Dark Angel (38 page)

In the candlelight Constance’s complexion was creamy, and her sharp little body appeared languorous. Very slowly, Constance stretched. In her hand she held her pet snake, which had been curled up in the pocket of her dress; its appearance startled Freddie. Now Constance held her pet aloft; the snake’s head moved from side to side and its tongue flickered. Slowly Constance lowered the snake and rested it between her small uplifted breasts; she stroked its spine, and it lay still, a necklace of
S’s
against the pallor of her skin.

Where should Freddie look first? At Constance’s black hair, which coiled across her shoulders? At her red lips, which were parted very slightly, so that Freddie could see her small white teeth and the pink tip of her tongue? At her breasts, which he had never seen, although he had been allowed to touch once or twice? At the angles of her waist, at her flat and boyish stomach, at that mysterious, alluring, terrifying triangle of hair, which looked so soft but which, once, he touched (one touch only, fumbling under skirts and petticoats) and found to be crisp and resilient?

Freddie looked at all these things, all these components of Constance’s wicked magic, and his vision swam. Looking was not enough (was looking to be his present?); looking only increased the agony. Freddie reached out a hand.

“Wait,” Constance said more sharply.
“Wait. Watch.”
Then she parted her legs, and her snake began to move. Usually this snake was lazy; not now. Now it began a complex journeying: It coiled and uncoiled between her breasts, slithered up to the curve of her throat, nestled in the hollows beneath her collarbones, darted out its tongue, and began a descent. Across Constance’s rib cage, slithering across her thighs, through the pubic hair, down to her ankle, around which it coiled like a slave anklet. There was now an expression of concentration on Constance’s face. She frowned, passed her tongue across her lips, bit the tip of her tongue between her sharp white teeth. Then, just as the snake seemed to decide on a final resting place (curling on the cream of her stomach, a pattern of jet and diamonds), Constance began to touch herself.

First her breasts, which she cupped in her hands and stroked, then pinched. Her nipples stiffened, and Freddie—who had heard of this happening but had never witnessed it—felt his body give a demanding, mutinous lurch.

After that, Constance’s movements became more businesslike, less desultory. Constance had small square hands (they were not her most beautiful feature); her fingernails were bitten. One of these hands she now insinuated between her thighs; the other remained at her breast, flicking at the tip of one nipple in an idle way, as if she were bored. The right hand, the hand between her thighs, moved deftly, and the fact that it was so small, crammed with cheap rings, that the fingernails were bitten, added to the eroticism for Freddie.

Freddie could not quite see what this hand was doing, and he leaned forward against the footboard of the bed, which creaked. This alarmed Freddie—one infringement of the rules, he knew, and Constance would curtail the entertainment.

Now, however, she was merciful; her eyelids flickered open, and her dark blank eyes fixed on Freddie as if she did not see him at all. Or perhaps Constance liked the fact that he watched with such concentration; perhaps—for she smiled.

“Open the door, Freddie,” she said in a dreamy voice.

“What?”

“Open the door….”

Freddie did so. From below he could hear voices still, and now they were more distinct; actual words could be discerned.
War,
Freddie heard, then murmurs, then again
war:
a tocsin of a word, and Freddie hesitated. Supposing Acland came up? Supposing his valet, Arthur, should put in an appearance? Supposing Constance’s current governess, the bristling Fraulein Erlichman, should arrive on the scene?

But these were (apart from Acland) unlikely appearances: Arthur, who grew insolent and lazy, would come only if rung for; Fraulein Erlichman retired early. Besides, as Freddie had learned, fear of discovery had its uses—it could sharpen desire. Freddie hesitated a second only, no more; then he was back at the foot of the bed. Constance’s eyes were still open and they remained upon him while, with delicacy and precision, she parted the lips of her sex.

No details; Freddie’s mind could not deal with details now. What he saw was a blur to him, and later, when he tried to conjure the details, they continued to escape him. A pursed softness, mauve flesh; a dampness. Freddie groaned.

“Let me touch—oh, Connie, please. Let me touch you. Quickly, quickly—someone may come up.”

