Grahame, Lucia

by The Painted Lady

  What I thought was the height of my passion came swiftly. I heard myself cry his name. But nothing would appease him.

  “Damn you,” he sobbed as he hammered into me mercilessly. “Damn you, Fleur.” And still I felt safe.

  Somehow he got up and pulled me upright. My arms were around his neck. He lifted me slightly, leaned me against the tree, and pulled my legs around his waist. I had thought that I could not climb any further, but already I was soaring again.

  “Say it,” I heard dimly through my ecstasy. “Why can’t you say it, you bitch!”

  He must have been slamming me against the tree, but I was as supremely indifferent to discomfort as if I were being plundered in a goosedown bed.

  I shuddered, went limp, and beamed up at him like a happy idiot.

  “Goddamn you, Fleur, I hate you,” he said with a gasp, as he came.

  He broke away from me instantly and lay down prostrate in the grass, panting. His face was turned away from me, his cheek to the ground.

  I slumped and sank slowly to my knees. Under the moon’s cruel glare, I saw the marks which bark and twigs had left on his shirtsleeves, and on his wrists, and on the backs of his hands; in some places they were all but raw. He had wrapped those arms around me, and that was why I had felt no pain as this man, who hated me, had ravished me against the tree.

  I felt a tear slide down my cheek and a sharp biting cramp deep inside, as all that would never be a child mingled and began to seep out of my exhausted body into the cold, dark earth.

  After a while, my husband stood up.

  “It’s cold, why aren’t you dressed?” he said sharply, when he had arranged his own clothing. His glance fell upon my hands, “Oh.”

  Rather than struggling with the knot, he merely drew his pocketknife and cut the ribbon with a quick, savage gesture. I supposed he must be wishing that all the ties that bind might be so easily severed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The cramping torments of my complaint did not ease until late the following morning. By the time I arose, my husband was already gone from Charingworth. I would have been really inconsolable had I not received a letter from Marguerite. She would soon be at loose ends, for L’Embuscade would close at the end of the month. For the remainder of the summer, all the theaters of Paris, except for the opera and the Comédie-Française, would be dark.

  Marguerite, who loved her work, could barely tolerate the enforced idleness that was to be her lot until she began rehearsals for a September opening.

  But, from my point of view, it could scarcely have been more fortuitous.

  I immediately invited her to Charingworth.

  Marguerite created something of a sensation at our village station. She arrived with fourteen trunks and a dozen hat-boxes, although she intended to stop with me for only a week. And she knew how to make an entrance. She paused, so charmingly, before stepping down from the carriage that all eyes were drawn to her. She smiled at everyone as if from behind the footlights. Her frank enjoyment of the admiration she had drawn resulted in a general hoisting of feminine eyebrows. While seasoned gentlemen surveyed her from the platform with broad smiles, dazzled youths abandoned their tottering, bombazined grandmothers to assist the fairy princess in her descent to earth. But there was nothing helpless about Marguerite, and with mingled sweetness, gratitude, and faint reproach she speedily dispatched each of them back to where their less bewitching duties lay.

  Upon her arrival at Charingworth, my effervescent friend showed no signs of having just completed a long and arduous journey. She admired all that met her eyes profusely— at Charingworth every keyhole was a work of art—and rebuked me for my past indifference to my surroundings. She could not be persuaded to sit down to tea in the drawing room but insisted upon being given a tour of the house at once.

  She must inspect the library, and exclaim over the venerable manuscripts and some previous baronet’s priceless collection of ancient coins; she must glide slowly through the music room and put her lovely hands to every instrument; she must glory in the view offered by each window; she must inspect every painting in the picture gallery—the Rubens, the Canaletto, the Vermeer, ad infinitum. She must rapturously examine each of the gilt mermaids who supported the arms of the Linnell sofas and be ravished by the picture gallery’s piece de résistance: a huge Pietà, which had originally graced the altar of a Florentine church but now occupied a thoroughly secular position above the chimney piece.

