by Tom Murphy
It was confusing, intoxicating, delicious. She took another cautious sip of the brandy.
“Does she know that, sir? Miss Marianne, I mean.”
“Ha! She knew it from the first. A very cool number is our little Marianne. Not going to let a small thing like perversion stand in her way, not when there’s a barony at stake. They have it all worked out between them, don’t you see? There’s the horror of it. Little baronets will appear from time to time, and no one’s going to question too closely who’s the proud papa, if you take my meaning. And dear Clarence will find his usual consolations with the footmen and the stable lads. A perfect marriage, that one. With the bloody queen smiling benignly down on all of it I thought of killing her, Lily.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“No, you’re right. I wouldn’t. A stronger man might, but not me, not good old Jack Wallingford, amateur black sheep and certified bounder!”
He filled his glass again, and again he drained it. Yet Jack didn’t look drunk or act it Lily said nothing, and looked down at her own glass, and turned it nervously, wishing that she had an answer for his unanswerable problem. She could feel the resentment in him, the sense of hopelessness. So this was why he hadn’t gone to Mrs. Astor’s ball! She thought of how they’d talked about the possibility of telling Patrick’s tale about the baron to Groome, or someone, and how they’d decided not to. A good decision, or so it seemed. Fat lot of help that would have been, with the deal already being made, so to speak.
Lily felt his eyes on her, burning. She looked at him, into his eyes, and it was like looking down the black and deadly barrels of twin dueling pistols.
“Have you ever been in love, Lily?”
“No, sir.”
“You will, though, one day. You’ll make someone very happy.”
She shivered a little then, although there was no draft. He stood up then, smiling, and walked to her chair, and stood behind it, and put his hands upon her shoulders. She didn’t want him to be touching her, but there was nothing threatening in this. This was gentle. His hands moved slowly on her shoulders. She felt herself relaxing, felt the warmth of the fire, and the cognac, and another, subtler warmth, unaccustomed, growing.
“Love,” he said very slowly, softer than she ever remembered hearing his voice, “should be a question of sharing.”
Lily closed her eyes and thought of Brooks Chaffee. Jack Wallingford’s friend. If this were Brooks Chaffee! Somehow, in ways she could never quite analyze, being so close to Jack had become a way of being closer to his friend. These hands, which had touched Chaffee’s hands, these hands moving upon her shoulders, touching her neck, comforting, making her feel softer, somehow, making her very head spin with the wonder of it: what was happening, and should she let it go on?
For a moment the silence continued, and only the hiss and sputter of coal in the hearth interrupted a quiet so dense it seemed to reach from the stars in heaven all the way down through the center of the earth. She was used to his hands on her shoulder now, and when they stopped their gentle stroking, Lily was glad of the weight and warmth of them, just resting there, quiet as the night.
Then he kissed her neck, and she shivered to her toes.
Lily moved, half from surprise, half from the urge to run away. And he kissed her again, covered her throat with kisses. Jack moved around to the front of the big chair then, and Lily felt herself rising, being lifted from the chair, his arms around her, and his lips still kissing, finding her own lips now, holding her tight and lifting and stroking her too, all at once, and still kissing, and carrying her out of the sitting room. She tried to speak and could not, his mouth on her mouth.
Lily squirmed under his touch, relaxed, began to struggle, and could not. She feared the violence in him, sensed danger building, and felt pleasure too, strange pleasures she had not known before, nor dared think of, and it seemed as though she were being swept away down some great dark river against which it was useless to struggle, and that the river, this mighty dark secret force, was her fate, and although the place it was taking her might be wild and mysterious, it was a better place than she had been, and she would find her destiny on its forbidden shores.
His bedroom was dark, and darkly furnished. One small gas jet flickered behind a frosted globe. She looked up at him, frightened. The urgency in him was hot and real as a blast from a furnace door. Gently he set her on the feather bed. His fingers found the row of buttons at the back of her dress.
“Sir!”
Lily intended to scream, but the word came out softly.
“Help me, Lily, I’ll fair go mad if you don’t.”
Help him! She sensed the desperation in him, the wild animal trying to claw its way out of a cage. Help him, indeed! It was happening so fast. Jack knelt, unfastened her shoes, gently lifted her, and she felt no more able to resist him than a rag doll, and hated herself for it, for the weakness. And if she screamed, who was to hear her? He could say she’d up and seduced him, if he liked, and who’d take her word against his, heir to the Wallingfords, the young master? But even in her panic, and even in the sure knowledge that he was using her, Lily felt something else; new and unsettling emotions followed close behind her fear, and these emotions were something very like pleasure and anticipation. So this was what all the fuss was for! Jack said nothing now, and she could hear his breathing, coming louder. The bedroom was warm, and for an instant Lily hardly realized he’d got her shift off too, and she was baby-naked now and helpless. Again she wanted to scream, opened her mouth, only to have it instantly covered by his mouth, rougher now, more urgent, and his hands seemed to be everywhere now, stroking, soothing, telling her in ways he had no words to describe that no harm would come of this adventure. He held her very close now, and Lily could feel her shallow breasts tight against the embroidery of his Chinese robe. And all at once the robe was gone and his other clothes too, and her skin was touching his skin and Lily felt, more than she could see in the darkness, how his smooth skin was riding the hard muscles underneath, and more hair on him than she would have thought, and the strength in him surprised her too, he not being a working lad, after all. Jack lifted her, and she hardly noticed that, too much else was happening, and now Lily felt the heavy silk of the bedcover underneath her, and his hands, still busy, and his mouth, busier still, and finally in one quick sharp moment it was done, he was inside her, stroking still, still urgent, with pain and sudden joy mingling unforgettably.
