Mrs Adams

As ever, any resemblance to persons living or dead is co-incidental. Constructive criticism is very welcome.

I know Alfred and Letty and Alice think I am a vessel of limitless capacity. I am flattered by their confidence, but I am still just a woman, delighted in the fact that I exist at all under the infinite vault of the sky. And I have learned that life is strange. One of the books in the Reverend's library has some lines in it that affected me deeply and have stayed with me to this day. They talk about time as a river, how it always flows yet always looks the same and - and this was the notion that touched me - one cannot paddle in the same waters twice. But I digress. My story starts at a much simpler time and place.

As I look back on those innocent golden days, I marvel that almost before a decade had passed, so many of the local young men would end up as names on a stone tablet in our church, others broken in body or mind or both. A way of life gone forever, swallowed up by the Great War, and the river of Time.

However, this memoir is not about the aftermath...

***

The Reverend Fellowes died shortly after Easter 1905. There was no lingering illness nor sudden fever, he went to bed one night and did not wake up in the morning. It appeared that he had been granted a peaceful passage to whatever comes next.

His replacement, the Reverend Adams came along about six weeks later. Formerly at a poor parish in London, his bishop had decided that he should see out his time somewhere less stressful.

The new Reverend was a kindly man in his mid-forties with silver hair and a twinkle in his eye. He was well liked by all and quickly settled into his new location, often remarking that the parochial house was a great deal nicer than his previous lodgings and rather grand for a humble man of the cloth. However, he seemed in no great hurry to give it up.

The great surprise was Mrs Adams who must have been less than half his age. A pretty young thing with the bluest eyes, auburn hair streaked with chestnut and amber in the summer sun, a dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks, and a lively restless personality. Quite why she was wedded to this older man was a source of considerable speculation, some of it quite lewd when the men had had a bit to drink. I was pleased that Alfred did not indulge in such things but then, being a foreman, he had a certain standing to uphold.

Alfred is my husband of six years. We have two strong and healthy children, Alfie and Daisy. Alfie was swelling my belly before I walked up the aisle, but such things were not uncommon, and we weren't getting wedded because of it so nothing was said.

Alfred was and is a good man, kind and supportive and some of what I will relate will seem heartless, but nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, although he came back from the War with a streak of melancholy, I believe that these events helped him through his darkness.

***

I became friends with Letty Adams after our eyes met during one of her husband's sermons. He may have been kindly, but he took his calling seriously and tended to wax at length from the pulpit.

Anyway, her eyes widened fractionally, and I had to pretend to cough into my sleeve to cover up my involuntary snort of laughter. Afterwards she came up to me to apologise, although the way her eyes danced, I didn't think she was sorry at all.

We became firm friends and were frequently to be found in each other's company. We were in and out of each other's houses, though hers was far grander than mine. At the Adamses, when the children were younger, I'd have to leave the children with Alfred or one of my neighbours if the weather wasn't good because they couldn't be trusted inside the vicarage.

The parochial house was a rather grand affair. Inside it was all dark wood and polished brass. They had a housekeeper, a cook, a gardener, and a maid. The housekeeper was Mrs Spencer, a small, neat woman of an age with the Reverend and briskly efficient. On Thursday afternoons she would take herself off to Staughton to visit her sister.

Cook was Mrs Cooper, a sullen woman given to much muttering about the sorry state of affairs in which she found herself. Charlie Perkins - or 'Perks' - took care of the gardens and was known to be partial to a bottle of cider of an afternoon in the potting shed.

Lastly was the maid, Alice Lively, who more than lived up to her name. Now for all that the three of us were of very different standing, we were little different in age. I was four and twenty, Letty two years my junior and Alice a further two years younger than that. Consequently, we were often involved in each other's exploits which would inevitably lead to Mrs Spencer giving Alice a telling off, and me and Letty a look that left us in no doubt that Letty was a too flighty for her station and as the eldest I should know better.

***

1905 turned into 1906 and then into 1907 but still there were no little Adamses and Letty started to attract sympathetic glances from the matrons of the parish. Letty herself was blithely unconcerned.

