Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) (28 page)

Now and then in the evening Gilbert went out, staying late at the taverns, drinking great liters of beer and eating greasy sausages. On those occasions Hermine was instructed by him to keep watch and only allowed to go to her bed when he returned to relieve her. He was often drunk and morose on such nights, with grease on his face and garlic on his breath. Violet avoided him when she could at those times, for he was loud and indelicate then, comparing her unfavorably, feature by feature, with the bar maids he had seen.

He did not approach her bed, touched her only when it was unavoidable. She was made to feel, by the subtle alteration of his expression when he saw her partially clothed, that she disgusted him. She wondered why, if that was so, he had seen fit to drag her away with him. It appeared to be sheer possessiveness, to establish his right of ownership.

There were times when she could not bear the thought of going on and on like this, enduring her husband’s silent rage. She had at first been as contrite as he could have wished, consumed with guilt and quite ready to admit her fault. As the weeks wore on, a stubborn resentment began to crowd out contrition. She grew angry in her turn at this attempt to make her regret her infidelity, to isolate her in her shame until she began to feel unworthy of the regard of other people. She was not a child to be petted and pampered when she was good, but chastised when she misbehaved. She was a human being, with feelings and needs, ideas and opinions. If Gilbert could not, or would not, recognize these things, if he persisted in his treatment, then she could no longer respect him, no longer feel herself bound to him.

So they made their way slowly around the lakes, from Lucerne to Como and on to Lugano. It was there they learned that the British cabinet had ordered its forces to invade the Crimea, and that a meeting of the allied commanders to discuss strategy was imminent. And it was in Lugano that the portrait painted by Allain caught up with them.

Gilbert had sent for the painting on the morning they left Paris. When it had not arrived by the time they left for the train station, he had ordered it shipped on after them. Their movements had been so sporadic since, that it had been some time in arriving.

Gilbert left it in its shipping crate, propped against the wall of their Lugano pension. He rested his gaze on it now and then with a baleful glare, but did not go near it. It seemed to fascinate yet repel him. Violet thought that, like herself, he wanted to possess it since he had commissioned and paid for it, but that he was determined to despise it.

Violet waited until he was gone one day, then sent for hammer and chisel to open the crate herself.

Looking at the portrait was like seeing herself as Allain had seen her. It renewed her.

The colors were magnificent in their rich purity, the flesh tones luminescent and vibrant with life. The form and composition were perfect in their symmetric grace. The draping of the material and delicate delineation of the lace collar of her gown had been done with exacting fidelity.

The eyes of the painting followed her, sensitive eyes shadowed with painful self-awareness, apprehensive yet resolute, only half concealing a tenuous joy and delicate, flowering desire.

It was a reminder of all she was, and of all that had been.

The pain of the loss spread from her heart, creeping through her with the intolerable ache of poison. There was no part of her that did not feel it, no single fiber that did not cry out with yearning. She had tried to suppress it, to hold it inside her. She could do it no longer.

Gilbert had been right not to look at the portrait.

But she would not crate it up again.

She was still standing before the likeness of herself, with the hammer and chisel in her hands and pieces of boards and burlap wrapping around her feet, when she heard her husband return. She did not move.

Gilbert paused in the doorway, then closed the door and came forward. His voice heavy with sarcasm, he said, “So. You had to see the handiwork of your lover.”

She looked at him over her shoulder before she turned and walked to place the things she held on a side table. “Yes, why not?”

“You don’t deny that he was that,” he accused, the words rough. He looked beyond her at the painting, and his face tightened to the density of carved wood.

She heard the sudden hint of anguish under his tone and knew an unwelcome compunction. She moistened her lips before she answered. “I didn’t know you doubted it.”

“Stupid of me, wasn’t it? I preferred to think that you had been merely indiscreet, not depraved.”

“Indeed?” she said, her tone stiffening. “Then you might have saved yourself the price of your spies.”

“Spies? You think I would pay anyone to witness my humiliation?”

“No, only to document it so there could be no mistake.”

Anger flared in his eyes and he breathed quickly through his nose. “I would be more likely to have hired someone to thrash your paramour.”

“To discourage him?” she asked, raising her chin. “I doubt it would have been effective.”

He took a step toward her, then stopped. He said, his voice hushed and sibilant, “Then I would have been forced to have him killed, and you with him.”

“A hired murder,” she said softly, “would have been so much easier than meeting him on the field of honor, wouldn’t it? I noticed you were not anxious for that.”

“He had seduced my wife, persuaded her to dishonor my name; why should I give him the right of a dueling ground? I could have killed him like a dog and no court in Europe would ever have convicted me, particularly no French court. They understand these things here.”

“Oh, yes. How wise, how just it is of them,” she said in weary disdain, “to leave women no answer for the insults of their husbands.”

He advanced toward her with his fists clenched. “I gave you everything!”

“Everything you wanted me to have, with no concern for what I myself might want.”

He looked taken aback for an instant before scorn crowded out consideration. “You are too young to know your own mind; your taste is unformed.”

“What you mean is that you are afraid my taste may not be the same as yours. You are right. The things I want and need, the things which give me pleasure, are not at all the same.”

His face twisted, becoming purplish red as he stared at her. “You are thinking of your artist? You won’t have him; I’ll see to that. You can forget him, everything about him!”

He stepped to take up the chisel where she had put it down, then lunged toward the portrait. He slashed the blade across her painted face and throat in a shower of dried paint flecks. Hacking at the canvas again and again, he tore the portrait half out of its frame.

