The Arrival of Missives

by Aliya Whiteley

  I shake my head.

  'No?' he says. I think maybe he is smiling. I want something deeper from him, something real, but I cannot find the words to tell him so.

  'You come here,' I say. My voice is just the same as his.

  He drops his hands from the span of the bridge, and takes a step to me. Just one step. Then he waits.

  So I take a step. Just one step. I am close enough to touch him now, so I do. I put my hands on his chest, and feel his skin through his best shirt, smooth skin, warmer than the night air around us. He breathes in, and his chest moves under my touch. He breathes out, and I feel the warmth of his exhalation upon my neck.

  I move my hands to his stomach, and he holds still for me, as still as he can. Flesh. He is flesh here. A real man.

  'My turn,' he whispers, and places his hands, so slowly, on either side of my waist. His hands are large and hard; he squeezes me, and I feel the strength of him through the layers of material into which I have been laced and shaped. Then he moves his hands upwards, and I feel, I feel such sensations, such possibilities that I have only imagined. It is the joy of the body, bodies together. He touches me upon the curves of my chest and then kneels to lift up my dress and stroke a path across my calves, the backs of my knees, and up, and up. He explores me, and breathes heavily, until I must pull him back to his feet and put my lips upon his face.

  The rasp of the shaven hair upon his chin tickles me; it is a rough delight upon my mouth, leaving my lips swollen, and then his mouth is upon my neck, my ear. He sucks at the lobe, then takes my wrist and slips his tongue along the path of the veins, and I reach out and pull at his clothes, beyond any words. All softness is gone from us in a moment when I dare to put my hands upon his thighs. Intent replaces it, pure intent to a happening that is so close, a happening that I want, I want, but I do not know how to—

  But there is instinct overriding all confusions, all coyness. His face takes on a blank intensity as he wrestles harder with the laces of my white dress; I do not want to wait while he struggles and so I still his hands with my own, and lift up my skirts.

  He snorts a deep breath out, and then he is pressing himself against me, and I stumble but he bears my weight backwards to the span of the bridge, and I feel the cold stones against my back as he fumbles with his trousers, and I pull at my drawers for him until we can feel skin against skin; he is so hard, so strange, and my body will not stretch for him, but it does not matter for he rubs against my thigh, his stubble burning at my neck, and it is a battle we share, locked as opponents, urging each other onwards, linked and driving forward, grim with purpose. In this sensation I could live forever – to make him respond this way to me, and me alone. For if this is a battle I am winning; to make him move this way upon me is a victory that I feel deep inside.

  There is a spurt of warmth upon my thigh, and Daniel stills. The warmth trickles down my leg, and begins to cool. Daniel moves away, and pulls down my skirts over my legs, arranging them with great care. He takes my hands in his, and holds them against his chest.

  'Are you…?'

  'I—' I do not know what to say.

  'It's my fault,' he says, 'but I am not sorry for it. Are you?'

  'It's nobody's fault,' I tell him, and am surprised to find I am still the same old Shirley, snippy with Daniel Redmore over every little thing because he once spilled ink down my back.

  'I just mean that I will take the blame.'

  Does there need to be blame? I suppose there must be. An inkling of what comes next seeps through me. It will soon be past midnight, and I will no longer be anyone's Queen. But still, it cannot be regretted, not yet. No matter what comes next. And I do not need a rock in my chest to tell me what that might be.

  'I'll walk you home, and explain to your father,' he says. He sounds older. Yes, the outline of him has changed, just a little. His shoulders are broader, as if they carry an extra burden.

  'I'd like to know what words you'll use to manage that,' I say, and the thought of him trying to explain the state of my dress, our disappearance from the green, and the lateness of the hour, is suddenly quite the funniest idea of which I have ever heard. I cannot help but laugh. The sound rolls out of me, and I cannot stop. Daniel does not join in. He shakes his head, and says, 'Sometimes I think you're mad, Shirley.' He does not say it with malice, but with some emotion that might even be admiration, and I remember all the things I like about him. Including his body. His body, and the way it feels upon mine. I stop laughing, and I touch his stomach once more. Yes, there it is again, that feeling that springs up between us. I wonder if it could ever be sated.

