Because Beards
Page 62
The Comte leaned close to Ophelia, his fingers creeping to her thigh. “I know what women want, and I would vouch that you are no different.”
Ophelia slapped his hand away.
“Perhaps you have less idea than you imagine.” Recalling some gossip exchanged between her grandmother and Constance the day before, she added, “If I’m not mistaken, your wife spends most of the year between Monaco and Milan, having found attractions elsewhere.”
At the other end of the table, Hamish, apparently unafraid of ruffling feathers, returned to the subject of Mr. Lawrence’s scandalous book.
“He makes some interesting observations on the classes. Men are working in dangerous conditions, given less thought than we might to a dog. It’s a travesty that the miners have been cut off from striking again. Every man deserves a fair wage and fair hours.”
This brought Lord Faucett-Plumbly’s fist upon the table. “No one in their right mind can have approved of the general strike. It brought the country to a standstill, all those men refusing to do their jobs.”
The Colonel nodded, “I heard the Prime Minister on the radio, calling it an attack on Britain’s democracy. We all have our duty. Must knuckle down, however hard the conditions, like we did in the war. More to living than personal comfort.”
The sentiment was somewhat spoilt by his helping himself to another portion of potatoes.
“Servants of Beelzebub!” grumbled Sir Hector, though at no one in particular, and without raising his head from the last scrapings of his mashed celeriac.
“Now, now,” said Morag quickly, wishing to turn the conversation to lighter matters. “Felicité, you were telling me about the cinema and these new talking films.”
“J’adore Mademoiselle Clara Bow,” mused Felicité. “Our Ophelia looks like her does she not, with her head of curls, and her passionate ways. All her emotion is in the present moment, and she does not conform. There is something noble in this, is there not?”
Ophelia felt the compliment and turned away, only to catch the eye of the Comte, filled with a certain malicious, erotic glitter. His fingers lifted her skirt beneath the table, warm on her knee, then climbing to the top of her stocking. He hooked them under the garter.
“I do believe, my little rose, that, given half the chance, you’d have every man line up to kiss your bloomers.” The Comte’s hand crept higher still, reaching the soft inner flesh of her thigh.
“Your whispered indecencies are nothing but hot air,” Ophelia hissed, endeavoring to remove the offending hand without causing a stir.
Felicité continued to babble on. “I have seen The Jazz Singer, with Monsieur Al Jolson, six times. And this Louise Brooks, they say she posed for a photograph without her clothes, and that she has kissed the belle Garbo. My secret wish is to be like the great Greta. Like me, she speaks little English, but she says all with her eyes, commanding the men to fall at her feet. She is mysterious and alluring, is she not?”
Her lashes fluttered wildly at Hamish. Ophelia didn’t for a minute believe they were real.
Hamish then rose from his seat and proposed a toast. “We are gathered here to celebrate the eightieth birthday of our beloved Lady MacKintoch. Let us raise our glasses to a life well-lived, a life of love and adventure. May we all be so fortunate.”
Having touched his glass to Morag’s, he looked down fondly at the fair head of Felicité. As glasses were raised in response, she leapt up, gasping, “Mon cœur! Mon ange!” and took a kiss from him, full on the lips.
Ophelia felt a wave of heat pass over her, and became fearful that she might faint. Bile rising, she stumbled from the table, caring not for the searing pain in her ankle, out through the library, into the conservatory, where the windows were left ajar in the summer months. She leaned out and breathed deeply, endeavoring to calm her pulse, battling the pricking of her tears.
The room smelt over-sweet, of jasmine and honeysuckle, begonias and orchids, but the cool air revived her a little.
At last, she heard a footstep. She turned, thinking that perhaps Hamish had come to find her. He must, surely! He needed to tell her that it had all been acting; that it was her he loved.
However, it was the Comte, removing his tie and dinner jacket, throwing them carelessly over a table of geraniums. He was holding a glass of brandy.
Her heart plummeted. She could see now that it was better to have no heart.
She turned to leave, but he grasped her wrist firmly. “I think there is something you have all but promised me my charming maiden.”
