The Sphinx (12 page)

‘“Oh, you
called the bank. No, well, she’s a little tired, but otherwise she’s fine. It
was about Lorie that I rang you, as a matter of fact.”

He crushed out
his cigarette in his Democratic souvenir ashtray and waited to hear the worst.

Perhaps Lorie
had asked her mother to call him and put him off for good. Well, he’d been
expecting it. He was beginning to think that his brief encounter with Lorie
Semple was going to be just that and nothing more.
A tantalizing
image that faded on the retina almost as soon as you looked at it.

“Gene, I want
to ask you a question,” Mrs. Semple said.

“Go ahead. What
do you want to know?”

“I want to know
if you suggested to Lorie that you might marry her.”

Gene took a
deep breath. “Let’s put it this way, Mrs. Semple. The subject did come up. Very
prematurely, I admit, and probably foolishly, but it did come up.”

“And Lorie said
no?”

“That seems to
be her prevailing attitude, yes.”

UI love the way
you politicians talk.”

“We go to a
special school of political double-talk, actually. Is that it?”

“Is what it?”

“Is that all
you called me to say?”

‘Won, non, not
at all I called to say that she says yes.”

Gene rubbed his
eyes. ‘Tm sorry, I don’t quite follow.”

“Lorie says
yes,” said Mrs. Semple. “I had a long discussion with her, and now she says
yes.”

“You mean...”

“Of course, I
mean she will marry you”-

Gene took the
receiver away from his ear and stared at it. “What is it? What’s happened? Have
they assassinated Henry?” Maggie asked, standing by the door.

Gene ignored
her. He put the phone back against his-ear. “Mrs. Semple, I don’t get it.”

“There is
nothing to get,” said Mrs. Semple happily. “She loves you, and she wants to
marry you.”

“But she seemed
so worried before. She kept saying that she was afraid something was going to
happen all over again, and I couldn’t understand what”

“Merely a young
girl’s imagination,” said Mrs. Semple, deprecatingly. “The only thing that
matters is that she adores you and wants to spend the rest of your life with
you.”

“Mrs. Semple,
this is all very sudden.”

“Ahh,” cooed
Mrs. Semple, “but isn’t that the way of everything? We are suddenly conceived,
we are suddenly born, and we suddenly die.”

“Yes,” said
Gene, “I suppose we do.” He still looked distinctly unsettled when he laid the
phone down, and Maggie saw him gazing at it for a long time afterward, as if he
almost expected it to jump across his desk and bite him.

They were
married quietly in Merriam on an unseasonably warm day three weeks later. All
of the wedding guests, with the exception of the silent Mathieu and the elegant
Mrs. Semple, were friends of Gene’s. There was a simple ceremony in the
white-painted church that stood a little way down the hill from the Semple
mansion, everyone threw confetti on the church steps, a photographer took
pictures for The Washington Post, and Maggie stood on her own amongst the
ankle-deep leaves of fall and cried.

The reception
was held at a colonial-style tavern overlooking the Potomac, and all the young
men from Gene’s office came up and whispered in his ear what a lucky bastard he
was and clustered around Mrs. Semple in callow admiration. As Walter Farlowe
said, after too many glasses of Heidsieck champagne, “You may not have married
into money, but you sure mar-lied into tits.”

Lorie wore a
wedding dress of white silk with a white lace overlay and looked glowing and
beautiful and happy. She stayed close to Gene all day, and even though he felt
slightly amazed and unreal he knew, in a curiously dogmatic way, that he was
elated and pleased. He kissed his bride over and over, and when the last of the
guests had left he sat with her at the window of the tavern with a glass of
champagne, looking down at the slow-moving river and holding her close.

‘Tm going to
tell you something,” he said. “This is the happiest day of my whole life.”

She leaned her
head against him. “I know,” she said quietly.

He swallowed
champagne. “Maybe, one day, well take our children down here, show them the
river, and say that–”

She tugged her
arm away. He looked up and realized she was worried and upset. “What is it?

What’s the
matter?” Gene asked.

“It’s nothing,”
she said, attempting to smile. “Oh, come on, Lorie. There’s no room for any
kind of mystery now. We’re married. You’re my Wife. If there’s something
upsetting you,. I want to know what it is.”