"I am in no great hurry to be a mother, Sarah. Whatever happens t'will be the Lord's will," and we burst into giggles, so perfectly had she captured her husband's pious intonation.

There was one other thing that happened in that year. One Spring afternoon I made my way to the vicarage and it being a Thursday Mrs Spencer was out. No one answered a ring of the doorbell, so I went round to the back door. In the distance I could hear snores coming from the potting shed, so Perks was obviously on his break. I let myself in to find the kitchen empty and quiet, from which I concluded that Mrs Cooper had gone to market.

I heard a noise from elsewhere in the house and concluded that someone had to be in and went in search of them. Now, the vicarage was an imposing sort of a place and the doors in the main part of the house were big and heavy and couldn't be just cast aside, at least not by the likes of me. As soon as the door opened a crack, I heard a sort of muffled gasp, and I stuck my head round the gap to find Letty and Alice standing about a yard apart. They were both a bit flushed, and I wondered what on earth they could have been doing.

Letty clapped her hands. "Sarah! Lovely to see you! Alice, would you get us some tea?"

She spoke too high and too fast.

"Yes'm." Alice ducked her head and scurried past me, her eyes fixed on the floor and her cheeks burning scarlet. While the girl didn't have much in the way of a uniform, I could have sworn that it was a little more dishevelled than usual. Mrs Spencer was always pulling her up on it.

"Is Alice alright?" I asked.

"Yes, fine," Letty answered hurriedly. "Are you going to help me with the flower arranging?"

"Yes, of course," I replied, and thought no more upon it.

***

Then, a few weeks later I again happened to be at the vicarage, and I came to understand things a great deal better. Letty was in the kitchen discussing dinner plans with Mrs Cooper. It again being a Thursday, Mrs Spencer was away in Staughton, and the Reverend was out among his flock. I stood in the main hall and wondered at how quiet it was. A house like this should be full of people and to be perfectly honest, if it wasn't for their station, Letty and the Reverend hardly needed a staff of four to serve their needs. Letty had shown me round the house, and I marvelled at the number of rooms that were closed up, the furniture shrouded in dustsheets.

I shook my head and made for the library. It was our favourite place when Reverend Adams was out. It smelled of polish and leather and paper and was wonderful for someone lucky enough to have their letters like me. I idly strolled around the shelves trailing my fingertips across the spines. How could any one man own so many books, let along read them in one lifetime? I knew the Reverend hadn't, they'd been part of the house. In fact, the Adamses had come with little but a trunk between them.

I paused by the window, looking out at the garden, bathed in sunshine. I didn't resent Letty's fortune; Alfred was a good husband and father; my children were strong and healthy, and I too had my health, childbirth had not been a problem for me. The country was at peace, we had somehow managed to avoid the drought in '05 and the flooding earlier this year. My neighbours crossed themselves, but I wasn't much of a believer. 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may' was a line I'd found in a book of poems, and I'd felt a profound sense of kinship.

My fingertips were still resting on a book on the shelf, and I turned to see what I'd happened on. It was a slim volume with tiny gold lettering on the spine. I couldn't make them out, so I extracted the volume and gazed with some astonishment at the title. "Perversions: A Guide." it proclaimed. I confess I was baffled. What was a perversion when it was at home? Well, dear reader, I opened it and found out for myself.

My eyes must have been the size of dinner plates. The first photograph facing the first page depicted two women kissing! They were quite obviously women, and this was no chaste brush of the lips, no! One had clasped the other's arms and she in turn cupped the other's head with one hand. Their mouths were open. When, finally, my gaze drifted to the opposite page, it was titled, 'Lesbianism: The unnatural congress between two women.'

My hands shook and when Letty came into the library a moment or two later, I started so violently I dropped the book.

"Heavens, Sarah, whatever is the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost!"

She started towards me, and I dithered between picking the book up and fleeing the scene. She was upon me before I could decide one way or the other.

She stooped to pick the book up and I blurted, "Letty, don't!"

She looked up at me puzzled, "What do you mean? Don't what?"

"Don't look at that book!" I stammered.

