The Children's Book

to know, but did not yet know what that meant. Herbert Methley, brown-skinned, bony, nervy, touched and touched her, and talked in her ear, not about love, but about desire, and need, and right. There were things he knew how to do that Florence had never imagined—places he brought into shivering excitement that had always been quiescent, or vaguely troubled. She drank more cognac, and thought, “I am being played upon, like a musical instrument.” This thought was strengthening. The player, or conjurer, removed more clothing, from both of them. Florence whispered that someone might come, and he said confidently that all was safe, all was prepared, all was provided for this purpose. Florence drank more cognac. Her hair slipped from its moorings. She was in her petticoat and bodice and her body was being stirred by a myriad small fingerprints.

“Here is the place,” said Herbert Methley. He stroked and stroked without removing her drawers. Within them, Florence began to feel like a fountain unsealed, like a geyser rising. When he saw this, he did remove her drawers, and said “I must come in. You must let me in.”

Florence’s head lay back on the cushions and the room went round and round like a waterwheel. He was much more in control of her body than she was. She felt him push, with his own body, against her private place, and then push hard, like a mining machine. She tore open, and convulsed, and cried out, and he made a low deflated moan, and everywhere was wet, with blood, and semen, mixed.

“Damnation,” said Herbert Methley. “That was tight. You were a virgin.”

“What did you think I was?” said Florence, sickly.

“I didn’t think,” he said, having lost his self-assurance. “This is a terrible mess. I shall have to offer to pay for this—this bedcover thing. I suppose. I imagine they must expect this kind of thing from time to time. I wonder how much they will ask?”

“There is some money in my purse,” said Florence, tightly. She thought she was going to be sick, because of the cognac, and she wanted desperately not to be sick, she wanted control of one end at least of her body. She wanted to go home. She gulped. She tried to stand up, and fell back again. Methley pulled aside a little curtain and discovered a washstand, and a ewer of water. He began, rather uselessly, to wipe the coverlet with a wet handkerchief. Florence managed to stand up, stagger to the washbowl, and mop her reddened flesh. Back to back, and awkwardly, they replaced their clothes, all except Florence’s drawers, which were impossible. She rolled them up and put them in the ewer. She rebuttoned her dress, and repinned her hat.

She stood in the restaurant doorway so as not to have to see Methley negotiating payment for the damaged covers. She thought she might die, standing there, in public, waiting. She sensed that Methley did not know how to deal with the owners of the cafe to which he had so confidently brought her. He looked a fool, and she would never forgive him for that. She noted that he looked as though he had had to pay more than was comfortable for him.

Outside, he hailed a cab, and had to ask her if she had money to pay for it to take her home.

“Yes, I told you,” said Florence, in nausea and scorn. He ought to have offered to come with her, to see that she was all right, for she knew she was not, but by then she already hoped never to see or hear of him again.

The cab-driver took her, half-fainting, back to the Museum. She walked into the little house, and up the stairs. Imogen was in the drawing room and expressed mild surprise at seeing her there, in mid-term. Florence said that she had suddenly felt she must get away from Cambridge for a couple of days. She did not feel very well. She would go to her room and rest. Imogen bent her head to her book, and Florence went, with difficulty, upstairs. The next day she went back to Newnham, and worked harder than usual.

When she came back for the summer vacation, she found that Imogen had put aside her silverwork and begun to embroider—pink rosebuds and blue forget-me-nots, on nuns’-veiling fine wool. Florence watched her for some time in silence. Imogen looked dreamy, and plumper than before—a contented Pre-Raphaelite madonna …

“What are you working on?”

“A coverlet.”

“It’s small.”

“It’s to cover a small bed. I am expecting a baby.” She pushed the needle in and out, resolutely, and did not look up.

“I am very happy for you,” said Florence, mechanically. “When are we to expect the happy event?”

“At the turn of the year. Maybe even Christmas, which is a hard time to be born.”

“How strange, “ said Florence.

“Is it not? I feel very strange. Everything is hazy and I am sick.”

Florence didn’t want to know. She had just understood that the child would be her half-sister, or brother. The idea was uncouth.

“Please—” said Imogen, and could not finish her sentence.

Florence said that she and Griselda had agreed to go back, more or less immediately, to Cambridge and keep the Long Vacation Term, which provided an opportunity for more intensive study. Imogen bent her head lower over her moving fingers.

Prosper Cain was much exercised in his mind by events in the Museum, where the battle was still in progress over how to arrange and exhibit the whole collection. The Director, Arthur Skinner, was being, in Prosper’s view, brutally harried by the Civil Servants. Cain was sitting in his office, writing a memorandum, when Florence found him. He looked up reluctantly, frowning.

“I am to congratulate you, I’m told,” said Florence.

“Oh, yes. It is a very happy—” He couldn’t find a word.

“You might have told me.”

“I left it to Imogen. Woman to woman.”

“You are my father,” said Florence. “She isn’t.”

“Oh, my dear, please don’t be difficult. Please be happy.”

“I shall try. I’m going to Cambridge tomorrow.”

“Isn’t it the Long Vacation?”