by Nancy Carson
‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Robert. Now I’m no longer absent, maybe you’ll take me for granted.’
‘Never. Horsewhip me if ever you think I’m guilty of it.’
‘So what shall you tell Virginia?’
‘That I’ve seen again the girl who was her rival and I have come to a final decision … That I intend to marry this girl.’
Her heart leapt at this revelation and she smiled. ‘And will you tell her it’s her good friend Poppy Silk?’
‘I hadn’t considered that. Perhaps not.’
‘I think she should know. Let’s get it into the open. What’s the point of hiding it? There’s also the question of her willingness to release you from your betrothal.’
‘Yes … I know … I wish to be as honourable as I can, Poppy. I would relish her willing release. But if she refuses to give it, then I shall have no alternative but to be dishonourable about it and take the consequences.’
‘Your mother and father will not be pleased.’
‘Either way, they will not be pleased … Nor hers, either. There’ll be ructions.’
‘Just as long as you know what you’re letting yourself in for. If you think you cannot face it … If you want to change your mind, Robert …’ She picked a daisy that was growing beside her and fingered it gently, twirling the fragile stem between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Maybe now would be as good a time as any to tell me. I will walk away … heartbroken, of course, knowing that you love me and would prefer me. I won’t bother you ever again. I’ll leave you and Virginia in peace … If that’s what you want …’
‘That’s not what I want, and it’s not what I ask of you, Poppy. I love you. I intend to make you mine, come what may.’
‘Oh, Robert,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve waited so long to hear you say it. Now I have to wait for the outcome with Virginia.’
‘Whatever the outcome, it won’t alter what I feel for you, my love.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of, Robert.’
‘What?’
‘First you say there will only be one outcome, then you say “whatever the outcome”.’
‘There can only be one outcome. And you know what that will be. I’ll go and see Virginia tomorrow after dinner. I’ll set the record straight.’
It was dusk when they descended, arm in arm, back down the steep winding path that led back to the road known as Castle Hill, and St Edmund’s church. They had spent more than an hour getting to know each other again, reviving the rapport they enjoyed before. As they walked through the town they were oblivious to everybody, their attentions focused only on one another. They heard not the babble of men darting from one alehouse to another as they sought oblivion from the banal reality of life. They were wrapped up in each other, content to be in each other’s company after so long apart.
‘I used to lie awake in my bed at night as we camped under the stars, miles from civilisation,’ Robert told her. ‘And I would think of you.’
‘Tell me what your thoughts were,’ she pleaded.
‘Oh, Poppy, I dare not. They were a mite too racy.’
Her laughter was like a bell tinkling. ‘I’m not a prude, Robert – I grew up with navvies. I know what people get up to in their beds, whether they’re alone or not. In fact, I bet your thoughts were not half as racy as mine.’
‘Then tell me yours,’ he chuckled.
‘I will not,’ she said, feigning indignation. ‘At least, not until you’ve told me yours.’
‘Well … If you really want to hear it … I would try and imagine you lying beside me on the hard ground, beneath my blanket—’
‘And would I be naked?’
‘Oh, eventually.’
She laughed approvingly.
‘I would remember your kisses, Poppy … I would lie with my eyes closed and imagine your lips on mine and remember the taste of you. Then I would smother your body with soft kisses, every soft mound, every lovely crevice, and I would hear you sigh with pleasure …’ He turned to look at her. ‘Were your thoughts ever anything like that?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she responded dreamily. ‘I would put my arms around myself and imagine they were your arms. I would gently feel my breasts and imagine it was you …’
‘And?’ he prompted, a lump in his throat. ‘Was there more?’
‘Oh, yes … But you’ll think me a real hussy.’
‘I can only love you the more,’ he said with tenderness. ‘Knowing you have thought of me in that way.’
‘Well … Then, I would …’ She hesitated, not sure how to say it. ‘I would touch myself … You know … I would feel myself … Between my legs, I mean …’ She realised she was blushing and was glad the dusk concealed it. ‘I would imagine it was you doing it …’ Her voice was low, barely audible. ‘I wanted so much for it to be you, Robert. It was so heavenly.’ She looked into his eyes then with a candour that was unnerving.
