Killing Violets, Tanith Lee [the two towers ebook .TXT] 📗

nose and lips neither thin nor full, so well-shaped, made for kissing, just as Raoul’s were. The figure too. The body. And the hands, with their shortish, capable yet sensitive fingers, and broad palms. And this one, the brother, had a ring on his finger. A dull gold signet. Another identifying mark for future reference.

He smiled gravely at her. Not put out, apparently. “Hallo. You’re exploring?”

“I’m lost.”

“Of course.”

They began to walk together along the corridor. Probably this was not as curious as it seemed.

“I hope you slept well,” he said.

“Yes, thank you.”

The corridor gave on another short flight of steps, with a runner, and then they were in a greenhouse, a glass conservatory perched up on a tower, perhaps, for it commanded views on every side. Water struck and beaded on the panes and birds flew endlessly over. The wind had risen. It coiled and uncoiled, making a sound that Anna could only describe as a whistle, yet that wasn’t really it.

“You can see for miles,” he said, “on a clear day.”

“Yes. Are those mountains?”

“The locals call them mountains. They’re hills.”

“And the cows.”

“Yes, there are cows.”

He offered her a chair, and sat facing her across a table. The conservatory was quite cold, but in sunlight would be scaldingly hot, for the roof was also pure glass. The rain slashed, made the noise of thrown dried peas, or small bullets.

On the table were books, about thirty or forty of them, and cigarettes, and a decanter of something.

“How are you settling in?” he asked.

Anna glanced at him. She said, quietly, experimentally, “Well, I’m not, very much. I haven’t seen Raoul. I don’t even know any of your names.”

“Not seen Raoul? But didn’t he come up to your room, to say good-night?”

The black eyes were intent, devoid of any subterfuge. She read them, and realised.

She said, “What should I call you?”

“Why don’t you…” He smiled again. He had the same beautiful teeth. “Why don’t you call me Raoul,” he suggested, “Anna.”

“I must have done,” she said. “Did I?”

“I can’t remember. Only your lovely transports. He’s very lucky. Do you mind?”

“Raoul must do.”

“I’m sorry, Anna, but he won’t. Don’t you think he might have been somewhere else? That is, if he wasn’t with you. I don’t mean the stable.”

“Another woman,” said Anna.

Raoul’s brother, who last night had got into her bed, made love to her, left her one black hair, now offered her a cigarette.

“I’m afraid so. Is it an awful blow?”

“Yes,” she said flatly, indifferently.

“Do you want to know who?”

“Not really.”

“You’re used to being treated like this.”

Anna let him light the cigarette. She had half anticipated the butler, or someone, would materialize from the glass wall to do it.

“I expect you want me to leave,” she said.

Surreptitiously she tried to ease the diamond ring off her finger, but it had tightened into her flesh, and wouldn’t come.

“It’s not like that,” said the second Raoul. “This woman, it’s just someone he’s always had. He’s faithful to her, in a way. He must have thought you’d understand. But you mustn’t go.”

The wind slapped the greenhouse. Plants in pots shook and the panes reverberated.

“Perhaps I need to speak to Raoul.”

“I regret he’s off at the moment, Anna. He’s been away some months, you see, and Father had things for him to do. He’ll be back by lunch, I’d think.”

“Your father’s so young,” she said, irrelevantly?

“Isn’t he,” said Raoul, who was not Raoul.

“And your mother.”

“Mother had a very expensive face-lift in Switzerland. Sometimes you see it on a woman, and it looks bloody, but she was lucky. She paid the earth for it. They say it only lasts two years. Isn’t that sad, Anna? But then you’ll never have to worry, I mean, about getting old. You’ve got such good bones. When you’re ninety you’ll be stunning.”

Anna said, “You all look so alike.”

“Yes. We’re terribly inbred.”

“But your sister’s husband isn’t a Basulte.”

“But he is. A cousin. Just distant enough it was allowed. By the church, I mean.”

Anna said, too dramatically she felt, “Can I ask you not to deceive me again, I mean not to come into my room. Until I speak to Raoul.”

“Oh, yes. That’s understandable. When you get his agreement, will you consent?”

“I don’t know.” She lowered her eyes. Her pulse was beating, and in her groin quivers of feeling disturbed her. She thought he might seize her and possess her, here in this box of glass, shivering with cold, kicking through the panes…

She stood up.

“I think I’ll go down.”

“Just a minute.”

He reached right across the table and she felt her mouth go dry, her limbs melt. But it was her bag he took hold of. Without asking her, he undid the clasp, and drew out the napkin of gammon.

“You don’t want, this, do you? It’s rather heady.”

“No. I was… going to look for a dog.”

He laughed. “We don’t have any dogs. Not the doggy sort. I sometimes think of the servants that way. Loyal and useful, obedient, waiting on our whim. I suppose you wouldn’t ever think like that. You’re rational and modern. But I was brought up here.”

The meat, laid bare now on the table among the books, glistened with its fawn fats. They both stared down at it for some while, before Anna left the conservatory.

Chapter Two: The English Country Walk; With Coda

“She’s so pale, very blonde, and such a white skin. Even the eyes. And her features. One would never automatically take her for a Jew.”

Anna paused, listening.

Out in the gallery stood the Mother and Sister of Raoul. They were posed idly beneath a picture five feet in height, of a big satiny woman in a low-breasted gown, holding a white dog on a leash.

“It’s ironic, really,” said the Sister of Raoul. “We’re so much darker. Yet, no one could take us for Hebrews, could they?”

They chuckled.

The white dog had a horn. It was a unicorn.

“Oh, Lilian,” said the Mother to the Sister of Raoul, whose name must be Lilian, “no one ever would.”

Anna thought of her passport. Anna Moll.