Grahame, Lucia (50 page)

Again I started to speak. I wanted to say that I had liked him
better once he had ceased to be the perfect gentleman, but he lifted his hand
to silence me.

"A gentleman," he said, "would have simply bought
the paintings, locked them safely away for a couple of centuries —only because
they are far too lovely to be burned—and said nothing about them. He would have
behaved as if he had never seen them, as indeed he should not have. They were
never meant for my eyes. To use them as I did was to trample upon the most intimate
act between man and wife. I knew you never wanted anyone but the man you loved
to see that aspect of yourself.

"There is no excuse for what I did. I was beside myself with
envy and jealousy. It made me so wild to think that you had given so much to another
man, who betrayed you —I know you resent my saying that, but I must—that I
managed to ignore my own worse crime. The use to which I put those paintings
was just as heinous a betrayal."

"No it wasn't," I said after a while. "It wasn't a
betrayal of trust. Or of love."

My husband looked at me thoughtfully for a long, long time.
Finally he said, "It was an abuse of power. My wealth and our marriage had
given me power over you, and I used that power against you. It is
not
a
lesser crime."

"I
betrayed you," I whispered at last. "Can you forgive
me?"

"If I had any right to judge you, I would forgive you
everything," was my husband's reply.

I tried to absorb this but, alas, I was painfully conscious that
it was nearly time for luncheon and that I was expected to preside over one of
the tables where the few remaining students were to take their last meal of the
term.

I had to seize the moment.

"You will let me come back to you, then?" I said with a
kind of graceless urgency.

"Do you think that would be wise?" asked my husband
gently.

"I have missed you, Anthony," was the best I could
manage in reply.

"Have you?" he said. "And so much so that you want
to come back with me to England and live with me forever?"

"Yes. There—or anywhere."

"And all because you
miss
me."

"Yes," I faltered, and then added, "Really, I have
missed you more than I can say."

There was a frown on my husband's face now, and his lips were
pressed tightly together. He seemed lost in some vexing internal debate. I
could almost see the subtle clash of conflicting impulses. He turned away from
me and began to walk slowly up and down Madame's prized Aubusson, his hands in
his pockets, his head bent in thought.

When he finally came to halt before me, his eyes were both guarded
and searching.

"I don't know what is in your heart, Fleur," he said,
"beyond what you have seen fit to say under these rather difficult
circumstances. But I
have
to know. For one thing, there is the whole
question of children."

How could I have forgotten?

He was right, of course. He had made it clear, time and again,
that he did not want children. And I did—I yearned for them. No longer did I
cherish the hopeless conviction that nature had condemned me to barrenness.

So there
was
a reason, after all, to hold back from making
that final leap. Suppose I
did
return to him and gave him all the love
that I had once reserved for Frederick and Frederick's memory. Would I torment
him, then, to put aside his own wishes in order to gratify mine? Would I have
insisted upon bearing children to a man who did not want them? No. I would have
wordlessly resigned myself to childlessness, killed my own hopes out of
devotion to my husband —and made only the first of those endless, unspoken sacrifices
that love demands and which breed the resentments and silences that gnaw away
at love like worms.

There had to be another, a better way to love.

My nails dug into my palms as I thought of the children I would
never know. I could see them so clearly—a little girl with hair like moonlight
and gray eyes; a tiny boy, dark-haired like me and luminous with infancy. They
were as real to me as if they already existed somewhere in time, waiting for
the moment when they could finally be embraced. Oh, how had I, once again, let
something that could never live become so precious to me! I wanted to reach out
and pull them to my breast.

Instead, I opened my hands to let them go.

Dimly, I felt my husband press something into one of my empty
palms—a snowy, perfectly folded handkerchief.

"You must understand," he explained gently. "It's
not that I dislike the thought of children. I long for them. And I do think
that, under happier circumstances, you'd have made a wonderful mother. I'm
certain of it. But I will not risk bringing children into the world whom you
might find yourself unable to love, because you do not love their father."

"Oh, but I would!" I burst out without stopping to
think. "My God, I would love them with all my heart. How could you
suppose—-"

But there I stopped. I thought of his mother and of the
interpretation that he must have put upon her lovelessness. If that was the
crux of the matter—and I was certain that it must be—could I
ever
make a
case for myself? Could I ever overcome his doubts and convince him that I loved
him and that my love was true? Could I place my weightless hopes and imagined
possibilities in the scales against the heavy reality of his own experience,
the unloved child of a woman who had surely claimed to love her husband but who
had not?

How could I ask him to take that chance?

I thought of the children who would never live except in my dreams
unless I fought for them, and I opened my lips to try.

The ten-minute bell for luncheon rang imperatively and jarred me
from my thoughts.

My husband continued to stand before me, motionless and silent, as
if he had been carved from stone.

I groped vainly for words. I knew I was on the verge of breaking
down completely, and that if I were not careful, within seconds I would be
violating every code that governed how a respectably widowed English mistress
ought to conduct herself in an interview with a prospective employer.

"But I
can't
leave without saying good-bye to Mrs.
Hastings, madame!" came a high voice from the hallway.

"This is hopeless," said my husband with an oath.

He reached into his pocket, drew out his silver card case, and
penciled something swiftly in the corner of one of his cards.

