The Man from St. Petersburg (13 page)

He got into bed and lay awake, reliving the moment when the carriage door flew open and the man stood there with the gun; and now he was frightened, not for himself or Aleks, but for Lydia and Charlotte. The thought that they might have been killed made him tremble in his bed. He remembered holding Charlotte in his arms, eighteen years ago, when she had blond hair and no teeth; he remembered her learning to walk and forever falling on her bottom; he remembered giving her a pony of her own, and thinking that her joy when she saw it gave him the biggest thrill of his life; he remembered her just a few hours ago, walking into the royal presence with her head held high, a grown woman and a beautiful one. If she died, he thought, I don’t know that I could bear it.

And Lydia: if Lydia were dead I would be alone. The thought made him get up and go through to her room. There was a night-light beside her bed. She was in a deep sleep, lying on her back, her mouth a little open, her hair a blond skein across the pillow. She looked soft and vulnerable. I have never been able to make you understand how much I love you, he thought. Suddenly he needed to touch her, to feel that she was warm and alive. He got into bed with her and kissed her. Her lips responded but she did not wake up. Lydia, he thought, I could not live without you.

Lydia had lain awake for a long time, thinking about the man with the gun. It had been a brutal shock, and she had screamed in sheer terror—but there was more to it than that. There had been something about the man, something about his stance, or his shape, or his clothes, that had seemed dreadfully sinister in an almost supernatural way, as if he were a ghost. She wished she could have seen his eyes.

After a while she had taken another dose of laudanum, and then she slept. She dreamed that the man with the gun came to her room and got into bed with her. It was her own bed, but in the dream she was eighteen years old again. The man put his gun down on the white pillow beside her head. He still had the scarf around his face. She realized that she loved him. She kissed his lips through the scarf.

He made love to her beautifully. She began to think that she might be dreaming. She wanted to see his face. She said
Who are you?
and a voice said
Stephen.
She knew this was not so, but the gun on the pillow had somehow turned into Stephen’s sword, with blood on its point; and she began to have doubts. She clung to the man on top of her, afraid that the dream would end before she was satisfied. Then, dimly, she began to suspect that she was doing in reality what she was doing in the dream; yet the dream persisted. Strong physical pleasure possessed her. She began to lose control. Just as her climax began the man in the dream took the scarf from his face, and in that moment Lydia opened her eyes, and saw Stephen’s face above her; and then she was overcome by ecstasy, and for the first time in nineteen years she cried for joy.

FIVE

C
harlotte looked forward with mixed feelings to Belinda’s coming-out ball. She had never been to a town ball, although she had been to lots of country balls, many of them at Walden Hall. She liked to dance and she knew she did it well, but she hated the cattle-market business of sitting out with the wallflowers and waiting for a boy to pick you out and ask you to dance. She wondered whether this might be handled in a more civilized way among the “Smart Set.”

They got to Uncle George and Aunt Clarissa’s Mayfair house half an hour before midnight, which Mama said was the earliest time one could decently arrive at a London ball. A striped canopy and a red carpet led from the curb to the garden gate, which had somehow been transformed into a Roman triumphal arch.

But even that did not prepare Charlotte for what she saw when she passed through the arch. The whole side garden had been turned into a Roman atrium. She gazed about her in wonderment. The lawns and the flower beds had been covered over with a hardwood dance floor stained in black and white squares to look like marble tiles. A colonnade of white pillars, linked with chains of laurel, bordered the floor. Beyond the pillars, in a kind of cloister, there were raised benches for the sitters-out. In the middle of the floor, a fountain in the form of a boy with a dolphin splashed in a marble basin, the streams of water lit by colored spotlights. On the balcony of an upstairs bedroom a band played ragtime. Garlands of smilax and roses decorated the walls, and baskets of begonias hung from the balcony. A huge canvas roof, painted sky blue, covered the whole area from the eaves of the house to the garden wall.

“It’s a miracle!” Charlotte said.

Papa said to his brother: “Quite a crowd, George.”

“We invited eight hundred. What the devil happened to you in the park?”

“Oh, it wasn’t as bad as it sounded,” Papa said with a forced smile. He took George by the arm, and they moved to one side to talk.

Charlotte studied the guests. All the men wore full evening dress—white tie, white waistcoat and tails. It particularly suited the young men, or at least the slim men, Charlotte thought: it made them look quite dashing as they danced. Observing the dresses, she decided that hers and her mother’s, though rather tasteful, were a trifle old-fashioned, with their wasp waists and ruffles and sweepers: Aunt Clarissa wore a long, straight, slender gown with a skirt almost too tight to dance in, and Belinda had harem pants.

