elizabeth! For how long? Is that why—?

  With a lunge that woke Constance up and terminated the talk between Alexander and Sung, Ruby got up and went to the piano. Strangely, she found power and expression in her fingers that she had thought gone forever, but this wasn’t an occasion for Brahms, Beethoven or Schubert lieder. This called for Chopin, Chopin in a minor key, those poignant ripples and glissandi so full of what she had seen in her son’s eyes. Unfulfilled love, haunting love, the yearning that Narcissus must have felt as he tried in vain to capture his own image in the pool, or Echo as she watched him.

  So they stayed late, entranced by the Chopin, Elizabeth smoking an occasional cigarette that Lee always lit for her. At two o’clock Alexander asked for tea and supper sandwiches, then insisted that Sung should stay the night.

  He walked with Lee and Ruby to the cable car and started the engine—its boiler always stoked—himself rather than summon the stoker ahead of time.

  In the car Ruby took Lee’s hand in hers.

  “You played so beautifully tonight, Mum. How did you know I felt like Chopin?”

  “Because,” said Ruby bluntly, “I saw how you looked at Elizabeth. How long have you been in love with her?”

  His breath caught; he expelled it in a gasp. “I didn’t realize I gave myself away. Did anyone else notice?”

  “No, my jade kitten. No one noticed but me.”

  “Then my secret’s safe.”

  “As safe as if I didn’t know it. How long, Lee? How long?”

  “Since I was seventeen, I think, though it took time for it to sink in.”

  “That’s why you’ve never married, why you don’t stay here for very long, why you ran away.” Ruby’s cheeks glistened with tears. “Oh, Lee, what a bitch!”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” he said dryly, fishing for his handkerchief. “Here.”

  “Then why did you come home now?”

  “To see her again.”

  “Hoping that it had gone?”

  “Oh, no, I knew it hadn’t gone. It rules me.”

  “Alexander’s wife…But how detached you are. When I said he might divorce her, you didn’t seize on that, you demolished my argument instead.” She shivered, though the air was summer warm. “You’ll never be free of her, will you?”

  “Never. She means more to me than my life does.”

  She turned to him and flung her arms around him. “Oh, Lee! My jade kitten! I wish there was something I could do!”

  “There isn’t, Mum, and you must promise me not to try.”

  “I promise,” she whispered into his waistcoat, then gave a throaty chuckle. “There’ll be rouge all over you, cuddling me. That will lead to gossip in t
he laundry.”

  He hugged her closer. “My dearest mother, it’s no wonder that Alexander loves you. You’re like a rubber ball—always able to bounce back. Truly, I’ll be all right.”

  “But are you going to stay this time, or run?”

  “I’m staying. Alexander needs me, I knew how badly when I saw Papa. He’s abdicated from all save his Chinese identity. No matter how much I love Elizabeth, I can’t desert Alexander. I owe everything I am to you and to him,” Lee said, then smiled. “Fancy Elizabeth smoking!”

  “She needs the whatever-it-is in tobacco, but cheroots are a bit too strong. Alexander has her cigarettes made at Jackson’s in London. It’s very hard for her. All she has is Dolly.”

  “A nice child, Mum?”

  “Very sweet, and with just enough intelligence. Dolly won’t be a Nell, she’ll be more like the Dewy girls. Smart, vivacious, pretty, educated to a level appropriate for a female of her rank. So she’ll marry some eligible young man Alexander will heartily approve of, and perhaps give him some male heirs at last.”

  Two

  Enlightenment

  THE SIGHT of Lee after so many years came as a profound shock to Elizabeth, who hadn’t dreamed that he was back. Admittedly her husband had been in a jaunty mood when he arrived, but she put that down to a successful trip away, to some alluring new venture germinating in his fertile brain. A part of her was curious as to what he was up to now, but she didn’t ask him when he breezed in. He sought his bathroom to remove the travel stains, then lay down for a nap before he changed into evening dress for dinner. While he was thus occupied she gave Dolly her supper, bathed her, put her into her nightgown, and read her a bedtime story. Dolly loved stories, and promised to be a reader.

  She was such a dear little girl, exactly right for Elizabeth—not terrifyingly clever like Nell, nor backward like Anna. Her hair had indeed darkened to a streaky pale brown, but it had kept its ringlets, and her big aquamarine eyes were windows on to a tranquil soul. She had dimples in her cheeks that turned into adorable tiny pits when she smiled, which was often. A kitten had come as an experiment to see how she would treat it; when Suzie (actually a neutered male) proved a success, it was joined by Bunty, a neutered male dog of small size, floppy-eared and yearning to please. They went to bed with Dolly every night, snuggled one on either side of her—not a sight that impressed Nell, who talked of ringworm and roundworm, fleas and ticks. To which Elizabeth replied that the animals were bathed regularly, so when these afflictions appeared she’d start to worry, and she hoped that when Nell had children of her own they wouldn’t be smothered under a blanket of hygiene.

  Caring for Dolly had melted Elizabeth a little; she just couldn’t maintain that rigid self-control when faced with all the dramas of a basically happy child’s life, from grazes and cuts to the death of a pet canary. Sometimes she had to laugh, sometimes she had to hide tears. Dolly was maternal heaven.

  She didn’t appear to remember Anna at all, called Elizabeth “Mummy” and Alexander “Daddy” unself-consciously, though Elizabeth suspected that somewhere inside her mind hid memories of those days with Anna, for occasionally she betrayed knowledge of Peony that definitely went far back into Anna’s time.

  The worst of it was that Dolly couldn’t go to school in the town. Did she, some spiteful or thoughtless child would be sure to tell her about her real mother and debatable father. So for the moment Elizabeth tutored her. Next year, when she turned seven, she would have to have a governess. No matter what our children have been like, Elizabeth reflected, we have never been able to send them to an ordinary school, which is a tragedy. Even Dolly has the Kinross taint: too different to blend in.