Lily felt herself trembling as though she had been dropped naked in a snowbank, and her whole body seemed to contract, jolted, wrapped itself around him as her breath escaped in one long sharp sigh. It was only then, and for the first time, that she kissed him.
For a moment that may have been an hour they lay still, entwined, at peace. He said her name, and it came to her like a stranger’s name, for he said it almost like a prayer.
“Lily…Lily…Lily…I truly did not know that…oh, God! You were a virgin!”
She lay in silence before answering, her body a blending of pleasure and pain, and confusion in her heart. Lily spoke softly:
“It’s all right, sir.”
“Jack is my name, Lily.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you forgive me, Lily? I meant no harm. It’s just that suddenly I felt so lonely tonight, as though I were the last man in the world, and only you could make me feel human again.”
No, she thought, you’re not the last man, not by far, nor the first, either, it’s a sure thing you’re not Brooks Chaffee, but you’re not a stableboy, either. She looked at him, saying nothing, and their eyes met in the shadowed room. It could have been worse, she thought in the backwash of her passion. It could have been worse.
Lily smiled then, a small and secret smile. So I am not to be struck dead! The angels are probably weeping for me right now, for my sins, sins of the flesh they are, maybe that’s the noise I hear, that faint whisper, the sound of angels’ tears falling softly on clouds. But the sound was only Jack stir
ring on the silk bedcover, touching her with all the length of his body, raising himself on one elbow now, looking close in her eyes.
“You’re a fine girl, Lily. Say you don’t hate me.”
She did not answer him at once, for this was a new thought to Lily, that she could even entertain the possibility of hating one so rich and so great in the world as Master Jack, that he would care was a shock to her. Finally she spoke.
“A lie it would be if I said I loved you, sir. But no, nor do I hate. It happened…between us. I could have screamed, or run, and did not. You never forced me.”
There was a heavy pause, and he said nothing to fill it. Lily went on. “It may be better, truly, ’twas you, sir, than some others I could think of.”
He kissed her then, and the loving began again. This time for Lily, it was more discovery than shock, more pleasure than pain. Two hours passed quickly. Three times more they made love. She found Jack gentle and strong in near-equal measure, now ruthless, desperate, now weak, pleading. It was a strange and heady mixture, like some mysterious but delectable sauce Louise might make. And always there was the thrill of danger, the wild breath of wickedness, the stimulating fear of discovery. Twenty, he was, not much more than two years older than she, but in lovemaking far older still. A distant church struck twelve. She sat up.
“I must go.”
“Stay, Lily.”
“Oh, please, sir…for I’ll be ruined!”
“Not while I live.”
Yes, she thought, how easy the promises come to your lips, Mr. Jack. But Lily smiled to herself as she dressed quickly in the dark, thinking of where those lips had been, of how she’d felt. A devil he might be, but a fine devil was Mr. Jack Wallingford. She buttoned the last button and looked in a glass to fix her hair. He appeared in the glass behind her, naked as one of his father’s marble statues. Lily stood still as his arms reached out from behind and circled her. The dark head came down, and one last time he kissed her throat.
“You’ll come to me again, Lily?”
He wants me! No one ever wanted me before. Lily thought of Brooks Chaffee. And she paused a moment before answering: “If you’d have me, sir.”
“I could ask no greater honor.”
You could tell no bigger lies, she thought, unable to ignore the comical aspects of her situation even while she wanted to believe him as much as she ever wanted to believe anything. She turned, and looked up at him, and smiled gently, as if to say good-bye forever.
“Thank you, dear Lily.”
“Good night, sir.”
“Jack.”
“Mr. Jack, then.”
He laughed, and kissed her hard, and she was gone.
The marble hall was just as empty now, after midnight, as it had been three hours earlier, a lifetime earlier. Lily retraced her steps, down the hall and down the stairs, through the secret door in the paneling, and back to the servants’ quarters.
Her little room looked exactly as it always had looked. Susie was still out somewhere with her footman. Lily took her clothes off and washed herself and slipped into her cotton nightgown. Before she went to bed, Lily paused in front of the small round looking glass that was nailed to the back of the bedroom door. All she could see was her head, but that was enough.
The same green eyes she had always known looked back at her from the slightly rippled glass. Her hair was just as red as it had been that morning, and there were no telltale signs of sin and corruption on the pale smooth skin of her face. Had God ignored her, then? Were so many servant girls being ruined this night that one more was not to be counted? As she stood there gravely contemplating her face in the mirror, Lily learned a great secret. If she told no one, no one would know. Susie, irrepressible, could never be told, for to tell a thing to Susie McGlynn was to tell it to the world. And who else was there? Not a soul.
