“Please,” I whispered.
“Please what?” he demanded softly.
“Please, I want you,” I said, but I knew I had failed him in some way.
He brought his lips to my ear as he began fingering me delicately once again.
“Use my name,” he said.
I resisted for only a second or two. He moved his hand away.
“Please, Anthony,” I gasped. It was the ultimate defeat.
He pushed me down upon the pillows, jammed my thighs further apart with his knees, and drove himself into me. I started to cry out against the force of his thrusts, but my cry was transformed before it left my lips as my pleasure shot toward its apex. He laughed softly and withdrew from me so abruptly that I had to choke back a whimper of loss. My body lifted itself to him.
I called his name, pleading.
When he took me again, it was even more roughly than before. The earlier taste he had given me only sharpened my hunger for this. All my pretenses had fled.
“Look at me,” he said, and when I did, he was smiling down at me, but it was as much a smile of triumph as of anything else. I knew my own face was transparent. My eyes closed again, as he dragged me downward: I was falling like Lucifer, but falling into heaven, not out of it.
At last his body dropped against mine. For a moment I was intensely aware of every sensation; his silky hair falling on my cheek; the aroma and warm, dewy texture of his skin; the exhausted cadence of his breath. Then nothing.
I awoke to the sound of that slow, steady breathing. The fire still burned upon the hearth. I could not have slept, I supposed, for more than five or ten minutes.
I stared up at the ceiling, and I thought of my husband, to whom all that had just passed had been merely an exercise in power and revenge, and I thought of Frederick, whom, even at my most abandoned, I had never embraced quite so passionately. Frederick, to whom I had never given all that this unloved, unloving stranger had won from me.
It was too painful to contemplate—it led to the familiar thoughts of all those other things I ought to have done long ago and had not. They began, and ended, as always, with my failure to rouse myself from my own sorrows in time to have saved Frederick, to whom I’d sworn my love, from that dreadful, sordid death.
My husband stirred. I glanced at him cautiously, longing to lose myself in him again and wishing simultaneously that this night had never been. I would have given anything, then, to find myself back in that first shabby Parisian garret with my laughing artist, who had loved me, even if he had perhaps never roused me to quite that same pitch.
I had often thought that if I could imagine the circumstances vividly enough, if I could make every detail perfectly concrete, if I could somehow concentrate my mind sufficiently, I might, by the sheer force of will, be able to transport myself back into that old life… and mend it.
I closed my eyes and tried to let the studio take shape— the stacks of canvasses leaning against the wall, the cold northern light pouring through the windows, along with a little bite of chilly air. The fire was burning and the room was heavy with warmth. The familiar odor of garlic drifted upward from Madame Lemestre’s kitchen below to mingle with the heady aroma of oil of cloves, which Frederick used to keep his paint moist and plastic.
I was almost there….
And then Frederick stood before me—wasted, mournful, and accusatory, the river mud clinging to his grave clothes and to his tarnished hair. I tried to move toward him; he lifted a skeletal hand to arrest me in my steps.
“Oh, what have you been doing, mon fleur du mah” he cried in a strangled voice. And then, with a look of unspeakable reproach and sorrow, he drifted away, through the high, draughty window of my past, to dissolve among the snow-covered rooftops beyond, a lonely, restless, disappointed shadow.
That old, sweet love could not save me now.
“Oh, Frederick!” His name broke from my lips in a low, raw whisper, a whisper of resignation and farewell.
My husband pulled away from me and sat up.
I pressed my hand to my mouth. To think what he had uncovered in me that night! I was well on the way to proving the truth of his cruel predictions. And then what will become of the cast-off Lady Camwell?
“Perhaps you need to be alone,” he said.
I did not refute him.
He got up calmly from the bed and began to dress. I longed for him either to hurry and go or to change his mind and stay, but he did neither. He was infuriatingly methodical, but he appeared abstracted and thoughtful as he secured each button.
Finally he stood over me with his shoes in one hand and his tie in the other.
He must have seen the anguish in my face.
“I want you to remember one thing,” he said in a very quiet, steady voice. “It was not my faithlessness which brought you to this.”
It was insupportable—to be accused of faithlessness by one husband from beyond the grave, and by the other, of the faithless spirit in which I had taken my marriage vows.
“Get out,” I said in a harsh whisper. And then, as a final fillip, I added, “Anthony.”
Of course, it had no effect on him. He merely turned and left silently, still enveloped in that inviolable air of dignity.
When he was gone, I ripped off the bells and flung the flimsy broken chains in the direction of the door through which he had vanished. I tried to yank off the diamond choker as well, but the clasp did not yield, in spite of its alleged weakness, and in the end I removed it in the usual way and restored it neatly to its little red leather tomb.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
By the time I descended the stairway the following morning, after taking my breakfast in bed, my husband had departed for London. The ensuing fortnight dragged itself by in leaden shoes.
He did not communicate with me. I knew not when I might expect the pleasure of his company again. I was bored to distraction.
