When she puts up my nightgown and reaches between my legs, we both grow still.
When her hand moves again, her fingers no longer flutter: they have grown wet, and 180
slide, and in sliding seem, like her lips as they rub upon mine, to quicken and draw me, to gather me, out of the darkness, out of my natural shape. I thought I longed for her, before. Now I begin to feel a longing so great, so sharp, I fear it will never be assuaged. I think it will mount, and mount, and make me mad, or kill me. Yet her hand moves slowly, still. She whispers. 'How soft you are! How warm! I want— ' The hand moves even slower. She begins to press. I catch my breath. That makes her hesitate, and then press harder. At last she presses so hard I feel the giving of my flesh, I feel her inside me. I think I cry out. She does not hesitate now, however, but comes nearer to me and puts her hips about my thigh; then presses again.
So slight she is!— but her hip is sharp, her hand is blunt, she leans, she pushes, she moves her hips and hand as if to a rhythm, a time, a quickening beat. She reaches. She reaches so far, she catches the life, the shuddering heart of me: soon I seem to be nowhere but at the points at which my flesh is gripped by hers. And then, 'Oh, there!'
she says. 'Just there! Oh, there!'— I am breaking, shattering, bursting out of her hand.
She begins to weep. Her tears come upon my face. She puts her mouth to them. You pearl, she says, as she does it. Her voice is broken. You pearl.
I don't know how long we lie, then. She sinks beside me, with her face against my hair.
She slowly draws back her fingers. My thigh is wet from where she has leaned and moved upon me. The feathers of the mattress have yielded beneath us, the bed is close and high and hot. She puts back the blanket. The night is still deep, the room still black. Our breaths still come fast, our hearts beat loud— faster, and louder, they seem to me, in the thickening silence; and the bed, the room— the house!— seem filled with echoes of our voices, our whispers and cries.
I cannot see her. But after a moment she finds my hand and presses it, hard, then takes it to her mouth, kisses my fingers, lies with my palm beneath her cheek. I feel the weight and shape of the bones of her face. I feel her blink. She does not speak. She closes her eyes. Her face grows heavy. She shivers, once. The heat is rising from her, like a scent. I reach and draw the blanket up again, and lay it gently about her.
Everything, I say to myself, is changed. I think I was dead, before. Now she has touched the life of me, the quick of me; she has put back my flesh and opened me up.
Everything is changed. I still feel her, inside me. I still feel her, moving upon my thigh.
I imagine her waking, meeting my gaze. I think, 'I will tell her, then. I will say, "I meant to cheat you. I cannot cheat you now. This was Richard's plot. We can make it ours.'"— We can make it ours, I think; or else, we can give it up entirely. I need only escape from Briar: she can
help me do that— she's a thief, and clever. We can make our own secret way to London, find money for ourselves . . .
So I calculate and plan, while she lies slumbering with her face upon my hand. My heart beats hard again. I am filled, as with colour or light, with a sense of the life we will have, together. Then I also sleep. And in sleeping I suppose I must move away from her— or she must move, from me— and then she must wake, with the day, and rise: for when I open my eyes she has gone, the bed is cool. I hear her in her own room, splashing water. I rise up from my pillow, and my nightgown gapes at my breast: she has undone the ribbons, in the dark. I move my legs. I am wet, still wet, 181
from the sliding and the pressing of her hand.
You pearl, she said.
Then she comes, and meets my gaze. My heart leaps within me.
She looks away.
I think her only awkward, at first. I think her shy and self- conscious. She goes silently about the room, taking out my petticoats and gown. I stand, so she may wash and dress me. Now she will speak, I think. But, she does not. And when she sees the blush upon my breast, the marks left by her mouth, the dampness between my legs, it seems to me that she shudders. Only then do I begin to grow afraid. She calls me to the glass.
I watch her face. It seems queer in reflection, crooked and wrong. She puts the pins to my hair, but keeps her eyes all the time on her own uncertain hands. I think, She is ashamed.
So then, I speak.
'What a thick sleep I had,' I say, very softly. 'Didn't I?'
Her eyelids flutter. 'You did,' she answers. 'No dreams.'
'No dreams, save one,' I say. 'But that was a— a sweet one. I think you were in it, Sue . . .'
