‘You are a lucky fellow,’ one man said with good-natured envy. ‘All of us know you’ve nursed a broken heart more than once over the past few years, but now you have been rewarded. You’ve earned this wondrous wife, my friend. I wish you every happiness.’ He raised his glass to me and I thought that I must expire with joy.
The meal was all but finished, and Medoth was supervising the clearing of dessert plates. Soon, we would all repair to one of the salons for music and dancing. Simew loved to dance; I was looking forward to showing off her accomplishment.
Then, it happened. One moment I was conversing with a friend, the next there was a sudden movement beside me and people were uttering cries of alarm. It took me a while to realise that Simew had not only vacated her seat in a hurry, but had disappeared beneath the table. For a second or two, all was still, and then the whole company was thrown into a furore as Simew scuttled madly between their legs down the length of the table. Women squeaked and stood up, knocking over chairs. Men swore and backed away.
Again stillness. I poked my head under the table-cloth. ‘Felice, my love. What are you doing?’
She uttered a yowl and then emerged at full speed from beneath the other end of the table, in hot pursuit of a small mouse. Women screamed and panicked and, in the midst of this chaos, my new wife expressed a cry of triumph and pounced. In full sight of my guests, she tossed the unfortunate mouse into the air, batted it with her hands, and then lunged upon it to crack its fragile spine in her jaws.
‘Felice!’ I roared.
She paused then and raised her head to me, the mouse dangling, quite dead, from her mouth. ‘What?’ she seemed to say. Tiny streaks of blood marked her fair cheek.
At that point, one of the ladies vomited onto the floor, while another put a hand to her brow and collapsed backwards into the convenient arms of one of the men.
I could only stare at my wife, my body held in a paralysis of despair, as my guests flocked towards the doors, desperate to escape the grisly scene. Presently, we were left alone. I could hear voices beyond the doors, Medoth’s calm assurances to hysterical guests.
‘Simew,’ I said dismally and sat down.
She dropped the mouse and came to my side, reached to touch my cheek. I looked up at her. She shrugged, pulled a rueful face. Her expression said it all: ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. It’s what I am.’
And it was, of course. How wrong of me to force human behavior on the wild, free spirit of a cat.
The news spread rapidly. I told myself I did not care about the gossip, but I did. For a while, I was determined not to abandon my position in society and attended gatherings at usual, although without my wife. I felt I should spare her any further humiliation. Whenever I entered a room, conversation would become subdued. People would greet me cordially, but without their usual warmth. I heard remarks through curtains, round corners. ‘She is a beast, you know, quite savage. We all know he’s an absolute darling to take her on - but really - what is he thinking of?’
I was distraught and blamed myself. Simew should have remained a secret of mine and my loyal staff. I should have kept her as a mistress, but not presented her publicly as a wife. How could I have been so blind to the pitfalls? We had never really civilised her. I know Simew sensed my anguish, although I strove to hide it from her. She fussed round me with concerned mewings, pressing herself against me, kissing my hair, my eyelids. The staff remained solidly behind her, of course, but she was not their responsibility; her behavior could not affect them. The terrible thing was, in my heart I was furious with Simew. Public shame had warped my understanding. I suspected that she knew very well what she’d done at the marriage feast, but had wanted to shock, or else hadn’t cared what people thought of her. She had despised them, thought them vapid and foolish, and had acted impulsively without a care for what her actions might do to me. My love for her was tainted by what I perceived as her betrayal. I wanted to forgive her, but I couldn’t, for I did not think she was innocent. I made the mistake of forgetting what she really was.
One night, she disappeared. The staff were thrown into turmoil, and everyone was out scouring the gardens, then the streets beyond, calling her name. I sat in darkness in my chambers. I had no heart to search, but sought oblivion in liquor. Steeped in gloomy feelings, I thought Simew had gone to find herself a troupe of tom cats, who like her had been turned into men by the imprudent longings of cat-loving women. No doubt I, with my over-civilised human senses, could no longer satisfy her. She would return in the morning, once she thought she’d punished me enough.
