She immediately recognized the sadness in his eyes. She saw the truth without having to look to the sky for a view.
“My Dear George.” Her tone echoed his sadness, though her desire for him was not quenched. Still, she was spoken for and must force herself to resist. She must put an end to all of these pranks. She had had her clandestine kiss and that was all she would allow herself.
“Do not — ” He clearly read the intent in her eyes.
Lucy felt her body tightening against the strength of his arms.
“Do not fight it,” he prevailed upon her.
“You must understand. I am not a free woman.”
George looked above their heads and through the branches where no leaves hung on the limbs. Up in the sky, he saw radiant slivers of light trickling down upon their bare faces. And then he turned back and stared into Lucy’s eyes. “There is no shadow where we stand.”
Lucy drew her gaze upward as well. Her neck long, fully stretched.
George refused to release his grasp around her waist and pulled her closer to press his manhood against her skirts.
When she lowered her head, he caught her gaze. Their eyes locked and they stared hopelessly into one another’s eyes. His breath was hot and yearning. His jaw sturdy, his arms robust. They spoke not a word as their gaze lingered like doting lovers, searching deep within each other’s soul.
He would have her. He would have her now.
No spoken words were necessary. They both heard the dove cooing the words that they felt deep inside.
No struggle would ensue. No mind to the description that lay in Miss Lavish’s novel.
“Come. Into the shadow of the trees,” he said, whisking her away to the thick of the coppice. “We must be quick.”
She did not fight him as he drew her into the shadows. He led her behind a large Oak tree, which would conceal their presence if anyone ventured down the wooded path.
Without a word, he faced her toward the tree and placed her hands upon the trunk for support and bent her forward. He stood behind her, lifted her dress, and whisked away the undergarment that concealed her flesh. He slid his hand to her intimate form and she was immediately pleased.
“Ah-h, George, how I have longed for your touch.”
He kissed her neck as his hand glided through her cream.
“Oh, George.”
She raised her hips to the rhythm of his fingers.
“I need you, now, Dear George.” She arched her back with urgent need and raised her loins to avoid further delay.
Though no request was necessary, he was diligent and obeyed. Freeing himself, he grasped her hips and brought his member to her folds. At once, he entered her sheath and began sliding miraculously and forcefully through her impassioned vessel of life.
“Faster,” she said. “Faster.”
Her words aroused him even more. He worked faster and faster, moving to the rhythm that her body demanded.
She panted like a panther set loose upon prey. Her breath hastened as she sprinted toward the prize. She moaned, she purred, she sighed.
“Touch me,” she said.
So after a last firm squeeze of her bottom cheek, he released a hand and quickly reached to find her pearl.
At his touch, she let out a sudden shriek. “Oh, yes. Dear George!” Had the birds not been at their height of song, undoubtedly the others only a short distance away would have heard hers. She no longer owned her flesh, George did. Somehow he always had.
“Dear George.” She moaned deeper as his fingers delicately circled her pearl. “Oh, George. More … ”
He worked with unyielding diligence, circling her pearl more steadily.
She brought one of his hands to her breast to feel the tip, and when he squeezed it, she sighed.
Aroused by her desires, he thrust deeper, harder, faster.
She moaned all the more, continuing to repeat, “More, more … ”
And at last, he was undone. He groaned long and hard from deep within his chest. He was wild and no longer able to control the rhythm of his own body.
He rose higher against her body, taking in every inch of her.
“Not yet, George, not — ” She begged to slow him, but it was no use.
“I’m sorry, I can’t … ” He tugged at his words and then spilled into her vessel, shuddering and jerking with unimaginable pleasure.
“Oh dear.” She might have complained, although George was prompt and turned her around to face him.
He wasted not a moment and dropped to his knees. He leaned her against the tree, raised one of her legs, and brought his lips to her pearl.
Bracing her hands against the tree, she began to pant. “Dear George.” Her breathing was labored as he began to swirl that divine tongue of his.
She rocked to his touch, which was no longer light, but insistent. He was driven to consume all of her at the very height of her passion.
