Amelia held the dress up against her body.
‘Oh, it’s so beautiful,’ she repeated.
‘Why don’t you try it on?’ Liebermann suggested.
Again — the briefest flickering smile.
‘If you wouldn’t mind …’
‘Of course not.’
Amelia left the room.
She was gone for some time. Liebermann finished his tea, ate a biscuit, and flicked through a textbook on blood diseases. The subject matter did not interest him much and he abandoned its study in favour of further consideration of the mezzotints.
In due course Amelia returned.
He heard her saying: ‘It fits perfectly’ before she made her appearance.
The garment hung loosely from her shoulders and undulated as she stepped into the room. It was cut from a material of the richest red, covered with a repeated circular gold motif. These colours found corresponding tones in Amelia’s russet and copper hair, which she had unpinned.
Liebermann had always found reform dresses unflattering — but now he was persuaded otherwise. This was how a modern woman should be dressed: unconstrained, unfettered — free to inhale the air of a new century.
Amelia turned a full circle, creating a ripple of brilliance on the fabric.
She was like the high priestess of some ancient mystery cult, a primal power, enigmatic and ineffable. Hygeia. Her femininity was at once alluring and also a little frightening.
It was clear that she had discarded her corset and Liebermann became acutely aware of the proximity of her nude form just beneath the fabric. His thoughts misted and he was troubled by ghostly images of pale flesh. Once again, the love duet sounded in his mind and he was overcome with a yearning so strong that it was as if he had been mortally wounded and his life blood was ebbing away.
— One for ever without end
— Never waking
— Never fearing
— Embraced namelessly in love
Amelia Lydgate stopped revolving. She fixed him with her pewter eyes.
‘More tea?’ she asked.
The spell was broken.