The Seventh Sinner - Elizabeth Peters [38]
The water felt so heavenly that Jean soon forgot the sting of her scraped legs; floating serenely she watched the sky darken and the shapes of the pines turn to black silhouettes. She felt more relaxed than she had for days. The pool had a night-lighting system, and the water shone like liquid sapphire.
The others seemed to be enjoying themselves. Ted swam solemnly with his nose just above water like an anxious dog. Scoville, in hilarious spirits, strutted like a rooster under Dana’s admiring eyes. Dana was doing more admiring than swimming; her bikini was obviously designed for a minimum of physical activity.
Jacqueline was not swimming. Jean assumed she was being nice to José, for whom mixed bathing was on the forbidden list. For some reason she couldn’t pin down, she found Jacqueline’s claim that she was a poor swimmer unconvincing. It couldn’t be shyness that made Jacqueline refrain; the shorts and halter she wore displayed as much of Jacqueline as a regulation bathing suit would have done, and Jean knew by now that Jacqueline would have walked down the Via Veneto in the same costume, with perfect self-possession, if she had a good and sufficient reason for doing so.
Later in the evening Jean pulled herself out of the water to rest for a while, and sat down on the wet tiles near Jacqueline and José. Lazily studying the two familiar faces, she was struck by the fact that they were equally familiar. She had not known Jacqueline long; yet she felt she knew her well, although Jacqueline was not verbose about her personal history. She came from a small New England town, and was now employed at one of the big Eastern universities. Her children—boy and girl—were both of college age. The girl was in graduate school, working for a doctorate. Jacqueline’s father, a retired contractor, lived in California with one of Jacqueline’s brothers. A prosaic, unvarnished history, so far as it went—and to Jean it did not go far in explaining the enigma that was Jacqueline. But then, she wondered dreamily, how many people can be adequately accounted for by a factual biographical paragraph or two? Perhaps some of Jacqueline’s personality traits had been produced by the omissions in her biography. The most conspicuous omission was the absence of any reference to a husband. Jean assumed such a person had existed, but whether Jacqueline’s silence was the result of grief for a beloved spouse prematurely deceased, or of contempt for a resented spouse belatedly divorced, she couldn’t even guess.
As she watched, there was a howl of laughter from the far end of the pool and Andy surfaced, holding aloft a small dripping scrap of cloth. Shouting threats, Dana struck out toward him. Andy vanished, still holding his trophy.
“I knew the top of that bathing suit was going to come off sooner or later,” Jean said sourly.
“There goes il professore dottore Scoville,” murmured José, as the lean brown body cut the water in a spectacular dive from the small island in the deep end of the pool.
Jacqueline laughed.
“You two are a pair of prudes,” she said.
“But Jean is a prude by nature,” José said, smiling. “I, as your English adage says, have only acquired prudery. And it was not easy, I can tell you.”
“I am not a prude,” Jean said, without heat. “I just—Look at that, will you! Like father, like son…”
“The father wins,” said José. “Andy has only the lady’s bathing suit. Il professore has the lady…. Ah, yes; and what has happened to the lights at that end of the pool, I wonder? It is very dark there….”
“The portiere,” Jacqueline said resignedly. “Someone has bribed him, I suppose. It always happens when there’s a party. Look at that old wretch ogling Dana.”
Jean had already noticed the portiere,