There is this young woman in Hampstead, the story goes, who visits her doctor for a checkup. The doctor says, "And how are you feeling?" She says, "I feel well, really. Only, as you know, I am a widow. I have no love life." He says, "What do you want—you’re in the same boat as all the married women in Hampstead." I learned the truth of the story, without regret, when my husband said to me after the first few years of our life together, "You bore me in bed. You are too passive. And you have no sense of humor." I didn’t even ask him where the sense of humor came in.
How could I be hurt by his utterance, with Gordon ever present in my mind? Gordon had locked me up in his heart, had thrown the key away, and had walked off into suicide. He had broken with me suddenly, without my being prepared for it. He said, "It’s got to finish. I shan’t see you anymore."
I said, "You have another girl, have you?"
He said, "Yes, I have, and I’ll be sick to death of her in six weeks’ time. But that is not the point."
I said, "What’s the point?"
He said, "Sexually I’d never tire of you—I could go on with you forever. But it’s got to end."
I said, "Why?"
He said, "Because I’m afraid of what I might do to you. Look what I’ve done to you already. You are enslaved to me—you can’t take a single step without me. I don’t want to get rid of you, but I must." And then, forcing a jovial air, he added, "I’ve been eating you and drinking you and sleeping you. I have pleasured you. I have listened to your girlish babble—I, a highly qualified man. Have you anything to complain of?"
"No," I said.
Gordon was a psychiatrist, which made him a highly qualified listener. When I first met him, he had recently left the navy and taken rooms and surgery in Queen Anne Street off Harley Street. Gordon was not a soldier. He was a sailor. He was not meat. He was fish. And just as fish is to be eaten on Fridays and as Lenten fare, when meat is not allowed, in days of penitence, so Gordon meant for me torture, but torture leading to salvation. He also meant my being forced to disclose myself to him, being accepted, and being taken to his bosom. Shortly before the break Gordon said to me, "I’ll hold you forever. Because I’ll always find new ways of torturing you."
It is my own torture, I suppose, to continue to ask myself how it came to be that the two most important men in my life were both doctors. I cannot say why, except that I am certain that, rather than the pale similarity of their profession, it was the difference between Gordon (who was dead) and my living husband-to-be that urged me to make the marriage. Gordon was an obscure psychiatrist with a long term of service in the navy, while my husband was a cardiologist of international standing, with much research and many publications to his credit. By choosing him, by going eagerly into the marriage that way, was I not telling myself that I did not regret Gordon’s suicide, that I had replaced all that, that I felt—had forced myself to feel—I had risen above a past of such sorrow?
WHEN THE TELEPHONE rang at half past three one afternoon last January I almost didn’t answer it. Living, as I did, on the Italian Riviera, with Monte Carlo less than an hour’s drive away, across the frontier, none of the people I was friendly with would be likely to call at this hour. They were expatriates, as I was, mostly retired and at leisure, who rested after lunch and were not disposed to be affable until later in the afternoon.
I took up the receiver, saying "Yes?" in a high, languid voice, ready to be annoyed. A man’s voice said, "Mrs. Richardes?"
I did not know the voice. It was a full, hard baritone. I knew at once that here was an Englishman, ruling class, and no nonsense about it. I also knew he was precise and careful. He had not pronounced my name sloppily, as most people did, as "Richards," but had sounded the d and the s, giving the e between its full due.
I said, "Yes, speaking"—this time in a quite different voice.
He said, "I’ve got your letter in front of me. It was sent to me by our house in Paris."
I said, "Where are you?"
He said, "In Geneva."
I said, "But that costs so much."
He laughed faintly.
I recognized the laughter, indulgent, politely amused, which I had not heard for—what was it?—nearly thirty years. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I put an elbow on the bedside table, resting my forehead on my free hand. I closed my eyes in a foolish attempt to shut out my present surroundings and to be flooded by a wave of the past.
A few heartbeats later he said, "I see here in your letter you say that your Odiot tea set is 1808. How do you know? Who told you that?"
I said, "Nobody told me, personally—no expert, that is. My husband told me."
He said, "Your husband was wrong. Because with Odiot you can never tell the year, not like with other hallmarkings. Your Odiot can just as well be 1815, for all you know."
"I see," I said, humbly.
We were talking about silver. Odiot is the greatest silver-smith in France. They started making silverware for Louis XIV, continued for Louis XV, and then for each succeeding reigning monarch, including Napoleon. They are still the most celebrated manufacturers of their kind in France.
He said, "Is it white silver, or vermeil?"
And, pleased at having understood him, I said, "White silver." By now I not only had recognized his laughter but also knew exactly what he looked like. Besotted as I was by the sound of the smilingly indulgent voice, I found my reasoning perfectly logical. And following this same benighted line, I also knew that anything I were to tell him would be received with interest and without judgment; it would be the same as it had been with Gordon. If I had said that I had just been strangling my father with my mother’s guts, he would have accepted the news with a mildly cheerful "Ah, yes."
"Those candlesticks, that pair," he said. "Nearly twenty pounds’ weight between them—you are sure of that, are you?"
