“Hector.” Gwen set down her teacup. Her eyes had a vacant look. “I can’t believe it.”
“Now, Gwen …” Maud’s voice took on a warning note. “Now, Gwen, you promised me. I shouldn’t have told you. I wouldn’t have told you. I thought you must certainly know.”
“He stammered.”
“Who, Hector? No, he didn’t.”
“Yes, he did. Very slightly, when he was a child. Like Boy. He was such an earnest child. The others used to make fun of him—”
“Gwen …”
“I’m sorry, Maud.” Gwen’s eyes had filled with tears. She leaned forward and attempted to pick up her cup, but her hand was shaking and she let it rest.
Maud leaned forward again. She took Gwen’s hand once more and pressed it. “Dearest Gwennie, I know it’s sad, and I’m sad too. Now listen, that wasn’t the only thing I had to tell you. I had good news, too, and I saved that for last because I knew it would cheer you. Don’t cry. You don’t want Freddie and Steenie to see you. Take a deep breath—that’s it.
Now:
Monty says, and he has it on the very best authority, you understand, that this is almost over. The war! The whole wretched thing! Truly, Gwennie—another few months at most, Monty says. The generals are convinced, even those dreadful pessimists at the War Office. By Christmas, Gwennie—think—it could all be over.” She had invented this rigmarole on the spur of the moment, for Stern had given her no such assurance, and the last time the matter was discussed, his predictions had been gloomy. Maud, in that moment, cared for none of that; the words tumbled out. She had her reward when she saw hope flicker in Gwen’s eyes.
“Oh, Maud, are you sure? Is Monty sure?”
“Darling, I promise you. He’s at the War Office now, and he said he’d look in on the way back. Ask him yourself then. Since he went into munitions he hears everything—and anyway, he and that horrid Lloyd George are like
that.
” Maud held up two fingers, crossed. “Think, Gwen! By Christmas, Boy and Acland could be home. We could all go down to Winterscombe. We could have a family party, just as we always used to do. We can see in the New Year together. We can be reunited; we can drink to 1917, and peace at last …”
“Death to the Kaiser?” Gwen put in, and managed a wan smile, for this currently was Maud’s favorite toast.
“Death to the Kaiser, absolutely,” Maud replied with spirit.
“I always thought him the most vulgar little man.”
Death to the Kaiser,
Constance heard from across Maud’s splendid drawing room, above the languid monotone of Conrad Vickers, who had taken up a position of worship at her side.
She glanced across and saw Maud lift her teacup, her expression so fierce it seemed she might dash it to the ground, Russian fashion. Stupid woman, Constance thought to herself, watching Maud rise to her feet to greet a group of new guests; she gazed at Maud jealously. Maud was, in fact, not stupid at all, but shrewd, and her manner of speech was misleading. Constance knew this, but that afternoon she did not feel kindly toward Maud, or indeed anyone else; she felt tense and on edge.
In part this was because two separate matters pressed in upon her and divided her energies. Constance never liked that. She was always happiest when her mind could focus with perfect clarity on one course, when all her willpower could be directed to one end. Today, she had come here with just such a purpose in view: She would see Montague Stern, and she would behave in such a way that the indifference in his gaze when he looked at her would vanish forever.
That had been her purpose when she entered this drawing room, but more than half an hour had passed—time in which she had been forced to listen to Conrad Vickers’s inanities. Constance was beginning to believe that she would be thwarted yet again, that Sir Montague might not even appear.
Whereupon her mind, with a facility that infuriated her, began to dart off at a tangent. It began to dwell instead upon the quite separate matter of her maid, Jenna.
Jenna was not well: Constance had been aware of that fact for weeks, but the excitement of the ball and its aftermath, her plans for Montague Stern, had diverted her. Today, when Jenna came to help her dress for this tea party, she had looked so ill that Constance could no longer ignore it. Jenna’s normally contented expression had gone; her eyes were puffy, as if from lack of sleep, or weeping; her manner was silent and distracted.
