Under the Poppy (32 page)

“You needn’t go,” for the third time, or the fourth? Rupert to Lucy as they climb into the cab, Istvan rolls his eyes and “It will be a fine meal at least,” says Lucy. “Otilie said that they roasted a whole Russian ox, once, just to have the marrow bones. Otilie’s a maid there, did I tell you?” though neither are truly listening, Rupert silent, Istvan too antic for real enjoyment, poking Rupert with a finger: “You’re not her nanny, what ails you?”

“I’d see her someplace sweeter,” thinking of the ball, the women there who deliberately cut her, society ladies and their daughters too refined for a lowly actress, he saw it himself though Lucy feigned to ignore: the quality, Jesu, but “Pshaw,” says Istvan, “she’s dined with plenty worse. Like that rogue Pimm you see of a Sunday—just what are his intentions, miss?”

Lucy laughs, a girl’s sunny laugh, she tosses her head and “Him? Oh, he’s just a fellow I met down by the milliner’s, nice fellow, just someone to pass the time. He makes those replicas they sell in the arcades, little country houses and such. And churches—he made a little Notre Dame with windows of real colored glass, and when you open the door, it plays a
Te Deum
, like a music box…. Anyroad I’ll have you two to protect me,” smiling, “won’t I?” but now Istvan is frowning, brushing two fingers against her bodice: “Why are you wearing that?”

Blue and gold, the lover’s eye from so long ago, Decca’s parting charge:
Give that other this
in Archenburg, but in Archenburg or Brussels he would not take it so she took it herself, another kind of souvenir, beautiful and slightly sad and “It’s my nicest piece of jewelry,” she says now, besides a pair of wee pearl earbobs, she wears those too, her very best for the dinner ahead but “I’ll get you something nicer,” says Istvan. “And you can toss that—bone away.”

“Whyever for?”

“Because it makes me fucking ill to see it, Puss, that’s why,” which ends all comment save Rupert’s reproving glance, the horse’s hooves and carriage creak the only sounds until they reach the appointed avenue, the ageless canopy of oak and linden, the new electric streetlights a-twinkle like fairies in the trees; no crowds here, no passing beggars or street-cart men, nothing but the evening calm and a lovely expectant hush, the indrawn breath before one opens the treasure-chest; as the carriage slows, Lucy softly claps her gloved hands.

“It’s a palace,” she says.

It is: a city palace of luxurious restraint, of black marble doorposts and black glass chandeliers, a footman in dark livery to bow them in past two sentinel vases, carven like pillars and tall as men, made taller still by stalks of white lilies and creeping white vines, some strange sort of ivory ivy as “Otilie,” Lucy’s whisper and wink, the plump little maid behind the maid who takes their wraps: piled brown curls and a grin fit for the boulevards, especially when she looks at Istvan.

“Please,” says the other maid, an unsmiling blonde, “step in to Madame,” who tonight wears silk, a dusty damask color, carnelians in place of the diamonds though she is gloved, still, white elbow-length as at the ball; when she sees those gloves, Lucy glances at her own wristlets in quick dismay. Madame de Metz notes that glance, Madame misses nothing. Greeting the men, she turns from them, her lips an inch from Lucy’s ear and “If I had hands like yours, my dear, I’d have their portrait made. Never hesitate to display them.”

Linking her arm through Lucy’s, she leads the trio into a brightly lit drawing room, the gleam of a grand piano, a trove of extravagant
objets
: paperweight eggs of chalcedony; an embroidered book of saints on a silver stand; a pair of taxidermied swans, could they ever have been real? with dead glass eyes, one mounting the other, miniature wings a-spread; an intricate golden clock, at each hour a sign of the zodiac, the Scorpion sits at twelve. And on every table are crystal vases of roses: lush peach and sentimental pink, as well as other, odd, faintly poisonous colors: a pistachio hue, a deep and garish yellow, a tarnished red with tiny, fisted blooms.

“So many flowers,” says Lucy, leaning to sniff the yellow ones, drawing back in surprise: “Oh, it’s nasty,” she says. “Like a musk lily! Or swamp-rose, some folk call them.”

“Swamp-rose,” repeats Isobel. “I don’t know that term, you’ll have to educate me, Miss Bell…. Roses,” to the men as well, “are my avocation. I admit I am vain of their beauty.”

“You have much to be vain of,” says Istvan, himself resplendent enough tonight for any vanity: cuffs immaculate, a burnished burgundy vest, a pearl-and-opal stickpin that, on closest examination, shows a vein of black at its heart, like the changeful pupil of a winking eye. Rupert, as usual, is sober in black, as usual silent too, standing beneath the great painting that dominates the room: an allegorical study of a half-robed woman, an older man, a much younger woman, and a naked, smiling boy with an arrow in his chubby palm. The man’s eyes and the young woman’s are the same, deep-set and pale blue, Isobel’s eyes and “My father is fond of the classics,” says Isobel. “It’s much in that style,” of epic romance, the man embracing with one arm the bare-breasted Grecian figure, as the girl stands by, while the Cupid boy looks out dimpling at the viewer, arrow on offer, as if to ask Who’s next? Behind the figures a garden stretches, green and endless. “Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time.”