  I do not regret a thing, and I never will. I tell him so.

  We walk back together, our arms linked like children on an adventure. As we pass Mr Tiller's cottage, I see the lamp is still lit. I wonder what he does, awake at this hour, but I do not think on it for long. In fact, I hardly think on it at all.

  *

  They said I was clever.

  I see now they meant that I was bookish, and suited to becoming a learned woman. A learned woman is a very different object from a wise man. I have had no experience of life; how could I see all the traps, particularly the ones that looked most like my own choices, my own happiness? Keats did not warn me, and neither did Dickens. I did not find myself within their writings.

  I sit in the parlour and pour the tea. There are four cups to fill: one for my father, one for Daniel, one for my mother and one for me. I know how Daniel takes his tea now. This gathering is well on the way to becoming a usual cosy occurrence.

  Father and Daniel are talking business.

  'The sheep do best in the top field,' my father is saying. 'Little will grow there. Too rocky. You don't get a good price, perhaps, but at least it makes use of the ground. The future is poultry, I am thinking, all indoors. Maybe one day some sheds on that land? Electricity is not far away now, and I'll have it in everything, wait and see. Expansion and electricity.'

  He's never spoken to me in such a way, and if he did so now I would not care to listen. I recognise I am not meant to be paying attention anyway. The tea poured, I return to my mother on the sofa and we continue to sew the hem alteration upon the wedding dress. It was once hers, and now it is to be mine; we have fresh lace to sew upon the neckline, too.

  I thought nothing ever happened quickly in Westerbridge. Now I see I was wrong. When everyone of importance is in agreement, things can happen at an amazing speed. Barely a month has passed since May Day and the banns have been read twice already. My life has altered beyond recognition, and I am struggling to find myself within it. Where is the Shirley who found her tongue, who chased off impertinent questions and held her head high in the street? She has been swallowed up by shame.

  It is not even a shame that I feel, particularly. It is in everyone else's eyes and not in mine. They all stare at the waistband of my apron and make passing remarks to my mother as I hang behind her and wait for her to finish her shopping. What a blooming bride to be! Mrs Crowe said the other day. Everyone thinks they know my business, of course, and paints me in the colour that suits their sordid minds.

  The tea is drunk, and the day's work is considered done. Daniel and my father stand, and shake hands. They like each other very much, I think.

  'Tomorrow, then,' says Daniel.

  'Tomorrow,' my father agrees. 'Shirley, show him out. The evenings are getting much lighter, are they not? Why not take your lad for a walk awhile? Only a few weeks to go now until the wedding.'

  'A month,' I say.

  Father raises an eyebrow. 'Counting the days, she is, I see.'

  His laughter follows us to the door, and I leave him behind as quickly as I can, striding into the June evening air with Daniel a few steps behind me. The view over the hill is beautiful; sunset strikes the landscape like a hammer, turning all to molten gold. It makes me realise that I really did like the smithy. I liked how Daniel belonged within it, in that place of heat and fire and strength. He still lives ther
e for now, but after the wedding he will come to the farm. Later, one of the cottages that the shepherds once used may be mended for us; at least, that is what my father says.

  Plans, and plans, and plans.

  Daniel catches me up as I head for the top field at speed; I want to see the sun go down for the evening. He slips his hand around mine and says, 'You're quiet all the time, now. Are you so sad? To have left schooling behind, I mean?'

  I have not been allowed to return to school since May Day. I have not seen Mr Tiller once since that night. Girls who are about to be married have other things to think about, I was told quietly by my mother. I think she meant girls who have disgraced themselves. They all fear I would be a bad influence on the others.

  'Yes,' I say. 'I suppose I am sad about it.'

  I was once important to the very future of mankind, according to Mr Tiller. He needed my help above all others, but now the job is done.

