Grass (23 page)

"Stella!" Rigo had expostulated.

"It's all right, sir," Asmir Tanlig had said. "We understand the young lady right enough. She wants us proud enough to shame the bons." And so they were to the last man, bowing like grandees as they offered their trays of glasses, their bits of tasty food, their sotto voce directions to the ladies' or the gentlemen's retiring room, along the balcony, near the musicians. The guests stood or sat or wandered, examining each bit of furniture, each set of drapes, some with a slightly discontented air. Little enough there for them to find fault with unless they found fault with themselves. Similar furnishings were found in every estancia. Similar images on the walls. Similar arrangements of flowers. Not so well done, perhaps, but similar. Too similar to cavil at, though one or two made the effort. "So ordinary," they said. "So everyday. One would think, coming from Sanctity … " As though they would not have belittled anything that had breathed of Sanctity.

"Good evening How very glad we are to meet you."

Now the seconds and thirds were beginning to arrive. Eric bon Haunser with Semeles bon Haunser on his arm. "
A cousin
," said Andrea's voice. "
At one time said to have been Eric's lover. She will attempt to seduce Tony, or failing that, the ambassador
."

Was there a quaver in Andrea's voice at the thought of anyone seducing the ambassador. Was it amusement, perhaps? Gray haired Andrea, who knew Rigo as though he were her own younger brother. Who knew all about Eugenie. Amused? Tony flushed as he bowed over the hand of Semeles bon Haunser. Stella snorted, and Marjorie bit back a cheerless giggle as she smiled and bowed in her turn as Figor took her hand.

"
Figor bon Damfels, younger brother of the Obermun. Yie has been instructed to flirt with Lady Westriding. Shevlok bon Damfels. He will pay court to Stella, though unwillingly, for he is still grieving over Janetta bon Maukerden. Sylvan bon Damfels. As usual, no one knows what he is up to
."

Marjorie's placid voice addressed the bon Damfels' sons. "Good evening. How nice to see you both again."

"Good evening, Lady Westriding," said Sylvan, bowing. "It is kind of you to have planned this amusement for us. We have talked of little else for days." Smiling at Marjorie, at Stella, manfully clapping Tony on the shoulder, bowing slightly to Rigo. All this charm. In comparison, Shevlok was a poor player, able to muster only a muttered compliment, a sidelong glance, more cowed than seductive. Unconvincing, Marjorie thought. Damned loutish, Stella seethed. Unhappy Shevlok.

"Obermun Stavenger bon Damfels. Obermum Rowena bon Damfels."

Now the firsts were beginning to appear, and Andrea's whisperphone was silent. The Yrariers already knew what was common knowledge about the Obermuns, the Obermums.

"Obermun Kahrl bon Bindersen. Obermum Lisian bon Bindersen. Obermun Dimoth bon Maukerden. Obermum Geraldria bon Maukerden."

"Good evening. We are honored to welcome you."

"Obermun Gustave bon Smaerlok. Obermum Berta bon Smaerlok. Obermun Jerril bon Haunser. Obermum Felitia bon Haunser."

"Good evening. Good evening."

"Obermun Lancel bon Laupmon."

"
Alone
," whispered Andrea. "
Recently widowed
."

Then, at last, one final man and an old. old woman in a mechanical chair. "Obermun Zoric bon Tanlig. Obermum Alideanne bon Tanlig."

"
She is the Obermun's mother and the eldest among the first leaders
," whispered Andrea. "
She is always the last to arrive
."

Now the Yrariers could follow the music and the smell of food, down a half flight from the long, chilly hall. Marjorie advanced into the ballroom, was swung into the dance by Rigo. Stella and Tony followed. They had practiced these antique steps under the watchful eye of a dancing master sent from Commons and they now swayed across the floor as though they had danced in this remarkably intimate fashion all their lives. The dance was called a valz. From here and there about the floor couples of the bons joined them on the floor, not so many as to look enthusiastic but not so few as to appear impolite.

"We are being put in our place," Marjorie said, smiling into Rigo's face.

"They can only do it if we appear to notice it." He smiled in return, flames of fury at the backs of his eyes.

They turned to other partners. Rigo allowed no opportunity for snubs. Though he was complimentary to all the bons, he asked no woman to dance who had not been ordered to approach him. Thanks to Persun, he knew who those were. As did Tony.

