Vintage Love

by Clarissa Ross

  “If you’d like,” she said softly.

  His smile lit his face from within. “Just your saying that has given me added interest in the project!”

  Soon Enid moved on to talk with some of the other guests, but she was conscious of Kemble’s presence all the while. He seemed to be everyone’s favorite.

  On the drive home, Andrew sat beside her in sullen silence and tugged abstractedly at his white brocade evening jacket. Then he glanced at her and demanded sourly, “Why did you decide to make me look ridiculous at the party?”

  She gave him a puzzled look. “I don’t understand.”

  “You spent so much of your time with that actor Kemble!”

  “Surely there was nothing wrong in that,” she said. “I met him at my fencing instructor’s studio.”

  “Most people would think, from your actions, that you’d been gracing his bed!” Andrew snapped.

  “Don’t judge me by your habits!”

  “Come to think of it, you may have been doing just that,” he went on. “You certainly acted as if you’d met before. Touchingly intimate!”

  “I’ve just told you, we did meet before!”

  “So you did. Well, I will depend on you not to sully my name by giving him your simpering attentions again!”

  Enid flashed him a hateful look. “How dare you, sir!”

  “The man is not a proper person for you to associate with. The Drakes shouldn’t have had him at their party. He is not of society.”

  “I disagree with you! You are sorely mistaken!”

  “The facts speak for themselves. The man is an actor!”

  “And why aren’t actors suited to society?”

  “They are buffoons, itinerant entertainers, paupers with nothing more than an elegant facade!”

  “I prefer an elegant facade to a rotting interior.” Enid turned her back on her husband and ended the conversation.

  • • •

  Two days later, when she went to Gustav’s for her fencing practice, she found him alone in his lodgings.

  “Susie isn’t here,” he announced. “She’s gone back to Kemble.”

  “Only to his company. You can’t hope to keep her off the stage with her talent.”

  Gustav agreed cheerfully. “She should do what she enjoys. And now Kemble has eyes for no female but you, so she is safe from him.”

  Enid stared at him in disbelief. “You’re jesting!”

  “No, it’s the truth. Kemble is like a lovesick calf. It’s amusing, really. I think it’s because you whipped him at fencing.”

  “It must be,” she mused, “for I have never given him the slightest bit of encouragement. At least I don’t think I have.”

  “I know that. But John Kemble is a moody fellow, and you’ve apparently pulled him out of his doldrums. You could do him a great deal of good.”

  “I wonder.”

  “I’m sure of it. Besides, it seems my own cause is lost, so I may as well plead his.”

  She laughed. “Silly! You know that I’m deterred by the same problems in both instances. I am a married woman.”

  “I think it’s the other man, the one you were so mysterious about. He is the one who must be exorcised from your mind before you can be free to love properly.”

  “I’m resigned to never seeing him again,” she sighed. “He is caught up in the French troubles.”

  “The Bastille has already fallen, and God knows what will happen next.” Gustav shook his head. “I’m glad I chose to live in England.”

  Enid eyed him worriedly. “Will it be much worse?”

  “Heads will topple like rotten apples falling from the trees in late autumn.”

  She sighed again. “Ours was only a brief acquaintance, but I believe I loved that man at first sight. I think we could have been very happy.” Enid’s expression was wistful. Then, as if in an effort to cast out unhappy thoughts, she straightened her shoulders and flashed a warm smile at Gustav. “It is in the past now. Perhaps I am lucky to have Kemble in love with me.”

  “Have you ever seen him play Romeo?” Gustav asked.

  “No. I’ve never seen him perform at all.”

  “I’ll take you this afternoon,” the Frenchman promised. “Susie is doing Juliet. It is a part she has always played well. And I think seeing Kemble in the role of Romeo will give you a glimpse into his soul. You’ll appreciate what a tender, romantic fellow he is.”

  “I have found him gentle of nature thus far.”

  “He will never disappoint you,” Gustav promised.

  Drury Lane was crowded that afternoon. On the way inside, Gustav nodded to a bewigged, full-faced gentleman who was talking with several companions in the lobby. “That is the very eminent playwright Richard Sheridan,” Gustav whispered to Enid. “I’m sorry to say he and Kemble have very different ideas about how Drury Lane should be operated. Sheridan is part owner of the theater, while Kemble is only the manager.”

  “What is the problem, then?”

  “Gossip has it that Sheridan is going to send Kemble and his sister, Mrs. Siddons, packing as soon as their lease is up. Mark my words, that would be a real pity.”

  The theater was almost filled by the time they took their places in the dress circle. After a moment Gustav whispered to her, “Glance over at the dress box on the lower right level and you will see Prince George the Fourth.”

  She looked in the direction Gustav had indicated and saw a handsome man talking to a group of four equally well-dressed people, two ladies and two gentlemen. He was poised and elegant, very much a member of the British royal family.

  “At least he appears in control of all his faculties,” she remarked, “unlike what we hear about the king.”

  “You can be assured of that,” Gustav agreed.

  The curtain rose on the great Shakespearean play, and Enid, along with the rest of the audience, found herself enthralled throughout.