  'It's difficult, I know it,' says Daniel. He squeezes my hand. 'I know this is not what we planned for.'

  'We made no actual plans at all.'

  'Once we are married, though,' he continues, 'we will not have to live the way they all say, will we? Then we can make our own rules.'

  I smile at him. I am beginning to see he is just as innocent of life as I am. And this is not his fault, none of it. Truth be told, the more time I spend with him the more I appreciate that I could love him. For love is not the high ideal of beauty, of sacrifice, of noble deeds and chaste embraces that I had imagined when once I dreamed of Mr Tiller. It is a dirty business, of wanting and struggling and making do, and being each other's comfort because the world is cruel and there are few who want to do right by you with no thought of their own needs. I feel the glimmerings of that kind of love with Daniel, I think. And when he touches me I feel something altogether different. Not love, but want. I want him. If I will not get anything else from this life that I desire, why can I not have this one thing? Why can I not have Daniel to distract me?

  Sometimes I think I could be his wife, and find a way to be, in some degree, happy.

  'I wish we had more time before the wedding,' I tell him. 'It's all such a rush.'

  'You know why,' he says. We stop walking, and I realise we have come to the spot in the top field where once, not so long ago, Mr Tiller cried and I reached out to him. I touch Daniel's back, as I once did Mr Tiller's. Daniel does not flinch. He puts his arms around me.

  'I'm not with child, no matter how much everyone wishes it,' I say. I know this for certain, having grown up seeing how the animals in the field make their own babies; Daniel and I did not procreate, and besides, I have bled since that night under the bridge. But these things are impossible to speak of. I find myself blushing just to state it out loud now, in front of the man I am meant to marry.

  'How are you so sure?' he says. 'It's better to be safe.'

  'We didn't… I know my own body, Daniel.' He seems to know next to nothing about the workings of females, and yet my word in this matter counts no more than his. He told my father that he compromised me, and that was the end of the conversation.

  'Once we're married we could move to Taunton,' he says. 'Or London. Or America. I don't care. Wherever you would like to go. I have no taste for farming.'

  'China,' I say.

  'Follow the trail of Marco Polo, like two proper adventurers.'

  'I could still train to be a teacher,' I say.

  He thinks about it, and then nods. 'Maybe,' he says. Then he kisses me as the daylight fades and, oh, his lips are so very good against mine, and we could stay here and weave these dreams through the night.

  Maybe this is my destiny.

  Maybe I did save the world, and this is my reward – to be kissed, and safe, and serene, and loved within this web of possible tomorrows.

  We watch the last moments of the sunset, and I try to get him to kiss me again and touch me properly, but he will not. He says after the wedding, and treats me like china, which I like and find irksome in equal measure.

  'Tomorrow,' he says, 'I will have the delight of learning about crop yields with your father.' He rolls his eyes, and kisses my cheek. Then he sets off, down the field, and as he goes I feel the need for an answer building within me; I have to know if I did my job, and if this is to be my life from now on.

  I need to see Mr Tiller.

  So I head across the top of the field, scattering the sheep, and I find the narrow path through the woods that leads to Mr Tiller's house. I run and run.

  Did I save the world?

  If I did, will that be enough for me?

  *

  The lamp burns in the kitchen window. The roses have bloomed early and are now blousy, the petals falling to the doorstep, unswept. The weeds are tall around the house, crawling up and up, clinging to the cracks in the walls. Nature would swallow him whole if it could.

  My knock upon the door is timid, but the hush of evening is too strong a spell for me to break. I wonder if he has heard, but yes – after a moment – the door opens, and he looks upon me with surprise.

  'Miss Fearn! This is unexpected.'

  'Is it?'

  'Can I be of assistance?'

  'I must speak with you. Most urgently.' He does not reply. 'On a matter I think you would not care to discuss upon your doorstep.'

  He looks around me, over the lane and the trees. 'You are alone, then? I hardly think Mr Redmore would like it if I invited you into my home at such an hour. Come to the schoolroom tomorrow and I should be able to spare you a moment or two at lunch. You could see your former classmates; that should be gratifying for them all.'

