Beauty and Attention: A Novel

  When the soft knock came at the door, Libby startled. She rose to her feet at once. There was as much grace in her movements as ever, but more hesitation. Viola was painting watercolors in a corner of the room, trying to get the shape of a pear right.

  Standing in the wintry Roman sunlight, swathed as if in gauzy shawls of a light floral perfume, appeared her old friend Madame Merle, on whom Libby had not laid eyes since her marriage. She had vaguely heard that Clara Merle was traveling abroad. Her friend’s upswept hair caught the light in its shining web. She was smiling, and Libby felt she should have been delighted to see her again, that she should have rushed forward to embrace her visitor, but some instinct made her step back instead.

  Madame Merle’s face altered perceptibly. She smiled crookedly. “Have I come at a bad time?” she asked.

  Behind her, Libby felt rather than saw Viola melt upstairs to her own room. While she tried to cover her own hesitation, the girl’s bedroom door softly closed with a click. “Not at all,” said Libby. But still she didn’t offer her face to be kissed. Instead she put out her hand and shook Madame Merle’s. “Let me take your things,” she said. Madame Merle handed over her soft cashmere coat—it was much like Libby’s own, but in black, and rather more fitted—and unwound a scarf from around her neck like a soft green serpent. Libby hung them from brass hooks underneath the stairs.

  “I’m afraid my husband is not at home,” she said.

  Madame Merle raised her eyebrows. “At eleven in the morning?”

  “He has many hobbies that absorb his interest,” said Libby.

  “He would not like to hear them called hobbies,” observed Madame Merle.

  “You know him better than I do,” said Libby. “Would you care for some coffee or tea?”

  “Hot tea,” said her friend. “Cream, no sugar. I learned to drink tea in England, and the habit has stayed with me.”

  “I’ll make it myself. It’s our man’s day off.”

  Clara Merle nodded.

  Libby realized, with an unpleasant sense of shock, that Madame Merle was well aware that it was the servant’s day off—that perhaps she had timed her visit for that very reason.

  “I hear that you traveled the world on your honeymoon,” said Madame Merle, as Libby busied herself with the kettle. “Greece and Turkey.”

  “You heard this,” echoed Libby, wondering.

  “Through the grapevine,” amended Madame Merle.

  “There is a grapevine about the details of my honeymoon?” asked Libby.

  For the first time in their long acquaintance, Madame Merle appeared at a loss for words. “Of course, I looked in on Viola now and then while you were away,” she said.

  “That was kind of you,” said Libby evenly. “But unnecessary. The Countess Gemini was here with her.”

  “I was unconvinced,” said Clara Merle, “of the kind of supervision a woman like the Countess might provide.”

  “I wonder what kind of supervision you would approve,” said Libby. The two women did not speak again till all the things for tea had been laid out, and the tea itself poured.

  “Marriage has changed you,” Madame Merle observed.

  “Yes,” said Libby.

  “I wish you would tell me why,” said Madame Merle.

  “I wish I trusted you enough to do so,” answered Libby.

  “Your aunt is angry at me too. We’ve barely spoken since your marriage.”

  “Why would she be angry at you?” asked Libby. “It is I who have disappointed her.”

  Madame Merle shrugged. She stirred her tea with a spoon, set the spoon down with care, and sipped the tea. “Won’t Viola come down to say hello?” she asked.

  “She will if she wishes,” said Libby.

  “She was never willful before,” remarked Madame Merle.

  “I would not call her willful now,” said Libby. “But perhaps she has changed a little too.”

  “Osmond must not like that!” Madame Merle exclaimed.

  “You’ll have to ask him yourself,” answered Libby.

  Madame Merle had the opportunity that very afternoon, in a sunken garden in a corner of Rome—one of the many hidden gardens that Rome’s citizens know—and that mere visitors will never uncover. It was not beautiful in February, but it was private and the couple had met there many times before. The empty garden commanded a view of one elegant curve of the Tiber River, like an arm thrown out in sleep.

  Osmond stood gazing out at it when Clara Merle came strolling up behind him.

  “I thought I might find you here,” she said.

  “I knew you’d catch up with me eventually,” he said, without turning. They stood shoulder to shoulder, looking at the view.

  “You are disappointed,” she said. It was not a question.

  “Not in you,” he said. “Never in you.” But his voice lacked its customary timbre.

  “But you aren’t pleased,” she said.

  “Marriage isn’t easy,” he said. “It’s not what I expected.”

  “It’s still new,” she said, laying one hand on his arm. He moved almost imperceptibly away.

  “I don’t think this will improve with age,” he said. “She’s very stubborn.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Madame Merle, adjusting the green scarf at her throat. “I meant well.”

  “No doubt you did.”

  “Yet you say it as if you do doubt.”

  “No,” said Osmond, taking her in at one glance. “I don’t doubt.”

  “She was fresh and new—something I don’t encounter often. I hadn’t intended to use her,” said Madame Merle. “I even thought, for once, I might make a simple friendship . . . just for a change.”

