The Last Dress from Paris(65)
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The bath and the sleep, much as they are needed, only delay the inevitable.
Albert won’t let her get away with the mild embarrassment she suffered in front of the staff. It’s past six p.m. when she finally wakes, feeling completely out of sync. Her post-sleep mind is telling her it must be morning. But the total darkness of the room suggests evening. The bedside clock confirms it. She slips on a simple shift dress, feeling immensely grateful there are no plans in the diary for this evening, and heads for the staircase. On the landing, she passes Patrice, who tells her Albert is waiting for her in the library.
“Thank you, Patrice. Can you ask Chef to fix me something to eat, please? Some soup and a sandwich would be lovely.”
“I certainly will. I’ll bring it to the library for you.” He looks uneasy, as if he knows the version of Albert waiting for her there. As though he knows she won’t feel like eating when Albert has finished with her.
Albert is standing, whiskey in hand, when she enters the room, and wastes no time in getting straight to the point. He’s had hours to prepare himself while she is trying to hastily shrug off the disorientating fug of a daytime sleep.
“So, you chose to ignore my advice, Alice, and in doing so have opened both of us up to ridicule. You know that, don’t you?” He isn’t angry, not yet, more enjoying the feeling of total superiority this moment is delivering for him.
She walks across the room, feeling the need to be occupied, and pours herself a gin and tonic from the selection of decanters on the sideboard.
“You’re the one who made it public by inviting half the staff to welcome me home.”
She’s not going to let him see the fear she can feel slowly building inside her. She can see it in the unsteadiness of her own hand on the glass, so aware of his looming behind her. He knows how to use his size and authority to dominate a room, in a way that requires him to say very little. He’ll let his body language impose his thoughts on the room, on her. She’s never given him any reason to go further. Perhaps until now.
She feels his eyes trained on the back of her head, waiting for her to turn so he can say whatever he’s been planning.
“Where are your earrings?” His voice is cold and inquiring, and the question catches her off guard.
“Oh, um. I’m not sure.” Her hand instinctively rises to her right ear, the source of her guilt, where she lets it hang, unsure what to do or say next.
“So careless, Alice,” he says through a pointed little laugh. “Are you really sure you’re cut out for all this? It all seems very amateurish to me. Kissing in public, allowing yourself to be photographed, not covering your tracks, being reckless with your personal belongings.” As he delivers her roll call of offenses, she can see his anger building, his teeth clenched together so he has to force the words through them. It’s also clear that if not Madame du Parcq, someone who attended the Monet exhibition last night has shared the evening’s events with him.
Patrice enters the room carrying a tray with her supper, and Alice knows Albert won’t be considerate enough to pause their conversation until he has cleared the room again.
“What I’d like to know,” he demands, “is why none of this”—he circles his hand in front of him, as if to show off the room’s contents—“is enough for you? Why you feel you have to look elsewhere and to a man who can provide you with nothing more than basic carnal pleasures.”
Alice wants to tell him it was very far from basic, that Antoine made her entire body sing, hour after hour, all through the night until neither of them had the strength to keep going. But also that what Albert believes he provides for her falls woefully short of what she truly needs. She doesn’t live for possessions and demonstrable wealth. She needs affection, to know that she is loved and respected, that she is more important to her husband than anything else ever could be.
But she won’t answer in front of Patrice, who is working as quickly as he can to set her supper things on a small console table beside her. He must have sensed her eyes on him, because he moves, angling his body so that his back is to Albert, and then gives her another supportive smile.
“Well? Don’t you have an answer?” She can feel Albert’s irritation rising, but still Alice won’t respond until Patrice leaves the room, for his sake as much as hers.
“You can happily stay out all night with a man you barely know, but you can’t say why—what is it that’s so lacking in your life, Alice, that you feel you have to humiliate me like this?” He slams his whiskey glass down hard on the table beside him, making Alice jump. Patrice, who is outside the room now, falters in his tracks, then busies himself straightening newspapers on a table. Waiting to see if he’s needed.
“You have everything you need. A vibrant social life, enough staff to ensure you don’t have to lift a finger, and a clothing allowance that most women can only dream of. You don’t want for anything.” He’s bellowing now, loud enough for anyone on the first floor to hear them, his face puce with rage.
“So why, why are you so bloody ungrateful!”
She’s scared. Of how much further Albert’s anger will escalate, what he might be capable of.
But also of everything she wants to say. The words that are teetering on the very edge of her tongue, wanting to be released into the room. She decides it’s safer to move away from the bowl of scalding hot soup in front of her and stands instead by the fireplace, a safe distance from Albert but still visible to Patrice, who continues to linger outside.