But it had been his ruse for getting out of the Henley expedition and for securing the house for himself — and her. It was also, neatly, like a virtuous pledging of his future responsibilities. When they were married he and Emma Hobday were going to live in London (this she knew and could only bleakly accept) and he was supposed to be going to make an honest man out of himself and even an honest living — regardless of his new access to ‘loot’—by studying to become a lawyer.
How times, indeed, could change.
So even today, even on such a glorious morning, he would demonstrate his commitment to this plan with a spot of serious mugging up. It was unlike him, it was out of character, but hardly to be objected to. Perhaps there being only two weeks left — so they might be chucklingly surmising in Henley — had brought out this sudden rush of conscientiousness in him.
Except that he knew and she knew — did Miss Hobday know? — that he had about as much intention of becoming a lawyer as becoming a lettuce.
‘We’re mugging up, Jay.’ If anyone should ask.
Though it still left one unanswered, and not even asked, question. She didn’t dare ask it, or want to ask it. It was for him to say.
Assuming that he (they) would not be — mugging up — all day, what other separate arrangement might there be, might he have in place, with Miss Hobday?
They lay side by side, uncovered, flicking ash, not talking, watching the smoke from their cigarettes rise up and merge under the ceiling. For a while such smoke-sharing was enough. She thought of the white puffs from trains. Their cigarettes, now and then merely lodged vertically in their lips, were like miniature companion chimneys.
There was only the bird-chatter outside and the strangely audible, breath-held silence of the empty house, and the faint ripple of air over their bodies, reminding them, though they eyed the ceiling, that they were entirely naked. Two fish on a white plate, she thought. Two pink salmon on a sideboard, waiting for guests, guests at a wedding even, who would never arrive. .
She did not want to say, to ask, anything that might puncture the possibility of their staying like this for ever.
It was called ‘relaxation’, she thought, a word that did not commonly enter a maid’s vocabulary. She had many words, by now, that did not enter a maid’s vocabulary. Even the word ‘vocabulary’. She gathered them up like one of those nest-building birds outside. And was she even a maid any more, stretched here on his bed? And was he even a ‘master’? It was the magic, the perfect politics of nakedness.
More than relaxation: peace.
With one hand, the other holding her cigarette, she just brushed, not looking, his moist cock, feeling it stir almost instantly, like some sleeping nestling. As if she might have done such a thing all her life, an idle duchess, stroking a puppy. Only moments ago, with the same hand twisted back to grasp one of the brass rods of the bedstead — this bed she’d never been in before — she’d pressed with the other hand, palm flat but fingers digging, the small of his back, pressed hard the place where it seemed his cock joined his spine. She was commanding him — what command could be stronger and more bidding? Yet he had commanded her: the front door.
Now it seemed that what they’d just done was only a doorway itself to this supreme region of utter mutual nakedness.
Peace. It was true of all days, it was the trite truth of any day, but it was truer today than on any day: there never was a day like this, nor ever would or could be again.
Her cigarette was burning down. She moved the little ashtray — it was surely her prerogative — onto the strip of sheet between them. It was her belly, she might have said, it wasn’t a table, she didn’t want him stubbing his cigarette out against it — much as she might actually have liked it. And how she would remember that ashtray coolly resting on her belly.
Then she wished she hadn’t been so fastidious or presumptuous, hadn’t done anything at all.
He took the cigarette from his mouth and simply held it, upright, against his own belly.
‘I have to meet her at half past one. At the Swan Hotel at Bollingford.’
He didn’t otherwise move, but it was like the breaking of a spell. And only anyway what she must have anticipated. Though she thought she might have passed, by magic dispensation, beyond that ‘must’. The rest of the day? One portion of it couldn’t (could it?) last for ever. One fragment of a life cannot be the all of it.
She didn’t stir, but she might have, inwardly, altered. As if she might have had her clothes invisibly on again, might even be turning back into a maid.
But nor did he stir, as if in his stillness countering — belying — what he’d just said. He didn’t have to keep his appointment, did he? Who said so? He didn’t have to do a damn thing he didn’t want to, did he? He might simply lie here and ignore it.
And ‘her’—not ‘Emma’. It was like some dismissal shared between them. And ‘I have to’.
His cigarette was almost finished.
He didn’t move, nor did she, as if in fact he hadn’t just spoken. Yet equally as if the slightest movement on her part, let alone a sound, a word, might have been to acknowledge that he’d said it and so commit him to its consequences.
It was not her place, after all, with her ghostly maid’s clothes back on again, to speak, suggest or do more than wait. Years of training had conditioned her. They are creatures of mood and whim. They might be nice to you one moment, but then — And if they snapped or barked, you must jump. Or rather take it in your stride, carry on, not seethe. Yes sir, yes madam. And always — it was half the trick — be ready for it.
Then it came to her that the whole thing might be turned the other way round. This upside-down day. She was lying here with him in his room, like his wife, and he was brazenly consulting with her as to whether he should go and see his troublesome mistress. Some couples, some of their kind, might actually do this. And wasn’t it in fact, at heart, like that? He wasn’t yet married. To either of them. She and Emma Hobday were equals.
He did not speak, as if enough silence after his remark, for all its apparent call for punctuality, might cancel everything. And he was perfectly capable of such contempt for nicety. Of having it both ways. He hadn’t been dishonest, had he? He just hadn’t acted accordingly. It was his way: he misbehaved, but he didn’t lie about it.
And he’d taken Ethel and Iris nobly to the station.
And she wasn’t going to say, like some remarkably forbearing wife, ‘Then you’d better go, hadn’t you?’ Was he really asking her to?
His lengthening silence might have given her an increasing power — or compliance. But the moment was passing when he might have said, ‘But I think we have the whole day, Jay, don’t you?’ Putting his hand where the ashtray had been. Or a little lower.
It must happen. He would go to her and have his lunch with her and even perhaps, somehow or other, later today, have his entitled way with her. If that is how it was between them. He might even bring her back here to do so. To this very room. She hadn’t asked him when his ‘shower’ were expected to return. He was in charge of that contingency. They would hardly yet have sat down to lunch in Henley.
And now, with his own lunch plans suddenly hovering in the air, but with their clothes still strewn together over the armchair, their moment already was passing. He didn’t have that much time.
Moment? It was too mean a word. Hour? Day? Gift? But it was slipping away, as the day had already slipped away from the peak of noon. He must have looked at the little clock, or at his silver pocket watch, on the dressing table when he got up to fetch the cigarettes.
And there was the unalterable truth that it might never have happened at all. And, yes, she should be grateful, eternally grateful. ‘I wanted to give them a proper goodbye.’ She might have been touring Berkshire on a bicycle.