“It’s quite a monstrosity,” from the door, Benjamin’s bright face above a flaming scarlet tie, though the rest of his outfit is more demure: a forest-green frock coat, dark trousers, only the deeply pointed shoes speak of the dandy. “Indecorous, too, at least where I’m concerned.—Your servant, Mademoiselle,” to Lucy, polite too his bow to Istvan, who returns it as politely. Last of all his gaze turns to Rupert, his dazzling smile; he knows precisely how handsome he is.

“Good evening, Monsieur.”

“Good evening, Master de Metz.”

Tonight he is not drunk, not bent on disruption, aiming it seems to please on every level: joining the conversation, lively though not overwhelming, witty but never quite cruel. Lucy laughs at several of his sallies; Isobel watches him, lips faintly pursued; once or twice Rupert smiles. Istvan quizzes him on the modern writers, and he quotes some of the least shocking verse of the most shocking poets, the few whose genius shines “even at the Golden Calf,” says Istvan. “Where so much, alas, is dross, I’ve found.”

“Why, you have been there, M. Dieudonne? The poets draw a young man’s crowd.”

“I try to stay current,” with a chilly little wink, as Isobel summons drinks before dinner, another maid arrives but “Allow me,” Benjamin swift to pour a whiskey, himself serving the glass to Rupert: “To make up for my behavior at the ball,” with what seems real contrition. “Truly, I was abominable.”

“Truly,” Rupert’s shrug, “I have seen worse.”

“I’d show you better,” in a murmur, as the last member of the dinner party arrives, announced without enthusiasm by the blonde maid: “Madame Fernande,” massive in blue shagreen, full of complaints about her coachman, the roads, the night, the malicious ineptitude and delays of life; she and Isobel briefly embrace, Benjamin, after a theatrical pause, coolly kisses her hand.

“You’re barely in time, Fernande,” says Isobel briskly. “I had given you up for lost.”

“I nearly was, in that foul
rue
of the beggars. They swarmed the carriage like flies,” as Benjamin offers his arm to Lucy—“May I take you in to dinner, Mademoiselle?”—then passes a remark to her, underbreath, that makes her bite her lip to check a laugh.

Hors d’oeuvre, the soup, the fish, rabbit
au pain
, artichokes in aspic, course after course begun at once but not before some sleight of hand, the place marks switched so Rupert and Benjamin are side-by-side, Istvan and Lucy opposite, which makes “Me,” says Isobel, “head of the table tonight.” She glances at her brother, who offers a sweet smile. “You, Fernande, can be the
maman
.”

“I will hope,” grumbles Fernande, “that your fare tonight includes some game. I am famished for boar.” Lucy bites her lip again.

As maids glide in and out, platters and plates, Isobel leads the dinner conversation, its rippling flow somewhat impeded by Fernande’s sour manner, and interrupted once or twice by verse, Benjamin quoting poetic
mots
—“ ‘A grog-café/Is where I’ll stay/and ’ware the sepulchre.’ He means his father’s house,” pleasantly to the table. “Is like a tomb.”

Istvan steeples his fingers. “Why, even our Lord was known to frequent the tomb. Though only for the week-end, it’s true.”

Fernande scrapes up the last of her foie gras. “All those poets are nancy-men. I saw one declaiming at Elise’s, he should have been wearing a gown…. Aren’t you bound for Paris yet, Benjamin?”

“I was to go with Pinky, but,” glancing to Rupert, “I may stay with Belle awhile.”

“Pinky,” Fernande repeats scornfully. “Honoré should send that boy into the military. Pity we’ve no war nowadays.”

“War is where you make it,” says Istvan. His voice is mild enough, but Lucy’s face changes, a sudden cloud across the sun and “Will you dance with us, Fernande?” asks Isobel, “we’ve music tonight,” but as it happens Mme. Fernande cannot stay for the entertainment, she departs directly after the dessert—sculpted caramel flan—while the friendly young pianist, woolly hair and a rented tuxedo-coat, encourages Istvan to take Lucy as a partner, Benjamin beating time to merry Strauss as “Monsieur?” Isobel rustling up through the dimness, past the long French doors where Rupert stands smoking a cheroot, in the deep green silence of the garden. “The music is not to your taste?”

“I cannot dance, Madame. I never learned.”

“I hated my dancing master,” she says musingly. “He was so much lovelier than I.” Rupert is surprised into a smile, Isobel continuing at once—to forestall any possible demur or compliment, though this M. Bok does not seem the man to reach at once for the lie—“When I was younger, they called me ‘
jolie-laide
’; now I am ‘handsome.’ ” Taking out her Fabergé case. “In our family, Benjamin has all the beauty.”

