BEATRICE Page 3

  I spoke of Jenny. I was eager to see her. For a year we had shared a boarding school together.

  “Later,” my aunt said. The dining room table was candlelit. My aunt preferred it to the smell of oil. Electricity had not then reached out from London and it was said that we were too far from the county town for gas pipes to be laid. Three years later magic would be wrought and they could come. My initiations—though I knew it not that evening—were to be by oil lamps in the old tradition. Frisky young ladies of Society were weaned on a bed with their drawers down, it was crudely said. Of cottage life and that in other dowdy dwellings, we knew nothing except, as we understood, that the males rutted freely.

  Although married, and now separated, I still obtained innocence in many degrees, as shall be seen. At dinner my aunt and uncle spoke to us as if the past were still upon us. My aunt tutted severely when Caroline spilled a drop of wine. The servant was called of a purpose to mop it up.

  “You will stay the night,” my aunt said after coffee had been taken. We sipped liqueurs and said nothing. Jenny had still not appeared. I wondered anxiously if she ate in her room. Had she been whipped? She had come to them in childhood—or rather, to my uncle first. An orphan, it was said. One did not know. I sought for strength to object, to rise, to leave, but their eyes were heavy upon me.

  At ten-thirty my aunt looked at the clock. “Tom, you will take her up,” she said. My palms moistened. I knew of whom she spoke, though she had not the delicacy to use my name. Caroline said nothing. Would she not save me?

  The house was as ours except that the interior pattern was reversed. Perhaps that was symbolic. The stairs were on the left, as one entered the hall, instead of on the right. Entering as I had first done I had placed the whip somewhat furtively behind the large mahogany stand in the hall which carried occasional cloaks and walking sticks.

  “Go to your room and I will follow,” my uncle said. I had been shown it briefly already. It lay as my own lay on the first floor. Left to right it was a mirror image. The curtains were brown, the drapes edged with ivory tassels. The air tremored. The furniture looked at me. I wanted the room to go away, the walls to dissolve, the air to take me high, free, upfloating in the blue dark of night. The carpet rolled beneath me like the sea. I moved, and moved towards the bed. Two pillows were piled high upon a bolster. Was my whip there?

  I would not seek it. I refused. This was not my room. As by habit I opened a small wall cabinet and found to my surprise that which I kept in my own—a bottle of liqueur and two small glasses. Pleasure traced itself across my lips anti then was gone. I turned, closing the cabinet. My uncle had entered. In his hand he held the whip. Moving he moved, towards me moved. He took my hand, the palm of mine, sheened with moisture.

  “Beatrice, bend over—hands flat on the quilt.”

  “Uncle—please!”

  My mouth quivered. I did not want it to be my mouth. His hand reached out caressing my neck and I gave a start. His fingers moved, soothing.

  “You will obey, Beatrice.”

  The world was not mine. Whose was the world? Would Caroline and my aunt discuss me?

  “No one will come,” my uncle said. The door stood solid. We were on an island. In the attic Father and I had stood on the top of the world. The whip moved. He passed the handle around and beneath the globe of my bottom, shaping, carving. His lips nuzzled my neck. I could not run.

  “Uncle—please, no!”

  I broke from him and stood trembling. The thongs swayed down to his knee like a fall of rain in slow motion. His eyes were kind. His arm reached out. He took my chin and raised it.

  “There are things you need. There are locked rooms above. There are keys.”

  I did not weal to blink in the meeting of our eyes. Go into the world clear-eyed and so return from it.

  “Yes?” I asked. There was imperiousness in my voice. Dare I rebel? The whip slipped from his grasp and fell upon the patterned carpet. He would not whip me. He could not. I knew it. I felt happy. He waited further upon my speech, my quest, my questions.

  “What is in the rooms?” I asked.

  He took my hand. We walked. The stairs received us. Caroline had wandered perhaps into the dark garden—into the long grass which the gardener chased by day. The grass would receive her. Her eyes would be loam, her nipples small blossoms. Her pubic hair would be moss. There was silence below in the house. Along the passageway of the second floor as we went my uncle rattled keys. A door opened.

  The attic! They had made a replica of it! Except for the dormer window—but it did not matter. The door closed—a heavy click—we were alone. My uncle's arm encircled my shoulder. I could not speak. Let me speak.

