Laura

CHAPTER SEVEN

I am not as others are nor yet as others would become. The light that falls upon most others leaves them but opaque. People should have a certain translucency, a yielding to the light. Had it not been for the presence of Charlotte, whom I both knew and knew not, I might have fled home and donned again my old attires, sucked the brown ribbons on a brown, brown dress, and awaited the benedictions of the strap. I would sponge Perdita down- the marble of her cold yet knowing to my hands. Father would take his longbow into the paddock, as oftimes he did, and the arrows would sing again, fleeting towards some distant target, or the hesitant hare.

He would never shoot to kill a living creature. His pride was in missing them by a hair's breadth. “How that hare's feet scampered!” he would chuckle, and then sharpen his small broadheads anew while I stood and watched, fearful of and yet fascinated by their tiny leaf-shape, the glittering of their sharp edges and their points. The nocking-point on his bowstring sometimes frayed and I would bind it for him with two rings of red thread so that the nock of the arrow could be placed exactly between them. Often enough he would shoot at a round straw target that a manservant would bring out and place upon a sort of easel. Father would then stand very straight as he drew the string, his three fingers around it ever quivering back and forth until it seemed that the strength of the bow must overcome him. But then at last, when I often thought almost all at breaking point, the arrow would be loosed, rising in a long loping curve and so swiftly until it met and buried its head in the centre of the target. Thus did Mr. Ford, the Champion Archer of England shoot, averred my father, and thus would he also shoot, though at a rather lesser distance, but I have noticed that men often try to copy one another in such matters.

What happens to the past-each moment like a photographic likeness-has often given me much to think on.

“It enters into the enclosures of the present,” father would say, and in my understanding of his words was yet no understanding. My thoughts would tumble all about like small monkeys who can find no other mischief to perform. I would run between the past and the present- sometimes would turn about and with the future flirt.

“That is as well,” he said when I told him of this, “for all doors and frameworks and lattices are forever open, so you may go back and forth, hither and yonder at will like the darting swallows that never descend but ever seek the insects in the air.”

Then it came to me that the poor insects which were soon to be swallowed were at once in the past, the present, and the future, for the birds-so quickly do they wheel and twist and turn-and all in the same space which each occupied with no interval between except for those in my mind. This I also told father, who smiled and kissed me and said, “When you know of it, do not speak of it or it is gone.”

So was my mind wrapt in mystery as now, as now, as now, though I wished my mind to be still as a pond is still when the boys with their stones and their fishing nets have gone and all that was disturbed in the pond sinks back to the bottom and leaves but a calm understanding with no ripple upon the water. It reflects the moon but is not disturbed by the moon. So would I have had my mind be, as a mirror that passes judgement not nor frets about reflections after they have gone.

In time there were moments-are moments ever on-when my mind is such and I have not two eyes but one and that one eye becomes the entirety of my face so that I have only seeing, and I have hearing, but I respond not.

I am become a mirror.

“There is neither coming nor going there-where the dancing is.”

Charlotte's words have the sadness of things which are left alone too long in darkened rooms.

“Yet there is dancing. Is there dancing? Come, you must change, take off your clothes. You are ill suited to them.”

“Do you remember once that he said I would become a servant if I did not bend to his will?”

“He?” I seek for shadows which are gone.

“It does not matter, Laura. Sometimes we remember and sometimes we do not.” The hurried words, the scurried words perform their dance of dried leaves.

She seated on the bed, I bend to strip her stockings, shoes, and suck her toes. They taste of cherries. “I wanted to do this on the train, but you are not the same. Not the same one-no, not the same.” She does not answer, languid in her pose.

“It is nice, I like it,” she says at last and wiggles her small toe in my mouth.

“No, you are spoiled. Get up and put on this chemise, this gown. There will be gentlemen there who will flirt with you. I was always happy when they did.”

Her bottom has a pertness that enchants, the cheeks tight with their secrecy that yet I sensed and knew had yielded oft. I hold her chin, she standing upright, and feel the groove between the bulbous half-moons.

“Do not bunk, Charlotte. Keep your eyes to the front, your legs straight and apart. Do it-you must!”

