The Strange Adventures of H

by Sarah Burton

  “Madam,” he said and gave that endearing bow, a little less stiff than before. “I wish to apologise. May I come in?”

  I gestured to the sofa, remembering to keep my jaws closed, and made a business of tidying the table. Of course he would not sit until I did, but I took a chair across from him, I know not why.

  “My conduct, last time we met, was most discourteous. I am sorry for that. I trust you might find it in your heart to forgive me.”

  Though this was a statement, he seemed to wait for my assent. I nodded slightly and, as I thought, graciously.

  “I was merely taken utterly by surprise. I meant no insult to your person… ” He hesitated somewhat. “Nor to your profession.”

  Though he could not have been plainer nor kinder I could not find one word with which to answer him.

  “Moreover, I have given the matter some thought,” he said, colouring and once more addressing his Persian friend on the floor. He had evidently rehearsed his opening address but was having some trouble with the meat of his message. “My uncle knows… I have led a very sheltered life… If I am to be married… My bride is young and innocent… ”

  “You should hate to make a pig’s ear of it,” said I.

  “Exactly!” He was so relieved it was almost pitiful. “My uncle has been most kind to me. He has been a good judge and a kind friend – almost a father. Even though I had misgivings… I am inclined to trust his advice and follow his direction. If he thinks it a matter of such import… That is, if your generous offer still stands… to be my friend.”

  “To set you on the right road?”

  “To show me the way.” With a trembling lip in which shyness and boldness competed for mastery came a smile that would tempt a saint. It was all I needed to swing into step.

  “Very well. You are Charles, are you not? What do your friends call you?”

  “Charlie.”

  “Then I shall call you Charlie. And my friends call me Halcyon, or H. Whatever you prefer. But no more madam.”

  “I am your humble servant in all things,” he said, and we allowed ourselves a little smile.

  “Now, Charlie, how about a drink? I find it oils the wheels of – ” and I was about to say ‘business’, but substituted “conversation.”

  “Alas, I have an appointment,” he said. “I had hoped to arrange a meeting with you – at your convenience, of course.”

  Of course. An appointment. Of course.

  “By all means,” said I, smoothly. “This evening?”

  He was visibly taken aback. Evidently he had expected to have more time to prepare himself for the awful ordeal. Soft, soft, I told myself. Not too fast.

  “Very well,” he said, swallowing.

  I rose and held out my hand.

  “Until tonight then. About the hour of nine?”

  “Nine! Nine it is!” He kissed my hand without emotion and did his dear little bow again.

  “Charlie,” I said, as he went to go out of the door.

  “Madam? I mean, H?”

  “Don’t worry.”

  He blushed. His lip trembled. He was gone.

  “Blind me!” said Janey moments later, eyeing the untouched glasses. “Haven’t you slowed him down any yet?”

  57

  As the clock of St Margaret’s struck nine, Janey announced the arrival of the bridegroom. I was ready for him. We had put candles all around the room, but not lit the chandelier, to create an agreeable effect of rosy gloom. I instantly offered him a drink. He accepted. I sat him on the couch and said, in a low voice, “You must submit to being my pupil.”

  He drank deeply, but calmly, I thought, and said, “I place myself entirely under your tutelage,” in a way which made me think it was not the first drink that had passed his lips that night.

  “In the normal run of things,” I said, making so bold as to take his hand and place it on my waist, “I would show you simply what has to be done to make a baby.” I touched his cheek, stroked it. He flinched slightly, but did not pull away. “But I am going to show you how to please a woman. I am going to show you how to make love to a wife, and keep her.” I kissed his ear.

  “Thank you,” he said, in a way that almost made me want to weep. He was such an open, honest darling.

  I had been determined – indeed made many resolutions – to do nothing merely to please him; I was after all to strike a blow in favour of his wife’s pleasure, but I needed to set him at his ease, so unloosed his shirt from his breeches and began gently exploring his body, while planting gentle kisses on his face.