‘And did we … go all the way?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said emphatically. ‘All the way.’
‘We did in my thoughts too,’ he said. ‘I could never sleep for thinking about it.’
‘Nor me either.’ They both laughed and their eyes met lovingly at these most intimate secrets shared. After a pause, Poppy said, ‘Did you ever think such things about Virginia?’
‘Never.’
‘I bet …’
‘I have never felt any such desire for Virginia. And that’s the gospel truth.’
‘She told Minnie she would remain a virgin till she married.’
‘Oh, she’ll probably remain a virgin long after she’s married,’ Robert suggested wryly. ‘But Minnie Catchpole, you said … Your friend?’
‘Yes. It was about the time Virginia and me first met. Minnie had turned to prostitution, you know—’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Of course you didn’t.’
‘But it doesn’t surprise me. She was always wayward, you said.’
‘Always. I tried to turn her away from it. I was scared stiff what could happen to her.’
‘And poor old Cecil Tyler married her. He couldn’t have known.’
‘Oh, he had no idea. But that’s his concern. Anyway, Virginia was trying to save her, trying to put her on the straight and narrow. She’d spotted her somewhere and made it her business to get to know her. It was at Minnie’s little house when I called once that I first met Virginia. For some reason, known only to herself, she assumed I was also trying to save Minnie.’
‘She would. That’s the way her mind works. She always was an extreme busybody where spreading the word of God was concerned.’
‘She took me once to a Quaker meeting, you know.’
‘A Quaker meeting?’ he scoffed. ‘Lord, I bet that was fun.’
‘She has ideas of becoming a Quaker when she’s married. Her mother used to be one.’
‘Oh, I know. So had my grandfather. It’s just another reason not to marry her. I can’t imagine being married to Virginia, she with a straight, pious face, tight-lipped, unsmiling and wearing those dowdy clothes they wear, preaching the gospel to me with a pair of knitting needles in her hand and a ball of wool in her pocket. They knit perpetually, you know, Quakers.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘It’s so that they’re never idle. When they have nothing to do they knit. I’m sure they must knit in their sleep. They knit useful things, I grant you. Gloves, stockings … anything …’
‘But they are very … devout – I think that’s the word – good people … and kind. She would want your children raised as Quakers as well.’
‘What children?’ he laughed. ‘I wouldn’t have the desire …’
‘Why not? She’s quite beautiful, in a quiet, austere sort of way.’
‘Yes. That’s a good way of describing her. Austere. And eminently respectable.’
‘I’m surprised you don’t fancy her. A good many would.’
‘Well, I don’t. I like her and respect her, of course
… But I couldn’t go through a marriage that was destined to be like that – devoid of any passion, any desire. It would be a complete waste. I gave it a great deal of thought while I was in Brazil.’
They walked on for a minute or two in a companionable silence. It was Robert who broke it.
‘Tell me how you came to leave the Blowers Green encampment.’
‘Oh, yes …’ She began to giggle. ‘That’s quite a tale … You remember Tweedle Beak?’
‘The one who—’
‘The one who was bedding my mother after my father left.’
‘Yes, I do recall him. I didn’t like him. He was a surly so-and-so.’
‘He was a swine. He tried to raffle me off, but he fixed it so that he won the raffle and I would be his to do his bidding.’ Robert looked at her aghast. ‘He planned to leave my mother and tramp off with me. When the others found out, he got hounded out, but I left afterwards anyway – with my mother’s blessing – with most of the takings from his raffle.’
‘Serves him right,’ Robert commented.
‘Minnie left with me. She wanted to get away from Dog Meat. The encampment was due to close anyway in the October. Treadwell’s stopped all work because the OWWR had run out of money. Anyway, I bought Minnie and me some new clothes with Tweedle’s raffle takings. We thought we were proper ladies.’ She chuckled as she recalled it. ‘Anyway, we stayed a few nights in The Old Bush Inn before Minnie rented this house in Gatehouse Fold. I stayed with her for a week or two. I had the intention of finding work as a maid. Then I found Aunt Phoebe’s address you gave me and went to see her. I thought she might know somebody who wanted a maid. We hit it off right away.’
