The Lady Venetia Watergrave House
Tags: Museums, Love, History, Fiction

Lady Venetia Watergrave kept a thin-legged table in the front hall for calling cards. While she was out they would stack up, delivered at irregular intervals by small, gloved hands at the front door. After tea with her dogs she would step into the hall in embroidered slippers and flip through the pile, reading the messages aloud to the walls.

“Lady Oliver-Cartwright, oh, she thinks so highly of herself. The most honorable Oliver-Cartwrights request your presence at a fund-raiser for the protection of the lesser brown tree squirrel.” Lady Venetia’s stubby fingernails bit into the thick rag paper as she tore the card in two.

“I don’t think so. Melpomene would ravish those tree rats before the second course. Wouldn’t you, my precious?”

The dogs were back in the yellow drawing room, licking up the crumbs from their tea. Their tongues saturated the new Persian carpet with wet spots of spit and minced lamb. Lady Venetia did not care. She knew Melpomene heard her. She turned to the next card.

“Madame Debonaire, expecting me to come for another round of whist? Not after that absolute disaster with the cucumbers.” Another tear.

“And Mister Vittorino…” She flipped the card over, then rapped it against the wallpaper. Her wedding ring knocked a flake of gold paint from the wall.

She looked at the card again. She squinted at the minute calligraphy of his name. It was not his handwriting. The drawing on the back was his, but the front…

“What nerve,” she decided.

But she did not tear it in two.

—

I remember Mister Vittorino from that first night. He wore shoes with gold buckles that scratched my lacquered parlor floors when he danced. Lady Venetia had not wanted to dance, at first. She was called only Venetia then. She had wanted to play with her dog — her first dog, Terpsichore.

It was presumptuous of Mister Vittorino to take me from the corner, she explained to her mother, afterwards. When I was so pleased with Terpsichore.

Were you not pleased to dance with Mister Vittorino?

Venetia did not look at her mother. She looked at me. My floor. It was dark in the house and my parlor floor was sticky from waxed boots and spilled punch. Mister Vittorino had waltzed her across my floor. He had dipped her on my floor, so that her unpowdered curls brushed his gold shoe buckles and the sweet, sticky wood, and Venetia had to excuse herself to the balcony behind the blue bedroom and catch her breath, tap the beat of her heart with her fingers on my railings, my landings, my floor.

It was despicably rude, Venetia told her mother. And still I remember how she had cried herself to sleep after the dinner party.

—

The thin-legged table sits in an alcove further down the entrance hall now. The Curator believes this is its original position. Notice the careful interior design, how the very curves of the walls are shaped to fit Lady Watergrave’s furniture, she writes on a small label carefully tacked next to the table. If only she could know how wrong she was. How wrong she was about everything.

Instead of the thin-legged table there is an invisible chair that the security guard sits in while he presses buttons that send electric shocks through my insulation. The chair is not really invisible — it has mass, I feel its scuff on my slate tiles — but it is made of a see-through material that is not original to this house. A true 18th century house, preserved just as its owner willed it, the Curator says. As if.

But I am willing to forgive her ignorance today. For today, the Curator has done something truly magical: a Sir is coming to visit. I saw it on the desk in the attic, a magnificent note in red ink: VIP guided tour Sir Mack!!! I wonder if the Curator can feel the frequency of my excitement in the walls, but I doubt this. She does not touch me if she can help it.

Lady Venetia Watergrave took the card from Mister Vittorino back into the yellow drawing room. Melpomene and Clio lay in the chaise longue. The servants were putting the tea set back in the china cabinet. The room was a kaleidoscope of afternoon sun and deep-fire glaze refracting off of the cabinets and chandelier. Lady Venetia placed a hand on the table to catch the servants’ attention.

“Set a third place out for dinner,” she said. Her fingers quivered across the glass tabletop, knocking the calling card’s corners into her reflection. “Mister Vittorino is coming.”