So here I am, she thought, a fallen woman. So this is how it happens, and this is how it feels afterward. No wonder there were so many fallen women, and no wonder so many of them seemed to enjoy it!
She climbed into her narrow little bed then, and closed her eyes, and could not sleep. Lily thought of this night, of Jack, of how he looked and what he did, and why she liked it, even though she knew perfectly well she did not love the boy, barely knew him, hadn’t even liked him much, not until tonight, not until he’d told her how he felt about his sister’s marriage to the baron. There was something in Mr. Jack, for all his deviltry. He did care, he did have a sense of honor, more or less, he was well and deeply shocked by the hypocrisy he found even within his very own family, right here in this mansion. And what did he care for her, for Lily? Had he even said, lying, that he loved her? No. He never had said that. Well, maybe there was a strange kind of honor even there, in the fact that he hadn’t lied. “Help me, Lily,” he’d asked, as though she could give him some rare kind of medicine that might ease the dreadful pain within him.
Lily turned, sleepless, on the bed. She felt tired, a good kind of tiredness, and there was a lingering glow, a warmth that was not from Jack’s fire or his brandy, maybe even not from his lovemaking. She fell asleep smiling.
She woke the next morning to discover that God had continued to spare her. Getting dressed, Lily heard of Susie’s adventures in greater detail than perhaps was necessary, but Lily smiled and encouraged her friend in the telling, and so learned the delicious and hitherto unknown pleasures of having a real secret, something that, were it known, would cause no end of excitement, consternation, and…what?
For Lily hadn’t thought out the logical end of her adventure with Jack Wallingford. The thing had come too fast, and the surprise and excitement, the shock and revelation of it had drugged her, had slowed her usually quick wits. And where would it lead her, after all?
Stories of ruined servant girls were common as dirt. Lily knew any number of them herself, and anyone who’d been in service could add dozens more. Slender might be the rewards of virtue, and yet the swift hand of retribution for straying could seldom be stayed. Time and again, girls who’d earned a bad name—Tess of the stolen knives, for instance—were turned into the streets with no more than the clothes on their back, and lucky they’d be not to have the police set on them. And what lay ahead for a girl turned out with no reference? Dark thoughts filled Lily’s head as she went about her duties that day.
Mrs. Wallingford was filled with gossip about the Astors’ ball, and Lily counted herself lucky that there were a thousand things for her to attend to, the wedding being next week and coming at them like a runaway fire engine too. She didn’t see Mr. Jack that day, or the next, but Lily thought about him often, and how strange it had been, how very like an accident, a tree falling in a storm maybe, a bolt from the sky. For surely he hadn’t planned the thing, no more had she. Well she could have gone out gadding that night, and him too, well they might never have met in the lonely hallway, or him inviting her to hear his troubles. Or any of it.
So Lily couldn’t blame Jack Wallingford any more than she blamed herself. There was fatalism enough in her to accept what happened as a fact and go on from there.
It was the question of going on that drove her all but mad.
Would there be any going on, or was it all done and finished already? And what had the fine young master felt, waking up that next morning? Disgusted, maybe, to have showed himself so plain, and to his mother’s own serving maid. Or maybe—worse—he’d forgotten her already. Maybe Jack had so many girls he could hardly tell one from the other, maybe it was all a fine sport for him, one here, there another, and after a time you don’t even keep the score. On the third day she decided he was having no more to do with her, and Lily couldn’t find it in herself to blame him.
When Mrs. Wallingford herself asked Lily to go up to her son’s rooms, the girl almost fainted dead away.
“The silly boy has torn something, Lily, maybe you can fix it for him.”
She curtsied and turned and fairly flew up the marble staircase.
It was
late afternoon on the Thursday before the Saturday on which Miss Marianne would become the Baroness West of Westover. Lily knocked on the big walnut door. He opened it, smiling, wearing the Chinese robe.
“Ah, Lily.” Jack looked to the left and the right, and ushered her in. Then he closed the door and bolted it. He turned and came close to her, but made no move to touch her or kiss her.
“It’s damned awkward, you see, Lily, because there’s hardly a way I can get a message to you without people catching on. We’ll have to work something out. I’ve done nothing but think of you since the other night. Do you hate me, Lily?”
“No, sir.”
So he had remembered. She did mean something to him, however shameful. Lily blushed and looked at the floor. He reached out then with one hand and lifted her chin until she was looking into his eyes. They were dark as ever, but not so dangerous now. And he smiled, and kissed her.
“I will count it a happy day when you stop calling me ‘sir.’”
Then his arms were around her again, and she was being carried into his bedroom again, and the loving began again. This time she couldn’t stay. She dressed, and straightened her hair, and turned to him. Jack lay where she’d left him, on his bed, naked and smiling.
“It isn’t easy to share you, Lily, not even with my own mother.”
“Who’ll be wondering where I am.”
“Is there a clock in the servants’ hall?”
“There is.”
