Laura

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Is there a second ballroom here, a place for dancing?”

I address the counter clerk on my return. A happiness is upon me, and air of gaiety, as though the night were young. He has a sombre look, a crouching, hunted by beagles.

“There was one above, Miss. It is closed now these past two years. Guests who could not sleep complained of the noise. There were abandonments. Are you not on the same floor where it used to be?”

“I could not find the door.”

“It is there, Miss. The lock is rusty. You may try it. Will you have someone attend on you? It is not a pleasant place. I would not to that place. There are mirrors and hauntings. Too many, it is said.”

“Of mirrors and hauntings, yes, there are ever so- some pleasant, some unpleasant. I will go. Have wine and sandwiches sent up to my room.”

I pass along the upper corridor the selfsame fellow who took Charlotte there. His glance is open and abrasive to my eyes. He would have me on the instant if I let him.

“Is the door open? The door along? The door to the ballroom? Open? Is it open?”

“It were never closed, Miss. There were revellings once. The floor is thick with dust I hear, the mirrors glazed with memories. I was taught poetry about it once but have forgotten it.”

He stands, would weigh me up and down. A nascent paunch bells out his trouser tops. I would speak of the wallpaper that covered the door, but do not. There is a trick about it, perhaps, some incidence of light or shade. I have long fingernails. I shall tear it. I have no forebearance in such things. Mama would think it impolite. My father taught me ever so to be.

“That all action should be direct action is beyond denial, Laura. When there are no words to be used, put aside the words that would be used. Mistake not the things for the word nor the word for the thing. Should a young child, young in its unknowing, perceive a rose then it places not a net of words about it, for indeed it may not know the word “rose” and hence, being innocent of such, sees the flower in greater purity than we. Remember this ever, for if you have no understanding of it now, then understanding will come later.”

“I must not then have regard for things, Papa?” I asked.

“It is incumbent upon us, Laura, to have regard for all, yet whether paper, for instance, is printed upon, used for wrapping, adorned with great art and skill by a scribe, or crumpled up and burned, it has no caring for the matter, since in its paperness it remains and then returns to the infinite. Be caring and kind, do not damage unless there be cause for such. When there is cause, let it be done and have no hesitation on the matter.”

I asked my paternal aunt, who ever then grew closer to me, whether she herself had understanding of this.

“You listen wisely, listen well, Laura. Not to have hesitation when the spirit moves forever engenders activity in us, a sparkling of life, performances of good. When our dear mama took to the sari, she took also to the ways of the Hindu texts and read such translations as she could find. She engendered in us then a reverence for all, declaring that manifestations of the body were also those of the spirit. Though I would not declare such interpretations to be exact, yet I took a fondness for them. Upon the coming of mid-spring we would disrobe ourselves and meditate. I was then put to exercises, even as you. Immediately afterwards she would have me meditate again, saying that otherwise I would become inert and somnolent.”

“Am I inert? I wish not to be inert.”

“One who is inert, my pet, would by paradox endeavour to escape the strap, the piston's urging thrust. In your receiving of both, in your receiving, your energy is coiled and strong, is latent, ever-present, not inert. You are the servant of your realm and yet its mistress. When the cock is well planted, do you not enjoy, receive, draw out the strength?”

“Why must I ever be strapped?” I laid my head upon her lap. A scent of musk, of lavender, burring of stocking tops beneath her skirt.

“Would you bend to it without-raise your skirts, lower your drawers.”

“I do not know.” I hid my face. She was of this knowing yet should not be of this knowing.

“The words are clouds, my love, the act a mountain. The clouds must not obscure the peak. The words are apparitions, but the deed is all.”

That same day I plucked a rose and placed it lovingly in water in a vase and gazed upon it long. Many were the words that crowded into my mind about it. I thought, as father said one would, of love, romance, of garden parties and flounced skirts, of bright bouquets and promises of sun. The rose yet stood in its unknowing of such things, yet much as I tried to divest myself of the entrapments of words the less I succeeded.

