The mermaid was painted in the romantic style of the Pre-Raphaelites, but the realism of the scales, the white skin, the pensive but utterly self-absorbed look on the sea-woman’s face as she gazed down at the water, her long red hair trailing into the sea, was shocking. It was a totally credible fusion of fish and flesh.
“I think she would be cold and clammy to touch, like the slimy skin of an ocean trout,” Margaret said, facing the painting. She was dressed in a blue calico gown with ruffles down the front and a straw hat trimmed with matching ribbon. She dared not look at him for fear he would see the rose of excitement creeping across her own fair skin.
“Without a human heart,” Alistair continued, thinking about another woman altogether, “and yet it is her very beauty, her inaccessibility that shimmers so seductively, that creates the fatal trap into which all sailors fall…”
“…to be pulled down to the bottom of the ocean by her clinging arms…”
“…the poor man gasping as he tries desperately to sprout gills instead of lungs,” Alistair concluded wryly.
Margaret laughed, a gleeful childlike sound, her head thrown back, all artifice leaving her. The archaeologist watched her, enchanted, his arms aching with the compulsion to pull her to him. Everything she said and did fascinated him, yet if he were to look unemotionally upon her he would have to conclude that there was nothing extraordinary about her. She was well-mannered, displaying the grooming of her position as a governess; she was neat in her appearance, pretty rather than beautiful, shrewd within the realm of her experience with a wit tempered by an acceptable amount of curiosity. But, most importantly, she listened to him intensely, as if all he had to impart was of the utmost intelligence and import. No one had ever before treated him with such reverence; it was dangerously intoxicating.
She turned to him and, with an air she imagined to be seductive but in fact was a little clumsy, she asked, “Have you fallen prey to such a Medusa?”
“Maybe; maybe not.”
An ambiguous answer that immediately made the young woman desire him more.
Had he, Alistair wondered, trying to concentrate on the next painting: a portrait of drowned Ophelia floating down the river, surrounded by copious auburn hair tangled in water lilies and river reeds. The expression of tranquil resignation on the suicide’s face made him ponder his own destiny: was he too about to voluntarily end his life as he knew it? Would a part of him—the romantic who aspired to higher spiritual values—perish?
Somewhere in the gallery a clock chimed three. The apex of his dilemma drew nearer. Again he felt as if his destiny was split into two clear choices. Margaret could be his salvation; all he had to do was stay here, by her side.
The exotic musk of a passing woman wafted across the room and drew Alistair back into contemplation of the orgy that awaited him. This was his opportunity to be transported back into a time he had dreamed of inhabiting, a chance to taste hedonism. He could have both; why not? He would have Margaret as his future, his life companion, and he would have Lady Whistle as his guide into a realm of money, power, and fantasy. One woman would be his spiritual anchor; the other his sensual liberator.
“Margaret,” he blur
ted, “please excuse my presumption but I have little time. I am to go away tonight for a short while and I fear I shall return changed. How, I cannot tell. I know our acquaintance has been extremely brief, but I believe that time is not linear in such circumstances….”
“What circumstances, Alistair?” she asked, trembling.
“I feel a strong affinity for you. When I am with you I am strengthened; your presence, your words, cause a kind of alchemy in me. One I wish to explore deeply and for quite some time, with your consent.”
He took her hand; it was the first time he had touched her. Gloved, it felt tiny in his own but even through the kid leather he could feel her quiver.
“How long are you gone for?”
“I do not know, but I would like to call for you upon my return. Do you understand the seriousness of my intent?”
“I think I do,” she replied blushing.
Margaret realized she was ignoring all the advice her mother had imbued her with. Could she trust him? She hardly knew him, and yet she had never felt so stimulated by a man. It was as if he were able to appreciate the qualities in her other men had found precocious: her desire to paint, her interest in politics. But most importantly, despite her average attractiveness (for she knew the limitations of her beauty) he desired her.
“I shall wait for a message,” she said firmly, gazing again at the mermaid. It came to her that she should be as mysterious, as alluring as the sea maiden, and so, after allowing him to kiss her hand, she left.
Alistair stood by the window dressed in his new and uncomfortably tight French frock coat, clutching the matching tall hat, feeling like an entirely different man—an individual he suspected he might not like.
Outside, the afternoon sun struggled to penetrate a mass of cumuli. Alistair thought the clouds resembled a pompous judge, his wig tumbling about him in rolls of silver-gray. A brand new traveling bag sat at his feet. He had borrowed a hunting jacket of the finest sharkskin from Harry, but wondered whether he would actually need it. This attention to the details of his forthcoming country visit was a futile attempt to subdue the anticipation that threatened to subsume him.
The distant peal of church bells rang in four o’clock. It began to drizzle. He looked down at the street three storys below; it appeared unchanged. Urchins, ragged in bare feet, yelled excitedly at each other as they ran by. On the corner two women, still dressed for market, gossiped while nearby a chimney sweep and his lad, both blackened by soot, hitched up his bone-thin nag ready for the weary journey home.
Alistair watched anxiously. Sure enough, at the last peal of the fourth bell Lady Whistle’s carriage swung around the corner. It was unmistakable with its sinister black polished veneer and gold trim. Two coachmen in the Whistle livery drove the two black horses, which pranced and chafed restlessly like overbred aristocrats.
Before it had even pulled up, Alistair was running down the stairs.
“Mr. Alistair Sizzlehorn?” The man at the door was ruddy and saturnine with a dour sensibility and a heavy Cornish accent. Alistair nodded. The coachman picked up his bag and passed it up to his companion. “It’s a good four hours’ hard drive to Whistlewaite, weather and horses depending, sir. I suggest you rug up and garner your strength for the ceremonies ahead.”
The servant opened the door of the sprung carriage to reveal a luxurious interior with satin padding and cushions. It was furnished with a side table holding a hamper of food and a bottle.
“Are there to be no others?” Alistair inquired, wondering at the extravagance of sending such a vehicle to collect just one individual.