The Diamond Waterfall (12 page)

“What?”

He fingered the silk nightgown showing a little at the fold of the wrap. “That. The garment. I want it off. It's not cold in here, I think?”

What a way of speaking, she thought, as he began to walk away. While he was in the dressing room, she took it off, placing her silk wrap around her shoulders. Waiting for him, she thought of getting into the big bed. He appeared suddenly in the doorway: he was in a dark blue dressing gown, frogged. He carried a large box—red leather, with black corners. Worn. She recognized it from their luggage. He had kept it with him always in the compartment.

He knelt by the fireplace. She sat on the sofa still, pulling the folds of the silk wrap over her bare belly, her thighs. It is the waiting and his strange behavior, she thought, which makes me shiver. He opened the box then, and inside she saw—oh, but he could not have brought with him so much jewelry. And this was but the first tray!

“Hold out your arm, please.” She did so obediently.

Old-fashioned bracelets. Broad gold; gold network, fastened with ribbon of gold; blue enamel medallions, each with a small bouquet of brilliants; a broad gold chain, each link separated with a ruby; aquamarines with twisted gold. Sapphires …

One, then another, another—he placed them reverently first up one arm, then the other. Bewildered, she tried to smile:

“Some of these—they are very lovely …”

Already the wine from the meal had worn off, leaving her tired, and hollow. A feeling of haunting anxiety.

Now he was placing the last, low down on her wrist. “These—they belonged to our mother. This one, so simple, is what they called a “sentimental bracelet.” There is some of her hair, you see, fastened in with gold …” He was breathing deeply.

Her wrap had fallen right off. She saw her own skin—velvety, glowing. Already, she wore on her arms all the jewelry she could ever have dreamed of. But not like this…. She thought, I should at least have been a little drunk. It would have been better to have had something, anything. The champagne I spurned so imperiously …

She said, since he did not move, “And now?”

“What is the haste?” It was the tone of voice, cold, edged, which had reproached her that evening at The Towers, when she had not worn the bracelet.

She saw then he had lifted the next tray from the box. More gold, more stones glittered, shone, reflected light. Wanting him to use again his pleasant, bluff manner of speaking, she said, “Ah, I'm sorry. Do what you will …”

She shut her eyes, breathed slowly, hoping that the shivering would stop. She felt him pass over her head a chain, heavy, cold. Now, she couldn't open her eyes. Shut, they somehow protected her. To move would be impossible (and yet I have only to stand up, pull off the bracelets, announce an end to all this).

Breathing heavily again, he said:

“Good, good. Your eyes are shut.” His voice thickened. “My—flower. Such a gleam against flesh. No flesh is anything unless it's adorned. It changes, changes quite—when the stones touch the flesh. One needs the other —I need, I need …” She felt the clasp of another necklace. Then something about her waist. His hands were behind her. “The body unadorned. It will not do. I …”

Rings were being slipped on her fingers now. Some were loose, some went on only with difficulty. She thought, If I keep my eyes shut, perhaps, perhaps this charade will soon be over. His hands were warm, but the stones were not. The cold feel of the stones—and their weight. I might as well not be here. I am a dummy to be decorated. A tree to be hung with rings and necklets.

She felt the weight of something fastened on her head, circling her brow. Then her ankles.

She said, opening her eyes, ” ‘Rings on her fingers, bells on her toes…' ”

“Ah yes,” he said. “Ride a cock horse, ride a cock horse.”

She thought the remark unfortunate. He told her, ordered her, to stand up. The cheval glass opposite: in the subdued light, she saw herself—surely not a woman, but a freak. Weighed down with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, pearls, diamonds, ringed, belted, fettered. … It seemed to her she must have on every piece of jewelry the family owned. Everything bar the Diamond Waterfall. There seemed little of her flesh left. Her shoulders partly, her thighs and legs above the ankle, the lower part of her belly. The blond triangle of hair.

He gazed at her without speaking for what must have been at least a minute. Contemplating. She hoped then that perhaps it was all to end here— that the act would be something separate. For another night, or day.

