God Is an Englishman (29 page)

Her ingenuousness, he decided, was one of the most endearing things he had ever encountered, and suddenly he decided that without it she would be as unrewarding as all those discussions she had had with her friends.

“Yes,” he said, “taboos of one sort or another were behind it. Now kiss me again as if you had never heard of the damned word.” She was not quite so artless as he had supposed. She lifted both hands, took his face between them, and kissed him warmly and firmly on the mouth, and although it was no more than an experimental salute, the softness and submis-siveness of her lips encouraged him to enlarge the embrace to an extent when she was all but enfolded by him. Then, telling himself she was an industrious learner, he let his left hand slip from her shoulder and run the length of her body until it was stayed by what seemed to be the point of a broad-bladed spear, striking a downward course through the folds of her dress and petti coats. He was so astonished by this unexpected phenomenon that he exclaimed, “Good God, what’s that?” and she said, with a giggle, “The rim of my corset. I untied it after I’d eaten so much,” and this, because it was so thoroughly characteristic of her, made him shout with laughter.

He said, when he had done, “But isn’t it very uncomfortable?” and when she said that it was, but it was a cross she had to bear be cause she had an eighteen-and-a-half-inch waist, and that was al most an inch above average, he said, still holding her close, “Listen to me. I don’t give a rap if your waist is twenty inches.

You don’t have to go about in a cuirass in order to indulge me or anyone else. It can’t be healthy for you English girls to lace yourselves up in that fashion. That’s just another piece of nonsense they’ve foisted on you over here,” and then, suddenly reminding himself that it had prob ably been the most exacting day of her life, “Come along home. You must be tired out with all the excitement and travel and that enormous dinner you ate. Our train isn’t until midday, so you can sleep on if you want to,” and he hoisted her to her feet and they walked up the winding path towards the terrace lights, his arm about her, her head on his shoulder.

It may have been the stimulus of this conversation, begun so casually on the GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 150

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seat beside the lake, or it may have had to do with the tensions released by the wine, but their wedding night was something each of them was able to look back on as a less dramatic climax than either one of them had anticipated up to the moment of entering their room.

The table-lamp was burning on a low wick, the curtains had been pulled, and the coverlet turned down. There was even a small coal fire in the high grate, so that the room looked much cosier than when she had first entered it.

Standing before the window with his back to her as she loosed the ribbons of her pill-box and slipped out of the green hussar jacket, he said, “I’ll sleep on that truckle bed, Henrietta, and we’ll breakfast up here at eight,” but she said, surprisingly, “No Adam, stay here with me. I…I’d prefer that, I really would,” and when he turned, saying, “You’re sure? You mean that? Or is it just because you think it’s expected of you?” she replied, firmly, “Not in the least, Adam. I love you very much, and I want to be a good wife to you. Always.” Then, as he still seemed hesitant, “Unhook me at the top, for I can’t reach,” and turned her back so that he unfastened the row of tiny hooks of the bodice and when that was done, and she had shrugged herself half out of it, he kissed her shoulders and neck as they stood there for a moment, with her weight resting lightly against him. Then to the wonder of both of them, the initiative passed to her, for she reached up and pulled his hands down, holding them over her breasts and his touch must have gone some way to banishing taboos that lingered, for a moment later the five petticoats lay in a tumbled heap on the rug and the gaping corset, miraculously released from its central hook, joined them there and she was standing in her cotton shift and a pair of frilled pantalettes, not unlike those she had been wearing when he first saw her standing in the puddle.

