To sleep in, Albert wears a long, loose shirt of unbleached linen over a matching pair of trousers. These are rumpled now, from a restless night, and lie bunched and creased in a way that would be most uncomfortable had he been awake. Hester puts out her arm and rests it gently on his stomach, and then recoils in surprise. There is a hardness at his crotch, beneath the pale linen, that she has never felt before. Albert murmurs again, more softly now. Hester stares at her husband’s body, but try as she might she can’t think what form of thing it might be that would feel that way – odd and almost unnatural, as if wholly disconnected from the rest of his relaxed, supine form. With her pulse quickening, Hester, ever so gently, fumbles at the buttons that fasten Albert’s trousers. The fabric is rough and she has to use both hands, though she does so with her lip gripped in her teeth in consternation, in case he should feel it and wake. He does not. And there it is. A curve of hardened flesh, arching up to rest against the soft down of his stomach, the skin satin smooth over an array of ridges and vessels; a deep, flushed, pinkish-brown colour, and a musky smell unlike any she has ever noticed him having before.
For a second, Hester is stunned, then revolted and afraid. She thinks that perhaps this deformity is the reason her husband has never wanted to hold her, or lie truly close to her at night. She lies rigid, propped on one elbow, transfixed and bombarded with questions and anxieties. But the more she thinks about it, the more some of the things Amelia has written to her drop into place, and she begins to understand that this… state is what is needed for their bodies to enmesh with one another. And now she is witnessing it, finally, for the first time. Cautiously, with one eye on Albert’s sleeping face, she touches it, letting her fingertips brush lightly against his skin. It feels feverishly hot, satin smooth, and strange. Albert whimpers quietly and arches his spine a little, twisting as if in nightmare. Hester considers waking him, but in the end is too fascinated by this new exploration of his anatomy. She curls her hand around it and squeezes ever so slightly, testing its rigidity, trying to discern what makes it so. Albert sighs, squirming slightly beneath her caress. The thing in her hand seems to grow yet harder, and she fancies for an instant that she can feel the beat of his heart within it. Running her hand along to its tip, which feels like the finest chamois, Hester smiles, surprised and pleased to finally learn something new about her husband. If he had been shy about this organ of his, then surely now she has seen it, he will not be? A warm tingling begins between her thighs, and spreads to the pit of her stomach, and on impulse she leans over and kisses his mouth.
Albert wakes with a sharp inhalation of breath and a look of extreme bewilderment in his eyes, as if he expected to see somebody entirely different. The look persists even as he moves his head away from her slightly, and draws breath to speak. With her hand still circling his shaft, Hester feels, very precisely, the moment that its hardness begins to soften, and its size to diminish. Albert leaps away from her, scrambling from the bed and fumbling with the buttons of his trousers.
‘Hester! What are you doing?’ he cries, his voice breathless and tight, either with fear or with outrage.
‘Nothing, my love – it’s perfectly all right, really… I was so delighted to wake up beside you for once… I merely wanted to touch you, and I saw…’ She gestures at his lower body, her smile falling from her lips as she sees the thunderous expression spreading over his face.
‘Silence!’ he snaps, finishing with his fly and pulling on his dressing gown with desperate haste. He knots the cord around his middle with such ferocity that he will struggle to undo it again. ‘You must never touch me like that when I am sleeping! Or ever!’
‘But, Bertie, I only-’
‘No. We will not discuss this! We will forget it-’
‘I don’t want to forget it! Albert, this is nothing to be ashamed or… embarrassed about, my darling. It’s perfectly natural,’ she says, still hoping against a nagging uncertainty that this is so. ‘And I am your wife… we are married. There should be no secrets between us, nothing that the one does not understand about the other…’ She trails into silence. Albert goes to the window and throws the curtains wide, as if inviting the world in, unwilling to be alone with his own wife. His arms hang limply at his sides, fingers flexing occasionally.
‘It was most improper and… indecent of you, to touch me like that!’ he says, his voice charged with some emotion she cannot define.
‘Bertie, please-’
‘We will not speak of it,’ he says.
‘But I want to speak of it! We must start to talk about these things, Albert, or remain forever in the dark!’ she cries in desperation.
‘What do you mean, in the dark? It’s you who will bring darkness upon this house, with such indecency!’
‘Indecency? Is it indecent for a wife to touch her husband – the man to whom God has joined her? Is it indecent to want to live as man and wife, rather than as… brother and sister? You are a man of the cloth, Albert. I know it, and I respect it. But you are not a monk! What is the point of marriage if not to allow us to… lie together, and touch one another, and to make a family, Albert?’ Her voice shakes with emotion.
Albert stands and stares at her for some time, his jaw working, knotting at the corners. ‘You don’t understand… how could you?’ he says at last, his voice hard and low.
‘No, I don’t. I don’t understand this, and increasingly I don’t understand you, Bertie, or what I have done to make you treat me in this way… Please, explain it to me!’
‘I… I have always been kind to you, haven’t I? And a good husband?’
‘Yes, but-’
‘Then please, Hetty, don’t pester me like this all the time! Is this… physicality all you want from me? Are you so desperate for it that you’re willing to steal it from me, against my knowledge while I sleep? Like the worst kind of wanton strumpet?’
‘How can you accuse me like that? How can you use the word wanton when I, your wife of over a year, am still a maid?’ she gasps at him, struggling to speak as sobs take a stranglehold on her.
Albert’s face is pale, and shining with sweat. He looks unwell. ‘I… I’m sorry,’ he says at last, quietly. His eyes are wide and unfocused. He swallows, and looks down at Hester as she weeps as though she is a wild and unknowable animal. At length, he turns and walks slowly away towards his dressing room, and Hester flings out her hand, clutches the fabric of his robe.
‘Albert, wait! Please, don’t go… stay and talk to me!’ she begs.
‘Now, now, Hetty,’ Albert murmurs vaguely. ‘I must get ready.’ He goes into his dressing room and shuts the door, his expression both fraught and distant.