Obeying, she obeys. Her eyes are pebbles under water. I have seen myself so in mirrors in the past when first my fondlings front and back occurred. I stand to her, my belly to her hip, my left hand cups her pulsing nest, the right explores her netherness.

“Is it nice?” I ask as one whose interest is faint. She nods, her lips compressed. “Both together front and back, is nice?” She nods again, does well to speak not One must have obedience and immure oneself in silence save for the hissing of the nostrils' breath. A small puff escapes her mouth as my digits make their entrance, work and twirl. Now tighten both her lips as on the pleasure comes-but I desist. She should have the strap now for both her naughtiness and her obedience. Such is the paradox that one accepts.

Bend forward now, Laura, hands on your knees. Be otherwise still. Legs splayed!

I knew, expected, and received. A dozen first of swirling tawse and then the deep, warm entry of his tool-I yielded, rocking, whimpering, dust of the summer's present golden on my brow. Sometimes as he worked I would be urged forward inch by inch until my hands could rise and rest upon the burred edge of my cabinet Then to the peak-point would his crest enter, my quim full nesting on his comforter, his palm, and my eyes would dwell upon all unseeing. I would see into yesterday and the morrow, the swallows in their high flight soaring. To my eyes would come the veins of leaves, translucent green, myriad, and magnified.

I turn Charlotte's face to mine. She remains otherwise still My fingers return to tickle her a little.

“There were words. Do you remember the words, Charlotte? Speak-you may speak.”

“Words-there were blatherings of words, tongue to tongue, words, lips to words, lips to lips.”

“In the liquid spurtings, yes.” My eyes dance. “Are you going to come?” Again her nodding nods. Her knees quiver and bend a little, neck bends, face back. She is spring and summer to my whims.

“Laura, oh, Laura, let me, yes.”

“Yes, my dove, my wanton, come-come spurt a little as you ever did, sparkling of splashing rain upon his cock. Give me your tongue now, the way we were taught-in, out in out flick fast flick fast!”

In the leavings of love's desirings, lost and sticky, a paleness to the cheeks and yet a warmth.

“We must go now. Come, finish your dressing.” I am abrupt with her. It is in her wanting. Her hair brushed and crested, we depart. The corridor lies empty to our view.

“This way-I am sure it is this.” She takes my hand, here where the electric lights in their unhissing gleam. At the far end-the doors we pass gazing stolid upon us-we turn right and come upon a dead end. The wallpaper here is stained. One corner at the top is loose. It waits with the patient sadness of things to be replaced, put back, made whole again. If it could speak it would speak to me of this.

“There is music. Can you hear?” Her eyes have a momentary wildness of lilies.

There is no door, Charlotte.” A mewing of violins, the temperate tinkling of a piano, and a faint brouhaha of voices come to me. Reaching to the blank end of the wall, I trace a ridging where a door hides beneath.

“We cannot get in. I knew we would not, Laura.”

“Wait! If we tear the wallpaper-we may tear the wallpaper, may we not?”

“I can assist you, Madam?”

We turn as marionettes might turn. A gentleman of voice, he is yet dressed as a pageboy, though immaculate.

“There is the dancing.” My voice quavers though I wish it not to.

“Yes? It is not permitted for you though. I regret this, of course, deeply. Perhaps I may accompany you back to your room? Your uncle has returned, I believe.”

“My uncle? Charlotte, you must come, must come!”

“She should not be dressed so, Miss.” He has seen now the bareness of my wedding finger, for I have removed my ring. “There are insistencies and there are insistencies.” His hand dares take my elbow, leads me on.

“Charlotte!” I call back to her as one calls in one's mind to the writer of a letter of sadness but he has turned me at the corner. “She does not follow! Why does she not follow?”

“It is not permitted. Wait You understand that you must wait, ever wait?”

I would speak, but he has turned back. A murmuration of voices-a cry from Charlotte.

“No, not on my own! Not there-I cannot go in there alone! Laura!”

The opening of a door-the music louder. The door slammed. And gone, she is gone. I run back and the wall is blank, the wallpaper untouched. There is music still within, within.

