Free Olivia by Dorothy Strachey Page B

later she went out to dinner again. The last train from Paris reached the station at about half-past eleven and she used to be up at the house a little before twelve. How could I help keeping awake that night, half expecting her, listening for her? She had to pass my door to go to her room. Perhaps, perhaps she would come in again. Ah, straining ears and beating heart! But why was she so long? What could she be doing? Again and again I lit my candle and looked at my watch. Can she have passed the door without my having heard her? Impossible. At last, at last, the step came sounding down the long passage. Nearer, nearer. Would it stop? Would it go on? It stopped. A breathless pause.
Would the handle turn? It turned. She came in in the dim light of the unshuttered room and stood beside my bed:
    “I’ve brought you a sweet, you greedy little thing,” she said and pulled it out of her bag.
    Oh yes, I was greedy, but not for sweets. Her hands were my possession. I covered them with kisses.
    “There, there, Olivia,” she said. “You’re too passionate, my child.”
    Her lips brushed my forehead and she was gone.
     
     
    It was a little later that we had the usual Mardi Gras fancy-dress ball. Oh, yes, it was exactly like all other girls’-school fancy-dress balls. There was a day’s disorganization, while the dresses were being made and we were allowed to run about as we would into each other’s rooms, chattering, laughing, trying on, madly sewing and pinning. And then came the excitement of the evening. The two ladies sat enthroned with the staff at one end of the music room, which had been cleared for dancing; a march was played on the piano and we filed past them two and two, made our bows and our curtsies, were questioned, complimented, and laughed at. Mlle Julie was in her element on such occasions. Tonight was no exception. There was something happier in the atmosphere, a relaxation of tension. Mlle Cara was smiling and cheerful; Mlle Julie’s wit sparkled like her eyes; she was
enjoying it all as much as anyone. We could see her curiosity, her interest in the different self that each girl revealed in her disguise, some betraying their secret longings and fantasies, some abandoning themselves recklessly to their own natural propensities.
    So, it was Mary Queen of Scots, that poor, plain Gertrude so pathetically aspired to be; Georgie’s dark eyes burned mysterious and tragic beneath a top hat; with her false moustache and pointed beard, she made a marvellous romantic poet of 1830. On her arm hung Mimi, a charming little grisette in a poke bonnet, a shawl and a crinoline, and the two flirted outrageously to everyone’s delight. Madcap Nina was Puck himself, a torment and an amusement to the whole company. And I? I don’t know what my dress revealed. It was a Parsee lady’s dress which my mother had brought home from India. Very rich and splendid, I thought. The soft Oriental silk was of deep rose colour and it had a gold band inwoven in the material round the edges of the sari and the long skirt. I wore the sari over my head and managed the clinging folds well enough.
    But there was no doubt who was the belle of the ball. Cécile, a lovely and complacent Columbia, swam with swanlike grace, a queen among us all. She was draped in the star-spangled banner. An audacious décolletage showed her beautiful shoulders and the rise of her breast. Diamond stars crowned her and sparkled round her long slim throat. She was radiantly beautiful.

    I was giving her her due of compliments, when Mlle Julie came up.
    “ La belle Cécile !” she cried. “You do us honour, chère Amérique —a beauty worthy of Lafayette’s gallantry,” she went on, laughing. “Turn round and let me look at you.”
    She put her hands on Cécile’s bare arms and as she twisted her round, bent down and kissed her shoulder. A long deliberate kiss on the naked creamy shoulder. An unknown pang of astonishing violence stabbed me. I hated Cécile. I