  When the curtain came down for the last time, she knew herself to be one of Kemble’s most dedicated admirers. The solemn actor had given the best performance of the romantic tragedy that she had ever witnessed. It appeared that many people in the audience felt the same. There were numerous curtain calls, and at the final one Kemble led Susie out with great dignity. The crowd went wild, and Enid could see that Susie was crying with joy.

  Enid and Gustav went backstage to visit Susie in her tiny dressing room. The actress ran to Gustav and threw her arms around him.

  “Thank you for allowing me to return to the stage!” she exulted, her tears still flowing. “Did you hear the cheers and the applause?”

  The Frenchman kissed her soundly. “I felt I was sharing it with you!”

  “You were!” she exclaimed. “You made it possible for me! Now you must go and speak with John while I change my clothes.”

  Enid and Gustav proceeded down the dimly lit corridor to Kemble’s larger quarters. A dozen or so fans were milling about, congratulating the actor and getting his autograph. Not until they had departed and Kemble was about to disappear behind a screen to shed his costume did he notice Enid’s presence.

  His soulful brown eyes were full of joy as he came forward and grasped her hands. “Dear Lady Blair,” he said huskily. “You did come to see me after all.”

  “And I am the richer for it,” she told him.

  Her hands lingered in his for a long moment, and their eyes met and held, as they had at the Drakes’ party. Later, Enid was to remember this silent gaze and consider it the beginning of their real intimacy.

  He ended the magic moment by saying, “I’m having a light supper at my place—you must join me! There’ll be just the four of us and my servants.”

  Enid made a feeble protest, but Gustav overwhelmed her with his insistence that she join the party.

  So it was that not too long afterward she found herself seated at the round oak table in the actor’s modest lodgings. Kemble made a charming host, and the roast mutton was the best she had ever tasted. Gustav and
Susie were in a happy, romantic mood, holding hands and exchanging kisses as if they had just discovered each other.

  Kemble leaned toward Enid and said with a smile, “I swear they indeed have a love match.”

  “Did you doubt it?”

  “I did at the start,” he admitted. “I found Susie much more rewarding as a stage love.”

  “You were not the right man for her,” Enid ventured.

  “I know that now.” His eyes sought hers as he added, “Since I have met the woman who I am confident can completely fulfill me.”

  Enid felt her cheeks burn and quickly turned her attention to her wine glass. Then Gustav and Susie announced that they were leaving. Enid was about to rise from the table when Kemble stopped her.

  “I shall see you home later,” he said. “I wish to show you those sketches of my proposed new production of Hamlet. This is an ideal time.”

  “Very well,” she agreed a trifle nervously.

  They saw the couple off, and then Kemble led her into a candlelit room that served as his den. From a sheaf of papers he withdrew several sketches of stage settings and costumes.

  “My idea is to do the play in its own period,” he explained. “The current trend is to do it as a story of our time, which spares the cost of scenery and costumes. But I’m sure this production will be more authentic for capturing the right atmosphere.”

  Enid sat on a small divan with him, going over the drawings he had placed on her lap. “They are excellent!” she declared.

  He brought her another glass of red wine and held it between them, his serious face brightening with a smile. “To the success of the project!” He sipped from the glass and then handed it to her. She sipped some wine as well and placed the glass aside to meet his impassioned embrace.

  Enid was never clear afterward as to what had actually happened in those first frantic moments of realized love. She remembered his warm lips on hers, the caresses of his gentle hands on her shoulders and bosom, then being lifted up as effortlessly as if she were a snowflake and carried into his bedchamber.

  Slowly, with infinite care, he removed her clothing until she stood before him naked, bathed in a golden glow from the lamplight. She felt no shame, only a deep hunger to be possessed by him. Kemble divested himself of his own garments, revealing a compact, lithe body, and crushed her to him. Enid trembled at the feel of his throbbing maleness and clung to him as he placed her on the bed.

  To each caress, to each flick of his tongue over every inch of her body, she responded with soft moans, writhing in an almost unbearable state of desire. She lost all sense of time and space, conscious only of the delicious, incredible sensations coursing through her. At long last, Kemble arched his flanks and penetrated her moist flesh, driving slowly at first and then harder, bringing them both to a peak of rapture that exploded again and again until they were enveloped in a glow of peacefulness.

  John caressed her brow and sought her lips once more. Enid returned his kiss feverishly, wrapping her arms around him as if she feared losing him.

  “You know this had to be, my dearest,” he murmured.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “I love you as I have loved no one before.”

  “And in you I have found the perfect lover.”

  His smile was melancholy. “My only fear is that what we have is too good. It is a thing apart. A precious union like ours could not withstand the tests of an ordinary mating!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you are wed to a jealous, cruel man who will not let you go because he needs you to protect his appetites. And I am wed to my profession to such an extent that I could never be a satisfactory husband. I could never give myself wholly to a woman, even to one I love as deeply as you.”

  Inexplicably, Enid knew he was right. Their passionate melding was a delicate flame. And, like a delicate flame, it could be quickly snuffed out by the buffeting winds of the everyday world.

  “What are we to do?” she wondered.

