A Promise Given

by Michelle Cox

  Harrison grinned and took a huge gulp of his as he sat down heavily beside her. “Thank you for coming, Elsie. It was a smashing day,” he said, looking at her sideways.

  “Yes, thank you, too,” she said furtively and tried another sip. “Perhaps …” she stopped to cough slightly. “Perhaps you might read me some of your poems,” she continued. “If you … if you want to, that is …”

  “Poems?” he asked, a slightly puzzled look on his face. “Oh, yes! My poems! Well,” he said, looking around, flustered. “I …”

  “Only if you want to … I was being presumptuous, I know …”

  Harrison stood up uneasily, then, and began to peruse the bookshelf until he found the book he was apparently looking for. To Elsie it seemed to be a part of a bigger set, but she couldn’t read the title from where she sat. Was he published? she wondered excitedly. Or maybe he just kept his notes in the thick bound volumes for safekeeping?

  Harrison flipped through the book as if looking for something, his eyes quickly darting over the pages and lingering on some entries longer than others, almost as if he were reading them for the first time. Finally, he seemed to find what he was looking for and cleared his throat. “Here’s a rather good one, I think,” he said and proceeded haltingly:

  Wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,

  Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me

  Through the valley-depths of shade,

  Of night and dark obscurity;

  Where the path has lost its way,

  Where the sun forgets the day,

  Where there’s nor life nor light to see,

  Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me!

  Where stones will turn to flooding streams,

  Where plains will rise like ocean waves,

  Where life will fade like visioned dreams

  And mountains darken into caves,

  Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me

  Through this sad non-identity,

  Where parents live and are forgot,

  And sisters live and know us not!

  Say, maiden; wilt thou go with me

  In this strange death of life to be,

  To live in death and be the same,

  Without this life or home or name,

  At once to be and not to be—

  That was and is not—yet to see

  Things pass like shadows, and the sky

  Above, below, around us lie?

  Harrison looked up, then, with what could be described as a distraught sort of look, causing Elsie to wonder if he were trying to tell her something.

  “Did you like it?” he asked, sitting next to her again, the book still in his hands.

  “I … I did,” she smiled. “But you didn’t write that one, though, did you?” she asked hesitantly. “It sounds vaguely familiar. Maybe one of the Romantics? I confess I don’t know much about them,” she added shyly.

  A flicker of indecision seemed to cross the lieutenant’s face before he smiled and said “No! Of course not! Surely you recognize that one. It’s …” he glanced at the book again quickly. “It’s John Clare.”

  “Ah! That’s it,” Elsie said and cursed herself for spending so much time reading Victorian novels instead of stuff that obviously mattered, like poetry. She had read some, but not much. She would never have guessed that Harrison would have a predilection for the Romantics, though; he continued to surprise her at every turn.

  She racked her brain for any scrap to come back to her, and, miraculously a tidbit finally surfaced. “There is a comfort in the strength of love; ’twill make a thing endurable, which else would overset the brain, or break the heart,” she offered and looked at him expectantly, allowing him a chance to guess. Seeing that his face was a blank, however, she added, “It’s from Wordsworth’s poem ‘Michael.’” She took another bashful sip of whiskey. “We had to learn quite a lot of it at school. Mr. Keegan was very set on Wordsworth,” she murmured.

  Disappointingly, Harrison did not appear impressed with her knowledge, but merely sat staring at her. Without warning, he further surprised her by leaning forward suddenly and kissing her, a quick sort of kiss like the one he had given her once on the front step of the Palmer Square house but which he had never repeated since. This time, however, instead of instantly pulling away, he kissed her again, deeply this time, harder, and she felt herself weaken as a tremor ran through her. Slowly he pulled his lips from hers but remained close, and she was embarrassed that her breathing had sped up. She hoped he didn’t hear her swallow hard.

  Abruptly, however, he just as suddenly pulled away and turned from her. Hunched over now, he put a hand over his eyes. “I’m sorry, Elsie! I don’t know what’s come over me! I … I know I shouldn’t take advantage, but you’re so … so …”

  “So?” Elsie encouraged.

