Exit Lady Masham by Louis Auchincloss Read Free Book Online Page B

sometimes on the terrace, but more often in Mr. Harley's apartments, where Masham was a regular guest. I never did see any pages of the famous tragedy, for after a bit he seemed to forget all about it. If my reader is surprised that Masham should have been so welcome in Harley's intellectual circle, let me explain that he provided his host with a perfect foil. Masham's laugh was loud, constant and infectious, and he could be pleasantly ribald when he was not quite adequately witty. I was titillated but ashamed when Harley joked about my obvious interest in his "protégé." But he soon waxed more serious.
    "What do you say to our young friend as a suitor, Abbie?" he asked me one afternoon on the terrace, where we watched the return of the royal hunt. "He admires you. That is obvious to all."
    "Oh, that's just badinage," I said, reddening.
    Harley pursed his lips into a small knot and raised his eyebrows. "It's difficult for a woman to tell, isn't it? How they go on, these fellows! But suppose he meant it?"
    I felt my mouth go dry. I need not hide from these pages that Samuel Masham's body had already become a magnet to me. Even when I found him foolish, almost ridiculous, I was giddy in his proximity. His perfume and his male odor simply undid me. Impatiently now, I tried to shake off the image.
    "What could it come to?"
    "Why not to a marriage?"
    "To a servant? You dream, Mr. Harley."
    "To a royal servant? To a cousin of a secretary of state? To a cousin by marriage of the Captain-General?"
    "Without a penny to her name?"
    "The Queen would give you something."
    "It would never do."
    "Think about it, my dear! Just think about it."
    Needless to say, I did. In my daydreams, following this colloquy, I was already in bed with Mr. Masham. I did not for a minute believe that he loved me; I knew that he wanted only to be close to Mr. Harley and to the Queen for the purpose of promoting his own career. He meant to subjugate me, to sleep with me, if he could, certainly not to marry me. He had perfectly divined that I was attracted to him; there was an air of near-insolence now in the freedom of his flattery.
    "You have reduced me to a sorry state, Mistress Hill! I, who used to be the diversion, even the terror, of half the maids at court, now languish in corners, pouting till my sun appears. But my sun seems to shine on everyone."
    "Or on none."
    "Spare me a beam! One beam just for myself, enchantress! Give the rest, if you must, to the garish world."
    "Captain, I must go to the Queen now."
    "Could you not spare a beggar a coin?"
    "A coin?"
    "A kiss!"
    "A kiss! Really, Captain, do you think me so rich as to spare beggars gold pieces?"
    "On the cheek, merely, then."
    "Captain, I shall be late!"
    "And I sent to the Tower. Unless..."
    "There! You took it. I did not give it."
    This sort of nonsense was froth to him, but it was horribly upsetting to me. I was in such a constant fever now that I could hardly concentrate on my duties, and only my awareness that any loss in royal favor would be followed by the immediate loss of my lover enabled me to keep my mind in any sort of order.
    It was a second and more intimate conversation with Mr. Harley that proved my undoing. The next time that the Secretary approached me on the subject of Masham, I told him flatly that I did not propose to be used as a pawn in any man's career.
    "His pawn? But, dear girl, you'd be his queen!"
    "I don't care, Mr. Harley! I do not wish to be made sport of." And then, to both our astonishments, I began to sob. "It is wretched for a woman to be told a lot of things by a man that he does not mean!"
    "What does Masham not mean?"
    "All his love and what-not. All his burning and dying and sighing. All my being the sun and moon and such trash!"
    "And what makes you think there is no passion behind his words?"
    "Because I'm ugly, Mr. Harley! A man like Masham could love only a beautiful woman."
    Harley's little eyes became even smaller as he puckered his face into his