Grahame, Lucia (7 page)

"Yes," I said in a tone that was meant to slam the door
on that subject.

"I hope that one day you will find a reason to think better
of your country—and mine," he said.

"
This
is my country now," was my only reply.

He was watching me thoughtfully but did not press me to explain my
antipathy for England.

"Have
you
ever thought of making your home here?"
I asked in the hope of injecting a lighter tone back into the conversation.

"Me? Oh, I've toyed with the thought, but it's really out of
the question."

"Why is that?"

"I have... responsibilities," was his rather vague
response.

It occurred to me then that Sir Anthony had never, in his
conversations with me, made any reference to his blue-blooded family or to his
great wealth.

Well, there was no use pretending they didn't exist and that they
would not shape the course of his life and every choice he would ever make.

"Oh, I suppose you mean the vast Camwell estates," I
retorted lightly. "Don't you pay someone to manage them for you? What's
the point of being rich if you still insist upon wearing the harness of dreary
responsibilities?"

To my surprise, the usually even-tempered Sir Anthony did not seem
amused by my offhand remark.

"I see," he said. "Perhaps you're right, Madame
Brooks. What's the point of life at all if it's not to throw off all responsibility
and do whatever you feel like doing at any given moment?" He paused for a
minute and then added in a tone that managed to be both mild and scathing,
"That's quite an ideal, isn't it?"

I thought it sounded very appealing, indeed, but, even so, his
cool words hit me like a little slap. I shot him a quick, rather startled
glance.

What a Roman standard he espoused!

I wondered what he would think of me were he to discover that I
was someone who had weakly collapsed under grief for nearly two years rather
than honoring my sacred responsibilities to my husband.

"I beg your pardon," I managed after a few more seconds.
"I spoke too carelessly."

But at the same time, he was saying, "Forgive me, Madame
Brooks. I spoke too harshly."

"Not at all," I said. "You were quite right to say
what you did."

"No. Actually, I was being thoroughly disingenuous. You
see..." He hesitated with something like embarrassment and then plunged on
rather awkwardly. "I like being rich. I love being able to do pretty much
as I please. I'm afraid I deny myself very little, if you want to know the
truth. It's not something of which I'm proud. And the fact is that I love my
home in England. I can't imagine choosing to live elsewhere for any length of
time. I only wish..."

"You only wish what?" I prodded him.

He lifted his head and gave me one of his slow, charming smiles.

"I only wish there were a little more of Paris in it,"
he said enigmatically.

I resisted the fleeting temptation to take this cryptic remark as
a personal compliment.

"Perhaps you ought to hire a French chef," I proposed.

He broke into that soft laughter again.

"But I already have one," he confessed. "You see, I
do
indulge every whim! But something is still wanting. And a French
chef
is not quite what I have in mind, at this point."

At
that
point, as luck would have it, I caught the eye of
Monsieur Julien, who was strolling silkily down the boulevard. As he was known
to both of us, we invited him to join us and our conversation quickly assumed a
more urbane and inconsequential tone.

It seemed that Sir Anthony had once again dropped one of those
seemingly innocent but hauntingly provocative remarks that kept me awake at
night when I ought to have been deep in slumber.

So a French
chef
was not what he had in mind to enliven his
English home.

It was difficult to avoid the conclusion that what Sir Anthony
wanted was a woman.

So he had come to France to find a wife.

No doubt, then, he had spent the vast bulk of his Parisian hours,
above and beyond the few he devoted to me, in the salons of the Faubourg
St.-Germain, politely conversing with young, convent-educated virgins whose
blood was as rarified as his own.

I must be a very dog in the manger, I thought, for I did not like
the vision my thoughts had conjured up any better than I had liked my earlier
vision of him wed to that prim-mouthed, pop-eyed hypothetical English miss.

I did not see Sir Anthony again before his return to his beloved
England, where he remained for more than two months.

On All Saints' Day I visited Frederick's grave in the Bagneaux
with a wreath of immortelles. He would have laughed at such a trite act of
devotion.

December came. I celebrated Christmas Eve and most of the
following day with Marguerite and Théo. They were so lively that it was
impossible to feel much loneliness when in their company. Théo, perhaps out of
deference to the season, did not indulge his famously contentious nature as
much as usual. Marguerite, who relished every aspect of holiday-making, was in
her element. And I had had a card from Sir Anthony, who was spending the
holidays in Devon at the home of Lord Marsden's sister-in-law and her large
family. He told me that he would be back in Paris in January.

I had never spoken of Sir Anthony to Marguerite or Théo. I wanted
to keep him separate from the rest of my life, somewhere where he could not
bump up against people who had known and loved Frederick. And I did not wish to
invite speculation about the nature of his interest in me, especially on the
part of Marguerite, who had the soul of a matchmaker and could be wickedly
suggestive when the mood took her. I had seen her victims writhe under her
pointed tongue.

Yes, I knew her. She would insist that Sir Anthony's interest was
not as innocent as I knew it to be. She would declare that with a mere coup
d'oeil I could subjugate any man I chose. She would never give me a moment's
peace regarding the outcome of this friendship that could lead nowhere.
Besides, it was Frederick I missed, Frederick into whose life I had fitted like
a hand to a glove.

We had planned to visit the Musée de Cluny on the Friday following
his return. But the spectacular winter afternoon— intensely cold, intensely
bright—made me repent of my promise to spend it indoors, among
tarnished-looking Flemish tapestries and medieval woodcarvings depicting the
gruesome martyrdoms of ecstatic saints.

I suggested an alteration in our plans to Sir Anthony.

