Laura

CHAPTER EIGHT

I had watched without watching as one watches the figures and faces of people in whom one has no interest, or as one watches water that runs along a gully by a pathway. Upon entering her his penis was as strong and rigid as the stub of a broom handle. Upon emerging it was oiled and flaccid. That was all. Unable to open her corsage he had wettened the indifferent cloth with his lips, seeking nipples that had not perhaps arisen or were too covered to be felt and known.

In his last seepings I had moved to the bedroom and closed the doors upon them. I heard not their going but lay twixt sleep and unsleeping. At two A.M. I awoke to fullness and thought I heard a faint crying as if from Charlotte. A bird fluttered its wings against the window and was gone. Perhaps she and the bird were one now. Perhaps. There is ever a becoming. We who rise from sleep are not those who softly went to sleep.

At breakfast a waiter twitters around me. I know my attractions, the deft turnings of my profiles, the light and shade upon my cheeks.

“Is Charlotte not here?” I throw the question-an unwanted penny.

“Beg pardon, Miss?” I repeat the name. He shakes his head, stills it, then shakes again. “No one of that name I've ever known here, Miss. It is French. Is she French?”

“Perhaps you do not know all who work here.”

“Was she upstairs? Upstairs was she?”

“Upstairs and gone-where the dancing…”

He is moving away before I finish. “I will get your bill Miss.”

I have ventured a world into a world again where light meets grey and enters into dark. My question has burned its wings even as my aunt said my questions would. The air of the breakfasting room enters my mouth and is hollow. Here where no kestrels hover and no doves descend. I rise and take my exit before he can bring the bill to my table. It is of no moment-the scratching of a pen to signify an act of eating, drinking, done, yet one must ever be aware of the mundane, its prickles waiting to emerge as claws. The hedgerows might have seized me often had I let them. Aware of their dark waiting, I would draw the hem of my skirt close in passing or hold a basket in my hand nearest to the branched enfoldings, ready to run, to run.

I expect my uncle to wait upon the steps outside, forlorn and solemn, but there is no one. The unwholesomeness of a waiting cab receives me as do the long, late streets of morning, a furtiveness of shops that hide their wares. A clerk in Drummond's Bank close by Trafalgar Square needs no more than my name. I intend to give him no more; it suffices. Father's early telegraphed reply has been received. He has been as bountiful in his spendings as ever. I draw three hundred pounds, all counted as slowly as though the clerk has saved them for me through long years of waiting and now in part regretted their departure. I shall walk in a park and feel the bark of trees-the rough greeting of their brown dust on my gloves. I am a mirror still-the eye of seeing.

I cross Pall Mall and to St. James's go. Father showed me all this. I remember. We sat beneath a tree and viewed the duckling pond, remarked the splashings and the sounds of water. In passing over the bridge I had dropped a posy upon the surface beneath that it might float into eternity, dying and renewed, reborn and gone.

There are people huddled here and scattered all about-a slow dying of the lost and the abandoned. The crumpled bonnets of the women with their faded bands, the dark and filthy skirts, the ragged boots.

“Here, you now, on with you-git on!”

A park keeper, a person of assumed importance, moves among them prodding with a stick. “Women and men together ain't allowed. I told you many times of it. Git along!”

They stir, swear, stir and slowly rise, as if animated bundles of clothing for the first time come alive.

“Bleedin' old sod, you are-always at us!”

“I got my regulations. Women is always separate from the men. There's plenty of grass here all abouts for you to lie separate. Separate is what you have to be, that's what it says.

Git on!”

“It is thought perhaps that they might copulate. How quite revoking, seeing their attire and dirtiness!”

I turn, regarding she who speaks. It would appear that I am addressed-perhaps undressed within her vision. Of some thirty years perhaps, she is attired for riding, yet I see no horse. Beyond her stands a manservant of equal years-one who in his rigid posture holds a paleness of waiting.

“To copulate is to die for a moment.”

My reply pleases her evidently. Our eyes hook and unhook, twitch to twitch, yet without movement.