Violet stood frozen with horror for long seconds. Then she cried out, springing to grab his arm. “No! Don’t, oh, please, don’t! You can’t!”

He swung his hand at her, catching her along the jaw in a backhanded blow that snapped her head around. She staggered away from him. He turned, dropping the chisel. It clanged to the floor, rolling under their feet as he caught her upper arm with one hand while he sank the fingers of the other into the thick mass of her high-piled hair. He dragged her toward him, clamping her tight against him.

“Yes,” he said, his voice suddenly thick. “Oh, yes. Yes, I will. I can.”

He pulled her with him toward the bedchamber. She pushed at him with her hands flat against his chest as she stumbled along. It did no good; he was too strong in his rage. She tried to claw at his face, but he snatched her wrist in a grip so numbingly painful that the strength left her knees. Catching her off balance, he half carried, half dragged her the last few steps to the bed.

“You’re my wife,” he said in grating triumph as he flung himself across her. He pinned her to the bed while he clutched at her skirts, pulling them upward.

What happened then was painful and degrading, and completely unforgivable.

Violet endured it with tears running from her eyes, streaming into her hair in hot paths, wetting the mattress under her head. She made no sound except for the harsh and difficult gasps of her breathing. After a few moments she did not try to move, fought no more. She left him only her inert body while she retreated deep inside herself, where he could not reach, had never and would never, touch. There she was unyielding. There she did not forget. There she was free.

Later, when he had rolled from her to lie heavy and still on his own side of the bed, the tears still flowed, so she used a corner of the sheet to wipe them away. The moments ticked past, measured by the cuckoo clock he had bought, a noisy method of marking them in the shuttered afternoon stillness of the room.

“Don’t cry,” he said, his voice low and drained of emotion. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

She did not speak or move.

“I would ask forgiveness, but you brought it on yourself with your defiance and lack of repentance.”

She made no answer.

“Perhaps I did leave you alone too much, should have taken you with me while shopping, or consulted your taste in furnishings, but that was no reason to dishonor your marriage bed.”

“It — wasn’t just that,” she whispered.

He ignored that small plea. His voice tired, yet with an undertone of iron, he said, “There will be no repeat of this affair. If you had a child, there would be no time for such foolishness. I will give you one if it kills us both.”

She closed her eyes tightly and brought a hand to her mouth to stifle the cry that rose inside her.

It was the following day that Allain came.

One moment Violet was walking along the shore of the lake, trying to find peace in the beauty of the small garden she had discovered laid out along its verge; the next, Allain was beside her, strolling with his hands clasped behind his back and his face turned up to the sun as if merely joining her in a common morning ritual.

The scent of pansies drifting on the wind seemed suddenly sweeter, the sky bluer, and the clouds floating above the distant mountains more whitely perfect. Tears rose in Violet’s eyes even as she tried to smile.

He glanced at her, the look in his face teasing. It vanished abruptly as he stopped rock still in the middle of the path. His voice grim, he said, “Has it been so bad then?”

“Yes — no,” she said, brushing at the moisture with trembling fingers. “I’m only glad you’re here.”

His gaze traveled quickly over her walking costume of old gold linen twill trimmed with pine-green braid and worn with a small bonnet of plaited straw with ivy twining around the flat crown. It lingered on her pale face and the bruise that shadowed her jawline. The quiet sound of his voice did not match the deadly look in his eyes as he said, “I would have come sooner, but had no idea of your direction. I’ve been following on the trail of the portrait, shamelessly bribing its handlers.”

“I would have sent word, said good-bye — but was given no time.” Violet tilted the parasol of cream silk she carried so it shaded the bruised side of her face more deeply.

“I guessed how it must have been. My greatest fear in coming after you so quickly was that I might miss some message sent later to my house in Paris.”

Bleak distress surfaced in her eyes. “I have been allowed nothing for writing except my journal, no access to a posting office.”

“It doesn’t matter now.” He reached to take her gloved right hand, his grasp warm and sure.

“Today is the first time I have been out alone,” she said with an attempt at a smile, “and that is only because Gilbert had an appointment to see a four-hundred-year-old armor chest and Hermine claims the mountain coolness has brought on her rheumatism.” It was also, she knew, because of Gilbert’s feelings of guilt over what had taken place between them, but she could not speak of that.

“I know; I’ve been keeping watch, waiting for a chance to see you alone. It appears I should have hammered down your door.”

She shook her head, her fingers clenching his in convulsive dread. “It’s better this way, but — you should not have come.”

“How could I not?” he said simply. And from behind his back he brought forth a wallflower, pale yellow and cream, fragrant and perfect with the dew still on its petals. Turning up the palm of her hand that he held, he placed the flower in it.

A wallflower, which signaled Fidelity in Adversity.

She went into his arms then, could no more have resisted it than he could stop himself from gathering her into them. They held each other tightly, lips meeting in desperation, while Allain reached to tilt her parasol to shield them from the gazes of passersby.

Later, with arms still entwined, they found a bench facing the lake and sat in close embrace, staring out over the water. Violet thought with regret of how severe she had been toward the lovers she had seen in Paris in just such situations. She had not then realized the difficulty of finding privacy and safety for such couples, or the depth of the need that drove them.

It was some time before she and Allain were satisfied with the renewal of the touch and taste of each other. Finally Allain spoke, his words muffled where he rested his lips against the hair at her temple.

“I came, you know, to take you away.”

She had hardly dared allow herself to hope he would follow after her in these last miserable weeks. She had known, however, that if he did, there would be a decision to be made. It was upon her now, here in this beautiful garden with the sun warm upon the grass and the scent of flowers in the air.