  “The English, such pirates!” declared my friend, studying it lovingly. At last she spun around to demand, “What! Are there no Gainsboroughs? No Sir Joshuas?”

  “They are upstairs in the portrait gallery,” I murmured rather faintly.

  “Oh, the portrait gallery! Is it next? I am very eager to see that!”

  “Then you might move a little faster,” said I, ungraciously.

  Eventually, after innumerable delays, we reached the portrait gallery. Marguerite lingered annoyingly before the first Sir Anthony, a mere knight, but unswervingly loyal to his doomed sovereign, with whom he had died at Bosworth Field, leaving a young widow and an infant son to fare as well as they might under the buccaneering Tudors.

  “I see your Anthony has something of his namesake in him,” Marguerite remarked thoughtfully.

  “I think not,” I said. “He is pure Cercy, I am afraid.”

  But I recognized my error instantly. The resemblance was there, in the calm set of the beautifully formed mouth, and in the unwavering eyes, softened only by those long, dark lashes. I wondered, shockingly, how this other Anthony had behaved in the bedroom, and how those lips had tasted.

  I felt a pang of longing. He hates me, I reminded myself. My husband does not lie. My eyes stung. I moved back from the painting to brace myself against the balustrade.

  Marguerite proceeded cheerfully along the gallery.

  “Well, you’ll look very lovely up here,” she declared at last, having sated herself.

  “No doubt,” I said bitterly. “All five of me.”

  She whirled upon me then.

  “Oh, Fleur, will the two of you never put that behind you and make your peace!”

  “What are you saying? Why, it was you who—”

  “Arranged to expose his sins to you. Yes, I know. Let me see your bedroom.”

  Greatly relieved that she had changed the subject, I led her to my private quarters and endured her effusions in praise of the chintz hangings, the carved oak overmantel, the vista from every aperture, ad nauseam.

  “And where,” she inquired archly, when she had exhausted her store of both French and English accolades, “does the baronet sleep?”

  “His bedroom is in the other wing,” I said, and added rather defiantly, “naturally.”

  “Naturally,” said Marguerite satirically.

  “Naturally,” I repeated. “I believe Théo has his own bedroom, has he not?”

  “He has,” conceded Marguerite. “I insisted upon it—separate bedrooms are essential to a happy marriage. One must always have the freedom to sleep alone. However, if Théo actually used his freedom more than two or three times a month, I think I would be exceedingly disgruntled. Well,” pressed Marguerite, “is that next?”

  “Is what next?”

  “The baronet’s bedroom.”

  “Certainly not! I would not dream of going in there!”

  “Oh, what is it? A Bluebeard’s closet?” demanded my naughty guest.

  “Indeed it is not!” I retorted. Poor Marguerite could not say anything on the subject of my husband that did not needle me. If she seemed to favor him, I felt betrayed; if she mocked him, ever so lightly, I was outraged.

  “I would not think of setting foot in there without his knowledge,” I continued rather stiffly, and immediately felt foolish, remembering how I had stolen into his bedroom in the hope of destroying that nonexistent photographic plate.

  “Oh, you English,” said Marguerite with ill-concealed disappointment. “Always standing upon
ceremony, even in your own homes! Well, what about tea? I declare, I am absolutely famished!”

  How Marguerite rhapsodized over the Niderviller porcelain and the silver Paul Storr tea service! But it seemed to be my fate to have disconcerting news dropped upon me while I was juggling cups and saucers.

  “So, your Valorys are not for show,” remarked my friend. “Théo would be wounded. Where do you keep them—in London? Or the attic?” She glanced up at the ornate plastered ceiling. “Attics, I suppose,” she added wryly.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about. I have nothing of Théo’s. I dearly wish I had. He would never sell to Frederick, you know.”

  “I mean the ones Tony bought, of course,” replied Marguerite.

  The priceless fifteenth-century apostle spoon with which I had been about to stir my tea—fittingly, it was the Judas spoon—went flying to the carpet, and it was all I could do to prevent the cup and saucer from following.