Constance pushed his hand aside. “Watch. Wait,” she said (as she always said), and Freddie, terrified to disobey, withdrew his hand. He clenched it, thrust it into his pocket, touched himself. Below him, on Acland’s bed, Constance’s face became blank and concentrated.

Her little hand moved faster; one finger rubbed and glistened. Freddie—who by then could not understand what she was doing at all, but who was beyond caring—rubbed himself against the warmth of his own palm. Yet, something was happening to Constance; even the pet snake seemed to sense some danger. Constance’s body lifted; the snake slithered toward her head, and rested coiled on the pillow by her hair.

Constance bent her knees; she raised her haunches from the bed; her throat arched back as if in spasm, and her eyes closed. She shuddered, jerked, and then was still. It was like a minor convulsion, even a little like death. Freddie was, for a moment, terrified; urgent though it was to touch himself, his hand fell still.

A brief pause, then Constance opened her eyes.

She wiped her damp hand on Acland’s bedcover. She made a deep and purring sound of contentment; she stroked the back of her snake, outlined the dark diamonds of its spine with one finger. Then, composed once more, she lifted her arms, folded them behind her head, looked up at Freddie.

“You can do it now, Freddie,” she said, in the sweetest voice Freddie had ever heard her use. “I know you do it, in your room with the door locked. You were half doing it then. Go on—do it properly. I want to see it. I want to look at it. I want to see you. You can do it on me if you like; then we won’t make a mess in Acland’s bedroom. Please, Freddie, dear Freddie. I want to watch. Do it. Do it now….”

Was that her birthday present? Was that Constance’s gift, first to let him watch her and then to watch her watching him? To be at once both surreptitious and free, to obtain a glorious release, in a way he had never imagined possible with a woman, in a way that he later decided was dirty, depraved, and probably taboo (and therefore all the more glorious). That, Freddie told himself, that had indeed been his birthday present.

The next day he was less sure. He remembered the events of the previous night more coolly then, against the background of impending war. He watched his mother, weeping, as Boy and Dunbar departed, recalled to their regiment. He watched the other guests depart. He watched all these things, and by the end of that long, hot, oppressive day, when Sir Montague had gone and even Acland had left for London, he found himself alone, the last young man of their party still at Winterscombe. By nightfall a nasty and sick certainty took hold of him: Constance’s present had been given before they even entered Acland’s bedroom. Constance’s present had been the bundle of Boy’s photographs; Constance’s present had been the destruction of his image of his brother.

That day, Freddie had found it very difficult to meet his brother’s eyes. He had been distant when Boy took his departure, even though he knew it was possible that something terrible might happen and he might never see Boy again.

Guilt came to Freddie once his brother had left; guilt, and gloom, and disgust at his own behavior. He was very cool to Constance that day, indeed avoided her. He was cool the next day as well, and the day after that. Then it occurred to him that if Constance had noticed this coolness, she seemed unaffected by it. She behaved as if nothing had happened at all.

Freddie found this maddening. A curious, unaccountable jealousy seized him. From worrying about his brother and his own behavior, he turned to worrying about Constance. Did she hate him? Was she disappointed in him? Would she ever be with him, look at him, touch him, again?

A week. Constance waited a week, and then (perhaps when she judged that Freddie had argued himself back where she wanted him) she made another assignation. After that, more waiting, more agony and indecision and longing on Freddie’s part. Then the crumb of another little meeting was tossed his way.

Meeting after meeting, hiding place after hiding place, summer into autumn, autumn into winter. It was a strange time.

Looking back later, Freddie would know that it was not a happy time; as the months passed he felt no contentment. All around him his life was changing, and the pillars that had held up the structure of his world were falling. Boy had sent for his manservant; he was overjoyed to be posted to northern France. Acland was away in London, at the Foreign Office, doing work that—Gwen stressed—was of national importance. One by one, as the weeks passed, the servants were caught up in the war fever: Denton encouraged the men to join up (even threatened with dismissal those who were tardy in doing so); Arthur Tubbs left, surprising Freddie; Jack Hennessy enlisted, and his three brothers followed him; all the younger footmen left, and the drivers and the gardeners and the keepers and the estate workers. Freddie himself helped to bring in the last of the harvest that year; he worked in the fields bitterly, surrounded by old men.

