House of Bliss

by T T Thomas

  Jeremy shrugged. “Just something I noticed,” he said. He helped Sabrina into the carriage, then bade the driver to leave. He watched as the rig made a neat turn and headed in the direction of a better part of town. Once inside, he ran into Mendicott in the hallway.

  “Your friend certainly knows her corsets,” the officer said.

  Jeremy gave him a tight smile. “Well, she should, it’s her business.”

  “Maybe so,” Mendicott said. “Maybe so.”

  Chapter 9

  Later That Day

  Annabel taught me something. I hadn’t noticed at the time because what we did seemed so sheltering, so unprompted that I thought it had always been a part of me. Now I know that I learned it from her. But it’s not easily transferable to another, even under similar circumstances. No. When it happens, nothing else gets in. Nothing else means anything. Nothing else can compare. One doesn’t grasp it in the happening. Indeed, one shuns clarity for immersion.

  But later, one knows this: It is impossible to look into another’s eyes while making love and not fall into the abyss of damnable intimacy, vexatious love, troubling, turbulent, convulsive capitulation to awareness.

  A shocking recognition: We reflect nothing without the dreamy supplication from another’s eyes, without the imperative of possessiveness unmasked, without the disequilibrium of falling unashamedly and exposed into the tide pools of the foreshore with its mysterious flora and fauna of hardy, unnamed passion. Without the unguarded eyes of a beloved, we are sightless; we are solitary; we are subordinate to claustrophobic comportment, deportment and conduct—a restraint, a withholding, a self-denial. None of it meant for love.

  Ah, but to watch another’s eyes swimming deeply into our own—the powerful strokes, the coy treading, the diving in, the euphoric floating—are we not enraptured, arrested and imprisoned, then willingly submerged into pools of ineffable transcendence? The pregnable pooling tides cry out in visceral utterance, in urgent, naked, indecipherable pleas for mercy, while the holy waters discretely weep tears of surrender and pray for sacred remembrance. Underwater, the submersibles of need and want breathe deeply, finally.

  Immutable consummation, unearthly synchronicity.

  I have not found it since.

  Excerpt from Sabrina Blissdon’s journal, Exhibit 3, Evidence File No. 3

  The ride home was slow. The last of the snow was melting into a messy slush, the temperatures were rising, spring was only three weeks away, and Easter a mid-April day less than a month after that. As Sabrina looked out the window, she saw the faces of poverty and distress common to this area of town. Worried brows, hunched backs and everyone trudging toward survival.

  In the presence of corsets stained with the blood of women who didn’t deserve to die, her thoughts turned to Annabel. No matter how certain she was that the garments found so far did not belong to Annabel, the fear was ever in the back of her mind since hearing about the first murder. She had not seen Annabel for nearly three years. Much could happen to a person, especially a woman in London in a dangerous line of work.

  Sabrina had grown close with Lena in the intervening years, but the confusion and pain of losing Annabel never allowed her to love without reservation. It informed her caution, intercepted her impulses, and crystallized her resolve to avoid romantic liaisons that could lead to loss and heartache.

  The part of herself that she held back did not reflect a conscious effort, but she saw her own reticence in her lover’s eyes and voice. Lena seemed to have a sixth sense about not prodding too much or delving too deeply into the private corridors of Sabrina’s mind, but she noticed all.

  Yet over time, Lena’s quiet persistence, perseverance, vitality and patience had worn down the highest of the walls between them. They shared a home and possessions. They had similar tastes and compatible interests. Although they left words of commitment unsaid, acts of connection paved the way ahead.

  But Sabrina knew the status quo would be acceptable to Lena for a finite time. Lena wanted more deliberate emotional fidelity, but she seemed reluctant to request it of Sabrina, at least so far.

  Annabel was a formidable ghost, and neither Lena nor Sabrina could figure out how to keep her from roaming the secret area in Sabrina’s mind that held a space for Annabel’s corporeal entity. Not that Sabrina thought Annabel might come back to her; it was more a case of wanting to believe Annabel had never left her. There must be some perfectly reasonable explanation, a logical reason, for her disappearance. Sabrina moved through her life as if finding those answers would make everything right with her world.

