The Blue Hour (2 page)

“Well, aren’t you just darling?” Her hand releases mine; I blink. She lifts a glass of honey-coloured liquid set in front of her and drains it. “Would you like a drink? I was just about to ask for another. Bartender? More whisky, please—two, this time. On the rocks.”

My eyes widen. I’ve never seen a woman drink hard liquor before. I’ve never seen a woman like her before. Nobody even close. The dainty fingers tap out a cigarette from a small silver case. As she inserts it into a tortoiseshell holder, a second waiter who has watched the little ritual as raptly as I, rushes forward with a lighter. She smiles her thanks before turning back to me, waving the cigarette.

“Would you like one?”

My eyes snap to Charles’s back before I can stop them. He is still turned away, but I shake my head anyway.

Tilting her chin, she raises the holder to the red lips. Light gleams on a large amber oval on her gloveless middle finger. It is the only ring she wears.

Spinster
. The word echoes in my head.
American... Old maid.

Surely this young, beautiful woman couldn’t be? But then the chances of another American landing here in this forgotten place seem laughably slim. I’ve been so preoccupied, I can’t even remember if she’s told me her name.
 

The surfaces of two drinks shiver as they are set down on the walnut before us.
Oh, God. Grace.
She will be livid by now. I raise my eyes but they are caught once more by the intense grey gaze. I breathe in slowly. Roses and iris, mixed with tobacco.

“I like your dress,” I blurt.

She exhales a sideways plume of smoke.

“You do? Thank you. Darling Parisienne named Coco makes them for me; she’s an absolute doll. Say, have you ever been to France?”

Delicate fingers play absently with several ropes of pearls slung around her neck, while she watches my face as though challenged to memorise every detail. My skin prickles under the sweep of her gaze, imparting a sudden impression that I am being seen—really seen—quite possibly for the first time ever. I swallow, dismayed to discover I’ve lost my train of thought.

Oh, yes. Paris. No, I’ve never been.

The words don’t arrive. I shake my head.

“You should. They’d eat you up. All this sea air must suit you; your complexion is to die for.” Her next glance is shrewder. “I’d love to paint you.”

Her words confirm her identity and send my thoughts spinning. Before I can gather them enough to formulate an answer, she displays her white teeth again.

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

Tomorrow?
Tomorrow would be church, followed by lunch with Charles’s parents, then I would escape my mother-in-law as soon as decorum allowed by taking a constitutional walk in the village.

“My husba...”

I trail off, aghast. As if speaking his name has somehow invoked him, Charles appears over her bare shoulder. He has taken in the scene, and is glowering at me. At my expression, her eyes steel. Then she turns on her stool, exclaiming in delighted tones.

“Why, you must be Mister King. I’ve heard so much about you.” She shoots me a wink. “I’ve been talking to your wonderful wife here,” this is accompanied by a further dazzling smile, “and she has very kindly agreed to show me around. I’m completely new to the area, you see... well, the country, in fact. Would that be all right with you?”

Uncharacteristically silent, Charles surveys her, his blue eyes narrowed to slits. I hold my breath while a befuddled attempt at calculation occurs behind the glazed look I recognise all too well. Two high spots of colour on his cheeks complete the picture: my husband is drunk.

“Well, Mrs...”

“It’s Miss, actually. Miss Soames. Eve,” she corrects brightly, placing a hand on his arm. As my husband stares down at it, she adds, “And that’s simply marvellous. I’ll collect her at four.”

Charles’s arrival means the glass of whisky remains untouched on the bar.

That night, I hardly sleep.

Her name is Eve.

CHAPTER TWO

When a low growl finally rumbles in the street outside the following afternoon, I can’t resist running to the window like an excited child.

She’s eleven minutes late, seated at the steering wheel of a vast silver motorcar, dark bob covered by a burgundy cloche. Before I can duck away, she glances up at the window and waves gaily. I stifle a grimace and half-raise my hand before shrinking back to smooth my brown overcoat for what must be the tenth time.

