The Devil's Making

by Seán Haldane

  Without rising, she moved under the tent of her dress over to the hamper. She reached beside it for the folded tablecloth and passed it to me. As I spread it, she brought out plates and glasses, then a small packet wrapped in cloth which she opened to reveal neatly cut sandwiches. ‘Inside these’, she said, ‘is the flesh of a trout I caught myself in the brook this morning. And here is a piece of cake.’ She unwrapped another package. She reached into the hamper again and brought out a stone flagon. ‘And this, still cool as it should be, although perhaps we could have put it in the lake for a while, is last year’s raspberry and apple wine.’

  Ah, that was the weight in the hamper.’

  ‘Yes, although it’s light to the taste.’

  Aemilia served the sandwiches and poured the wine, which was straw-coloured. We raised our glasses in a silent toast, and drank. The wine was at least as dry and strong as any French white I had ever tasted, and just as good. The sandwiches were exquisite.

  We ate delicately, as manners required, but in the heat it was easy to drink too much of the wine. Although I protested after the second glass, Aemilia insisted on filling a third, and after the third I did not care. She drank a glass for every one of mine. We ate a slice each of the cake, and washed it down with more wine. I was invaded by well being. I sprawled sensually on the blanket near this vision of womanly beauty in her dress like an inverted flower, talking on and off about old times in England, picnics in Oxford on the banks of the Isis – ‘though nothing like as lovely as this.’

  ‘No? I should like to go to Oxford and have you take me out on the river in a punt. I’ve read about that in a book for boys – Tom Brown at Oxford. It must be delicious.’

  ‘It is. But do you know, I was lonely at Oxford. I was always longing for … I don’t know what.’

  ‘What young men usually long for, I suppose. It must be such a strain, all that study in those stone cloisters or whatever they are.’ Aemilia was losing some of her coherence, but I did not mind, since I was losing some of mine.

  We drank more of the wine. ‘We must finish this,’ Aemilia remarked. ‘It doesn’t keep, once it has been opened.’ More obviously emotional, now she sounded sad. ‘My goodness it’s hot,’ she added. ‘We should get up and walk. I should like to put my feet in the water.’

  We finished our glasses. I held out my hand and Aemilia took it to rise to her feet. She did not let go as we walked into the dazzling light and down to the water’s edge. I was not really drunk, but the wine had gone enough to my head to make me giddy and carefree. I squeezed Aemilia’s hand, and she squeezed back. I felt very happy, just like that, side by side, looking out at the sun playing on the water and the damsel flies dipping and swooping. I was vaguely aware that afternoon was getting on. ‘I’ll be sorry to leave this.’ I said, ‘which I’m afraid I’ll have to shortly.’

  ‘You can stay a while. Wait.’ Aemilia disengaged her hand and stooped to unlace her shoes. She set them on one side – small, of white leather – then to my surprise pulled off her stockings which were short, and of white silk, setting them carefully on the shoes. Her bare feet disappeared back under the dress, but now she held this up and advanced into the water with a slight splash, and stood there. Then, holding the dress up with one hand, she reached with the other and undid the ribbon of her bonnet, which she passed back to me. Her chestnut brown hair was piled in a knot on the top of her head, her neck was slim and white. I stood holding the bonnet, excited. She spoke to me over her shoulder, not turning her head enough to meet my eye.

  ‘Do you think we’ve drunk enough wine to forget conventions?’

  ‘Not all of them, I’m sure.’ My heart was pounding.

  ‘Do you know what I should do if I were here alone? I should take my dress off – it’s so infernally hot in these things, you cannot imagine it – and go for a swim in my shift. Perhaps if you could turn your back, I might do it now. Or, I tell you what – I dare you in fact, Mr Chad Hobbes – you go to the other side of that clump of bushes and take your overclothes off. You can swim from that side, and I can swim from this. A gentleman’s and a lady’s beach. Who can quarrel with that?’