—

Lady Venetia Watergrave was born in 1743 to Adolphius and Beatrice Stout. She learned needlepoint and piano and pretended to learn Greek and Latin, and when she was nineteen she married Rupert, a watery, weak-chinned boy who came down from Cambridge. Rupert had needed a place to stay near parliament; Adolphius was a friend of his father’s. He was welcome to stay, said Beatrice, though you just missed the ball we held for Venetia. Have you met our daughter, Venetia? And Venetia curtsied, and Rupert bowed, but he did not dip her to the floor.

Their marriage was loving enough; though they had no children, Lady Venetia kept a troupe of wire-haired terriers at her heels, each dog named for a Greek muse. Her favorite was Melpomene. The Curator swears a stain under the yellow drawing room carpet stinks of two-hundred-year-old dog urine. She is right.

The first person inside each morning is the attendant security guard, the man who checks the umbrellas and the diaper bags and the mousetraps. It used to be that no one left — except on holiday perhaps, and though it’s been over two hundred years since constant occupancy it is still so cold to be left overnight, wallpaper peeling, when your neighbors are full of hearth warmth and bodies and living, laughing things. The second person inside is the Curator.

The Curator writes at her desk in the attic servants’ quarters. I don’t know why she doesn’t use the desk in the drawing room — the inlaid wood is much prettier, and the light better. The Lady Venetia Watergrave House is a National Historic Landmark, she writes. It is notable for its wallpaper and ceramics. That is not all I am famous for. The Curator puts in another order for carpet cleaner. Pigeons roost in the roof and their droppings whitewash my façade like icing. The visitors gather.

Guests used to rush from carriage to front step to see Lady Venetia; now, most of the visitors are so arthritic that they cannot move fast enough to merit such description. Unless we have a school group, sprinting and squabbling, getting spitty fingers on the mirrored table in the glass dining room. My front cornice feels loose; one day, I hope it crushes the babbling brats in a crash of plaster. The white would look so good in their hair.

The Curator does not wear her hair white, but brown. She wears men’s blazers, and men’s shoes, and tight pants with patterns that complement the tea service sets in the glass dining room. She does not wear a moleskin on her face, but whatever she puts on her eyes and lips is good and brighter than the cherries Lady Venetia pressed to her cheeks. I am not foolish. I know time passes. The Curator opens me for the day.

The visitors go through me in the same pattern. They trudge over carpet and loose floorboard from foyer to blue bedroom and back through the basement kitchen. Sometimes, the Curator guides them, and points out the sapphires in the chandelier.

But I do not have patience for the Curator’s rituals today. It has been years since we’ve had a Sir in these rooms, centuries, perhaps! The Curator must have the volunteers dust the bannisters, Lady Venetia would want us to dust the bannisters, the Curator must dust the bannisters. And the wallpaper on the third floor cupboard, how it cracks! (though it is one of my best features). We must look our best for Sir, how many hours do I have, where are the bells for tea?

The volunteers are variously tardy as usual — today, there’s the girl with the earring in her nose whose hair changes colors, and the bored mother, and the old man who never sits down. But may I call him old, for when he walks I click more than his joints? Rupert would pace, in the corner of the dining room, back behind the chaise longue, and in front of the window on the square. There’s a sign there now, do not sit do not lean on glass, but Venetia would lounge with the dogs while Rupert walked,

And you’ve invited the Debonaires, and the Dempseys, would you look at me when I speak?

I’m sorry, dear, but Clio has paté on her nose!

How I miss the pace of his feet on the floorboards! Wouldn’t the old man walk there sometime — how it itches! Perhaps Sir will stand there, perhaps he will lean on the glass and puff it up with hot royal breath like the Debonaires and the Dempseys and Lady Venetia. That would be worth living for.

The Curator walks down the stairs but does not dust the bannisters. She checks in on the volunteers — in the yellow drawing room, the glass dining room, the back passage to the blue bedroom — she reaches into the case of china in the dining room and turns the handle of the big blue teapot just so, so the bulb on the spout catches the light. We never used that teapot. The Curator doesn’t know. She smooths the front of her man’s jacket with her hands. She is waiting for Sir.