With his hand, he grasped one of her cheeks and with the other, his fingers danced and found her sheath.
“Oh, yes,” she sighed, closing her eyes. “Yes, yes.” She luxuriated as he strummed his fingers through her creamy vessel.
She brought her hands to her breasts, which she then squeezed the tips. Never before had the woodlands of Windy Hill seemed this alive. It was nature, of course, nature as it was intended to be, nature that demanded she give George all that he wanted.
How he moved her spirit and her flesh. How he charmed her, how he loved her. “George, George, I-I — ” she said, though words were not necessary, he understood.
Her body rippled with seemingly insatiable desire; fire shot through her every nerve until finally, finally, she shrieked, quivered, and her limbs fell limp as George drove her over the crest and transported her to the celestial place where all of eternity meets the edges of life.
“Oh, George. How you have undone me, stolen my very soul. How shall I ever be the same?” She opened her eyes to meet his, though he didn’t move.
“Oh, George.”
He did not speak. He only smiled and then continued to slide his tongue through the petals of her intimate folds.
“You’re tickling me, George.”
He chuckled.
“Quite honestly,” she said. Her thighs quivered as his tongue slid across her engorged and sensitive pearl.
Had George asked, she might have grasped his hand and run away with him. But that was not to be, Cecil’s voice called in the distance.
“He must have found the book,” George said.
“Dear Minnie, such a saint she was for hiding the book from him.”
“We should remember her more often.”
Lucy smiled, but in hearing Cecil’s voice again, reality set in. “We must away from here before we are discovered.”
George rose, kissed her cheek, and quickly dressed himself. He reached to the side of the tree, plucked a few flowers, and handed them to her. “Say you were after a wildflower, that you wanted to see who might guess the species. No one will ever know.” He kissed her again and then raced away.
Lucy smoothed her rumpled hair and prepared to depart. And that was when she realized George had once again made off with her undergarment.
“That sly devil, my Dear George,” she thought.
As if no more was possible, he slipped back. No one had even noticed their absence. And once Lucy emerged from the woods, Cecil rejoined her without seeming to be puzzled or suspicious as to where she might have been.
Chapter XVI: Lying to George
But Lucy had developed since the spring. That is to say, she was now better able to stifle the emotions of which the conventions and the world disapprove. Though the danger was greater, she was not shaken by deep sobs. She said to Cecil, “I am not coming in to tea — tell mother — I must write some letters,” and went up to her room. Then she prepared for action. Love felt and returned, love which our bodies exact and our hearts have transfigured, love which is the most real thing that we shall ever meet, re
appeared now as the world’s enemy, and she must stifle it. She had satisfied the cravings of her body with George against that Oak tree, but that must end. She could only be loyal to one man, and it was Cecil that she had accepted. What choice did she have but to follow through with her commitment?
She sent for Miss Bartlett.
The contest lay not between love and duty. Perhaps there never is such a contest. It lay between the real and the pretended, and Lucy’s first aim was to defeat herself. As her brain clouded over, as the memory of the views grew dim and the words of the book died away, she returned to her old shibboleth of nerves. She “conquered her breakdown.” Tampering with the truth, she forgot that the truth had ever been. Remembering that she was engaged to Cecil, she compelled herself to confused remembrances of George; he was nothing to her; he never had been anything; he had behaved abominably; she had never encouraged him. The armour of falsehood is subtly wrought out of darkness, and hides a man not only from others, but from his own soul. In a few moments Lucy was equipped for battle.
Her lies would become her truth.
“Something too awful has happened,” she began, as soon as her cousin arrived. “Do you know anything about Miss Lavish’s novel?”
Miss Bartlett looked surprised, and said that she had not read the book, nor known that it was published; Eleanor was a reticent woman at heart.
“There is a scene in it. The hero and heroine make love. Do you know about that?”
“Dear — ?”
“Do you know about it, please?” she repeated. “They are on a hillside, and Florence is in the distance.”
“My good Lucia, I am all at sea. I know nothing about it whatever.”
