by Sara Seale
When she had bathed Pierre and tucked him up for the night, she lingered in her own room, inspecting her wardrobe for garments of seduction. There were depressingly few, for the trousseau she had bought at Bart’s bidding had not included extravagant frivolities that might be deemed unnecessary, and she wished now that she had been more lavish in her expenditure. Lucy sighed, wondering how other brides knew, by instinct, the way to their husbands’ desires. Scent ... yes, she had that ... make-up, which she had always considered looked silly in bed and came off on the pillow case, and, yes, there was one transparent nightgown she had never worn, with a little lace jacket that added chic but little covering. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and was surprised to find she was blushing. It was rather shocking, perhaps, this deliberate search after seduction, and she was relieved to hear the gang summoning her down to the special meal Gaston had prepared.
After dinner she was restless and decided to wash her hair so that everything about her should smell clean and fragrant, but it was a mistake, she decided, trying to dry it in front of the fire, a panic-stricken eye on the clock; the pins and net slowed up the process, and there was still fresh make-up to be applied. In the end she took the pins out in desperation and shook the hair free, hoping that the damp ends would not dry straight. She splashed scent on too lavishly so that she was obliged to open a window to disperse the heavy perfume, and that made the fire smoke. “Really!” exclaimed Lucy in exasperation to her flushed face in the mirror, “the path to seduction is fraught with difficulties! How do other people manage?”
But when, at last, her toilet was complete, and she had time to think and feel, her confidence began to ebb away. Also she had drunk more wine than usual at dinner to give her courage, and felt a little lightheaded. It was nearly eleven o’clock and no one stirred about the house now. He might not notice the flowers ... he might be very late ... he might not come at all ... Upon that dismaying thought she heard the sound of his car and, later, the faint thud of the front door closing. He would, she knew, have his usual nightcap before coming up, and she looked at the door between their rooms. Should she leave it open, she wondered, to point the message of the flowers? No, perhaps just ajar so that he would see her light and know she was not asleep. She sped across the, room in the flimsy nightgown which she privately considered rather too transparent for decency, set the door carefully ajar, then took a flying leap into bed and prepared herself to wait.
It seemed a long time before she heard his footsteps in the corridor and the opening and shutting of his door. He must have turned up the lamp, for a bar of light appeared suddenly between their rooms, but he had not, it seemed, noticed that the door was ajar. She listened to the sounds of his movements, drawers opening and shutting, the creak of a wardrobe door; then the light went out abruptly and the door between their rooms softly closed.
Lucy propped herself on her elbow, not knowing what the next move was. Had he not seen the flowers or understood the invitation of the open door?
“Bart!” she called, then, more loudly, “Bart ... please come in.”
The door opened after a silent moment and he stood there, his hands thrust into the pockets of his dressing gown. His face remained in the shadow.
“Did you want something?” he asked with chilly courtesy.
“Yes,” she answered shyly. “I—I want you.”
He moved slowly into the circle of light shed by the lamp and stood looking down at her. The freshly washed hair fell softly on her bare shoulders as she lifted up her face; her eyes were shy and soft, and he could see the pulse beating in the hollow at her throat and the quick rise and fall of her breasts under the revealing bodice of her nightgown. The expression on his own face was curious, his eyes assessing her coolly as they travelled slowly over her, bringing the colour to her cheeks. He touched her lips with the tip of one finger and examined the small pink stain-left there.
“Do you usually wear lipstick in bed?” he enquired with raised eyebrows, and she thought of Paul’s tart allusion to a well-scrubbed face.
“Tonight is different,” she answered.
“Oh?”
He was not going to make it easy for her, she saw, and wondered if she had picked the wrong moment.
“Are you tired?” she asked, searching his dark face for a sign of encouragement and finding none.
“Not particularly.”
“Oh ...” She tried again. “Did you—did you notice my flowers on your dressing-table?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “And the door left ajar. The point was taken. Why don’t you come right out with it, Lucy?”
