A Most Immoral Woman by Linda Jaivin Read Free Book Online Page A

father was furious.’
    Morrison, his hyperactive imagination having produced far worse scenarios, was relieved and amused. ‘Scandal, as Oscar Wilde wrote in Lady Windermere’s Fan , is but gossip made tedious by morality.’
    ‘I must store that one away.’ She tapped her temple with her forefinger. ‘I am quite sure it will come in handy.’
    ‘So what did your father do? Were you punished?’
    ‘He was away in Washington at the time. You know he’s a senator. He wrote a letter to my mother, urging her to tighten my reins.’ Raising herself on one elbow, Mae switched into her father’s voice: ‘“It seems that this Miss Potter was a friend of one of Mae’s friends and had been passing herself off as a young girl, although she was at the time a divorced woman!!!” There were three exclamation marks, the final one of such vigorous a pen stroke that it tore the paper. He said, “As long as I let Mae do as she pleases, wear bangs ”—he underlined the word—“and run around having a wild time with questionable boys and girls, I am a dear, good papa, but when I insist that she must go to school and socialise with respectable young people, why I am another kind of man!”’
    Morrison shook his head. ‘You frighten me. For a moment there, I could have sworn your father had slipped into bed between us. Have you ever thought of becoming an actress?’
    ‘Of course. I’ve loved the theatre ever since Mama took me to my first play at the Alcazar in San Francisco. Do you know the Alcazar? It’s the most elegant Moorish hall in all the world, or at least that’s what is printed on its playbills. Gas-jet chandeliers, classical busts on pedestals here, there and everywhere, and all society dressed in their finest, raising gold opera glasses to the stage. From the first encounter I wanted to be on that stage, to bethe one they were all watching. And so I declared to Mama then and there that I would become an actress.’
    ‘What was her reaction?’
    Mimicking her mother’s light Anglo-Irish lilt, Mae slipped into character: ‘“Young lady, are you so determined to disgrace the family? An actress is but another name for a fancy woman! It would kill your father!”’
    ‘If your talent for mimicry is any indication, I would think you could have enjoyed a stellar career on the stage.’
    ‘So you say. But I might as well have told her I was running away to join the circus. Which, like being a sailor, is something I also dreamed about when I was little. I wanted to be the girl with the feathered headdress who rode the pony and got the tigers to leap through hoops. But speaking of ponies, let’s find some and ride out to the seabeach at the end of the Great Wall.’
    ‘Now?’ Morrison recoiled. ‘But it’s so pleasant in bed.’
    ‘I will go alone then.’
    ‘You mustn’t do that. It wouldn’t be proper. Or safe.’
    ‘So come with me.’
    ‘Can’t you linger with me a while longer?’
    ‘And if we are discovered?’
    ‘Hmm. I feel a sudden desire for exercise.’

In Which Miss Perkins Demonstrates That She is
Good in the Saddle and It Is Seen How the
Meaning of a Parable Depends on Who Is Telling
the Story
    As the hotel mafoo saddled up two little Mongolian ponies, Mae pointed to the feisty chestnut. ‘I’ll have that one.’
    The gelding’s ears lay flat against his head and his lips were tight; he regarded Mae’s approach with his head back and eyes rolling. When she tried to pat his neck, he jerked it away. Morrison signalled curtly to the mafoo to fetch a more tractable horse but Mae stopped him, insisting she liked that one. She calmed the pony with soft words and stroking until his ears rose to a happy angle and his lower lip loosened and trembled. Now, when she patted the white star on his forehead, he nuzzled her.
    ‘See? That wasn’t hard,’ she remarked and vaulted into the tall, wooden-framed saddle before either man could offer a hand, then settled her skirts over her