One should know if one is lost, should one not?

“Come, I shall return you, Miss. To your suite, Miss.”

“Should one know if one is lost?” I ask, “Should one know?”

“Yours is the cry in the night that echoes often. What is your suite number, Miss?”

“You said my uncle waited there.”

“Some wait, some do not.”

“Charlotte!” My voice echoes and I turn my head to the infinity of the corridor behind me. With each step that we walk a light goes out behind us, extinguished in series until all behind is darkness.

“She is best where she is. She will soon enough get caught up in the music, Miss. You may want her back, of course. That is appreciated. If it is right and proper, she will come back. If you have the knowing of it then she will.”

“The knowing? This is my suite. Are you going to attend on me?”

“That it should be your wish, then I will. Time quivers and is gone so quickly. I wanted to see the form of you as soon as you appeared here. You have been trained to obedience, I believe, and that is the best for any young lady. I have no whims other than you have known. They jump a little at first, the young ladies, but soon enough they know where to land. They have their point of reference, so to speak-it is a guidance and an understanding. Such have I learned. I approach you with the homage due from a gentleman to a lady.”

“Of course.”

We are within. The lights appear to glitter more brightly than when I left but minutes ago. Or hours before. There is no sign of my uncle, no upturned hat, no gloves, no polished stick.

“He may come yet, after me.” The man appears to read my thoughts. He is tallish and a little saturnine. I judge him to be twice my age. He picks up from a table where I had placed them the small likenesses of Mama and Papa, then replaces them and unbuttons his tunic, the small brass buttons disappearing one by one through the holes.

“Sir James,” he says. It is a statement.

“You know my father?”

We are all known to one another in this world. It is the coming-upon which is sometimes a surprise. Prepare yourself as it was given to you to be prepared, in your middle way and not in the first days of your undoing.”

“Charlotte may be singing now. With the music. I wonder if she will be singing?”

I am not answered, but it does not matter. I put the question to myself, stroke it for a moment and then it is gone. Perhaps it evaporates or passes through the glass panes of the windows out over the dark city, floating, gone, dazzled by lights, bemused by dark.

The bedroom to which I move enhances me with space. I unfasten and discard my gown slowly, for there is the waiting. I lower my drawers and feel the sleekness of my thighs, the weavings of wonder of the threads that clothe my nether limbs. In a tilted standing mirror whose feet claw at the carpet, dumb, I survey myself with shyness yet with approbation. The girl on the train-I forget her name-said that my stockings glistened. It is so. My garters are rosetted, tight, the thigh-flesh swells above a little. A shade of plumpness in these regions, it is said, is beneficial. I would not have too much of it, not too little. The curves should be pleasing, complimentary, subtle in their outspringing where the indentations of the thighs yield to the bottom's bulbing. Hesitant as a doe, I gaze towards the doors, then use the perfume stick, between my cheeks, betwixt my thighs. I am ready unto his readiness. Am I to bend, hands flat upon my knees-or kneel?

“If your uncle were to come-were he to come-have there ever been two?”

The man asks in entering. His shirt is loose. I am minded to immaculacy but do not comment on it. I sift the question, examine the pieces. Being not of wanton mind, I know not its meaning at first.

“Two. Were there ever two?” he repeats.

I understand now. I believe I understand. I shall not answer him directly.

“There is neither knowing of it nor not knowing of it.”

My answer produces a chuckle from him. He appears pleased. “What a princess you are-how small and yet not. How angelic your eyes! How innocent you must have looked. I wish to see your eyes when I am putting you to it.”

You may not. It was never done. Only in the dark was it done and I was comforted.”

A finger in my bottom, tongue to tongue.

There should not be words, not here, not in this realm where quietness should obtain. I may reject him yet. I step back. His eyes become harsh.

“Show me!” he utters.

“No!” I am stubborn, yet beneath the will of his gazing I raise at last the lace-frilled hem of my white chemise. My bush shows, dark and springy upon my springlike flesh.

“Two would suit you. You are of an age for it now.”