  However, I managed to set them down carefully, pick up the fallen spoon, and finally confront my friend’s innocent gaze.

  “Tony?” I said, unable to prevent sarcasm from oozing into my voice. “And when did you become such good friends?”

  Marguerite turned crimson.

  “Oh, Fleur! Do you really mean to say that you don’t know!”

  “I know nothing,” I said. “How the baronet occupies himself is a complete mystery to me—except for such sketchy but intriguing reports as I may occasionally receive from Neville and the Mansard woman. And now, it now seems, from you.”

  “Impossible! Why it was all your doing!”

  “My doing! My dear Marguerite, you are thoroughly mistaken.”

  “But it was you who kept insisting that Neville must visit Théo’s studio! Surely you remember how he finally managed to corner Théo on your wedding day!”

  I continued to gape at her in angry confusion, for I did not see what this could possibly have to do with my husband.

  “Well, Neville found Théo’s work… challenging at first, but it so fascinated him that he kept coming round and soon he decided he absolutely had to own one or two of Théo’s more accessible canvasses. He was dying to show them to Tony, but, as you know, your husband never had any time for Neville during the first few months of your marriage. However, Neville brought it off at last, and after that nothing could have kept Tony out of the studio. He has such a passion for color…. Are you angry, Fleur?”

  “Not in the least,” I lied. “Please, tell me all.”

  “Well, Tony would have bought the lot, I think, but he did not wish to seem greedy, so he brought round some of his radical friends, and Théo has now become quite a sensation with the most daring collectors.”

  “Really? And when did all this occur?”

  “Oh, let me think… his first visit was a few weeks before you came to Paris for that dreadful meeting with Germaine’s father. I assumed that you knew then—in fact, I rather feared you might suppose that was my reason for seeming to take Tony’s part—he having become a sort of patron of Théo’s, you know. And then, when I heard from you again, when you were so very unhappy, I was indescribably relieved to think that you still knew you could turn to me!”

  “And so ready then to betray your husband’s patron by arranging that meeting between me and Madame Mansard! Really, Marguerite, how do you contrive to serve such opposing interests?”

  “Is that what you think!” Marguerite fairly flung down her cup as she leaped from her chair. She then threw herself on her knees at the foot of my own chair and looked at me piteously. “Forgive me, Fleur. Perhaps I was wrong to meddle. But how can Théo and I take sides when we are so fond of you both? I wanted only to bring the two of you together. I thought that besides impressing Tony with how little right he had to sit in judgment upon you and extract some horrid kind of penance—what was it, exactly? You’ve never told me, you know!—Germaine might also show you the danger your marriage was in before it was too late. I never intended it as a betrayal. One can scarcely fault Tony for taking mistresses after all you have told me! But neither could I overlook his cruelty to you! Do you call that double-dealing?”

  Cruelty. I thought of the silks and perfumes, the diamonds and the white-brass bells. Which of us was indeed the crueler one? I burned with discomfort as I recalled how I had seduced my husband among the apple trees, exploiting what must have been for him no more than a demanding biological urge, without the smallest regard for the concerns he had expressed about children. No wonder he hated me.

  How could I melt that hatred? Why did I yearn to?

  “Did you ask him why he never brought me to Paris with him when he came to visit Théo?” I asked irrelevantly, after a long silence.

  “Of course I did, but you know how he can be. He simply drew the blinds in that way he has and said something about your being disinclined to travel. I hoped that meant we might be receiving happy news from you shortly; however, it was not to be. It is no wonder—separate bedrooms, separate lives! Where is Tony now?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know. I might as well ask you,” I admitted sadly. I reached out and took her hand. “Never mind, Marguerite. I know you meant well. To tell the truth, I rather wish you had succeeded in your object.”

  Marguerite got off her knees and returned to her chair. There was a little flush upon her cheeks.

  “Ah, does that mean you are more favorably inclined toward your ‘Sir Galahad’ these days?” she asked hopefully.

