Nor was I the only one who thought such thoughts. That evening, long after Arnold had departed, Mama asked me what he said. 'He said to marry me', I said. When there is bitterness, one spares one's words. Some women spill them out, but I do not. 'Is he equipped?' asked Jane. Covering up her mouth she spoke, and laughed. 'It is not needful so to ask', Mama replied. I looked beyond them through the window where the sun in its slow falling rendered up a last illumination to an elm. I felt its bark, its roughness, from a distance-felt the long, slow, soft-slow flow of sap, felt it within.
'When I marry Arnold, if I do, then you may see it, too', said I.
'Oh, really, do not speak so', Mama said and left the room. Her skirts swoosh-swished in walking as she walked. 'Even so, she will listen at the door', said Jane, and whispered, 'May I see Arnold's really, if you do?' 'You may, you might. I have not seen it yet. Mama told me that such jollities may be contained if one knows how to go about it, is discreet. I have seen a penis in its rising, seen. Have you?' 'In the dark corners of the house and by the wells of stairs at dusk, I have'. 'Whose, then? Oh, tell me whose?' 'Whose did you see?' 'Oh-ho, can't tell you-honestly, I daren't. You are extremely naughty sometimes, Jane'.
'I know. But when one's thighs are felt, the urge to touch in turn is quite intrinsic, is it not? I love to have my bottom held and soothed. Do you?' 'Sometimes when I am kissed I do. But never has my dress been drawn up yet, has yours?' She knew my story-telling for the blush upon my cheeks and touched them, felt them warm and kissed my nose, tip of my nose she kissed and then my brow. 'Once in the stable, Emily, and only once, my drawers broke and they fell, fell to my ankles like a fallen crown, mouth open and my face aflame.
He felt me, felt between my thighs, skirt heavy, looped across his arm. Mama said we might take domestic pleasures as we find them, did she not? The male must be the master totally, or else must be a pet to be handled just as we. She said that, said'. 'I know. The thought is absolutely awesome, is it not? Yet desperately exciting. Who was in the stable with you? Who?' 'Do you not know? Is innocence your veil'? Mama asked. 'If you have been mastered, Jane, then speak not of it. In your womanhood surrender as you must, your legs apart. When one is woken, stirred from early sleep, hips upward turned, the bedclothes all cast down and nightgown raised, hand clamped around one's mouth, how can one squeal or dare to try? He nests his cock in me and holds it in, his balls tight up to me until I'm still. And then he pumps me as I wriggle, breathing hot upon his palm. The first time-oh!-my eyes were wild as starlings at the first shots of the guns in the far fields beyond, beyond'. 'You let him do it to you now?' Our tongue tips touched. Hands fluttered, sought uncertainly, then fell.
'He smacks my legs to keep them open sometimes- does'. 'Oh, is it…? Tell me who! Oh, tell me do. You can do it with Arnold if I marry him. I shall, I think. I came this afternoon, I almost did!'
'Often enough you will. O treasured bliss it is! Play with yourself tonight and think of it. At dinner parties here-I was abed the last time, but I know. 'Know what?' Mama had entered, cast her gaze on us, and in particular on me. 'How nice your dinner parties are, Mama', I interjected quickly, and Jane squeezed my hand, said it was true, and then herself went out. 'Do not tell her too much', Mama said. She caused me then to blush and fiddle with my gown.
'Those who are too loose with their tongues lose self-possession, Emily. Bear that in mind always. What date have you then fixed?'
'I have not, Mama'. 'Do it soon, my love. Many are the preparations that we have to make. September is a good month, is it not?' 'Yes, Mama'. I was close to tears, although she knew it not. The long night on the bed upstairs seemed long gone then. I wanted once again a tongue between my thighs. Upon retiring, Papa met me on the stairs and escorted me along the corridor. 'It is September, then', he said-had clearly listened, or Mama had told him so. 'September, yes'. The sad song of the year. Dying of leaves and winds that wait on the horizon's rim. A dolefulness was on me and I wished again to cry. My room received me as rooms do receive-the furniture that waits to speak and yet cannot, most stolid of all servants that one knows. Wanting to throw myself upon the carpet, plead with it to bear my footsteps still, and ever on. He closed my door and leaned against it. Eveline would lean to hers and hear me if I did not whisper in the night. 'When you kiss, Emily, keep your lips apart'.
Mama said legs, had said to Jane so, but I said it only in my head and kept a deep, soft blankness in my eyes.
'Yes, Papa'. 'If I show you-were to show'. The room was frozen, and the furniture was blind. 'I… I will keep my lips apart, Papa. A little, just a little, yes'. 'Yes… ah… Goodnight, then, Emily, goodnight.' 'Goodnight, Papa.' My drawers off, playing with myself, when he had gone, had gone. I heard-I thought I heard-a cry, faint cry, from Jane's room and a squeaking, bumping of her bed. And then I slept, I slept, I slept.
CHAPTER 4
I was to be given away much as is a piece of furniture that has known its better days in other houses, other rooms- to be transported to another territory, put to crochet work, tea parties and receptions, put upon display. 'It is true, my pet, but do not cut your arguments with a blunt knife', Mama said when I uttered up my thoughts to her. 'She who swims with the current, Emily, can often find a better shore, a secret cove or two, a mite of sunlight others have not glimpsed. Be thus and thus as is a sapling under snow. The snow melts and it springs upright again, no worse for the weight and cold opinions of the burden that it bore. When you are being naughty, though, indulge yourself with all discretion and with quietness such as will not disturb those whom you do not wish to know of it'. 'You must have a stable, then', said Jane, and laughed.