Repercussions Pt. 01

As the maids cleared the soup plates, she endeavored to resume a more dignified air, smothering a last giggle behind her napkin. Lord Trimingham gave Edwin a pointed look. "Having successfully confounded your school masters, it would seem that you can have no further accolades to seek from your Cambridge tenure." He sat back as a maid set the next plate before him. "What are your plans following graduation?"

"I intend to go to Paris and pay a visit to Aunt and Uncle. Then Jacques and I are planning to make a tour of the continent."

Chloe leant forward. "Oh, do let me go with you," she implored. "I am longing to see our cousins!"

Edwin seemed flustered, but Father spoke before he could reply. "Chloe don't be absurd. You know very well that your summer schedule is fixed. Consider...you shall have a host of diversions in London to occupy your attentions."

If not for the corset, her posture would have betrayed her disappointment.

"Perhaps in the fall you can visit your cousins with Eveline." He turned back to Edwin.

Chloe scarce attended the conversation as Edwin expounded upon his planned itinerary. She pushed a mushroom around in the cream sauce upon her plate. It had been a pitiable attempt to escape her coming out season. Oh, how she envied her brother!

After dinner she followed them to the billiards room. Her father turned in the doorway and raised his eyebrows at her enquiringly. She looked wistfully past him into the inviting room, at Edwin standing before the crackling fire in the copper tiled fireplace, pouring brandy into crystal glasses. She sighed inwardly, her resigned gaze meeting the empty eye sockets of her father's trophy stag skull above the fireplace. "Edwin, will you go riding with me tomorrow morning?" she asked.

He nodded. "A fine idea --- 'twill give me a chance to break in the new crop you gave me. Not too early, mind you. I intend to have a most luxurious slumber."

She crossed the hall to the music room and took a seat at the pianoforte. Once was the time --- years ago--- when she played billiards with her brother in the cozy mahogany paneled room. Now that she was a lady, she was relegated to the dainty white marble and silver music room. With little enthusiasm, she searched through the music sheets upon the stand, finally selecting a light air.

She played the first two bars, then paused to adjust the seat closer to the instrument. From across the hall she could hear her father speaking.

"So, you and Jacques intend to sow some wild oats this summer."

She could not make out Edwin's reply.

"Well, I shall not condemn you. I freely admit that there was a time when I spent a summer similarly engaged...ah yes...'tis well indeed that I recall a lovely village near Genoa where I had a most remarkable adventure..." His voice sank to a murmur and Chloe could not hear the rest of his tale, but at its conclusion, the two men were chuckling heartily. "Mind you don't repeat my error. Go see young Woodbyrne for letters of credit for your travels."

There was a pause in the conversation, in which the soft clicks of billiard balls could be heard. "Splendid shot. My compliments, sir."

Chloe readdressed herself to the music, repeating the first bar, but altering the tempo to assess the affect. Not satisfied, she repeated the last three notes several times, trying different versions. She leant forward with a pencil to mark the proposed modification upon the sheet. Again, the conversation across the hall drew her attention.

"How is Woodbyrne faring, Father? Is he living up to your expectations?"

"His work is exemplary, especially considering he's been on his own for only a year. It seems that Grady's rebellion endowed him with skills that only add to his other merits. I suspect he will in time even exceed his father in his value to the estate."

"Grady's rebellion" was a reference to the time when Grady had left boarding school at fifteen --- much to her father's and Mr. Woodbyrne's disapproval --- and arranged an apprenticeship with a master builder in London. For three years was he engaged thus. Eventually, for reasons of which Chloe was ignorant, he returned to the fold and joined Edwin at Cambridge.

"You rascal! You've left me with no shot."

Edwin laughed. After a long pause there was the sound of a ball being hit.

"Well, Father, we had better pray that we can manage to keep him here. He has for years spoken of his ambition to go to America...intending no disloyalty to you, of course. He is quite sensible of your generosity and is most appreciative...more brandy?"

"Thank you. What is the score?"

"I'm still ahead by two. Your play, sir. I cannot fathom how Woodbyrne can bear to live here year-round, so far from town. What amusements can he possibly find here? I'll lay five to one he's getting his leg over one of the maids or other."