‘You seem happy with Aunt Phoebe, Poppy.’
‘She’s my mother now. She regards me as the daughter she never had. I love her dearly.’
They were walking past Tansley House by this time and quickened their pace unwittingly. Poppy hoped that Bellamy would not see them, and said as much to Robert.
‘He won’t see us in the darkness. At some time I’ll have to tell him about us. It’s not something I look forward to. But if he had no prior claim on you …’
‘None, Robert. I saved myself for you … And your two-wheeled riding machine …’ She laughed again. ‘What happened to your machine, Robert?’
‘Oh, it’s in one of the unused stables. I’ll dust it down soon and take it for an outing.’
‘Don’t forget to call for me on the way. Do you remember when you took me for a ride on it?’
‘Could I ever forget?’
‘I was hoping all the time that we would fall off and roll together in the grass … that we would end up making passionate love …’
He chuckled again with approval. ‘You are a strumpet.’
‘Oh, given the chance … I dreamed about it. I used to imagine it.’
‘You never!’
‘I did.’ She laughed at this other secret admission, glad that she’d told him, glad to witness how it excited him. ‘And what about when you gave me reading lessons in your office and we sat in your chair and kissed and kissed and kissed?’
‘I carried those kisses with me all the way to Brazil and back.’
‘So you can return them to me?’
‘Yes, so I can return them.’
‘I can’t wait, Robert.’
‘Neither can I.’
‘Then let’s not wait any longer,’ she breathed.
They had reached Cawneybank House and slowed their step. A chestnut tree stood at the end of the drive and a late bird flapped noisily from it and flew off to his own roost as Robert opened the gate.
‘Let’s walk on the grass,’ Poppy suggested in a whisper. ‘Our footsteps will crunch on the gravel else, and Aunt Phoebe might hear.’ She took his hand and she led him past the front of the house where a light was glowing through the fanlight over the front door. ‘There’s a light in Aunt Phoebe’s bedroom, look.’
‘Where are you taking me?’ he asked.
She put her finger to her mouth.
The air was sweet and cooler now. She glanced up at the sky and saw that clouds were blanking out the stars. Maybe the rain Aunt Phoebe had predicted would materialise after all. But she was home now and it was not raining yet.
How different today had been. She’d hardly slept last night for thinking of Robert and Virginia. She’d been on tenterhooks all day, waiting for evening to come when she would meet Robert. She’d hardly eaten a thing, so nervous had she been. During the afternoon she had sat in the summer house trying to make herself comfortable, propped up on a pile of cushions while she’d tried to get interested in Ivanhoe. But she could not concentrate on the novel. Her thoughts were only of Robert; her head was full of him.
But now she was leading Robert past a rose bed that Clay had been working on earlier that day. The scent of the blooms delighted her as they brushed past, to walk around the stable. Poppy put her forefinger to her lips again and pointed to the room above the stable where Clay lived and slept. A light burned within. She prayed they would not encounter him exiting the privy. They crept past more rose beds. Even in the twilight you could make out the roses and new buds with little splits of colour which were difficult to determine in the darkness, and half-hidden among the dark foliage of the bushes. They crossed another lawn, turned at a large rhododendron bush. There they beheld the summer house.
On the steps up to it, she turned to him, her head at the same height as his, and she slipped her arms around his neck and smiled with such joy on her face.
‘I’ve longed for this moment,’ she whispered as the cloud cleared momentarily to reveal a sliver of new moon that lent a silver lambency to her complexion.
He opened his arms to her, enchanted by the warmth of her affection, which she gave so unstintingly. He held her close, and their lips met. The agony of waiting was over. Their kiss was hungry as her hands went between them and held his face to her. He was pressing against her and she could feel his warm body. Oh, she had ached for this.