  She rarely asked herself: And what will you do if you find Annabel? What will you do if you find out she left because her love for you was gone or not enough to make her stay?

  No, she refused to linger on those thoughts. When the questions seeped their way into her consciousness despite her efforts to hold them in abeyance, more confusion ensued. Her confidence dissolved, she didn’t trust her instincts and intuition, and she couldn’t bear the pain of such an explanation. Best to leave all of it in its dark, dormant place. For now.

  But however long the belief, the distant hope and the fantasy lover existed, there would be insufficient room for a real one.

  Then Felicity arrived in her life, at once familiar and foreign. Intriguing. but disquieting.

  A succedaneum for the ghost, a replication of the chimera and yet, a mere approximation of the spectral inamorata.

  Dizzying bewilderment. Bewitching seduction.

  Chapter 10

  When I thought of Annabel, which was too often to be healthy, I thought as often of the tenderness of our lovemaking as I thought of the feral, urgent, hungers of proprietary, territorial, carnal she cats. There was a place for both with Annabel, and I liked that. I liked her uninhibited and frank desires; I liked her soft and gentle protectiveness of our love, the slow sweetness of ardor and affinity. There was no thought to it, as such, no discussion. We seemed in some kind of ethereal synchronization of both bodies and psyche.

  That is exactly how I knew, in the secret chambers of my heart, Annabel had not left me. Something happened…she may have been forced apart from me, but she did not leave me. She wouldn’t. I can say that with certainty. She would not leave me voluntarily.

  And yet I had nowhere to turn with my certainty.

  Excerpt from Sabrina Blissdon’s journal, Exhibit 4, Evidence File No. 3

  Sabrina was in the hallway looking through the day’s mail when the front door opened and Felicity West walked in looking beyond gorgeous in Sabrina’s old clothes.

  “Oh, hello, Miss West.”

  “Good afternoon, Miss Blissdon.” Felicity stopped; she seemed frozen in place.

  Sabrina looked up. “Have you had a nice afternoon out?”

  “Went for some fresh air, nothing special.”

  Sabrina thumbed through the mail idly, again, not seeing it but compelled to look busy and stalling for time. “Well, we’ve both got enough time to freshen up for dinner. You will join us, I hope.” She gave Felicity a warm smile, and apparently thrown off by this new warmth, Felicity stammered.

  “Yes, I, yes, that would be lovely. I, I better go see to Sophia and freshen up, as you say.” She walked toward the stairs but whirled around suddenly. “Miss Blissdon? Did you know I sew? Well, of course you don’t. But I do, and if there’s any help I could give in your studio, I’d be…grateful.”

  This was not the conversation Sabrina had expected. “Let’s talk of it over dinner, then.” She hoped her tone was bright enough to be encouraging. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

  Sabrina looked after her as she walked up the stairs and sighed. It might be refreshing to have the new life in the house. Something to brighten the place. New perspective to share. She tossed the mail back onto the table and called out for Cath, who came down the same stairs Felicity had ascended.

  Sabrina’s afternoon had been sad and discomfiting. As Cath turned to head upstairs again to dra
w her bath, Sabrina touched her arm.

  “Cath? I can run my bath—be a dear and have Walters uncork something festive for dinner. If we’re still having the pork loin, then a nice French white. Or wait. Let’s do one of the Beaujolais. More fun and festive.”

  “You want a red?” Cath’s tone of doubt hung in the air between them.

  “Indeed. Have Walters take out two bottles.” She knew the pork would be bland despite Cath’s failed efforts to experiment with seasonings.

  Cath nodded agreeably. “Well, I’m sure Miss West will appreciate the effort.”

  “Effort?”

  “Something a bit festive,” Cath answered. “Poor girl’s been ‘round to see her elderly auntie, and I fear it’s left Miss West feeling poorly. She was white as a ghost when I seen her on the landing.”

  Sabrina looked up to the empty second floor landing. “You don’t say? Well, good. Festive it will be.”

