“Now and then. Why do you ask?”
“I find him so coarse, rather low-class in his tastes. And he paws you if he finds the opportunity.”
“He’s tried to get next to Felicity for years,” Giles said, “hasn’t he, love?”
“He has. It’s quite obscene what he once said to me.”
“Whatever did he say?” Katrina asked.
“I wouldn’t repeat it.”
“Paraphrase it,” Edward said. “Give us a thrill.”
“It had to do with anatomy,” Felicity said. “Mine.”
“And a splendid anatomy it is,” said Giles.
“Maginn does like women,” Edward said. “He’s also tried his hand at Katrina.”
“Not at all,” Katrina said. “It’s all talk.”
“He went after you in our garden.”
“No, no, no. He was flirting.”
“What I saw was beyond flirting.”
“We are never sure of what we see.”
Edward let it go. She would forever deny the slightest dalliance. On Francis Phelan, she was vehement. Even Giles’s pitiful effort at a beach picnic (“May I touch your naked shoulder?”) she dismissed as an excess of friendship (“Just a lovable, silly man”). Like flies after sugar. The veneration of sugar.
“Maginn is afflicted, like a man with a stutter or a limp. He can’t help it,” Edward said.
“When God was handing out social graces,” Giles said, “Maginn was elsewhere, trying to seduce an angel.”
“Aren’t angels sexless?” Felicity asked.
“That would merely present Maginn with a challenge,” Edward said.
“But he’s just a reporter, such a common person,” Felicity said.
“I used to be a reporter,” Edward said. “Is that your view of my social position?”
“You’re very different.”
“You really mustn’t speak about people as ‘common,’ ” Giles said. “You shouldn’t type people that way.”
“Not even if it’s true?”
“It’s snobbish. Not everybody has the good fortune to be born into money and social status.”
“Are you quite sure that’s good fortune?” Katrina said.
“Who is this woman he’s bringing?” Felicity asked from her severe pout.
“Melissa Spencer, an actress,” said Katrina.
“Oh dear,” said Felicity. “Isn’t ‘actress’ just another name for, you know. .”
“Felicity,” Giles said, “you have no idea who this young woman is. She’s only eighteen and she’s going to be in Edward’s new play.”
“Oh I am sorry,” said Felicity.
“Don’t waste your sorrow on Melissa,” Edward said. “She’s a very talented young lady. I saw her in a Sardou play in New York, and I knew if she toned down the melodramatics, she could act my heroine. She’s at Proctor’s this week in a comic opera, and so I sent her a script, and yesterday my producer came up from New York and we auditioned her. She was perfect — articulate, with an open heart, and a beauty that’s hard to define. She commands one’s attention.”
“She certainly commands yours,” Felicity said.
“Why shouldn’t beauty be appreciated?” Katrina asked.
“It should, I suppose.”
“It should be cast in bronze, carved in marble like Persephone there,” said Giles, pointing to the marble bust. “Beauty is how we stay alive. It’s why I married you, my love,” and he patted Felicity’s wrist.
“That’s a ridiculous reason to marry, Giles,” said Katrina. “I don’t believe that’s what drew you to Felicity.”
“I swear it’s true,” said Giles.
“I doubt it. People want an unknown they can embrace. Something mysterious.”
“Do you really think we’re so anxious for the exotic?” Giles asked.
“But of course,” Katrina said. “What else is love but the desire for prostitution?”
“Oh my,” said Felicity. “You don’t mean that.”
“She means prostitution as a metaphor,” Giles said.
“Not at all,” said Katrina.
“I’ve been dying to ask what you’ve chosen for dinner,” Felicity said. “I always love your menus.”
“We start with prostitute soup,” Katrina said.
“You do say the most outlandish things, Katrina,” Felicity said. “You like to shock us.”
“Do I? Is that true, Edward?”
“Offending people has always been one of the pleasures of the upper class,” Edward said.
“I left the upper class when I married you,” Katrina said.
“Perhaps you did,” said Edward. “I remember Cornelia Wickham’s saying I made you déclassée. In spite of that, you certainly brought your elite social codes to the altar.”
“Cornelia was jealous that Katrina was the true princess of Albany’s social life,” Giles said. “I remember her coming-out cotillion, the most elaborate the city had seen in decades. Cornelia looked radiant, and her dress, made by a London couturier who had gone on to design for the Queen, was the talk of the city. Yet every eye was on Katrina. All the men had to dance with her, including myself. The women, polite as they were, were wretchedly jealous, and it got into the social columns. Cornelia still hasn’t forgiven her.”
“Cornelia was a vain and brainless ninny,” Katrina said. “I went to her cotillion determined to annoy her, and I flirted outrageously with everyone.”
“You became the belle of someone else’s ball,” Giles said, “a mythic figure in society. And Cornelia married bountifully and grew fat as a toad.”
“Is there something wrong in being fat?” Felicity asked.
“Nothing at all,” Giles said. “After I lose interest in you, my dear, you may get as fat as you like.”
“I will never be fat, Giles,” Felicity said. “And it may be I who lose interest.”
Footsteps on the porch announced that Maginn and Melissa had arrived.
At dinner, Maginn-by-candlelight looked less like Melissa’s escort than somebody’s ne’er-do-well uncle, with his waning, scraggly hair and mustache, expensive but wrinkled blue-silk tie, and his trademark coat with velvet collar: a coat for all seasons. His shirt collar was freshly starched, but only when Edward was sure he was wearing the complete shirt, and not just a dickey, did he give the word for the men to doff jackets. Edward and Giles, in their tailored shirts, ties in place, seemed aloof from the heat. Coatless, Maginn looked steamed.
Edward suggested the women could follow suit in whatever way feasible, and Melissa removed her diaphanous tunic, revealing shoulders bare except for where her light-brown hair fell onto them, and the string straps holding up her loose-fitting beige gown. It was clear she wore no corset, nor could Edward see any evidence of that new device, the brassiere. Her gown became the object of silent speculation: would it offer the table, before dinner’s end, an unobstructed chest-scape?
“The play by Edward is so exciting,” Melissa said. “I’m so flattered to be asked to even read for the role of Thisbe. There’s such pathos in her. It’s too good to be true, but it is true, isn’t it, Edward?”
“We can’t be sure about anything,” Edward said, “but you will have the part if we’re not all stricken by disaster.”
“There’s always the odd chance,” Maginn said, “that the play will be a disaster.”
“Oh no,” said Melissa. “It’s a wonderful play.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” Maginn said.
“Here now,” said Giles, “let’s not have any sour grapes.”
“Maginn is right,” Edward said. “Even great plays, and I make no argument for my own, are often badly received. The Seagull was mocked in its St. Petersburg premiere, and this year a horde of benighted Irishmen rioted at the Abbey Theatre over Synge’s language in Playboy of the Western World.”