starkly pornographic.
Every one of her guests was embarrassed to the core of her being. None of these young wives could imagine ever hearing such explicit sexual details from even her most intimate girlfriend; from even her own husband! But the lurid tale was not being told by some sultry slut breathlessly gushing salacious, lascivious obscenities over an XXX-rated 900 exchange phone call. The storyteller was Lady Loverly, the social doyen not only of the city, but of the entire state, and more! Each reception guest was engulfed by excruciating embarrassment. But each struggled with every iota of her being to conceal her feelings. They all stared intently at their plates, as if eating the dainty goodies laying there required the most meticulous care and undivided attention.
Had anyone else been describing the things Lady Loverly was so vividly detailing each of her guests undoubtedly would have left, with or without excusing herself. But how could a Coffee, Cake and Chat guest leave? Not having driven herself to the estate, she was in effect almost a prisoner in it, lost in a pseudo castle which itself was lost in the middle of an estate that still contained over a hundred acres of unfamiliar woods and fields. Moreover, there were extenuating circumstances. Lady Loverly clearly wasn't some kind of sexual sicko. She was a sweet, generous but obviously incipiently senile old lady who had been carried away by her memories. Indeed, she hadn't looked at any of these young wives as she told the details of her love affair. Effectively oblivious to her guests, she had stared at the Vanda orchids arrayed on the table, lost in her heartrending recollections of the lover who had been so closely associated with such flowers.
VIII
Finally, long after each guest was sure she was going to die from mortification, Lady Loverly sadly and softly said she and her lover, after having several times been nearly caught, and concerned that Lady might get pregnant, had grasped at their only desperate chance of marriage. One of the botany professors who regularly consulted the gardener was forming an expedition to New Guinea to search for exotic flora. He offered Lady's lover a position on his team as its orchid expert. In hopes the family would accept him as Lady's husband if he established an international reputation by discovering new species of orchids, the gardener accepted and went off to the jungles of New Guinea. But whether from being captured by the cannibals and headhunters then in control of the interior highlands of the island or simply the victim of some fatal accident, he was never heard from again.
The distressed old spinster paused and stared silently for a long pensive while at the Vanda orchids arrayed about the table. Then with a start she looked at her guests in wide-eyed wonder, finally realizing what she had been saying and clearly upset by having been so completely absorbed in reminiscences as to divulge such intimate details of herself. It was her turn to be embarrassed, and clearly she was, massively so. She profusely apologized for getting carried away and imposing her private memories on her guests. She begged them to forgive her. Especially she begged them to never reveal to anyone the sacred secrets she had just unaccountably and regrettably divulged.
Distressed by her embarrassment far too much to continue the reception, Lady Loverly turned to a telephone on a small end table beside her, pressed a button on it, and informed whomever answered that the party was over and that the assigned drivers should immediately come and return the guests to their homes. Too upset even to engage in farewell small talk she sat holding a dainty handkerchief to her mouth, staring at the flower basin in the middle of the table in wide-eyed astonishment at her own behavior.
The servants who were acting as guest chauffeurs immediately entered the room. When the butler admitted them to the library it broke the old spinster's spell, and she came back to her senses enough to resume, although rather distractedly, her duties as hostess. The numbers of pastries prepared had been more than her guests could consume at the reception, she announced. This had been intended so her guests could take the surplus to their homes to share with their families. And indeed, each designated chauffeur entering the room carried a large styrofoam box which, under the guidance of the guest to whom he was assigned, he filled with an ample selection of the various goodies still piled high on the table's platters.
The orchids, Lady Loverly then noted, would better serve as decorations in her guests' homes than being left to wilt, unobserved, in the library. So she asked her guests to also take them. Again, this must have been her prearranged intention for each chauffeur also came with a cardboard box lined with the green tissue paper florist's use to protect and display their merchandise.
And finally, Loverly announced, each guest would be given a canister containing a goodly quantity of the coffee or tea she had drunk at the party. In those future times when the young woman would be able to relax and enjoy a cup of this beverage she would, Lady hoped, remember that as a resident of Loverly Downs she too now was part of the Loverly saga.
After each guest's gifts were assembled by her chauffeur he held her chair for her to rise. Lady Loverly, still chagrined by her revelations, and still preoccupied with shock at them, somewhat absently thanked the young woman for attending the reception and wished her a long happy residence in Loverly Downs. Then each guest was escorted back through the enormous entrance room to the vehicle in which she had come, therein to be driven to her home.
IX
As she was riding home in the back seat of a Loverly car each of these young wives could not avoid pondering in wonderment what she had just heard. Certainly she had been shocked and embarrassed by it. But in a strange way each felt she had been particularly fortunate to have been present when the grand old lady had so surprisingly, and so explicitly, told of her great love. Each of these young women felt herself to be a de facto Loverly confident, privileged to have been present at Lady Loverly's intimate revelations. It was a privilege she had no intention of ever dishonoring. Each resolved to accept as a sacred trust Loverly's remorseful request to never divulge to anyone the intimate story she had just told. And in fact, not a single Coffee, Cake and Chat guest ever did.
As she affirmed her resolve to maintain Lady Loverly's confidence, each of these returning wives was deeply grateful she was alone. It would have been virtually impossible not to discuss Lady Loverly's remarkable revelations with another guest if any had been riding with her. Also, each young woman felt it was a fortunate coincidence she did not know any of the other guests. For if she had known any of them she would certainly see the other woman occasionally or even frequently. Inevitably then, in the course of ordinary conversations, it would have been virtually impossible to keep the topic of Lady Loverly's romantic revelations, and the graphic completeness with which she had described them, from being mentioned.
Indeed it was fortunate that none of the guests knew each other. But it was no coincidence. Lady Loverly had carefully selected her guest lists from women who lived in separate parts of Loverly Downs. Nor was the individual transportation of guests to and from the gathering a coincidence. This too was part of the old spinster's plan. Most remarkable of all, and also no coincidence, Lady Loverly's romantic revelation was not an unique accidental event. In fact, each and every one of the Coffee, Cake and Chat receptions included the same intimate confession. Almost like a stage actress carefully following a play's script, at each reception the wealthy old spinster had told her guests of her intensely passionate love affair with the gardener. Each of these revelations occurred in an unguarded moment of reverie; each was almost pornographic in its details; and each was followed by the same embarrassment at having so totally divulged the secrets of her youthful love life.
What in the world was the old billionaire up to? Only she ever knew. Nobody else ever did because nobody else ever knew she had confessed the same love story at every Coffee, Cake and Chat. Had the sweet old spinster somehow become a female analogue of a dirty old man? Or was she playing games with her guests? Was she privately laughing up her sleeve at their obvious discomfort when hearing the things she so graphica
lly described? That seems impossibly unlikely. Lady Loverly had always been sternly intolerant of victim-dependent humor. A good joke, she always insisted, makes you laugh at it, not at some unfortunate person.
Or was she merely trying to relive the passion of her youth? After all, telling friends about a beloved secret event is a principal way everyone uses to experience it again. But Lady Loverly was separated from the friends she had spent most of her life with, friends scattered all around the world. Was she, retired at her estate and near the end of her existence, merely desperately lonely for intimate companions with whom to share the ultimate intimate secret of her life? Was she commandeering her new neighbor ladies to be her unwitting, and profoundly embarrassed, substitute confidants?
Nobody would ever know, because nobody would even know Lady's Coffee, Cake and Chat receptions had had a clandestine purpose, an objective in addition to and other than the self-evident one of meeting her new neighbors and telling them something about the Loverly family. And, of course, since no one ever knew the receptions had had an ulterior goal, no one ever knew