"Pretend it is an Olympic event," Marjorie had told her fretful son. "If you do it right, you will get a medal. Treat your partner as you would a willful horse, gently but firmly. It is only athletics, after all." And so Tony danced and smiled and tried to flirt, though he had had sadly little practice at it. Stella was far better at it than he, anger only increasing her vivacity.

Marjorie drank fruit juice, provided discreetly by Asmir Tanlig, and chanted to herself as she sometimes did when duty bade her do things she did not want to do. "Bow, smile, be led into the dance. Smile, flirt, talk of nothing much. Flirt, charm, be led back to your chair. Charm, bow, begin again." The partners came and went, in relays. She began to long for a real drink, a real conversation.

"Will you dance with me, Lady Westriding?" Sylvan spoke, appearing from somewhere behind her.

She almost sighed with relief. Sylvan was not supposed to be one of those she had to be wary of. She went into his arms as to a refuge, not fleeing precisely, and yet not holding herself aloof. He led her gently, as though she were a hooded bird, accustoming her to his movements until they seemed to dance almost as one. She thought fleetingly of her advice to Tony, and was amused. Around them other couples circled, a little silence falling as bons whispered to one another. Sylvan was always interesting because he was not predictable. Look – Sylvan! Sylvan bon Damfels … 

Perhaps it was the quiet that drew Rigo's attention. He was on the balcony, standing at the entrance of the gentlemen's withdrawing room as he saw Marjorie circling in Sylvan's arms and felt his lip lift in a familiar snarl. She danced with the young bon Damfels as though he were an old and valued friend. Or a lover.

He struggled to control his face. He could not snarl or curse as he sometimes did when he saw her contented like this, moving in some exercise of horsemanship or dance or merely walking in the garden. There was an expression on her face at certain times, an expression of unconscious joy which came from a part of her he had always coveted, a separate being he never saw when he was with her. He had seen that being in the arena or the hunt, skimming the green pastures toward the high fences, all there between the posts and over the water, winging on danger and delight, a bird soaring with a singing face. He wanted to hold that bird.

He had wooed Marjorie and won Marjorie. but he had never gained possession of the thing he'd wanted. Seeking her soul, he had taken only her body, finding there a hollowness he had not expected, a vacant citadel he could storm again and again to no effect. In his bed she became someone else, someone dressed in childlike gowns, filmy white, sprigged with blossoms, her body fragile and boneless, her eyes focused far away on something he could not see. He had used every skill with her he knew, and some he invented for her alone, but she never came from Rigo's bed looking as she looked now, dancing with Sylvan bon Damfels, lost in movement and pleasure, eyes half closed, lips curved up in that gentle smile he had thought, once, would be his alone.

Andrea's voice in his ear, secret as a mole. "
Persun says your absence is being noted
."

He smiled and went down from the balcony, looking for women's faces he could notice particularly, women's bodies he could admire with a significant glance, hinting something, promising nothing. It was all a game, a game.

And below him, Sylvan left Marjorie and turned to Stella with conscious gallantry. Marjorie took yet another glass of fruit juice from a tray offered by Asmir Tanlig and stood beside Geraldria bon Maukerden to join in witty admiration of the ladies' gowns, embroidered and beaded in fantastic designs. This, too, was a Grassian game, with its own language, its own etiquette. Persun had researched it and taught it to her.

Rigo swung past her in the dance, smiling like a mannequin at her over his partner's shoulder.

Beyond them, through the door to the terrace, Marjorie saw Eugenie. Had anyone been appointed to dance with Eugenie? What bon? Any bon at all? Perhaps she would have to beg Sylvan to dance with her husband's mistress. Though perhaps Shevlok would do so without prompting. He was near the door, looking out at Eugenie where she stood with someone.

With a girl? But there were no girls, no young women present. Except Stella, and Stella was dancing with Sylvan. Marjorie, possessed by a premonition of trouble, put down her glass.

Eugenie and her friend came through the terrace door, Eugenie clad all in rose, her gown fluttering behind her like sunset cloud, and the other one in a similar gown, violet as shadow, hair piled high, walking behind Eugenie with Eugenie's own half-gliding gait, head turned to one side so that she looked across the room with an odd, one-eyed glance, sidelong … 

A strange silence fell. Someone stopped talking and stared. Someone else's eyes followed the first stare. A couple stopped dancing. The music went on, but the people slowed, like moving toys that had run down, slowly, stopping.