He brought his face close to hers, his breath sour with cigar smoke. A wave of nausea swept over her again but she held still as he kissed her, teeth raking her lips.
Voices drifted out from the library, that of Felicité laughing and of Hamish. She heard a heavily accented voice, laced with coquetry. “Really! This Colonel is telling me that my beautiful Paris is rempli with pots of flesh!”
“Fleshpots, Felicité,” corrected Hamish, “No doubt the old bugger is well familiar with them.”
Ophelia was brought back to the moment by the Comte giving her a savage nip, then growling in her ear. “Don’t lie to yourself. I know what it is that you want.”
Why not lose myself in this, and forget Hamish, thought Ophelia. Falling in love is nothing but poison.
“You wish me to tear you, little rose, to pluck off your petals and crush them. Women have many secrets, but yours are not so difficult to read.”
It would serve Hamish right to come in and catch us, thought Ophelia. “If you’ve something to show me, jolly well get on with it. My ankle is throbbing.”
There is only the thinnest of divides between what we want and what we fear, and the two often intersect. All that happened next, she thought later, occurred as if she were watching herself from a distance.
Ophelia, disgusted and yet strangely thrilled, allowed the Comte to bend her over a chaise and lift her skirts. He drew down her knickers (peach silk, at twenty shillings) leaving them at her ankles. He gave her bare bottom a vicious squeeze, and then stabbed his thumb into her slit, nestling it there, within her dark fur. He drew it back and forth, with measured relish.
“What sort of girl invites a man she has only just met to behave in this manner?” mused the Comte. “A very wicked one I think. A girl who deserves to be punished.”
The first smack of his open palm was well aimed, catching her on the underside of her right cheek. He followed it immediately with another, on the same spot, and then a third, leaving a sharp sting upon her skin.
Bastard! thought Ophelia, but whatever snake resided in her womb unfurled and shivered.
Another three blows were delivered, each sharper than the last. She went to cry out, but the shriek died in her throat. Two of his fingers found their way back to her wet lips, and slipped easily inside. Her lust, though reluctant, was molten.
“You are impatient,” whispered the Comte.
She felt then the warmth of the Comte’s manhood, his hand stroking the thickening column of his cock, rubbing it against her. He cupped her buttocks, parting them, directing his erection to her cleft. Nudging the slick tip forward, he teased her, entering little by little.
Her burning cunt grasped at him, urging him to proceed. He laughed then, knowing that he had conquered her, young and ripe and glorious. So the hunter greedily consumes its prey; too late for the bird to flutter.
She was no more than flesh receiving flesh, swept on waves of shame and excitement. The wolf in his groin rose to howl, letting her feel its full savagery, and he erupted hard, each hot spurt drenching her in delightful depravity. The carnal pleasure was not only his, as the conquering male, but hers too.
In the shadows, someone had been watching, unseen to our young heroine, although perhaps not to the Comte, whose gratification went beyond the easy seduction of silly girls. He had no compunction about consuming them, as he did the finest wines; afterwards, he cared not what happened to the empty bottles.
Steps crossed the library. Had Ophelia’s ears not been filled with her own ragged breath, and the thud of her heart, she would have heard the click of the door.
Ophelia had lain awake for hours, wracked with a terrible headache, and tumultuous feelings of shame and intoxication. She was less discomfited by her liaison with the Comte than by her naivety, of having allowed herself to be duped by Hamish. She had thrown her heart out into the ring and he had stepped upon it.
Her ankle continued to ache but the pain of it was nothing compared to the anger, and anguish, she directed at herself.
She was also aware that she had moved from her virgin state to that of having taken two lovers in no more than the blink of an eye. Some match, of incredible intensity, had been struck, and she could not imagine how the resulting fire would be quenched.
If the world at large were to offer its moral judgement, it would surely have something to say.
Ophelia scrutinized herself in the mirror. I’m corrupted and unable to be what I was before, she thought, but her reflection looked just the same, if rather weary.
