Free The Harvest Man by Alex Grecian Page B

remember her? She supposed she really was as rude as John told her she was. Poor John Charles, stuck with a silly little girl for a wife.
    More men with white gloves circulated through the room carrying trays of hors d’oeuvres and tiny glasses of some clear sparkling aperitif. Hatty took a glass and wondered whether the biscuits waiting for her at home were cool enough yet to eat.
    Fully a third of the drawing room had been rendered off-limits by the addition of a heavy burgundy curtain that ran from one wall to the other. Eugenia Merrilow was nowhere to be seen and Hatty assumed she was somewhere behind the curtain, readying herself for the tableau vivant, the night’s scheduled entertainment.
    John Charles leaned in and whispered, “She’s doing the Botticelli tonight.”
    “What’s that, dear?”
    “Oh, I think you’ll be quite impressed. I’ve seen her do this tableau before, although it was for a private audience. It’s her crowning achievement.”
    Hatty nodded and sipped at her drink. It was sweet and burned her throat. At seven o’clock the elder Mrs Merrilow, Eugenia’s mother, stood and sang “Woodman, Spare That Tree,” the dark red curtain framing her ample figure. She was in her fifties, Hatty was sure, and wore her hair in unfashionable ringlets that bobbed around her ears whenever she strained for a high note. When she had finished, the final notes (
Thy axe shall harm it not!
)
lingering, there was an awkward moment of silence before the audience began to applaud. Nevertheless, Mrs Merrilow curtsied and came back for an encore of “The Village Blacksmith” (
Under a spreading chestnut tree the village smithy stands . . .
).
    When the clock struck eight, one of the white-gloved men stepped in front of the curtain and cleared his throat. Magically, the room went silent, all at once. Everyone turned toward the man and he nodded at them.
“The Birth of Venus,”
he said, and bowed, walking sideways with the curtain as he drew it open.
    A gasp went up from the gathered crowd. A low platform, two feet off the floor, twenty feet long, and ten feet deep, had been built under the windows, which were currently obscured by a flowery blue-and-green backdrop that filled the wall behind Eugenia Merrilow, who stood motionless, facing her audience astride an enormous pink scallop shell, its undulations framing her bare legs. Eugenia was entirely nude, except for a long red wig. She held one hand over her breasts and clutched the free end of the long wig in her other hand, pulling it around in front to cover her fanny. Lucy Hebron stood next to her holding up a salmon-colored cloak as if about to drape it over Eugenia’s shoulders. On Eugenia’s other side, to her right but Hatty’s left as she stood watching, George Merrilow was posed in mid-stride running toward his sister. He, too, was nude, but he had knotted a length of pale blue fabric about his throat and wrapped the other end of it around his midriff. Another woman whom Hatty didn’t recognize clung to George in an unseemly fashion. This woman wore a dark cape over her shoulders, but her left breast was exposed. Both she and George had somehow affixed wings to their backs. All four players in the silent drama stood stock-still, like mannequins, recreating
The Birth of Venus
, a painting which Hatty now recalled seeing in one of John Charles’s books. The entire effect was neither shocking nor artistic as far as Hatty was concerned. It was merely ludicrous.
    She heard herself snort with laughter and she clapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Several of the guests closest to them glared at Hatty, and she felt herself flush. She dared not look up at John Charles; she feared his reaction to her outburst. An older gentleman ahead of her turned and winked, which made her feel a bit better. Still, her throat felt warm and she thought for a moment that she might faint. When she finally did look up, John Charles was stone-faced, staring