I turned the key quietly behind him, then I unlocked the door into the house, and slipped back inside my life. I rubbed my eyes, rearranged my hair and dress, and apologised for falling asleep in the workshop.
Sylvia was slumped over to one side in the armchair; Nathaniel lay loosely in her arms, busily sucking at her breast. Her dress was undone at the back, and was crushed and creased below her arms, and the top of her corset jutted up and under her breasts, pinching the skin, her flesh rubbed raw around it.
Pansy and Lucinda were standing watching her.
‘May I go now, mum? I was gonna stay, to help out with Lady Knigh’ley, but seein’ as you’re ’ere . . .’
‘Yes, Pansy, you may go. Thank you, love.’
Lucinda went into the kitchen and brought Sylvia a glass of water. Sylvia raised her head and looked, bewildered, at it, before taking it and drinking it down in one gulp. ‘Thank you, sweet,’ she said quietly, and patted Lucinda’s shoulder. Lucinda leant on the armchair, half-kneeling, watching Sylvia nurse Nathaniel, and waiting to be of assistance.
I went upstairs and pulled a couple of clean handkerchiefs out of the linen press. I brought them back downstairs, and handed one to Sylvia. She took it, but crumpled it into a ball in her fist. I pulled up a chair next to her and waited for her to talk.
‘I’m not going to cry,’ she said solemnly. ‘I am going to be like you Dora. Besides, I am too tired to cry.’
‘Was Jocelyn at home?’
‘No. But Buncie let me in. Despite strict instructions to the contrary from “my master”. Her master! I told her she had no master, that I was her mistress, and that I would be coming home, and she bobbed and said her by-your-leaves, but that her employer was Sir Jocelyn and – well – you understand. She let me in, which was, I presume, beyond the call of duty. I will not get her sacked for it, at least. I went first to my morning-room, and it was bare. Stripped bare, save a few meagre furnishings that I never liked. As was the nursery. No berceaunette, no lace, no rocking chair, no toys. And my bedroom. He had packed my possessions into boxes. “Will you send someone for them, ma’am?” Buncie asked me. “How can I?” I replied. “I have no one to send. You must work on Sir Jocelyn to find it somewhere in his heart to despatch them to me.” I gave her your address. Dora, he has removed all trace of me and the baby from the building. To add insult to injury, he is using the nursery as a packing room, to organise his expedition equipment, for he is leaving for the Zambezi. This has not been planned; he gave me no indication of this throughout my confinement. It takes months to plan these trips, months.’
‘Will he divorce you?’ I asked.
‘Oh, Dora, you’re so modern! Don’t be ridiculous!’
‘Well, he could. He only needs to claim adultery.’
‘So what if he does? He will keep my entire fortune. He brought not a penny into our marriage. Who can say what will be the caprices of his goodwill? He could give me something, or nothing at all. I don’t even have enough to arrange for the return of my possessions. They all belong to him now. Buncie treated me like a madwoman. He’s told them all that I’m insane. She thought I had gone to an institution. Apparently he had told all my friends, and all his colleagues, that the baby was unnaturally formed, that I went mad because of it, that I’m in an institution. That’s why they all turned me away before I had to come to you.’
‘So he clearly doesn’t want to divorce you,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘A divorce cannot be granted if the wife is insane.’
‘Are you trying to cheer me up? Because it’s not helping.’ She sniffed, and blew her nose on the handkerchief. ‘Dora, it was as if I had never lived in that house. There was no sign of me at all. It belongs now to a bachelor, and is dedicated exclusively to the higher realms of science and anthropological study. And his books.’
Which hardly belong to those realms at all, I wanted to add.
Chapter Twenty-one
Hickety, pickety, my black hen,
She lays eggs for gentlemen;
Gentlemen come every day
To see what my
black hen doth lay.
We came together whenever we could over the next five days. Some mornings we would make a valiant attempt at work before succumbing to the inevitable; others we would be kissing and disrobing as I was turning the key in the lock behind him.
I learnt more over those five days about the inner workings of our hearts and bodies than I had done in over a year of binding erotic texts; I learnt things on which the books could not inform or instruct, written as they were solely to arose and shock. I learnt that my lover would start soft and vulnerable in my fingers, yet within seconds he would grow and strain against my grip as if outraged at the constraints of my fingers. I learnt of the parts between the parts, the soft rims of the body at the meeting points of the more obvious sensory places: by which I mean the skin above the inner thigh at the top of the leg, before flesh spills and splits, soft and dewy like that between the back of the ear and the hairline, or the front of the earlobe and the whiskers, the crease under the breasts, the crack at the base of the spine. I learnt that it is possible to relax and tense one’s muscles simultaneously. I learnt, as my lover surged with delight at a tongue deep in his ear and elsewhere, that it is not only women who like to be penetrated. I learnt that a man’s bag of jewels is not fixed, but empties and fills, is carried high and drops low, according to my caresses and the body’s secrets. I learnt that there is always one more part of the body for the tongue to probe, for the fingers to engage. I learnt that mouths that start off dry with nerves and anticipation soon overflow with juice, just like the nether orifices: an abundance of drinks. I learnt that my lover’s eyes deceived, for when he was close to his limit it was as if he had moved away from the windows of his face into his inmost self, yet it was at such times that he was closer to me in spirit than ever. I learnt that pleasure is not only a final flourish of spending, but also a slow ooze throughout the course of our union , that sticks where it touches and weaves long, shining threads between my thigh, my navel, my breasts, like a spider’s web of love.