Chapter Text
Lady Constance Schoonmaker smoothed her dress back into place for the second time in as many minutes.
“Oh, dear,” she said again. It was entirely inadequate, and she wished dearly she could come up with something else, but try as she might, she could not.
She did hope Mr Baxter wasn't going to blame her.
Rupert Baxter, having restored his trousers to their original position, was stalking the room up and down, cigarette in hand. From time to time he put it to his lips, inhaling and exhaling with a fevered speed. His face was flushed with consternation. Combined with the smoke, it was as though his extraordinary brain were an engine being put to such use as to overheat.
Baxter was not the man to issue apologies for his own intemperate conduct. He was in search of an excuse. The lighting; the atmosphere; the fact that Lady Constance’s correspondence had recently abandoned the mourning stationery she had used for the past ten months. The domestic staff here was so small that it scarcely suited her—the cold weather had left him disinclined to depart at his intended hour—yet he had not been drinking to excess, and no interpretation of the scene could alter the fact that it had been his lips on her lips, his hands on her hips. True, she had welcomed him, or he would not have continued. But he had continued. He had flipped her over—he shuddered now at the thought—and what followed could not possibly have been initiated by any but he. It had lasted no great amount of time, but the effects—that his first time with a woman should have jeopardized a friendship of more than ten years…
Rupert Baxter was neither immune to this fact, nor in possession of the humility required to admit it. When at length he spoke, all he said was, “I must apologise for my choice of position. It was both unrequested and ill-suited to… to one of your situation.”
“Oh,” said Lady Constance. “Yes, of course. Well, that is hardly the main issue at hand, Mr Baxter.”
“As you say,” he muttered, and was silent.
Lady Constance, too, was silent for a short time. She was uncomfortably aware that her undergarments were still pulled down, and there was no earthly way to pull them back up with Mr Baxter in the room. She had never been in this state in front of any man, and he had a special tendency to be watching even when he was looking away. The memory of her own cooperation rankled, and she wanted to be impatient, but the memory of his startled grunt as he went in made her think that Mr Baxter was still very young. This would all be unfamiliar to him.
“Mr Baxter,” she began.
“Yes?” His tone was short.
“With regards to… potential complications. I would like to reassure you that there is no need to trouble yourself.”
“No complications!” Baxter snorted. He had given her credit for more intelligence than that. “The consequences will be staggering. Having been seen entering the apartments of a widow, myself unmarried, the house bursting with servants, and ten minutes unaccounted for…”
Something of Lady Constance’s usual imperious manner returned to her. “I meant the type of complication that is peculiar to women.”
Rupert Baxter had been flushed. He now turned stark white, the remaining colour draining from his face as though extracted through a straw.
“You are quite certain?”
Lady Constance was at first inclined to be short with him. Her 55th birthday had come and gone. Mr Baxter surely must have some elementary knowledge of women, unmarried though he was.
Then she remembered Mr Baxter’s talent for making the impossible possible. She remembered the freaks of nature that occasionally popped up—living babies delivered from corpses; farm animals born with two heads; multiple births as great at five at once. All those vulgar things they insisted on putting in the papers nowadays.
With Joe she had been sure; with James she had been absolutely certain. But Mr Baxter was so unpredicted. Fifteen minutes before, she never would have expected his lips on hers, his hands on her waist. Nor any of what followed.
Surely there were strange occurrences that even modern newspapers had the good taste not to print.
“I'm almost certain,” Lady Constance amended. “That is, it seems so impossible…”
Baxter lowered his cigarette. His fingers were trembling, but his lips were set. “I see. Then the contaminant must be removed thoroughly.”
Lady Constance had not been thinking of it as a contaminant, but even as the realisation struck her, she knew it would have been injudicious to protest as much. Thrusting his cigarette out impatiently for her to take, Baxter bent his head even as she snatched it, trying to avoid contact with his fingers.
“If you will pardon the liberty.” So saying, he lifted the hem of her dress once again.
At first, Lady Constance actually contemplated putting the cigarette into her own mouth, so unsettled was she by the events of the last twenty minutes. Very quickly, however, her attention became so distracted that she had no choice but snuff the thing out in her partially full glass of sherry, and it was some little time before she remembered it was there. When Mr Baxter had opened the window, apologised for the smoke, and gone away, she at last recollected the cigarette and was most put out at having wasted the sherry.
“Mr Baxter,” she had said, in a most pathetic voice, “I do hope you will write. There is no need for a moment’s indiscretion to spoil everything.”
Baxter had paused at the door. “Yes, yes, certainly,” he replied, without looking back. Then, opening the door as though the urge to escape were overpowering him, he said with barely restrained agitation, “I must assure you that my congratulations upon your marriage were entirely sincere, as were my recent condolences.”
“Of course,” said Lady Constance, and then, because the door was open, she let him go.
She should not, she reflected, gazing at her glass of sherry and the cigarette drowned within, have been alone in the sitting room with a man on such a night.
Dear Mr Baxter, wrote Lady Constance after some ten days silence—not that she had expected him to write so soon—of course that was impossible. There was the New Year to think of—but then his card had already reached her, dry and proper and pre-written. He had mailed his New Year’s cards from New York City this year. She had not thought to ask him if he knew anyone else in New York. Indeed, she was not sure to whom he might be sending cards, aside from family.
4 January 1932
Dear Mr Baxter,
I hope I may say that the disagreement that marred our most recent meeting need not be carried forth into the New Year. I have put it out of my mind entirely, and I trust you will understand that there is no need to revisit a subject that can only lead to disturbance.
Yours sincerely,
Lady Constance Schoonmaker
10 Jan. 1932
Dear Lady Constance,
I agree that the matter to which you refer is best forgotten. I have no intention of reviving the argument, and trust that you will not allow to further occupy your mind.
Yours sincerely,
R. Baxter
2 April 1932
Dear Mr Baxter,
I hope that my letter finds you in good health. I shall spend the latter half of June with my friend Eleanor Hurst, who informs me that her husband will be hosting Mr Jevons for a portion of that time. Our paths are likely to cross from the 22nd to the 29th.
Yours sincerely,
Lady Constance Schoonmaker
7 April 1932
Dear Lady Constance,
The warning is quite unnecessary. I shall be occupied for the duration of the visit with my customary duties to Mr Jevons. I anticipate no distractions during the timeframe you suggest.
I am in excellent health and trust that you remain likewise.
Yours sincerely,
R. Baxter
12 April 1932
Dear Mr Baxter,
I intended no warning. You may do with the knowledge as you please.
Sincerely,
Lady Constance Schoonmaker
10 July 1932
Dear Lady Constance,
The facts remain unaltered from my statements on 28 June. You may refer as well to the evening of 25 June.
If you were to undertake the venture suggested, it would not be one of prohibitive difficulty.
Yours sincerely,
Rupert J. Baxter