  “The horse is the same. Only the horse, Beatrice.”

  It was true. Trunks, boxes, broken pieces of furniture, old vases—all lay as they might have lain in our house.

  His hand stroked my back, warm through my gown.

  “Go to the horse, Beatrice.”

  I moved, walked, threading my way among the tumbled things—the love things, the loved things. The horse was large, bright, new. The stirrups gleamed, the saddle and the reins shone. The mottled, dappled grey was the same. I stroked the mane. On my own horse the mane was worn and thin where I had too often grasped it, but here it was new and thick. The leather smelled of new leather. Heady.

  For a last moment I turned and looked towards the closed door. Caroline into the long grass gone. At breakfast she would return. Out of the caves of my dreams she would return, pure in her purity, the loam fallen from her eyes, her nipples budding, the moss of her pubis gold and curled.

  I waited, humbled in my waiting. The sea moved beneath Father. The timbers of the sailing ship would creak. The dark waters. Kid gloves soiled with sperm upon the waves. Salt to sperm. The licking lap of water.

  Hands at my back. I did not stir. My uncle unbuttoned. The sides of my gown fell from my shoulders. The material dragged to my waist and heaped. I stood still. His hands savoured the outswell of my bottom, raising the skirt. My drawers were bared. A lusciousness of thighs. I fancy myself upon the silkiness of my skin.

  “Mount,” my uncle said. I raised my leg. The skirt slip-slithered down again, enfolding my legs. As if tired my leg fell again. “Remove your dress,” he breathed.

  I wanted blindness but found none. The oil lamps, ranged around the room, flickered. Small messages of lambent light. My hair ruffled as I stripped off my gown. There was no one to brush it. My underskirt fell to my ankles. I stepped out of it as out of foam. Sperm—foam. The dark sea lapping. Silent in a cabin, my thighs apart.

  Cupping my bottom as I toed the stirrup, my uncle assisted me in my rising.

  He knew not of Jericho. There were secrets still. The horse jolted, moving as if on springs rocking. The movement was smooth as velvet, soundless. I clung to the neck. My brazen bottom reared, my pumpkin warm.

  “Ah!” I gasped at the first smack, and the next. There was a sweetness in the stinging I had known before. Because of my excitement perhaps. Was I excited? My hips squirmed to his palming smacks, my back dipped. I clung, I squeezed the cheeks, I squealed. Would Caroline hear? Under the deep lush grass would Caroline hear?

  At the tenth smack—lifted down—foundered, falling, grasped in his strong grasp. Words tumbled, spun like pellets in a drum. Words polished in their spinnings. Hands clasped my bulging cheeks. I blushed, I hid my face. His fingers drew the cheeks apart beneath my drawers. I strove to be still as Father so oft had taught me. My heels teetered. Then I managed it.

  “So,” my uncle said. He was satisfied. I closed my eyes, pretending myself in the attic. I was happy. The stinging in my bottom had made tears glint in my eyes. “You are older now, Beatrice—it is better.”

  I wanted wine. I wanted to go down to Caroline, to rescue her from the long grass. My uncle held me. My nipples peeped.

  “Is it not better, Beatrice?”

  Was I to answer? I knew not. I believe he expected it not. My sile
nce pleased him. He sought confusion, girlishness there. My bottom cheeks weighed heavy on his palms.

  “Raise your arms, Beatrice, and place them behind your head.”

  It was a game—a new game. I obeyed. My left elbow nudged his cheek. His breath was warm on my face. I was obedient. We had never done this in the attic. Once on Christmas Eve in the merriment of the night I had been carried up to my room, my drawers removed. Had I dreamed that? Tomorrow I would buy kid gloves, long and white to my elbows. The kid leather would be of the finest. Sensitive to flesh. A stem upstanding.

  My uncle raised my chemise inch by inch. I was naked beneath. I quivered. My hips would not keep still. He raised it, raised it to the silky melons of my breasts. And then above. Dark nipples in their radiant circles.

  “No!”

  I jerked, twist-tumbled, gasped. I did not want to be obedient. The lacy hem of my chemise tickled my nipples in its rising.

  “Uncle, no!”