  Another lie from Miss West: ‘…a bit of fresh air…nothing special.’

  Sabrina floated upstairs and threw herself on her bed without undressing. She had so much thinking to do. She wondered if she’d be able to forget the bloody corsets and concentrate instead on the pretty face and deviousness of her houseguest.

  The aroma of crushed gardenia filled the room.

  She sat up abruptly. Had she been dozing? Were her thoughts a dream?

  She saw the back of Cath and realized her bath was ready. As she was about to step into the warm, luxurious liquid, she heard Cath running another bath down the hall. Apparently, Miss West wished to be all clean and sparkly at dinner, too.

  Hmm…devious and divine. Sabrina half-heartedly admonished herself for the impertinence of her thoughts.

  Estimable audacity. Intemperate catastrophe.

  Dinner turned out to be a delightful disaster.

  They both descended the stairs at about the same time, Felicity a step ahead of Sabrina. Neither said a word. When they reached the bottom of the stairs and the entrance to the dining room, Sabrina reached across Felicity to open the door.

  “You look lovely this evening, Miss West. Allow me.” Sabrina glanced past Felicity’s bosom as she turned the doorknob.

  Felicity gave her a look. It could have been a grimace, a smile or a smirk, and Sabrina was unnerved that she didn’t know which it was.

  Once seated, Sabrina at the head of the table, Felicity to her immediate right, Walters materialized with drinks in short tumblers.

  “Oh my, what is this?” asked Felicity.

  “Our apéritif this evening is Campari with a splash of vermouth and a touch of soda. Tell me if you like it.”

  Felicity touched the slice of orange with her forefinger, then picked up the crystal glass and took a sip. “Slightly bitter, slightly sweet, um, I like it.” She took another sip.

  Seeing her guest’s cheeks become rosy, Sabrina smiled. “It suits you.”

  “Do you know what else suits me?” Felicity asked of a surprised Sabrina. “Being here, in this house, the warmth, the generosity, you.”

  Sabrina had another sip of her apéritif. “And how might we make that a more permanent feature of…life, Miss West?”

  “Felicity, please. Aren’t we well past the formal stage?” Her slow smile invited assent.

  “All right, Felicity, then you must call me ‘Sabrina’.” Another sip of the Campari drink. Sabrina picked the orange off her glass and took a bite out of it. Felicity’s eyes got wide, and then she did the same. They laughed together—a beguiling combination of nerves and facile comfort.

  “I might be of help in your studio. I’m going to have to earn my keep in a short while, but with Sophia…”

  “Who isn’t your child,” said Sabrina softly. They looked directly at one another. Sabrina saw a shadow cross the other woman’s face, but it only served to heighten the contrast with her pale, flawless skin. A rush of heat coursed through Sabrina’s body, and she knew if she didn’t look away, she’d embarrass herself. Fortunately, Felicity lowered her eyelids.

  “No, Sophia is not mine.”

  “And she probably doesn’t belong to your elderly, ailing auntie, either, I surmise?”

  Felicity smiled. “I knew I had tripped up there,” she conceded. “I, I didn’t want to burden anyone. You took me in off the street. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful.”

  “So, to whom does the child belong, Felicity?”

  Hearing her name spoken so gently, Felicity’s eyes became brighter and watery. Sabrina, seeing this, reached over and placed a hand on the young woman’s arm. When skin touched skin, they both started.

  “I—sorry.” Sabrina removed her hand.

  “No, no, it’s not that,” Felicity said slightly above a whisper. “Sophia is my sister’s child. My sister divorced. She became pregnant with—my sister is a prostitute,” she blurted out.

  At that moment, Cath and Walters came through the door from the kitchen to serve dinner and stopped dead in their tracks, nearly running into one another. They recovered, and after Walters poured the wine, Cath began to serve.

  “Your sister?” Sabrina reminded her guest.