But she did not return. Days passed and the atmosphere in the house was as dour as if a death had taken place. I saw reproach in the faces of all my servants. Dishes were slammed onto tables; my food was never quite hot enough. One evening, my rage erupted and I called them all together in the main hall. ‘If I don’t see some improvement in your duties, you are all dismissed!’ I cried. ‘Simew is gone. She is not of our world, and I am not to blame for her disappearance. Her cat nature took over, that’s all.’
They departed silently, back to their own quarters, no doubt to continue gossiping about me, but from that night on, some kind of normality was resumed in the running of the house.
After they had left, I went to stand before the portrait of Pu-ryah, resolving that in the morning, I would have it taken down. I heard a cough behind me and turned to find Medoth standing there. I sighed. ‘If she is a mother, she is cruel,’ I said.
Medoth came to my side. ‘You put much into that work, my lord. Some might say too much. It has great power.’
I nodded. ‘Indeed it has. I thought I could brave Pu-ryah’s fire, but I was wrong, and now I am burned away.’
‘Your experiences have been distressing,’ Medoth agreed. He paused. ‘Might I suggest you make a gift of this painting to the temple of the Lady? I am sure they would appreciate it.’
‘Yes. A good idea, Medoth. See to it tomorrow, would you?’
He bowed. ‘Of course, my lord.’
I began to walk away, towards my empty chambers.
‘My lord,’ Medoth said.
I paused and turned. ‘Yes?’
He hesitated and then said. ‘One day, you will miss her as we do. She only obeyed her nature. She loved you very much.’
I was about to reprimand him for such importunate remarks, but then weariness overtook me. I sighed again. ‘I know, Medoth.’
‘Perhaps you should acquire another little cat.’
I laughed bleakly. ‘No. I don’t think so.’
I did see Simew again. After some years had passed, she came back occasionally, to visit the servants, I think. Sometimes, I found fowl carcasses they had left out for her in the garden. Sometimes, alone in my bed late at night, I would hear music coming from the servants’ quarters and the joyful peal of that unmistakable laugh. To me, she showed herself only once.
It was a summer evening and dusk had fallen. I went out into the garden, filled with a quiet sadness, yet strangely content in the peace of the hedged walkways. I strolled right to the end of my property, to the high wall that hid my domain from the street beyond. It was there I heard a soft chirrup.
A shiver passed through me and I looked up. She was there, crouching on the wall above me, her hair hanging down and her eyes flashing at me through the dusk. She was clothed, I remember that, in some dark, close-fitting attire that must be suitable for her nocturnal excursions. Where was she living now? How was she living? I wanted to know these things, and called her name softly. In that moment, I believe there could have been some reconciliation between us, had she desired it.
She looked at me with affection, I think, but not for very long. I did not see judgment in her eyes, for she was essentially a cat; an animal who will, for a time, forgive our cruel words and unjust kicks. A cat loves us unconditionally, but unlike a dog, she will not accept continual harsh treatment. She runs away. She finds another home.
My eyes filled with tears and
when I wiped them away, Simew had gone. I never married again.
Night’s Damozel
This story first appeared in 1998 in Interzone magazine in the UK. It has a similar theme to ‘My Lady of the Hearth’, in that the protagonist falls in love with a woman who is not entirely human. I wrote this story with Eloise Coquio, and the plot derives from an idea Lou had concerning a man obsessed with poisonous flowers. I liked some of the surprises Lou invented for the tale, the serpentine twists and turns. Sympathies for the characters wind this way and that, like a serpent over the sand; nothing is certain. Lou had clear and vivid images in her head, but was looking for a story structure. We workshopped the ideas, and Lou wrote some of them down as a first draft. I then did the bulk of the writing, added dialogue and so on.
Like many characters I’ve written about in short stories, I think that Xanthe, the femme fatale of this tale, has a bigger story to tell. I hope that one day she makes an appearance in another story or novel. I do wonder what she’s getting up to at the moment, because it’s bound to be something intriguing!
