Her laughter is a falling of sequins, glittering. “Yet would you wish it so? Better by far to stay upon the beach in its slow sloping, waiting for the fall of light, the light's slow merging into dusk. Have you electricity in your hotel? It would spoil it. Does it not spoil it? One cannot diminish the intensity of electric lighting as one can gas or oil. No, do not answer-it matters little. Here, when dusk fell and the sea stayed far, we knew our surrenders. Ever in the dying light. Close your eyes and you will remember. Cover your face with your hands.”
I do so. She leads me back, as one faltering over unseen tufts of grass, to the divan. I am pressed down, seated. I must not peep. It returns to me now, a little.
“So stay and then tell your thoughts. Each thought and every thought. Then whatever you are thinking, it shall be done. Do you remember the game? We called it Tell'-Tell and receive'.”
“I must not peep, must I? It returns to me a little-the dusk, this room.”
“No, you must not speak now-you know you must not speak. One was never asked to speak until one was ready- until one had walked the plank of thought, stirred the smooth knots of desire with one's toes, then plunged.”
Through my fingers I cannot see. A quiver runs through me like a rabbit lost. Yes, there was watching here- I in a white dress…pink…no, blue. I had thought and risen, and even though my legs trembled I had raised my dress. My thighs were lustred, my drawers of cotton tight.
It had been my first telling. All waited in silence to hear me to know my purpose, to make it plain. Elizabeth. I know her name now. She sat among them; we were all of a oneness. Their calm waiting for the confession of my desires was the magnet that exacted the penalties of my sensuous thoughts. Bridges had fallen twixt one phrase and another as I spoke. I was made to return to the gaps and repair them.
Speak the words, Laura. You must. Confess. Speak your exactitudes. Diminish not desire. Lower your drawers, girl.
I uncover my face at last, here now. Sutcliffe enters, suave and dark, removes our glasses, bows, and retires. Fragmented pictures in my mind, a scattering of rose petals. It was not he then, in that faraway, but a maid. In the very midst of the enactment of my desires she had entered to light the oil lamps and had looked for a moment, for I felt her looking.
The maids were dismissed frequently for such and put upon the streets. Once in Haymarket I saw one in a faded dress, not a month departed from the house. She had clutched at the arms of gentlemen and superior clerks. I had heard her say to one, “Are you good natured, dear?” It was explained to me that this was the way such girls greeted and inveigled men to sordid purposes. It was an affected gentility of phrase so mixed with naivete' and coarseness that the elements thereof could not be dissembled. Words should be matched together as are pearls upon a string. Words defeat one in misplacement and speckle our intentions.
“Tell your thoughts, then-your desires as they were, Laura.”
“I was here, yes. In this room, yes. I had risen, spoken, displayed myself in mind and nether limbs. I walked to the table-a large one. Oh, it is not here!”
“There was one such. It does not matter. Its heaviness was buoyant to his purpose, the legs unmoving as our bottoms bounced. It is gone now-returned to the woods, perhaps, dissembled, stripped, returned unto the trees.”
“We ate supper then upon our laps like Romans or gypsies. Yes there was watching. I remember now the watching-I, skirts upspilled and drawers down, waiting. Over the table bent and waiting.”
“Without the waiting, Laura, there would be lust.”
“Yes. So we were told. Not lust, not lust, but a coming together of the parts, of explorations, declarations of love, obedience, warmth to warmth. It was silent ever. You remember that it was silent ever.”
“Even when he rendered himself to you, or you to him, or he to me. How could it be other?”
“Elizabeth, I had told my thoughts-all-everyone. When modesties veiled my speaking I was made to turn back along the path, pick up the fallen words. How strange it was to touch and speak them.”
“They were not coarse, my love. Only the impurities of thought make them coarse.”
“A maid entered.”
“You think I do not remember the occasion, Laura? Her name was-well, it does not matter. She was dismissed, of course.”
“Yes. And I upon the very brink of receiving as I was, she entered, moved among us, looked and saw. No one admonished, for it was not outwardly acknowledged that she was present. His pestle deep between my cheeks-oh, how it burned! Oh, I should not remember, no!”
“You may not spoil the game-you know you may not. The telling must be all of images and words. Ah, you have scarce begun. We were ever upon our honour to it, Laura. Laura! You may not leave, you must not! No!”
Her far-cry calling follows me, yet I am gone-gone to the door's gaping, down the broad hall fleeing. The cobwebs of the past are too thick upon me, choking at my lips.
“Laura! Laura, come back!”
“You may not follow her now, Miss. Not beyond the front door now you may not-you know you may not.” It is Sutcliffe's voice. The front door opens to my touch, my tug, my pulling.
“Let me this time, let me!” Her last wail.
I would turn and return were the sunlight not upon me, so plaintive is her cry. The front door slams. Enclosures are contained.
The mown grass stirs and, silent, grows again.
CHAPTER NINE
“Miss! It's Sutcliffe, Miss!”
I am pursued anew. Close upon Trafalgar Square a carriage draws up alongside my own. An arm waves, a face appears. I perceive it to be his.
In the alarm of my flight I had abandoned my things. His hand flourishes my bonnet. The hubs of our carriage wheels graunch together. High words and low words are exchanged between the cabbies. The face of Sutcliffe's driver bears the expression of a man to whom excitement has come late in life. Mine is put out because he has not been allowed to pursue his leisurely course nor indeed to fulfill a promising journey. With successive jolts I am brought to descend near Charing Cross. Sutcliffe bears forth my cloak, my bonnet, my reticule.
“I had luck upon it, Miss. You got into a cab so quickly I thought I was done for in finding you. We nearly lost you close upon the park. Might you pay my cabby, Miss, for I came without money.”
The carriages stand fore and aft in line then as do hearses. I bring myself to dispense a few shillings to both from my recovered purse. The interval, in a sense has pleased me for I was minded not to return yet to my hotel. Donning my cloak and bonnet, I-proceed along the Strand to a coffee house.
Sutcliffe follows at a nervous distance treading no doubt precisely in my footsteps. The door to the coffee house quivers and shakes upon my entrance. It is not too common a place. A potboy of sorts serves one and all. The evident proprietor in a suit greasy with sorrow regards me with appropriate awe. Sutcliffe hesitates, scrapes back a chair upon the sawdust floors and seats himself with an air of deference opposite me.
“Who are you?” My voice is distant.
“Sutcliffe, Miss. Bred out of a house in Hackney. Come into service at twelve as a scullery lad.”
“You know your name but you do not know who you are. Perhaps in that we are all at fault.” I observe his twitchings. He would act now upon a flick of my fingers. I remark his physique more closely now. Perhaps once he fell at Crecy, under the sword of a French knight.
“How did she know of me?”
“Your sister, Miss? She has ever talked of you. A maid cleaned your room-your boudoir, that is to say- regular.”
“And others? Others in the house?”
I order coffee for myself but not for him. He has taken upon himself the impertinence of sitting with me without permission. A cup and saucer is nevertheless placed for him. It shall remain empty.
“There is them at nights, but I never see them. I has my own room in the basement. I hear them moving about at nights, in their rooms upstairs. She takes things up herself. I hear them but I don't hear their words. When
