Despite the cheap flowers, a chauffeured motor waited at the curb. A Delage I think, dark maroon in color and shinier than any other motor I ever saw. A crest was emblazoned—discreetly though—on the front door. Of course I was impressed.
“Will you do me the honor…” He stuttered slightly, stumbling over his words though his eyes told me what it was he wanted.
I said, “You would like me to have dinner with you?”
I waited for his response, which took a while to come. I smoothed my fur-trimmed satin cape over my shoulders, and waited some more. The cape was pale green, Chanel, I believe, though memory is tricky when it’s the 1930s you are remembering. And me, so old now. And that’s the first time I’ve ever admitted that. Still I recall the dress perfectly, it slinked around my body as though it loved me, fashioned from the new soft silk-jersey pioneered by Madame Chanel and that did things for a woman’s “look” no fabric had ever done before. At least none I had been aware of, but then I was fairly new to money and fame and designer clothing.
He was eager, he was young, he was adorable. Of course I took pity on him.
The Delage was as luxurious inside as it was out; cushioned in cream leather, small posies in silver flasks at each side of the backseat, a burled-walnut bar built in behind the chauffeur’s seat, with crystal decanters and a silver ice bucket and tongs and lemon and … ohh just anything you might think of in a well-stocked bar. Plus a dish of sliced, fresh, out-of-season peaches, a bowl of sweet almonds, a carafe of ice water, and about a million tiny white linen napkins all emblazoned with his crest.
Looking at my new admirer, I thought this might not be love. But on the other hand, it could be.
37
Of course there was no question a woman like myself might become the wife of an earl, an English lord, a man with a powerful family and also, I assumed, with a titled-debutante already awaiting the engagement ring and probably already having fittings for her wedding dress, which, naturally, would be of virginal white satin scattered with pearls, and with a sweetheart neckline demure enough to be approved of by the bishop yet just low enough to be admired by the male wedding guests. It would probably take place at Westminster Abbey, or the smaller St Margaret’s, though they might opt for the venerable Norman stone church in the bride’s village, where locals would stand outside to watch and wave to the smiling bride, who had known them all since she was a child, and who had played with them then, and who now had envy behind their smiles.
This beautiful car, the very same Delage in which I now sat, as if I owned it, queen of the day in fact, would for the wedding be driven by a uniformed chauffeur to her stately home. The entrance would be ablaze with banners and buntings and great hoops of white flowers, maybe to remind the guests that the bride was, of course, a virgin. Or if she wasn’t then she had been very clever about it, and later in bed, she would have to be a whole lot cleverer. One never knows.
Whatever my speculation, I knew that bride would never be me and I accepted it. I was born who I was; I have become who I am; and right then it was enough. Enough to have this lovely young man so madly in love with me that I felt like a great lady; enough that after that first wonderful night when we entwined like two stalks of roses, scented and thorny and sweet and hard and pliant, all at the same time, my lover, Rex, as I called him, left our bed, tumbled and “smelling like a whorehouse,” I said laughing, to rush out to buy me a gift. Pearls. What else would a man like that think of as a perfect gift for a woman, lady or no lady?
I was asleep, still in that same hotly perfumed bed, hugging a pillow with his scent on it, when he came back, triumphant. He commanded me to sit up. I did so, clutching the soft linen sheets modestly over my breasts because somehow, with daylight seeping through the curtains and somewhere the smell of bacon that tingled my toes I wanted it so much, and a fully dressed man looking at me with a delighted expression of one who brings a great surprise, it seemed only proper to behave modestly and not command him to get back into bed immediately, though I should have liked that. Besides, he was holding something behind his back and I knew that meant a present. And not just the street-corner roses this time, he was too eager for me to admire what he had.
He looked so young, so serious, torn between wanting to give me his surprise and worry that I might not think it as wonderful as he himself did.
“For goodness’ sake, darling Rex, just give it to me,” I said, laughing as I lost patience. I was a woman just woken from sleep, I wanted to bathe, brush my hair, eat that bacon with a slab of homemade bread that tasted the way bread should taste in Paris, and besides, love him though I did, I did not trust his taste.