“We have nothing to say!”
“What is to say? Upon arrival we shall take lemonade and small cakes on the lawn. Our linen will be changed. There will be comfortings. Let us bathe together in the same water, one upon another.”
“I shall be first! Let me be first.”
“Yes, Jane, you shall be first. Wear a white dress with pink ribbons. I would have you look angelic. Hannah, we shall be as sisters again, wear blue or brown. He ever liked our legs in brown.”
“I wish not to know of it, Laura. Are we not too young?”
“We shall see. It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive. Thus my father taught me from the Chinese wisdoms.”
“I do not know the meaning of that.”
Hannah so replies, looks pettish, but understands fully. I know her little tricks, her deviations. She has not forgotten Jervis, who, forbidden though to look, held her legs apart and stared ahead, hands strong at ankles that were mutinous.
Within a further hour we are come upon our destiny. And now I remember. I remember now the leaning of a Cyprus tree, the yawning of a hedge, carved stags upon the columns to the gates black in their ironness.
“We have no need to go through the house.”
Hannah in descent stares all around. Two gardeners lazy move and pluck at weeds.
“If you do not wish, Hannah, if you do not wish. Let us go by the side gate, for they will have heard our coming. In this quiet.”
Once in the hall was Hannah seized, as I recall. There were times when this was not thought untoward, dependent on the hour, the mood, the sun, swillings of wine, and carelessness of thoughts. We had returned, all of us returning, coming from some country ride, neither solemn nor mirthful, the rooms waiting as rooms wait. It was known perhaps that Hannah would be taken that morning, for she had been wilful at breakfast and had sat sloppily in her saddle, her bottom rumptious, and rebellions in her eyes. In the hall, in the very passings and passagings of our arrival, had she been seized, mouth clamped, into a cupboard hustled. The others, unregarding, swept within the drawing room, dispensing hats and cloaks, calling for sherry. From the hall had come bustlings and thumpings so that Hannah's mama with a frown had closed the door.
We ate wine fingers, I recall-slim biscuits flat or round and flavoured in their making with milk and Nuits St. Georges. Charlotte and I–I do not recall that she was ever a servant but was sometimes other-passed them in and out of our lips and smiled, for cupboardings were frequent and at mid-morning when the blood was up were particularly lusty, a man's genitals being excited by friction on the saddle. The cupboard was adjacent to the drawing room though being separated not only by the wall but by a partition within the cupboard itself so that there was a hollow place between. This acted however as a form of echo-chamber, for there was a split in the partition itself and so ghost noises were emitted to us.
Sucking upon our wine biscuits, which were crisp and made so to be eaten, and frequently licking at the tips, we heard on that occasion Hannah's gasps and I knew her to be upon a padded bench made of a purpose so narrow that her legs would hang down on either side of it while he-balancing himself upon its middle-would be well shafted up into her cunny and so hold her perfectly corked.
I, being to the rescue finally, found her still reclining with the pale of her belly showing, her thatch well moistened, one garter loosed and a blear of tears in her eyes, which I disregarded. The cupboard, being some eight feet long by four wide, was not a tidy place nor was meant to be. Old walking sticks and a broken umbrella stood in one corner. When a young woman was taken in there for the first time, her drawers were frequently left lying in a corner for a maid to retrieve, though one or other of us took upon ourselves this chore lest it otherwise look unseemly.
The picture such comes clear to me. Hannah lied when she said she was not mounted thus but ever her bottom pestled. She fears still to go through the house at mornings, yet I sense that being ridden in this way had a certain attraction for her.
“Were you not wilful of a purpose, Hannah?”
I halt her in her going. Jane has run ahead. The side gate swings and squeaks.
“I shall not be again. Teach me the avoidances! We are not yet come upon it, are we? Not yet, not yet!”
“They will be waiting for us.”
The side gate squeaks again and we are come upon them. Green paint on the conservatory peels and hesitates, is guilty in its severance from the wood. Some panes of glass are milky still. A table there within where Hannah lay is covered now with flowerpots, dust of loam. She had her legs apart and wore white stockings that are not yet woven. Or they lie in wait for her, secreted under lavender and silk.
“You have not taken long, then-not too long!”
Their mama waves in greeting. Jane perches for a moment on her father's lap, then sprawls upon the grass, is indolent.
“Are you well, Laura?”
He rises, then. Our hands would touch. The space is not yet here to touch.
“She has a slight pallor about her, Ewart-should seek the shade.”
Agnes was ever a kind lady. I ever knew her so to be. I believe she is Agnes. Her eyes are boutiful, fulfilling of all things. She is at times the wood or stone of which my father spoke. Her smile is lined with velvet and her words with love.
“I am well. We would bathe. May we bathe?”
“Together? What a splendid chance of thought! You do not ask, you never need to ask. Have someone tell the maid. Will someone tell the maid?”
A vagueness takes her and she looks about. The shrubs stare, stir their leaves, whisper of otherness.
“I will tell her, Mama.”
Jane rushing, ever rushing now, is gone. A door bangs. Agnes frowns and claps her hands as though both in despair and merriment.
“She is still a child! Would not eat her breakfast. I know not what will become of her.”
“She will eat her lunch, my dear. Fresh from her bath, she will eat her lunch.”
So her papa chuckles. His thoughts contain my breasts, my thighs. Perhaps there will be a peephole into the bathroom whereby he might see. I am roguish to such fancies, yet would not be. I shall examine the walls, make soundings at the door.
Perhaps in the night…
“What shall we do today, Mama?”
Hannah moves in her enclosures, folds the air about her. Careful, delicate, she touches not a chair, a hand, an arm.
“What do we ever do, my pet, but discourse on the usefulness of life, preparations for pleasure, readings from the classics, peckings of embroidery? Papa means to buy you horses, did you know?”
“No-I did not know.”
Her glance takes his in, wondering, then drops. She paws the ground as might her future stallion.
“We shall to the fair on Thursday, then? Shall we go to the fair to choose them?”
I intervene within a narrow gap of thoughts, intentions not made plain or crumpled up.
He smiles. “There is no hurry upon the matter. They have yet to learn to ride, may do so on my own before they take to theirs. Is that not the best solution to the matter?”
Hannah converses now with her mama, parting the shield of air about her, entering on the newness of the day. What shall we do today, Mama, what shall we do today? I turn-the moment is propitious, I believe. Accompanied by her papa, close the doors. Our isolation is perceived and known. The chatter in the garden chatters on. A breeze idles through the trees but will not look. It knows its placings, its discomfitures.
“Laura, I shall bathe in turn after you. Leave the water.”
“If you so wish. Will Agnes stay upon the lawn?”
“If I so wish.”
Our lips merge, melt-our tongues intrude.
“You ever changed your linen first, Laura.”
“Yes. You never kissed me thus before, your hands beneath my skirt. Pray do not fondle too high. I am moist from journeys there.”