Italian Sonata: Noire - Volume Two
Page 17
They had been outfitted lavishly, as regular visitors at Maison Worth, and at the atelier of Madame Vionnet, on L’Avenue Montaigne. How many hours had she stood, in one pose and then another, as satins, tulles and velvets were draped and pinned, and silks held to her face. Her mother had insisted on several suitably virginal evening gowns in white, embroidered in diamante and silver thread, georgette crêpe day dresses in cornflower blue, apricot and apple green, new riding attire, head-dresses of ostrich feathers, and shoes dainty of heel, destined to be danced to their graves upon the polished floors of London residences. Ophelia had embraced the novelty, having been previously confined to sensible wool for winter and summer cottons.
For Lady Daphne, as chaperone, the season would be almost as onerous. In gold brocade and lamé, diamonds glittering against pale skin, she had every intention of rising to the occasion. Even had she worn the rough serge of a nun, her elegance would have marked her as superior among her sex. Her dark-haired beauty had been admired in her youth, and was admired still.
Upon her return to London, Ophelia completed a course of instruction under the Vacani sisters, going thrice weekly to their studio in South Kensington, to learn the waltz, foxtrot and polka. In preparation for her presentation at Court, she was also schooled on the finer points of the deep curtsey she would perform, first to King George, and then to his consort, Queen Mary.
‘Keep your back straight at all times,’ commanded the first Miss Vacani. ‘Bend at the knee, your eyes ever upon the King,’ urged the second. ‘Smile as you rise, and you may receive a returning smile of approval,’ continued the first. The two always seemed to be finishing each other’s sentences. Ophelia thought of them as a pair of budgerigars, contentedly preening and casting a twinkling eye on those about them.
It seemed to Ophelia that the whole experience was designed to subjugate her: to place her neatly in a box, from which she should seek to charm without uttering a single original thought. Speaking at all, it appeared, was to be undertaken with caution.
‘Say as little as is needed. Absence of conversation is no impediment to success in gaining a man’s interest,’ Lady Daphne had advised, on the evening before it all began.
‘Moreover, it is best never to meet a man’s gaze directly. They find it intimidating, as if we were probing their mind.’
Ophelia wondered what she might be expected to find there…
Lady Daphne’s advice appeared unending.
‘Remember too that it doesn’t do to let others know of your cleverness Ophelia. Men fear that a woman who is too clever — by which they mean the slightest cleverness at all — is not theirs to control.’
Lady Daphne had given an arch smile. ‘Better to put that cleverness to covert use; once married, a woman can achieve a great deal behind the scenes.’
Ophelia didn’t see why her achievements, whatever they might be, shouldn’t be celebrated in the same way as a man’s. Nevertheless, she bowed to her mother’s wisdom in matters relating to the ‘handling’ of men. Her own father, she knew, acceded to Lady Daphne in all matters of Society and the household. Moreover, Ophelia was convinced, he considered himself fortunate in being able to do so.
* * *
It could not be said that Ophelia hadn’t tried with Percival, although she had vowed never to lose her senses over a man. She had no intention of her life imitating that of her Shakespearean namesake.
Early on in the season, adorned in palest mauve silk, with cornflowers embroidered from shoulder to hem, Ophelia had taken her place among thirty strangers for a soirée, all but a second cousin on her father’s side perfectly unknown to her. A portly gentleman, seemingly with some standing as a manufacturer in the northern counties, had been describing to her, at some length, the procedure for making clothes pegs, when Percival had presented himself, to escort her into dinner.
Well-mannered and agreeable, though sporting the pimples of youth and an over-fondness for hair oil, Percival was perfectly pleasant. Sadly, he lacked intellect: the result of interbreeding by certain old families. Nature had bestowed upon him a brain never intended for strenuous exercise.
Following her mother’s tutelage, Ophelia had smiled more than commented in reply. Largely, she had held her tongue, assuming an expression of rapt fascination, as Percival inventoried his January ‘bag’ of hare, duck and goose, partridge and pheasant. By all accounts, it had been the most successful of shooting seasons.