The enormity of her own boldness suddenly struck her; he would think her forward and presuming even a little cheap.
“There’s nothing to come out with,” she said hastily. “I’m sorry, Bart.”
“Oh, I think there is,” he replied smoothly. “You’re inviting me to make love to you, Lucy, I fancy, since Paul apparently failed to come up to scratch?”
“Paul?” The question was so unexpected that for a moment she failed to grasp his meaning.
“He hinted—very delicately, of course—that it was you who had made the running, and implied that the fault was mine.”
Lucy had gone very white.
“When did he tell you this?” she asked quietly.
“Today, when I gave him a lift to the garage. You had, he said, embarrassed him a little with your tentative advances.”
Today ... directly following his advice on how to attract her husband ... Lucy-felt so bitterly hurt by such treachery that she could not defend herself; she could only gaze up at the tall stranger standing by her bed, her eyes dark with pain. What must he think of her; what, indeed, had Paul thought, to play her such a shabby trick?
“And you believed that?” she asked at last.
He shrugged.
“Why not? I’m fully aware by now that I’d no business to marry you on the terms of our agreement. Mary Morgan has pointed out to me, and indeed I can see myself, that you are a healthy young woman with every right to expect fulfilment in a normal marriage. I have only myself to blame if my wife looks elsewhere for satisfaction, haven’t I? All the same, man is an unreasonable animal. You married me, Lucy, and I don’t choose to share my possessions. That, of course, is an entirely selfish point of view, as my young cousin himself pointed out.”
“You can’t,” said Lucy doggedly, “share what you’ve never possessed—or wanted.”
“Yes, there’s something in that, perhaps. Well, how do you suggest we solve this tangle?”
She shook her head, dumbly. Not again would she offer herself to be rejected so plainly and cruelly.
He sat down on the bed and leaned across her, supporting his weight on one hand. His voice when he next spoke was still measured and rather precise, but the coolness had gone from his eyes.
“I’m quite prepared to make love to you, Lucy,” he said. “Did you suppose that I was entirely devoid of natural passions?”
“You’ve led me to believe so.”
“Yes, I suppose I have, but jealousy, it appears, can flare up when you least expect it.”
“Jealous—you!”
“Strange, isn’t it? I thought I had buried all such emotions with Marcelle, but—” his voice suddenly deepened and became harsh with anger which Lucy had not realized had been held in check until now—“jealousy, bitterness, desire, even, need have nothing to do with love. Are you prepared to accept me for what I am?”
“I know you don’t love me. I know I would just be second best,” Lucy replied, in a whisper.
“Oh, you’d do very well,” he answered, and suddenly caught her by the shoulders, bringing her face close to his. “You have your own brand of attraction, you know—so white, so soft, so sweet—isn’t that what your song says? Well, Lucy, you’ve asked for it, you must take the consequences.”
He began kissing her, fiercely, demandingly, and his hands bruised her flesh. It was as if she had never
known him; the cold, self-contained facade behind which he had dwelt was stripped from him like a protective skin, leaving a man starved too long of passion, hungry in his demands—and a stranger to the consideration love would have brought. Lucy lay, unresisting, in his arms, weeping a little because not like this had she wanted him to take her, in anger and bitterness, all tenderness buried in a dead woman’s grave. Suddenly he turned his head into the warm hollow between her breasts with a strange gesture of repudiation and, as suddenly, let her go.
He sat there for a moment, not speaking, while he hid the trembling of his hands in the pockets of his dressing-gown. Lucy, shaken and bewildered, lay and watched him. Presently he touched her wet lashes with a still unsteady finger and brushed away the tears.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I wanted to hurt you, I suppose, but I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“I wasn’t frightened,” she said, wondering if she had failed him again in her inexperience. “I’m—I’m willing to learn, Bart.”
His smile was stiff and automatic.
“I’ve never believed in rape, my dear, even when it’s legalized, by marriage,” he said. “I must apologize for the exhibition. These hints and rumors have been festering in me for weeks, I suppose. Try to sleep now, Lucy, and in the future— lock the door between us.”