Eugenie was halfway across the room, moving toward Marjorie. She would not go to Rigo, not publicly, she knew enough for that. She knew her public role was to be merely one of the group, a guest of the embassy, invited to participate in this gaiety. She smiled, holding out her hand as her companion passed the man near the door … 

And Shevlok screamed as though his heart had been torn out.

"
Janetta
!"

Eugenie glanced behind her uncertainly; then, seeing that her companion followed still, she came on again, her face collapsing in doubt.

"Janetta!" Now the woman beside Marjorie, Geraldria bon Maukerden, cried out that name.

And uproar. At Marjorie's side, Geraldria dropped her glass. It splattered into tinkling shards on the floor. The music faltered. Shevlok and Geraldria were both moving, like sleepwalkers, toward the girl, the strange girl.

Dimoth bon Maukerden was shouting, and Vince, his brother, and then others. The strange girl was surrounded, seized, though she did not react. She was passed from hand to hand, passive as a rag doll, looking toward Eugenie as though all her mind resided in the other woman, ending in Shevlok's arms.

"What have you done to her?" It was Sylvan, beside Marjorie, demanding. "What have you done?"

"To Eugenie?"

"To Janetta. To the girl."

"I never saw her before this moment!"

"That woman who has her. What did
she
do?" And when Marjorie shook her head helplessly, he went on, "Find out, quickly, or we will all be throwing dead bats at one another."

Marjorie had no time to ask him what he meant. And then Rigo was there, and were confronting Eugenie, who was crying and disclaiming any fault and making it hard for them by babbling but telling them nothing, nothing they could use against the mounting anger all around them.

"You filth, you
fragras
," trumpeted Gustave bon Smaerlok. "What have you done to Janetta?"

"Silence," bellowed Rigo, his voice shattering the other voices. "Silence!"

Then there was a little cup of quiet into which Eugenie's voice splashed like the thin cold juice of a bitter fruit, "I got her in Commoner Town," wailed Eugenie, "I got her from Jandra Jellico. All I did was make her a dress and fix her hair. She was just like this when I got her … "

Some few of the gathered aristocrats perceived that she was telling the truth, as much truth as she knew. Eugenie was as open as a child, weeping, not sure what it was she had done to make all this uproar. She had meant it as a surprise, bringing her pet to the ball. She had thought it would be fun.

"I told you we should stay far from this filth," trumpeted Gustave once again, red of face, spittle at the corners of his mouth.

Rigo was in front of him. This could not be allowed to pass. "Filth?" he snarled. "What kind of filth allows their daughters to fall into such a state, for others to find, for others to rescue and clothe and feed? Hah?"

"Rigo!" Marjorie called, moving between the two angry men. "Obermun bon Smaerlok, we do no good to call one another names. You are all very upset. So are we."

"Upset?" Dimoth cried. "My daughter!"

"Hear me!" Rigo thundered. "When did you see her last?"

There was silence, silence as each one contemplated an answer to that question. It had been – It had been last fall. Early last fall. She had disappeared last fall. No one wanted to say, to admit it had been that long ago.

"We heard of her disappearance," Marjorie said. "It happened long before we ever left to come here. Before you had even given permission for us to come."

The words hung there, unimpeachably true, Janetta had gone long before these people had come, Janetta, now standing at the middle of a small circle, dancing by herself, humming, lovely as a porcelain figure and as impersonal. Nothing in her face or glance spoke of a person being there. In the circle around her was Shevlok bon Damfels, no longer clinging to her.

"It is not Janetta," he sobbed.

"Of course it is."

"Don't be silly, man."

"This is my daughter!"

"Not Janetta," he repeated. "No. No. This person is older."

"She would be," cried Geraldria. "She would be older, Shevlok."

"And not the same. Not the same."

Who could argue that? This creature was not the same as anyone. It turned to examine them with its odd, goose-eyed gaze, circling, as though to see if anyone had anything to interest it, some grain, perhaps, some bread. The moist, pink mouth opened. "Hnnngah," it cried, like a kitten. "Hnnngah."

Now there were quieter voices asking Eugenie again where she had found the girl, how long she had had the girl. Now there was movement among the bon Maukerdens, Obermun and Obermum, sisters and cousins, brothers and nephews.