I feel him. Clipped footsteps like a horse on the front steps. He does not knock. The wind swings me open for him (if only Lady Venetia were here to hire a trumpeter; she had a knack for a grand entrance). He wears all black and his grey hair fluffs up like it is made of feathers (a grand wig, perhaps? Lady Venetia would be jealous). The Curator intercepts him before he can shed his coat.

“Welcome, Sir,” she says. “We are so happy to have you, Sir.”

—

Mister Vittorino’s intimacy passed the parlor within minutes. He arrived home before Rupert, which did not surprise me. Rupert was always caught up in Parliament with one argument or another. He’d practice these arguments before Venetia and the dogs, the latter of whom would nod accordingly, and the former of whom would ask, who do I need to invite for dinner, dear, in order to make this work?

Vittorino paced in the itchy corner of the dining room while Venetia readied herself in the blue bedroom. She tied ribbon after ribbon in her hair. It had been, what, thirty years? How could she look exactly as she did in the parlor, in the dance, on the blue bedroom balcony, alone until he came to find her?

There was a smudge on the bedroom mirror — a nose smudge, from Clio, or Melpomene. Lady Venetia clutched at the skirt of her dress, the worn, warm spaces where her dogs would sit. She must be covered in dog hair. Perhaps Vittorino would find it charming.

There was a knock at the bedroom door. Lady Venetia bobbled at her vanity. The door slid open, smooth on its hinges. I was proud of this moment.

“I hope you do not mind,” said Mister Vittorino. “I have waited thirty years; I cannot wait a minute more.”

He looked older, but this is not a bad thing. Just as wallpaper peels and floorboards grow worn, so had his face adjusted to the wrinkles of expression, his body shaped to its most often assumed forms. A small stoop in his neck from bowing. Little wrinkles at the corners of his smile. His toes pointed perfectly from years of dancing.

Lady Venetia rose to meet him. “You have always been presumptuous.”

Vittorino had closed the door, so quietly that Venetia did not notice. “This wallpaper is as beautiful as I remember it. The house has not changed much.”

Lady Venetia smiled. “Neither have you.”

He takes her hand. “I,” he said.

“What?”

“Have missed you.”

“And I you.”

They could hear the dogs barking in the glass dining room, the pots clattering in the basement kitchen. I could feel their heartbeats through their feet on the floor.

“You have an eyelash,” said Vittorino.

“Oh?”

He reached for her face. Venetia closed her eyes and stood absolutely still.

“There.”

Venetia opened her eyes. Vittorino held out a black hair on his finger.

“Oh, that is not mine,” she said. “That’s Melpomene’s.”

Vittorino laughed. The silence was broken, but the spell remained. “You and your dogs! I will never forget.”

Venetia grinned.

“I am living in Bologna now,” said Vittorino. “I look at art and host balls for the young people. I teach the young women to dance so that the boys fall in love with them.”

“Is that so?” said Venetia. “What are you teaching these poor young people?”

“You remember.”

My balcony door sighs open on a breeze; a shaft of sunlight pierces through the latticed windows, gilding Vittorino’s hair. Venetia’s breath catches.

She steps closer to him.

“Remind me,” she says.

From the vantage of the dining room chandelier, I see that Sir does not wear a wig. And though his hair is naturally grey, he walks like a young man, arms slouched and pelvis thrust forward at all times. I do not understand how a man with such terrible comportment has been knighted.

I would pose that his title is inherited — there are always bratty boys in good blood — but from his conversation with the Curator, it seems the “Sir” before Mack is recently earned. The Curator, bless her, compliments his knighting ceremony, which she saw at the television. I did not know she was of such status to visit the palace; this forgives her oversight in dusting the bannisters.

“All pomp, that,” says Sir. “But glad I got it before the other lads in the band. Who’s the better guitarist now, eh, Johnny?”