  ‘I certainly shan’t,’ I said, shocked at her invitation but ready to cast caution to the winds. I turned and placed Aemilia’s bonnet on her shoes. Then I walked to the other side of the little peninsula, where I was hidden from her, and in the mindless state induced by the wine, I took off my coat, tie, boots, socks, then trousers. Should I leave on my shirt? No. I took it off, and dropped it on the ground, then set on it the pathetic intertwined burden of Lukswaas’s stone and my own signet ring still on its thong. I was now only wearing my cotton summer drawers, which reached to just above the knee. I walked into the water, and felt my way through the lily pads. The lake was cold and very clear. To block my apprehension I breathed outward with a whoosh and threw myself forward with a tremendous splash, then came to the surface and swam out from the shore.

  Aemilia had entered the water more quietly from her side. She came swimming slowly towards me, doing a breast-stroke, her head clear of the water, her shoulders with white straps on them, very pink. We smiled at each other rather guiltily. In the freshness of the water the haze of the wine was gone, and we looked clearly into each other’s eyes for a moment of truth, fully aware of what we were doing and, at least on my part, happy to be doing it. Yes, I had learned something from Lukswaas, I thought complacently as Aemilia and I swam round each other in slow circles. I would never be so shy with a woman again. But in my heart I felt a pang: I would have given anything to have been swimming happily in this pristine lake with Lukswaas. Then I came back to the pleasure of being with Aemilia. She too had cast caution to the winds, and I was grateful to her. ‘This is lovely!’ I called, and rolled over on my back to kick along. I had only swum in fresh water in the Isis, never in a lake. It was glorious.

  After a while Aemilia called, ‘I’m going in now.’

  ‘All right.’ Dutifully, I swam over to my side of the little peninsula. I swam a few more circles, breathing easily, then came in to the shore and stepped up onto the grass. My feet were muddy, and water poured off me. I shook myself, and felt exhilarated. I was standing in the shade and began to feel cold. No towel, of course. I thought of drying myself with my shirt, but decided against it. Instead I stepped into the sun, toward the centre of the peninsula. Aemilia had done the same on her side, thirty feet or so away. She looked like a slim white ghost in her shift, which reached from her shoulders to just below her knees but clung wetly to her body. I moved at once back toward the shade but she called out ‘Wait! It’s all right. You’ll catch cold back there. The sun will dry you in no time.’

  I moved back into the sun which was now lower in the sky and shining directly on us from across the lake, its warm rays bathing my skin. Neither of us spoke. After a while, dry on my front, I turned to put my back to the sun, and noticed she had done the same. Still we did not speak, although as my body became warm and dry again I could feel a return of some of the headiness from the raspberry wine, and was becoming aware of an increasing tension between me and Aemilia across the yards of clearing. It was as if the afternoon had permitted my body to uncoil from my state of contraction I had put it into since the débâcle with Lukswaas, a state almost of self-punishment which might have endured for ever if Aemilia had not drawn me out of it. Now, coming back to my full self, I came back to an overwhelming sense of desire. This had, of course, been awakened by Lukswaas. I had struggled for years like any other celibate young man to suppress needs which must be kept for marriage or channelled into the adoration of ethereal young women in their crinolines – to convert, through constant effort, the animal into the spiritual, as I must do with Aemilia, to rise above what Lukswaas had awakened. But now, for reasons I could not understand and in my sensual state could not guess at, even Aemilia had made it clear that she was willing at least to play at the edge of the abyss of sensuality. She did not seem to want to be spiritualized. I did not
really believe she wanted to embrace me at the other, animal level either. But there we were, not far away from each other, in a state of half undress, slowly turning and drying in the sun. As I filled again with heat it seemed to pour downward in my body and stirred me. Without looking at Aemilia I turned slightly so that my back was more toward her. Then I heard her:

  ‘Chad!’

  ‘I turned to face her. She was facing me. She raised her arms slowly, reaching for me. I walked towards her across the tufted grass and into her arms, holding her to me. She was trembling slightly, and warm through her shift now dry. We kissed, rather clumsily and wildly, our lips slipping across each other. I felt her pulling me back toward the picnic place and the forest. Still embracing, as if afraid that letting go would cause us to reflect on what we were doing and stop, we stumbled across the grass to the blanket and almost fell onto it, scrambling to push aside glasses and plates with a clatter onto the ground.