“There are violets. I cannot believe it is a coincidence. Charlotte, Charlotte, how could you have told her? I have thought before speaking; it must be you.”
“Told her what?” she asked, with growing agitation.
“About that dreadful afternoon in February.” Lucy embraced the lie. She forced herself to pretend that she believed the day had been dreadful, though it was quite the opposite. But now, it was necessary to believe the lie.
Miss Bartlett was genuinely moved. “Oh, Lucy, dearest girl — she hasn’t put that in her book?”
Lucy nodded.
“Not so that one could recognize it. Yes.”
“Then never — never — never more shall Eleanor Lavish be a friend of mine.”
“So you did tell?”
“I did just happen — when I had tea with her at Rome — in the course of conversation — ”
“But Charlotte — what about the promise you gave me when we were packing? Why did you tell Miss Lavish, when you wouldn’t even let me tell mother?”
“I will never forgive Eleanor. She has betrayed my confidence.”
“Why did you tell her, though? This is a most serious thing.”
Why does any one tell anything? The question is eternal, and it was not surprising that Miss Bartlett should only sigh faintly in response. She had done wrong — she admitted it, she only hoped that she had not done harm; she had told Eleanor in the strictest confidence.
Lucy stamped with irritation.
“Cecil happened to read out the passage aloud to me and to Mr. Emerson; it upset Mr. Emerson and he insulted me again. Behind Cecil’s back. Ugh! Is it possible that men are such brutes? Behind Cecil’s back as we were walking up the garden.” Although she was careful to leave out the details of the lovemaking scene. Lucy knew in her heart that her real anger arose because Charlotte had promised her one thing and had done another.
Miss Bartlett burst into self-accusations and regrets.
“What is to be done now? Can you tell me?”
“Oh, Lucy — I shall never forgive myself, never to my dying day. Fancy if your prospects — ”
“I know,” said Lucy, wincing at the word. “I see now why you wanted me to tell Cecil, and what you meant by ‘some other source.’ You knew that you had told Miss Lavish, and that she was not reliable.”
It was Miss Bartlett’s turn to wince. “However,” said the girl, despising her cousin’s shiftiness, “What’s done’s done. You have put me in a most awkward position. How am I to get out of it?”
Miss Bartlett could not think. The days of her energy were over. She was a visitor, not a chaperon, and a discredited visitor at that. She stood with clasped hands while the girl worked herself into the necessary rage.
“He must — that man must have such a setting down that he won’t forget. And who’s to give it him? I can’t tell mother now — owing to you. Nor Cecil, Charlotte, owing to you. I am caught up every way. I think I shall go mad. I have no one to help me. That’s why I’ve sent for you. What’s wanted is a man with a whip.”
Miss Bartlett agreed: one wanted a man with a whip.
“Yes — but it’s no good agreeing. What’s to be DONE. We women go maundering on. What DOES a girl do when she comes across a cad?”
“I always said he was a cad, dear. Give me credit for that, at all events. From the very first moment — when he said his father was having a bath.”
“Oh, bother the credit and who’s been right or wrong! We’ve both made a muddle of it. George Emerson is still down the garden there, and is he to be left unpunished, or isn’t he? I want to know.”
Miss Bartlett was absolutely helpless. Her own exposure had unnerved her, and thoughts were colliding painfully in her brain. She moved feebly to the window, and tried to detect the cad’s white flannels among the laurels.
“You were ready enough at the Bertolini when you rushed me off to Rome. Can’t you speak again to him now?”
“Willingly would I move heaven and earth — ”
“I want something more definite,” said Lucy contemptuously. “Will you speak to him? It is the least you can do, surely, considering it all happened because you broke your word.” Someone must speak with George. Someone must convince him that she does not love him and that he should not come round taunting her with these passionate love scenes. That must end.
“Never again shall Eleanor Lavish be a friend of mine.”
Really, Charlotte was outdoing herself.
“Yes or no, please; yes or no.”
“It is the kind of thing that only a gentleman can settle.” George Emerson was coming up the garden with a tennis ball in his hand.