Charlotte realized she knew nobody. Who will dance with me, she wondered, after Papa and Uncle George? However, Aunt Clarissa’s younger brother, Jonathan, waltzed with her, then introduced her to three men who were at Oxford with him, each of whom danced with her. She found their conversation monotonous: they said the floor was good, and the band—Gottlieb’s—was good; then they ran out of steam. Charlotte tried: “Do you believe that women should have the vote?” The replies she got were: “Certainly not,” “No opinion,” and “You’re not one of
them
, are you?”

The last of her partners, whose name was Freddie, took her into the house for supper. He was a rather sleek young man, with regular features—handsome, I suppose, Charlotte thought—and fair hair. He was at the end of his first year at Oxford. Oxford was rather jolly, he said, but he confessed he was not much of a one for reading books, and he rather thought he would not go back in October.

The inside of the house was festooned with flowers and bright with electric light. For supper there were hot and cold soup, lobster, quail, strawberries, ice cream and hothouse peaches. “Always the same old food for supper,” Freddie said. “They all use the same caterer.”

“Do you go to a lot of balls?” Charlotte asked.

” ‘Fraid so. All the time, really, in the season.”

Charlotte drank a glass of champagne-cup in the hope that it would make her feel more gay; then she left Freddie and wandered through a series of reception rooms. In one of them several games of bridge were under way. Two elderly duchesses held court in another. In a third, older men played billiards while younger men smoked. Charlotte found Belinda there with a cigarette in her hand. Charlotte had never seen the point of tobacco, unless one wanted to look sophisticated. Belinda certainly looked sophisticated.

“I adore your dress,” Belinda said.

“No, you don’t. But
you
look sensational. How did you persuade your stepmother to let you dress like that?”

“She’d like to wear one herself!”

“She seems so much younger than my mama. Which she is, of course.”

“And being a stepmother makes a difference. Whatever happened to you after the court?”

“Oh, it was extraordinary! A madman pointed a gun at us!”

“Your mama was telling me. Weren’t you simply terrified?”

“I was too busy calming Mama. Afterward I was scared to death. Why did you say, at the palace, that you wanted to have a long talk with me?”

“Ah! Listen.” She took Charlotte aside, away from the young men. “I’ve discovered how they come out.”

“What?”

“Babies.”

“Oh!” Charlotte was all ears. “Do tell.”

Belinda lowered her voice. “They come out between your legs, where you make water.”

“It’s too small!”

“It stretches.”

How awful, Charlotte thought.

“But that’s not all,” Belinda said. “I’ve found out how they start.”

“How?”

Belinda took Charlotte’s elbow and they walked to the far side of the room. They stood in front of a mirror garlanded with roses. Belinda’s voice fell almost to a whisper. “When you get married, you know you have to go to bed with your husband.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Papa and Mama have separate bedrooms.”

“Don’t they adjoin?”

“Yes.”

“That’s so that they can get into the same bed.”

“Why?”

“Because, to start a baby, the husband has to put his pego into that place—where the babies come out.”

“What’s a pego?”

“Hush! It’s a thing men have between their legs—haven’t you ever seen a picture of Michelangelo’s
David?
”

“No.”

“Well, it’s a thing they make water with. Looks like a finger.”

“And you have to do
that
to start babies?”

“Yes.”

“And all married people have to do it?”

“Yes.”

“How dreadful. Who told you all this?”

“Viola Pontadarvy. She swore it was true.”

And somehow Charlotte knew it
was
true. Hearing it was like being reminded of something she had forgotten. It seemed, unaccountably, to make sense. Yet she felt physically shocked. It was the slightly queasy feeling she sometimes got in dreams, when a terrible suspicion turned out to be correct, or when she was afraid of falling and suddenly found she
was
falling.

“I’m jolly glad you found out,” she said. “If one got married without knowing … how embarrassing it would be!”

“Your mother is supposed to explain it all to you the night before your wedding, but if your mother is too shy you just … find out when it happens.”

“Thank Heaven for Viola Pontadarvy.” Charlotte was struck by a thought. “Has all this got something to do with … bleeding, you know, every month?”

“I don’t know.”

“I expect it has. It’s all connected—all the things people don’t talk about. Well, now we know why they don’t talk about it—it’s so disgusting.”

“The thing you have to do in bed is called sexual intercourse, but Viola says the common people call it swiving.”

“She knows a lot.”

“She’s got brothers. They told her years ago.”

“How did they find out?”

“From older boys at school. Boys are ever so interested in that sort of thing.”

“Well,” Charlotte said, “it does have a sort of horrid fascination.”

Suddenly she saw in the mirror the reflection of Aunt Clarissa. “What are you two doing huddled in a corner?” she said. Charlotte flushed, but apparently Aunt Clarissa did not want an answer, for she went on: “Do please move around and talk to people, Belinda—it
is
your party.”

She went away, and the two girls moved on through the reception rooms. The rooms were arranged on a circular plan so that you could walk through them all and end up where you had started, at the top of the staircase. Charlotte said: “I don’t think I could ever bring myself to do it.”