He said, “We’re going to be very good for one another. You be lieve that now, don’t you?” but she had had enough talking and turned in his embrace, her arms encircling his neck and her small, compact body pressed to his with all her strength. There seemed nothing to say that was capable of expressing the sudden tenderness he felt for her at that particular moment, so he kissed her eyes and mouth and hair, not only in response to the mounting desire he felt for her but with a kind of deliberation and compassion. It crossed his mind then that this was as new an experience for him as for her. Innocence was something he had never encountered, and now that he did it made his occasional sallies seem arid, so that he could not, on any account, accord her the kind of treatment both parties took for granted in a hired transaction and said, gently, “Go to sleep now. We’ve got the whole of our lives before us…” But she replied, seem ing to guess what was GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 151

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passing through his mind, “I’m your wife, Adam, and I want to give you something, not just because you’ve given me so much but because—well, because I’m not the least bit afraid any more. Look I’ll prove to you I’m not…” and she pulled her chemise over her head and began to fumble with her stockings. He reached out and extinguished the light, appraising her body in the glow of the fire, and thinking he had never looked at a woman who held out more promise, not only of physical fulfilment but some thing more difficult to define: solace, perhaps, or an end to a deep, personal loneliness that he had mistaken until this moment for a compound of pride and self-sufficiency. He said, more to himself than her, “I know now why I wanted you,” and passed into the dressing room where he shed his clothes without haste, still half-inclined to leave her, and wondering whether her professed eagerness was a form of hysteria of which it would be churlish to take advantage.

She was not hiding under the coverlet but standing where he had left her on the hearthrug, and he noticed that she had even removed her hair ribbons, so that her breasts were half-masked by tresses that reached almost to her waist, trapping within them a few gleams of firelight.

She met his gaze so frankly that he thought, “I hope to God I can be gentle with her,” and then, “Who was I to question her ex perience or lack of it? She’s not the only one who needs help…” and he began to praise her with his hands, first cupping her breasts and kissing them, then caressing every part of her body.

He was surprised not so much by her initial passivity as by his own restraint, that came to him easily and naturally until the moment when he raised his hands to her face and kissed her mouth that was the one part of her that was not passive and inclined him to lift her and hold her cradled like a child for a moment before lowering her, less patiently, to the bed. Then, in a matter of seconds, it seemed, he entered her with the minimum of difficulty, finding in her pathetic attempts to accommodate him a measure of pride and satisfaction that he had never encountered in the arms of a trained harlot, for she came to him gladly as a person and not as an instrument, and this, in his experience, was unique.

He said presently, when they were still, “If I hurt you it was be cause…” but she shook her head, almost defiantly, and when he made a slight movement to withdraw she clung to him so that glad ness swept through him, and he buried his lips in her hair, lifting his hand to stroke her cheek and wondering how he could express his re lief and gratitude in words that she would find acceptable.

Then it came to him that words of any kind were superfluous, and her refusal to be parted from him spoke for itself, telling him that she had clearly expected GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 152

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something infinitely more devastating than this, and was herself savouring a kind of triumph that she had succeeded in conjuring from him a temperance that she had suspected would have no permanent role in this kind of encounter.

She lay there for what seemed to her a very long time, listening to her own heartbeats and to his, and waiting until she was quite sure he was asleep before she eased herself half free from his sprawling em brace, and could turn her head and look at him in the light of the coals rustling in the grate. He looked, she thought, very boyish lying still like that, with his dark hair tumbled on the pillow, and his lips parted showing a glimpse of strong teeth, each of them big, square, and de pendable like the rest of his features. She studied him critically and with a ground swell of amusement that was based, she suspected, in his recent antics, for suddenly and very surprisingly she no longer thought of him as her senior by some twelve years but an approxi mate contemporary, like Sarah Hebditch. And it was thinking of Sarah that reminded her she was now in triumphant possession of the secret that had eluded her for so long, and she wondered very much why it had been swaddled in so much secrecy and whispering and shushing and head-nodding, for in a way it was very close to what she had expected and had somehow half-known, although no one had ever hinted that it was so richly rewarding in the sense that it swept you out of the eternity of childhood and on to a plane where you were no longer entirely dependent on the whims of adults, especi ally male adults. It could even become (with a little practice) an exces sively pleasant experience but she was not, at the moment, assessing it from a physical standpoint but rather what it meant in terms of status within the confidence of a male, particularly a lusty, well-dis posed, tolerant male like the one asleep beside her and beginning to snore. It provided answers to a whole range of related questions that had puzzled her, concerning the way strange men looked at her, and where Sam got to when he departed in his Sunday broadcloth on business engagements to areas where his kind of business was rarely conducted, and the popularity among Seddon Moss males of the pantomime posters outside the Hippodrome depicting smiling young women with thighs as thick as hams and bosoms like the flying but tresses of the new town hall. It had a good deal to do, she supposed, with all manner of other things, women’s fashions, saucy jokes, and unmentionable words, and even went some way to explaining Makepeace Goldthorpe’s desire to marry her.

