Bellefleur (67 page)

Yet she dreamt of him almost at once. So that when he reappeared in her life some weeks later, at a crowded reception at the home of Senator Payne, not far from Bellefleur Manor, she greeted him with an unthinking vivacity—actually held her hand out to him, as if they
were
old friends. It was not until he seized the hand and raised it to his warm lips and bowed over it that Veronica realized the audacity of her behavior, but by then it was too late, for Norst was chattering to her about any number of things—the weather, the beautiful mountain scenery, the “rustic” lakeside cottage he had rented for the summer at Lake Avernus (about twelve miles south of Lake Noir), his hopes for seeing her as frequently as possible. Veronica laughed her high scandalized laugh, and blushed, but Norst took no heed: he thought her, in his own words, “dreadfully charming.” And so very American.

It soon came about that Norst was visiting Veronica at the castle, driving over for luncheon or high tea in his extraordinary black car—a Lancia Lambda, it was, a saloon model that stood high off the ground on wooden-spoked wheels, comfortably roomy enough so that Veronica’s wide-brimmed hats were not in the slightest disturbed as she climbed in. He drove her along the Nautauga River, and down through the picturesque rolling countryside to Lake Avernus, which, already in those days, was beginning to be known as a resort area for well-to-do Manhattanites who hadn’t the interest or the wealth to acquire a genuine Chautauqua camp of the sort Raphael Bellefleur had built on the northern shore of Lake Noir. On those long leisurely drives—which poor Veronica was to remember the rest of her life—the couple talked of innumerable casual things, laughing frequently (for surely, from the start, they were half in love), and though Norst questioned Veronica closely about
her
life, her daily life, as if every detail about her delighted him, he was conspicuously evasive in speaking of his own life: he had “duties” in regard to his family’s shipping line which called him to New York often, he had “duties” in regard to the Swedish Embassy in Washington which called him there, often, and the rest of the time, well, the rest of the time was given over to . . . to his obligations to himself.

“For we have a grave responsibility, do we not, my dear Miss Bellefleur,” he would say, squeezing her hand in excitement, “a responsibility entrusted to us at birth: the need, the
command
to fulfill ourselves, to develop our souls to their utmost? For this we need not only time and cunning, but courage, even audacity . . . and the sympathy of kindred souls.”

Veronica was capable of intelligent skepticism in regard to innumerable domestic matters (dressmaker’s and haberdashers’ promises, for instance), and as a child of thirteen she had insolently repudiated the “God” of Unitarianism (for Veronica’s branch of the family was solemnly experimenting with forms of Christianity they considered rational, since the irrational forms were too embarrassing altogether); she was
not
a stupid young woman; and yet, in Norst’s charismatic presence, she seemed to lose all her powers of judgment, and allowed his words to wash over her. . . . His voice was liquid and sensuous, the first genuinely
charming,
even
seductive,
voice the unfortunate young woman had ever experienced. Ah, it hardly mattered what he said! It hardly mattered: gossip about mutual acquaintances at Lake Avernus, gossip about state and federal politics, praise for the Bellefleur estate and farm, fulsome flattery directed toward Veronica herself (who, in the flush of giddiness attending her “love” for the count, was undeniably beautiful, and not at all innocent of the effect of her cruel wasp-waisted corsets on the snug-fitting silk gowns she wore). Veronica gazed upon Norst with a girlish fascination she did not even try to hide, and murmured in agreement, yes, yes, whatever he said, it
sounded
so utterly plausible.

It was a most unorthodox courtship. Norst would disappear suddenly, leaving behind only a few scribbled words of apology (but never of explanation) with a manservant; and then he would reappear, a day or twelve days later, never doubting but that Veronica would see him—as if she hadn’t innumerable suitors who treated her more considerately. As if she hadn’t, Veronica’s parents and brother chided her, any
pride.
But there was Ragnar Norst in his aristocratic car, which gleamed like a hearse, and gave off a scent (which in time became quite sweet, in Veronica’s opinion) of wax polish, leather, finely-veneered wood, and something mustily damp, like a bog made rich by centuries of decay. At all times he wore impeccably formal attire—frock coats, handsome silk cravats, dazzling-white cuffs with pearl, gold, onyx, and bloodstone cuff links, starched collars, plisséd shirts—and his pomaded hair with its twin curls was always perfect. Perhaps his skin was too swarthy, and his black eyes
too
black, and his moods too unpredictable (for if, one day, he was ebullient, gay, chattersome, and exhilarated, the next day he might be apathetic, or irritable, or melancholy, or so serious in his talk to Veronica of “the need to fulfill one’s destiny” that the young woman turned aside in distress) . . . and in any case, as the Bellefleurs were beginning to say, more and more emphatically, there was something not altogether
clear
about him. Were the Norsts, indeed, an “ancient” Swedish family? Did they own a shipping line? But
which
shipping line? Was Norst associated with the Swedish Embassy under his own name, or under an incognito? Was “Norst” itself an incognito? It is quite possible, Veronica’s brother Aaron said, even granting the man (which I don’t) his identity, that he is involved in espionage of some sort. . . . It hasn’t been our habit, after all, to trust foreigners.

