The Eleventh Year (12 page)

Lady Priscilla, embroidering on her
chaise longue,
looked up sharply, noticing the array of clothes heaped on her daughter's bed, and felt uneasy. She'd been right. Tonight she'd know who.

But it wasn't obvious. Lord Brighton, now rotund, but still a most outstanding man, reigned over his guests with the usual flair, drawing young and old about him, recounting stories of the hunt, of past adventures in the Far East. He'd kept up the British tradition his wife had so treasured of inviting guests of all sorts—but only of the top social echelon—from Friday to Monday. The rest of the week he rested, like a replete god, and to his family he seemed introverted, an old man with asthma and arthritis who sat by the fire even in summer and sighed a lot.

That weekend there were several couples her own age, two young girls Lesley's age, another young man, and the Reeves. Justin Reeve. Lady Priscilla saw him with her father, a slender figure but very tall, with pronounced cheekbones and deep-set eyes in a long, delicate oval face. She walked over to them, smiled, and said: “Lord Clearwater. What a pleasure to have you with us again.”

He was bowing over her hand with continental poise—too much so, Priscilla Richardson thought. Her memory of this young man was slight. His father had been a contemporary of hers, a baronet, but he hadn't possessed his son's charm nor those good looks. He'd resembled the daughter—Adele, with the horsey laughter. Whom had he married? She was trying now to remember.

“Justin brings me the pleasure of his visit about once a month,” Lord Brighton was telling her, his hand proprietarily on the young man's arm. “He's very busy these days, you know, Prissy. He's opened an art gallery in town, and he's quite the boy, quite the boy. Makes me think of his grandfather, sad to say. A friend I deeply miss.”

Priscilla thought she remembered that Justin and Adele had lost both their parents in some sort of dreadful accident—a horse overturning their carriage, something like that. She had no remembrance of the boy's mother. She'd have to ask her father. Better to know. Because, she thought sharply, he was obviously the one.

Lesley was sitting with the two young girls, her hair in a topknot with fresh flowers in it, her dress one of the Chanel wisps of nothing that she'd adopted. She was wearing no jewelry except a string of pearls and matching pearl studs on her ears. She looked, her mother thought, almost too young. And she was laughing, not looking at Justin and her grandfather, but every now and then fingering the trim of the sofa or biting her lip. Lady Priscilla thought: Now I remember! It was an Italian girl—a contessa, delicate and frail.

Sir Justin Reeve had finally left Lord Brighton and was coming to the sofa. Lesley felt his presence, looked up. He said, “Miss Richardson. How nice to see you.”

Is it? she wanted to ask, thinking angrily: Of course he knew he'd see me. I'm living here all summer! But instead she cast her eyes down and answered, “Thank you.”

“Nonsense. My name is Justin.”

The other girls must have sensed that their presence was no longer required, because as soon as he had greeted them, they stood up and found an excuse to go and speak to Adele Reeve. Justin sat down next to Lesley, and she didn't know what to do.

“Your mother is charming,” he said at length.

“Mama? Yes. She's in her element here. I wonder if she doesn't at heart wish she'd never left England. New York is…different.”

“Is it? You must tell me about it. I've never been there.”

“But there's so little to tell! I don't like it. I don't think I'm going to live there when I finish my studies.” She was speaking too quickly, not looking at him, but at her feet, at the dark Persian carpet below them.

Justin was saying: “I came back because I wanted to see you again. I had to drag Adele. She thinks once a month is plenty enough, and she had other parties to go to this weekend.”

“And without your sister, you don't go anywhere?”

“Oh, it isn't that. We're used to each other. I suppose we're what people term ‘close.' We've been on our own since I was eighteen and she, seventeen. And since she's had the good sense not to marry….”

“Well,” Lesley murmured. “I wouldn't marry unless everything were just right. If all you think of is the final step, it can take the joy out of loving someone. Later, the rest will fall into place.”

Justin smiled at her.

“You don't agree?”

“It's not that. But to me, your words are a delightful change. Usually I find that girls are
only
after an engagement ring. They don't care what's beneath the person. As long, of course, as he's from the right background!”

“Then England is hardly different from New York, or Vassar College.”

“It's very dull,” he stated. “How could a man decide to marry a girl who hasn't cared enough to understand him? Are you engaged, Miss Richardson?”

“You must call me Lesley. And no, I'm not engaged. Last week I was presented at Court, but that was only to please mother. It was a lovely ceremony, but to her, much more important than to me. You see, since I'm
not
engaged, I have to do these sorts of things to make it up to her!”

She had succeeded in making him laugh. She felt the warmth in the room, the redness in her cheeks. “And you?” she asked. “What do you do during the week? Surely you've finished your studies?”

“Two years ago, at Oxford. Now I've opened a small art gallery. But it isn't doing too well. The brilliant artists are all in Paris, and this isn't the ideal time to travel across the Channel.”

Adele was coming over to them, her cheeks ruddy with good health, her large hands chapped from many Sundays of early-morning riding. Lesley was resentful of the intrusion, yet grateful too, because she had run out of intelligent things to say. It was only Friday. What would she say to him tomorrow?

“Well, now, my dear brother, I finally put two and two together, I daresay!” Adele was remarking brightly. “You didn't want to spend another weekend with Lord Brighton. It was his granddaughter who caught your fancy!”

