Laura

CHAPTER SIX

The gold glow of the city rings my eyes, embellishes my expectations. I am free to choose whether it is tomorrow or today-this hour or that.

The guardian of the door at the hotel is as I recall him, sturdy in a long stiff coat that speaks of old Napoleonic wars. He brandishes a profession of remembering.

“Nice to see you again, Miss.”

I incline my head to his bowing. His eyes in following tilt up my skirt.

“You have visited here recently?” My uncle intends no rudeness, but curiosity.

“By no means. Over two years past. Papa brought me. It was a business occasion-an occasion for business. There was busyness.”

My uncle's hand once brushed my bottom. A donation of affection rather than one of lechery, as I then thought. It was seen, though my aunts issued no public admonishment. One does not do such things. There are rooms where those who err may be drawn aside, where even a humming of voices may not be heard.

We approach the desk. I arrange the despatch of a telegraph message to my father. My uncle listens gravely, escorts me up. I have worded my message in signalese, but his understanding is immediate. The need for explanations, were there to have been any, is deleted. We come upon a suite. The bed is a double one. Ornate mirrors guilded with cupids-a flourishing of plaster flowers on the ceiling-a redolence of thick and soundless carpets. All that surrounds comforts.

“Shall you stay also here, uncle?”

A maid enters and, upon permission, betakes herself behind the closed doors to the bedroom where he unpacks my trunks. Indolent in his ways, my uncle has the bearing of a captain rather than a major.

“It were perhaps best, Laura. Some wine before you change?”

His eyes work all about me, remarking with silent curiosity the rather pedestrian nature of my dress. I have walked the Brighton seafront. I am known. I take to a chair rather than a chaise longue, though his eyes would guide my feet hither. My fingers shape the rolling of the arms, voluptuous. A gold, bunched semblance of a fist is at the termination of each arm. I perceive no menace in this. Light falls upon them. We are not alone.

“I am also upon business, Laura.”

“Very well. If you are.”

Meanings are exchanged, gathered inwards, dissected, examined. We speak in parables since parables become us here. Private languages have been learned, the whisperings in the long grass and the murmurations in the conservatory, the fingering of flowers while the lips are seen to move through glass-wild runnings of streams and the walks through the orchards. I do not propose, however, to convey to him the inner core of my knowings, my Chinese box of secrets. The past withers not in the warm palm of my hand, yet as to this day, this night I know my unfulfilments. Ejaculate, ejaculate, ejaculate-the word so repeated comes to my inner ears as the wheels of the train while my tongue assuaged the whimperings of Jenny. I shall go no more among the habitations of the poor. My purse is emptier, as is my inner need.

“We shall eat here or in the restaurant?” My uncle probes, is tentative.

“As I recall the food was less than hot when trundled up.”

“The restaurant will suffice. I confess to you that I had intended to have another companion.”

“That you may. She waits upon your coming?” I have no need to guess at the gender of his intended. My uncle nods and gazes at me with the anxiety of a dog awaiting a half-offered tidbit. “Bring her.” I bear an imperative in my tone. “Perhaps she may make a companion for us both. I cannot be abandoned.”

How intricate and yet how futile is speech-the exchanging of tokens. As much can be read in the eyes as what is said. He would have at my secrets, which I suspect in his mind are the condiments of his imagination. Nothing was ever known, seen, flourished, or conveyed. Perhaps my lips smile too often in rooms such as these, yet I knew them not to before. Rather have I taken on expressions as one changes hats. I appear at the moment to be wearing one rather more catching to the eye than I had intended, for my uncle's eyes light up. Arrangements are made as to how he might leave me for the nonce and then return.

Arrangements have ever been among my favourite occupations. Without them is no ceremony, though at times they may be understood rather than stated. Even so, fences must be erected at agreed distances, enclosures made, inspections overtly taken, the perimeters and parameters established, the exits known, though only to the immediate participants and not all. Such makes for comfort, directions, certitude. The dance may then proceed, weak though the pipes may be and soft the drums.

With my uncle's going, I recall the presence of the maid. He had forgotten her-not I. The bedroom door opens like a statement of intent, and there she stands and waits.

“I wanted to know if everything was hung all right and proper, Miss, and if you wished me to help you dress.”

“There is wine untouched in the other room. Bring it to me. You may have a glass.”

“I'm not allowed, Miss. Not with guests. Not in the rooms at all.”

“I have forbidden it? If I have not, then you may.”

I watch her in her walk, the easy-flowing. Some far-faint calling of voices from a garden comes to my ears. There is something I remember about her and yet not. I would ask. Her eyes have the clarity of polished glass. I perceive no ghosts in them. Patting the bed, I bring her to sit with me. The wine runs cool upon our tongues.

“Give me a little from your mouth. It is called French drinking-did you know?”

Her breath is peppermint, overlaid now with a finer tang of wine. “Yes, I believe that I do. Once I did. When was it? Oh, I saw you and remembered and grew afraid of the remembering. When was it? Perhaps we were not always here. Were we always?”