Father then entered my room and found me unclothed to my chemise and stockings, couched upon one elbow on my bed and said, “You must not lounge so in your contemplations, for you will be conscious of your lounging and your attitude. Sit upright with your legs crossed under you, your back straight and the back of your right hand resting before you on the palm of your left. Let your mind-”

Alas, my mother interrupting at that moment by her footfalls on the stairs, my father withdrew and closed the door on my unshielded bottom. I would fain have had him return and explain more to me, but he did not, nor was I bold enough to place questions to him on the matter for I feared some mental exercises that I might not then attain. So withered the leaves of my longing. Mama was not of his mind nor caring and so could not have answered my questions. Whether my paternal aunt could so have done I do not know. Backward in my probings, yet also kind in my intentions, I wished perhaps not to embarrass her by asking that which she might not know. I was close then upon marriage and other matters were to the fore. More frequently than ever she would caress me all about my bottom-cheeks and sigh. Kissing me, her tongue would protrude, gliding around my own, and she would tickle my rosette and make me wriggle.

“You must return, Laura, return. We shall wear saris as of old and make our devotions.”

I had not known until then that she had worn such a garment, but my grandmother-as she explained-had been amused by having been twirled about and rendered naked from her cocoon and would have it so 'twixt meditations, exercisings, and further meditations, so that my aunt and her sister-who had since died-were equally thus treated and brought naked to the view.

“Were you not rumpled and ridden then? Was it not coarse?” I dared to ask.

“Coarseness is the manifestation of vulgar minds, “she replied. “My room was ever darkened, candles lit. There were no routs upon the carpet of the drawing room. Such, surely, would have been an abomination. Ever was all silent and solemn, majestically performed in utter privacy. Once my bottom had been tapped, full flooded by the sperm of one or other, then did I bathe, re-don my sari, and descend to continue my meditations. My nipples being erect, warm water was sprinkled on them through the silkened cotton and my brow perfumed.”

“May I not do the same?”

“There is no time, my love, no time. I was not married until twenty-five. I had more years than you for such fulfilments. Mama graced the house and saw to all. I went maiden to my marriage bed even as shall you. My rosette, though well nurtured as it had been, was silent in its musings, played not traitor to me, was unsuspected, though frequently well-fingered. My husband, however, took not to the sport, and I in my modesty made no mention of it. When he was killed early in the battles around Delhi, I returned home clad in widow's weeds, presenting myself much as a nun. Attired completely in black, my bottom uttered thus its gleaming promise, lambent in fleshly glory as the moon. Mama saw this, however, as provocation, for I was prone to leaving my bedroom door opened in my unveilings, my skirt well girded up and knickers cast aside. Seeing me thus, she bound my wrists and caused me to be paraded, upstairs and down, with all my clothes upcast. Naught was said but many eyes reproached me. I had offended, you see, against the conventions. The veils of privacy were torn. She desisted, however, from casting up my widow's veil, hence it was said I looked a perfect houri, my bush displayed on gleaming white framed by black stockings and black skirt. Having been so paraded, led about, I then was taken to the stable and there cropped. Mama taking pity on me in my writhings, however, I received the noble cock between my burning cheeks and thus was partly assuaged. Upon dear Mama's passing, I became then a prey to lusts for she was not there to monitor events.”

“I was not monitored, have not been, never been.”

“It was not necessary. By not monitoring, your own dear mama most visibly monitors. Even so, I saw to myself, came fast to my senses, wore veil and stockings for the last time on my bed, restored the benedictions, the convention-all. Yet it was pleasant to be threaded occasionally upon the rug, a winter's fire warm-roaring at my head. You must not disdain such proclivities, on your return, on your return.”

I answered not, as was my wont. I would promise nothing and yet would withhold nothing. The trees do not move when the breeze stirs but let it pass through their branches. Constance was chased by trees. Perhaps now she and the others lay still all about the room, gyrating hips, the penis entertaining. On the morrow Carrie and Helen will go quiet to chapel. Upon dark landings, ever fumbled, fondled, led to bed, legs held akimbo to the throbbing thrusts. Penetrations, rivulets, balls slapping at their bottoms fast. Dark will curve the circles 'neath their eyes. The rugs will receive them, dust at their nostrils, in the conservatory shall they be ridden, blinded by wonder, the becoming of orchids. I shall not be as they in my quietnesses. Even so I might capture one such, toy with her, observe her in her toilings, flushed of face, small velvet O of mouth receiving tongue or bulbous nose of prick. I shall have gilded cages. Their bottoms shall be annointed first with wine, glistening with Eastern promise of delights.

“Charlotte!” I find the door-unguarded, not obscured. My voice shakes a trifle in my excitement. The handle, rusty, rattles to my touch, squeaks, moves, and draws its iron tongue from the latch. I open. I am come upon it, the room so immense that it would seem to reach out into space. Upon the floor garters, cornets de bal, a withered flower or two. Far from me at the further distance is a dais, empty to its empty metal stands that now no music hold save for one sheet that lies forlorn.