She was laughing, heartily, in her blustering, friendly fashion, but Lesley turned scarlet from confusion, and Justin's face looked amused. She was averting her eyes when she felt his hand briefly resting on one of hers and then its soft pressure. “My sister is a bit indiscreet,” Justin said quickly, and then he added, more gently, for Lesley's ears alone: “But she's also far from being a fool….” And he stood up, took Adele's arm, and made his way to a group of people who had gathered around the grand piano. Lesley sat alone, watched him walk away, noticing his graceful small waist and broader shoulders, the slim hips in their fine linen pants.

The next morning there was a hunt, and when she awakened, everyone was gone. She'd asked her grandfather to be excused from this event. She dressed, but lightly, because of the heat, and kept her hair coiled in braids around her head. She wanted to draw, and declined breakfast, accepting only a cup of tea and a slice of toast and marmalade. The morning was clear, with small white clouds above, clustered in a hawthorne-blue sky. She walked through the front gardens, filled with summer blooms, and wended her way toward a white gazebo some distance from the main house, near the stables. She was going to sketch bits and pieces of the woods as they blended into the cultivated land and perhaps one of the mares grazing in the field to the far left. Only in England did one find such pastoral scenes, she thought, and sudden pleasure flooded her heart.

A light wind was blowing her hair around her ears, over her forehead. All at once she felt that someone was approaching, and raised her head. It was Justin, in riding attire, crop in hand. She felt blood rush to her temples. She asked: “Is the hunt over so quickly?”

“Of course not. At the last moment I told Lord Brighton that I had a headache. I was certain you'd be there, and when you weren't…Your mother told me that you would probably come out to draw. I didn't realize you were an artist.”

He was sitting down beside her, and instinctively she covered her sketch with her sleeve. “I-I'm no good,” she stammered.

“Who told you that?”

“One of my teachers at Vassar.”

“That's cruel. He's only one man, and he's already convinced you to be a defeatist. Let me see.”

Unwillingly, she relinquished the sketch and watched as he examined it cautiously, then with a smile. “It's not bad at all,” he declared. “I like its pure lines.”

“You embarrass me. But…thank you.”

They were looking at each other, and gently he laid aside the sketch pad and pulled the pencil from her fingers. He cupped her chin in his hand, and in this moment she felt the sun on her skin, the breeze in her hair, heard the mare braying, and thought: I'm going to capture this instant for the rest of my life. And she raised her lips, and he kissed her, softly at first and then parting her mouth to find her tongue and taste it. She raised her arms, wound them around his neck, abandoned herself to the delicious sensations that were making her entire body quiver with pleasure.

Then he was drawing away, saying quickly: “I mustn't, Lesley. I mustn't be with you alone too much, or I shall want more.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, disappointment in her voice.

“You're innocent. I don't want to take advantage of this innocence.”

“I'm eighteen years old, Justin. Doesn't that make me old enough not to have you treat me like a little girl?”

“I didn't mean to be insulting.”

She was confused and angry, angry at her odd array of feelings and at him for not understanding them. She said, turning away: “I've never kissed a man the way I've kissed you. I don't kiss somebody simply because he takes me to a dance, or because he brings me flowers. In America I've gone to countless functions with what my mother calls ‘eligible young men of standing.' I've kissed one or two, but never like this, never…with my whole being. Don't…make it cheap.”

“I didn't mean to. Forgive me, Lesley. The girls here tend to act just as you describe: They kiss not for the man, but for the occasion. I wasn't kissing you for any reason other than desire, the desire to be with you. I'd wanted
you.”

Was this what had propelled Jamie into making love to Willy? Lesley wondered. She imagined the act and then couldn't complete the picture. Yet with Justin it would have to be a beautiful experience. He was such a beautiful man…and so kind, so gallant and sensitive. She found that suddenly it was too warm, that she was perspiring, and she whispered, “I'm going back inside. Any moment now my grandfather will return with the others. I must change for luncheon.”

“Lesley,” he said. “Any day now I may have to go into the royal armed forces. I wish I could promise you a future—”

“Don't even speak of it. We hardly know each other.”

“But when love comes, it comes like this, in a flash. Real love is born like an electric spark. I don't believe that it can ever take place between two friends of long standing. That's contentment, that's brotherhood, but not passionate love. Could you love a man with an unclear future?”

“I don't look to the future,” she replied, standing awkwardly in front of him, wanting to weep from the fear and the excitement mingled inside her.

He stood up too then and took her in his arms, and she slid closer to him, trying to fit into the crevices of his body. She felt the hard bump on her thighs and was tempted to step back. But she didn't pull back, not this time. She didn't want to hurt him, and then suddenly there was a responding chord, and she
wanted
to feel his hardness against her. She was pressing herself closer, without realizing she was doing so, when he stopped and put his hands cautiously on her shoulders. “Lesley. What are we doing?”

She shook her head, ashamed then and frightened. “I must go inside,” she whispered again, and this time she turned from Justin and broke into a run toward the house. When she reached her room, she threw herself on the bed. I don't know whether this is good or bad, she thought with apprehension. And then: Is this how all women feel when it happens? She wished that she had the courage to ask her mother, or that Jamie were close by.

T
he Cromwellian mansion
was spread out over several buildings, and Lesley's small suite overlooked the trim formal gardens with the circular gravel driveway from which she could see guests as they arrived. Beyond the garden stretched the hills of Yorkshire, gray blue in the distance, and at night the sun set behind them, its molten orb disappearing in a magnificent range of colors that spilled out over the adjoining countryside. She loved the dusk, and now, this Saturday, it moved her deep inside. She thought of the ancient druids who had worshipped nature, who had felt within them a respondent chord. The sharp cry of a night bird sounded, eerie and unseen.