They had next met within the marbled and mirrored halls of Grosvenor House, Ophelia wearing sequinned dancing shoes, fastened with diamanté buttons, and a shimmering silver gown. Percival had rescued her from a retired major whose toupée, in vivid tangerine, would have looked quite at home in the jungles of Borneo. Percival had swooped in, taken her hand, and led her into the throng for a foxtrot. She’d been more than willing to overlook a few crushed toes.
By their third meeting, Ophelia, demure in white silk with a silver lace overlay, had begun to view him as a good egg, despite his limited conversation. He had partnered her at supper, eaten without spilling anything over her or himself, and had given her a chaste kiss upon the forehead on departure, uttered with a cheery ‘toodle-pip’.
The following evening, they had taken lemon ices on a balcony at the Connaught Hotel, where tulips, apple blossom and rhododendrons spilled from vases on every surface, and arum lilies and climbing roses swathed a glass wall, floodlit from behind. Ophelia, wearing buttercup yellow chiffon embellished with tiny violets at the neck and hem, had allowed Percival’s aristocratic hand to creep about her waist. She’d prepared herself for a ‘lunge’ and had been all too ready to engage him on equal ground, but he had merely given her a playful pinch and licked, somewhat provocatively, the cherry from the top of her sorbet.
In truth, it was Percival’s lack of sexual guile, his very inexperience, that soothed Ophelia. She’d had her fill of sly weasels and ebullient stags. She was not a rabbit to be caught in the mouth of the most daring, nor a common wild flower to be trampled underfoot. Her enthusiasm had quickly waned for evenings spent among a hundred other guests, crammed into a first-floor drawing room in Belgravia or Mayfair, converted into a ballroom for the night.
Ophelia was not the only debutante for whom the relentless requirement to be cheerful was wearing thin. In fact, if each young woman, so carefully outfitted and scented, were to peek into the thoughts of those about her, she’d find that few take pleasure in having their every action, word and article of costume dissected. Such are the rigours to which debutantes are subject.
To Ophelia’s slight chagrin, it was obvious that Lady Daphne drew a great deal more admirers than she. Other chaperones sat quietly dozing over their knitting. Lady Daphne, statuesque, and resplendent in her Paris fashions, attracted not only an assortment of middle-aged fathers but several of the most eligible young men.
It had been on the fifth evening of Ophelia’s acquaintance with Percival that he had escorted her from pre-dinner drinks at the Ritz to Devonshire House. Her mother had intentionally removed herself to a cab directly behind, whispering a hurried reminder to Ophelia that she be intelligent enough to conceal her intelligence.
Percival had indeed seized the opportunity to make known his ardour. He’d clamped his wet lips to hers, tongue probing at her upper molars and, despite her utmost readiness to surrender to the moment, to allow Percival to prove himself masterful, she’d been struck by a sense of absurdity.
She knew that wives were obliged to put up with things they found distasteful, and that a woman’s passions were secondary to those of her husband, if they existed at all. Moreover, Ophelia was not averse to wedlock as a means to further her social position, to secure her financial future, and to access a lifestyle that would include regular trips to the Continent, and attendance at soirées hosted by the elite of her class.
She held hopes that her life might amount to more than choosing clothes and menus, and entertaining people who bored her silly, but she also viewed marriage as
a contract; in signing it, she was determined to acquire the very best terms.
As Lady Daphne would say, ‘You were born, and you will die. What you make of the middle is your own affair.’
Her reluctance to commit to the wedded state might have been attributed to her age. In no more than the twinkling of an eye, Ophelia, like the rest of her cohort, had been transported from gawky childhood to the realms of eligible womanhood. ‘Ah!’ we might say. ‘What could be more fitting then, that Lady Ophelia Finchingfield, a radiant example of the innocent feminine, would cast down her eyes, and resist the eagerness of her suitor.’
Were we to reach inside the mind of our young heroine, we’d discover that far from being averse to physical intimacy, it was a subject she’d examined most thoroughly, and with regular indulgence, often while daydreaming in a long, hot bath. Rather than being coy, she looked forward keenly to her place at the lovers’ table, in anticipation of sampling all its dishes.
Ophelia hoped that she would be proven correct in her belief that marital comforts were an important aspect of marriage. She believed there were all sorts of lovely things you might do with a husband, if he was amiable enough to experiment, and not treat you like a statue of the Virgin Mary.