“Well—have you seen enough?” she asked jauntily. “I am a fine sight. Not even a queen—”

It was then he took her. Removing first only the belt. It would not have been terrible—only like Frank—if it had not been for the pain of stones, metal, pressed into soft skin. (If I had even dreamed …) She tried to remember she had thought Robert pleasing once.

And ludicrous—it was all ludicrous. That was the word for it. She had been once already, with Frank, ridiculous. And here it was the same again. But more serious. She could not now shrug her shoulders. Escape.

He hardly spoke. Not even the momentary flattery she might have expected, to make it tolerable for them both. His only words, just before he took her, “My God, but they are lovely …” Speaking surely of the jewels. I, she thought,
I
am not here…. There was just the clumsy pushing, prodding. Touching, stroking not her but the jewels—touching them with an awful tenderness.
They
must not be hurt. Then, stabbing at her.

A convulsive moment—and he turned away. He said without looking at her:

“Take them off. The jewels. Dress again, please. Dress.” He was embarrassed, awkward.

When he had gone through to the bedroom, tired, shaking, cold, she stripped herself of all the finery—fighting with clasps, pushing and twisting rings. She laid everything in an untidy heap in the leather box. Humiliated, disgusted, she joined him. She said in an unsteady voice:

“I have left—them, next door.”

He said from the bed, where he lay already on his side, “No matter. No matter. Shall attend to them. In the morning …” His voice was thick.

She curled up on the other side of the bed. She bit her lip, wanting to cry, but too proud. As a girl she had lain always on her back, proud, determined. Now she curled up in a ball, hunched, defeated.

What have I done?

There were marks on her skin where the jewels had pressed—weals almost. Some of them still visible in the morning.

Robert, the next day, seemed urbane, sure of himself, even, she thought, pleased with himself. He treated her with the greatest courtesy, concerned that she should not be tired, or bored; that the holiday should be nothing less than perfect.

“You look forward to Paris?”

Paris in April. In the public gardens small children built forts with the gravel. Girls with skipping ropes. Punch and Judy. In the Champs Élysées there were merry-go-rounds and goat-drawn carts. The particular quality of the light in the early mornings, lilacs after rain, the scents of spring. Those first few days, it seemed to her very terrible to be in Paris, and not in love….

Paris. Her dream fulfilled. But, what have I done? was all she could think.
What have I done?
It was as if she had made her decision, her momentous decision to marry, sleepwalking. I must have been asleep. Yet I seemed at the time to be thinking rationally, to be making commonsense plans. Even now, she thought, if ordeals like that first night in Nice did not happen again, it might yet be possible. Indeed, in the eleven days since, there had not been another. If only the memory, and the humiliation, were not still so alive…. She feared that the air of Paris would be poisoned with it just as the air of the Riviera had been….

And yet, the days were not too bad. Certainly nothing was spared to make her happy—if money, and attention, and general spoiling could do that. Their hotel: the Grand, near the Opéra, with its nine hundred rooms. Their own suite. Every luxury. Lionel a knowledgeable companion. Usually it was he who organized their days and evenings. They went to the races so that he could study form, so that Lily might be seen in the outfits chosen with such care in London in February. They dined out late. Were brought back one early morning by a drunken cabman—his red plush waistcoat unbuttoned, white shiny hat toppling onto the pavement, when at last he delivered them. Robert refused to pay the three francs asked and, supported by Lionel, left a ranting cabman outside.

She saw them for the first time about halfway through the second week. Teodor and Sophie. Afterward she was never sure what she had noticed first: Teodor's enormous size, loud voice, even louder laugh, or Sophie's nearly equal bulk, plump, cushionlike. Their arrival could hardly have gone unremarked, preceded as they were by a number of attendants with trunks, hatboxes and assorted luggage, a little yapping Pomeranian on a lead.

That evening at dinner in the hotel they were a few tables away, just out of earshot but plainly visible. They had a group of friends with them. Voices were loud. There was much gesticulating, Teodor banging the table, his thigh, his friends' thighs, throwing wide his arms. And everything, but everything, made Sophie laugh.