  “Imagine this is a rehearsal for your wedding night,” I said. “Your wife may be afraid. You need to reassure her. Begin your love-making by kissing her face and holding her body close.” I waited.

  “Sorry,” he said, and put his arms around me and planted dry kisses on my cheek.

  “Sweetheart,” I said, “Charlie,” I implored, “kiss me. Just kiss me as if you love me. As if you had wanted to kiss me for months and now was your chance.”

  I ran my finger down his spine, then placed his hand on my breast. I could tell by the swelling in his breeches he was up for it. Good. My job was half done. His kisses became more real, his breaths more uneven, he began to run his hands at least over my back and hips.

  “Now you must tell her you love her.”

  “I love her,” he dutifully said.

  “Tell her what you love about her,” I said.

  “I love her eyes,” he said and kissed my eyelids with such tenderness they were soon wet. “I love her lips,” he said and kissed my lips from end to end. “I love her ears,” he said and kissed my ears with the most deafening smackers.

  “Charlie,” I breathed in his ear, “you can do anything you like with me. Do anything you like with me.”

  At this he unloosed my shift with surprising haste and stared at my breasts.

  “Touch them,” I said. “Kiss them.”

  He did. So softly and sweetly that again I almost wanted to cry.

  Unbidden, he returned his mouth to mine. I peeked my tongue between his lips and felt his surprise, then his pleasure. Both his hands were on my breasts, which responded gratefully. Already I was as hot as an ox on a spit, but had to control myself. His tongue then ventured into my mouth and I bit and sucked him gently, not like I would with a general customer. I eased him out of his breeches, at which I felt him trembling, and again said, “Don’t worry Charlie. I will show you the way. I will be your friend.” I led him into my bedchamber, kissing and stroking him all the time, but he was now returning my kisses and caresses.

  I lay down on the bed; he sat on the edge. I said, “Now, Charlie, there is no point going at it hammer and tongs without a thought for your wife. You must make her want you before you go inside her. There is a secret part of a woman, here… ” and I took his hand and guided him. He looked like a good schoolboy determined to get it right as he allowed me to take his hand. He explored a little, with my hand holding his, then I took a candle and held it closer so he could see the seat of women’s pleasure.

  “It’s so little,” he said. “How can I possibly find it in the dark?” Well, this made me laugh, and then he laughed, and we tumbled on the bed and fell to giggling and tickling and then I said, “Darling, Charlie, we must carry on our lesson.”

  “Lead on,” said he.

  “You must touch and kiss and lick and suck until I beg you to come inside me.”

  He dutifully began. A little uncertainly at first, but I taught him how.

  “How long must I go on?” he asked.

  “Until your tongue aches,” I declared, with an inward smile for the strike I was making for all womankind.

  The consequence was that I was fairly on fire before I said, “Now, sweetheart, now.” And then I don’t know what happened. For a moment sheer desire seized me. I pulled him onto me and told him he had to put his – and then I couldn’t find a word for it that I thought he would know – but he knew alright, and before I could
say knife he was inside me.

  Of course, he delivered his burden almost immediately. As he lay on top of me gasping for breath I was sufficiently composed to tell him that he had done well, for a first attempt.

  And as he lay there in my arms, I unnecessarily kissed his ears and smelt his hair and stroked him and, to tell truth, began to love him.

  58

  In vain did I try to turn my thoughts away from Charlie in the days that followed, as they continually ran in that direction. Every time his voice, his skin, his scent, invaded my thoughts, I told myself I was a fool, and that I had not come this far in my profession by allowing myself the luxury of such feelings. Besides, he was a mere boy. Besides, he was to be married. Besides, he was Lord A’s nephew. Besides, I would never see him again. This was a silly passing attachment, borne of having too much time on my hands. I walked, I read, I played with Mary. Yet as I walked, I knew I looked for Charlie. And I began to see him everywhere, and to follow strangers, until I had satisfied myself they were not he.

