Laura

CHAPTER ONE

I know what they want-why they stare after me. The sea ruffles the small pebbles, stirs them, forgets them, and retreats. Boys run along the chain pier. I hear their boots, their clattering, the singing sound of their laughter. The lamentations of the seagulls cut the air. Come now, watch now, come.

There are watchers-I know of them-the aunts tall and lonely on the stairs, waiting for the postman who will never come. The laurel leaves grow dry, the sheets rustle. Breasts to breasts the slow coming and going of breaths.

I have watched them at daybreak in their lonely ways. They have come upon me as shadows, signs, portents. I have pasted smiles upon my lips and stared. My eyes, it is said, are brown, my thighs are long.

“Do not sway your hips, girl,” I am told. What a nonsense is this. I am the lure, the catch, the key, the lock. My arms bind as seaweed binds, as grass curls round the cutter after rain. Come now, here now, kiss.

A breeze stirs the ribbons of my bonnet. I cross the promenade and skirt the Royal Pavilion. The streets extend, the clock strikes four. Shall there be toast for tea? Jingling their harness as they trot, the horses gravely nod. The proud and the foolish note my passing. Their carriages bob upon their springs. Turning I stare towards the distant beach. Too vast the sea, too deep, too wide. I shall speak of this to others and to Julian, but they will not respond. Their memories have curled, grown brown-tired in the sun. I have watched them in their breedings under the elms, beneath the sunshades, in the summer-house. Shall I become as they? Break the mirrors into which they stare-and run.

Julian would not come with me. I wished him to. We are such a short time wed. He is self-conscious in his goings with me. How strange.

“Let the men look at you,” he remarks. How sadly surly is his tone. I wish not to speak of such matters. I disregard his eyes that search mine for denials.

“They will perhaps, yes.”

I am curt in my responses. Why do I speak of things of which I do not wish to speak? I linger at the window of a dress emporium. The brown gown, the brown gown of silk would suit me best. Reflections of the passers-by come and go like ghosts, like people who were lost at sea, far in the deep waves ever falling down. A girl laughs in passing, hanging upon the arm of a man whose hat is at a tilt. He cares not for her, I feel sure. She is but a neat appendage to his goings, his arrivals, his watch chain glittering.

“She is nice. Did you like her-like her nice?”

Her face turns towards me-a roundish face endeavouring to become oval. I am regarded, looked upon. The meeting of our eyes is without purpose. She speaks of me, I believe. In turn he stares-a down and upward look. I am possessed, turned over, done with in his eyes.

“All right, she's all right. A swell, I'd say.”

Gone, they are gone, into their nothing knowingness of unknowing. The pavement slurs beneath their feet, grey, gritty. Memories of the sea that it has never seen. Will Julian have missed me? I shall wear my shy look or perhaps my austere. The austere fits me better, I believe. Father always told me so to look. Let my eyes bewilder and the sun shall dance. In my childhood on the garden swing, father would tell me always to sit upright, my hands high up upon the ropes, the apple blossoms falling on my hair. Sometimes I would throw my head back, going with my eyes into the sky the blue sky but not the grey for the grey was too regarding of me. Perhaps like cobwebs it would touch my hair, entangle me, draw me inwards, upwards. There would be moisture then upon my lips, father said, for the grey sky was the moist sky and the blue the dry.

In between the shadows and the light I move, the faces of the walkers seen and never seen again. They are drawn to the beach, to the sea, to their perdition.

“Where is Perdition, father?” I would ask him often. Not replying, he would shake his head, perhaps aware of my becoming. One day when I had asked too often, he replied.

“It is a place, Laura, where the shadows deepen and the doors are closed. It is a place of supplication, of remonstrance, yielding, and desire.”

I grew not frightened but drew the drapes of the study window against the sun, the seeking light, leaving a thin gap where the particles of dust could dance.

My voice was dull, look solemn as his own. Motionless we stood. Downstairs the clicking of my mother's knitting needles pecked at wool. We were alone, there was a quietness. A cart rumbled past below, rough voices sounded, such voices as sound foreign to one's ears.

“Perdition is within you, veiled. Do you not seek it, Laura?”

I did not know. Sometimes he would know my knowing even though my words had not appeared like players on a stage before him.

“I do not know, father.”

“You must know of it, for it will come upon you-the wanting of release, yet wanting not release, the burgeoning of blossoms in your hair, the air that cools your limbs upon the swing. You are grown too old now for the swing. Your summers count eighteen. When the moment comes upon you in its coming, you must fall. Into perdition. You understand?”

No air brushed my lips within the room. Was there air? I would have moved back to the curtains, but his hand stayed me.

“You understand.”

The question mark had slipped, slipped from his voice. It had hidden at our feet, a small black twist of sound between my toes. My silence was a tunnel in which secrets flowed. I knew the dryness and the summer heat, the far faint sounds beyond, voices floating, passing the house like small clouds urgent in their going.