Lionel looked at them with faintly veiled distaste. “An hotel such as this, and filling up already with Slavs. Depend on it”—and he sighed—“they are from the Balkans. It is to be Nice all over again.”

Robert commented, “Not Russian, I think—”

“Oh, but look,” Lionel said, “now they are greeted by
more
friends.”
And indeed, four people had just arrived to join them at the table. Waiters were bringing chairs, making space.

“I shall ask,” Robert said. He summoned a waiter. Gliding over, the waiter bent his head as he was questioned. Lily could not catch the reply.

“A Count Baltaretsu-Gadea and his lady,” said Robert. “From Romania.”

“Oh, fearful. Not Slavs at all but
Latins,”
said Lionel. “Remains of the ancient Romans. They are for some reason most dreadfully at home in Paris—”

Lily said, “They look pleasant enough—”

“They are boyars, the
crème de la crème,
the best that the country can do. They have only just, very lately, sprung from the soil. They are savages—”

“I know nothing about Romania,” Lily said equably.

“They've only recently wrested their lands, or some of them, from the clutches of the Holy Roman Empire. The usual bloody battles. Their crown was peddled round Europe and now they have a German royal family— including a quite absurd Queen who writes sentimental novels. And only yesterday, it was a land of wild forests and even wilder gypsies…. Frankly, dear Lily, I saw too many of them last year.”

Later that evening there were other people to look at, other amusements. She, Robert, and Lionel were out till late, drinking chocolate and brandy in a cafe.

The night was peaceful. Robert sat up in bed reading before turning over to sleep. “Good night, my dear.” If only every night could be like this, from now on and forever.

Next morning about eleven, in the hotel foyer, a little white dog, a Pomeranian, ran into her skirts. Under them. She had been standing alone, hatted, pulling on her gloves, ready to go out. They were to drive in the Bois de Boulogne. The dog—it was the Pomeranian from yesterday—was pulling at her hem. Nipped her ankle. As she jerked her skirts, throwing him forward, he rolled over on his back. Then up again, yapping excitedly. She bent forward to push him away. He snatched at the glove she held.

Then, suddenly, there was the Romanian countess. Laughing and scolding, rattling words in low-voiced French. Looking over her shoulder, perhaps for her husband. She couldn't rescue the glove. A messenger boy had joined them, was trying to help. The dog gripped and shook, as he would a rat. Sophie threw her hands up in despair. Then, leaning forward, an arm on Lily's sleeve, another flood of French.

Lily, feeling rather helpless, said,
“Je suis anglaise …”

“My dear, oh but yes—pardon, pardon—what shall we say? The count —Teodor, where
are
you? He speak English better.”

Two of the hotel functionaries had come on the scene. Also at last,
Teodor. The glove, chewed, wet, unwearable, had been rescued. More French from Sophie. Then she told Lily it must be replaced. She said:

“We send buy today. I am so desolate—oh, but please, it is all arranged and say no more.” She slapped the dog, “méchant petit, diable.” Then she patted Lily's arm again and clasped her hand warmly. “Oh,
what
can I say?”

The count beamed. Seen close up, he was even larger than remembered. Pinker in the face behind the thicket of white beard.

When the incident had been over several minutes, Robert appeared, flustered because Lionel was not yet ready. He took out his watch. “Without him, perhaps?”

“Lionel is not necessary on
every
occasion,” she said.

“But he so looks forward to the Bois. To be seen—”

“I have had trouble with a glove,” she said. “I have only one. I must go up again.”

“If you could hurry,” he said, “Lionel comes now.”

That afternoon three pairs of gloves, in lilac, dove gray, and white kid, were delivered to their room. It was from the card inside that she had learned their first names: Teodor and Sophie. Later, at dinner, a message was sent over inviting them to join their party at the table.

“For cognac. After, we are all going to a fine place,” Teodor explained when they had sat down. Sophie said, “There we drink only champagne.”

“What the deuce,” Robert had said when first asked. But Lily, suddenly desperate to go, had argued, “They wish to make amends for this morning— they must be allowed—”

“Come, come.
Three
pairs of gloves. They already exaggerate …”