Everywhere tall mirrors, dust blown, gird the walls. I am a thousand of myself, veiled in the dust and at all angles seen. My footsteps sound loud on the fretting floor that none perhaps should tread upon again. An arched and plastered ceiling, white and gold, takes all the echoes high, there comforts them and draws them into silence. Yet the silence beneath, around my feet, is deeper than above. I feel it as a slow breeze to my ankles turn, insinuating up my calves. I should become a rock beneath the sea and listen to the world above.

“Charlotte!”

I am at the centre of the room. The space disturbs. But one door stands before me far, left of the dais, brown and quiet. I venture there and feel my tremblings rise. The paint is cracked upon the panels. A brass knob lies limp. I shall turn it, shall I turn it, turn?

“Open it, Miss, for I cannot.”

Her voice! I burst within, she sits forlorn, as one abandoned at a table there. The room itself is small, clothes lie about, a sea unmoving of cast vestments, trousers, laced chemises, drawers. Shoes, boots lie skewered amid unheaving weaves. The table, rough and small, is deal, as is her simple hardbacked chair.

“How long have you sat there? Long? How long?”

She stands up, casts herself into my arms and sobs. “They confounded me, Miss, said I was not of them and thrust me here within. When the music stopped I knew them gone, heard ever onwards the quick pattering of feet. The door would not open to my touch. I slept and dreamed and woke and dreamed. They were all naked in their lewdness.”

“Come, you are no longer bereft. No one shall stay our passage. There is wine in my rooms, sandwiches, nurturings.”

“If I remembered who I were! But I remember now the house, the house, the house. You will remember, I know you will, upon seeing it you will remember. If it is dark there, they will light lamps. It was always promised. Upon our returning.”

“There will be such, I am sure there will be such. I remember you. Do you not think that I remember you?”

Our hands touch, clasp, I lead her out. The fellow confronts us anew and frowns.

“Are you about your duties?” he enquires of her.

“She is about mine. You may go in there, there are clothes to be had.”

“I would not, Miss, for all the tea in China.”

“Leave us then, depart, or I shall make complaint upon it. You will end up in an infirmary, a poorhouse, if you do not mend your ways. Remember the poetry you have forgotten and meditate.”

“There is a coming here, Miss, an arrival. She is out of Time.”

“Are we not all? What do you know of Time, what know? Your beseechings shall be to the pavement and the gutter. Beware that my father does not come and horsewhip you for impertinence. Go!”

Upon my command he is gone. The lights this time do not go out, one by one do not. Surely here is a benediction. Our palms moisten together. There are prayers in our togetherness.

“Take off your dress, it is dusty. Remove all. Let me see you naked, Charlotte.”

“Will you not, too? We shall remember better then. It was always nice being naked together.”

“Keep your stockings on. Were we not so taught, burring of silk to silk and the soft sighing? He was at my bottom first, then yours, while we enlaced took purchase on each other's lips.”

“It was a deep bed. Do you remember the deep bed? His sister would whip us for disobedience. At my sobbings she put a dildo to me. How rude she was!”

“Do you remember where our house was, where? Murmurs of running streams, the dark elms in the night?”

“I said you would remember, Laura, I ever said. Ah, rub upon me, yes! I remember. It were far from here, ceilings of lanes and winter's coming. The sun rose to our eyes, fell at our backs. You stood naked in the grass once while he tickled you.”

“I was young then. Oh, you are coming! Are you coming? Her name was Anthea-his sister, yes. Rub faster, it is coming back! Tiverton-by Tiverton it lay. I shall remember upon the seeing of a bridge, grey stoned, well humped, a mill that stood beside. Ooooh-ah! You sprinkle faster now than I!”

When the pleasure is done, when the pleasure is done. “Let us to the wine again, Charlotte. How merry I feel, how eased between my thighs. What a silkiness of skin you have! Were you not his favourite, or was I?”

“He would have none of that, of favouritism, nor she. Perhaps that were the beauty of it, I don't know. Was it not cold in winter, though? His cock was fire between the sheets. She would get him steady up, then put him to us. Sometimes she would nurture him herself and make us watch. Anthea, yes. How clever you are, more skilled than I, remembering her name. Soft as a cloud her name were, like her lips. She taught us fair to kiss then, and to tongue, holding him back, she said, till we were ready for it.”

“There were wonders to be seen, as we thought then. They may become as dust, Charlotte. Ever be wary of the ways of man. Did you know I was in Brighton?”