“Couldn’t you?” Belinda said with a funny look.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it. It might be quite nice.”

Charlotte stared at her.

Belinda looked embarrassed. “I must go and dance,” she said. “See you later on!”

She went down the stairs. Charlotte watched her go, and wondered how many more shocking secrets life had to reveal.

She went back into the supper room and got another glass of champagne-cup. What a peculiar way for the human race to perpetuate itself, she thought. She supposed animals did something similar. What about birds? No, birds had eggs. And such words!
Pego
and
swiving
. All these hundreds of elegant and refined people around her knew those words, but never mentioned them. Because they were never mentioned, they were embarrassing. Because they were embarrassing, they were never mentioned. There was something very
silly
about the whole thing. If the Creator had ordained that people should swive, why pretend that they did not?

She finished her drink and went outside to the dance floor. Papa and Mama were dancing a polka, and doing it rather well. Mama had got over the incident in the park, but it still preyed on Papa’s mind. He looked very fine in white tie and tails. When his leg was bad he would not dance, but obviously it was giving him no trouble tonight. He was surprisingly light on his feet for a big man. Mama seemed to be having a wonderful time. She was able to let herself go a bit when she danced. Her usual studied reserve fell away, and she smiled radiantly and let her ankles show.

When the polka was over Papa caught Charlotte’s eye and came over. “May I have this dance, Lady Charlotte?”

“Certainly, my lord.”

It was a waltz. Papa seemed distracted, but he whirled her around the floor expertly. She wondered whether she looked radiant, like Mama. Probably not. Suddenly she thought of Papa and Mama swiving, and found the idea terribly embarrassing.

Papa said: “Are you enjoying your first big ball?”

“Yes, thank you,” she said dutifully.

“You seem thoughtful.”

“I’m on my best behavior.” The lights and the bright colors blurred slightly, and suddenly she had to concentrate on staying upright. She was afraid she might fall over and look foolish. Papa sensed her unsteadiness and held her a little more firmly. A moment later the dance ended.

Papa took her off the floor. He said: “Are you feeling quite well?”

“Fine, but I was dizzy for a moment.”

“Have you been smoking?”

Charlotte laughed. “Certainly not.”

“That’s the usual reason young ladies feel dizzy at balls. Take my advice: when you want to try tobacco, do it in private.”

“I don’t think I want to try it.”

She sat out the next dance, and then Freddie turned up again. As she danced with him, it occurred to her that all the young men and girls, including Freddie and herself, were supposed to be looking for husbands or wives during the season, especially at balls like this. For the first time she considered Freddie as a possible husband for herself. It was unthinkable.

Then what kind of husband do I want? she wondered. She really had no idea.

Freddie said: “Jonathan just said ‘Freddie, meet Charlotte,’ but I gather you’re called Lady Charlotte Walden.”

“Yes. Who are you?”

“Marquis of Chalfont, actually.”

So, Charlotte thought, we’re socially compatible.

A little later she and Freddie got into conversation with Belinda and Freddie’s friends. They talked about a new play, called
Pygmalion
, which was said to be absolutely hilarious but quite vulgar. The boys spoke of going to a boxing match, and Belinda said she wanted to go too, but they all said it was out of the question. They discussed jazz music. One of the boys was something of a connoisseur, having lived for a while in the United States; but Freddie disliked it, and talked rather pompously about “the negrification of society.” They all drank coffee and Belinda smoked another cigarette. Charlotte began to enjoy herself.

It was Charlotte’s mama who came along and broke up the party. “Your father and I are leaving,” she said. “Shall we send the coach back for you?”

Charlotte realized she was tired. “No, I’ll come,” she said. “What time is it?”

“Four o’clock.”

They went to get their wraps. Mama said: “Did you have a lovely evening?”

“Yes, thank you, Mama.”

“So did I. Who were those young men?”

“They know Jonathan.”

“Were they nice?”

“The conversation got quite interesting, in the end.”

Papa had called the carriage already. As they drove away from the bright lights of the party, Charlotte remembered what had happened last time they rode in a carriage, and she felt scared.

Papa held Mama’s hand. They seemed happy. Charlotte felt excluded. She looked out of the window. In the dawn light she could see four men in silk hats walking up Park Lane, going home from some nightclub perhaps. As the carriage rounded Hyde Park Corner Charlotte saw something odd. “What’s that?” she said.

Mama looked out. “What’s what, dear?”

“On the pavement. Looks like people.”

“That’s right.”

“What are they doing?”

“Sleeping.”

Charlotte was horrified. There were eight or ten of them, up against a wall, bundled in coats, blankets and newspapers. She could not tell whether they were men or women, but some of the bundles were small enough to be children.

She said: “Why do they sleep there?”

“I don’t know, dear,” Mama said.

Papa said: “Because they’ve nowhere else to sleep, of course.”

“They have no homes?”

“No.”