"Shhh. Not so loud...your sister." There was a pause. "Clever shot, my boy. Perhaps you do make a salient point. We cannot have Grady distracted with carnal pursuits...he should get married. That will settle him down. We can ask Mrs. Scofield if she knows of a suitable young lady...yes...Eveline can speak to her...this very much sounds like a mission befitting of Eveline's talents once we've found a husband for Chloe."

There was a discordant sound as Chloe's finger inadvertently plunked down upon two keys at once. Abruptly she pushed the seat back and stood. She passed through the door into the adjacent morning room, from whence she could no longer overhear the conversation. Here she paused, her unfocused gaze flicking around the room --- then she strode to the drawn velvet drapes and swung them aside to open the leaded glass doors.

Stepping onto the veranda, she inhaled sharply of the cool night air, raising her face to the black sky and squeezing shut her eyes. She exhaled a long, slow breath. Crossing her arms, she began to walk along the starlit veranda that overlooked the garden --- the same garden through which she had walked earlier that evening in a state of comparative cheerfulness.

Her throat felt tight as she considered her father's words. She knew well that such was the custom among families of their rank...and families in general. She knew it...nevertheless she could not help but feel dismayed by her father's intention to marry her off without reference to her wishes...her father, who had himself defied the expectations of polite society by marrying a free-spirited French lady...her father, who presumably loved her.

She paced up and down. But what other options had she? She dared not even consider the unconventional ambitions of her daydreams. Sensibly speaking, if allowed to choose, she could remain unmarried until such time that she desired marriage. Perhaps one day she might meet a gentleman whose nature complimented her own. A man whose regard for her was wholly unconnected with Lord Trimingham's wealth and rank. A man whom she loved.

Chloe stopped before the stone balustrade and gazed out over the dark garden. "Mama, I wish you were here," she whispered to the night. Perhaps she could appeal to Edwin...despite his early childhood impatience with her, he had proved himself a kind and loyal brother. Perhaps she might persuade him to take her part. Yes...tomorrow she would address him upon the matter.

Descending the steps into the garden she walked slowly along the path, her eyes picking out in the dark the plants she knew so well by daylight. She could hear the fountain ere she made out its silhouette. The soft splashing of water in the darkness was a lovely, unspoiled sound. As she approached, she detected the scent of the cherry blossoms.

The remarks about Grady came back to her. If only for the memory of their childhood friendship she should desire his happiness --- and view the prospect of his marrying with equanimity --- and yet...this inexplicable feeling again! What had Edwin meant when he said that Grady was likely "getting his leg over" one of the maids? That couldn't mean kissing...getting your leg over was what one did to mount a horse astride...what could...oh! A suspicion of its meaning came over her, and she grew quite still, a hollow sensation in her belly. Where was Grady now? Did he have a sweetheart? How did he occupy his evenings?

Presently the low hooting of an owl brought her out of her thoughts. She blinked and looked around. She would go to the stable and ask the stablemaster Mr. Calhoun to have her side saddle in readiness for tomorrow, she decided. Yes. It had been some considerable time since she had used it --- she had been riding with a standard saddle whenever she could. Focused now upon this mission, she turned on her heel and took the path to the right, heading for the stable.

The long brick stable emerged from the darkness to the east of the garden. As she walked along the side of the building, the silhouette of a horse's head poked out above a stall door a few yards away. "Hello Lizzie," she murmured, drawing near. Lizzie nickered. Stroking her nose, Chloe reached to her pocket for a sugar lump, but remembered that she was wearing her evening gown and was without pockets or sugar. "How would you like to go for a ride tomorrow morning with Edwin and Macbeth?" She unlatched the stall door and stepped inside. Lifting her skirts above the straw, she crossed the stall and entered the stable through the inner stall door.

The stable seemed unusually quiet and dark as she walked down the central walkway between the two rows of stalls. She had lost track of time...perhaps Mr. Calhoun was already abed or was yet in the kitchen eating with the rest of the staff. But wait...there at the end of the stable in the tack room she spied a dim light and heard voices...or thought she did. But then an eerie sound stopped her in her tracks.