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had played in his initial championship that had developed, in less than three months, from an uncle-niece relationship to the pair of them lying side by side in a double bed, without benefit of nightdress and nightgown. She was by no means sure, even now, how much this could be credited to the impact she had made upon him as a woman rather than a stray, and was content to leave it in abeyance for want of further evidence. There could be no doubt, however, that he found her more satisfactory as a mate than he had looked for little more than an hour ago and this, regarded in isolation, was a perfectly splendid development, for it surely fol lowed that she possessed the ability, properly deployed, to keep him interested in the years ahead.

Then she had another, more generous thought, and this brought her added satisfaction, for until now their relationship had seemed to her very lop-sided, all give on his part, all take on hers. It was very gratifying to reflect that at any time he came seeking kisses she was licensed to give him not merely her lips but a body of which she was properly proud, and in which he evidently delighted. This not only gave her a sense of permanence but a taste of something she had always envied men, glorious independence.

A rustle of coals interrupted her reverie, and she eased herself out of his grasp and then out of bed, to creep round the room, retrieve her scattered clothes, and pile them on a rocker chair by the window. He continued to snore softly and suppressing a giggle, she slipped into the dressing room, groped her way to the washstand and sponged herself, taking the greatest care to do it without splashing.

Then she went back into the main room and peered about for her nightdress, recalling that it had been lying on the coverlet when they came in. She found it at last and was in the act of slipping it over her head when an owl in a copper beech close by hooted and for some reason this released the giggle so that she glanced nervously at his pillow, or rather her pillow and thought, as she edged herself back into bed, “To think of the hours I spent embroidering this négligé and he never even saw me wear it before he went to sleep. I wish now I’d done something more practical, like knit him a pair of socks.” A kind of proprietary smugness stole over her and she felt for his hand, lifting it very carefully and bringing it to rest under her breast. His warmth and stillness was like a balm, healing the harassments and anxieties of the long, eventful day.

In such warm and cosy proxi mity with him she could contemplate the physical aspects of the tremendous occurrence, remembering not only his conversation about that South Sea island word—what was it again?—”typhoos” or “taroos”—

but also her discussion with the Colonel concerning the biblical verb, “to know.” GodIsAnEnglishman.indd 154

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Well, she certainly knew him now, and he knew her, without any reservations whatever and presently, blushing in the dark, she was able to ponder the mechanics of the ritual with the objectivity she could bring to the purchase of a new dress or a bonnet. She had to admit, at this stage, that the preliminaries and the aftermath had been both congenial and gratifying but as to the act it self she had certain reservations. It was not that it had proved as painful as he seemed to anticipate but it certainly qualified as start ling, and there had been a moment, she recalled, when she had had to make a great effort to master panic. Something told her, however, that this was linked to its novelty, and that knowing precisely what to expect was surely more than half-way to acceptance. She supposed now that she would have a baby and the prospect, far from scaring her, only added to her sense of achievement. Taken all round it had been a stupendous day for getting on in the world, and she supposed men must feel rather like this when they had won a battle or secured a rich contract. As though to assure herself that she was indeed sleep ing upon the field, she settled herself more comfortably within his listless embrace and lifted his heavy hand to her lips. Then, with a sigh almost loud enough to wake him, she slept.