  “So wonderful,” he said, looking at her in a way that disturbingly reminded her of a performer in a melodrama. Was he toying with her? “I’ve never met anyone like you,” he went on with what seemed like real sincerity now. “I … I can’t help thinking about you all the time!”

  “You do?” Elsie asked, not being able to contain her elation. “I do, too! Think of you, that is.”

  “Oh, Elsie,” he groaned loudly. “Can’t I kiss you one more time?”

  Elsie hesitated. She knew she shouldn’t be doing this, but the bottle of wine they had shared on the boat and now the whiskey, plus the warmth of the fire before them, not to mention their foray, albeit brief, into poetry, was beginning to cloud her reason. In truth, she was feeling a bit inebriated. “I … I don’t think …” she began timorously.

  “Fine,” Harrison said shortly, his brow furrowed now. “I knew it would be this way.” A faint scowl appeared across his face. “I thought you liked me is all,” he said, turning away from her.

  Elsie was horrified that the mood had changed so quickly and was desperate to recreate it. “Oh, but Harrison, I do! I really do!” Elsie said eagerly, laying a hand on his arm and setting her whiskey glass down.

  He looked over at her, his face one of hurt, and Elsie was entranced by his sad brown eyes.

  “Just one more time, then,” she said softly.

  With a grin, he leaned toward her as if to kiss her, but then he stopped short, causing her, as she leaned forward in anticipation, her eyes closed, to awkwardly bump into him. He laughed at her as she pulled back, blushing deeply. She was about to apologize when he suddenly lunged forward, then, startling her as he kissed her now with real passion. This second kiss was so unexpected that she didn’t have time to think but simply let her lips be engulfed by his. His manly smell was so close to her and his breath on her cheek was so hot that Elsie felt a shocking flood of passion. She couldn’t explain why she was feeling so … what was the word? Fervent? His hands, which were beginning to roam now, excited her more than she thought possible. He continued kissing her lips, briefly grazing her neck and her cheek before returning to her eager, awkward lips. Elsie’s heart was beating alarmingly fast, and her breath was coming so rapidly that she was forced to breathe loudly through her nose.

  She knew she should stop him—she had said just one kiss—but it was so very difficult. He leaned into her so much so that she was forced to lie back, and as he kissed her neck again, she struggled not to let a moan escape from her lips. With one hand he began to caress her breasts, albeit through her cotton dress, and she felt a corresponding ache in her lower regions. It shook her, and she was about to protest, but he moved his hand away of his own accord before she could say anything. Feeling that the danger had passed, she relaxed then, only to have his hands wander to her breasts again, and this time she couldn’t help moaning in earnest. Seemingly inspired by her response, he moved his hand lower, lifting her dress and brushing the inside of her leg. Elsie was in a state of desperate confusion. She knew she should stop him—any minute she would, she convinced herself—but she was starved for attention, for physical contact of any kind, even a hug from her mother. Months and month
s she had waited for Stanley to even kiss her cheek or take her hand, but he never did, and she didn’t know how to encourage him. She had tried to suggest on the night they had rescued Henrietta from Jack that he might kiss her sometimes, but he had not gotten the hint. And now, here was this terribly handsome lieutenant, desiring her, kissing her, making her groan with pleasure. She knew that it was up to the woman to put a stop to a man’s passions, but the shameful truth was that she didn’t want to. She was tired of always being overlooked, sick to death of it actually, often lying in her lonely bed at night and aching, really aching, to be held by someone, anyone.

  He lifted her skirt now and was frantically undoing his trousers with one hand as he kissed her. Panic in earnest set in then as he kissed her fiercely and moved on top of her. “Harrison, no!” she said, suddenly realizing that it had finally gone too far.

  “Elsie, please!” he said, shifting to the side and kissing her on the lips and neck until he reached the lace collar of her dress. He fumbled to unbutton it, but after a few failed attempts, he tore it open instead, exposing the tops of her large, heaving breasts that she normally tried hard to disguise from the world. Elsie was simultaneously terrified by the violence of his actions but oddly aroused as well.