  We lay in a tight embrace on the blanket, rolling, panting, kissing, clutching each other. Gradually she allowed me to become free with her body, pushing against me as I touched her, and she became free with mine, running her fingers down my back and in and around my thighs. Although we never pulled back to look at each other or caught each other’s eye, for a long while we caressed each other, to an almost unbearable extent. I could not help thinking of Lukswaas, her skin which moved on her body like that of a cat. Aemilia was different, her skin more taut, but the lines of her body exquisite. Our clothes were peeled off and shoved aside but still we caressed each other. Although Aemilia had seemed eager for this embrace she did not now seem eager to consummate it. I faltered, aware suddenly of the seriousness of the situation – one move and we would be into the abyss, if that was what it was. But Aemilia whispered into my ear, her breath roaring and hot: ‘I’m not so innocent as I seem, and nor are you. Do it.’ She moved slightly, and I did. We were together, again for a long time. I was surprised that although bursting with need, something deep inside me was slow to give way. It was not the same as … My movements became almost mechanical. ‘Be careful, darling,’ she said, ‘Don’t make me pregnant.’ I pulled back and out of her, and tried to jam myself forward between her and the blanket and finish it by friction. But I couldn’t. I began to think of Lukswaas – but not in that way. Instead I felt like crying. Aemilia was clutching me tightly as if locked or frozen.

  We lay still. I opened my eyes so that I could see her face. Out of one closed eyelid, next to me, a tear was trickling. I almost said ‘What’s wrong?’ Instead I closed my eyes and lay in her arms, my heart sinking, trying to answer the question for myself. I realized, numbly, the obvious fact that she was no virgin. (Not like Lukswaas!) And that she had known all along what this afternoon might lead to. And that her heart was not in it. No: I knew, from Lukswaas, what a woman was like when her heart was in it. My heart had not been in this either. But of course I had wanted it. She must have wanted it too: she had drunk a glass of wine for each one she had poured me. Why should she give herself away like this? It was, in conventional terms, a horrendous, a fantastic step for a girl of good family to take. In theory it destroyed all chances of a marriage. She had even said to me – out of honesty, cynicism, or despair? – ‘I’m not so innocent as I seem, and nor are you.’ Yet neither of us had been able to go all the way through with this. There had been no ‘Boo woo’…

  I moved back from her. Now she was looking at me seriously, but she broke into a not quite real smile. ‘Chad,’ she said, ‘keep holding me.’ She pulled me back towards her. It was warm in the declining rays of the sun, and we could have stayed there a long while. She snuggled closely against me. ‘Don’t worry’, she said, ‘I’m afraid I disrupted you. It will be all right.’

  ‘Of course it won’t’, I said. ‘Now is not the time for us. And I must go. I’m on duty. I shall be late as it is.’ I moved away from her but she pulled me close again and stroked my naked back.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s wait until the sun is down. I don’t need to be home yet. As you see, I’m a free agent. But don’t let’s even talk. It’s so nice, just like this.’ She began caressing me, and indeed it was lovely, in the warm sun, in this lovely woman’s arms, and I could have started all over again except that it had gone wrong for a reason and in part of me – which seemed to be my mind, rather than my heart – a cold logical train of thought was asserting itself. It said to me that Aemilia had prostituted herself to me. She had not done it for money, and she had prostituted something more than the Windsor Rooms girls: her reputation. For what? For time. For nothing but time.

  I pulled out of her arms and scrambled to my feet. ‘I’m sorry, I must go,’ I said. And although not with the horror in which Lukswaas had backed away from me, ‘the source of horror,’ I turned away from Aemilia, the source of temptation – and comfort, and an honest warmth which I realized was not love but friendship – and went across the clearing to put on my clothes.

  To my amazement she leapt up and followed me, tugging at my arm. ‘Chad! Chad! You mustn’t go. My God! You can’t just have a woman and then go away and leave her!’

  ‘I pushed her hand away and began pulling on my trousers. I reached for the stone and ring and slipped them over my head.

  ‘Did she give you that, your little Indian squaw? Aemilia spat.

  ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘Just a guess. I know Indian girls wear these. The sluts!’ She clutched at me again. ‘Chad!’ She began to cry, genuinely, her face a picture of despair.