On the morning of her arrival, Samuel wandered out into his garden. Already the sun was blistering and the still, clammy air threatened later storms. He walked along the shaded walkways where, as it dripped through the dense canopy of leaves, the burning yellow light turned to cool amber. His heart felt too large within its cage of bones. Where was the joy with which he should be greeting his new bride? Standing in the sunlight, he shivered.
Samuel was a quiet man with few friends, and those who had somehow stuck to his life since childhood now lived far away. He saw them only once a year, in early summer, when for a month, he would travel overseas. His life was marked only slightly by the presence of others; he had a single servant, a bad tempered woman named Hesta, who lived on a nearby farm. She visited him daily, but Samuel rarely saw her. He left her coins as wages once a week and consumed her indifferent cooking with neither relish nor disgust.
Few other visitors ventured up the long, tree-shuttered driveway to the house, yet Samuel never felt lonely. He had companions. His garden was full of them: nearly a hundred different species of rare and exotic plants. They were his passion. They spoke to him without words, and listened to his most secret confidences without interrupting. They indulged him with gifts; dark, sticky fruit and flowers whose petals felt as soft as the skin of children. Their names were beautiful: Dancing Bride, whose spray of small white blooms concealed a bitter nectar that stopped the heart; Severia, whose juices thinned the blood so effectively, a simple scratch might result in slow death; Lady Anne’s Pearls, whose dull-bloomed berries nestled in a grey-green nest of prickled leaves, whose taste was sweet yet paralysed the lungs. There were many more languishing in darkness beneath the evergreens, hugging their secret lives to themselves, or wantonly sprawling over the lichened walls of the sun garden. Often Samuel would lie among them and inhale their narcotic scent until his head throbbed and pulsed. During his annual travels, he had gathered his dark ladies from every corner of the world. But this year, he had journeyed to the hot land of Mewt, where he’d cut for himself a different kind of flower, and soon she would be here.
Samuel’s steps were slow, even dragging. He wondered how he would tell the green ladies of his wife’s arrival. He should have spoken before, but had sensed the displeasure his news would invoke. They would be anxious, for they were used only to his company.
There was a queen to Samuel’s kingdom and her name was Night’s Damozel. Her velvet blooms, of imperial purple, reared on tall, slender necks from a coronet of long, silver-furred leaves. Her pollen could be deadly, yet to one familiar with her charms, it imparted a sweet euphoria. Samuel had long acquaintance with the Damozel and spent many a balmy evening with his head in her royal lap, inhaling the sparkling dust that drifted down from her open hearts. Now, he came again to her court in a grove of ancient yews. Little sun-light reached her, yet her bower was always temperate. Her maids of honour were a riot of cobalt ground poppies. Swollen bees hung drunkenly above her blooms, droning low and deep.
Samuel knelt before her, his head bowed. He felt the sun reach down with attenuated fingers between the needles of the yews and touch his neck. He told the Damozel his news.
He had first seen Xanthe in twilight, standing above him on a balcony at the villa of one of his acquaintances. Framed by tall, sputtering candles, she had been holding a long-stemmed glass to the side of her face, gazing out at the dark sea beyond the villa gardens. The ocean breeze lifted tendrils of her hair and they coiled around her face and shoulders like questing vipers. She was lovely: tall, slender, her body swaying slightly as she meditated upon the approaching night. Samuel’s heart was at once captivated for he saw within this woman a similarity to the green ladies who populated his garden. Like them, she seemed remote, silent, rooted to the spot.
On the terrace near the cliffs, where a host of people mingled, and food and wine grew damp and warm respectively in the heavy air, he sought out his hostess, a duchess named Sythia. She stood at the centre of a group of guests amusing them with gossip. Samuel sipped his wine and made what he hoped were discreet enquiries about the woman on the balcony. Sythia smiled conspiratorially and led Samuel to one side. ‘You speak of Xanthe. You like her? Of course you do. She is charming. A temptation to many men.’
Samuel, unused to such direct words, felt himself grow hot. ‘She is interesting,’ he replied, which was exactly what he felt.
Sythia’s smiled widened. ‘You would like to meet her, of course.’