War, war, war: no one talked of anything else; it was the only subject in the newspapers, and the expectation of an early victory was still strong. At the breakfast table, letters from the front were read: Boy sounded elated and cheerful; waiting for a posting to the front line, he had passed an afternoon near Chartres, bird watching.

Little to fear from this war. Freddie associated it with the packing of food parcels, the rousing tunes of the bands that accompanied the recruiting officers through the villages. He associated it with excitement, with a new sense of national purpose, and—in his own case—with frustration and shame.

For what had happened, within weeks of the declaration of war? Why, he had been escorted by Gwen to a famous Harley Street specialist recommended by Montague Stern. This specialist examined Freddie at length. His blood pressure was taken, before and after exercise. Feeling a great fool, Freddie ran up and down on a small moving platform, dressed only in undershirt and underpants. His pulse was taken. Blood samples were taken. An X ray was taken. A most thorough and exhaustive physical inspection was made. At the end of this, Gwen was readmitted. The specialist looked grave.

It was, he said, quite out of the question for Frederic to join up, and if conscription ever came, Frederic would be exempt. Frederic, he explained, had a slight irregularity in the heart valves. Had he perhaps experienced palpitations, episodes of dizziness? Freddie had, of course, and very recently, too—but those were not occasions he could mention then. He denied any malaise. The doctor remained adamant. Frederic had a weak heart; he should lose weight, exercise gently, avoid excitement, and forget the army. Freddie was shocked by this; his mother seemed shocked too. She left the consulting rooms with a white face and returned home weeping.

In the privacy of his own bedroom that night, Freddie swung his arms, ran up and down on the spot, and waited to drop dead. Nothing happened. The man had seemed very certain, but Freddie was not convinced. However distinguished the physician was, he could have made a mistake.

He pleaded with his mother for a second opinion. He tried to explain how dreadful he felt, the only man among his contemporaries at Eton who was still languishing at home. Gwen fell into such a paroxysm of weeping, such a violent clutching and clinging, that Freddie gave way. He remained at Winterscombe. He preferred to stay within the grounds. Visits to London made him very nervous. Freddie was tall, heavily built; he looked much older than nineteen. Every time he set foot in the street he expected to be accosted, to be given the white feather symbolizing cowardice.

Freddie’s obsession with Constance grew stronger. Constance was his confidante and his consoler. When Freddie felt less than manly, Constance could prove to him just how manly he was, in the only way (she said) that really mattered. Constance kissed the war away. In her arms, drugged with the scents of her body, Freddie forgot about patriotism and cowardice. Weeks went by in a priapic daze. Freddie learned the delights of enslavement, an enslavement in which nothing was more urgent than their next meeting, nothing more intoxicating than their last. Constance’s hair, skin, eyes, the whisper of her voice, the suggestions and ambiguities of her touch; hot days, hot thoughts; sweet delays and shocking promises—such a summer that was!

Constance, experimenting with techniques that she was later to use to even greater effect, was an artist in sex. She understood that hints, promises and caprice, delays and deviations were a more effective drug than fulfillment. Step by step, kiss by kiss, she took Freddie down into the maelstrom. His body sweated for her; his mind itched for her. At night he invented; then he dreamed of her. Sometimes she would give more, then—for weeks—less. Freddie’s days passed like a dream; the second he left her, he would be imagining some new excess.

One thing: she would not let him fuck her. This word—one Constance used casually and frequently, a little time device triggered to great effect in mid-embrace—would reverberate in Freddie’s mind like gunshots. He could not understand why Constance, who appeared without shame, who dismissed all sexual taboos, who introduced Freddie to practices he had neither heard of nor suspected, should impose this arbitrary, this incomprehensible stricture. Yet, on this point she was immovable: any variation—but no fucking. And then she-might smile:
Not yet.

Constance’s favorite variation, Freddie discovered, was to risk danger when one of his family was nearby. The threat of discovery from a servant, a gardener, a farm worker—that worked to a more limited extent. Freddie was beginning to recognize when Constance was most excited: It was when his mother, his father, or one of his brothers was at hand.