I had watched without watching as one watches the figures and faces of people in whom one has no interest, or as one watches water that runs along a gully by a pathway. Upon entering her his penis was as strong and rigid as the stub of a broom handle. Upon emerging it was oiled and flaccid. That was all. Unable to open her corsage he had wettened the indifferent cloth with his lips, seeking nipples that had not perhaps arisen or were too covered to be felt and known.
In his last seepings I had moved to the bedroom and closed the doors upon them. I heard not their going but lay twixt sleep and unsleeping. At two A.M. I awoke to fullness and thought I heard a faint crying as if from Charlotte. A bird fluttered its wings against the window and was gone. Perhaps she and the bird were one now. Perhaps. There is ever a becoming. We who rise from sleep are not those who softly went to sleep.
At breakfast a waiter twitters around me. I know my attractions, the deft turnings of my profiles, the light and shade upon my cheeks.
“Is Charlotte not here?” I throw the question-an unwanted penny.
“Beg pardon, Miss?” I repeat the name. He shakes his head, stills it, then shakes again. “No one of that name I've ever known here, Miss. It is French. Is she French?”
“Perhaps you do not know all who work here.”
“Was she upstairs? Upstairs was she?”
“Upstairs and gone-where the dancing…”
He is moving away before I finish. “I will get your bill Miss.”
I have ventured a world into a world again where light meets grey and enters into dark. My question has burned its wings even as my aunt said my questions would. The air of the breakfasting room enters my mouth and is hollow. Here where no kestrels hover and no doves descend. I rise and take my exit before he can bring the bill to my table. It is of no moment-the scratching of a pen to signify an act of eating, drinking, done, yet one must ever be aware of the mundane, its prickles waiting to emerge as claws. The hedgerows might have seized me often had I let them. Aware of their dark waiting, I would draw the hem of my skirt close in passing or hold a basket in my hand nearest to the branched enfoldings, ready to run, to run.
I expect my uncle to wait upon the steps outside, forlorn and solemn, but there is no one. The unwholesomeness of a waiting cab receives me as do the long, late streets of morning, a furtiveness of shops that hide their wares. A clerk in Drummond's Bank close by Trafalgar Square needs no more than my name. I intend to give him no more; it suffices. Father's early telegraphed reply has been received. He has been as bountiful in his spendings as ever. I draw three hundred pounds, all counted as slowly as though the clerk has saved them for me through long years of waiting and now in part regretted their departure. I shall walk in a park and feel the bark of trees-the rough greeting of their brown dust on my gloves. I am a mirror still-the eye of seeing.
I cross Pall Mall and to St. James's go. Father showed me all this. I remember. We sat beneath a tree and viewed the duckling pond, remarked the splashings and the sounds of water. In passing over the bridge I had dropped a posy upon the surface beneath that it might float into eternity, dying and renewed, reborn and gone.
There are people huddled here and scattered all about-a slow dying of the lost and the abandoned. The crumpled bonnets of the women with their faded bands, the dark and filthy skirts, the ragged boots.
“Here, you now, on with you-git on!”
A park keeper, a person of assumed importance, moves among them prodding with a stick. “Women and men together ain't allowed. I told you many times of it. Git along!”
They stir, swear, stir and slowly rise, as if animated bundles of clothing for the first time come alive.
“Bleedin' old sod, you are-always at us!”
“I got my regulations. Women is always separate from the men. There's plenty of grass here all abouts for you to lie separate. Separate is what you have to be, that's what it says.
Git on!”
“It is thought perhaps that they might copulate. How quite revoking, seeing their attire and dirtiness!”
I turn, regarding she who speaks. It would appear that I am addressed-perhaps undressed within her vision. Of some thirty years perhaps, she is attired for riding, yet I see no horse. Beyond her stands a manservant of equal years-one who in his rigid posture holds a paleness of waiting.
“To copulate is to die for a moment.”
My reply pleases her evidently. Our eyes hook and unhook, twitch to twitch, yet without movement.
“You came this way again. I thought you might again. Shall we go to the house? I have my carriage at the gates, though it is at walking distance, as you recall, if you prefer.”
“The carriage.”
I prefer a suddenness. Her figure has a sleekness that attracts. The lush dark of her hair seeks my fingers. I shall remove my gloves and let my hands roam in the forest-of her mystery, turning the waves to seek the skin beneath. Her eyes are the eyes of Charlotte, yet tinted other-perhaps as Jenny's. I forget. I shall not venture her name for I have forgotten it, too, or never knew it. They are not the eyes of my aunts.
We go unspeaking, seeking certainty. If I turn here, perhaps-or there, perhaps-I shall come upon the promenade again, the Royal Pavilion, a fluttering of Millies, a sadness of deserted rooms. Distance is ever a trick, an illusion. All places are enclosed within all places, all Time within Time. The rose unfolds and closes. Perhaps it contains the universe and we who stand without are held also within.
Her carriage is no longer blue, though I know not how I know, but now bright yellow, rimmed with black.
“It is my canary touch.”
Her eyes follow my eyes, her words anticipate my speak Within, the seats of velvet plush are red. The manservant mounts postillion and we move. There is scarce a swaying. The springs are new. At a fair, brisk trot we draw up at a mansion. Stables adjoin, set back for secrecy. A neighing of horses sounds our entrance-a whinnying, a clinking, then is done. She speaks again.
“I shall have bells fixed to the wheels. What a pleasant tinkling it would make. Would it not?”
I reply yes and furl my parasol as we enter.
“Your room is ever as it was. Do you remember your room, Laura?”
“Questions have wings, are burned,” I laugh-am kissed upon my lips within the hall.
“I remember, too.” Her voice has sadness. The manservant, having entered in our wake, is turned to. “Are you ever here-my servant-yes?”
“Sutcliffe, Miss. Yes.”
“Laura, he forgets so much. Why do we all forget? Come, I have a thirst upon me and sense one in you, too. All shall be well now that you have returned. There were once no birds in the garden, you know. No blackbird sang.”
She moves to the velvet drapes and gazes out beyond. The garden is untended, all unkempt, a rusting of scythes, a groaning of rollers, handles limp. Back offered to my breasts she stands while the manservant with a plop removes a cork.
“Do you yield to him?”
I ask the question so softly that he cannot hear, yet of a sudden she turns about, her visage proud as morning in its rising.
“He whips me. Do you not whip me, Sutcliffe? It is forbidden, you know. I am held if I resist. Will you not aid me, Laura?”
“As once I did before? Did I before?” Tendrils of recollections wisp like smoke, are gone.
“Do you remember, Laura, the books we read, here in this room when we were young?” Her voice takes on a merriness.
“We used to sit on the floor. Mama was angry to ever find us kissing. You may go, Sutcliffe. We have no need of you.”
“Of course, Miss. I know my unwantedness.”
“He is strong only when I am bared and held. Do you like my attire? I wear it even when I am not riding-of occasion. Of occasion, I do not. Kiss me. Do you not wish to? Wait- unbutton my gown. You ever sought to first-first feeling, fondling. Are they not large still, and so firm?”
A divan has received us. I know its scents, its squeaks, the chestnut-blossom haze of yielded sperm, her writhings, twistings, legs thrown all about. This was why, I believe, she was held-so that she might be made to lie
