the first you took my fancy. When you were put to it, were you stubborn, cried? Here-I have poured white for you; it will better suit your tongue. You may tell me your history later perhaps. I would have every word and strain of it, each hour of longing, languor, and despair. Where are you from?”
“Hereford. I am come not long here-was left to her disposal and return.”
“She has made pretty play with you. You are not so hard done by, perhaps. Will your mama greet you, your sisters kiss your cheek, your diaries be scoured for secrets?
“I had none. I swear I had none!”
“Had you not? You have no need to fret. You have come, as all maidens do, to the lusting of the cocks.”
“You will not release her-let her down? If you do not release her, I may go. May I go?”
“Upon Hereford? Such a journey? In the night? The inns will be closed, the steam trains dormant. Those who issue tickets sleep. I shall put you up. Were you never put to it before?”
Her face suffuses and she hides her eyes. The glass trembles like a sparrow in her hand. In sitting with her I encompass her shoulders, take her mouth, wine to wine, small whimpers at my lips.
“I was birched for it, though lightly, yet would not.”
“Lightly? A play about your rosy bottom made? Lower your chemise-let me kiss your nipples.”
“May I go if I do? Oh, your touch!”
“Clasp not your thighs together so quickly. Let them part. What a prettiness is there, what plumpness and what curls! Issue your tongue a little 'twixt your teeth and let it come to mine. Ah, you are ardent with your lips! Do you not like the feel of it? Were you not fingered thus a little 'mid your birchings?”
“Yes. Was forced to part my thighs, display my nest- put to dark cupboards and my drawers drawn down. Amelia would not listen-she would not listen!”
“For what shall one listen, my pet? The pantings of breath, skitterings of shoes upon the boards? How hapless were you! Better to have let him juice you than cry out and raise the house in full alarm. Learn your discretions, wriggle your bottom, hold your thighs wide, let the cock enter and be done with it. In its pulsing your delight shall prove. Sperm-drops upon your nest-what matters to it?”
Wide-eyed, I have her down, her legs at stretch. Her silky belly twitters to my touch.
“Shall I let him? Should I let? Oh, he has a big one!”
“Minx! You have seen it? Did you not twiddle the knob, breathe your desires, fall back upon your bed, your drawers at droop and raising your chemise?”
“No! Yes! He almost put it in. Oh, what a lewdness you make of things between you all! I bit his hand, was birched again and fingered, cried out for Mama. Thunder rolled, for it was such a day, was almost then undone, clawed at the sheet and tried to crawl within. His hand clamped to my mouth, but then he came, raining of storm- sperm to my bottom-cheeks. Oh, at the telling of it I am shamed!”
“What moods you purvey! Have you learned the words from me or were they ever in your mind? There are others here. What of the others here?”
I let her rise. The mood is gone from me. I am neither the player nor the play, but stand without. My aunt will send me notes and explanations, confitures and comfortings. I shall wear white again, shall comprehend the rose- ness of a rose, patter my feet upstairs and down, seek shade beneath the awnings, sun in winter.
“We are coming, Laura, coming. Why came you not before?”
Voices heard. I know the voices heard, one shuffled as within another-two who speak as one.
The door opens. The space beyond is betrayed.
Those who enter are the two in my drawing.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Here are the narrower lanes of Time and space. Do not touch the walls for they are but the shadows of the walls brushed by the shadows of the leaves that last year died. Here patience frets as moves a tiger in a cage.
“Why did you not come before? Why not?”
Hannah's question is repeated as I hail a carriage.
“The road was devious-many were the turns, the windings and the seekings.”
I have as yet no anchor to my speech. The words are cast and roll about like chessmen who have lost their way across the board. Her bottom, tight in cotton drawers, stirs in her waiting. I have made my dispersals, disposals-Susan to an aunt in Putney gone, Delphine released to lustful lassitude and feet-stabbed sheets, Amelia loosened from her bonds sufficiently to extricate herself.
“You may come upon me in better circumstances.”
Thus my last words to Amelia. Of my uncle I expect to see little or nothing again. He will lurk in woodlands, become old and dribble. My aunts will send across the fields to him cold meats, the later of the wines, forbid his entry to the house. On coming upon him in my ridings, I shall turn my horse's quarters to him, adjust my tricorne that unseeing, spur away.
Such are the defences one raises and yet often so lightly that a firm intruder-one steady of purpose, implacable, adventurous-may tread them down and come in his stridings over the fallen barriers. I would not run then but would lean against a tree, feeling for the bark with my fingertips as though it might protect me, for it growls silently in its roughness.
There are hauntings of recollections about me now. How firm and polished Hannah's bottom feels. I pass my hand across it and beneath as we enter the conveyance. Did I first feel and touch the stalk that probed her secrecy, her breasts loosed and wobbling? There was a moistness of mouth upon my palm, a gartered thigh thrust over on my own. So sandwiched between us, she received him first. Cups and saucers tinkled; there were voices. Perhaps these tinklings and these voices are part of some otherness. I do not know. As yet I do not know. The side of a chaise-longue rattled to a wall. In her strugglings. Her mouth opening, there was a greater wetness on my palm which I at first kept tight against her lips until I sensed him well embedded, planted up between her cheeks, ready to ream, and bringing lust to love.
“Where are we to, Laura?”
“To that place where Charlotte danced and the lights flicker. Do you not recall?”
My pawn is moved. I wait upon her answer.
“Yes. It is the way we came before. Is it not the way we came before, circuitous, haunted by brazen speakings of desire? Mama would not have had it so had she but known.”
“What does she know, would know, has ever known? Was she not paltry in her watering of your whims, the nurturings of your endeavours, Hannah?”
“Mama is quiet-that is the truth of it-Mama is quiet. Is she not, Jane? Will you not speak?”
“I do not know-I do not know.”
Jane twists her fingers, stares. I would have come upon her name. Perhaps I would. Circles of light and darkness turn.
“The last time…”
Hannah sudden speaks and clutches at my arm.
“If we go by the way we would have gone…Yes, Hannah, yes.”
My mind is incomplete as yet. I enfold both with my arms about their waists upon the carriage seat. Their heads droop like lilies, to my shoulders droop. I kiss first one and then the other. A sweet tackiness upon Jane's lips intrigues. She was the first he had, perhaps. What did the woman in the bookshop say-in her sayings say? Time has whirled them here again like leaves.
“The man in green livery was there. He waited there, I know he waited there, beyond the steps of the hotel. The horses of a carriage pawed the ground. Black-they were black-the harness silver.”
Surprised by her own speech, Jane giggles, stares, is silent, chews her lip.
“He was the groom. The one obedient in everything. Let us not go, Laura, let us not.”
Hannah's fingers stab my arm.
“There is no turning back nor fumbling forwards. We might avoid him for the night. Just for the night. Let our secrets issue in the night and when we are come upon the morning so will our eyes be brighter for it. You were ever at hope's rising in the mornings, early on the lawn, the horses waiting.”
