Evan Hunter - Lizzie

“Yes.”

“Wait right there,” Robinson said, rising. “This, may it please Your Honors, brings us to an important consideration which must be addressed to the Court, and I take it that Your Honors will desire to hear us in the absence of the jury, as is usual in matters of this importance. Now the Court, I have no doubt, have anticipated this question, which was likely to arise. It cannot have been otherwise. I am perfectly willing to make my statement but I wish to do it with some care. I ask that the further hearing of this witness be suspended at this point.”

On Monday morning, the first day of September, Albert departed for Germany, and the villa settled into what Lizzie would come to realize was its normal summertime routine. Early that morning (Lord knew what time Albert had left) she and Alison were served their breakfasts of bacon and eggs with a side platter of cold meat and game in their respective bedrooms, the connecting door closed since Alison professed she was unfit company for man or beast when first she greeted the day. Alison always drank tea with her breakfast; in deference to the American guest, a pot of lukewarm coffee had been prepared for Lizzie by the cook — whose name, she discovered, was Isabel, but whom Alison addressed simply as Cook.

After breakfast, they bathed and dressed, and then took a brisk walk into town, where Lizzie purchased a bathing costume and slippers for Alison’s vaguely promised outing to the sea “sometime later this week”. Lizzie was accustomed to a rather more substantial midday meal than was served that noon on the terrace, and was frankly still hungry after eating more than her proper share of bread and cheese, washed down with white wine. She was beginning, by then, to recognize that an occasional glass of wine with lunch or dinner presented neither a physical nor a spiritual danger, but it nonetheless troubled her to see Alison drinking so liberally, even though the wine seemed to have little effect on her however much she drank of it. Lizzie wondered if she drank whiskey as well. She wondered, too, how she could ever explain to the WCTU, once she was home, that she had imbibed even the tiniest drop of alcohol while abroad. Well, as Alison had said, she was on holiday. There was time enough for a return to abstinence when she was back in Fall River again. And still she could not imagine any of her WCTU friends, or even her co-workers on the Fruit and Flower Mission, behaving as she was now behaving, however far from home they might be. She suddenly thought of Eve and of the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

After their meager lunch, she and Alison sat on wicker lounges on the lawn, taking the sun.

“Delicious,” Alison said.

She was wearing a sleeveless, loose-fitting, white muslin garment she said she had purchased on one of her many journeys here or there. She was quite naked beneath it, the sun silhouetting her long legs whenever she rose to pour warm lemonade or to fetch a towel or a cushion. Lizzie — though she had immodestly forsaken corset, petticoat or stockings — felt nonetheless hot and sticky in muslin underdrawers and chemise, a long-sleeved blouse, and a simple dark skirt. Like Alison, she was barefooted; unlike Alison, she was fearful of moving about on a lawn buzzing with hidden bees.

“There are fools, you know,” Alison said, her voice a murmur scarcely louder than the hum of the insects, “who insist on coming here only during the winter months, gulling themselves into believing the climate is semitropical — whatever that may mean. How they can ignore temperatures in the low forties is quite beyond me. Not to mention the bloody mistral, which can drive one insane within a fortnight. But it’s the fashionable thing to do, and Lord knows we must be fashionable, we British. I prefer the summer months, thank you very much. Are you comfortable, Lizzie? I fear you’re overdressed.”

“I’m very comfortable, thank you,” Lizzie said, though she was not.

“I know people who insist that the summer climate here is blisteringly hot,” Alison went on, voicing Lizzie’s inner thoughts. “You’d think they were talking about darkest Africa. You wouldn’t catch a fashionable Englishman here — unless he’s ailing or infirm — anytime between the first of May and the end of October. Afraid of missing the London season, don’t you know. And afraid of the sun. And afraid of God knows what else. Perhaps riffraff like myself who enjoy nothing better than to lie about soaking up the sunshine.”

Whereupon she closed her eyes, lifted the hem of her odd garment higher on her legs, and fell into a deep, uninterrupted silence that lingered for the rest of the afternoon.

In her room later, running a tub of tepid water (although she had turned on only the hot faucet), Lizzie wondered if this was to be the tenor of her remaining days at the villa. After the whirlwind of the weekend’s social activity, however boring it might have been, she felt somewhat disappointed and knew she would soon tire of a routine that seemed premised on an utter commitment to indolence. Well, she thought, perhaps this is only today. Perhaps Alison is resting after the weekend. And surely there’ll be something more substantial for supper than there was for lunch.

Instead a sort of high tea was served, consisting of soup, a salad, cold meat, cheese, fruit and — of course — wine. Lizzie was famished when she went to bed that night, determined to mention to Alison — subtly, to be sure — that her convalescence required heartier fare. In fact, she did not feel at all convalescent, and she wondered now if Alison’s idleness today had been prompted by concern for a guest she felt might still be ailing. As she drifted off to sleep, she imagined all the sumptuous feasts her friends doubtlessly were being served in Italy.

On Tuesday it became apparent that the day before had been no accident. Alison’s “holiday” routine became clearly established then as only more of the same: breakfast in bed, bathe and dress, a walk to town (already beginning to pall on Lizzie), a walk back to the villa, lunch, sunshine and lemonade, a late high tea, some conversation before bedtime, and then to sleep at an hour that would have been considered early even in Fall River. Lizzie was beginning to think it might already be time to telegraph Geoffrey. In fact, she was contemplating making the journey to Italy without a male escort. Would it really be all that dangerous for a woman traveling alone? She had no desire to offend her hostess — who until recently had been her devoted nurse as well — but surely she hadn’t come to Europe to sit about in the sunshine listening to the bees droning in the grass.

On Wednesday there was yet more of the same. When she attempted to break the somnolent routine by asking questions about the nearby towns of Vence and Grasse, Alison answered her only briefly and then went back to reading a novel that seemed to require her complete attention; she was turning quite brown by then, and the garments she wore when taking the sun — all of them looking as though they’d been purchased in some Oriental bazaar — were shorter than would have seemed modest. She smelled constantly of coconut oil, with which she doused her face and limbs and the exposed area above her breasts. She talked idly of excursions Lizzie now feared they would never make. She dozed, she read, she seemed entirely content to lie about like a serpent, utterly unmindful of her guest’s wishes. Even before Rebecca’s letter arrived in the late-afternoon post, Lizzie had made up her mind to move on as soon as was politely possible.

She read the letter in the privacy of her room.