Veronica tearfully agreed; yet, once in Norst’s presence, she forgot everything. He was so
manly.
He could entertain her for hours with Swedish folksongs played on a curious little instrument that resembled a zither, and produced a keening and yet lulling, almost soporific, sound, a “music” so intimate that it played along her nerves and pulses, and left her quite drained. He told her of his many travels—to Patagonia, to the African interior, to Egypt, Mesopotamia, Jordan, India, New Guinea, Styria, the land of Ganz—and began to intimate, more and more explicitly, that she would soon accompany him, if she wished. And then he addressed her as no other man had ever addressed her, seizing her limp hand and raising it to his lips, kissing it passionately: murmuring shamelessly of “love” and “kindred souls” and “mutual destiny” and the need for lovers to “surrender” themselves completely to one another. He called her “dearest,” “my dear Veronica,” “my dear beautiful Veronica,” and did not seem to notice her discomfort; he spoke in a tremulous voice of “rapture” and “passion”—that “unexplored country” which a “virgin like yourself” must one day traverse, but only in the company of a lover who had opened himself completely to her. There must be, he cautioned, no secrets between lovers—absolutely no corners or recesses of the soul kept in darkness—otherwise the raptures of love will be merely physical, and short-lived, and if the lovers
die
into each other they will
die
literally, and not be resurrected—did she understand? Ah, it was imperative that she understand! And he embraced her, fairly shuddering with emotion; and poor Veronica nearly fainted. (For no man had ever spoken to her like this, nor had anyone so abruptly, and so passionately, taken her in his arms.)

“But you shouldn’t! That isn’t nice! Oh—that isn’t nice!” Veronica gasped. And, like a frightened child, she burst into peals of laughter. “That isn’t—
nice
—”

That night she retired early, her head reeling as if she had drunk too much wine, and she was hardly conscious of pulling the bedcovers up before she slipped—sank—was pulled into—sleep. And in the morning she found the heart-shaped bloodstone on the pillow beside her!—simply lying on the pillow beside her. (She knew at once, of course, that it was a gift of Norst’s, for two or three days earlier, as they dined in the Avernus Inn overlooking the magnificent lake, she had made a fuss over his cuff links—she’d never seen so richly dark a stone before, and found its scintillating depths quite fascinating. The family jewels she had inherited—a single sapphire, some modest-carated diamonds, a handful of opals, garnets, pearls—struck her suddenly as uninteresting. Norst’s bloodstone cuff links might very well be, as he insisted gaily, inexpensive, even commonplace, but they exerted a fascination upon Veronica, who found it difficult to take her eyes off them during the meal.) And now—what a surprise! For several minutes she lay without moving, staring at the large stone, which was both green and red, and layered with darkness:
could
such a beautiful object be, indeed, commonplace?

He had gotten Veronica’s maid to tiptoe into her room and lay the stone beside her, of course, and though the girl denied it—for her mistress was not so flummoxed by passion as to fail to wonder at the propriety of Norst’s tipping (or bribing) a domestic servant—Veronica knew that this was the case: an audacious gesture, of which her family would angrily disapprove, but one which (ah, she couldn’t help herself) quite charmed her.

She slipped the bloodstone on a gold chain, and wore it about her neck that very day.