"Here is the address of the hotel where I am staying in
Geneva," he said as he handed the card to me. "You can find me there
after eight o'clock this evening." He paused and then added with evident
difficulty, "I have the impression that you feel more kindly disposed
toward me, now that you are your own woman again. But unless you can say that you
love me—and convince me that your words are true and that your love for me is
as strong as mine is for you—I cannot take you back. I
won't
put myself
through that again."

And with that he was gone.

I stared at the doorway through which he had vanished, paralyzed
with a bizarre mixture of bleak despair and wild elation. He loved me still!
But what protestation of love could I ever make that would not render me as
suspect as the boy who cried wolf?

And yet he loved me. As long as that was so, I would never turn
away in defeat no matter what challenges he flung at me. Somehow I would find a
way to prove that my love was stronger than his doubts.

When I announced myself to the discreet desk clerk as Lady
Camwell, he barely blinked and told me that Sir Anthony was out.

I had arrived at the hotel too soon—it was only a quarter to
eight—but nevertheless, as I proceeded to settle down to an anxious vigil on
one of the palm-screened sofas, I felt bitterly disappointed. It seemed that my
husband was not champing at the bit quite so eagerly as I.

Just then a gentleman raced in from the street, hair and tails
flying, in a neck-or-nothing dash to the desk.

"Has a lady—?" he gasped.

The impassive clerk made a tiny gesture in my direction.

But I was already on my feet.

My husband paused for a moment before he turned, as if to assume,
like a shield, the air of quiet dignity that I had once regarded as his very
essence. When he faced me it was with a faint, unruffled smile; only the color
in his cheeks betrayed him.

He advanced toward me calmly as he peeled off his right-hand
glove.

"Forgive me, Fleur," he said, holding out his hand with
the utmost self-possession. "I hope I have not kept you waiting
long."

"Oh, not long at all," I assured him breathlessly. But
my voice, my savoir faire, everything dissolved as my fingers locked around
his. "Tony," I managed to choke out,

He moved closer, protectively.

"It's all right," he whispered. "There's no need to
say anything."

He led me to his suite and closed the door behind us with that
same familiar air of calm dignity. But that was the last I saw of my
self-possessed, unflappable, eternally, infernally, exasperatingly
imperturbable husband for some time.

In seconds we had tumbled, entwined, against the door and on down,
down to the carpet.

Under the deluge of my kisses, his splendid facade was
disintegrating like a sandcastle under a tidal wave; he pulled me across the
ruined fortifications and into the depths of his soul.

So he had fallen to me at last.

All the tumultuous, unbridled passion I had once longed to wrest
from him—by calculation, by bitter provocation, by skillful erotic
techniques—were mine, in exchange for nothing more than my unencumbered heart.

"Don't you know how much I love you!" he whispered as he
held me. "How could you dream that I would settle for less than
this?"

I couldn't see his face—I was crushed against him too closely—but
I knew that not all the hot tears upon our cheeks were from my eyes.

"How did you know?" I asked when I could speak.

"Your eyes," he said. "I hardly dared to believe
what I thought I glimpsed in them when you walked into the study at Vignon. But
now—downstairs—it was still there."

"They say the eyes are the windows to the soul," I remarked,
stretching against him luxuriously. "Do you know, I dreamed last night
that we went back to Fontainebleau, you and I. Do you ever think of that
day?"

"For a long time I thought of it far too much," was my
husband's wistful reply. "That was the day that I knew I had fallen
hopelessly in love with you."

"Not until
then?"
I exclaimed. "And you led
me to believe that you'd been carrying the torch for me ever since you saw me
at the Coq d'Or!"

"That! That was pure enchantment! Oh yes, I'd lost my heart
to you long before we went to Fontainebleau. But it was there, when you tried
to shield me from the rain, that I
knew
I loved you. After that day, I
lost all sense of caution. All I could think of was the way you looked,
standing there in the downpour in that hideous, shapeless old dress of yours,
with your face glowing, as you declared that we might as well give in to
Nature!"

"I only meant the rain!" I reminded him.

"Yes, you made that clear. But it was already too late for
me. I wanted to go down on my knees and kiss your hem!" declared my
husband extravagantly.
"Me!
Wanting to press my lips to the
disgusting, threadbare hem of that horrible gown! And utterly tongue-tied at
the thought of all the perfections it must have hidden.
Now
you know why
your limitless supply of ugly dresses always drove me to the wall! They were a
perpetual, stinging reminder of the moment you enslaved my heart. What a relief
it was to get you out of them! And here you've found yet another! Do you breed
them like rabbits?"

"I left my other gowns with Marguerite when I came to
Switzerland. I feared a schoolteacher dressed by Madame Rullier might raise a
few eyebrows!" But as I glanced down at my old gray dress, I
did
feel
a keen twinge of regret. "I wish I'd had something else to wear
tonight," I concluded sadly.

"Oh please! Don't apologize. This will do perfectly!"
exclaimed my husband. He lifted up the offending hem and, yes, he did, he
kissed it.

"There," he said, looking up at me with a transparent,
joyous smile. "At least
that's
out of my system."

Then he unbuttoned my shoes and began to kiss my ankles and the
soles of my feet.

"Oh, I'm absurdly fond of your ugly gowns, Mrs.
Hastings," he announced. "It's a good thing you've got money of your
own now. Otherwise I'd make you wear nothing but these heartrending little rags
for the rest of your life."

"I never guessed...."

"And then you were my wife—and suddenly so spiritless. It
terrified me."

"Terrified you!"