  Telling the child of her real parents haunted Elizabeth, who tormented herself with questions no one could really answer—not Ruby, and certainly not Alexander. What was the right age for such a hideous shock? Did one do it before puberty, or after? Common sense said that no matter what age was chosen, Dolly would be scarred. That was all right, but what if she warped rather than scarred? And how do you tell a sweet, harmless girl that her mother was mentally retarded and the victim of a monstrous man who fathered her? That her mother’s nursemaid murdered him in the most horrific way, then was hanged for it? Many a night saw Elizabeth’s pillow wet with tears as she chewed and fretted over when, where, how she could ever tell Dolly what Dolly had to know before the cruel world got in first. All she could do was to love the child, build a foundation of security and unconditional love that would serve as a support against the awful day. And Alexander, grant him that, had been equally caring, far more patient and forthcoming than he had been with his own daughters, even Nell. Nell…A lonely young woman, hard, tough, sometimes ruthless. No place for boyfriends in that life! When she wasn’t slaving over her medical textbooks or enduring the sarcasm of her teachers, she was supervising Anna’s imprisonment. Elizabeth suffered for her, yet was aware that Nell would despise her for suffering. To be an Alexander was one thing, but to be him in a female guise was quite another. Oh, Nell, choose some personal happiness before it’s too late!

  As for Anna—that was unbearable. When Nell had banned her from visiting the house in Glebe Point Road, Elizabeth had fought back fiercely, only to come up against all of Alexander’s steel. A losing battle, just as her life with Alexander had been a losing battle. But to lose it was made infinitely worse by the knowledge that, underneath, she was pathetically grateful to be banned. Oh, the relief of not having to see what Anna had become! Yet the grief of admitting that she, Elizabeth, was never strong enough.

  SO ELIZABETH went downstairs ahead of Alexander to make sure that his instructions about the table seating had been followed. If they were dining alone or only Ruby was joining them, they did not bother to dress, but Constance was here, and Sung was coming plus one other as well as Ruby; Elizabeth had dressed. Rather indifferently; there were plenty of new costumes in soft pastels in her wardrobes, but out came the dark blue crepe, out came the sapphires and diamonds.

  One of the latest innovations in the house was an electric buzzer that sounded when the cable car reached the top; usually Alexander answered it by going to the door to wait, but tonight he still hadn’t come down when the buzzer sounded. Elizabeth went to stand watching Sung and Ruby coming up the steps, someone behind them. Then suddenly the mystery guest was in front of them, eyes fixed on her—blindly? Lee. At times like this—but had there ever been a time like this?—Elizabeth’s long, self-imposed training in outward composure clamped down, put a polite smile on her face, kept her backbone straight. But it was the thinnest of veneers; beneath it the emotion expanded like the huge billow of dust that followed a blast in the limestone quarry, and with the same sense of utter upheaval. She knew that if she moved she would rock on her heels, that her legs would fail her, so she stood absolutely still while she said something inane to welcome him, saw him pass on to greet Alexander, coming down the stairs, stayed on that same spot to exchange pleasantries with Sung and Ruby, let them go past her. Only then, as they clustered around her husband, did she try to move. One foot forward, then the other; her legs worked, she could continue.

  And thank God for Alexander, who had placed her on the same side as Lee, but not next to him; she concentrated upon Ruby, opposite her and bubbling over with joy at Lee’s return. All Elizabeth had to do was interpolate an occasional yes or no or mmm. That generous soul Constance Dewy apparently felt the same way, for she too let Ruby rattle on.

  While Ruby rattled on and Constance listened eagerly, Elizabeth tried to come to terms with the realization that she was totally, desperately in love with Lee Costevan. In her private thoughts she had always deemed what she felt for him as an attraction, something that didn’t really matter. Everyone experienced attractions from time to time, why shouldn’t she? But the moment she saw him after seven years of not seeing him, Elizabeth understood herself at last. Lee was the man she would have chosen of her own free will to marry, the only man. Yet had she not married Ale
xander, she would never have met Lee at all. Oh, life is cruel! Lee is the one man, the only man.

  Even afterward in the drawing room, when Lee elected to sit removed from everyone, the turmoil inside her did not let her see anything in him that might lead her to hope—oh, what was she thinking, hope? Thank God he was indifferent! In that lay her salvation. If he had loved her back, it would have been the end of many worlds. Though why did Ruby play Chopin, and only his yearning, exquisitely sad pieces at that? With a feeling and a dexterity her arthritic hands should not have allowed her. Every note fell through Elizabeth as if she had been made of cloud—or water. Water. I met my fate at The Pool, and for fifteen years I haven’t known it. Next year I will be forty, and he is still a young man who lives to seek adventure in distant lands. Alexander has dragged him back to take the place of the sons I didn’t have, and his sense of duty has forced him to obey. For though he feels nothing for me, I can tell that he isn’t happy to be here.

  When he looked at Ruby, which he did for long periods, she could look at him with the delicate clarity that admitting her love had given her. But there was no one to see how she looked at him; her chair did not permit the others to see her face. Once she had called him a golden serpent to Alexander, but now she understood all the nuances in that metaphor, and why she had chosen it. It wasn’t accurate, it sprang from her own suppressed feelings and had nothing to do with what he really was. He was the personification of sun and wind and rain, the elements that made life possible. The odd thing was that he reminded her of Alexander: the colossal masculinity that knew no self-doubts, the keen and technical brain, the restlessness, the radiated power. Yet the one she couldn’t bear to touch her, the other she hungered to have touch her. The greatest difference between them was her love, withheld from the one entitled to it, given to the other without hope of its ever being returned.