I’m trying on versions of myself, she concluded, that’s all, to see how they fit. Aren’t I doing just as I planned, exploring what it means to be a woman, without becoming a dreary wife? She supposed she was but, somehow, she did not feel satisfied.
The breakfast room was quiet, most revellers from the night before having chosen to lie late abed, taking their toast and marmalade, bacon and eggs on trays. Morag was already down however, and the Comte, accompanied by his sister and Hamish, discussing plans for a trip to Edinburgh.
“Délicieux,” Felicité declared, clapping her hands girlishly. “I would so adore to see the upper apartments at Holyrood Palace. Perhaps we shall encounter the ghost of poor Rizzio, and see that mysterious blood stain which refuses to be scrubbed clean? Fifty-six stabbings! Mon Dieu! C’est horrible! Dépravé!”
“Bonne idée chéri,” declared the Comte. “And perhaps petite Ophelia will come too. There is room in the car, is there not Hamish? We might book rooms at The Caledonian.”
By the glint in his villainous eye, the Comte’s intentions were clear. In the cold light of day, they did not appeal to her.
Meanwhile, the thought of watching Hamish flirt with Felicité was more than she could bear. Let him place his hand on her knee, or wherever else he liked; she wouldn’t be there to see it.
Hamish did not give her the opportunity to answer. “I think not Comte. Ophelia is here to spend time with Lady MacKintoch. It would be unfair of us to deprive our hostess. From what I have seen, Ophelia is most accommodating to others. Even her ankle is no impediment to her efforts in this regard. You would agree, no doubt, having last night received a tour of the conservatory in her capable hands.”
He looked pointedly at the Comte and Ophelia felt her face burn.
“Our Ophelia is most passionate in all matters,” leered the Frenchman and, caddish to the last, slipped a hand between the cheeks of her bottom. Really! It was the assumption of consent she minded more than anything.
The three then took their leave, Hamish refusing to speak directly to Ophelia or to meet her eye, and Felicité in a flurry of extravagant cheek kissing.
Detestable creature! She’s pure varnish; nothing of substance… Ophelia seethed. And Hamish is simply foul. Has he no decent feeling?
The remaining guests stayed only another day before departing, allowing Ophelia to return to her former pastimes: reading a great deal; playing cards with Constance and Morag, or backgammon with Hector; learning how to knit, thanks to Lady Devonly; playing the piano; and chatting with Mrs. Beesby, helping her often (she could now make a tolerable scone).
When her ankle felt steadier, Ophelia began taking out Esmeralda again, stopping often at the cabin. Morag expected Hamish not to stay away more than a few weeks. There was so much to attend to on the estate.
She also helped in the stables and, within a short while, became quite friendly with Murray, who showed her things she’d never known about horses: how to brush them down properly and bathe them, how to clean and polish the tack, what to feed them (and not), even how to draw pus from a boil inside the hoof. It gave Ophelia satisfaction to think how horrified her mother would be.
She considered kissing Murray, even though he was barely her own age, with a face as smooth as a baby’s, but she soon realized that this would be folly. He was cordial company, nothing more. Soon afterwards, she heard from Mrs. Beesby that Hettie and Murray were courting, and felt glad that she hadn’t interfered.
Afternoon tea became a highlight. Ophelia grew accustomed to Morag’s declaration that ‘few situations cannot be transformed by a strong cup of Earl Grey’. After her third, she would evoke her other belief, that ‘a buttered crumpet cheers even the most miserable’. How we do unite over simple comforts, thought Ophelia.
Lady Devonly would agree, and there would begin tales not only of living on beetles and bananas, but of utmost violence and degeneracy, set in the snake-swarmed jungles of Dahomey. A favorite anecdote involved cannibals offering marriage to the highly respectable married persons of Morag, or Constance, or to both together. The details seemed to grow more outrageous with each telling.
Ophelia would play for them, her fingers always seeming to choose Gershwin’s Man I Love or If I Had You. Even her mother had approved of that one, since it was said to be a favorite of the Prince of Wales. She thought back to her first evening, when Hamish had sat beside her on the stool, thumping out their duets and laughing.