None of the scholarly tomes in my husband’s vast library could hold my attention. I wandered about the grounds with my sketchbook, making little drawings in a desultory fashion, abandoning them before they were complete, and reviewing all too frequently that last night with my husband.
I had been unnecessarily cruel.
I tried to dull the sting of conscience by reminding myself of the unkind accusation of faithlessness he had flung at me. But I could not pretend that it was unjustified or that he had spoken cruelly. I still could hear the echo of his voice, laden with something like regret. I felt a twinge of regret myself, and shame as well, as I recalled my viperish response.
One morning, toward the end of April, a parcel arrived from Grosvenor Square—the first event of any possible interest to occur since my husband’s departure. I could not imagine what it might contain.
I had it taken to my bedroom, where I opened it at my leisure a little while later. But first, in order to relieve my ennui, I teased myself by speculating upon its contents for nearly twenty minutes.
My patience was not pleasantly rewarded.
Within the parcel, wrapped in tissue paper, was a flamboyant dancer’s costume of scarlet tulle. It would not even reach my knees and was alarmingly low-cut. There were black stockings, a pair of black net fingerless gloves, and a throat band of black velvet as well.
With a kind of fascinated dismay, I picked up the little envelope which had been nestled amidst the tulle and opened it.
“I will expect to see you in this when I dine with you in your sitting room on Thursday night. A.”
These presumptuous words were the extent of my husband’s communique.
So he would be home on the following night—and imagined that I would dress up like a little ballet girl to welcome him!
Which is, of course, exactly what I did.
I have said that I was suffering profusely from boredom.
Fortunately, I possessed a long, heavily embroidered, Japanese silk robe—a relic of my brief years of luxury in Paris. I was wrapped in this when dinner was brought
to me and the dishes arranged upon a small table which had been set up before the fire.
Outside the heavens were pouring rain, but my sitting room had a bright and festive air. The table had been laid with a strip of gilt-trimmed, amethyst Indian silk over the white damask cloth; its centerpiece was a brass bowl of nasturtium flowers.
I was in a deplorably immature state of high-keyed spirits. But no one could have guessed this from my face or manner; I had every juvenile impulse firmly under control as, arrayed in Japonic splendor and sphinxlike dignity, I waited for my husband to join me.
Only after the servants had left did he enter my room and break my pose, for—impulsively—I rose to greet him. But although we had not seen each other for fourteen days, his “Good evening” was as casual as if we had not been apart for ten minutes.
He took his place at the table. I had started to take my own seat in the chair opposite his, when he stopped me by lifting his hand.
“Stay as you are,” he said, so I stood beside the table and subjected myself to his cursory inspection.
“You may as well remove your robe,” he told me. “It’s surely warm enough in here.”
I slipped out of the robe and laid it over the back of my chair. My husband examined me long and thoughtfully. I reddened under his gaze, but apparently not enough to please him, for at last he said,
“You’re very pale. I like my women to have more color. Why don’t you do something about your face.”
This made me burn even more. I had already applied the barest touch of carmine to my cheeks—knowing that he liked it—but much more than that would have been indecent.
“Ladies don’t paint their faces,” I demurred, and then flushed even more deeply as I considered the flagrantly unladylike image I already made.
“No, ladies don’t,” agreed my husband, with placid good humor. “But you shall.”
And with that, the wretch actually snapped his fingers. This sent me to my bath chamber to employ the rouge pot more industriously, while my husband waited before the covered dishes at the table.
I painted my lips and my cheeks carefully and was about to join him again—I almost fancied that I could hear his impatient fingertips beating a faint tattoo upon the cloth-— when I paused to study my reflection one last time and to assure myself that the results of my efforts did not border on garishness.
And in that instant, I could not avoid noticing how vividly the picture I presented contrasted with the bloodless, ashen creature I had been until so very recently. Paint or no paint, I now looked brilliantly alive.
I remembered, with a surge of confidence, how I made my husband shiver and moan, and it occurred to me that perhaps I had not yet fully tested my powers. I had a sudden, intense urge to jolt him once again out of that attitude of cool restraint.
I went back to my rouge pot and applied more carmine, in a brazen, but what I knew to be an undeniably alluring, manner. Then I excavated, from my dressing case, a little jar of kohl which Frederick had given me years ago, that I might better represent his vision of the harem slave. With this I lined my eyes. After a final self-inspection, I returned to the table.
I had the profound satisfaction of hearing my husband’s sharp inhalation, but he collected himself swiftly.
“That’s a little better,” said he in a tone of tepid approval.
I observed that in my absence he had rearranged the chairs at the table, so that my place was on the side perpendicular to his rather than opposite.
“Now you may serve me,” he announced.
At this I mutinied.
“If you feel you must be waited on, why not ring for a footman?” I suggested.
“Is it beneath you? Very well,” he responded pleasantly, as he got up from his chair and reached for the bell-handle.
I made a move for the robe which I had left lying over my chair, but it had vanished. I shot my husband a look of real terror. He withdrew his hand with a victorious smile.
Well, he had won that round.