She bent
forward and kissed him. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement and champagne.
“It’s really nothing,” she told him. “I think I’m tired, that’s all. I’d like to
get changed and have a rest.

It’s been one
of those fantastic days that leaves you absolutely exhausted.”

“Okay. Let’s
get back to the house. Will Mathieu drive us?”

They left the
tavern and went outside. In the graveled car park, Mathieu was waiting silently
and impassively at the wheel of the black Heetwpod, and when lie saw them he
climbed out and opened the rear door. Lorie got into the car, but Gene paused
for a moment. “Mathieu,” he said. “I hope you and I can be friends.”

Mathieu, behind
reflecting sunglasses that showed nothing but Gene’s own distorted, anxious
face, neither moved, nor signaled with his hands that he had understood. He
stood stolidly waiting for Gene to get into the car, and then he shut the door.
He slid into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and they glided away.

Because Gene
was hard-pressed by political commitments, they had decided to spend the first
few weeks of their married life at the Semple mansion. Then, as soon as it
looked as though the Caribbean situation was easing up a little, they were
going to take a two-week skiing vacation and then look for a house of their
own, close to Washington. But, as Mrs. Semple had said, “You can stay here as
long as you like. This place is big enough for you, and me, and even my darling
little granddaughter.”

“I’m counting
on a son first,” Gene had said, but Mrs. Semple had only laughed. He had the
strangest feeling that she knew, or at least believed she knew, that their
first baby was going to be a girl.

They drove
along the avenue of oaks, and rolled up outside the Semple mansion with a soft
crunch of tires on gravel. Mathieu opened the doors for them, and they stepped
out. The house was still dark and forbidding to Gene, but he guessed he was
going to have to get used to it They went through the pillared portico into the
large and gloomy hallway, which was hung with African spears and shields and
foxed etchings of water-buffalo. A black oak staircase rose up on one side of
the hall to the upper floor, and a stained-glass window allowed a strain of
colored light to fall across the landing and illuminate the walls.

“I think I’m
going to carry you over the threshold,” announced Gene. He bent his knees, and
tried to lift Lorie off the floor. Straining, he managed to raise her about
five or six inches, but then he suddenly realized that he wasn’t going to be
able to make it. She was a tall girl, yes, but he hadn’t realized how heavy she
was. It was like trying to lift a huge, floppy, uncooperative animal.

Panting, he
laid her carefully down again. “Mrs. Keiller,” he said, “I’m afraid this is one
threshold you’re going to have to walk over by yourself. It looks like I’m
going to have to do some physical shaping-up before we buy our new home.”

Lorie laughed.
“I thought I married an ace politician and it looks like I’ve married a
126-pound weakling.”

“I’ll have you
know I weigh one-hundred-ninety-two, and that’s without two slices of
wedding-cake.”

Mathieu went
ahead of them, carrying Gene’s cases along the landing, past the stained-glass
window, to a dark oak door at the end of the upstairs corridor. It was right
next to the small bedroom where Gene had recuperated after his brush with the
guard dogs. Mathieu unlocked the door and let them in.

“This room’s
beautiful,” Gene said. “Look at that bed! This is really terrific.”

In the center
of the facing wall was a high four-poster bed, with carved mahogany pillars and
a magnificent headboard depicting wild animals roaming through leaves and
flowers. It was covered in a bedspread made of zebra-skins.

The room around
it was painted a pale primrose color, with a darker, gold carpet, and the
furniture was all French antique, pieces from various chateaux. Mrs. .Semple
had filled it with fresh flowers flown in from Florida, and the fragrance was
almost overwhelming.

Mathieu laid
down the cases and went to open the drapes. The room was on the south-east
corner of the house, so that it caught the rising sun, and it had a magnificent
view over the trees and fields of the Semple estate.

Gene went to
the window to look out, but he became aware that Mathieu was still standing in
the room, as still as a waxwork, as if he was waiting for something.

“Oh, I’m
sorry,” said Gene, fumbling in his pocket for a ten-dollar bill. “Here, take
this, and thanks a lot.”

Mathieu didn’t
move. He didn’t raise his hand to take the money, or even to indicate that he
didn’t want it.