The Curator smiles with her teeth stretched tight like Lady Venetia’s whenever she had to talk to Lady Oliver-Cartwright.

“Well, this is the glass dining room. Lady Venetia loved to entertain her husband’s political friends, and had a tea set for every occasion.”

“That’s obvious,” Sir snorts. He pulls a set of lime green spectacles from his trouser pockets and peers into the cabinets.

“Think my gran had this same set, the old bat.” He jabs a finger at a blue and white teapot, leaving a fat smudge on the glass.

The Curator winces, but says instead, “Delftware was originally hand painted, you know. By the mid-18th century, the patterns began to be applied using paper stencils. This set is an early example of that latter process.”

“Fascinating, love.” Sir straightened up, causing the Curator to teeter back a step. “Listen, how much would one of these sets go for, nowadays?”

The Curator falters. “They’re, um, not for sale.”

“Oh no, you think I’d want this old thing? My gran’s set. How much would it go for?” He leans against the table. I shiver with joy at his sweaty palm print and the heat of his side. “I’ve got a jet to fuel, and I’d rather OD again than go on another bloody reunion tour with John.”

“Sir,” the Curator breathes carefully through her nose. “Please do not touch the artifacts.”

Sir lifts his hand in dramatic surrender, but he does not apologize. “How much for the set?”

“I’m not a connoisseur, Sir.”

“Then why the fuck am I here?”

The Curator does know know what to say. “Your publicist — ”

“Oh, that old cow,” Sir spews warm spots of saliva on the glass tabletop. “She doesn’t know — ” he shifts to move. He loses his balance and stumbles.

“Damn floorboards,” Sir says. “I’m leaving.”

I creak in agreement. The Curator tries not to smile.

—

This is the part that the Curator does not know.

Rupert and Venetia sat in the glass dining room the day after Mister Vittorino’s visit. It was a cold day, not yet winter, but it felt like it. The grey sun made the glass dining room look like a palace of ice. The mirrored surfaces of the cabinets and chandelier turned the sunlight into triangular teardrops that flecked the walls. Two cups of tea stood on the glass-topped dining table. Their steam rose in thin strands between Rupert and Venetia, who were not speaking. Melpomene and Clio sat at Venetia’s feet. Their panting breath was the only sound in the room.

“You are taking the dogs, I presume?” Rupert said at last.

“Yes,” said Venetia. Her voice was small. She spoke to her hands.

“And will you be coming back?”

“I don’t know.”

Rupert picked up his tea cup, but did not drink from it. He was weary; I could feel his heart-heaviness through the chair and the floor and deep into my foundations.

“Is there anything else I should know?”

Venetia looked up at him. “I love you,” she said quietly.

“Oh, Venetia,” Rupert put down his teacup. “Don’t lie.”

—

The most illustrious wallpaper is in the blue bedroom. From far away it all looks one color, but when the Curator takes visitors closer, they see that the solid blue wall is actually a series of stripes, lines of overlapping clear sky, robin’s egg, sea in storm, all blurred together into rich ultramarine. Standing in this room is like being underwater, Vittorino said. It is suffocating and liberating at once, said Venetia.

She stood in me for the last time after talking to Rupert. She took her favorite things from each of my rooms and packed them gently into valises. She held her dogs in a basket under her arm, and stood at the blue balcony. The sunset fell through my glass and gauzy curtains, settled into a tear on Lady Venetia’s cheek. A moleskin made of gold. She is so beautiful in my light. She is so beautiful in love.

The Curator pulls thick blinds closed across the blue bedroom at the end of the day. No sunrise may touch me and face the precious wallpaper. But doesn’t she know the joy of sun through a blue bedroom window, in love with someone you haven’t seen in thirty, three hundred years? Stretching arms and eaves up to the new day, satisfied to feel sad because to feel something is better than to feel nothing, empty, gutted and inhabited.

“Oh, darling house,” Lady Venetia said, her fingers stretched across the striped wallpaper. “Forgive me for leaving you all alone.”