As Percival had withdrawn his tongue, dabbing saliva from the edges of his mouth, he’d extracted from his pocket a ring, and an alarmed repugnance had welled within, surprising her in its vehemence.
It was at that moment that the placement of her head within a noose became apparent. If she failed to wriggle free, she’d find herself being kissed by Percival Huntley-Withington for the rest of her miserable life.
* * *
Ophelia’s rejection of marriage to the Earl of Woldershire so incensed Lady Daphne (the opinion of Sir Peter was of no matter) that Ophelia had been placed on the next overnight sleeper to Scotland, to stay with her grandmother until she saw sense.
If Lady Finchingfield could overlook Percival’s mother expelling cigarette smoke from her nostrils in the manner of a horse snorting steam on a chilly morning, then Ophelia could put up with marriage to a man lacking sex appeal. In fact, thought Lady Daphne, the less pizzazz on that front the better; in her experience, less appealing husbands were rather easier to manage.
Unceremoniously banished from the social whirl of London, Ophelia reclined upon her bunk, rocked by the rhythm of the Scotch Express to Inverness, accompanied by the warm snuffling creature that was her beloved Pudding. She had insisted that where she go, her Cairn terrier follow.
Ophelia had never met Lady Morag MacKintoch but she feared her grandmother feeding her nothing but bread and water (physically and sexually) until she relented and threw herself back upon her mother’s mercy.
Cabbage too, thought Ophelia with a shudder. No doubt, there’ll be endless cabbage, and spinach, cooked for hours and spooned liberally onto the plate. The servants will have been thoroughly trained in the over-boiling of vegetables, and the very walls will be impregnated with the smell of Brussels sprouts.
This sorry contemplation inspired her to extract her Cadbury’s Milk Tray, hastily purchased at King’s Cross station for such a possible crisis. Pudding sniffed hopefully as Ophelia tore the seal and chose a strawberry crème.
Despite these forebodings, Ophelia could not deny a certain excitement. Scotland, she decided, would be the place to run into an artist, the sort who would be expertly experienced: a marvellous kisser, and much besides.
In fact, she mused, wild Bohemians are probably thicker on the ground in the Highlands than they are in Bloomsbury. They’ll be everywhere, painting grand views and sighing for a muse, from which to draw inspiration and upon which to pour their passion...
Ophelia closed her eyes, and wriggled under the covers, sucking thoughtfully on a caramel. Hugging her faithful terrier, she drifted into delicious dreams. Reclined upon a chaise longue, draped in nothing but a wisp of chiffon, her imagination conjured for her a brooding, Byronic artist, eyes seared with yearning. Overcome with desire, he crossed the room in a great bound, and tore the chiffon from her, crushing her lips to his. His mouth then ravaged her breast, and the hardness of his thigh forced her legs open to him.
Her belly fluttering in delight, Ophelia squeezed Pudding a little tighter.
‘Highland Pursuits’ is available from Amazon
About the Author
Emmanuelle de Maupassant lives with her husband
(maker of tea and fruit cake)
and her hairy pudding terrier
(connoisseur of squeaky toys and bacon treats).
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About the Editor
Adrea is a Melbourne-based freelance writer, editor and former stage director. She holds a BA (Hons) in theatre studies. Through her fiction and non-fiction writing, she engages with themes of the feminine, often focusing her lens on the rich diversity of feminine sexuality. She is also deeply interested in myth and fairy tale re-tellings.
After many years interpreting play-texts as a theatre director, Adrea is now applying those skills in deepening the “theatre on the page”, and enhancing the writer’s voice through developmental editing. Having assisted authors with over thirty short stories and several long-form works over the last two years.
Adrea’s erotic short stories and poetry and have appeared in various anthologies, including For the Men (2016), Coming Together: In Verse (2015) and Licked (House of Erotica 2015), The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 13, and in A Storytelling of Ravens (Little Raven 2014). Her provocative flash fiction and short stories have also featured on many online sites. In another guise, she has published a feminist creative essay in Etchings literary journal (2013), and her short memoir story was published in an Australian anthology the same year.
Currently, Adrea is working on her first collection of themed erotic short stories Watching You Watching Me and her first novella, a mythical re-telling.
https://koredesires.wordpress.com/about/
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