“Yes.”

I knew. I felt the cold, the warmth. The shadows deepened and the door was closed. Could I be saved? The people would be hushed, the eyes would watch, the woods be searched. Iron railings rusting in the grass would be turned over for the footprints that might lie beneath.

“In the second left-hand drawer of the desk, Laura, there is a strap. You will hand it to me.”

Through a mountain of stillness moving I moved. The drawer squeaked faintly as if surprised that it was I. Only a strap lay within, brown-coiled and broad, a serpent in its waiting. Its surface was subtle, smooth. My hand trembled not. In my handing it to his hand my hand was steady.

Upon his word the desk received me. The leather stung, burnishing my burning. In Perdition there is only the receiving. I yielded, fell far faint, received. Forlorn, the furniture would not look. The inkstand stood busy in its inkness, uncaring of my cries in my undoing.

“Go-brush your hair,” he said at last. Eternities had passed. I smoothed my dress. Our eyes tangled like thorns, fought like rapiers, then I dropped my head. “Walk proudly, Laura, for you shall otherwise be known. The burning of perdition has received you.”

“Yes.”

I had accepted, received. Father drew the curtains back. The street had emptied. Solemn as forgotten sentinels the laburnum trees stirred not. A cat prowled by the railings, descended steps and sat upon the flagstones. My eyes were the eyes of the cat. My hips stirred, moved, fought their rebellions and then were stilled. I of the empty swing, the blossoms from the branches that would fall no more across my eyes.

“There will be moments of proudness, Laura-the high reach of your being.”

“Yes.”

“Even so you shall not refuse.”

My chin was taken, my eyes absorbed. The toys of my childhood were put away, the cupboards locked. A tumbling of dolls-a small unsqueaking silence-then the turning of the key.

“I did not know.”

I excused my ignorance in my burning. My voice was a small wave that laps too hesitantly upon the beach, withdrawing into the vast waters, shy, uncertain of its first tasting of the sand. It mattered not. There was a safety. Nets had been brought, cushioning my fall. I trembled, touched, touched in my tremblings. Burned and infused I sought my comforting. Too brief it was and yet an hour had passed. Passing through fire, I felt not singed. Deeper in my knowing now, I knew.

“You have been long at your speaking,” mother said when we descended.

“There is a time for speaking. Does she not brush her hair well?” father asked.

“In her immaculacy is her salvation,” mother said. She folded her arms and gazed at me. I did not blush. The tide had receded. There was a smell of furniture polish in the room. I was whole in my wholeness. At the tea table I chewed lettuce and felt its crispness, cold to my tongue. Diamonds of water glittered on its greenness in its bowl. The maid came and went, serving her betters. She had known not the searing of the strap, the roaring of the sea about her ears, the aftermath of quiet.

The square before me opens now. Do I venture the right way or the wrong? The streets look ever much the same. Here now, there now-wrong? Where are the builders gone, the bricklayers in their billycocks, hands grey or red with dust? To some far place where hunger took them, the roads angry and hard beneath their feet, forgetting what they built-the doors finished and the windows placed, the air within closed, made ready. Spaces for movement-the grave dance of anticipations. O the poor men gone, long gone.

I glance this way and that. This street? That street? Julian ever said that I would lose myself. I am so bad in my remembering. Window sashes are raised, yet betray not the deep darknesses within, the movements of bodies, the searchings, the unread papers that the pen has left. I shall wear my grey tonight. Will Julian's mother come? The maid will be prepared, turn down the sheet.

A smell of butter. Why? From whence? I like the smell of butter. Mother said it would make me a voluptuary. I ignored her. My quietness was in my knowing.

“Laura!”

The voice that calls I know not. I walk on, my eyes imperious yet my gait subdued.

Do not swing your hips, girl.

“Laura, you are late!”

The voice again. I turn. My footsteps falter.

“Why are you late again-always late?”

From the high stone steps of a tall house the woman descends, my elbow seized. Do I wish to follow? My path is turned. The steps my little mountain to ascend.

“Go within, Laura. He is angry in his waiting. Do you forget this?”

I am shuffled, pushed, the log dark hall receives me. In my confusion I reach for a doorknob. My wrist is slapped.

“Why do you always make the same mistakes, always, always? Here now, there now, go within, to the other door. Do not remove your bonnet before you are spoken to. Why did you not wear your blue one today?”

The room I enter is a mystery of space. Too high the ceiling and too long the walls.

“She was late. Was she late?”

The man who speaks stands and regards me. He is neither thin nor portly. His eyes speak of night adventures. Once father stroked my hair at midnight and told me of tigers prowling for prey in the far jungles of India and the Orient. I have seen the high sun in its descent-have felt the cold of moonlight on my breasts, my nipples sparkling with the fire of kisses.