  Felicity began in the middle of a sentence. “…and so I thought, perhaps I can help my sister, who is not well, by the way, and pay for my room and board here by working in the studio. I’m good at—”

  Sabrina stared at her, not knowing for sure what the pretty woman was saying. She watched as Felicity gestured with those dangerous hands. She saw her eyes sparkle, her skin flush and her entire body relax. Felicity wore another of Sabrina’s old gowns, revealing an alluring décolletage that Sabrina found herself looking at more than she ought. Felicity had rosy breasts, but it could have been the wine.

  Oh, to hell with decorum. Sabrina wanted to lean over and cover her guest’s mouth with sweet kisses and sweep the woman up into her arms. She wanted to protect her, help her, and make love to her, um—help her. Felicity looked up and into her eyes, and Sabrina felt unmasked.

  “I’m certain we can, ah, find, um, something for you in the middle. In the studio,” she stammered. “What did you say you were adept with?”

  Felicity blinked, the hint of a smile dawning on her face. “Ah, what subject were we talking about?”

  Sabrina’s eyes crossed. “Um, sewing? What, uh, are you good at in the sewing arts?”

  Felicity’s face recomposed itself to seriousness. “Oh, I can do all the basics, and I embroider, too.”

  “Have you used a sewing machine?” Sabrina asked.

  “No, but I’m an agile learner.”

  Sabrina raised her glass in a toast. “Are you now? Good to know. Cheers, then.”

  Felicity blushed from her ears to the tip of her nose but she kept her eye on the prize. “Does that mean you will hire me?”

  Sabrina raised her own glass. “Yes. Cheers, then!”

  The evening ended at the top of the stairs when they finally got there after struggling and nearly tripping. Holding onto one another as they went up, both acknowledged they were tipsy. Once on the landing, Sabrina withdrew her arm from around Felicity’s waist.

  “I do hope,” she began.

  “So do I,” Felicity said, as she leaned in to kiss her.

  Sabrina’s insides ran hot as she prolonged the kiss on lips that did not pull away. One kiss became two, but the second one was a slow, extended kiss with a tight embrace. Sabrina’s knees began to buckle as she felt the press of those rosy breasts up against her own. Then Felicity stepped back and turned toward her bedroom door.

  Sabrina stood there feeling out of control, mixed up, slightly stunned. “Sweet dreams,” she said, as Felicity crossed the threshold into her own bedroom.

  Before she shut the door, she turned toward Sabrina. She looked as though she wanted to say something—she opened her mouth, but instead she giggled, lost her balance and fell backwards.

  Sabrina rushed through the door and saw that Felicity had fallen onto her bed. My God—what a tiny room.

  The ba
by was in her bassinet. Sophia and Felicity lost to sweet slumber was a sudden, sobering sight. Sabrina removed Felicity’s shoes and scooted her toward the middle of the one-person bed. She stood there looking at the thin figure in an old dress Sabrina had abandoned. She considered removing that, too. Instead, she covered Felicity with a blanket and a sigh.

  Once in her own bed, Sabrina tossed and turned. Smitten and attracted to Felicity, the degree of sexual tension between them disquieted her. Surely, Felicity felt it, too. After all, she initiated the kiss. And she had not rebuked Sabrina’s next kiss. Still, this was not the direction Sabrina expected things to go. Sabrina had Lena. She didn’t need a distraction or a dalliance.

  So, Felicity’s sister was a prostitute. Sabrina wondered idly if Felicity had taken up the ancient profession at any time. She doubted it. But the sister’s work did explain her houseguest’s interest in the prostitutes’ murders and could mean her sister was active on the streets. But Felicity mentioned that her sister was ill. Sabrina would have to get these details later.

  In the meantime, her memory hovered over bits of the evening where Felicity looked particularly pretty. She was too thin, but her inner glow shone through her eyes as a shimmer of summons. Sabrina was finding it impossible to resist the mute but clear entreaty.

  Feeling restless, she stood up and then paced her bedroom. Her mind ran through images of what she would like to do with Felicity. She was over warm, fuzzy and disoriented. Right. Well, this complication was the last thing she needed in her life.

  After she got back into bed, she smiled at the silliness a few glasses of wine had got them up to. It was the wine. Wasn’t it?

  Wicked aspiration, decadent redemption.

  Chapter 11

  March 1906