Her heart began to beat faster. When they were children, Mr. Calhoun had oft told Edwin, Grady and her that the stable was haunted by bogles. Could it possibly be true? Holding her breath, she crept closer, her low silk slippers soundless upon the flagstones. Again, the strange sound came from the tack room...had Mr. Calhoun taken ill? Something moving in the room caught her eye. She stepped into the last stall of the row, immediately adjacent to the tack room door. The stall had been converted into a work room, with thick oak workbenches and shelves. On the side facing the tack room, the wall above the workbench was open --- the space spanned by a rack laden with tools, bridles, and coils of harness and rope.

Chloe peered through the tangle of leather straps, leaning to see inside the open door of the tack room. What...? Had her eyes deceived her? She shifted to find a better line of sight. Then her mouth fell open in shock.

The parlour maid Lucy was perched sideways upon one of the saddles on the storage rack...facing towards Chloe's hiding place. She was leaning against the wall behind her and her black stockinged legs were raised straight up and splayed wide in a surrounding froth of white petticoats. Kneeling before her, his back to Chloe, was Mr. Calhoun --- recognizable from his reddish-blond hair. His hands grasped Lucy's thighs and his face seemed to be pressed directly to her cunny --- no pantalettes being present. Was he kissing it?!

Chloe stared agog, her heart racing. The strange sounds were coming from Lucy: she was moaning and breathing hard. Was he hurting her? Was he forcing his attentions upon her? Should she go for help? Transfixed, she saw Mr. Calhoun's head moving in a brisk nodding motion...saw Lucy's hips writhing. "Oh..." Lucy sighed. "Oh, what pleasure! Pray stop, or I'll do it else."

"Aye...do it, lassie," Mr. Calhoun murmured. His motions increased.

Lucy's hands pushed his head away. "No," she moaned. "I must have him."

Chloe's cheeks burned as she now saw Lucy's cunny --- black curls and pink flesh --- completely bare just inches before a man's face. Then her legs came down and she rolled off the saddle as Mr. Calhoun got to his feet. He turned to the side --- Chloe nigh gasped aloud when she saw the ruddy, flesh covered pole protruding from his trouser front. Her astonished eyes saw Lucy sink to her knees before him and immediately grasp the extraordinary object. She covered the end with fervid kisses...then she was licking it like a candy stick...Oh! She was taking into her mouth! She was sucking upon it! Sucking like Chloe used to suck upon rhubarb stalks!

Mr. Calhoun seemed to be in rapture over her attentions. He stared down at her bobbing head, moaning. "Oh sweet Lucy...oh love...yer mouth is heaven!"

There was a sudden clanking sound as Chloe's wide skirts knocked an object off the shelf under the workbench. Lucy and Mr. Calhoun jumped --- Lucy scrambled to her feet.

Chloe ducked down.

"Someone is there!" Lucy whispered.

"Nay, it canna be anyone. We would ha' heard the bell on the door. 'Twas one of the horses...what are ye doing?"

"I must go."

"Dinnae go, love. Dinnae leave him in such a state. Stay a while yet."

"I can't. I've been gone too long. Someone will remark upon it."

Chloe crouched in the darkest corner of the work room as she heard their approaching footsteps. She hugged her voluminous skirts tight against her legs. They footsteps passed her and receded to the other end of the stable. The bell upon the door sounded...followed by silence. Rising, she tiptoed to the entrance of the work room and peeked out. They were gone. Back to Lizzie's stall she scampered, passing through to peer out over the outside stall door. She heard running footsteps upon gravel and spotted the dark figure of Lucy heading back towards the manor house. Mr. Calhoun could be seen in the starlight, standing at the far end of the stable looking after her.

Lucy disappeared into the staff wing, and he turned back to the stable. Behind her, Chloe heard the bell again. She slipped out of the stall and ran, not stopping until she reached the safety of her bedchamber.

*****

Chloe sat upon the edge of her bed in her nightgown, at last alone. She had not wished to attract undue attention to herself; thus, despite her desire for solitude, she had allowed Harriet to proceed with the usual bedtime routine: helping her out of her gown, taking down her coiffure and brushing her hair.