I stand as Charlotte stood, my legs apart. “What?” My tone is the tone of an aristocrat.

He grins. I do not like grins. Smiles should be subtle, seeking a response. “You don't know of it, do you? Never thought of it, have you? One here”-he dips a forefinger beneath my slit-“and one here. Together.” His free hand fingers my bottom.

Murmurings of streams and flickerings of lightning. No. I would be then as grass buried in the mud by a careless heel, a heel that hunts the fox and courses hares.

“How indecent!”

I move back from him sharply. I resent. Let the wind carry him and be gone with him. His manner of vocabulary belies his accent. People should be of one piece and entire.

“All right, then. Let met put you to the strap. As was. As you liked it, ever did.”

“You may not, no.”

I gather up my gown, am cold of eyes. The pattern is gone, dissembled, broken. Where there are lattices they should let in but fine clear bars of light. Where there are curtains the dust should dance. There is no ceremony here, but a coarseness. He is between being one man and another, and uncomfortable with both. He is neither of the past, present, nor future. Such quiet as there should be may be broken only by the creaking of old floorboards, the turning of a key in an oiled lock, the muted protests of the bed, the slapsmack of the leather to my yielding, the rustling of my gown removed. Such silences are autonomous. They contain all within themselves and have their own authority as do the silent roots of trees.

“You may leave.”

I have found myself, fingered the threads of my beginnings. Into my gown head-swooping of a sudden I am covered. His eyes yield disappointments for which I have no pity. Pity is for the poor, the desolate, the unknown, the boys in rags who sleep in barrels or under a tarpaulin freezing.

“Have champagne sent up to me.” I sweep into the drawing room.

“Yes, Miss.” His voice has returned to the London undergrowth again, made coarse. I seat myself upon a chaise longue and upon his opening of the door see my uncle and the woman standing there. The man bows to them, goes out. They enter.

“I have ordered champagne.” My look is neither bleak nor warm. The woman wears an uncertain smile of the shape of a discarded glove.

“Well, then.” My uncle looks all about as if assuring himself of his location. They seat themselves in chairs facing me-I the accuser or the accused. “Did you write? Write to your papa?”

“Of course.” I shade the words with grey. It is an appropriate colour for words, though not for women in their wear unless they be nondescript. Charcoal shades are pleasing. Mingled with black. My stockings have the sheen of rooks' wings. “Let us be silent now while I think what is to be done.”

“Of course.” His fingers twine as a man's never should unless he is a preacher or a mendicant. There is a weakness therein. Hands should be free and strong in their taking.

Lower the silence like a white sheet and listen. My eyes so instruct them. They obey. I wait for the knock, the champagne, the bubbling. It is my only concern at the moment. An interruption sought, discovered-an interlude such as when someone coughs in church or a girl is tumbled at a picnic while the others watch and the earth moves to the sudden bumping of her bottom. Thrust, withdraw, and thrust again. There are females who should wear drawers for ever and some who should never, though all should wash twice a day their linen or whatever lies beneath. So my mother taught and I believe.

The champagne arrives, is served. It is of indifferent quality, but it matters not. It is a pink shade, as the woman shyly observes, for she wishes to say something that will not offend. My uncle clears his throat. I apprehend speech and interrupt him while yet the words tumble down from mind to throat.

“You may have her. Take her into the bedroom. Leave the doors open. I shall watch. Then you may leave.”

“It was not expected. You cannot see the bed from here.”

“I shall come and go, uncle. You have no need to observe me. Leave the bed tidy and all about clean. Or you may have her on the floor. Here. Put the cushions down.”

The woman licks her lips. “He will be too quick. If you are watching all the time he will be too quick.”

“Yes?” I ask, look at them both, then drink.

He places down his glass and rises. “Well, get up then, get up, Maude, get up.”

“All right, yes.”

She rises as though her clothes are already discarded and her underwear dirty to my eyes.

“She might do it with you, too, afterwards, she might.”

They are all but her last words, words coherent, in her muttering. A haplessness is upon her. In the moment of their limp embracing his hands draw up her gown, pull at her drawers.

“Don't be too quick, don't be too,” she breathes.