Constance, alerted by this change, watched her. She already knew a great deal more about Jenna’s affairs than her maid ever suspected. It was torture to Constance to think there might be other secrets to which she did not have access. Jenna still wrote to Acland, for instance, and must receive some replies; Constance knew that. At least she deduced that, for on three occasions, following at a discreet distance, she had observed Jenna make a pilgrimage: out of Park Street, down to the post office at Charing Cross Station. There she would post a letter and collect one from one of the numbered boxes. Such letters, Constance concluded, could come from only one person; anyone writing openly to Jenna would have written to the house.
Discovering this, Constance had been impatient to know more: Why did Jenna write, and why did Acland reply? Was their affair over, as she had believed and Acland had confirmed? If it was over, why continue to write? At times, speculating upon this, Constance ached with a most painful curiosity.
Once or twice the temptation was so strong that she almost gave in. Jenna must hide these letters somewhere, and there was at least the possibility that Constance could find them. Yet something held her back. She could imagine Acland’s disdain, his contempt—to creep into a servant’s room … No, tempted though she was, for once Constance could not do it.
How moral I have become!
she thought to herself, and she glanced toward the door to see if Stern had yet made an appearance.
He had not. Conrad Vickers continued to discuss his tiresome photographs, and how daring they were.
“So, I posed Constance on a bier,” he was saying. He gave an adoring glance in her direction, which Constance knew meant nothing at all; Vickers was immune to the attractions of women.
“Then—and this was the
piece de resistance
—I put one white rose in her hands. Well, I wanted to use a lily, but Constance hates lilies. Anyway, the rose looked very well. She looked like Juliet on her tomb. No—rather more dangerous than Juliet. That divine hawklike profile of yours, Connie dear! It was positively
perturbing.
”
“I can’t see why you should want Constance to look like a corpse,” remarked one of the young officers with a chilly glance in Vickers’s direction.
Vickers raised his eyes to the ceiling.
“Hardly,” he squeaked. “Connie looked magnificently alive—just as she always does. I’m not taking family snaps to stand on the piano, you know. The whole point is to make a
statement.
The
essence
of Connie—that was what I was after. Not a
likeness
—any fool could do that.”
“Yes, but why make her look dead?” The young officer, perhaps more experienced than Vickers in matters of mortality, was not to be repressed.
“Not dead—deadly. A
femme fatale
,” Vickers replied on a note of triumph, for he loved nothing so much as explaining the obvious to the philistines.
“
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
—that’s how I see Constance. Perhaps …” He paused magnificently. “Perhaps you are not acquainted with the poem?”
“I’ve read the poem. Everyone’s read the poem. Perhaps you ought to print it next to the picture—just in case anyone misses the point.”
“My dears!” Vickers sighed a deep sigh. “I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I simple
loathe
the obvious, don’t you?”
Constance turned away from this bickering. She glanced down at the small jeweled watch she wore pinned to the breast of her jacket—almost four; would Montague Stern never come?—and forced herself to look around her, to examine the drawing room in which she sat.
This drawing room, she felt, could assist her. Maud might lay claim to it, but Constance doubted that. Stern had certainly paid for these things. Perhaps chosen them. In this room, and in these objects, there could be a key to the man she sought.
The drawing room was already, in its way, famous. Its modernity, its eclecticism, had already been celebrated at length in numerous periodicals, all of which Constance had read. It was not, perhaps, to Constance’s own taste, for it was an understated room—arresting, in the first instance, because of its absence of clutter.
It was a room some of Gwen’s friends might have judged vulgar, for—with a peculiarly English snobbishness—they held that a room should look a little shabby, that anything too perfect or too obviously expensive declared itself as nouveau riche.
Perhaps this room was a little too careful, a little too rich, but Constance did not mind. She looked at it, she listened to its stream of coded messages, and she understood: The person who created this room was a paradox, an ascetic who could not resist beautiful things.
For beautiful things—and rare things—lay all around her, displayed with a museum’s care:
sangde boeuf
porcelain, ranked upon a French commode; a rug beneath her feet which was as complex and delightful as a flower garden. And then the pictures! These paintings, which Constance had previously never liked, now sang to her.