I said, "Oh, quite. That’s written down in an inventory I dug out. For the customs. That’s when my husband sent them to Chiasso. I never set eyes on them—only photographs my husband took before the candlesticks were packed up for storage. Figures of a man and a woman. Ghastly ugly. Called ‘Nymph and Faun.’ Mind you, I know that beauty doesn’t enter into it, when it’s a case of rare silver. But I have a horrible feeling that they are not Renaissance at all. My husband thought they were Renaissance, by wishful thinking, but he never got an opinion on them. What if they are Victorian, of the most terrible period?"
He said, again with his caressingly indulgent laugh, "Don’t worry. Even if they are Victorian, there is a market for them. A very decent market."
"Just as well," I said. "As long as they are sold. It’s not the— I don’t care. I’m not starving. It’s just that I’m sick and tired of hanging on to something I’ve never even seen, and paying money for it year in, year out."
He said, "And it’s stored in Chiasso, in customs-free deposit, is it?"
"Yes, it’s been there for thirty years—that’s to say for thirty-two years, really, but in the letter I wanted to give a round figure."
He said, "Ah, yes."
"They are stored in a crate," I went on. "I saw it once. I was in Lugano at that time, and I went to Rosecrans, in Chiasso. I just walked to Rosecrans from the station, and then we walked round to the free-bond office with one of the Rosecrans employees. That was in ’72. Now we are in ’90: how long ago is that?"
"Eighteen years," he said pleasantly.
I said, "You must be mad. No person in their right mind could tell this straight off."
"Go on," he said, laughing faintly.
I said, "The crate was brought out and put on the scales. The weight was right, sixty kilos, and the crate looked right, too—not interfered with, you know. And then it was shoved away again."
"How big is the crate?" he said.
I said, "When it’s stood up it’s about like me. I’m just five foot. And it’s insured for fifty thousand francs, against fire and theft and whatever."
"Ah, yes," he said. "And the payments
have been going on for thirty-two years now?"
"Yes, my husband said it must never be sold, ever, because it might be very valuable," I said. "He had this thing that the longer you keep something, the more valuable it gets. And to Rosecrans I pay twenty-five francs a year for their Mühewaltung—do you know what that means?"
He said, "Indeed I do—it means that Rosecrans have the administration of it. Am I right?"
I felt gratified at this expertise of his, just as I had felt gratified before, when I mentioned the name of Rosecrans, the big international moving-and-storage firm, and he knew who was meant. He seemed to know, as well, that the Rosecrans office was in Chiasso, at the southern tip of Switzerland.
"But I have a problem," I went on.
He said, "Ah, yes, do tell me."
"The silver is in my husband’s name. And my husband is dead, but they don’t know it. What if they get sticky? What if they refuse to let go of it? You see, we’ve got a trust in Liechtenstein, of which I am the sole whatever-you-call-it. But what if my husband forgot to get the silver included in the trust? I have several last will and testaments—one made out in Lisbon, by an English lawyer there, and another one done in London, when my husband just happened to be there. They’re all valid, with two witnesses, and they’re all the same, leaving everything to me absolutely. Would I need to show them?"
"Tell me," he said. "These storage fees, how much are they?"
"Five hundred francs a year," I said.
"And ever since your husband’s death, did you make those payments in your own name?"
I said, "Of course, though I’m afraid I have no receipts for them."
"There is no problem. You don’t say anything, you just go to Chiasso and take the crate out. How long is it since your husband died?"
I said, "Three years."
He said, "That’s perfect," and he laughed faintly.
"But there’s another problem," I said. "There will be customs duty to pay once I take it out of bond."
He said, "You won’t take it out of bond. I’ll take it out of bond. I’ll take everything out of your hands. Don’t worry. I’ll do the worrying."
I said, "But how can I get hold of you so that you can do the worrying for me?"
He said, "I’ll write you a letter. I’ll drop it in the post tonight."
I said, "Thank you," into a void. He had rung off.
I was again conscious of the beating of my heart, not as jumpy as before but slow and strong now, giving me signals of warning in the way that opinionated people do in serious conversation, putting a heavy accent on every word.
IT WAS NOW THURSDAY in the first week in January, and it had been before Christmas that I had gone to Monte Carlo, to the Palace of the Sporting d’Hiver, on the viewing day of one of those stupendous auctions put on by Brentford’s several times a year. I was living in Bordighera, a cultural desert, and I looked upon these shows as banquets to make up for my periods of starvation.
It was a warm, brightly sunny afternoon, on which one did not remark because one took it for granted. The main hall, with its display of early-nineteenth-century French paintings, starring names like David, Géricault, and Legros, was densely crowded, and, seeking an interval of repose, I wandered off into a narrow adjoining room, brilliantly lit, and lined with glass cases filled with silver. This, too, I learned, was part of the display; the auctioning of the rare silver was to follow that of the paintings, the next day.
Here several young women of the staff were standing about, all cast in the same mold—blond, tall, flat-figured, thin-lipped, their straight hair fastened in ponytail fashion with black velvet bows. They were old-maidish despite being in their early thirties, and I wondered whether Brentford’s had a preference for their kind or whether their kind had a preference for Brentford’s.