THE MORE FREQUENTLY
Veronica saw Ragnar Norst, the less she felt she knew of him; it frightened her, and excited her, to realize that she would never
know
him at all. For one thing, his moods were so
capricious
. . . . He could start off on a walk with her in excellent high spirits, obviously filled to the brim with energy; fifteen minutes later he would be suddenly weary, and ask if Veronica wouldn’t mind sitting on a bench for a while, and simply gazing, without speaking, at the landscape. Or perhaps he was sweetly melancholy, and kept staring mournfully into her eyes, as if he were yearning, starving, for something, for
her
. . . and then again, a few minutes later, he would be telling one of his lengthy, convoluted folktales, set in Sweden or Denmark or Norway, punctuated with bursts of laughter (for some of the tales, though sanctified by tradition, struck the blushing young woman as distinctly ribald—not really suited for her ears). He was at all times unusually perceptive, however: she felt that he was
seeing
and
hearing
and
thinking
with an almost preternatural clarity. At one unfortunate luncheon, high on the terrace in the walled garden, Veronica’s brother Aaron—a 230-pounder with an exaggerated sense of his own powers of ratiocination, far more suited for hunting than for civilized discourse—began to interrogate Norst almost rudely about his background (“Ah, you claim there is
Persian
blood on your mother’s side of the family?—indeed? And on your father’s side, what sort of blood, do you think—?”), and it was quite remarkable to witness Norst’s transformation: he seemed immediately to sense that a direct confrontation with this brute would be not only disastrous, but distasteful, and so he replied to Aaron’s questions in a courteous, even humble manner, readily admitting when necessary that he
couldn’t
altogether explain certain . . . certain discrepancies . . . no, he regretted that he
couldn’t
account for . . . not altogether . . . not at the present time. Veronica had never witnessed a performance of such exquisite subtlety and tact; she gazed upon him adoringly, and did not even trouble to be angry with her boorish brother (he was five years her senior, and imagined that he knew more than she, and that a great deal of what he knew had to do with
her
), even though his questioning had brought droplets of perspiration to Norst’s forehead.

And then, afterward, it struck her—Persian blood! But how marvelous! How enchanting!
Persian
blood: which accounted for his swarthy skin and his dark mesmerizing eyes. Little as she knew about Swedes she knew even less about Persians and found the combination totally enchanting. . . .

“That ‘Count’ is an impostor,” Aaron said. “He doesn’t even trouble himself to lie intelligently to us.”

“Oh, what do you know!” Veronica laughed, waving him away. “You don’t know Ragnar at all.”

(Later it was revealed that Aaron had spoken with Senator Payne, and with two or three acquaintances in Washington, to see if Norst’s visa couldn’t be canceled—if Norst couldn’t be, with a minimum of legal squabbling, simply deported back to Europe. But he must have had friends in high positions, or at any rate friends whose authority was greater than that of Aaron’s contacts, for nothing came of the move; and when Ragnar Norst returned to Europe he did so solely at his own wish.)

And so Veronica Bellefleur fell in love with the mysterious Ragnar Norst, though she was not conscious of “falling in love” but only of becoming more and more obsessed with him—with the thought, the aura, of him, which pursued her in the unlikeliest of places, and was liable to call forth a blush to her cheeks at the least appropriate of times. Even before her illness she was susceptible to odd lethargic reveries during which his image haunted her; she would give her head a shake, as if to cast herself free of his spell. A warm lulling erotic daze overcame her. She sighed often, and her words trailed off into silence, quite maddening Aaron, who knew, no matter how she denied it, that she was in love with the count. “But that man is an impostor,” Aaron said angrily. “Just as I’m sure that stone of yours, if you allowed me to have it examined, would prove to be a fake—!”

“You don’t know Ragnar in the slightest,” Veronica said, shivering.

Yet she herself was often disturbed by him. He insisted they meet in the evening, in clandestine places (in the boathouse; beside Bloody Run; at the very rear of the walled garden, where there was a little grove of
evergreens
in which, by day, the children sometimes played) no matter how such situations compromised her; he insisted upon speaking “frankly” no matter how his words distressed her. Once he seized both her hands in his and murmured in a voice that shook with emotion, “Someday, my dearest Veronica, this masquerade will end—someday you will be mine—my most precious possession—and I will be yours—and you will know then the reality of—of—of the passion which nearly suffocates me—” And indeed his breath became so labored it was nearly a sob, and his eyes glowed with an unspeakable lust, and after a terrible moment during which he stared into her eyes almost angrily he turned aside, throwing himself back against a railing, his arm upraised as if to shield himself from the sight of her. His chest rose and fell so violently that Veronica wondered for a terrible moment if he were having a seizure of some kind.