I lifted the covers from the dishes and began to fill his plate. Although I had served Frederick his dinner countless times when we’d been poor, tonight my performance was far from adept. My hands shook with a combination of self-consciousness and mortified pride. Under my inexpert fingers, the steamy interiors of the silver dish covers rained little droplets upon the napery; I dribbled the gravy; I clanged the serving spoons against the china.
When I had finished, my husband pointed wordlessly to his empty glass. I filled it with wine, but not without spilling a little tear or two of Château-Lafitte upon the cloth.
Never had I felt so awkward and clumsy.
“Now you may take your seat,” said my husband.
And then, to my astonishment, he rose and began, with infinite grace, to serve me.
At the end of that almost silent meal, my husband took a small leatherbound book from his pocket.
“Do you read Latin?” he asked.
“Of course I don’t,” was my quick and scornful reply. “My grandmother did not raise me to be a bluestocking,” I added.
“No?” he said. He moved his chair closer to mine, leaned back in it, and, reaching under the table, began to stroke my black-swathed leg. His fingers drifted just above the stocking top and lingered there. I closed my eyes and commanded myself to be as still as a pillar of salt.
“And just what did she raise you to be?” he inquired eventually, withdrawing his hand.
“A lady,” I told him.
He laughed.
“Indeed?” he said with a look that made me wonder whether he had somehow inferred the full truth about my upbringing. I flushed guiltily. His gaze dropped to my breasts, where the rouged aureoles of my nipples rose over the neckline of my costume. “And what would she think of you now?”
“She would be very sorry for me,” I invented self-righteously.
“Then I’ll make her sorrier still,” he said with a smile, and I knew he meant not her but me.
He opened the little book and handed it to me.
“You have a most enchanting voice,” he said, “although you rarely use it to say the things I want to hear. Tonight we will change that.” He pointed to the top of the right-hand page. “You may start there.”
In my ignorance, I stumbled a little over the meaningless words, written in a dull and lifeless tongue which surely deserved its fate of entombment between the faded covers of dusty little books.
My husband did not subject me to the pointless exercise for long.
“Shall I tell you what it means?” he asked before I had even reached the bottom of the page.
“If you like,” I replied indifferently, handing over the book.
“If J like!” said he with a laugh. “Don’t you want to know what you’ve just said to me?”
“Well, all right then,” was the best that I, half curious, half reluctant, could manage.
“Those are the words of Ovid,” he informed me. “From The Loves. And this is the meaning of what you have just spoken:
“Each thing has its place, yours is my bed,
And once you have come to it
Fill it with rapture;
I’ll have no modesty there.”
I felt my skin grow warmer. He went on:
“But once you have left it,
Your wildness must go, love.
In my bed alone will you ever be free
To fearlessly savor your secret delights.”
His voice was like a caress. His eyes were on me, not on the book. I flushed more deeply.
My husband pushed back his chair and came round to my side of the table. Laying down the book, he continued, softly:
“In my bed alone you must never feel shame To throw both my clothes and your own to the floor…”
His left hand slid down my throat and lifted my right breast free of my scanty bodice.
“To lie with your eager thighs open beneath me…”
He drew me to my feet.
&
nbsp; “There it is right for our tongues to kiss…”
He twined his fingers in my hair and pressed his mouth to mine. Our tongues kissed. He held me tighter and moved his mouth away to whisper in my ear:
“There may your splendid and boundless desire
Put every invention of love to the test….”
He let me go. I sank back into my chair.
“A disgraceful translation,” he said. “I’ve improvised liberally, I’m afraid. But what did you think?”
My answer was a soft exhalation, half a laugh, half a sigh.
“We’ll read more, if you like,” he offered. “But not tonight. Too much instruction all at once dulls the appetite for it. Good night.”
With one last smile, he walked toward the door.
I clung to the arms of my chair and swore that this time I would not call him back. And if I did not? Could he resist me? Would he really go?
“Sleep well,” he tossed over his shoulder.
The door closed behind him.
I walked up and down the carpet until my blood had stopped pounding. Then I stripped off the despicable tulle, put on my plainest nightdress, and got into bed.
Sleep well, indeed!
I could not sleep at all. I wanted my enemy’s hands on me. I wanted to feel his breath on my cheek, or that wolfish mouth at my throat. I wanted to hear him sigh. I ached to extort from him, once again, a helpless moan of passion and desire.
After a rather long time, I got up and, after still more hesitation, washed and repainted myself and changed back into my earlier attire. Then I put on my Japanese robe; the edge of a sleeve, peeking out from beneath the sofa pillows, had betrayed its hiding place.
I was not pleased to discover, upon being admitted to his quarters, that while I had been tossing in my bed, my husband had been happily occupied with his beloved photographic equipment.
There it was, all set up and gleaming: the big studio camera, with its leather bellows body, set firmly upon a sturdy, three-legged stand of polished oak. My husband, still fully dressed, was cleaning lenses. How I hate the way the male mind can skip from a woman to a piece of mechanical equipment as easily as a squirrel leaps from one tree to the next!
Grahame, Lucia Page 21