  “And if I were? He hates me, Marguerite.”

  “Surely not! I have never had that impression from him!”

  “And why would you? You are my dearest friend, and he is very adept at concealing his emotions. I myself did not suspect the full degree of his antipathy until lately.”

  “I am sure he does not hate you. His manner with you may be calculated to make you feel rather small. I saw how it was when Théo and I called upon you in Paris, but even with all that, I can tell you this: He was a good deal happier then than I have ever seen him when he is apart from you. Oh yes, it would break your heart if you knew—he mopes like a lovesick dog.”

  The woman could not help herself, of course. She was an actress and had the characteristic disease of her profession: a compulsion to dramatize, embellish, and romanticize even the most arid incidents and situations.

  “Perhaps he is yearning for his Three Graces and Mrs. Hawkes,” I said bitterly, unwilling to allow myself to entertain any notion that he might still care for me. “I doubt they travel with him when he calls on you. No, Marguerite, I will not deceive myself. He hates me. He has told me so point-blank, and he never lies.”

  “So you choose to believe him.”

  “I have no reason to believe otherwise.”

  “It suits you to believe him, since you hate him.”

  “I do not,” I said. “That is so far from what I feel!”

  I thought of the reckless, unrestrained passion he had revealed to me, and of my joyous response to it—until its source had proven to be hatred.

  “Ah? At last you begin to see what you have thrown away.”

  “I have learned that perhaps I do not know him quite as well as I imagined I did,” I conceded.

  “I do not think that is quite all,” said Marguerite softly. She had been watching me carefully. “You really must give serious thought to how you feel, Fleur.”

  “I have learned not to think about how I feel,” I countered, not wishing to reveal all the confusion that had been plaguing me lately and to which I had, in fact, begun to give a great deal of thought. “Thinking too much about how I felt was what brought my life with Frederick to ruin,” I continued, but with more uncertainty than conviction. “Introspection is very morbid. I will not indulge in it again. These days I try to confine myself to thinking about what needs to be done. And then to grit my teeth and do it.”

  “Ugh, how disagreeable,” said Marguerite with a little shudder. “I would not adopt your philosophy for all the world!
Was that how you spent your honeymoon? No wonder he has mistresses and you sleep alone!”

  In spite of its unpromising beginning, in the end Marguerite’s visit was a great success. How painfully I would have otherwise felt my loneliness during those long summer days without even the briefest communication from my husband! Besides, I had absolute faith in Marguerite’s goodwill, and once I had accustomed myself to her and Théo’s improbable friendship with Anthony, I felt oddly bolstered by it, although I am afraid I continued to resent the easy familiarity with which she bandied his nickname about.

  But I put off charging her with the commission I had decided to entrust to her, and several days—very pleasant ones—passed before I dared to broach the subject.

  “I have decided to leave Anthony,” I told her rather grandly one afternoon, and was immediately punctured by her crushing reply.

  “Mon Dieu, Fleur, don’t be absurd! How can you leave a man who has left you?”

  “I mean,” I amended quickly, “I have decided to leave Charingworth.”

  “I think you must be crazy,” she pronounced. “First you snub your husband. Now you want to turn your back on all this splendor!”

  “Anthony will be very glad to see the last of me. His only reason for avoiding Charingworth is that I am here. He loves this house.”

  “Do you mean that he wants a real separation! I can hardly believe he would court such a scandal!”

  “Why not?” I said with a sigh, yet rather proudly. “He cares nothing for what society thinks. He would not live a lie to please even the Queen herself!”

  “Oh, you don’t speak of him at all in the way you once did,” observed Marguerite. “What admiration there is in your voice! What feeling!”

  “You must help me, Marguerite! I have told you that Anthony hates me and wishes to be rid of me. I accept that. He cannot—or will not—forgive me for the way I deceived him. I accept that. I have done other things to set him against me still more, if such a thing is possible. I cannot go on living here.”