  “But we are not simple people,” said Osmond. “And anyone and everyone may turn out to be useful—you know that.”

  “If I do know it,” she protested, “that is because you taught me!”

  He absorbed this in silence for several long seconds. Then, still gazing out at the curving arm of the Roman river, he added, almost casually, “I don’t expect we’ll be able to meet as often as we used to, you and I.”

  If she felt the flick of that lash, she hid it well. She grew, if anything, more erect. She touched the back of her hair with one hand, as if to assure herself that the hairspray was still holding it in place. “No,” she said. “I expect to be very busy myself, in the future.”

  Upon his return home, Lazarus did not have to directly convey much to Lord Warburton about his cousin’s new marriage to and life with Gilbert Osmond—if he said anything at all. The two friends had long since developed a way of speaking without words, a form of mind reading that both men would have laughed to scorn. The report might have been made in nothing more than Lazarus’s selection of songs that day, played on his new record player, designed, as it happened, by Caspar Lockwood’s company two years earlier, so that one record after another dropped down smoothly on the turntable. Lazarus had become an avid fan of Lockwood’s various inventions and patents. Or the truth might have been told in his too-brief description of his cousin’s Roman villa, or in a refusal to meet Warburton’s eyes. Whatever it was, his friend’s hackles were raised. Warburton felt a familiar prickling on the back of his neck, like a dog sensing danger.

  As for Lord Warburton, his own motivations for going to Rome were unclear even to himself. He had a quiet sense that not all feelings need to be articulated—some are let well enough alone. When it came to matters concerning Mrs. Elizabeth Osmond—née Libby Archer—he knew better than to sound his own depths. The feelings were there—he had no question about that—but he let them lie as deep and still as they liked. He would not disturb them. He was a man of the world, a man of politics and business. He had lately begun investing in the stock market, something no Warburton had ever done before, and Rome was one of the major financial capitals of the world. He had every reason to go to Rome.

  His sisters needed little convincing that he should go, because they already firmly believed
that everything their elder brother did was right. The weather around Belfast that February was beastly. Surely it would be a little better in Italy. Their brother was susceptible to sore throats. He might avoid another bout of bronchitis if he went to Rome. He did not mention Mrs. Elizabeth Osmond to his sisters—there was no need. He might drop in on Mrs. Osmond or he might not encounter her at all.

  Yet he found himself, the very first evening of his arrival, standing before the Osmond’s formidable front door. It was formidable not only because it was barricaded with crossed iron bars, but because there was light and music within, which meant a party, and Warburton had not intended to walk uninvited into a party. With his uncanny luck and sense of timing, he had happened upon the one night in the month when there was a flurry of activity within the villa. He was ready to turn and run—in fact, he had already turned around—when two male guests swept up behind him and carried him inside by their own velocity. It was a bitter cold evening and they had no reason to stand loitering by the door.

  Thus it was that Lord Warburton, that most proper of Englishmen, made his entrance uninvited and unannounced, flanked by two strange Italian men wearing black. With his height and breadth, his fair hair, sparkling blue eyes, and camel’s hair coat, he was set off as effectively as a gem against black velvet. Libby flew to the door with Viola trailing behind her like a beautiful pink ribbon. The young girl had mistaken her stepmother’s cry for a sound of dismay, and though she wasn’t sure how to help, she had instinctively come to her aid.

  But now there followed a hearty shaking of hands and confused laughter; even Gilbert Osmond came gliding over, drawn by some magnetic quality in the new arrival. Osmond took in the whole visitor at a glance—from the top of his Homburg hat, which he now snatched off his head in horror, to the tips of his large, fine leather boots—and smiled genially. He placed one hand lightly on his daughter’s shoulder, and with the other appeared to introduce the elegance of his rooms, and everything in them, as his own. “Welcome to Rome,” said Osmond, as if he held the key to the city, the ancient empire itself.

  Warburton nearly said that he had, of course, been to Rome several times before, but something made him hold his tongue. He thanked his host and bowed slightly from the waist, and the two men were soon speaking enthusiastically about collecting rare stamps. Libby hesitated, hovering quietly between them, ready to go, but a look from her husband told her to stay where she was, and she held onto Viola’s elbow to keep the girl from fleeing. But Viola showed no instinct to leave. She was as fascinated by their guest as if he had arrived from the pages of one of her old storybooks. He looked as if he were—with his shining blond hair and bright-blue eyes, and the kindly smile he bent on everything he surveyed—not so much the prince in a story as a young king.

  One of Viola’s young admirers unfairly glared at Lord Warburton as he jammed a shabby hat onto his head. A magic circle had gathered around this unwelcome English giant. “Buona notte. I’m going now,” he muttered to Viola.

  She turned with a start. “Oh!” she said. Her blue eyes widened. “Isn’t it early?” she asked. The college student would have relented on the spot—he was sorry he’d thrown his hat on in anger, now he’d have to find some way to take it back off—but Osmond broke in smoothly.