“You came this way again. I thought you might again. Shall we go to the house? I have my carriage at the gates, though it is at walking distance, as you recall, if you prefer.”

“The carriage.”

I prefer a suddenness. Her figure has a sleekness that attracts. The lush dark of her hair seeks my fingers. I shall remove my gloves and let my hands roam in the forest-of her mystery, turning the waves to seek the skin beneath. Her eyes are the eyes of Charlotte, yet tinted other-perhaps as Jenny's. I forget. I shall not venture her name for I have forgotten it, too, or never knew it. They are not the eyes of my aunts.

We go unspeaking, seeking certainty. If I turn here, perhaps-or there, perhaps-I shall come upon the promenade again, the Royal Pavilion, a fluttering of Millies, a sadness of deserted rooms. Distance is ever a trick, an illusion. All places are enclosed within all places, all Time within Time. The rose unfolds and closes. Perhaps it contains the universe and we who stand without are held also within.

Her carriage is no longer blue, though I know not how I know, but now bright yellow, rimmed with black.

“It is my canary touch.”

Her eyes follow my eyes, her words anticipate my speak Within, the seats of velvet plush are red. The manservant mounts postillion and we move. There is scarce a swaying. The springs are new. At a fair, brisk trot we draw up at a mansion. Stables adjoin, set back for secrecy. A neighing of horses sounds our entrance-a whinnying, a clinking, then is done. She speaks again.

“I shall have bells fixed to the wheels. What a pleasant tinkling it would make. Would it not?”

I reply yes and furl my parasol as we enter.

“Your room is ever as it was. Do you remember your room, Laura?”

“Questions have wings, are burned,” I laugh-am kissed upon my lips within the hall.

“I remember, too.” Her voice has sadness. The manservant, having entered in our wake, is turned to. “Are you ever here-my servant-yes?”

“Sutcliffe, Miss. Yes.”

“Laura, he forgets so much. Why do we all forget? Come, I have a thirst upon me and sense one in you, too. All shall be well now that you have returned. There were once no birds in the garden, you know. No blackbird sang.”

She moves to the velvet drapes and gazes out beyond. The garden is untended, all unkempt, a rusting of scythes, a groaning of rollers, handles limp. Back offered to my breasts she stands while the manservant with a plop removes a cork.

“Do you yield to him?”

I ask the question so softly that he cannot hear, yet of a sudden she turns about, her visage proud as morning in its rising.

“He whips me. Do you not whip me, Sutcliffe? It is forbidden, you know. I am held if I resist. Will you not aid me, Laura?”

“As once I did before? Did I before?” Tendrils of recollections wisp like smoke, are gone.

“Do you remember, Laura, the books we read, here in this room when we were young?” Her voice takes on a merriness.

“We used to sit on the floor. Mama was angry to ever find us kissing. You may go, Sutcliffe. We have no need of you.”

“Of course, Miss. I know my unwantedness.”

“He is strong only when I am bared and held. Do you like my attire? I wear it even when I am not riding-of occasion. Of occasion, I do not. Kiss me. Do you not wish to? Wait- unbutton my gown. You ever sought to first-first feeling, fondling. Are they not large still, and so firm?”

A divan has received us. I know its scents, its squeaks, the chestnut-blossom haze of yielded sperm, her writhings, twistings, legs thrown all about. This was why, I believe, she was held-so that she might be made to lie still during the doing of it. Thick-pointed now, her nipples to my lips, smooth bulge of breasts.

“Don't struggle-don't.” I seek but cannot find her name. The envelopes of memory have slipped.

“I don't with you, I don't, you know I don't.”

Her face lies sideways, eyes of wonder, tipping of tongue twixt lips, her skirts upraised. Long ever were her legs as I recall, thighs swelling to her crotch no drawers conceal.

“Ah, the sweet fur of you, deep fur of you!” I lick, work at her coral with my licking lick. Hips writhe, her legs upraised, drawn back, her belly silky to my hissing breath.