  I returned from one such fruitless outing to find Janey’s old flame William had been renewing his suit. I was aware they had happened to meet in the playhouse a few weeks before, and though Janey assured me she would not make the same mistake again, I knew she had a fatal soft spot for him, and I stood on pins waiting for him to become irresistible to her once more, dreading all the trouble which would follow when he needed money, as he inevitably would. As I say, I came home in time to pass William’s footman leaving the kitchen. This meant only one thing: that messages were passing between them, for of course Janey could neither read nor send a note.

  I am sorry to say that I flew into a perfect rage and said some harsh and unforgivable things to Janey, who was most upset and hotly denied my accusations. And I think it was because I feared the same weakness in myself that I was so angry, for what is anger but a response to fear, and what was I, in the end, but fearful? She finally flung out of the house with Mary, saying she would return when I had recovered my senses and that if I hoped for any dinner I had better recover them before then.

  I stamped about the house for a while and then took up a book Nell had given me as a parting gift, and threw myself on my bed, and tried to read. The story was by one of my favourite writers, Mrs Behn, who was a friend of Nell’s. As though some star – lucky or ill, I know not – knew exactly my preoccupations, I found myself reading these lines: “She found not in her heart that cruel constancy she thought there so well established. She felt pains and inquietude, shed tears, made wishes; and, in fine, discovered that she loved.” Like a young enamoured fool who seeks out sad music to lend charm to his own agony, I read these lines over and over, wondering at the thrilling pain they produced. I threw the book across the room. I picked it up. I threw it out of the window. I ran downstairs and retrieved it from the garden. I threw it into the fire. I picked it out with tongs. I sat down on the hearth and hugged the book to myself and wept. Charlie had a damned hank upon my heart, and I did not know what could dissolve the charm.

  59

  A few nights later, I was dreaming that Charlie had come to see me, to ask me to be his wife, if you please, and to run away together. Although I could hear him ringing the bell at the street door, I found all the handles had gone from the doors, and I could not open them to get out and answer him, and was afraid he would go away again. Suddenly I was awoken by the doorbell in fact being rung most insistently. As I got out of bed I heard Janey throw up the window to see who it was, and she called that it was Godfrey, and that he had someone with him. She ran down to admit him while I threw on a manteau and lit the withdrawing room. It seemed to take them a long time to come up the stairs, and when they came in I understood why. Godfrey was half-supporting, half-carrying, a woman.

  Where her cloak fell open I observed that underneath she was dressed only in her shift, and had somehow lost one of her slippers. Blood stained her clothes and her face was bruised, with one eye closed completely.

  “Here, now you are safe,” said Godfrey, and helped her limp to the sofa and gently set her down. While Janey went to heat some water to bathe her wounds I knelt beside the poor creature and tried to comfort her.

  She was trying to speak to me but it was difficult to understand her, as her lips were so bruised and she seemed to have lost a tooth or two. Then I realised she was repeating “H” and then she lisped “Is it really you?”

  “Yes, it’s me, H,” I said. “How do you know me?”

  And she looked up at me with her one good eye and said, “It’s Diana. I’m Diana. Oh, H. We thought you were dead.”

  Diana? What Diana did I know? I searched my mind if there had ever been Dianas at Clerkenwell and could think of none.

  She clasped me to her most tightly, saying, “Oh, my dear sister,” over and over, and I began to feel the ground shaking and quaking under me, and then I realised like a thunderclap that this poor wretch was my own true blood sister. This was a most awful shock. I kissed and held her while she wept and assured her she was quite safe now. But, as usual, I had my own interest at the forefront of my mind. Janey returned with the necessaries to make our visitor more comfortable and I took the opportunity to pull Godfrey into the next room.

  “What are you thinking of, bringing her here?” I hissed, for I was most angry with him.

  “I have not had time to send to you, but your aunt is very ill,” he said. “Your sister woke the Potters an hour ago in this state, begging for sanctuary from the brute that is her husband. I could not risk disturbing your aunt, for fear of the shock. I couldn’t just turn the poor woman away. What was I to do?”