Now this was entirely the wrong thing to say to Letty. She delighted in being contrary. The book had fallen at the page I had opened it to and so that was what greeted her when she raised it to her face.

She burst into giggles. "Oh my!"

My face burned crimson, and I covered it with my hands.

"Wherever did you find this, Sarah?"

"It was in the bookshelves. I found it by accident," I mumbled defensively. "I wasn't looking for it. I couldn't read the title on the spine, so I picked it out."

"Whatever did old Fellowes want with this? Unless it was for his own enjoyment!"

"Letty!" I said, scandalised.

"Oh, Sarah! I sometimes forget you're a country girl."

"Women don't do that!" I protested although I suddenly felt naïve and unsophisticated next to the worldly Mrs Adams, late of London Town.

She came to stand next to me with the book still held open at the incriminating page. I covered my eyes with my fingers.

"I'm afraid that some of them do, Sarah. If they care for each other then why shouldn't they kiss?"

"It's sinful!" I exclaimed. Letty looked sceptical.

"There's a bit in Romans about women exchanging natural relations for those that are contrary to nature but it's a bit coy about what they actually do. It's much hotter on men, um, committing shameless acts with men."

I stared at her, open mouthed and she chuckled.

"You see all sorts in the city, Sarah. If you've got your eyes open. Jeremy's old parish was in quite a rough area. There were prostitutes of both sexes." There was a delicate pause. "And they went with both men and women."

By now my head was spinning and I don't think I could have blushed any more deeply. I'm not a prude. I knew how to make babies and I had made them enthusiastically with Alfred. I had no complaints in the bedchamber.

"Come on, let's see what else the old rascal had to look at!"

I wanted to protest. I know I did. But what with Letty teasing me about being a country bumpkin - no she didn't actually say it, but she might as well have - and me feeling like I had to stand up for myself, I snapped, "Very well!"

She took me by the hand and led me to the desk by the window where the light was better. We sat side by side and Letty turned the page.

I gasped. There were four plates on the next two pages showing women in increasing states of undress. In the first, one women suckled at the other's breast like a babe. The woman nursing her seemed to be enjoying it very much if her upturned ecstatic expression was anything to go by. I knew how that felt. Sometimes when I had finished nursing Alfie or Daisy, I would feel such an ache in my breasts and my secret place that Alfred would exclaim that I had turned into a demon. He never seemed disappointed though.

The next plate showed the lovers sitting beside one another with their skirts raised above their waists. Each had a hand at the junction of the other's thighs while they kissed passionately. To my astonishment I felt an answering warmth in the base of my belly.

My gaze drifted to the next page where one of the women knelt in front of the other's spread thighs, her face pressed to the thatch of hair at the junction. I had sometimes taken Alfred in my mouth when I was feeling particularly wanton, but he had never returned the favour, pronouncing it 'unmanly'. Now I wondered what it would feel like for a mouth and tongue to caress my sensitive parts. The warmth in my loins intensified.

It took me a moment to comprehend what the last plate depicted. When I realised that it showed the lovers in what I would come to understand was called a soixante-neuf, my mouth fell open. The understanding that they could reciprocate their pleasure crashed through me like a wave.

I became aware that Letty was very quiet. I turned to look at her. Her colour was high, and her lips were parted. While I looked, the tip of her tongue stole out to wet her top lip, and then she turned to look at me. The silence lengthened as she searched my face for something, I knew not what, and then I understood all at once.

"You," I started, and then stopped, not knowing how to proceed. Then, "How?"

Letty took a deep breath. "That is all down to a woman I shall call L. It is not important for you to know her name and it is all in the past anyhow. When I was nineteen, I was introduced to her at a ball. We took an instant liking to one another and would often be found in each other's company after that. She was not so much older than I and as is often the way with such women, rather bored with life."

"Bored!" I exclaimed.

Letty smiled, "Yes, I know. No offence, but the notion that there might not be enough to occupy the day would never occur to the likes of you."

I snorted with disapproval, and she chuckled.

"Well, nothing scandalous happened for simply ages. My parents approved of me mixing with my betters. I think my father hoped that I might find a good match. Then, one evening we were rather inebriated on champagne. Lord, I do miss champagne," Letty sighed.