  I cried, I fell. There was carpet on the floor—purple with dull red patterns. In the attic there was no carpet. Dust rose to my nostrils. My chemise was crumpled over my polished gourds, my tits, my breasts.

  My uncle fell beside me. His hands pinned my shoulders. Gazing upon my gourds he gazed. He bent. His long tongue licked my nipples. My back reared but he stilled it with a warning grip of hands.

  “Shall you be whipped?” he asked.

  My eyes were mirrors. They encompassed the world. I stared at him in my staring. My hair flowed upon the carpet. I must have looked a picture of extreme wantonness. There was wet on my nipples where he had licked. They strained in the rising. The floor moved gentle under me as waves beneath a tall ship sailing. In Madras the women would be bronzed, their hips supple.

  “Lift your hips,” my uncle said.

  My heels dug into the carpet. For a moment I lay mutinous. Then my knees bent, bottom lifted. I was arched. His fingers sought the ties of my drawers, the pretty ribbons. Loosing they surrendered. Closing my eyes I felt my drawers being removed. The whorl of my navel showed. The impress of a baby's finger dipped in cream. Curls glinted at my pubis.

  Then there was a sound.

  The door had opened and a young woman stood there in a severe black costume. The toes of her black boots shone.

  It was Jenny.

  FIVE

  JENNY took me to my room. I carried my dress. The ribbons of my drawers had been tied again on my rising when she appeared. My uncle had risen and kissed her brow.

  “We were playing games,” I said. I sat on the bed. I wondered how Jenny had arrived. Perhaps she had been here all the time hiding behind the wallpaper—a voice in the shrubbery. Owl calls. Night calls. She looked older, younger—both. The appearance of her costume was severe—high buttoned to her neck. Her face was Byzantine. By Giotto perhaps. Her long thick hair was swept back and tied with a piece of velvet.

  “Games are nice,” Jenny said. She came and sat close to me, legs together, hands in her lap. I felt comforted. Had I betrayed myself upstairs? My uncle had followed us to the door, avuncular. Jenny was talking. There were words. I caught her words in the broad net of my mind.

  “You must be kind to him, Beatrice. We must all be kind.”

  “Have you just come?” I asked. My hands had not trembled. My voice was bright and clear. In the room with my uncle I had been speechless, mumbling. How foolish. The skin of my breasts beneath the low neck of my chemise was glossy, tight and full. Jenny looked at them. I saw her look. We used to undress together—when I stayed with her. When she stayed with me. But then I remembered something. Something I had never believed in.

  One weekend when she had come to stay, six or seven years before, Mother had said to me, “It is best if Jenny has the guest room tonight.” Jenny had looked strange, I thought—sitting, listening. She had nodded at me lightly as if she wanted me to say Yes.

  I had heard sounds in the night, that night. It was midnight. I had looked at the clock—the small clock that says yes to me when I want it to be a certain time. There were sounds. Sounds like leather smacking. I thought I heard Jenny whimpering. The servants sometimes made noises in the night in their moving. But now the servants, too, would be abed.

  A voice said, “You are a good girl, Jenny.” It sounded like my mother's voice. My dreams were often strange. I sat up in bed. There were more leather sounds, little cries, a voice like Father's voice. The sounds and the voices stirred and were mixed. I heard a woman-voice murmur: “More—harder—a little harder. Ah, how sweet she looks.”

  Oh, a little scream I heard, a screamy-moan, then quiet. Sounds of breath like rushing waters. Bedsprings tinkled. Small bells of the night. Two men went past the house below—rough men, not from our neighbourhood. One shouted and I lost the sounds.

  “I just came,” Jenny said now. “There are clothes in your wardrobe. Have you looked?”

  She drew me up. The mirrored doors, whose mirrors were tarnished, opened. From a shelf Jenny took black stockings of silk with a raised, ornate pattern that was run through with hints of silver. With it she produced a tiny waist corset of satin black. The small fringe of lace at the top that would fall beneath my breasts was silver, too. From the bottom of the wardrobe she drew out long high bests of the finest leather. The studs around which the laces wound were silver. The heels were slender, tall.

  “Where is Caroline?” I asked.

  Her eyes were glitter stones.