“Do it again. With the wine. Give me your tongue in the giving. Shall we remember? You were not called by a common name. What is your name?”

“Charlotte. I had a sense of it that there would be a coming tonight. I knew your name without the telling of it. You were always called Laura, though once I think you were called Laurette.”

“Tell me of that, Charlotte. I don't remember.” Our tongues lick-touch through pools of wine.

“I don't remember, I don't. Oh, if they should seek me now-come seek me now.” She starts up from my arms, falls back. Her legs dangle over the edge of the bed. I lean over her. She has not the coarseness of Jenny. There are finer strands within. I kiss her brow, the tip of her nose. She laughs: “You always did that.”

“You were ever called Charlotte. I recall that now. When butterflies were netted in the garden you cried and tried to touch their fluttering wings. When…no, I cant…it has gone again.”

“If you hide me I can stay. Will you hide me? I always did as you told me, I know that, I do. You were ever the mistress in our ways. I used to hide in a cupboard and watch. The door of the cupboard creaked. It was an old house. They said once it was to be pulled down.”

“Watch? What did you watch? Tell me what you watched.”

“Only the first time you did it with him, I think. I watched then. No-there was a second time. It comes and goes in the remembering.”

“Who? Who did I do it with?” Far calling of curlews and a sky by Turner, the dying summers hid by boys amid first fallings of the leaves. “You know the gentleman I am with now? Do you? Now-here now-here?”

“No. It was others then. Others. I knew your name in my remembrances again today. A man passed me in the corridor below. I saw his eyes and there were dead butterflies in them.”

She begins to cry. I kiss the pearling of her tears. A quiver-shudder, breasts to breasts upon the high bed lying. The glasses, unregarded, roll about. Wet lips to lips. Our salivas mingle.

“Yes, it was like this, like this sometimes, Charlotte. Show me your legs. How lovely they used to look, drawn back and open.”

“You made me-you always made me.”

She pouts, draws high her skirt as I roll from her. Garters pink enclasp her thighs. They have a sad and tawdry look, but are clean. I bend upon her and kiss the inner milkiness where her thigh flesh curves. More scents of yesterdays invade my nostrils. Image and faces melt together. A man unseen, unknown, invisible, pushes down his blue plush breeches in waiting-in waiting for the parting of our thighs. His penis quivers in the waiting. Charlotte clutches me. Her voice now: “Do it to me later, Laura, if you hide me.”

Salt of sea coral to my lips at the parting of her curls, her down, her bush. Her legs widen and she strains. She knows the Venus-couch again. One leg of it was loose and it would wobble. It stood where a carpet ended, I remember. His penis to my bottom put while yet I tongued her. A cart rattled somewhere passing and there were footsteps in rooms above. We cared not then for discoveries of sin.

A woman, large, morose, came once upon us, creeping down. “You dirty beast, I knew you would be at them,” she said.

Charlotte cried “Oh!” and hid her eyes, and the woman went and we were alone in our breathings. It was ever dusty, and the basins cracked. In winter we would huddle together, waiting for the sharp, clear frosts of morning, breakings of water through the ice and the birds forlorn upon the branches.

“Do me!” Her voice now shrill, her bottom squirming.

“Oh! I was remembering!” The scene is gone, the dust dissolved. I sit up, throw my hair back. Her eyes are sulky with desire and yet a water-coloured mischief lies behind the pupils' glinting. Her mouth moves, rosebud mouth, and then is stilled.

“I have to go, Miss.” Her changeling voice has changed again. I will not have it so and shake her.

“Is there dancing here, Charlotte? Oh, come back-remember!”

“They won't let me. Yes, there is, yes. I'm not sure where, though. Along the corridor somewhere, somewhere. If I came back. I could come back. Shall I come back?”

“After my uncle has gone, yes.”

“Oh, your uncle, is he?” Her voice is pert. Sitting up, she shakes her hair, thrusts down her skirt. “Shall we be three a-bed, as once we were? Not with him, but another. Shall I know what to do? There used to be flowers once and meadows. I don't know where it was-don't know. It frets at me. You'll remember it, I know you will. I can't remember unless you remember. Not always. There will be carriages after the dancing, will there not?”

“Of course, there are always carriages. They will summon them and hide them, if we go, waiting for our emergence. Go quickly, go, or the moment may be gone. Return-return, Charlotte!”

“Oh yes. It will be all right again then, I know it will. As it was before.”

A kiss and she is gone. I bathe and scent myself and know my wholeness. The suite becomes me. A certainty of being obtains within it. I would have mother know how pleasing are the raised blue patterns on the silk wallpaper, the gilded knobs that crown the bedposts, the tassels that will surely sway in their untinkling. As once they did.

My drawers shimmer, being of black silk. They encase me tightly as I ever wish them to. I have seen my aunts in drawers loose and despondent, lacking both memory and touch. I invest my calves, knees, thighs as befits them in a charcoal shade. My garters clip tightly. Attraction lies in such attentions, as I was taught. In the owl's cry, the wind's cry, the whispering of the ivy and the silence of the moss.

