Grahame, Lucia (30 page)

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.

"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!

"And what brings you here at this hour?" he inquired
with cool civility. I slipped out of the robe. His lips curved as he surveyed
me, once again decked out like a scandal in red and black.

"Must you ask?" I whispered.