  Kemble stroked her breast and felt the pink tip grow taut beneath his fingers. “We must be thankful for what we have. We must cling to it, knowing full well that it must remain a thing apart.”

  “And will you forbid me your bed one day, as you have done with others?”

  “Never,” he vowed.

  “I want your love always!” Enid declared unabashedly.

  His lips nuzzled the warm hollow of her throat. “And you shall have it, dearest. From this day on, no one will love you as I do.”

  “And if we part?”

  “We shall part,” he said sadly. “That is why our being together now has a special meaning. We know it may be of a short duration, but it is very important to us. And whether you break off with me first or I with you, we will always have this link between us. You will live forever with the memory of our union, as will I.”

  These words, declaimed with deep sincerity by the emotional actor, could not fail to affect her greatly. They seemed burned into her mind. She accepted their inherent truth, just as she accepted the fact that in Kemble she had found what she desperately needed at the moment.

  • • •

  Their trysts continued, requiring little strategy on Enid’s part since Andrew had a new lad in whom he was seriously interested. Graham Farnsworth had come to the house as a page and soon found himself in her husband’s bed.

  Andrew now referred to Graham as his private secretary, and the youth accompanied him everywhere. They had attended a party given by Prince George, who, it was claimed, had twitted Andrew heartily about his “son.” Andrew had brazened out the awkward moment by stating that he was indeed considering adopting the lad.

  Kemble continued to draw large audiences to Drury Lane despite his quarrels with Sheridan. Susie was once more a favorite among his leading ladies. Gustav and Enid often attended the theater together, after which the four of them would seek out a small tavern or enjoy a repast at Kemble’s flat.

  It was now openly understood among their intimates that Enid and Kemble were lovers. She was able to spend many a late afternoon and evening with him because Andrew was so enthralled with his latest discovery. She no longer cared what her dissolute husband did, or with whom, except that she worried about his incessant gambling.

  Reports of Andrew’s profligateness had reached even her father’s ears. And when he and her mother came up to London for a few days in mid-November, Lord Alfred approached his daughter in a concerned fashion. “Do you know all you should about your husband’s finances?”

  “Not nearly enough,” Enid admitted.

  She and her father were seated opposite each other in the sitting room of the suite he had engaged for his stay in London, located above the Swan Tavern.

  “What I have heard is most disquieting!” he told her, leaning forward and tapping his walking stick impatiently.

  Enid looked down at the worn green carpet. “There is much gossip about Andrew and his new boy.”

  “It was for that very reason that I refused your hospitality,” Lord Alfred stated. “I will not sleep under the same roof with someone who abuses my daughter by openly proclaiming to all that he is a lover of boys!”

  “I have grown used to it, Father.”

  “More’s the pity,” he retorted angrily. “I speak so frankly because your mother is out to tea with her old friend Mrs. Deacon. If I were you, I would immediately dismiss this Graham from the household staff.”

  “He is my husband’s employee, and even if I should force Andrew to release the youth, he’d replace him with someone similarly oriented. Graham, at least, tries to be agreeable to me.”

  “I owe nothing to your husband now,” her father growled. “I hate myself that I ever did.”

  “You mustn’t feel that way.”

  “I do. It was to make my debt to him easier that you were given to him in marriage.”

  “I made the decision, remember?”

  Lord Alfred studied her sadly. “You w
ent through with it because I was ill and in financial trouble. And you doomed yourself to a life devoid of love.”

  “I have found love outside my marriage,” Enid said quietly.

  “The Frenchman? I thought you hadn’t heard from him—that he was caught up in the revolution over there.”

  “He is. I was not referring to him, but to another man, here in London.”

  Her father’s face paled. “I trust you have not become one of those socialite baggages who allow themselves to be laid behind every screen and in every secret corner!”

  Enid blushed fiercely. “I have not become promiscuous, Father!”

  “I sincerely hope not! Don’t destroy our name because Andrew Blair has seen fit to let his own grind into the dust!”

  “There is only this one man. We shall never marry and we may not be lovers for very long, but right now I’m grateful for him, and he seems thankful for my love. And when we part, it will be as friends.”

  Lord Alfred stared at her. “You are saying some very strange things, my daughter. Are you sure this man is not merely using you for his own purposes?”

  “I am quite sure.”

  “And what about this other fellow—your Frenchman?”

  “He is different. I would marry him and live with him all my life if I could. But, alas, that is not likely to be. I have given up all hope of ever seeing him again.”

  Her father nodded. “With things so calamitous in France, you are wise to resign yourself to that.”

  “So, for the time being, I have the love of an honorable man.”

  “Do I know him?”

  “I think not. He is not of society, but of the arts.”

  “A painter?”

  “I would rather not divulge his name,” Enid said, “but I know you would approve of him if I did.”

  Lord Alfred shook his head. “A sorry age we live in! I wish you had a proper husband, a home, and children!”

  Enid attempted to change the subject. “You mentioned my husband’s finances, Father. What have you heard?”

  “My banker tells me Andrew is slowly selling off his assets and gambling the proceeds away. His house in the country is already gone, as well as his Arabian horses and prize Guernseys. When he runs short of cash again, it will have to be the London town house. And then what?”