When he had gone, she lay exhausted, and still weeping. Lock the door between us, he had said, but he had already done this, himself, with his doubts and suspicions and the implied assurance that in the future she should not fear demands from him. Outside, the rain still fell, as if the skies, too, wept for her and the predestined failure of this foolish marriage. She turned her bruised mouth into the coolness of her pillow and, with a little hopeless sigh, fell asleep.
II
It was still raining when she came downstairs the next morning, and it seemed that the disaffection of the night had spread to the rest of the house. Gaston and Smithers were having one of their violent quarrels in the kitchen, Paul had failed to arrive for the morning lessons, and Pierre, incensed at being ignored by everyone, was banging loudly on the gong to attract attention.
“For goodness’ sake!” exclaimed Lucy, in no mood for tantrums so early in the day. “Pierre, go up to the schoolroom at once and find yourself something to do. Did Paul say he wouldn’t be coming in today?”
“No. He has a migraine, perhaps. Baba, will you play with me?”
“No, I have things to do,” said Lucy shortly, and knew exactly why Paul had failed to put in an appearance. “Do you know what time the buses run to Merrynporth?”
The boy shrugged, sulky now at Lucy’s evident preoccupation with other things.
“Smithers will know,” he said. “Do you go to find Paul and be cross with him, too?”
It was exactly what Lucy did intend, to have things out with Paul once and for all, and, if necessary, to tell poor, clinging Aunt Minnie what she thought of her precious nephew.
“Everyone is cross today,” Pierre grumbled. “Papa did not even say goodbye to me when he left the house this morning.”
Lucy went into the kitchen to enquire the times of the buses from Smithers, and the servants broke off in the middle of a heated argument to look at her shamefacedly. Smithers gave the required information with a significant glance at the cook, so that it became evident that either she or Paul or both had been the cause of the argument, then hurried out to the hall as Pierre resumed his noisy occupation with the gong.
“Madame enjoyed my special dinner last night?” Gaston enquired, his good humor at once restored.
“It was delicious,” Lucy said tonelessly, and felt a little awkward at the unspoken question in the Frenchman’s observant eye.
“Better than the tray by the fire, hein? M’sieur was home in good time, yes?” The. enquiry was innocent enough, but Lucy felt herself blushing.
“Yes,” she said flatly, and he lifted his expressive shoulders philosophically, and observed, as though she had answered the question he had not asked:
“Quel dommage!”
Lucy looked about her with an uncomfortable constriction of the throat; at the strings of onions and the dried herbs, at the copper pans so lovingly polished, at the accumulation of small detail that made the place a home, and at Gaston himself, watching her with the kindly eye of an old-fashioned nanny.
“Gaston—” she said tentatively—“I—I’m not very experienced in l’amour.” It was of course, a ridiculous statement to make to one’s cook, and not very dignified, but he beamed on her approvingly, satisfied that she had admitted him to her confidence and they could now be friends.
“L’amour ... what is it?” he exclaimed with Gallic tolerance. “A few moments when the blood runs hot and the reason is, perhaps, blinded? In France we do things better—a sensible marriage, respect, mutual tolerance, and children—many children. Madame will know in time.”
It was a very odd conversation, thought Lucy in surprise, but her heart warmed to the little French chef who could lay salve so delicately upon her sore spirit.
“I must go or I’ll miss my bus,” she said a little awkwardly, and he at once turned a tactful back and busied himself with the pots and pans of his calling.
“Ah, yes, you go to find M’sieur Paul,” he said. “It is permitted to say, perhaps, madame, that m’sieur’s services are no longer necessary here, now that you can care for the little one yourself?”
Had the servants had Paul sized up all along? Lucy wondered, and remembered how, some time ago, she had realized that they neither of them cared for the tutor.
“Yes, I think so too, Gaston, but Mr. Travers doesn’t,” she said.
