“The Marquis and Marchioness of Portferrans, and the Lady Clarissa Quist-Hagen.” The Duke and Duchess of Postings, both stout and jovial, greeted us warmly. Finally we proceeded through the press of the guests, many of whom familiarly addressed my mother and father and proved themselves fatuous by being taken aback by my green-eyed, black-haired beauty. But all was not lost, I thought, as long as my father with surpassing dexterity floated champagne-filled glasses from passing trays to our nimble hands and even nimbler throats-and thus we survived the time until the dancing began. I had dispensed with my dancing card, of course. I was being terribly difficult-impossible, really. I declined the prospect of dancing with this titled fop or that one, but I also denied perfectly personable young men-whose tilt of eyebrows I did not approve, whose curl of lip was too pronounced, whose face was altogether too ingenuous, or whose speech was affected far beyond necessity. My father was highly amused by my high-handedness. My mother was outraged-I had expressed this role of mine once too often. She was about to let fly when I waved my hand airily at her-my eye suddenly had become riveted-and excused myself. Standing at one of those floor-to-ceiling windows that led to a balcony overlooking the Postings' garden was a tall blond youth whose merry eye had caught mine. I resolved to reconnoitre him.
But I soon dispensed with reconnaissance. It seemed, suddenly, such a waste of time. If necessary, I would ask my brother about this lad's background, whose contemporary he was. In the meantime it was imperative that I at least learn his name. But he anticipated me.
He moved from the balcony window and intercepted me. Never have I enjoyed interception so much. I could swear it was the youth's merry eye-I had not seen such except for the last time I was with James.
James had always had a merry eye. This youth, this blond, had as much a light-struck elegance as my brother had a dark one. I had the odd sensation that I was being attracted by the light. “Hugh Kinsteares,” he murmured offhandedly, drawing abreast of me. His eyes were the color of the blue sky at twilight. “I suppose you've been told you're ravishing,” he said. I shrugged. I was abruptly bored. I was about to wander off to log another glass of champagne when he added, “But you're not ravishing at all. One profile, at any rate, is a perfect model for a hag, Lady Clarissa-has nobody given you intelligence to that effect?” I stared at Hugh Kinsteares. “Nobody,” I said. “I am the first?” I nodded gloomily. I had known my profiles the first day I could observe myself in a full-length three-panel mirror. I knew one profile was, to put it mildly, mouldy. “Beauty,” my father had said, “will always have one element or phase that is positively repellant.” Yes, I said to myself, and this Kinsteares had observed it. The bastard had already earned my respect. “Does the fact that I'm the first to observe this frighten you?” he asked. “On the contrary,” I said, “it gives me faith.” “Good,” he said. “I myself can't afford to be frightened.” That puzzled me. I was to learn, later, the ghastly significance of his sentence. “I think you also ought to know,” he said, “that I'm the san of the Earl of Lamensfirth.” “So that if we were attracted to each other,” I said, “we would require no sanctions.” Hugh Kinsteares chuckled. I liked his chuckle, I liked his blondness, I liked his slimness and I gave not a whit that he might have a bat that was too short or too long, too thick or too thin, too pustuled or too clear. He was a man, however one judged the matter, with the merriest of blue eyes and, surely, the hardest of fists. I had the distinct impression that I was falling in love. Why, I don't know. Does anyone, really? There was, simply, or complexly, a heart-catching quality to the lad, something poignant, something wonderfully free that I wanted to keep free, never to imprison it. I knew then and there that Hugh Kinsteares could do anything he liked to me-I would accept anything at all. It would be a wondrous thing, I thought, if he should wish to marry me, but just as wondrous if he simply saw me and made love to me and never said a word about engagements or marriage. I would not have cared if he had got me with child-I would have borne his bastards willingly. Yes, there seemed no doubt that I was in love. It was a fantastic sensation-I had no thought of myself-I thought only of the beloved, how blond he was, how blue-eyed as inland waters, how cynically and yet sadly poised he was, how irreverent and how much wanting to believe, how the hairs on his wrist were a silver-blond, and thus, too, the hairs on his eyebrows.
Aye, I was in love-I had begun to make inventories! We danced, of course. A hundred dances-or was it only one? You know, I don't really remember. We seemed to flow into each other, Hugh Kinsteares and I.
Simply being with each other was a dance. Stepping out on the Postings' balcony was a dance-of lad and lass. Surely, I thought, no lad and lass had been as smitten as we were. I was absolutely certain that Hugh was as smitten as I, although he never said a word about that on the night of our encounter. It didn't at all matter to me that on that first night he did not say that he loved me, or was fond of me, or even attracted to me. But he apparently had eyes for nobody else, and there were many fetching women there. In any case, my dear reader, there we were, Hugh and I, on the balcony in mid-winter, rime on the ornate ironwork of the railing. “We're absolutely mad, you know,” he said, “to leave that womblike interior, infested as it is with people one meets only in one's dreams.” “Yes, Hugh.”
“Did I tell you I know your brother, Clarissa? We take some of the same lectures together. Witty and personable man, James is-the sort that makes Oxford tolerable.” “Yes, Hugh.” His lean hands gestured in the brilliantly moonlit night. Our frosty breaths commingled. I peered helplessly up at his poignant triangular face.
Helplessly, yes. Exactly that. Because Hugh Kinsteares could have done anything he wanted to at that and any succeeding moments, and I would not have demurred. He could have said the moon was an old child's answer to a balloon, and I would have concurred. He could have said love was a physic and wasted our bowels, and I would have assented. He could have said time was a bisexual seducer, and I would have believed him. He could have said Disraeli was an imposter and Gladstone a fool, and I would eagerly have nodded my numbskull, hypnotized by the play of moonlight on his quizzical face. I could have gazed at Hugh forever, I could have gone on memorizing him without end…
Indeed, it would not even have mattered to me if he had never made love to me. It would have been sufficient for me simply to be in Hugh's presence… ah, my dear reader, this is so very painful to recount… it would have been better, as you will see, if Hugh Kinsteares had never made love to me… But let me go back to counting the ways I loved him, let me go back to the Postings' ball, and Hugh and I on the balcony in the dead of winter… “You're beginning to shiver,” he said. “Yes,” I said. He put his arm about me and drew me close. “Clarissa,” he murmured, “Yes, Hugh?” “You do impossible things to me-and at very short notice.
I hereby protest. Really, Clarissa, I don't even know if you enjoy great music. I mean, do you enjoy Bach, for example?” “I'll attend Bach on any occasion you like.” He frowned. He was nettled. I smiled to myself. “That's not what I asked you,” he said. I smiled out loud. “I like Mozart,” I said. “Not Bach?” “Mozart, Purcell, Scarlatti, Schumann.” “Not Bach.”
“No,” I said. “Well,” he said, “the others you mention are considerable.” “Are they?” I looked at him ingenuously. “You know,” he said, grinning wryly, “you're making fun of me and I don't mind at all…” “I? Making fun of you, Hugh? Oh no, no really, not even in the most distant sense.” “Nevertheless,” he said, holding me more tightly as I shivered again, “I'd better take you inside-or we'll both be dead of winter…” Once again in the Postings' drawing room, the dazzling guests surrounding us, I turned to him and said, “You know, Hugh, if you like I can introduce you to my mother and father-they're with me here tonight. The point is, I've never once introduced my parents to any of the men I've been with…”