It was only then that I noticed that there was one man present as well. He had been hidden from my sight before, standing in a corner, and now he was coming forward to meet me. It was he who triggered and set in motion the fateful events that were to follow, not only because he was in charge but because of his aristocratic looks and large brown eyes with no glimmer of feeling in them. Seeing him, I decided to enter into the game of teasing pretense.
He came toward me in a leisurely way, obviously undecided whether I was worth his customary "May I help you?"
I said in French, "I have an Odiot tea service."
The effect of my words was remarkable. Halting in front of me with flattering abruptness, the young man said, "Oh, yes?" And soon I had a chorus of thin-lipped, ponytailed maidens around me, shrieking with pleasure at the news that I had a case with sixty kilos of silver in deposit in bond in Switzerland for which payments had been made over the past thirty years. Their merriment grew so loud that another of their ilk came in from the main room, telling us off because we were making such a din.
The young man gave me a card with the Paris Brentford’s address, asking me to let him have further details and giving me to understand that my obstinacy in holding on to the silver was both ridiculous and wasteful.
When I got home, I was still in the mood of provocative teasing, wanting to find out what the silver might be worth, without the slightest intention of putting it on sale. I wrote him a letter. I gave the overall weight of the Odiot, which was made up of a stand, a teapot, a milk jug, a cream jug, a sugar bowl, and a cake dish. I gave the weight of the pair of candlesticks as roughly nineteen pounds, and described them as being two-branched figures of nymph and faun. I wrote "nymph & faun," feeling that the entwined ampersand made the letter look more businesslike. I addressed him not as "Dear Sir" but by his name on the card, Du Cross–Lafalaise, noting with satisfaction that I had been right in judging his looks as aristocratic. I put my name and address at the head of the letter.
And now, still sitting on the edge of my bed, and recalling the scene in Monte Carlo, and running through in my mind the wording of my letter to Paris, and feeling the signal of my emphatically beating heart, I suddenly felt like gasping for breath.
The man from Brentford’s in Geneva, whose name I did not know, had called me on the telephone. This meant that he had gone to the trouble of finding out my number after reading my letter, which had been forwarded from their Paris office; that he had not intended to write me a letter, which I might throw away; that he had meant to apply shock and surprise tactics; that he meant to force answers out of me for which I could not have prepared myself beforehand; that he did not mean to let go. And recalling his laugh, and his looks, which I felt sure I knew, I thought how like Gordon he was, in invading and taking possession before one had time to defend oneself.
When I had first met Gordon, in the late afternoon of a mild, gray-skied day in June, he had picked me up in a pub in Mayfair, where I had gone on the off chance of meeting one or several groups of my friends who used to gather there almost daily. Without my being aware of him, he had suddenly stood behind me, taken the glass I was holding out of my hand and placed it on the windowsill, grasped my wrist, and said, "Let’s go somewhere else." And I, as though rendered senseless by the pressure of his hard thumb against my pulse, had found myself outside with him before I could gather my wits. He violated me on the bench in the garden of a house in Kensington where he was living in rooms. He had taken me there to show me the grounds, and I had agreed, believing that as long as we kept in the open air there could be no danger of any amorous advances. I had gone on believing it while strolling with him on the graveled paths of an ill-kept Edwardian garden, with tall old bedraggled trees, and shrubs whose foliage had been blanketed by the sooty London air. I was listening only halfheartedly as he told me of his disgust about his years in the navy, when he stopped in front of a bench. Halting in midsentence, Gordon threw me backward onto the bench and, remaining upright on his feet, showed me without any words how mistaken I had been. On that day in June, just like the man from Brentford’s in Geneva, he had been nameless.
It was four days after the telephone c
all that I received the promised letter from Geneva, if letter it could be called. There were two cards in the envelope, both printed, the larger with Brentford’s Geneva address and "With compliments," the smaller the card of Brentford’s Mr. E. Byrnes Forbes, with the same address and his direct-line telephone number. He was a Brentford’s man, then—I hadn’t been certain—but was acting on his own in our transaction. He had written a large scrawl on the bottom of the bigger card—his signature, done in a few slanting dashes, in which not even an E, or a B, or an F could be made out. I now sent him a letter saying, "Let’s do it at once," as though harping on our intimacy and wishing to disguise the meaning to anyone else who might be reading it. Then I added, "At your earliest convenience," to mask my feverish desire to meet him.
He rang me up three days later, saying, "Mrs. Richardes," in his precise pronunciation, and without giving his name.
I said, "I wrote you a letter."
He said, "I’ve just got it. I’ve been looking at my diary. Would the first of February suit you?"
I said, "And what—"
He said, "It’s a Thursday."
We both repeated, "Thursday, the first of February," in unison.
He said, "And where shall we rendezvous?"
"At Rosecrans," I said, "because they are in charge."
He said, "How will you get there?"
I said, "By train. I haven’t got a car. There is, I think, a train at a ghastly hour, something like seven in the morning, I’m not sure, but I think, I think. It’s via Milan and change there. I think I’ll get to Chiasso by one o’clock."
The Darts of Cupid: Stories Page 21