“These matters arrange themselves,” he replied comfortably. “M’sieur—M’sieur Travers, that is—is a clever surgeon, but clever men do not always understand the simplicities of life, madame. They judge by themselves, and for m’sieur the realities have been dead for a long time.”
“You are thinking of the first Mrs. Travers?” Lucy asked a little sadly, and he smiled and shrugged.
“Non, non, non, non, non!” he exclaimed. “There has been much confusion, and much trust placed in wrong directions, I think—but madame must hurry—the bus, she will not wait.”
Lucy sat in the little country bus, watching the rain-washed landscape slip by. On last night her mind still refused to dwell, but with Paul she would do battle and end for ever the treachery and spite of many months. Gaston’s wisdom had strengthened her own, and, whatever might result between herself and Bart, one canker should at least be removed.
She found her way through the steep, winding streets of Merrynporth to the little terrace where she knew Paul lived with his aunt. The house was small and neat and rather charming, and the terrace presented none of the seedy poverty which she had first supposed was the reason for his reluctance to take her to his home.
For a moment when the front door was opened, Lucy thought she must have come to the wrong house. The woman who stood there was tall and vigorous-looking, with a large, loose figure which carelessly supported her plain, sensible tweeds. Her face had the strong, uncompromising lines of a woman of character, and her eyes, as blue as Paul’s, looked out with a clear directness of purpose.
“I’ve come to see Mr. Paul Bond,” Lucy said uncertainly, and the woman replied with a swift flicker of recognition:
“I’m afraid he’s not in, but won’t you come inside, out of the rain, Mrs. Travers? I’m Paul’s aunt.”
“You—you aren’t Aunt Minnie!” Lucy exclaimed, and, before she could stop herself, began to laugh. Faced with the reality of Paul’s poor Aunt Minnie, the fabric of his evasions and pleas for pity fell to pieces.
If Aunt Minnie thought her laughter odd and rather rude, she made no comment, and stood aside to allow Lucy to enter, but there was a little quirk of amusement at the corners of her firm mouth as she bade her guest be seated.
“How did you, know me?” Lucy asked.
“I’ve seen you with Paul
, who usually hustled you into the nearest tea-shop when he spotted me,” Aunt Minnie replied. “I used to wonder if you really had such an aversion to meeting me as he made out.”
“Oh, no!” cried Lucy, horrified. “I wanted to call on you, but he always put me off.”
“Well, I should have known. What sort of person did my rather untruthful nephew make me out to be?”
“Clinging ... foolish ... shawls and hot-water-bottles ... a liability that hindered him from doing a man’s job. That’s why I laughed. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“Dear me!” Paul’s aunt observed mildly. “And is that what your husband thinks too?”
“Yes, I’m afraid it is. Bart’s always made allowance for Paul because of his upbringing. But how was it you never met?”
“Oh, we did. Bart must have got us confused, my sister and I. We didn’t live in Merrynporth in those days. My sister was Paul’s mother and answered very well to the description of Aunt Minnie. Poor Carrie spoiled and pampered him all her life, and when she died, well, I just took over.”
“But you—you wouldn’t have kept him tied to your apron strings.”
“My dear girl, quite the contrary, but it was too late by that time. For my sister’s sake—and another reason I’ve made a home for Paul and supported him between jobs. Paul is weak, like poor Carrie, and I was weak, too, when I didn’t push him out of the nest to fend for himself. I shall pay for that weakness for the rest of my life, and it serves me right.”
Lucy’s eyes were wide with surprise and sudden understanding.
“And there’s nothing wrong with his heart, is there?” she said, and Aunt Minnie made a small grimace of distaste.
“Has that been another of his tales?” she said. “My sister, I believe, encouraged him to think he was delicate, but he’s as strong as I am. He managed, somehow, to wangle out of doing his National Service, but that, I felt, was between him and his own conscience. I never knew the details. Now, my dear, what message shall I give him? He’s not going to be best pleased that you and I have met, judging by the yarns he has spun you.”