She much appreciated the easy chatter of Lady Devonly and her grandmother, and that of Mrs. Beesby, in the warm kitchen. Also, she came to hold dearer the murmuring streams, and the rugged mountains, towering on all sides, watching over the castle.
The solemn beauty of the estate, increasingly, gave her fortitude and a sense of contentment: the loch reflecting the ethereal depth of the sky and the grass shivering in the wind. When the rolling clouds parted, golden beams would dart across the hillside, surprising russet deer, invisible to her until they leapt away, over splintered crags. With each passing day, her eyes, though wistful, became brighter and her cheeks rosier. She would walk for hours without becoming tired, the landscape invigorating her.
In the still, dark hours, Ophelia would often rise, put on her robe, and stare out into the ink blue of the night, following the moon’s glimmer on the loch. If she gazed long enough, she thought, some mystery might be revealed. There was so much yet for her to understand, but the ancient earth and rock kept their silent council.
One day, Ophelia saw an eagle, sweeping overhead, circling and scanning for rabbits in the heather; so majestic and self-contained, neck outstretched, powerful in its independence. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she might be the same?
She had often dreamt of learning to fly, like Amelia Earhart. Not across the Atlantic (she doubted she’d be brave enough), but to soar with a feeling of freedom.
It seemed so long ago that she’d fantasized of taking a host of lovers. She knew her soul a little better now, including a few of its secret caves.
In London, it had felt as if the many doors in the long corridor of her life had all been shut, but for two: one marked ‘marriage’ and the other ‘spinsterhood’. Neither had appealed to her under Lady Daphne’s terms. Strangely, her time in Scotland had opened up the doors; some led to places she was unsure she wished to venture, but she appreciated having the choice. Morag and Constance, she felt certain, would encourage her in whatever she chose to do next.
She didn’t care what her mother thought. Her father, though a largely absent figure, was indulgent. He’d ensured a modest income for her since turning eighteen, and this would become more substantial when she reached twenty-one. She might do something interesting with it, if she had a mind to.
I might achieve anything really; do anything, she mused. Perhaps even, like Morag, I’ll head off on an expedition into the unknown. Well, perhaps not the unknown, but further abroad. The world has s
o many treasures.
It was in this contented, if not yet truly happy, state of mind that she set out for a walk around the loch, on one of the last warm afternoons of the summer. There is always a faintly melancholy air about those last days of warmth, when birds are already contemplating their flight to more temperate climes. She felt the stirrings of change; that this season was ending, and another was to begin.
Having passed through the trees on the eastern bank of the loch, she emerged into the sun and, there, what awaited her…? A view more wondrous than sun-dappled water or the solemn glitter of the stars. She saw the muscular shoulders and curve of a man’s naked back, his thighs, and firm buttocks: a man entirely stripped, ready to take a swim. A feast for any woman’s eyes but for hers especially, for who should that man be but Hamish, returned at last.
She watched him wade in, until his lower half was decently submerged, and then, hardly knowing what to say, she settled upon shouting, “I see you’re back.”
The look upon his face, startled, his head twisting to see who had called out, brought a smile to hers. In turning, he showed her the width of his chest, the smoothness of his lower abdomen, and the depth of his pelvic muscles. Ophelia took in the contours of that glorious body and he stood, silent, allowing her to do so.
He said nothing but, after some moments, began to move, slowly, and purposefully, back towards the bank, into shallower water. He revealed, inch by tantalizing inch, the last portion of his lower torso, leading into thick, auburn hair, and the solidity of his meat, well-girthed. He planted his legs boldly and folded his arms upon his chest. Ophelia could have sworn that he’d angled his pelvis forward, as if defying her not to look, as if saying: “Here it is; admire all you like!”
He gave her a smile that could have been any man’s smile, given to any woman: a smile that went back into the forest and its shaded dells, into the granite almost. It was the same smile men have been giving to women for centuries. The smile of an ordinary man’s amour, the sort that goes unwritten in the annals of history, but runs just as deep. His smile was one of complicity, of intimacies shared, and of remembrance of touch.