He leans forward to light her little cigarette, its golden tip shining in the flare of the match. “You are a smoker, Madame? I think I have not seen a lady do this, at least not here.”

“Is it common, where you hail from?” He shakes his head, he says no more, the silence rests between them until “Will you sit?” on a pretty little bench concealed by a sweeping draft of willow leaves, a half-size willow; everything in this garden is altered somehow, bound or trained or made smaller, its color sapped or enhanced. The bench itself is carved like two hands clasping, a lovers’ bench. “This grotto is my plaything, Monsieur. I have always loved the garden, since I was a girl in my father’s house…. My brother—half-brother—comes to me from that house. He is meant to be its head, schooled to be so, though that schooling is taking some time,” with no mention of the scandal that Lucy shared in the carriage,
Otilie says she heard the boy and his teacher were diddling, the fellow nearly went to prison.
“Seventeen is a difficult age.”

Rupert recalls himself and Istvan at seventeen: they were men, they had seen a deal of the world, primarily its darkness. “Most lads his age are lads no longer.”

“True enough.” Isobel draws deeply on her cigarette. “Your presence seems to have a good effect on him, Monsieur. He admires strength. I hope you will dine with us again, and bring your colleagues—I am simply enchanted with Miss Bell, I must visit her Blackbird Theatre. And M. Dieudonne—”

—as “
There
you are,” Benjamin flushed from dancing, swift to part the willow leaves as Isobel rises, retreating up the path as neatly as a clockwork trick, is it a trick? to leave Rupert alone with this boy who “admires” him, what can that mean? He leans close now, Benjamin, to chatter of the music, to offer a quick confiding sip of “Absinthe,” from a silver flask, “ ‘the green fairy.’ It gives you visions, they say.”

“It would be wasted on me,” says Rupert, but not unkindly: yes, this is a boy, pampered and perhaps unhappy, who seeks visions in liquor and pleasure in mischief; with a boy’s beauty, yes—that skin, and those eyes, strange gray flecked with amber-green; only Istvan was handsomer, as a youth. “I’ll take a whiskey instead,” leading him back toward the townhouse, its view of the bright drawing room like an arcade tableau,
The Quality at Play
: see Madame de Metz nodding to the music, Lucy spinning round in Istvan’s arms, smiling discontented Istvan, why did he accept the invitation? here, or to that foolish ball? The quality at play, yes, and see where it led them before. Why does he play at children’s games on Lucy’s stage, then with Feste at night, at the Golden Calf? What does he want? though he turns the question on Rupert for the asking, And what of you, Mouse? Where shall you play?—with an inward sigh, the boy beside him going on about something or other, some silly poet’s song of angels flying through the night “Like those,” pointing, where? up astride the lintel of the door, a carven pair of robed creatures, wings rampant, arms entwined but “Those?” says Rupert. “Those aren’t angels. May be they are, what is it, kobolds, the bad spirits of the house?” trying for lightness, to raise a smile—

—which he does, but not in amusement, instead Benjamin is amazed: “You are the first, the
very
first, Monsieur, to ever see that! Except for me.”

Paused at the threshold, looking back at Rupert who holds open the French door, another man now pauses in the doorway opposite, as in a glass inverted: a pudgy youngish man in a jacket somewhat too small for him, thin blond hair brushed slick to his head. He makes no move to enter the room, stands watching in dry diligence until Isobel notes his presence, then bows to her, a stiff little bob, looks again to Benjamin who does not see him, bent now on fetching “Whiskey,” beaming at Rupert, “for you and for me.” When Rupert looks again, the man has gone.

One last dance, then several sentimental little etudes round off the evening, Isobel warm to bid them goodnight, patting Lucy’s hand: “You must come again, I insist upon it. All of you must come again.”

And Istvan’s automatic grace—“We would relish that”—gazing sideways past his lashes at Rupert, who is looking at Benjamin, who bows them out and gone and “A fine lady,” Lucy’s smiling verdict, as the carriage rolls away. “She says she will come to the theatre, too. I’ll hope that she does…. That Mme. Fernande, now, what a gargoyle! And Master de Metz, what is it, Benjamin, was jolly, wasn’t he?” into the silence, she looks from one to the other: Istvan keeps his gaze for the window, Rupert makes a tired little nod.

“It’s good you had a fine time, Lucy.”

In the drawing room, quiet now, the maids snuff candles and carry out the plates and glasses, the pianist takes his leave. Isobel looks for Benjamin, who is nowhere to be seen,
absentiéste
, so she will save her compliments for the morrow, though as ever his behavior owed nothing to her; tonight it was M. Bok who held the reins. Dark M. Bok, who behaves so truly the gentleman he is not, and his colleague, yes, the very charming M. Dieudonne, and the clever young lady who is lady to neither, no matter what they may enact…. She steps back into the sanctuary of the garden path, the susurration of the willows. Each night that passes marks the evening’s chill more fully; soon the rains will come and the flowers will die, the bone-white asters, the fleshly sedums starred with frail pink—