One final check on my appearance in the wardrobe mirror proves deeply unsatisfactory. My cheeks are too pink, eyes too bright behind their spectacles. I lean against the glass, pressing both sides of my flaming face in turn to no avail, then take the stairs two at a time. I’m thankful yet again that Charles was called away to play cards with Grace’s husband after lunch.
 

Unusually taciturn, all he said as he left was, “Don’t be late back. Don’t embarrass yourself—or me.”

The door shuts behind me with a click. As I turn, I catch a glimpse of wine-coloured felt over the hedge and Charles is forgotten.

“Darling girl,” she calls while I latch the garden gate, “we’re going to have such fun.”

I climb up into the car beside her and smile, breathless. I believe her. With a wink, she reaches for a lever beneath the wheel, which I assume must do the job of starting-handle, and we roar away.

I’ve never sat in the front of a motorcar, and this one is particularly impressive. Eve drives like a madwoman. At first I can’t stop observing her, but the white, linear symmetry of the Wedding Cake soon holds me still and spellbound. The art deco building, less cake, more gleaming castle on its high hill, could not be more different to the house—old, neat, grey-stoned—I share with Charles. She slides me an amused glance, shouting over the noise of the engine.

“Simply gorgeous, isn’t it?”

I nod; it really is. Tendrils of delight take hold as I realise she’s taking me to her home. As we thunder up the lane towards the pure lines of the brilliant building, small flutters that I first noticed in my stomach last night, like the rain of petals, grow heavier and spread an upwards trail into my chest.

The steps and massive front door are imposing up close. I briefly imagine climbing them alone; how I would feel, ringing the bell to this property. I’m immeasurably glad Eve is here with me. She slings me a smile over her shoulder as the key moves in the lock.

“Here we are. My new baby. I always dreamed of a place in England, by the sea.” Her glance grows almost coy. "You're my first visitor."

Before I can answer, she turns again, hands delicate against the wood. Then the door is flung wide, her heels echoing across the expanse of black and white tile of the entrance hall.

“Welcome to my humble home, Rosina King.”

Disoriented, I drift in behind her. Directly in front of us a staircase sweeps gracefully towards a mezzanine floor. My first impression of the house is one of curious juxtaposition—a kind of casual grandeur that awes and entices. Just like its owner. I hover at the threshold and stare.

When it becomes apparent Eve has no such intention, I close the front door and follow her towards a doorway set to the far right of the staircase.

“Come into the snug,” she calls. I obey, then stop short inside the new room as she removes her hat with a flourish and tosses it onto an armchair. Her fingers rake the angled black crop, a blissful expression on her face. Her eyes are closed. When they snap open unexpectedly and find me staring, she smiles.

“Please, make yourself at home. Here, I’ll take your coat.”

This room is smaller, cosier, yet exudes as much stylish opulence as the lobby. I hand over the garment without even wincing at how incongruous it seems here, my attention stolen by the paintings that litter each wall. They’re nothing I might have expected—if I’d expected anything—from the house’s modern exterior, nor its entrance hall. All hint at the romanticism of an earlier age, another time and place.

They remind me of the style of my Briar Rose print
.
The soft bloom and fall of petals begins again inside.

One by one, the pictures draw me to them. My fingers yearn to touch their textured surfaces, bending and distorting the light. I soon find, as I walk between the canvasses in increasing fascination, that the subject of each is the same. A woman, mouth heart-shaped, hair red and fluid. Her eyes blaze from each painting, although she is depicted differently in every piece—mermaid, goddess, peasant. In many she is nude, or nearly so. My heart thuds so loudly I feel my chest vibrate. Something else burns within each image, almost as fiercely as the woman’s gaze.

Whoever painted these
desired
her. Quite aside from the nudity, a carnal quality lurks among the brush strokes that I can hardly articulate to myself. As heat advances across my cheeks, I curl an arm around my middle.

“Don’t worry. I won’t paint you like that.” Her voice is low and close behind me. I start, spinning around, still clutching myself at the waist. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” Her metallic gaze is attentive.

“You... painted these?”

“Guilty as charged, your honour.” Her lips twitch upwards, but her eyes flicker as she takes in my expression. “You don’t like them?”

“Oh! Oh, no, it’s not that. Not at all, it’s just... I’ve never seen anything like them.”