Looking at them, and at their jeweled colors, she knew beyond a doubt that it was not Maud who had selected the objects here. Maud might boast of these paintings—and indeed did—but she would never understand them.
No, this room was Stern’s. He paid for it; he chose it; he assembled it. Stern, the collector of rare things.
And I chose him,
Constance said to herself. In that moment, when she felt she might understand him, that she might dwell in his mind, that she might work on him—just then, Stern came into the room.
One of his fleeting visits, although Stern gave no indication of this. He gave the impression, as he always did, that he had all the time in the world. He greeted Maud. He greeted the twenty or so assembled guests. He appeared delighted to see them. As soon as he judged they were engaged once more, he extricated himself from the conversation. He withdrew, as was often his custom, to the other end of the room.
Constance bided her time. This meeting, every detail of which she had carefully planned in her mind, must not be rushed.
She waited, therefore, while Maud addressed the company at large. She saw Stern wince when Maud explained he had been that afternoon at the War Office and could not now stay long, for he was going on to Downing Street that evening. Stern, who was almost always negligent and modest about his access and his powers, disliked these fond boasts, Constance thought.
She watched the skill with which he extricated himself. She noted the slight sigh of relief he gave as he withdrew. She watched him choose a seat with its back to the rest of the room. She watched him pick up a newspaper.
None of the other guests seemed to find this withdrawal odd. They had been well trained by Maud. Stern was an important man; they accepted that he had weightier matters on his mind. Besides, his withdrawal left them free to gossip. When it came to scandal and innuendo and revelation, Stern’s excellent manners sometimes failed. He was known to be a source of information, naturally; that information, however, was filtered through Maud.
This assisted Stern’s useful reputation for discretion. That reputation Maud guarded fiercely. She might be a great gossip, but she gossiped with care. No gaffes; and—since Maud revealed so much—people were inclined to make revelations in their turn. These, Constance had no doubt, were then repeated to Stern when Maud was alone with him.
She looked at Stern appraisingly. She considered whether he might actually love Maud, or whether Maud was merely useful to him. She was not sure, and because she was uncertain, she was all the more determined to proceed with care.
Constance could spot tedium in the eyes at twenty paces—and what did Stern find most tedious? Why, the blandishments of women—that she had begun to observe.
For Stern, she had decided, most women were mere gadflies. It was power that interested him, and most women had no power. So, charmingly, politely, he brushed them aside. She had learned her lesson the night of the ball: With Stern it would be useless to employ the flirtatious tactics usual to young girls.
Other strategies were required. Since these were already decided upon—it was too late to go back—Constance felt herself grow calm. Time for first strike. She allowed a few more seconds to pass; then, detaching herself from the group of young men, she stood up.
Her most beautiful dress, selected for this occasion: silk the color of Parma violets, a plain black ribbon wound tight about her throat. On her fingers, just one ring: a black opal, given by Maud, which superstitious Gwen had tried to persuade her not to wear.
Constance looked down at this ring: lightning imprisoned in jet. She liked the unpredictability of opals. She was not superstitious and never would be.
She half believed in luck, from time to time; she had greater faith in willpower. Determination: that was the thing. When she was determined enough, she felt she could do anything. She advanced across the room. She looked at Stern’s back. As she did so, the most unlikely memory came into her mind. The day they brought her father back to Winterscombe on the stretcher. A black black day; everything about it was black. She could not see into the detail of the memory. Then someone took her arm; someone led her up the portico steps—and her way was blocked, by this man, by some garment. She could not remember the garment at all—only its color. It had been red. Her father’s blood had been red too. A red and black day, which made her mind twang and ache.
She stopped halfway across the room. Maud, looking up, made some passing remark to her. Constance answered it in an absent voice. Then, despising her own hesitation, she took up her position, her planned position, just behind Stern’s chair.
“How old are you?” Constance said. She said it without preamble, just as she had planned. All that had happened was that Stern had turned, risen, greeted her—“Ah, Constance my dear”—and drawn out a chair for her. He had then seated himself again with his back to the room, put down his newspaper with a certain reluctance, and smiled. He had not been paying attention. He was paying attention now.