Smooth your stockings up. Laura — let your ankles show. Mould your bottom into your drawers as to my hands. Keep your back straight. Affect not shoes nor boots with flat heels. Walk unhesitant, nor shy, nor proud. Be ever easy in your goings. Receive, accept.

I persuade rouge into my cheeks, though little needing it. A lady who is perceived as best and fitting so joins together the attractions of the prim and the wanton that it is not known whether she is either or both together on Sundays or fine days and so she is sought.

I have finished with my ruminations, my preachings and my parables. My eyes are rimmed but delicately with kohl. I need no further endeavours. I have chosen a gown so close to white that it seems not to hesitate upon the colour, displaying its blue ribbons, its frilled corsage, its gatherings. I have worn it twice before and that three years beyond. The hem holds memories of sperm. In its wickedness.

My uncle arrives with his companion. She is in her later twenties, tallish and elegant. Having surveyed one another we exchange eyes and survey ourselves thus, mirror to mirror. I mark her memories who have not known them. She can scarcely know mine.

“You have not accommodated yourself in the hotel, uncle?”

“There is time, my dear. We might take liqueurs in your suite, perhaps.”

The meal is done. I know too well the liqueur he intends. It is of the singular and not plural variety. The cheeks of my bottom tighten, are guarded. Dangers of revelation attend me in his presence. My tongue shall not uncurl. The lift rumbles and trundles, taking us to my abode. With then the bringing of Chartreuse and Benedictine the lady sits upon his lap. A smile I take to be inviting suggests my involvement in equal measure. Her head turns, regards the intervening doors where Charlotte lately stood.

“It is a nice bed. Really it is too late to make arrangements other. Other than. Do you not think?” she asks.

His hand invests her thigh but is afraid to travel. I have but to smile and he will gather up her skirt. Perhaps I am to be ravaged and made prisoner of them both-the farewells made upon the steps at morn. The departures empty of promise.

“I must write to father.”

I rise, approach the escritoire. Its rims are rimmed with gold. Ornate. It attracts me. I have neither of them in my vision yet feel their sudden stillness. My letter writes itself in my uncle's mind ere I have taken up the pen.

“Of course, my accommodation-how stupid,” he exclaims, “It is late for you now to write.”

I turn. She glides from his knees like a leaf from a log. There is a limpness in her stature, an incomprehension. My uncle stands in turn.

“I shall write when you have said goodnight. Will that not be better?”

“Indeed, Laura, for you may say that I have just departed.”

“That you have just departed, yes.”

Our separations are formal. I close the doors. Does my mother knit and father fret? That my uncle is well furnished and appurtenanced with virility I do not doubt. His woman will feel the functioning tonight-the two-backed beast of Rabelais will thresh. Even so, in some small, dark and secret room I might have yielded, my hand to my mouth, biting my teeth into the slim fruits of my fingers. Unspeaking. Did he do it to you, say it yes! I would not say, I would not say. My bottom bulbs warm to the brown-carved door. In the dancing, if there be dancing. Yes.

“Would it please you to know that I have been taken?”

Thus did I ask my aunt, my paternal aunt-for she was in many ways the safer of the two-a week before my marriage. The words came from me as slowly as a plum splits, yet is sudden.

“Rumpled and ridden?” Her laugh was like the two last notes, the high notes played on the piano, one following quick upon the other. “Were you then taken to the summerhouse?” she asked. I shook my head, she seeing only the reflection of my head and shoulders in my mirror. I chewed upon a hairpin, its indifference. “It is best so, for the gardeners lurk there. They have had many sights to see in the past of which you have been innocent. Have you been ridden fore or aft?”

I moved my hips. Again her laugh. “Then you are virgin still-'tis good. Better to have known the thick shaft's burning there. Your bottom is the fuller for it, yet in its tightness it encloses secrets. Have no shame on it for the male fruit so inserted is ever fruitful though unproductive save of yearnings for its further approaches.”

“You will not tell?”

It was my last naivete', yet it threaded not my voice. I spoke as one who had received, discarded, and is yet ready to accommodate again.

“Had I done so, my pet, at the first falling of the strap, how cold the house would have become. Now with your going shall be winter.”

I turned and kissed her. I had said nothing of the strap and yet she knew. “I may return yet, dear aunt.”

“Of course you shall and must, yet think not of your comings and goings overmuch but of acceptances, receipts of pleasure. Raise your skirts and let me see you.”

I did so and stood-turned slowly. She patted my bottom, my thighs, all about. A murmur of admiration escaped her.

“How smooth and creamy your skin has become through it. I would have seen you squeal and squall, threshing your hips in love's surrender, yet it was not to be. One lives in part on memories of things unknown, unseen. So must it be, for the unseen is often the better envisaged thereby, is enlivened, made articulate, perpetually alive. Take not a yearling now, for you have known the lion's breath at your ears.”

My eyes were questions marks, as she perceived.

“Ask not. The answers lie within you, not outside. Questions are as moths. Their wings get burned.”

A knock disturbs my memories. I upon the door upon Charlotte.