The door now does not close behind me. Perhaps the lock has been oiled for caution, as was mine. Julian and his mother stand as actors in the wings who have come to the wrong theatre, having no part within the play and neither audience nor participants are. Participants. Yes. Say it but slowly and it tiptoes like a ballet pupil trying her first steps. Yes.
A trail of hansoms sags along the street, the broad air bluff above the sea. I raise my hand. A cabman's whip is snapped. Ah, that I but knew it closer. I jerk my hips a little out of habit, feeling its seeking tip beneath my skirt.
“Where to go, Miss?”
“There is a station here? Is there a station close?”
“Not close-not far. Up yonder, through the town. A bob will see you there. Are you lost?”
“People should know whether they are lost or not, should they not?”
He misunderstands me, shakes his head, his hair an unutterability of filth beneath his hat. Tired with its journeys the coach creaks as I enter. Am I always thought to be lost-a piece of paper drifting in a colour different from the rest? Few people have a colour in one's thoughts. Most are thought of as beige or palely white perhaps. People should become seagulls, soaring in the wind above the headlands lost.
Do not look at me so. The station will soon enough be reached. The cabman has the voice of man who speaks in statements, settlement, facts, declarations, knowledges. To such I would ever speak for they enter not too deeply into one's eyes.
“We are here, Miss!”
We have passed through people in their loiterings, the streets, the voluminous places. I shall be late in my arriving, yet not too late for dinner.
I enter the station, its broad blankness. A waiting of locomotives, heavy in their ironness. There are few movements about. A barrow stands beyond, my trunks upon it. A girl sits close, dressed in a grey dress as a pigeon might be dressed. She broods. Her arms are languid. A porter approaches, hesitates, and approaches again.
“People should know whether or not they are lost.” My words fall upon the ground between us. They roll, wobble, and are at rest.
“That's the truth, Miss, as ever was. We gets a lot such in their comings and goings, hither and thither. Is that your luggage, Miss?”
I move past him. His furtive eyes appraise. He rises no doubt from bed with a fat woman, one whose underclothes are unwashed, her feet tinged with grey. The girl apprehends my look. Her eyes raise themselves to mine.
“I could not remember whether it was yours or mine.” Her voice has a middling tone. It speaks neither of wealth nor of want. Her feet are pleasingly small. Her small toes would be pleasing to suck upon. I would draw her stockings down, feeling the svelteness of her thighs.
“Claims belong to them what claims. The unclaimed stays here often.” The porter bustles up.
“Do you not open it if it is unclaimed-enquire, examine?” I gaze at the girl but speak to him.
“The privacies cannot be disturbed, Miss.”
“We should go,” the girl says, “mother will be anxious. Edward will be angry.”
“Edward, yes. He is often angry?”
“You know he is. With you especially. You are given to taunting him too much. Only his shyness veils the greater parts of his anger. Mother has often said that.”
I count her of my years but know not always my becomings. With father all was stable, taut, inert. The days were ribboned and unseparated. Only the indiscretion of the volume of Brantome fell like a loose key that could not find a door.
“There will be charges, Miss. It weren't paid for, you see, but waited upon your coming. I has the regulations here. So much a mile it is and then a bit beyond.”
“Show me.” I extend my hand, black gloved and elegant. The list he produces is crumpled but neatly printed.
“The Directors insists on it, Miss. Their names is at the bottom. It is all proper and signified.”
I scan their names. Broadhurst, Benton, and Buckle. The B's hum. I see their busyness.
“Even so, I do not know them. One is perhaps related distantly to my father by way of business, but we have not been introduced. There will be comings and there will be goings. This is ever so. What time does the train for London depart?”
“It has steam up now, Miss. Ten minutes or thereabouts. Keep the windows closed when you go through the tunnels.”
He gives me a leery look. The girl utters an impatient sound. “We shall be late. Pray get the luggage aboard.”
We stand as two, conscious of the distance between us, unyielding to the urge to touch. The geometry will require rearranging. Regarding us dourly, the porter heaves and trundles the barrow forward. No doubt he waits to be paid. He holds the printed list as evidence. One should of occasion cross the palms of servants with silver in case they are found to be of future use. I might after all return to Brighton. It has a pleasing air of nouveau decadence. Let the wind disguise me as I walk, in my long summers of contentment.
CHAPTER FOUR
The day is calmer now with my departure. The evening waits to uncoil upon the sky. Pleasure shall be upon me. I shall send a message by telegraph to father. Murmurings of migrations. I brush my plumage and remove my bonnet. We are alone in the carriage. The plush purple of the seats pleases. We face each other like accusers who have long lost their arguments.
“You always have nicer dresses than me-you do, Laura.”
I smile, rise, draw up her legs along the seat so that she lies upon it. Her face has a scared look of excitement. “Don't. You are going to tickle me. You always do.”
“Yes. Where shall I? As we did it in the garden once?”
“No, we were never in the garden doing it, Laura. What strange memories you have. Besides, they would have seen us. You are rude. How rude you are!”
I raise her dress, pursue the hem above her rounded knees. Her garters come to my view, her thighs upswelling. Her leg nearest the edge of the seat flops and slides, unguarded. She swings her toe upon the dusty floor. The crotch of her drawers is plump with her plumpness.
“What will you do?” Her voice is thick like the cream that nestled in the glass beside my bed. I would drink but an inch of it and then tilt the rim so that it ran down and formed a stickiness upon the glass. Sometimes I would dip my finger within and move it then around my bottom, my rosette, in waiting. Before the opening of the door-a fluttering of wings upon the roof.
“Be still. You know what you like. Lift your hips. Let me draw them down.”
She sighs as I have sighed in my sighings. Unveiled, her lovelips have a pouting look, a peeping-out through curls, dark brown as mine. I have so rarely lain thus, upon by back, except with Julian. I apprehend the cushions to be loose, reach far behind me to my seat and draw one upon the floor that I may kneel. Her legs are heavy, curved, but have not the sensuousness of my own. Her breathing flutters. I would prefer to whip her, but no strap lies to hand. Mumbling and murmuring she wriggles as I raise her fallen leg askew and hook it to my shoulder dangling. She covers her eyes. I would fain smack her hands away, for it is disallowed, but prefer to attend to my immediate task-so often have I wondered about this. My tongue protrudes, licks delicately about, among the curls, the shell-like folds. A muskiness, an acridness, a creaminess, a wonder. Haaaar! The inrushing of her breath as inward dips my tongue, then upwards licks! I know her spot, the little budding point, a nub upon the tender, wicked flesh. She grits her teeth, her hands flay at the air.