Inside Quistern House the quietude persisted. Our butler, Wittling, seemed to have vanished. Our housekeeper, Mrs. Many-john, gave no evidence of being on the premises. Nor was Mademoiselle Albertine Lassez, my mother's personal maid, to be seen on her usual schedule of bustling from pillar to post. Mrs. Lingelhoffe, the cook-we established by peering into the kitchen-had also gone. I frowned worriedly. James rescued me. First, he tickled my ear. I giggled. Then he whispered, “Have you no imagination, Clarissa?”
I was nettled. “I've an excellent sense of fancy, James.”
“Well, then,” he said patiently, “think of the whole staff given permission by My Lord Marquis to take forty winks in the mid-afternoon of an insufferably hot summer's day. Father's quite capable of unexpected behavior, you know.” “Is he, really?” I made no attempt to conceal my scorn. “You don't believe me, Clarissa?”
“Nay, sir.” “Then let's see what Mother and Father are up to at the moment.” “We daren't, James. What are you proposing?”
“I'm thinking of the upstairs library-it's next to their quarters. And two doors lead from their rooms to the library.”
“Oh,” I said-rather blankly, I fear. “Come along,” my brother said. We tiptoed by the upright empty suits of armor and then carefully made our way up the great marble stairway that never failed to impress me. We traveled to the second story by this route on the simple ground that the best concealment was to take refuge in the obvious. We reached the library safely. We encountered not a soul. My brother indicated that I challenge one door while he took another. The usual dumb sentinels of sartorial armor were arrayed in their stances to either side of the doors. James had instructed me that the entrance opened on short corridors that led to the bedrooms themselves. My pulse raced. I waved a trembling hand at James and he winked back. With the greatest circumspection I turned the knob to my adventure as I saw my brother essay his. There was indeed a corridor, somewhat dim, where I crept along-I assumed James was doing similarly. Then I heard curious noises. They sounded like snippets of song rendered by someone unduly intoxicated. There was also considerable groaning interspersed with arpeggios of giggle. The scene confronting me when I craned my neck around the corner of the corridor was absolutely first-rate. It was sheer theatre. There, in the vivid midafternoon light, the faint rumble of the surf rolling in through the open windows, stood my father, the Most Honorable Mathew Quist-Hagen, Marquis of Portferrans, attired in the finery to which such titles are heir. He was wearing-may the Deity pluck forth my tongue if I dissemble -he was wearing, aye, his coronet, a circlet of gold on which rested four leaves and as many large pearls-all enhancing his silver-blond hair. On his shoulders was a scarlet mantle with three-and-a-half doublings of ermine. My mother, the Most Honorable the Lady Louisa Quist-Hagen, Marchioness of Portferrans, was arrayed in wine-red velvet that curved generously over her deep bosom.
They were both sweating prodigiously. My father, the Marquis, sang drunkenly. My mother, the Marchioness, joined him with great fervor. Nor were they without further, supplementary action. Because the marvelous thing was that my father wore absolutely nothing below his waist. While my mother displayed a naked sweep below her hips, since she had contrived to hike her gown up beyond those harplike portions of her anatomy. Her ebon tresses hung practically to her buttocks. Good show? Oh, indeed. And there was more to come. For what I have neglected to mention was that my distinguished father had his hand in a small silver bucket containing butter, and that my incredibly handsome mother could be seen withdrawing her own hand from another small silver bucket laden with butter. And what, pray, were these principals engaged in committing?
I stood glassy-eyed, practically aroused to incandescence-no mean feat for one of my young years-as I observed my conceivers generously apply melting portions of butter to their respective pudenda and immediately surrounding areas. The more intoxicated they became-my father was pouring burgundy from an earthenware demijohn into crystal goblets from which he and my mother imbibed-the more liberally did they anoint each other with the butter, the Marquis shuddering and his muscles rippling as the Marchioness gently pulled at his lancet in order to extend the area of application. When it was the Marquis's turn again, he shaped the soft butter into a ball and then rolled it around the glossy black ringlets of my mother's Mount of Venus, pausing every now and again to impel his thumb into her swollen orifice. She would close her eyes, then, and her jaw would become slack, as she powerfully heaved her hips to the rhythm of her master's thumb. I drew long breaths. My head was pounding. I thought I might obtain surcease with my own digital crosier-but to no avail. No sooner than my watching passion would momentarily subside, than the scene observed would alter and the motions therein become more fervent-and once more my fever would rise and my hand address my moist circuits all this during an infernal summer heat, to which my parents seemed to be absolutely oblivious. They had yielded at last to the limitations of the butter and had betaken themselves to the monstrously capacious four-poster where they presently disported in utter abandon, my father's gold and empearled coronet long since having merrily bounded to a comer of the room against the wall, and his scarlet mantle carelessly dangling from one of the bedposts, the ermine in sad disarray. My mother's wine-red gown had been trampled to the floor, and her bounteous breasts, surmounted by blushing nipples, were to the summer air voluptuously unconfined. The lower territories of the Marquis and Marchioness were blissfully lubricious with butter and sweat, and at the moment my titled progenitors were lying on their sides, engaged in tantalizing each other. My father, smiling tipsily, tipped at the Marchioness with his pawky crevice reamer; his consort, not to be outdone, contrived to partially receive the reamer with a curious smacking sound made as though some repast were being relished. (My ears have never since encountered this phenomenon; unless my mother was a ventriloquist, which I must seriously doubt, the “smacking” sound could only have been fashioned by some muscular contortion at which she was adept.) In any case, this had my father chuckle and remark that he must bestow upon her a mark of his admiration, upon which my sire bent to the task, his silver-blond head bobbing, lingering there long after admiration had been expressed, so much so that my mother's fingers began snatching at the sheets, her jaw became idiotically slack, and the rest of her body began to twitch. I myself became wonderfully inflamed, not to mention the sense of triumph I entertained in seeing my mother's body so helplessly quivering. I should have admonished myself, then, to retire while I retained a modicum of control, but my tender years were greedy and I told myself I simply had to stay on to watch the master really saddle his mistress and spur her on. The words and action they exchanged prior to actual coupling were so vivid that I remember them to this day. “Mathew,” said my mother, her fingers still plucking at the sheets, “I pray you-” “Can't hear you, Louisa,” my father said, his whisk broom of a tongue continuing to ply her marshes.