“A little further in-oh, dearest, yes. Snake in your tongue and twirl it all about. Reach up your hands that my hands yours enclasp.”

How awkward is the pose, yet I obey, my blindness to the moisture of her cleft, my tongue a busyness about her spot. I, snuffling in my seeking, kneeling, bowed, then feel her legs enfold my shoulders tight. Her fingers to my fingers deep entwine.

“I have her, Miss-I have her-hold her tight!”

Sutcliffe! He is upon me from the rear, my skirts upmounded, drawers down-ripped, his entrance silent as the movement of a tongue.

“What a bottom she has, Miss. Full round and smooth as ever was.”

“Afterwards, Sutcliffe, afterwards! Full in her, man, and take your toll. Well has her rose been opened up, I know. Dark curtains and the dust's drifting.”

I would cry perhaps, but I have never cried. My arms full stretched from shoulders forward, face buried in her muff, she has me well. As Sutcliffe does, his hands clamped to my hips, the bulbous nosing of his manhood in my cleft. She cannot see who only sees his face, the grimace of his features in his cleaving.

“Ah, she's tight still-tight-that's what she is.”

“Sutcliffe, be quiet-be quiet-you have been told. Work her slowly or you'll know the whip. Ill have her feast on it, as well she ever did. Did you not, Laura? Be truthful now, in this moment. Come, dearest, forward more-raise your head, come upon me, knees at my hips. Thrust your bottom to him! How much do you have of him as yet? Three inches, four?”

I will not speak, will not. Mouth wet, I lift my shoulders, shuffle knees, gaze blind into her face. The mirror of my seeing's broken, cracked, or crazed. I whimper, wriggle; in-deep in-his blatant tool is urged until the root full taken, corks me now, and my sheened bottom to his belly's pressed.

“HAAAAR!”-the long shudders of my breath. He moves, shunts, pistons, works.

“My little darling, there-was it not ever so?” I answer not to her, I moan, receive. His fleshy rod the pleasure of me takes, her legs about my waist entwined. I, ringed in every sense, am worked, her voice a cloud about my ears. Dark in the secrets of his pounding then, he comes-too soon, too soon, the rich juice spurting, weakening to his groans. I, too, have spilled upon her fingers' toil, lie limp in his withdrawing, closely held.

“Go, Sutcliffe, go. You do not watch, nor wait!” Her voice imperious, and he is gone, I unregarding of his form or face, his dangling root, his emptied balls. My rose seeps, my bottom glows. She strokes my hair. I am a child upon her breast.

“So it was, was it not, ever for you, Laura? You are free in your speaking here. There is no one to listen here. Should I have strapped you first? It always came before, did it not?”

“Place your words carefully that I may step across them.”

I have risen in my speaking from her arms and all is in my seeing. Her hair is mussed, awry upon her forehead, bleared with moisture. I restore my drawers, my rumple-ruffled skirts.

“Such poise!” She makes to laugh, to mock. My look stills her.

“Are you understanding? How did you know my name?”

I had not asked this of Jenny nor the others nor Charlotte.

“Was I not ever understanding? As to your name, you would not have it changed?”

Her hand makes to take my own, is repulsed. Wedging her legs behind me, I sit back. The pleasures of tightening and relaxing my riven globe are as intense as ever. Shall I stay here, in this netherness, this place of unknowing, unknown, yet hinted at by stray tendrils of thought that move within me as weeds sway in ponds?

“It was not given to you to watch. Have you no beliefs,” I ask.

Her gaze is one of awe-incomprehension. She flounders in the waters of my mind, reaches for shores I never thought to own yet whereon lie the imprints of my feet.

“When one is taught what one must believe then one accepts the teachings, Laura. Even as we were taught. So long ago perhaps, yet you cannot have forgotten? Did his prong not please you? I tease him unmercifully, you know. You will stay? You must! You have not yet gone upstairs, visited your old room where lie the bandoliers of thoughts, the paper chains of Christmas, the flowers we pressed. There was ever a doing of such things, was there not-the pressing of flowers and so on. I found two cobnuts in one of your drawers the other day that you had forgotten. How dried and bitter they were, as all my tears have been.”