  ‘Aemilia, I know what you’ve been doing. You’ve been keeping me here. I don’t know why. I’m on duty. I hope your keeping me here has nothing to do with that.’ In fact, my guiding thought, though confused, was that she must be keeping me from my job in order to have me lose it, or to ruin my reputation in some way.

  I can’t believe this!’ She said passionately, standing there naked but apparently careless of it. ‘I give myself to you. I give my body. You have me. And you abandon me! You’re an absolute bounder! If you go now I’ll tell the world you have assaulted me and raped me!’ Her eyes were blazing.

  But this excess of hers enabled me to stand my ground. ‘You can tell the world what you want. I shall remain silent. And I didn’t truly have you. Nor did you truly have me. Let’s not pretend. Aemilia I’m most grateful to you, but…’

  ‘Grateful!’ She shrieked. She reached out to restrain me as I made a lunge away.

  ‘I must go. My duty is my honour. Please respect it, as I respect yours.’

  ‘Oh God! What rubbish you Englishmen speak. You will stay here with me. You cannot abandon a defenseless woman in the forest like this.’

  ‘Get dressed, and I’ll see you out to the road. Then I must go. Believe me. I know you’re upset, but I have to. I can come and see you tomorrow if you wish, and we can mend our fences. Aemila, my dear…’ I felt real tenderness, ‘please let us be friends.’

  ‘In order to enjoy me properly next time! No. If you wish to avail yourself of my embraces, you shall stay with me now.’

  ‘I’ll have to go.’ Almost blindly, I pushed her aside and walked across to the hamper. In the dying light I began stacking the picnic things in it – the plates, glasses, a piece of cake, the empty wine flagon.

  Down by the water Aemilia stood stepping into her drawers, then her hooped petticoat, then pulling her dress on over her head. She stooped to put on her shoes. Then she picked up her stays, which she had not bothered to put on, folding them into a stiff bundle. She came over to me and turned her back. ‘Button me up.’

  I buttoned the fabric, now grey in the dull light, up her back from waist to neck over her white shift. I could have cried with anguish.

  ‘Chad,’ she said softly, and turned toward me, embracing me. ‘We can be friends. One more time…’ She snuggled in closely.

  I pulled free of her with a jerk, almost ran to the hamper and picked it up. ‘Come!’ I said, setting off into the darkened forest. I he
ard her footsteps behind me as I hurried along the path. I reached the cart and went round to the back, pushing the hamper behind the seat. Aemilia was beside me, throwing on the folded cloth, the bundle of her stays, and the blanket.

  ‘Will you please escort me home?’ she said quietly. ‘It’s getting dark.’

  ‘Aemilia!’ I yelled, losing my temper. ‘I must go. I’m already almost two hours late. I’ll escort you to the road only.’ But I hesitated. In truth it would not be chivalrous to let her go home in the dark – not that it was actually dark, but it soon would be. My resolve weakened. Suddenly I hardly knew why I was leaving her. To hell with Seeds, to hell with the jail.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll turn the cart for you, and I’ll escort you home over the hill.’ It would only be an extra mile. ‘But you must promise to go as fast as you can. In fact I shall ride in front.’

  ‘She said nothing. She helped me, rather listlessly, hitch her horse to the cart and turn it, not an easy thing to do in the growing dark. Then as I helped her politely up into the seat, she turned and embraced me gently. ‘Forgive me, Chad. Oh, please forgive me.’

  ‘Nothing to forgive. I have nothing but the most tender feelings for you Aemilia. Let me come and see you soon and I hope we can be friends again.’

  ‘All right.’ She climbed into the seat.

  I unhitched my horse, mounted and set off down the path and out of the forest. We emerged onto the main road at a point where it crossed a rise, and as we turned South we could see down to Victoria and the Straits. The jagged line of Hurricane Ridge, in Washington Territory, was incredibly clear, like a long serrated blue blade against the pink light reflected from the sunset on the West, which flared above the lower mountains of our own Vancouver Island, tinted a green-blue such as would never be seen in England. I trotted my horse along in front of the cart, down the road a little way, then up the cross road which led over a low hill between fields and woods to the Orchard Farm valley. I did not look back. It was nothing like completely dark when we reached the road a hundred yards from Orchard Farm. Some light might even hold until I reached town. I turned as the cart came up behind me and called ‘Goodnight!’