“Jonathan,” I said quietly. “Please, please let me go.”
“No,” he said firmly. “You belong to me. You have been foolish. You must have known all the time that you should never have married David.”
“Stop!” I cried. “I love David. He is good and kind. He is everything I need.”
“You say that because you do not know what you need.”
“And you know, of course.”
“Of course.”
He slipped the bodice from my shoulders just as he had in the sewing room.
“No,” I cried. “No.”
But he had forced me back on the bed.
“You don’t want to go, Claudine,” he said. He took the pins from my hair and let it fall about my shoulders. I protested, weakly, I must admit, whispering—perhaps without conviction: “Let me go.”
I heard him laugh and I felt his hands on me. It was as though I were sinking into mists of pleasure; and I knew that I had never experienced anything like this before, and that I could not go now… not even if he stood aside and allowed me to.
I forgot where I was… in this haunted room, this room of strange voices. I forgot everything but that I wanted to be with Jonathan, and that I had never known such ecstasy and that I wanted it to go on for ever. Perhaps somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I knew I must come out of this madness and face the wicked thing I was doing; but I could not at that moment. I was swallowed up in my desire and my overwhelming emotions.
I don’t know how long I lived in that world of sensation when nothing outside it seemed of any importance. But the reckoning came… and soon.
I wrenched myself free. I tried to arrange my disordered dress, my loose hair. I stared about me. This room… this evil room! Were those voices a warning? Had I been told by some supernatural force that this room could be the scene of my shame?
I put my hands over my face and began to weep quietly.
Jonathan put an arm about me. “Don’t, Claudine,” he said. “Be happy. It was wonderful, wasn’t it? Didn’t you know it would be? You and I. It was perfect. Some people are meant for each other. We are like that.”
“What have I done?”
He took my hands and kissed them. “Made me happy,” he said. “Made yourself happy.”
“David… What of David?”
“He will not know.”
I stared at him in horror. “I must tell him. I must confess what I have done. I must do so… right away.”
“My dear, dear one, you are not being reasonable.”
“I have been so wicked.”
“No, no. You have behaved naturally. You must not feel this guilt.”
“Not feel guilty when I am guilty? Oh, how could you!”
“I did not force you, did I? You wanted to make love with me as much as I did with you.”
“If you had not come here. If you—”
“If you were not you and I were not myself, yes, things would have been so different. Listen to me, Claudine. You are married to David. He is a good man. He would be bitterly hurt if he knew that you and I were in love with each other.”
“I tell you, I love him.”
“Yes… but differently, eh? You love us both. Well, we are twins, are we not? There must be a closeness between us. We started life together right from the beginning. We were together before we were born. There must be a bond between us. You love us both and because we are twins it is almost as though you love the same man.”
“This doesn’t help at all.” I put my hands to my burning cheeks and started to pile up my hair. I was trembling, I could not bear to look into the future.
“Oh, why did you do this?” I cried. “Why did you send that message to Molly Blackett?”
“It had to be. I was seeking an opportunity. This seemed a good one.”
“I don’t think you have any scruples.”
“Oh yes I have. But I accept the inevitable. This had to be.”
“It must never happen again.”
He stood beside me and kissed me gently. “It is our secret,” he said. “No one need ever know.”
“I must tell David.”
“If you do you will ruin his happiness.”
“What a pity you did not think of that before!”
“Before, I could think of only one thing. Listen to me, Claudine. This has happened. It had to happen at some time. Perhaps it will happen again.”
“Never,” I cried vehemently. “It must never.”
“Nobody knows we are here together. It can be our secret. Look at it like this: I had to do what I did. It obsessed me. It was such a desperate need that I had no feelings for anything else, and when you were there, close to me, Claudine, it was the same with you. It is a powerful attraction between us. You can do no good by confessions. Your secret guilt hurts only you.”
“Perhaps you are right,” I said slowly. “I want to get away from this house. I know it is an evil house. It does something to people. It makes them different from what they really are.”
“Perhaps it shows them what they really are.”
I wanted to get away. I wanted to think about this. I could not bear to stay there a moment longer.
I felt for the key of the house in the pocket of my dress. I was thankful it was still there for I feared it might have dropped out. There were certain cracks in the floorboards and it could have fallen down one of those. But there it was, safe, and the very feel of it brought me back to reality.
I ran down the stairs. Jonathan was right behind me.
Into the hall, across the stone floor, our footsteps echoing through the house, I turned to look at the minstrels’ gallery and it seemed to me that there was a smug satisfaction about the house.
We came out and I locked the door.
I was dazed by my experience; and I felt as though I were still living in that world of wonderment to which he had introduced me. We walked across the fields to Eversleigh.
The house was quiet and I was glad I did not meet anyone on my way to my room. There I looked at myself in the mirror and it seemed that a stranger looked back at me.
This was not the same woman who had left that afternoon for the appointment with Molly Blackett. Of course it wasn’t! I should never be the same again. I had broken one of the commandments: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery. And I had done this so easily… yet unintentionally—so carried away by the impulse of the moment. I had feared it, of course, but I had never truly thought it would happen. I had not realized that potent sexuality, that overwhelming power which silenced all qualms, which knew no conscience while one was in its thrall. I would never have believed this could happen to me.
I knew the story of my grandmother Zipporah, who had met a man in that very house and had behaved as I had today. She had been a quiet, virtuous woman, different from me, really, because I had always known that Jonathan could arouse desires in me which I must not give way to. What was that brooding evil at Enderby which had such an effect on the women of my family?
I was trying to shift the blame. I was trying to accuse the house of being responsible for my own misconduct.
How had it happened, so quickly, so easily? He had not forced me, he had said rather triumphantly. It was true. I had abandoned myself, willingly. I wished I could stop thinking of him. But I loved him, if loving was feeling more alive with some one person more than with anyone else, wanting to be with that person, to be close, to share intimacy, to be together every hour of the day and night.
Had I not felt that with David? David was interesting. He was kind and tender. It was a quiet relationship which had contented me until this afternoon. Love-making with David was quite pleasurable—as was everything else. But never had I experienced that wild excitement, that complete abandonment which I had known this afternoon.