“I may stay for a while. You understand that I may stay? No-wait. There is Charlotte. She came before, or in between. I do not know.”

“Charlotte?”

“She came before or in between. Is gone again. Do you not recall her? It was not here, though. The certainty of that grows fast upon me. The house was older and stood more alone. The doors to the cupboards creaked. In winter it was cold, so cold.”

“What strange fantasies possess you sometimes, Laura! You were always thus. The grass must be cut now. We shall have gardeners again as we did before. The blackbirds changed their songs to the changing seasons. I ever remember that. Father made us listen closely and taught us. He said that the warmth or cold upon their bodies made it so.”

“Father?”

“Did we not learn such wisdom from him at all the turnings of the hours? When there was too much butter on the muffins we licked our fingers and were scolded. Mother scolded us. Did he come much in you?”

“Sutcliffe? Yes.”

“You may ask him to take you, of course. At your whim, your wish, your requiring. You never asked before-before Sutcliffe was known here. I speak of our younger years, you know. You were always quiet, compliant, waiting to be taken. Yes, you may ask Sutcliffe. Not to strap you, though. The servants were never permitted such save once-you remember-when Aunt Sylvia struggled overmuch. She was put to all the males that evening as a penance. It was our first watching. You remember.”

“No. Do I?” I am drawn down again upon her. A titillation of tongues.

“How perverse you are, Laura, but it was ever your way. It was said to be an attraction in you, as was my own struggling. Sutcliffe was not wasted on you, though. And besides- pouf! — I saw nothing. Only your shoulders and your lovely face. I did not wish to regard his. The males are ugly in their lusting. It is only we…”

“Yes, only we.”

I interrupt her, rise, look all about, examine paintings, cases, knick-knacks-salutations in the main to mediocrity. It is not a fine house as was mine, is mine, is Mama's and Papa's. Things here, within the enfolding of these walls, have not been sufficiently looked at, lived with, regarded, nurtured, taken up and touched. They come not to my eyes as gestures but as distant objects who in their humbled indifference know the disinterest of distance, the uncaring of the ones who move around them in their stillness. All should be touched and known and entered-as was I–I entered, tickled, teased, and warmly spermed.

“You are thinking of it, Laura. I know your eyes. It was ever said in this very room ofttimes that if you had not done it then at least you were thinking of it.”

I scarce hear her. Something beyond, unknown, unseen, attracts. Rising and crossing the pearl-grey sea of the carpet, I draw the curtains apart. The garden has changed, the grass shorter, the plants no longer clutched at in their growing by the weeds. The scythes, unrested, gleam again. The rollers, drawn away, brood on their heaviness of purpose.

“All changes, is gone, returns.” Her hand is on my shoulder. Silently across the room she has come, the long room, silently as Sutcliffe came. Her fingers caress my neck beneath my hair.

“If the sea comes, we shall become part of the foam.” I turn, have kissed her. Mouth to mouth have kissed her.

“How appropriate! But utterly, as Mama used to say! The foam that once frothed on your bush-and mine!” Her laughter is a falling of sequins, glittering. “Yet would you wish it so? Better by far to stay upon the beach in its slow sloping, waiting for the fall of light, the light's slow merging into dusk. Have you electricity in your hotel? It would spoil it. Does it not spoil it? One cannot diminish the intensity of electric lighting as one can gas or oil. No, do not answer-it matters little. Here, when dusk fell and the sea stayed far, we knew our surrenders. Ever in the dying light. Close your eyes and you will remember. Cover your face with your hands.”

I do so. She leads me back, as one faltering over unseen tufts of grass, to the divan. I am pressed down, seated. I must not peep. It returns to me now, a little.

“So stay and then tell your thoughts. Each thought and every thought. Then whatever you are thinking, it shall be done. Do you remember the game? We called it Tell'-Tell and receive'.”

“I must not peep, must I? It returns to me a little-the dusk, this room.”