"We became rather silly and started play fighting in her bedroom. We used pillows and eventually bore each other down on the bedding. We ended up rather close together which is when we kissed for the first time."

"I imagine she was an easy conquest," I murmured.

"No, you misunderstand, she seduced me."

I was shocked. Letty laughed.

"She did me a favour in actual fact. Throughout my teens I kept waiting for my great romance, for some beau to sweep me off my feet, to be wed and enter society, but it didn't happen. But the moment that L took me to bed it was as if the scales were lifted from my eyes - that's Acts 9 verse 18 by the way."

I giggled. Letty's knowledge of the Bible was the equal of her husband. She had excellent powers of recall.

"Once I got over the shock - and L helped me do that very enthusiastically! - it was the most enormous relief. I was not deficient in my emotions; they were simply directed differently. I like men, Sarah, but I cannot love them."

There was the tiniest hint of sadness in her voice. She knew herself, and that is a gift that few are allowed, but without an income she couldn't live her true self out in the world.

I put my hand on hers and she shook her head.

"It is the way it is and there's no sense in regret."

"But why did you have to be banished? It sounds like L had her, her... liaisons, of which you were surely not the first."

Letty nodded in agreement.

"And if she could carry on, why not you?"

"Oh, my dear, it is quite the joke. The toffs and the nobility parade their virtue to the world but in private they pursue their vices without inhibition. The difference between them and us is money. My father is reasonably well off, but the likes of L are in a different league. When her husband demanded that I be removed, my father had no choice but to comply. To do otherwise might have meant ruin."

"Are you still in touch?"

"No. Lilly dare not. Oh! Sarah, you must forget that name! Promise me it will never pass your lips."

"Yes, of course," I reassured her, clasping her hand, although I chuckled. "Letty and Lilly?"

Letty gave me a severe look and continued, "Mother writes to me from time to time, but Father and my siblings have cut me off completely."

I squeezed her hand, and she gave me a small smile.

"Now you know," she said quietly. "I wanted to tell you, but I didn't know how. Are you ashamed of me, Sarah?"

"No!" I said forcefully, not really sure why I was so resolved in my opinion but knowing that any other response would crush my friend. "But what about Reverend Adams?"

"Ah," she said. "You've come a long way, Sarah, but if you can stand it, come a little further."

She turned the page and I felt faint when I grasped the content. This time the heading was 'Homosexuality: The unnatural congress between two men.' And the accompanying photograph was of two gentlemen in passionate embrace.

However, once I got over my shock, the image stoked my fire a little higher.

"Turn the page! " I blurted.

Letty's eyes widened and she giggled.

Oh my Lord, the following four images were like hammer blows. The first showed the men sitting next to one another in a state of undress, with each one's stiff member in the firm grasp of the other. The second showed one pleasuring the other with his mouth as I had done to Alfred. The third was of another soixante-neuf, and the last showed a truly shocking image. One man stood behind the other. The one in front had one leg up on the sofa and showed quite clearly how the other had his erect manhood buried in his fundament.

By now my fist was pressing at the junction of my thighs as a fire built inside me. When I stole a glance at Letty her chest was heaving, and I found my gaze slipping to the way the firm globes of her breasts strained against the cotton fabric of her blouse. Her eyes flicked to mine and her gaze burned.

Then another revelation burst upon me. "Reverend Adams!"

She nodded. "He was a bit of a terror at the old place. Then one day the mother of one of the choristers discovered her son in flagrante delicto with my husband. Although he wasn't my husband then."

My expression invited her to continue. She leaned towards me and put her hand on my thigh.

"Well, I had also been found in a compromising position with a lady. Her husband demanded that I be banished around the same time as the diocese was deciding that Jeremy had to be removed from temptation. However, for respectability he would need a wife, so this was presented to me as a fait accompli. It's not worked out too badly I suppose."

My mind whirled but then a memory surfaced.

"Alice?"

Letty looked bashful. "You didn't expect me to become a nun, did you?"

"How long?"