  I could see there was no remedy and acknowledged Godfrey had had no choice, but was most aggravated as I began to see that it was all up with me, that my past and present lives could no longer keep the separation I had so carefully maintained.

  “Why did you not tell me my sister was in London?” I asked.

  “I didn’t know until tonight. They have removed here quite recently I think. From the little I could understand from Diana, she had hoped for a reformation in her husband’s character, but he has continued to beat her and tonight half-killed her, so she ran away to the only address in town she knew.”

  “Now she will know everything,” I sighed. “And soon they will all know everything. And poor Aunt Madge, who is sick as well!” And I could not help but begin to weep at thinking of the effect on the poor dear lady.

  “Come, come, H,” said Godfrey. “This seems a respectable enough household, does it not? Your sister cannot guess what you are, nor what you have been, if you are but careful.”

  But I continued to sob, for Diana, for myself, for Aunt Madge, until I was as exhausted as my sister, so we bade Godfrey goodnight, put Diana to bed, and promised to talk everything over in the morning.

  Diana stayed in bed late the next day, giving me time to work up a story explaining why none of the family had heard of me since the plague year. I had of course pondered this question many times and had never come up with an entirely satisfactory tale. In the end I settled for the following: After being turned out of Cheapside I had fallen ill but had been one of the lucky few who survived catching the plague, but I had been ill for many months afterwards and lay like one dead in a charity hospital, largely unconscious, but even when awake incapable of lucidity. (This took care of why my family had not been traced and informed.) I had been put into a poorhouse in a state of imbecility and by the time I had recovered my health and my wits the only home to which I could lay claim had been burned to the ground. (This was the weakest link in my story, as it covered a period of well over a year, and after the fire the whole of London was of course covered with signs and notices redirecting people to new addresses, but I reckoned to a newcomer to London, it might pass.) Unable to find my aunt, I had made a happy alliance with a well-to-do mercer who had married me and conveniently died soon afterwards, leaving me reasonably well set. It was nonsense, but was all I had to hand.

&
nbsp; I was well aware of the great gaping holes in my story, and that it would not pass muster to a close inspection, but in Diana’s agitated and self-interested state, it seemed to satisfy her. And besides, she had much to tell me of herself. Mr Pincher, for she still referred to her husband as ‘Mr Pincher’ throughout our interview, had, according to her, beaten her more or less regularly throughout their marriage. As a child I well remember Diana running home to us soon after she was married. Our father had sent her straight back, with injunctions to be more obedient and give her husband no cause to berate her, and warned that should she venture to come home again she could expect nothing but another drubbing from our father. After that, the advent of children, Diana said, had prevented her from leaving. Seeing the comfort she found in them, Mr Pincher had sent all three boys away to school from an early age.

  I had been too young, when Diana was first married, to know or understand the cause of the trouble between them, but she now told me that her husband had begun to find fault with Diana on their wedding night, when she had responded with too much ardour to his embraces. He had slapped her and admonished her to lie still and make no sound, otherwise he should think her a whore.

  “Well, he should know,” Diana continued bitterly, “for he has a whore he keeps in London, who gives him all the flame and rapture he wants when business brings him to town, while he expects his wife to prove her modesty by living quietly in the country and remaining cold as stone in bed. Both my company and my conversation he finds tedious. Well! What do I have to say? My life holds no gaiety, no chat, no discourse but of the cares of this world and its inconveniences; if I ever venture an opinion on any subject he laughs and tells me to hold my peace, for I only make a fool of myself by showing my ignorance.”

  Miserable Diana had formed a friendship with one of her husband’s clerks, to whom she poured out her troubles, and while nothing had occurred which went beyond the bounds of the strictest propriety (she said), Mr Pincher had sensed a kindness between them and had hauled Diana off to London where, he said, he could keep his eye on her, for she was not to be any more trusted to behave herself than a bitch on heat. It was only when she came to town that Diana discovered that her husband kept a mistress, and that their removal here had been as much to do with that as anything.