“She is always late-look at her bonnet-the ribbons are too bright. Stand still, girl. How old are you? Do you not remember?”

“She is twenty-two. It is known. She has not changed. Has she changed since yesterday? No, I think not.”

His voice is gentle, velvet over steel. I want his eyes to be kind yet they will not meet mine. He is perhaps too knowing. I scan the room slowly, unmoving, seeking knowingness, a recognition, rebelling at strictures that must surely seize me here. The furniture is heavy, somnolent. I know it not. It speaks of dust, of buried days. Will it look?

“She had her breakfast and lunch-she was a good girl.”

The woman speaks. Where is Julian? This house is not his house. Father will surely come, importantly, through the door, brooking no refusals. My hips stir. It is seen.

Their hands do not touch me. The man regards me, sighs, reseats himself, takes up a book. I must learn the titles of the books. All such things are important. Father instructed me. A Meissen figure takes my gaze. How inhuman the smoothness. Would I as milkmaid look so smooth, so small? Many are the ornaments, the mirrors- an elegance of shelves, a waiting of whatnots.

“She must be bathed,” the man says. “What does she want for tea?”

“Toast is her favourite. Muffins will serve her better.”

The woman pushes me. Into the hall again. Cloaks of great mystery hang upon a stand. The door stands ajar. She left it so. My eyes seek it with hopes, but it disregards me. Would that the builders would come, running over the Downs, knowing it open.

“Millie will see to you, Laura. I cannot be forever running after you. You have always been his favourite. It is known. The water is run. Let it not grow tepid, Millie- are you there, girl, there?”

“Ma'am, yes.”

She comes at a run. Seeing me, she curtsies.

“Miss Laura, you are late.”

“I have told her that she is late, told her, told her. Take her up.” The woman's voice is irritable.

At the first turning of the stairs. The bathroom is commodious. The fireplace charmed by unburned coal lies dead.

“I would have lit it if you had come late tonight, Miss.”

“Yes, Millie. It is not cold.”

“That it ain't, Miss. We 'ave the best of it here in Brighton, though some folks say Eastbourne is sunnier, but I don't believe it. They're a stuffier lot in Eastbourne, they are. Was your walk nice? You didn't meet any gentlemen, I hopes.”

There is no need to answer. I know her place, her type, her stance-the chirpy, over-anxious, quick desires to please, placate, enquire. Father told me always to disregard the speech of servants unless they were required for errands of a private nature. Unclothed, I throw back my hair and regard myself in a mirror. Was it always stained? I have been here before? Memories of brown around its edges-a splotch in the middle. Was I here before?

The water laves me. The sponge moves in her uncertain hand, drawn from its secret home in some far seabed. Has Julian's mother come?

“What is the time, Millie?”

“Close on five, Miss. He said when you come in that you was to go straight to your bedroom. After your rest.”

“Yes, of course, yes. Use more soap, you stupid girl.”

Five is too late, too late. You shall not refuse, Laura.

The door opens. The woman stands not disapproving as I dry, am dried.

“If I refuse?” I ask her. I wish to know the answer. My eyes are proud. Her stare encompasses my stare.

“You cannot. Have you ever done so? You were always good, were you not?”

“Yes,” I reply. I do not let my shoulders slump.

“There, then. Brush your hair now.”

Her voice is softer. She waits, waits in her waiting until all is done. My pubic hair is fluffed. When dry the curls stand crisp, yet move to the hand. She is younger than mother, tall and well-built. Her eyes have the look of eyes that are looked at. Her rust-coloured dress is neither poor nor opulent. Her wedding finger is unwed. She glances at my own as Millie draws my stockings on.

“Why did you wed, Laura?”

“I do not know.”

I want my voice to cry or laugh. It will do neither.

“He is weak, of course. Wear this chemise-and your boots. Your drawers are not required. Go to your room and wait. Wine will be brought. After your muffins. What a girl you are for toast and muffins. Go to your room.”

Millie is quiet. She gathers up my clothes, her hands more reverential than they were. The chemise of white batiste is short. It floats about my hips, clinging.

My room, how do I know my room, and yet I know. Along the corridor, the second door, opening upon mystery. A scent of yesterdays. Fresh linen, a white bowl on a marble stand, enclosing a white jug of pure still water. The brass rails of the bed gleam. The bedsprings tinkle to my coming. In a moment a maid enters with toast and muffins.

“Will you have white wine afterwards, Miss, or the red?”

“The white. German and not French. Do I not always have that?”

“Yes, Miss, I forgets, what with all the comings and goings. I was told to say it's half past six now you'll be ready. Ill bring the wine straightaway if I may.”

“Yes.”

My voice is distant as befits my mood. A restlessness of waiting is upon me. The curtains must be drawn-a gap left for the dust. No one will think of that save I.

The butter from the muffins runs upon my fingers- rich.