The last prayer had been said; Virginia crossed herself and rose from her knees. Happening to look down as she did so, she saw to her horror that some of the cyclamen-coloured varnish had scaled off the nails of the second and third toes of her left foot. A minute later she was squatting on the floor beside the bed, the right leg outstretched, the other foot drawn across it, making ready to repair the damage. An open bottle stood beside her; she held a small paint brush in her hand, and a horribly industrial aura of acetone had enveloped the Schiaparelli “Shocking” with which her body was impregnated. She started to work and as she bent forward, two strands of auburn hair broke loose from their curly pattern and fell across her forehead. Under frowning brows, the large blue eyes intently stared. To aid concentration, the tip of a pink tongue was held between the teeth. “Helll” she suddenly said aloud, as the little brush made a false stroke. Then, immediately, the teeth clamped down again.
Interrupting her work to allow the first coat of varnish to dry, she shifted her scrutiny from the toes to the calf and shin of her left leg. The hairs were beginning to grow again, she noticed with annoyance; it would soon be time for another of those wax treatments. Still pensively caressing the leg, she let her mind travel back over the events of the day. The memory of that close call with Uncle Jo still gave her shivers of apprehensive excitement. Then she thought of Sig with his stethoscope, and the upper lip lifted ravishingly in a smile of amusement. And then there was that book, which it served Uncle Jo right that she should have had Sig read to her. And Sig getting fresh with her between the chapters and making passes; that also served Uncle Jo right for trying to spy on her. She remembered how mad she got at Sig.
Not so much for what he actually did; for besides serving Uncle Jo right (of course it was only afterwards that she discovered quite how right it served him), what he actually did had been rather thrilling than otherwise; because after all Sig was terribly attractive and in those ways Uncle Jo didn’t hardly count; in fact you might almost say that he counted the other way; in the red, so to speak; counted less than nobody, so that anybody else who was attractive seemed still more attractive when Uncle Jo had been around. No, it wasn’t what he actually did that had made her mad at him. It was the way he did it. Laughing at her, like that. She didn’t mind a bit of kidding at ordinary times. But kidding while he was actually making passes—that was treating her like she was a tart on Main Street. No romance, or anything; just that sniggering sort of laugh and a lot of dirty cracks.
Maybe it was sophisticated; but she didn’t like it. And didn’t he see that it was just plain dumb to act that way? Because, after all, when you’d been reading that book with someone so attractive as Sig—well, you felt you’d like a bit of romance. Real romance, like in the pictures, with moonlight, and swing music, or perhaps a torch singer (because it was nice to feel sad when you were happy), and a boy saying lovely things to you, and a lot of kissing, and at the end of it, almost without your knowing it, almost as if it weren’t happening to you, so that you never felt there was anything wrong, anything that Our Lady would really mind . . . Virginia sighed deeply and shut her eyes; her face took on an expression of seraphic tranquillity. Then she sighed again, shook her head and frowned. Instead of that, she was thinking angrily, instead of that, Sig had to go and spoil it all by acting hard-boiled and sophisticated. It just shot all the romance to pieces and made you feel mad at him. And what was the sense in that? Virginia concluded resentfully. What was the sense in that, either from his point of view or from hers?
The first coat of varnish seemed to be dry. Bending over her foot, she blew on her toes for a little, then started to apply the second coat. Behind her, all of a sudden, the door of the bedroom was opened and as gently closed again.
“Uncle Jo,” she said inquiringly and with a note of surprise in her voice, but without looking up from her enamelling.
There was no answer, only the sound of an approach across the room.
“Uncle Jo?” she repeated and, this time, interrupted the painting of her toes to turn round.
Dr. Obispo was standing over her. “Sig!” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “What are you doing?”
Dr. Obispo smiled his smile of ironic admiration, of intense and at the same time amused and mocking concupiscence. “I thought we might go on with our French lesson,” he said.
“You’re crazy!” She looked apprehensively towards the door. “He’s just across the hall. He might come in . . .”
Dr. Obispo’s smile broadened to a grin. “Don’t worry about Uncle Jo,” he said.
“He’d kill you, if he found you here.”
“He won’t find me here,” Dr. Obispo answered. “I gave him a capsule of Nembutal before he went to bed. He’ll sleep through the Last Trump.”
“I think you’re awful!” said Virginia emphatically; but she couldn’t help laughing, partly out of relief and partly because it really was rather funny to think of Uncle Jo snoring away next door, while Sig read her that stuff.
Dr. Obispo pulled the Book of Common Prayer out of his pocket. “Don’t let me interrupt your labours,” he said with the parody of chivalrous politeness. “‘A woman’s work is never done.’ Just go right on as though I weren’t there. I’ll find the place and start reading.” Smiling at her with imperturbable impudence, he sat down on the edge of the rococo bed and turned over the pages of the book.
Virginia opened her mouth to speak; then, catching hold of her left foot, closed it again under the compulsion of a need even more urgent than that of telling him exactly where he got off. The varnish was drying in lumps; her toes would look just awful if she didn’t go on with them at once. Hastily dipping her little brush in the bottle of acetone enamel, she started painting again with the focussed intensity of a Van Eyck at work on the microscopic details of the Adoration of the Lamb.
Dr. Obispo looked up from the book. “I admired the way you acted with Pete this evening/’ he said. “Flirting with him all through dinner, so that you got the old man hopping jealous of him. That was masterly. Or should one say mistressly?”
Virginia released her tongue to say emphatically: “Pete’s a nice boy.”
“But dumb,” Dr. Obispo qualified, as he sprawled with conscious elegance and a maddeningly insolent assumption of being at home, across the bed. “Otherwise he wouldn’t be in love with you the way he is.” He uttered a snort of laughter. “The poor chump thinks you’re an angel, a heavenly little angel, complete with wings, harp and genuine eighteen-carat, fully jewelled, Swiss-made virginity. Well, if that isn’t being dumb . . .”
“You just wait till I get time for you,” said Virginia menacingly, but without looking up; for she had reached a critical phase in the execution of her work of art.
Dr. Obispo ignored the remark. “I used to underestimate the value of an education in the humanities,” he said after a little silence. “Now, I make that mistake no longer.” In a tone of deep solemnity, a tone, one might imagine, like Whittier’s in a reading from his own works, “The lessons of great literature!” he went on. “The deep truths! The gems of wisdom!”
“Oh, shut up!” said Virginia.
“When I think what I owe Dante and Goethe,” said Dr. Obispo in the same prophetic style. “Take the case of Paolo reading aloud to Francesca. With the most fruitful results, if you remember. ‘Un giorno leggevamo per diletto di Lancilotto, come amor lo strinse. Soli eravamo e senz’alcun sospetto.