“No, you must not speak now-you know you must not speak. One was never asked to speak until one was ready- until one had walked the plank of thought, stirred the smooth knots of desire with one's toes, then plunged.”

Through my fingers I cannot see. A quiver runs through me like a rabbit lost. Yes, there was watching here- I in a white dress…pink…no, blue. I had thought and risen, and even though my legs trembled I had raised my dress. My thighs were lustred, my drawers of cotton tight.

It had been my first telling. All waited in silence to hear me to know my purpose, to make it plain. Elizabeth. I know her name now. She sat among them; we were all of a oneness. Their calm waiting for the confession of my desires was the magnet that exacted the penalties of my sensuous thoughts. Bridges had fallen twixt one phrase and another as I spoke. I was made to return to the gaps and repair them.

Speak the words, Laura. You must. Confess. Speak your exactitudes. Diminish not desire. Lower your drawers, girl.

I uncover my face at last, here now. Sutcliffe enters, suave and dark, removes our glasses, bows, and retires. Fragmented pictures in my mind, a scattering of rose petals. It was not he then, in that faraway, but a maid. In the very midst of the enactment of my desires she had entered to light the oil lamps and had looked for a moment, for I felt her looking.

The maids were dismissed frequently for such and put upon the streets. Once in Haymarket I saw one in a faded dress, not a month departed from the house. She had clutched at the arms of gentlemen and superior clerks. I had heard her say to one, “Are you good natured, dear?” It was explained to me that this was the way such girls greeted and inveigled men to sordid purposes. It was an affected gentility of phrase so mixed with naivete' and coarseness that the elements thereof could not be dissembled. Words should be matched together as are pearls upon a string. Words defeat one in misplacement and speckle our intentions.

“Tell your thoughts, then-your desires as they were, Laura.”

“I was here, yes. In this room, yes. I had risen, spoken, displayed myself in mind and nether limbs. I walked to the table-a large one. Oh, it is not here!”

“There was one such. It does not matter. Its heaviness was buoyant to his purpose, the legs unmoving as our bottoms bounced. It is gone now-returned to the woods, perhaps, dissembled, stripped, returned unto the trees.”

“We ate supper then upon our laps like Romans or gypsies. Yes there was watching. I remember now the watching-I, skirts upspilled and drawers down, waiting. Over the table bent and waiting.”

“Without the waiting, Laura, there would be lust.”

“Yes. So we were told. Not lust, not lust, but a coming together of the parts, of explorations, declarations of love, obedience, warmth to warmth. It was silent ever. You remember that it was silent ever.”

“Even when he rendered himself to you, or you to him, or he to me. How could it be other?”

“Elizabeth, I had told my thoughts-all-everyone. When modesties veiled my speaking I was made to turn back along the path, pick up the fallen words. How strange it was to touch and speak them.”

“They were not coarse, my love. Only the impurities of thought make them coarse.”

“A maid entered.”

“You think I do not remember the occasion, Laura? Her name was-well, it does not matter. She was dismissed, of course.”

“Yes. And I upon the very brink of receiving as I was, she entered, moved among us, looked and saw. No one admonished, for it was not outwardly acknowledged that she was present. His pestle deep between my cheeks-oh, how it burned! Oh, I should not remember, no!”

“You may not spoil the game-you know you may not. The telling must be all of images and words. Ah, you have scarce begun. We were ever upon our honour to it, Laura. Laura! You may not leave, you must not! No!”

Her far-cry calling follows me, yet I am gone-gone to the door's gaping, down the broad hall fleeing. The cobwebs of the past are too thick upon me, choking at my lips.

“Laura! Laura, come back!”

“You may not follow her now, Miss. Not beyond the front door now you may not-you know you may not.” It is Sutcliffe's voice. The front door opens to my touch, my tug, my pulling.

“Let me this time, let me!” Her last wail.

I would turn and return were the sunlight not upon me, so plaintive is her cry. The front door slams. Enclosures are contained.

The mown grass stirs and, silent, grows again.