“It will all come again. They say it will. I shall have a basket put up for you with meats and wines, just as you liked, placed in a carriage nice, kept cool. Shall you to London then? They would ever go to London, but it ain't allowed. The girls, I mean. You know the girls I mean.”
“Yes. I shall be here or there or elsewhere in my goings.”
He is gone. Shuffling of feet along the carpet's spread. The opening of a door. The closing of a door. Agnes departs. I wait her going slow and then descend. The drawing room is darkened all below, the curtains tightly pulled and all in gloom. Hannah and Jane are robed in simple robes, naked beneath, their thighs and titties show. Each wears a rosary that hangs limp, black, between her ardent orbs.
“You will come again, Laura. Won't you come again?”
“How sweet you smell from bathing! You must ever bathe, see to your linen clean, and learn to ride, be upright in the saddle, bottoms at the rim, wine at your lips not sweet nor sharp but redolent of warmth. An invitation, if you wish.”
“Hannah said 'cock'!”
Jane, hand to mouth, looks wondering in my eyes. “Remove your robes. How sweet you look in rosaries, bootees, and stockings tight. Stand still, stand still, and in your waiting wait. Clip not your thighs together. Easy stand, or loll on cushions if you will.”
“What shall become of us, Laura, what become?”
“Be at your strappings silent, dip your back, present your bottom well. Yield to the fervent pulsing of the penis stem, yet let it be no other than you wish, nor master's, lover's, servant's, troubadour's. Be proud to choose and wilful to refuse.”
“I do not mind if Hannah does not mind.” Jane flirts her hand across her pubis, shows it, then retreats and in a corner like a statue stands. Perdita lost and found and no rain falls. “You will have them both undone. I know it yet.” Agnes appears and wrings her hands, the bustlings done, the carriage ready stands.
“Tush and nonsense-feel their cunnies now. Full soft are they and pouting, ready for the cock. Let them imbibe the manly juice that way and on the morrow have their bottoms both put up to it.”
“The horses, Miss-the horses, though!”
“They will come to that. Renewed and virginal will come to that and in their ways of wisdom-yet unfound- will know no evil. Let their bottoms work in rhythm for the nonce and rinse their mouths with wine. Have lavender and myrrh laid at their pillows for the scent of it. Guard that their nostrils and their teeth are clean, their bottoms oiled and ready for the cork. Impress obedience and hide their drawers. Be party to their follities and whims. Have nothing but the best liqueurs. Tickle their cunnies with a feather just to bring them up.”
“Shall Jervis hold them, Miss? 'Twere a fair game of it made with Miss Hannah last time.”
“I do not trust the man, if man he be. He casts no shadow in the sun. Hannah will be good. Will you not be good, Hannah?”
“Shall you not stay, Laura, and I will be good.”
She is flirtatious now and moves her hips as I intend, her nipples ready brown to suck upon, her bush fluffed up, thick, ready for the dew. I hold her arms and kiss her as she stands.
“Be mindful, Hannah, to be good, as all we must. Lick your lips a little, make them shine. Blush not when in your drawers he feels and do not strain your neck away. Extend your leg a little, so, and keep your thighs apart. Pulpy with come your quim will feel, your belly straining more to draw it in, warm flesh to flesh and all the kisses made. Twirl your tongue, be bold, and gasp your gasps. Cling tight 'til all is done and the last drops surrendered.”
“Miss, I will come with you, if you want.” Now Charlotte's voice intrudes.
“No need, my sweet. Hannah will be good. Jane, too. You have no other resting place to journey to as yet.”
My words perhaps are cruel yet I would not be encumbered, made to speak of idle things, frivolities. Solid the ground and empty blue the sky. A kestrel wheels, stoops on a thoughtless bird. So death is done and all seen in the sun. Some small Icarus now its wings has lost. Feather-falling, falling down, here-there-and gone.
If I came this way again, should come by night-the hedges hissing, scorned by stars-the house would be bright again and glow. Conversations would be elegant, the punchbowl filled, the girls more settled in their beings. One would discourse on Hamlet's tale or measure out the lines of Shelley's verse, pray for poor Chatterton, admire da Vinci's lines.
Jane would wear pink stockings-Hannah white. Some ceremonials would attend their new initiations year by year, season by season as their fashions changed, frilled petticoats and ribbons quick undone.
I should seek now elegance, not secrecy. The sofas should be grey and gilded at the edges, a sparkle of the gold against their thighs. Boucher would paint them at their frottings sweet, the ladies clapping as the men prepared to mount, lappings of tongues and solace of warm thighs. Upon their coming each man would withdraw, sprinkling their deep-furred nests with dews of love until all frothed and bubbled in the night.
If I came this way again, should come by night…
Behind me now the letterbox is raised. The voice of Charlotte sings out, clear and hurt yet snagged with spite that I do not now turn.
“Cant come again, Laura.”
“Cant come again.”
“Cant come again!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The coach is ill-prepared, unpainted, creaks. The coachman sits, brown hat, brown cloak, and waits as one might wait for sunsets, April dawns, the falling of a raindrop from a leaf.
“Where's to go, Miss? Shall we by south or north or east or west or by our own devising?”
“Are you a geomancer, then-one who makes prickles in the dust to guide his journeys by?”
“I ain't none of that, Miss. Don't know what that is. Make prickles in the dust to travel by? How's it done, then, eh, how's it done? That's what I'd like to know.”
“Castings of stones and sticks, maybe. Noddings of head. I also do not know. The word is pretty, though, do you not think? I caught it from a book my father owns and trapped it as one does a butterfly. It flutters in my mind, now here, now there. I put it to such usage as I feel.”
“Words is funny, Miss. As for me, some I uses, some I chews, spits out if I do not find them proper. My dear mother says, spit out that word, she says, and grind it into dust.”
“A proper lady then, by all accounts. She withers in a cottage while you wait? I shall not keep you long upon it then. Are you from here or there or far?”
“Not far, not there, not here. I knew I would be summoned. Had a feeling of it. Strange folk they are and proper to a T. The beds grow cold, I hear, and only used for sleeping. Sometimes the house is boarded up and sometimes not. The folk don't come this way at night. You never come this way at night?”
“I would be fearful of the potholes, frogs, toads, witches' trails. How hard the seat! I shall not journey far. Is there a station near?”
“Not far, no.
I am speaking for him. His are not the words but from my thoughts impelled. He will take bread and milk, a pot of ale, mull over all the day, find wonder in it. Sniffing at my skirts in memory, hell play his mischiefs in a small back room, linoleum cracked and dirt to corners shuffled. Too urgent will he come, my eyes in his, ever there pasted on his tawdry walls, cock in, cock out, the small tight quims appealing. His mother will listen at the doors, cackle her dryness, and retire to bed a huddled mess amid the mass of night, her nails unclean, her withered eyelids shut.
I shall not grow old, I shall not grow old, I shall not grow old.
A hour and we are come upon the bustle of the town. My gown, enriched by wealth, there gathers eyes.
“What of your baggage, Miss? It were brought out so quick I knew not the counting of it.”