  'Please do not play the schoolmaster with me,' I tell him. I am incensed that he would even try to effect a superiority. I am seeing him with a clarity born of our time apart. 'I no longer attend your class. I think I will never set foot in the schoolroom again, and there is nothing left for you to teach me. And so our discussion must take place here and now or in the church on Sunday morning, in front of Reverend Mountcastle and the congregation. Which would you prefer?'

  I have cowed him. He opens the door to me, and as I pass inside he says, sadly, 'You have changed, Shirley.'

  Why should those words wound me? But they do; I feel pierced by them. I try my hardest not to let it show upon my face. I make my way to the kitchen, where the usual lamp burns in the window. But all else is changed. The room is bare, stripped of his possessions. The mounted plate upon the wall is gone and no bright robin's eye watches over us. The table and chairs remain, but all pots and pans are gone from the dresser, and a large tea chest stands beside it instead, blankets and newspaper within, crumpled.

  'Where are you going?' I ask.

  'My work here is done. I'm needed elsewhere.'

  'To another – family that needs fixing? To save the future? But what about the Redmores?'

  'You will make a new family.'

  'I do not understand,' I say.

  'You did a marvellous thing on May Day evening. You changed the world.' Mr Tiller limps to the table, and strokes his hands over the wood.

  'And I am supposed to take your word for it.'

  'As you have about so many things, my dear. About how to form your letters, how to add numbers, how to understand the past and use it to view the future. Dickens and Marco Polo, history and geography, and now this. You once trusted me, and I cannot see why on earth I have lost that trust when I have done my utmost to be honest with you. But it is gone, and I am bereft to know that. But I cannot say I am truly surprised; I wrote to you, once, that one day you would despise me.'

  'I am to stay here and be a wife, then.'

  'And a mother, of course. The mother of great men, of that I have no doubt.'

  I am filled with such emotions; I have never felt anger like it, never in my life, but with it is a resurgence, a memory, of the tender place Mr Tiller occupied in my affections, of the way I loved him in a way that I will never love again. My knees cannot hold me and my legs will not stop trembl
ing. I sit upon the nearest chair and put my forehead against the tabletop. Closing my eyes, concentrating only on my breathing, I can survive this moment. I can hold back the urge to gasp at the air, like a fish pulled from the sea, for then I will be lost to reason.

  'Are you unwell?' says Mr Tiller, as if from very far away, and then, 'Perhaps this is to be expected for your condition?'

  So much for deep, even breaths. So much for reason.

  'I am not in a condition!'

  'No?' He frowns. 'But I was told in the village—'

  'I do not care what you were told. I am not with child. I did nothing that could lead to the creation of a child.'

  'But I instructed you—'

  'You are no longer my teacher!' I slam my hands upon the table, so hard that my palms sting. I will be heard. 'And I am done with taking your words on this subject for granted. You will show me the rock, and I will speak with it.'

  He stares at me. Then he says, coolly, 'What makes you think the rock will choose to speak to you?' So now I see him clearly, even in the shadows of this emptied room. His superiority is no more than an assumed guise. He made me once believe that he really did know best.

  'No more discussion,' I say. I point to the chair at the head of the table, where once I saw him sit as I peered through the window, and this twisted business began. 'There. Sit there. Unbutton your shirt.'

  'Only whores command men so. Come now, Shirley, if you are so adamant you are not a fallen woman, why act like one?'

  'No, I am not a whore, although you did your best to make me otherwise. I will remind you, sir, that I have private letters from you. I have kept them. These letters could make it very difficult for you to procure another teaching position in the future.'

  He clenches his fists. Have I pushed him too far? He is transparent to me; I can see him weighing his options. Eventually, he decides to bargain with me.

  'If I do this,' he says, 'you must destroy the letters. I want your word on it. Your solemn word. I should not have written them if I had known you to be so devious in nature.'