“Very well,” said Lucy, with an angry gesture. “No one will help me. I will speak to him myself.” And immediately she realized that this was what her cousin had intended all along.
“Hullo, Emerson!” called Freddy from below. “Found the lost ball? Good man! Want any tea?” And there was an irruption from the house on to the terrace.
“Oh, Lucy, but that is brave of you! I admire you — ”
They had gathered round George, who beckoned, she felt, over the rubbish, the sloppy thoughts, the furtive yearnings that were beginning to cumber her soul. Her anger faded at the sight of him. Ah! The Emersons were fine people in their way. She had to subdue a rush in her blood before saying:
“Freddy has taken him into the dining-room. The others are going down the garden. Come. Let us get this over quickly. Come. I want you in the room, of course.”
“Lucy, do you mind doing it?”
“How can you ask such a ridiculous question?”
“Poor Lucy — ” She stretched out her hand. “I seem to bring nothing but misfortune wherever I go.” Lucy nodded. She remembered their last evening at Florence — the packing, the candle, the shadow of Miss Bartlett’s toque on the door. She was not to be trapped by pathos a second time. Eluding her cousin’s caress, she led the way downstairs.
“Try the jam,” Freddy was saying. “The jam’s jolly good.”
George, looking big and disheveled, was pacing up and down the dining room. As she entered he stopped, and said:
“No — nothing to eat.”
“You go down to the others,” said Lucy; “Charlotte and I will give Mr. Emerson all he wants.
Where’s mother?”
“She’s started on her Sunday writing. She’s in the drawing-room.”
“That’s all right. You go away.”
He went off singing.
Lucy sat down at the table. Miss Bartlett, who was thoroughly frightened, took up a book and pretended to read.
She would not be drawn into an elaborate speech. She just said: “I can’t have it, Mr. Emerson. I cannot even talk to you. Go out of this house, and never come into it again as long as I live here — ” flushing as she spoke and pointing to the door. “I hate a row. Go please.”
“What — ”
“No discussion.”
“But I can’t — ”
She shook her head. “Go, please. I do not want to call in Mr. Vyse.”
“You don’t mean,” he said, absolutely ignoring Miss Bartlett — “you don’t mean that you are going to marry that man, not after our meeting in the woods just now?”
The line was unexpected.
She shrugged her shoulders, as if his vulgarity wearied her. “You are merely ridiculous,” she said quietly. The words pained her, but she’d made a commitment to Cecil.
Then his words rose gravely over hers: “You cannot live with Vyse. He’s only for an acquaintance. He is for society and cultivated talk. He should know no one intimately, least of all a woman.”
It was a new light on Cecil’s character.
“Have you ever talked to Vyse without feeling tired?”
“I can scarcely discuss — ”
“No, but have you ever? He is the sort who are all right so long as they keep to things — books, pictures — but kill when they come to people. That’s why I’ll speak out through all this muddle even now. It’s shocking enough to lose you in any case, but generally a man must deny himself joy, and I would have held back if your Cecil had been a different person. I would never have let myself go. But I saw him first in the National Gallery, when he winced because my father mispronounced the names of great painters. Then he brings us here, and we find it is to play some silly trick on a kind neighbour. That is the man all over — playing tricks on people, on the most sacred form of life that he can find. Next, I meet you together, and find him protecting and teaching you and your mother to be shocked, when it was for YOU to settle whether you were shocked or no. Cecil all over again. He daren’t let a woman decide. He’s the type who’s kept Europe back for a thousand years. Every moment of his life he’s forming you, telling you what’s charming or amusing or ladylike, telling you what a man thinks womanly; and you, you of all women, listen to his voice instead of to your own. So it was at the Rectory, when I met you both again; so it has been the whole of this afternoon. Therefore — not ‘therefore I kissed you,’ because the book made me do that, and I wish to goodness I had more self-control. I’m not ashamed. I don’t apologize. But it has frightened you, and you may not have noticed that I love you. Or would you have told me to go, and dealt with a tremendous thing so lightly? But therefore — therefore I settled to fight him.”
Literary Love Page 80
