Jane fidgeted and scratched her head. Fred spoke to her then in a soft voice. “This is not meant to be torture, Jane. I thought you might enjoy it. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. We can leave.”
Jane had longed to go bathing all her life. “I am not upset,” she said. She recalled his accurate pronouncement of her character the night before, of her wanting to see and try everything. She looked at the pool once more. The green water held only opaqueness; she could see nothing of under the surface. She had an idea.
“If you agree not to look until I am in the pool?”
“I shall stand over there behind the column,” Fred said with a nod. “I won’t look at all.”
Jane inhaled. She took the sea-bathing suit from him and moved into a cave behind the cloisters.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Jane removed her clothes, then stepped into the leg holes of the suit and pulled it upward. She shuddered. It felt even smaller than she had first thought, and barely covered anything. She cursed herself for agreeing to this mad scheme.
“I am coming out,” Jane called.
“I will be here,” Fred called back. “I’m behind a column. I can’t see anything.”
Jane inhaled and walked out of the cave, looking around. She could not see him. She hurried over to the edge of the pool and placed a toe in the water. “It’s warm,” she whispered, and jettisoned her fear of freezing. As her foot touched the water, it rippled and radiated small waves to the middle of the pool. She pulled it back and stepped her other foot into the water; it fizzed on her skin. She had never felt anything like it. She inhaled and plunged into the pool. The hot green liquid reached her waist.
In her dreams she had imagined this place, but the reality fared a thousand times better. The dreams did not include how the limey water felt on her skin. It never mentioned the smell in her nostrils, salty and sweet. It omitted the cracks in the Roman statues, the moss on the stones, the sand and mud under her toes. The fantasy never spoke of the flesh-and-blood man, somewhere behind her.
“Are you in?” Fred’s voice called to her from somewhere at the far end of the cloisters.
“I am in,” Jane called back. She looked around but saw only shadows and columns.
“Lie on your back,” Fred’s voice shouted.
Jane scowled and wondered how to manage it. “That does not sound feasible,” she announced to the shadows.
“Swing your shoulders behind you,” he called out. “Use your hands and feet to paddle.”
She tipped her head back. The water bubbled on the back of her hair. She lifted her hips and sighed with delight. “I float!” she exclaimed.
“Look up,” he called to her.
Jane looked up and gasped. “Good God,” she whispered. The night sky hung above her. A thousand—no, a million—white stars reigned overhead, puncturing the blanket of black with twinkling diamonds.
“There’s your roof,” Fred said. Jane smiled and felt her eyes water.
All her life she had been a burden, a nuisance: someone who earned nothing and stood only to drain the household. Jane held reticules while others danced and watched over naughty children while their parents attended assemblies. She served where she could to pay her way, to justify her room and board. No one had ever brought her to such a place; she never deserved it. Jane stretched her arms out. She floated out to the middle of the pool. The sky swirled above her, and a thousand sparkles blurred and danced. No one had provided her an activity of idle pleasure such as this; she drank it in greedily.
She inhaled—too deeply, it turned out—and breathed in water instead of air. She coughed and lost the ability she had earlier possessed in floating. She lowered her legs to stand up but found no ground beneath her. She wiggled one leg around and grasped for the bottom of the pool. But the water reached too deep; she could not stand. She’d floated to the deeper end. She coughed again. “Help me. I cannot swim!” She breathed in a goblet’s worth of green water and spluttered. Her head went under.
She sank down into the depths of the pool. Murky water clouded her eyes. She flailed her arms but could not return to the surface. She sank down further and swallowed more water. She hoped Fred had heard her call out. Finally, her toes touched the pool’s bottom. The water surface now appeared to her as a ceiling, a person-length above her. She inhaled, stupidly, and swallowed another mouthful of water. She closed her eyes and struggled to think. She felt herself falling to sleep, peacefully.
Then a hand surrounded her waist and moved her upward.
Fred pulled Jane to the surface. She gasped and coughed and inhaled a wondrous, painful breath of air, the water leaving a limey and bitter taste in her mouth. He helped her to the side of the pool; he had dived into the water with his clothes on.
She grasped the edge and held on. “I swallowed water,” she said. “It looks prettier than it tastes.” She wiped her eyes. Her nose stung to breathe. Her fingers prickled.
He held his hand on her, somewhere under the water. “Why didn’t you say you couldn’t swim?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Thank you,” Jane said.
He waited until her breathing slowed and returned to normal. “Are you all right?” he said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you couldn’t swim.”
Jane nodded. “I am quite well,” she said. “Perfectly healthy. I swallowed some water, that is all.” She smiled at him to assure him she felt well. He smiled back. It took several minutes of reassuring words and nods before his face relaxed from a look of horrified guilt to a