  “Harrison, your uncle …” she panted, wondering how much damage he had done to her dress.

  “He won’t hear; he’s asleep. Come on, Elsie, I’m going to fucking explode,” he said, breathing heavily, his flowery language well and truly gone now in the heat of the moment.

  “It isn’t right, Harrison,” she said, groaning, as he kissed her breasts and crudely grasped between her legs. She felt in extreme danger of exploding herself. She didn’t know how much longer she could stand it.

  “God damn it, Elsie! I love you. Does that make it better, huh?” he said almost angrily, his hot breath against her cheek again. Elsie’s eyes fluttered open, and the tribal masks hanging on the wall came into her view, sending a shudder of fear through her, and she knew somehow in that moment that all was lost. She knew then that she did not have the power, the strength, to fight him off, nor did she really want to. And hadn’t he just said that he loved her? She supposed she loved him, too, she thought, as he roughly kissed her again, his lips open and wet with passion. She knew what was going to happen next, and she set her mind to it, knowing that it had gone too far to stop now anyway, hadn’t it? She knew she shouldn’t give in to his passions, or, worse, to hers. Women, she knew, were to be the voice of sensibility and control … And yet, he said he loved her, and no one else ever had. She knew she was weak. If only she could be more like Henrietta, but she would never be as good as Henrietta; this she knew and had accepted long ago.

  She relaxed her tight grip on his shirtsleeves.

  “That’s it, yes,” he said huskily into her ear as she did so, and quickly he moved on top of her again. His sudden movement caused her to panic all over again, however, knowing somehow that it was going too fast.

  “Harrison, wait …” she tried to protest, wanting him to slow down and to explain she knew not what, but he was far from listening. Crudely he pulled at her underthings and, without any further prelude, wolfishly thrust himself inside of her, coarse and fast. She felt an intense pain as she struggled to make sense of what was happening and was shockingly overcome when her body betrayed her by responding, almost against her will, to his actions. Harrison groaned deeply as he continued on top of her, thrusting faster and faster. “Marry me. Marry me, Elsie,” he grunted as he neared his climax.

  Elsie, carried away by her own conflicting emotions, could not believe what he was saying but said hoarsely, “Yes, Harrison. Yes.”

  And it was done.

  In the short time it takes for the autumn sun to dip below the horizon or to pluck the last of the summer roses, for better or worse, Lieutenant Harrison Barnes-Smith had deflowered Elsie Von Harmon in his uncle’s drawing room and had simultaneously extracted a promise from her to marry him, and nothing could change that now.

  Elsie could think of nothing else for days afterward as she paced around the house, reenvisioning the fateful night over and over, sometimes mortified, sometimes distraught as to what it all really meant, sometimes, if she were honest, tingling at the memory of what his kisses had evoked in her, causing a thin film of perspiration to erupt under her arms and on her neck as she thought of it. Harrison’s hook in her was complete, whether she wanted it to be or not. When he had escorted her home that night, a sleepy Karl letting them into the front hall before disappearing off to bed, Harrison, almost certainly drunk by now, had violently grabbed her to him in a farewell embrace, kissing her and whispering in her ear, “You’re mine now, Elsie. Body and soul.” And it had both excited her and filled her with an awful dread.

  Harrison had subsequently appeared the very next day, having remarkably reverted back now to the role of polite, charming suitor, only once revealing what might be considered the more insidious side of his personality. It happened as they sat awkwardly in the front parlor on Palmer Square when Elsie asked him if he had really, you know, meant it about them getting married or was it perhaps something one usually said in the … in a moment such as the one that occurred between them?

  Before Harrison could answer, however, Odelia entered the room, dutifully delivering a vase of water as requested. Elsie quickly stood up to take it, noticing as she did so that Odelia most definitely gave both of them a skeptical once-over with her eyes before she left the room, the nature of which Elsie rather thought bordered on insolence, or perhaps just plain rudeness, and she fretted that somehow she perhaps knew what had happened between her and Harrison.