‘Let’s go inside,’ she breathed. ‘There are some cushions I was sitting on earlier …’
The door creaked as she opened it and she halted, cringing that the sound might have disturbed Clay. She tried again … carefully … Inside she could just discern the cushions, strewn as she had left them on a wicker sofa; at her suggestion they laid them on the wooden floor of the summer house. She untied her bonnet and threw it on the sofa.
He scooped her up into his arms and laid her gently on the bed of cushions as if it were fit for a bride, and lay beside her. She turned her face to him and smiled conspiratorially, all her love exuding from her clear blue eyes, which reflected the sickle moon still visible between the clouds. She closed her eyes and felt his lips caress her smooth eyelids, with the lightness of a butterfly’s wings. He found her mouth and she tasted him with tantalising pleasure. She ran her fingers through his hair in an ecstasy of bliss at her absolute love for him, and at her brazenness in bringing him here.
He was unfastening her Sunday-best dress at the back with inexpert fingers, so she raised her shoulders to make it easier for him.
‘Wait,’ she whispered, realising the awful potential for farce. ‘Let me take it off. It’ll be such a palaver otherwise. The things we girls have to wear, it’s no joke, I swear.’
He watched in awe as she stood up and undressed. Soon, she was standing before him entirely naked, her slender body pale but exquisitely beautiful in the insipid, intermittent moonlight. She lay beside him on the cushions again. He rolled onto her and kissed her on the mouth once more, one hand cupping her firm young breast.
‘In my thoughts, when I was trying to get to sleep,’ he sighed, ‘I used to kiss your breasts—’
‘And every soft mound and every lovely crevice, you said.’ Her prompt was a soft whisper.
His mouth skimmed her breasts delectably, his tongue teasing her nipples till she thought they would burst. He kissed her warm belly, then between her legs.
She lay sprawled, clenching the soft curls of his head between her fingers. ‘Oh, Robert,’ she sighed, paralysed and astounded with pleasure.
Too soon he raised himself up to remove his jacket and his shirt. He sat down, pulled off his boots, then his trousers. He was as naked then as she was. She watched him. Her lust, simple and shameless, was increasing inexorably as he knelt beside her.
‘My angel …’ He looked at her longingly, appreciatively, and ran his fingers lightly up between her thighs till they settled at her crop of soft fair hair. She was warm, soft and deliciously wet, and she parted her legs a little to make herself more accessible. ‘Oh, my angel,’ he breathed again, as though she had no other name. He bent down to her, kissed her lips and gently lay on her. As she felt the pressure of his warm naked body, his smooth chest against her breasts, she sniffed his skin, breathing in her ardent desire that seemed unquenchable.
‘Robert,’ she sighed with longing. He entered her and she winced. ‘Oh, Robert,’ she murmured again.
He drew back at once. ‘I’m so sorry, my love. I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘It’s just a little twinge. It’s to be expected first time.’
He kissed her closed eyelids, her soft, round cheeks and her neck. He was inordinately gentle, afraid of hurting her, but each sharp pain that accompanied each tender, tentative push was a dizzying delight, and she raised her legs to accommodate him the more as he probed deeper, deeper into her. The pain seemed to be numbed as the pleasure increased with each tempered, careful movement, and they soon found themselves locked into a steady rhythm that grew more compelling the longer they were joined. Her breathing came in short gasps as she rubbed herself more firmly against him, intensifying the pleasure, until all knowledge, all sense of who or where she was, was gone.
There was only Robert and this glorious sensation in the pit of her stomach and her groin. Her world was him entirely, his quickening breath, his heart hammering against her own. She held onto him ardently, clinging to his shoulders, then around his waist in a fervent hug of passion as he thrust into her harder. He groaned … and sighed … and eventually ceased to move … Tears ran down her cheek as she cleaved to him, tears of relief that the heartache of waiting, that a whole year of uncertainty, was over and done with. This was the way it would be from now on. This was the future. It was also the present and, for now, she wanted time to stand still, to exist only in this moment. She wanted this wonderful feeling of peace, which emanated from the very centre of her body and seemed to spread up into her head, to last till eternity.