  “It’s late for boys like you,” he said, and escorted the poor young man to the door so that he had no choice but to step outside into the cold. Madame Merle was poised at the doorstep, patting her hair, when the young man tumbled out.

  “Buona notte!” she sang out. Madame Merle could have been a wonderful singer, if only she’d given it a try. She had dulcet tones and a true contralto voice.

  “There’s someone new here,” the student told her moodily.

  “Oh?” She arched her eyebrows.

  “An Englishman. Lord Warbler or something.”

  The eyebrows rose slightly further. “Lord Warburton?” she said, in some surprise. The side of her mouth twitched in an amused smile. “Fancy that,” she said.

  “I need your help,” said the young man.

  “My help?” said Madame Merle. “Who are you?”

  “I’m desperately in love with Viola,” he said.

  The smile threatened to turn into a sneer, but held. “Then you are beyond my help,” she said.

  “We are completely simpatico in everything. She could make me very happy.”

  “And you could make her poor,” Madame Merle observed, “unless you have a fortune tucked away somewhere.”

  “Poor but happy,” said the student.

  “Why are you telling this to me?” said Madame Merle. “And by the way, it’s brutal out here. Haven’t you ever heard that you’re not supposed to keep a woman standing out in the cold?”

  “I can’t go back in there,” he said. “Not tonight. But you could put in a good word for me.”

  “What makes you think that Mr. Osmond would listen to whatever I might say?”

  “He does listen to you,” said the observant young man. “You’re the only person he pays any attention to at all.”

  “And why should I help you, even if I can?” she asked, as if she had not heard him.

  “I just told you!” he said. “I thought we were friends.”

  She patted him lightly on the shoulder, but it felt more like blows to the young man. “I have many friends,” she said. “Don’t count too much on my friendship.”

  “Then perhaps I can count on Mrs. Osmond’s!” he said. “She, at least, has a heart!”

  Now the smile did turn into a sneer. “Undoubtedly she does,” said Madame Merle, in her velvety tones. “But do you think she’ll do your cause more good, or harm?” And then she swept past him into the villa.

  The weather continued dreadful along the coast of Northern Ireland, with snowdrifts above the tops of boots. So Lord Warburton’s sisters told him over the phone, though bad weather could be counted on till March each year. He extended his stay, and kept on extending it for weeks.

  The Englishman became a frequent visitor at the Palatine villa. In his honor, though Gilbert never would have admitted it, the Osmonds increased their monthly salons to weekly events.

  “They’re jolly interesting, these at-homes of yours,” Lord Warburton told his host, though privately he thought the word jolly exactly the wrong one. “I wish we had something like these at home.”

  “You see, my dear?” Osmond bowed slightly to his wife. “Soon the fame of your salons will have spread abroad. But surely you must have something like it?” he asked Warburton. “Some way of being sociable?”

  “Yes,” said Lord Warburton, tugging at the collar of his shirt. “We have dances and things.”

  “Dances,” mused Osmond.

  “I hope you’ll come and visit Greyabbey,” said Lord Warburton warmly. “Both of you. All three of you,” he added, glancing over at Viola, who was offering trays of sweets to the other guests.

  “Perhaps one day we’ll have reason to go,” said Osmond.

  “You don’t need a reason,” answered Lord Warburton. “You’d be welcome any time.”

  “You are very kind,” said Osmond. “But I always need a reason.” Now he did turn to glance at his daughter, who was offering the tray to an elderly Italian couple sitting perfectly upright in a corner. “The wife is related to Machiavelli,” said Osmond.

  “That’s just what I mean,” said Lord Warburton, not looking directly at Libby. He seldom looked directly at her, but at any instant he could have told her mood, her posture, her dress, her slightest change of expression. He believed she had only grown more beautiful over time. “Jolly fascinating!”

  Not long after this, Libby was alone with Viola in the early morning, braiding her long golden hair. That hair always reminded Libby of something, though she could never put her finger on what exactly. She supposed it may have been the gold hair of a princess in a fairy tale, some picture in a book she’d looked at long ago, even if it felt more familiar than that. Viola was holding M
imi in her lap, though the poor cat struggled to get away. Viola was always petting or holding the cat, as if she hoped she might turn it into a lapdog. They were in Viola’s bedroom, the smallest room in the villa, but also the most private.

  Suddenly Viola spoke. “I wish you wouldn’t leave me alone with Lord Warburton,” she said. The words burst from her lips as if she had been holding them in for a long time. “He frightens me.”

  “Frightens you?” exclaimed Libby, laughing. “But he’s the kindest man in the world!”

  “I know, but that doesn’t help. He has the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  Libby stopped laughing. “Has Lord Warburton . . . said anything to you? Or done anything to worry you?”

  “No, never.”

  Libby breathed a sigh of relief.

  “He only looks at me. He’s very kind, as you say. I don’t know why he frightens me so much. I think it’s because he is so much a stranger.”

  “Well, when you come to know him, he won’t be such a stranger anymore,” said Libby with a smile. She petted Viola’s braided hair, and Viola petted and hugged the cat, who had resigned herself to her fate for the moment.