  “You will look beautiful in these, Beatrice. Who?”

  “Caroline.”

  “Yes, I know. Remove your chemise, stockings and shoes. Put these on.”

  She held them to me as a gift. I took them. The boots were light in weight. They would reach up to my thighs.

  “It is late,” I said. I licked my lips. My uncle had wanted to see my lips wet. Jenny did not smile. She raised my chemise and drew it off my head. I shook my hair like a dog emerging from water. As carefully as if I were a nervous yearling she knelt and drew off my drawers, my shoes. Without my shoes my thighs looked plumper.

  “Your pubis is full—a splendid mound,” she said. “You are beautiful, Beatrice. Your hips have the violin curve that men adore.”

  “I want to go home,” I said. I felt sullen. Caroline's face was my face. My lips brooded.

  “You will be good,” Jenny said. She tickled me. She knew I hated being tickled. I squirmed, laughed, my breasts jiggled. I fell back on the bed, I rolled. She smacked my bottom. I yelped. The bright spreading of her fingers was upon it. It was a superb bottom, she said, the cleft as deep as a woman's heart. Her hands fell and pressed on it so that I could not rise. Her knee came into the small of my back.

  “You will dress, Beatrice. You are not naughty, are you?”

  “No,” I said. She had seen Uncle taking down my drawers. My pubis had been offered. On her entry into the room upstairs he had stopped and risen as if we had merely been conversing. “What did you do in my parents' room?” I asked.

  “What?” she asked sharply. She did not know my thoughts, my memories. Her palm tingled across my bottom again. “Dress!” she commanded me, “I like you in stockings best. You have the thighs for it—plumpish, sweet. Do not disobey. Get up!”

  I obeyed her. The long boots were at first difficult to manage. They were tight. Their tops fell but three inches below the dark bands of the stocking tops. I would have difficulty in walking in them, I said. The corset nipped my waist. My hips blossomed. The corset framed my navel beneath an upward curve. My belly gleamed white.

  “You will walk in them slowly and with stately tread—that is their purpose, Beatrice. Try.”

  I moved from her. I walked. The high heels teetered. My legs were constrained. I felt the movements of my bottom, naked.

  “Stand!” she commanded me. I stood, my back to her. She drew upon my wrists and brought them behind my back. A metal clink—a clink of steel. My wrists were bound. I wanted to cry and hide my face. Next she secured my ankles. Why?

  “Lie do
wn. Beatrice.”

  I was bundled on to the bed, face down. “I don't want to,” I said. I did not know what I meant. Jenny tut-tutted and arranged the tops of my stockings above the rimming leather. My toes were cramped in the boots. Jenny turned my face and bent and kissed my mouth. Full lips. Rose lips. She straightened and her eyes were solemn, full of night.

  “You will stay so a little while,” she told me. She moved away. A chinking of metal as I tried to move.

  “Please don't, Jenny.”

  She was at the door. “I always loved you, Beatrice,” she said.

  “Please don't, Jenny.”

  She did not hear. The door closed. I was alone with my aloneness. In the night. Where was Caroline? I listened as I listened when a child, on evenings when the curtains were drawn in my room against the evening light. I listened now, I heard. There were footsteps, soft voices. Voices heard, unheard. Was it the wind? I was half naked and bound, strange in my half-nudity and bonds. Jenny was naughty. She would come and release me and I would dress in my summer dress and we would picnic. Caroline would be tied to a tree. She would watch our small white teeth nibbling cakes. Lemonade would gurgle down our throats. The world would never come to an end.

  Did Caroline remove her chemise in the attic?

  I heard voices. Caroline's voice. She was laughing. Jenny was laughing. I knew I must not call out in my calling. They stopped outside my door and went on up. I imagined in my imaginings my uncle waiting for her in the attic room.

  It was quiet again. The walls are thick. I dozed. Tight in my bonds I dozed. The door opened. Was it a dream? Through slits of eyelids I saw Jenny. She was dressed as I was dressed save that there was no silver in her stockings nor in her corset. She wore drawers of black satin, but they had no legs. Their lines swept up between her thighs.

  Aunt Maude entered behind her. The door was closed. From her ears dangled rubies in long gold pendants. Her mouth was carmine. In her hand the whip.