Suddenly he
spoke, in that hoarse, laborious, unnatural voice that people use when their
larynxes have been removed by surgeons.

“Smith’s
gazelle,” he said, croakily.

Gene frowned,
and turned to Lorie.

“What does he
mean?” he asked her. “Mathieu, what are you trying to say?”

Lorie stepped
forward and put her arm around Mathieu’s shoulder. She smiled at him, and
stroked his epaulette.

“I don’t think
Mathieu meant anything, darling. Did you, Mathieu? It’s just his little joke.”

Mathieu paused
for a moment Lorie said, “Mathieu, that will be all,” the chauffeur put on his
cap, and turned around, and walked out of the room, closing the. door behind
him with a firm and final click.

“I’m sure he
said ‘Smith’s gazelle,’“ said Gene. “Isn’t that some kind of African antelope?”

“Oh, don’t
worry about him,” said Lorie, pulling away her white veil. “I think all that
torture in Algeria turned his brain. He’s usually lucid, but he does come out
with some very odd things.”

Gene walked
over and put his arms around her. “Well,” he said warmly. “What does it feel
like to be Mrs. Kieller?”

She
coquettishly put her head on one side. “It’s a little strange,” she admitted.
“I think it’s going to take me a little while to get used to it. I’ve been
Lorie Semple for twenty years, you know, and I’ve only been. Lorie Keiller for
twenty minutes.”

“Your mother
won’t be back for half an-hour,” he grinned, reaching behind her and
unfastening the top button of her wedding-dress.

She twisted
away from him. “Half-an-hour isn’t long,” she protested. “Supposing she comes
upstairs and finds that we’re...”

He went after
her, and held her close. “Well, then,” he said, kissing her, “we’ll lock the
door.”

Lorie looked at
him with her green, liquid eyes. ”She might look through the keyhole.”

Gene just
nodded, and smiled, and said, “Yes, she might,” and reached for the second
button.

Lorie tensed.
She reached up and held his wrists. “Please, Gene, not now. Wait till this
evening.”

“But what /or?”
he said, feeling irritated but trying to sounding reasonable. “We’re married
now. All the social conventions have been observed. If we don’t do it now, our
marriage will be unconsummated until the sun goes down, and at Florida State
II. that was considered to be extremely bad luck.”‘

“It’s just...
I’d rather not,” said Lorie, turning away.

Gene reached
out and took hold of her hand. It was completely limp and unresponsive, and a
terrible sick, feeling went through him that perhaps, after all, he had
actually married a frigid woman. Why else was she so reluctant to make love?
Why else had she tried to stop him from marrying her? Why else was a girl as
beautiful as Lorie still a virgin on her wedding night?

“Lorie,” he
said huskily, “are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

‘Tm... fine,”
she told him. She was hypertense and white-faced, and a kind of nervous shudder
went through her that made him think she must be sickening for something, or in
a mild state of hysteria.

“Do you feel
sick?” he asked her.

“Sick?” she
said, abstractedly. “No, Tm not sick. I feel hungry. I could really eat
something. For some reason, right now, I’m absolutely ravenous. Maybe I’ll just
go downstairs to the kitchen and get myself something.”

Gene walked
over to the window and lit a cigarette., “Maybe you won’t go downstairs,” he
said quietly. “Maybe you’ll stay right here and tell me what’s wrong.”

“There’s
nothing wrong. I don’t know what you mean.”

Gene turned
around to face her. “Lorie,” he said, “we just got married.”

“Yes,” she
said, “I know.”

He spread his
arms in exasperation. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you? We’re man and wife.

We’re supposed
to be passionately in love with each other. We’re supposed to fling ourselves
on the bed and have mad, crazy, delirious intercourse. Instead, you want to go
downstairs and raid the icebox. What’s it going to be? A pound of raw steak?”

Lorie’s eyes
widened.

“I’m sorry,”
said Gene, “but I’ve been looking forward to this and now I’m disappointed. I’m
frustrated, too. You’re my wife, I love you, and I haven’t seen yon naked yet.”

She lowered her
eyes, and in the warm sunlight she was classically and perfectly beautiful–a
white virgin, madonna in a virginal white dress.

“Gene,” she whispered,
“you must never see ma naked.”