Her head shakes, her eyes bemused.

“I was married. What a dull, bleak, and neutral time that was-ever the bedsheets wrinkled and the toast cold. Once when drunk he brought a housemaid to our bed. I would have watched-the foolish girl escaped. Thin and pale she was as a poet's thoughts.”

“You wanted her yourself perhaps. You were ever so, Laura.”

Am I reprimanded? Her eyes, however, hold mischief. There is a dying here, though we are little aware of it. I touch her, but she shrinks, will not be enfolded, taken up, caressed.

“Are we not to go, Charlotte?”

“There was badness there. I remember badness there. If I don't get about my business, Miss, they will be after me. The house is gone, the shutters ruined, I swear of it.”

Her voice becomes a whine, her look-that changeling look-distraught.

“Very well, if you will, Charlotte. If you will go, go now. You may never return.”

“I shall be hereabouts, Miss-thereabouts. The people of the town crowds thick as leaves. I gets lost among them, can go here and there and hide myself in alleys. Where shall I go now but they are haunting me?”

“Anthea? And her brother? His name was Victor, I remember now.”

“They will be gone now, Miss, and starlings on their gravestones, his penis withered, eaten by the worms. They were older than us. I heard said once they were taken by the cholera.”

“Even so the house will be there. We can wander up the stairways, discover old notes, a mouldering of clothes, know who we are.” My voice is too steady. I perceive angels.

“Let me to the doorway, Miss-Laura-I beg of you. The housekeeper has at me terrible if I am late.”

She giggles in her going, casts flirtatious eyes at me. Through the doorway to the drawing room we tread as burglars in our own domain.

“He had a big one, though, didn't he?” She leans against the door, regards me as one dismissing me might. “I remember when she opened your cheeks to it and put him in. You wriggled awful, kicked a churn. The chickens ran a-crying all around. Then I saw a burst of feathers and he had it in you. It was sudden that first time. There was chasing in the orchard, apples falling. She said as you would squeal the first time and warned him not. I see your hands say no, pushing at the straw, pushing up, but quick she moved and held your shoulders down.”

“You watched? Did you watch? I do not remember. Only the apples and the falling of them I remember; One bumped my shoulder. I thought it a bird, a poor bird falling-that was my startlement. The foreman was shouting out afar among the hayricks, but he could not see.”

“At the first upping of your skirts and the lowering of your drawers, frilled drawers, they carried you in. The wood was rotting and the stones uneasy.”

“Did you not beat at his back? Why did you not beat at his back?”

“Oh lawks, you took to it, though. After he had his piston pummelled in. I saw your face all right, saw your expressions. Wanted to cry, you did, but couldn't bring the tears. She pushed his breeches down, got your bottom to his belly. Fair corked you were and I were jealous of it. Your eyes rolled, there was a flush on your face. When you stopped squeaking and moving, then he used his cock fair fit to pleasure you. She said she didn't have to hold you then and you were good. I called your name out loud. You would not look. 'Now, move your bottom, move,' he said. I did not think you would. You were proud in your look for a moment. I ever knew you proud in your looks when you were taking it. Are you still?”

“Yes. Should I not be? I was exercised no more frequently than you. Oh, I do not remember.”

“What falsities you declare! You are still at it, I know of it. I have heard it in the ballroom, in the dark, whisperings of wind along the gutter's edge.” Her voice cracks as ice cracks upon the coming of the warmer tides. “I must go, Miss, they will be after me.”

“You may leave. We have perhaps no other life than this. The rest is mirage, mystery, echoes that we did not make, along corridors we have not trodden.”

“That is the truth of it, perhaps, Miss-yes, I swear it is.”

“Go, then.” Her look is humbled now, our eyes exchange apologies. I shall finish the wine.

“Do not ever wonder where the past is, where the future is. They are ever present,” my father said.

“That is tautology,” my aunt replied. She showed her ankles. Mother tutted at her. I had shown my thighs ere that, girded with kisses, my garters caressed as though they were a part of me. I had threshed my hips to his threshing, cried my soft cries, known the ardent moments of the dark, tasting the bitter edges of the plants along my windowsill. Demonic, I sat as angel and Mama appraised me for my goodness, praised and appraised, her eyes unknowing at the glow within my cheeks.

“Sit upon your sins. It is proper so to conceal them.” Thus my paternal aunt in joking once.

Father departed, stern of eyes. The barrel of his gun drooped to the ground.

My thoughts were vandals, rogues, and vagabonds.