Samuel was irritated by Sythia’s demeanour. He knew the people who thought themselves his friends had despaired of him ever finding a mate. Well-meaning older ladies had often told him he was a well-favoured man and had many admirers, but once he saw the women whose eyes he’d caught, he had to flee. They seemed so pink and fleshy, so clumsy. Now, his fumbling enquiries about Xanthe would soon be known to all the company. The morsel of information would be relished as much as the rare, salty shell-fish that lay dismembered on the duchess’ table.
‘In truth, I know very little about the lady,’ Sythia confessed as she cut through the throng of guests that cluttered her garden. ‘I met her at a soiree some weeks back, and like you, felt my curiosity stir. Nobody knows her. She is an enigma, and a lovely complement to any gathering. I have invited her here three times already.’
Sythia paused beneath the balcony where Xanthe still contemplated the scenery. The duchess called her name and, languidly, Xanthe directed her attention towards the sound. Her face remained expressionless. ‘My dear,’ said Sythia, in a voice of constrained excitement, ‘would you come down here for a moment. There is someone who wishes to meet you.’
With neither words nor smile, Xanthe put down her glass on the rail of the balcony and descended the steps that flanked the house, her movements precise yet elegant. Then she stood before them, towering over Sythia, looking Samuel directly in the eye. She was dressed in a long, finely-pleated garment, the colour of ripened corn, that clung to her body like scales. Her dark, straight hair hung lustrously over her shoulders. Her skin appeared dusty, and Samuel instinctively knew it would feel smooth and dry to his touch. He wanted to shrink from Xanthe’s overt scrutiny, yet simultaneously wanted to drown in her unwavering gaze.
He could no longer remember how Sythia had affected introductions. His memory had discarded any words that had been exchanged beyond that initial overture, but he could still recall in detail the smashing of the sea below, and the scent of the night-blooming vines, and Xanthe’s private smile as she observed, through her dark, slanting eyes, his developing infatuation.
In a dry, barely interested kind of way she apparently decided to collude in his desires. Later that same night, after most of the guests had retired to bed, or else had fallen where they stood among the empty glasses, she led Samuel to a bare promontory and here, beneath the swelling moon, discarded the sheath of her dress, to reveal a long, sinuous body whose flesh was cool yet supple.
She had no inhibitions whatsoever, although Samuel, being devoid of experience in these matters, wondered whether all women were so open in this regard.
There followed a week of intoxicated passion, of fever and of joy. In the mornings, Xanthe would leave Samuel’s bed and go to sun herself upon the balcony, kneading into her skin fragrant oils that were absorbed almost immediately to leave a matte sheen. In the afternoons, while the other guests dozed after lunch, she and Samuel would walk into the nearby town, and drink cold, tart wines beneath the shade of awnings outside sleepy inns. She did talk of herself, of her dreams and expectations. Her voice was low, husky, with a slight lisp. Her family were rich, she told Samuel, and she was an artist. She was amused by Sythia’s patronage, but was happy to enjoy the benefits of the friendship. ‘I love her house,’ Xanthe said. ‘The rocks around it retain such heat.’
At the end of that week, Samuel had made up his mind: he wanted Xanthe as a wife. One afternoon, as they paused in their daily walk at a shore-side inn, he became emboldened by wine, and took hold of her hands across the table. ‘Xanthe, be my bride.’
She looked at him inscrutably for a few moments, then said, ‘If you like.’
Just a few days later, they married in a small, mountain temple, and afterwards Sythia threw a banquet in their honour. Then, Xanthe had returned to her family estate to organise the packing of items she wished to transport to her new home, while Samuel had travelled back across the sea to his homeland of Tarbonnay, where he would prepare his demesne for her arrival.
‘And today she comes,’ Samuel told the Damozel. ‘I pray you will love her as I do.’
The afternoon had dulled and seemed to fall silent; the bees had tumbled away, and not even a leaf stirred in the bower. Then, as Samuel raised his head, the sun reappeared from behind a cloud and the Damozel’s stately blooms turned slowly away from him. She seemed to gaze haughtily at the sky.