  Taking the vase with trembling fingers, Elsie set it on a small table and began to arrange the limp bouquet of white asters Harrison had nabbed from Palmer Square Park on the way over, saying as he handed them to her that wild flowers were so much preferable to hothouse flowers, didn’t she think? Elsie merely hoped they really had been from the park, as they looked suspiciously like the ones growing in the front yard of her neighbors, who would most certainly not appreciate them being ripped from their prized garden.

  “Of course I meant it!” Harrison said, a touch of annoyance in his voice. “You’re not trying to back out of it, are you? I knew it was too good to be true!” he exclaimed, managing to insert a small whine.

  Elsie quickly turned to him. “Oh, no, Harrison! I … I just wanted to be sure is all,” she crookedly smiled, turning back to the flowers now. They were so limp she wasn’t sure she could revive them. “It’s just that it might be difficult with my grandfather, he … I think, that is, I think he had other plans for whom I should marry.”

  “No doubt someone better than me,” he said bitingly from where he still sat on one of the armchairs.

  Elsie fought down the memory of the conversation she had had with Aunt Agatha, in which she had specifically warned her away from the lieutenant. “Well … it’s just that …”

  “Because it’s awfully hard to unload damaged goods,” Harrison said quietly, the sullen woefulness in his voice having been replaced by a certain knowing edge. Elsie felt herself tense. She caressed the smooth silkiness of one of the petals, finding momentary comfort in it before she pulled it from its center as she turned to him. He was sitting, quite relaxed, his legs crossed casually and his head propped up by one of his fists, his arm balanced on the side of the armchair, as he gazed at her with a wickedly confident air about him.

  “What do you mean by that?” Elsie asked delicately, not looking at him but bleakly guessing his meaning.

  “Just that, you know, some might see you as damaged goods now, making you all the harder for old Exley to unload, is all.”

  His implication hit her full force, and she gasped. “Harrison! How could you say such a thing?” she whispered, turning to him now, shocked not only by the unkindness of his words but by the level of hurt she felt.

  To her surprise, Harrison laughed. “It’s all right with me, kid. I don
’t mind, but some of the upper crust, well, you know how they are. Or maybe you don’t …”

  Elsie could not believe his cruelty. “But how would anyone … or Grandfather even … how would he ever know?” she asked faintly.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Harrison drawled. “Exley’s a shrewd man of business. I wouldn’t put it past him to have one of the servants keeping an eye out for anything untoward,” he said with exaggerated delicacy.

  Elsie’s mind raced back to last night. Only Karl had seen them come in. Surely sleepy old Karl was not a spy? But what did it matter, anyway, she thought defensively. Coming in late with the lieutenant didn’t prove anything! And she had been careful to cover her torn dress. Karl wouldn’t have been able to tell she had been … interfered with … would he? But why was Harrison acting this way? It was ungentlemanly, to say the very least, especially after … after what had happened between them. Tears suddenly filled her eyes and she quickly wiped them before they spilled down her cheeks.

  “You’re crying?” he said derisively. “I’m only kidding! Can’t you take a joke?” he asked with real scorn on his face. “You take everything too seriously, Elsie. Come here!” he commanded her, holding out his hand from where he sat.

  Reluctantly Elsie walked over and took his hand, tying to muster up a smile. “Come on, kid,” he said, pulling her down to balance uncomfortably on his knee. “Don’t worry about any of that. We’re getting married, you and me. You’re happy about it, right?” he said, putting a slightly bent finger under her chin and forcing her to look up at him. She quivered under the sharp stare of his brown eyes. “You’re not going to throw me over now, are you?”

  Try as she might, Elsie couldn’t make herself speak. She could only manage a slight shake of her head.

  “That’s my girl,” he beamed. “I knew I could count on you to be sensible,” he said, rubbing his hand along the side of her face. She hated herself for feeling a quiver at his touch, but she made herself stand up.