It’s the truth. Although the style is similar to my childhood print, that one did not feature this woman, nor her nakedness. I feel the blush begin to spread: down over my breastbone, creeping up my neck. She raises an immaculate brow.

“Champagne.” She sounds decisive, then her inflexion alters. “Would you like to sit?”

She waits for me to nod before her slim hand circles my wrist, guiding me to a chair by the fireplace.

* * *

I’ve never been drunk in the day,
I ponder, watching the lazy rise of bubbles in my second glass. I like it. Around the time I drained the first, my fingers relaxed their grip on the chair enough for me to sit back more comfortably. I started to look around the room while she asked me about our village and the county, listening attentively to my answers, then talked about having commissioned the house, and how excited she is to be here. She asks vanishingly little about my home life. I am taken by the impression she wants to put me at ease, and even more strongly that she has guessed such talk would unsettle me. I breathe easier, grateful.

We sit in opposing armchairs beside a blazing fire, surrounded not only by the paintings, but countless artefacts: masks, vases, rugs, and I am suddenly sure Eve collected each in person from their distant origins. A rusted axe on the mantel catches my eye; it looks old, and I can’t help a smile at the impertinent thought of her brandishing it like some ancient knight. Another sip of champagne. My eyes meet with hers over the rim of my glass. I feel warmer as the notion hits me: I am sitting here with this well-travelled, emancipated, vibrant woman. She is interested in me.

I
am interested in me when I’m with her. I can almost imagine a life apart from the one I try so hard to avoid living. With her, the very last thing I want to do is sleep.

“You know.” She lights another cigarette and tucks her feet up under herself in her armchair. “In the champagne cellars in France, they take the tops off the bottles with a sword.”

I blink and study the crystal goblet. “Doesn’t that leave shards in the wine?”

“Not if you do it right.” A perfect smoke ring ghosts from her languid smile. “You said you’d never been to France?”

She remembered.
I blink again and suppress a laugh, both at the prospect of me going abroad and the flattering thought she would think it possible.

“No. Charles would never go. He doesn’t trust the French. Or anyone, really,” I add. “You know, since the war.”

Least of all me.
I blame the war, but Charles has always had a silvered menace to him. Direct accusations are rare, but his message is still clear: I am constantly being judged, and constantly found to be lacking. At first I had thought if I could only act better, be better; more like him, concerned with outside appearances and social standing... now I know better.
Another lesson learned.
I swallow. Talk of Charles has made my stomach twist.

“Could you not go without him?”

This time I do laugh. The sound arrives on my lips in a kind of manic gurgle, made so by the sheer audacity of the idea.
Go to another country, without Charles.
He would never allow such a thing. I raise my eyes again; hers are waiting. They see the truth and draw it from me.

“He questions me if I spend too long at the village post office.” I regret my frankness immediately.
Disloyalty and inconstancy from good, dependable Rose? I clearly haven’t learned my lesson.

“I see,” she says softly, and I am certain she does. I flush, glancing away at the fire.

“Say, would you like to see my other paintings? My favourites are hung in my bedroom.”

The change of subject brings a surge of relief. I smile back more confidently and find the champagne’s magic has worked its way into my head.

“I’d absolutely love that.”

Answering with the widest grin she’s shown me yet, she picks up the bottle and beckons me to follow.

Eve Soames’s bedroom is like some bohemian princess’s bower. The bed is vast and white. The air is wreathed in floral notes I recognise from her perfume, and a large picture window looks out directly on the sea. Never in my wildest imaginings would I have thought anyone would actually have a room like this—well, maybe as a young girl.
Before...

Rooted, my stockinged feet sink into the deep pile of a broad cream rug. I clutch the stem of the glass and look around.

“You sleep here?” It’s all I can think to say.

She chuckles, probably at the patent wonder in my tone, and refills my drink.

“And other things.”

I jerk my head up to find her eyes on my face. For a moment, her features are immobile before they soften into a demure smile. She tilts her head.

“Well, if you were to listen to the gossip I overheard in the village shop yesterday, you might think I divide my time between here and a coffin in the crypt.”