I asked him did a cat not have a soul?
“What is the soul that you may separate it from the mind? Does a cat then, Laura, have a mind? This mind of yours is all within and all without. It pervades all, yet moves not. In this grey mass within our craniums is but seen a brain. Such cats have, too, and yet no mind for they perceive not their own being.”
At that I became wilful, cross, and wished immediately to bathe, as I often did when moody. Being prevented, however, and pinioned as it were to the moment, I replied that this was one thing that no one could know, for cats came to my call and knew their names.
“When a twig snaps, a cat looks up, Laura, though it does not know the cause nor yet the meaning of the snapping but only hears the sound. Were a cat to be conscious of its being, have a mind, then it would be conscious of abstraction, abstract thought, and so perhaps write poetry or draw a pattern with its paw in dust.”
My aunt then asked, “Where is the cat now?” at which both laughed, though I comprehended not such foolishness and, going to Perdita, kissed her feet and begged forgiveness for my father's words.
There is a silence here-a paleness of no-sound. I break it as a twig-open a drawer. I have felt the smoothness of this pine chest here before. Within lie stockings that I have not worn, chemises not yet rumpled up in lust. I search for notes as one should always search. Such, I believe, lie all about the world, hither and thither, in their waiting. There are none from father, aunts, or grandmama. All are gone before or gone after. The wind cried for her. Perhaps her sari moves about the sky, is now a cloud.
He is not long at his bathing. I hear the slurpings of the water, guzzlings of the pipe. His own will be stiffened harder now than iron, laved by the waters of his wild desiring, knob emergent, veins at stand. I fumble, idly search, would scour the wood. Beneath chemises, chokers, ruffled garters, lies a ring. It fits my second finger warm, as if worn just before. Three emeralds surmount it in a trinity. The gold is close enlaced with fine raised lines.
The door opens and Charlotte enters. I perhaps expect her. She wears a simple dress of blue that might become a servant on a holiday.
“You have your ring then, Laura, you have found it. I knew you would. He will attend upon you in a moment.”
“This I know.”
I turn my back to her. My voice is still and yet my shoulders quiver. She laughs, embraces me, my bottom to her belly pressed.
“It will be nice again, the three of us, the four of us, the five of us, the six of-yes?”
“There was no bridge-no stone bridge as you said.” I wriggle round within her arms and feel her nipples peeking up to mine.
“That were near the mill house, and the vicarage beyond-not here, not here. If we come to that again-I do not know if we will come to that again. Too stuck up by half you were, kicking of your legs.”
“You said I was good, was dutiful.” I sulk.
“Sometimes you were, sometimes were not. Three or four abed you liked. Said then your eyes were hidden, but there were lamps always.”
“They gave some warmth! I needed then the warmth. No fire lit, he said, for the bad state of the chimney.”
I mumble, would recover, but she has me tight.
“Ha! You and your la-de-dah ways about chimneys, fires, and lamps! Cold was your bottom often when put up to him, but soon it warmed. How's the master going to do you, eh? How going to-same as before?”
“Why? Shall you watch? Pray, do not watch.”
I am become as Jane on Christmas night. And yet I watched, and yet I watched, until I to her eyes became a blur, bumping of bellies, wrigglings of her bottom. A jerk, a sigh, she quivered and went under him, upgliding of it twixt her lovelips tight.
“You and your larkiness, Laura! I loves to see you give a little jerk. You always gives a little jerk when it goes in.”
“I don't!”
I laugh, am proud to give my jerk, drawing in the plumlike knob until the sleek tube's gripped within my rim, and all is pleasure then and pleasure known.
The air shimmers of a sudden. Voices die. The sun is dimmed, the morning is as dusk. The floorboards growl and roll, are still again.
Be still, be still, there is nothing but the waiting now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When there is stillness there is plentitude. When there is movement passions reign.
So once my aunt conveyed to me.
“There are two delights of the senses, Laura. The one is spiritual, the other is voluptuous. The former is of this world, yet not. The latter is earthy, earthly, fundamental to our beings in this worldly form. Of the voluptuous you may choose between eating, drinking, and libertine play. Be not sparing in the last, for here rivers, oceans, streams, and sparklings of delight. Have no reservations or the rhythm will be broken and the time undone.”
Having yielded myself often by then, I asked how I might so yield myself to all unearthly things.
“In silence where all plentitude obtains. Have no movement and be mindful of your breathing. Our earthly world is made of thoughts, perceptions through the lenses of the eyes that ever ill-obtain reality. Be not surprised at this for it is true. Once you have stilled your mind completely all phenomena are gone.”
“I would be blind then, would I not, dear aunt?”
“No, my love, for in the seeing of no-seeing all is seen, not with fretful, passion-muddied thoughts but as a mirror sees. A deaf man blows a trumpet in an empty desert. When there is no one to hear, where is the sound?”
“It is here,” father said, then blew an imaginary trumpet.
Such japes were played on me, though yet to guide my mind. Surrounded by all things, I pass the memories by. Groping at smoke, I seek to find the flames.
Now the room is still, the room is still, the light returns again and Agnes enters drably clothed in black. Her hair is drawn back tight into a bun. Jade earrings dangle from her lobes. Her eyes are mindful of us both. Charlotte steps back, the sunlight on her face renewed.
“Are you not at your business, girl, errant in wardrobes, chasing dust with brooms?”
“Yes, ma'am.” She scuttles out, we are alone.
“Are you not the mother here?”
A querulousness has seized me. I remark the station of her dress, pawned once or twice perhaps, put on again. Grey her underwear and grey her face.
“Would you be ever mothered, then? All wish to be. A fine time I has of it with Hannah, Jane, ever a smacking of their bottoms, puttings up and puttings down. Are your limbs sleek, your bottom tight, your stockings full up-drawn? Has she brushed you? Brushed you up between your thighs and fluffed you up there nice? Come-show me, girl.”
I part my thighs, push down my drawers, the cotton banding tightly to my knees.
“She hasn't done you, has she? Hannah's done, and all prepared amid her snivellings. Time she was up, about, and on her horse, bare of bottom to the saddle's rim, waiting in woodland rides, the air cool at her cleft. Was it not said so?”
“I do not know.” I brood, look down.
The time is clear undone. Dust dances at my well-shod feet, the little fairies of my childhood days.
“She is prepared, but he will have you first. Bend over well and draw up your chemise. Floating in the bath your bottoms proud indeed, and him at mercy to your succourings! Show up your cleft full now, your drawers well down. He likes your feet entrapped. If he comes first in you, I won't doubt your silence on the matter. Well trained, was you-made to stir your hips, wriggle your bum well and press it in?”
“How vulgar you are! There were never speakings.”
Slapped, I am turned, bent over, and put down. Rustling of drawers that to my ankles pool. The bed drapes now are blue, yet once I knew them cream, black stockings ever worn and garters tight.