She colours; and I watch her rising blush and feel, again, the pressure of her mouth against mine, the drawing of our fierce, imperfect kisses, the pushing of her hand. I meant to cheat her. I cannot cheat her, now. 'I am not what you think,' I will say. 'You think me good. I am not good. But I might, with you, begin to try to be. This was his plot. We can make it ours— '
'In your dream?' she says at last, moving from me. 'I don't think so, miss. Not me. I should say, Mr Rivers. Look! There he is. His cigarette almost smoked. You will miss him— ' She falters once; but then goes on, 'You will miss him, if you wait.'
I sit dazed for a moment, as if struck by her hand; then I rise, go lifelessly to the window, watch Richard walk, smoke his cigarette, put back the tumbling hair from his brow. But I keep at the glass, long after he has left the lawn and gone in to my uncle. I would see my face, if the day were dark enough; I see it anyway, though: my hollowing cheek, my lips, too plump, too pink— plumper and pinker than ever now, from the pressing of Sue's mouth. I remember my uncle— 'I have touched your lip with poison, Maud'— and Barbara, starting away. I remember Mrs Stiles, grinding lavender soap against my tongue, then wiping and wiping her hands upon her apron.
Everything has changed. Nothing has changed, at all. She has put back my flesh; but flesh will close, will seal, will scar and harden. I hear her go to my drawing- room; I watch her sit, cover up her face. I wait, but she does not look— I think she will never look honestly at me, again. I meant to save her. Now I see very clearly what will happen, if I do— if I draw back from Richard's plot. He will go from Briar, with her at his side. Why should she stay? She will go, and I shall be left— to my uncle, to the books, to Mrs Stiles, to some new meek and bruisable girl ... I think of my life— of the hours, the minutes, the days that have made it up; of the hours, the minutes and days that stretch before me, still to be lived. I think of how they will be— without Richard, without money, without London, without liberty. Without Sue.
And so you see it is love— not scorn, not malice; only love— that makes me harm her, 182
in the end.
Chapter Eleven
We leave, just as we have planned, on the last day of April. /y 1/ Richard's stay is complete. My uncle's prints are mounted and bound: he takes me to view them, as a sort of treat.
'Fine work,' he says. 'You think, Maud? Hmm?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Do you look?'
'Yes, Uncle.'
'Yes. Fine work. I believe I shall send for Hawtrey and Huss. I shall have them come— next week? What do you say? Shall we make an occasion of it?'
I do not answer. I am thinking of the dining- room, the drawing- room— and me, in some other shadowy place, far off. He turns to Richard.
'Rivers,' he says, 'should you like to come back, as a guest, with Hawtrey?'
Richard bows, looks sorry. 'I fear, sir, I shall be occupied elsewhere.'
'Unfortunate. You hear that, Maud? Most unfortunate . . .'
He unlocks his door. Mr Way and Charles are going about the gallery with Richard's bags. Charles is rubbing his eyes with his sleeve.— 'Get on with you!' says Mr Way savagely, kicking out with his foot. Charles lifts his head, sees us emerging from my uncle's room— sees my uncle, I suppose— and shakes in a sort of convulsion, and runs.
My uncle also shakes, then.
'Do you see, Rivers, the torments to which I am exposed? Mr Way, I hope you will catch that boy and whip him!'
'I will, sir,' says Mr Way.
Richard looks at me, and smiles. I do not smile back. And when, at the steps, he takes my hand, my fingers sit quite nervelessly against his own. 'Good-bye,' he says. I say nothing. He turns to my uncle: 'Mr Lilly. Farewell to you, sir!'
'A handsome man,' my uncle says, as the trap is drawn from sight. 'Hmm, Maud?
What, are you silent? Shan't you like it, to have to return to our solitary ways?'
We go back into the house. Mr Way pulls closed the swollen door, and the hall grows dark. I climb the stairs at my uncle's side, as I once, as a girl, climbed them with Mrs Stiles. How many times, I think, have I mounted them, since then? How many times has my heel struck this spot, that spot? How many slippers, how many strait gowns, how many gloves, have I outgrown or outworn? How many voluptuous words have I silently read?— how many mouthed, for gentlemen?