"I've been a prisoner to my pupils all week long," I
told him. "How I long for exercise and fresh air! Can I persuade you to
forgo Cluny and settle for nothing more than a long walk?"

What I had in mind was a climb to the still unfinished basilica of
Sacre-Coeur, which is at the very top of the Butte Montmartre. I thought
that
would be grueling enough to settle my restless spirits.

But although Sir Anthony proved cheerfully amenable to a change of
plans in general, he seemed somewhat torn with respect to Sacre-Coeur.

"Or perhaps... ," he said, "if you wouldn't find it
too...

And here he paused as if inwardly debating the propriety of the
sentence that hovered on his lips.

I waited, half annoyed, half flattered. Frederick would never have
hesitated—he'd have burst out with his suggestion, no matter how bold. On the
other hand, Frederick had never treated me with quite the same tact and
delicacy that Sir Anthony invariably displayed.

"Madame Brooks," said Sir Anthony, at last, to my
astonished delight, "have you, by any chance, a pair of ice skates?"

I quickly unearthed the skates I had not worn for... how long?
Four years? Then a pell-mell carriage ride to Sir Anthony's hotel in the Rue de
Castiglione to fetch a gleaming pair of skates that looked as if they had never
been worn at all.

And at last on to a frozen lake in the Bois de Boulogne. It was
ringed with the glowing braziers of chestnut sellers. Over the ice flew dashing
men in tight black breeches and gaiters and graceful women in accordion-pleated
skirts.

Sir Anthony led me onto the lake. Our feet left the lumpy, frozen
shore, no longer earthbound, and we began to sail over the ice. It felt as
smooth and hard as marble and as slick as butter beneath our blades.

Sir Anthony skated with the same languid grace that I admired in
everything else he did, and now, as he held me, his rhythms became mine as
well. His long, slow strokes were more fluid and assured than mine would have
been, had I skated alone. For a moment I resisted the impulse to let my feet
follow the fearless sweep of his own. It seemed too thrilling—almost dangerous.
Then I surrendered.

We soared lazily over the lake like a pair of hawks hanging in the
sky, barely moving their wings at all as they let the air currents carry them.

The enchantment went on until I lost all sense of time. No giddy
pyrotechnics, no calligraphic swirls and loops, only those strong yet indolent
glides, each one lasting almost too long before the next one came to keep us
aloft.

Bundled as I was in heavy winter underwear, a heavy black dress,
and a heavier black coat, I could barely feel my partner's left hand on the
small of my back. The suede-gloved fingers of his other hand, however, were
firmly interlaced with mine. In spite of my black wool gloves, I was intensely
aware of his gentle grip, and I gleaned all the private pleasure I could from
knowing that we could sustain this innocent, delicious connection indefinitely.

The distance between us was small, almost insignificant, and
filled with our heat. I felt my cheeks glowing; was it from that warmth or from
the frosty air?

My eyes fell shut. I felt Sir Anthony's arm bring me a tiny bit
closer, and I knew that here on the gleaming lake we had at last lighted upon
the purest expression and finest culmination of our unlikely friendship.

Anything more would have alarmed me; anything less would have left
my vague, restless hungers unslaked.

But this was everything I could ever want.

For one perfect afternoon I felt complete.

Afterward, he whisked me off to a modest little restaurant near
the Opera. At this early hour, the dining room was nearly deserted, so it was
with a sense of luxurious privacy that we took our seats.

Our conversation was desultory and marked with long silences. Once
or twice when I caught his eyes, I saw that curious tenderness flickering
there. I thought again of the impossibly deep and prolonged pleasure I had known
in his arms. My skin blazed; I quickly dropped my attention to the
canard
à
l
'orange
on my plate.

A few minutes later, Sir Anthony cleared his throat softly.

"Madame Brooks," he began. The assurance with which he
usually spoke was gone. He seemed as diffident as he'd been when he suggested
skating on the lake. "I wonder if I might ask... do you ever have any time
to yourself during the week—other than Friday afternoons, I mean?"

"Oh yes," I said. "I never have pupils on
Sunday."

"Oh, but that's perfect!" he exclaimed. Then his voice
faltered again. "I mean, if it would be agreeable to you... I have a sort
of call I must make before I return to England, and I wonder if I might ask you
to accompany me."

He wanted to introduce me to his friends?

I thought it was a terrible ideal

We had just achieved perfection; what could possibly be gained by
attempting to push the acquaintance beyond its obvious limits?

"Oh, I don't know," I demurred. I speculated on how my
shabby black dresses—they made me look like a milliner's assistant—would appear
when set against the brocaded satin upholstery of a drawing room in the
Faubourg St. -Germain, and on how they would contrast with the silk gowns of
the ladies there. "I'm sure that any friends of yours would find me
shockingly bohemian," I added.

"Not this family," he said. "They will like you
just as much as I think you will like them. But I can't pretend that it is
merely a social call. Among other things, Monsieur Salomon makes
dollhouses."

I started to laugh. What on earth could the staid Sir Anthony
Camwell want with a dollhouse?

"Aha!" said I, laying down my fork triumphantly.
"So you
have
decided to buy a house in Paris!"

"I have," acknowledged Sir Anthony gravely. "And I
hope I may depend upon you to help me select just the right one."

"I would be delighted," I said. "But really—what is
the occasion? Have you a little niece?"

"Not I!" I thought I heard a slight edge in his voice.
"I was an only child." Then he continued more lightly. "No, this
is for a great-niece of Neville's. She has a birthday coming up, and Neville
has no knack at all, you know, for picking out gifts for small children. His
tastes are overly sophisticated."