"You seem troubled, miss," Harriet had remarked.

"I overheard Father talking about marrying me off," she had responded without emotion.

Knowing her feelings on the subject, Harriet's face had become serious. "I'm sorry, miss."

Now that Harriet had taken her leave, Chloe's thoughts immediately returned to the matter that was truly agitating her at this moment: what she had witnessed in the stable. What indeed had she witnessed? Certainly, she knew what actions she had seen, but she had no understanding of their meaning.

Appealing to her limited knowledge of relations between the sexes, she endeavored to shed light upon the mystery. She knew very well that babies were not brought by the stork...she knew that to make a baby the man's and woman's bodies must join...yes...copulation was the term. Of the details she was unsure. But she was convinced that the simple facts did not convey the full import of the act. Contrary to society's official doctrine, she knew that it was not an act practiced only by married couples desiring a child.

She recalled two instances in the past when unwed serving maids were discharged on account of being with child (so she had learned from the whisperings). When the consequences of unwed pregnancy were so harsh, why would ladies engage in copulation? Why too did men pay ladies of the evening to copulate with them? If they wanted a child, wouldn't they simply marry? Or seek their wives' favors? Even books --- Shakespeare, Chaucer, the Bible, novels --- alluded, in varying degrees of vagueness, to the desire to copulate (with no wish for procreation expressed).

In addition to these lines of evidence, the degree of coyness, embarrassment, and reticence that the subject elicited spoke to a more profound significance. In recent years she had noticed that Edwin and her father would lower their voices or withdraw from her hearing when the conversation drifted to the subject of females.

She also had come to realize that the scope of "relations" was not limited to copulation but encompassed in its taboo sphere spooning (whatever that might be), hugging, kissing, and nudity. How often she had heard the admonishment to never reveal to a man anything higher than an ankle under her skirts. Why at Haversham Academy, the young ladies had even been warned not to look upon their own nakedness in the looking glass!

Also familiar to Chloe was the concept of virtue, so frequently eluded to, but never expounded upon. It meant that young ladies should not engage in copulation until they were married. (So far as she could tell, young men were not subject to such restrictions). But even this rule had a vague fluidity; virtue was apparently something quite fragile and could be compromised by a variety of indiscretions, even by simply being alone in a room with a man who was not a family member.

What then was the encounter she had witnessed between Mr. Calhoun and Lucy? In all the whisperings...in all the books...she had never heard of such an astonishing act. It could not be copulation...that did not involve the mouth, she thought. From rare glimpses of animals mating, she knew that copulation involved joining of the privates. Was what Mr. Calhoun and Lucy doing spooning? Why were they doing it?

'Twas only last month at school that she and her friends had discussed this very point of philosophic import.

.

"'Tis called a prick," Frances said in a low voice. The four young ladies --- Frances, Juliana, Constance, and Chloe --- sat upon the bed in Frances' room in their nightgowns, in clear violation of the strict bedtime rule. "I saw my cousin's," she continued. "'Twas a frightful looking thing."

"What did it look like?"

"Like a slimy pink snake." She shuddered.

"How came you to see it?" Chloe asked.

"Why, he showed it to me, the cad. He showed me how he frigged it."

"What does that mean?"

"He rubbed it up and down." She mimed the motion with her curled hand. "Then a liquid came out the end of it!"

"He piddled?"

"No. 'Twas a thick, white fluid."

Juliana nodded. "I saw a stable boy doing that --- frigging --- quite disgusting."

Chloe, never having observed such a remarkable sight, wondered if Frances' and Juliana's experiences were unusual, or if she had simply missed it with her face always in her sketch book. "Why do they frig?" she asked.

"Boys are nasty creatures," said Juliana.

Frances leant forward. "I think it gives them a most pleasurable sensation."

"Is frigging related to copulation?" Chloe asked.

"Well, my married sister told me that copulation gives the man much pleasure," Frances speculated. "Perhaps it's the same sensation."

"Did your sister say how it feels for the woman?"

"She only said that if a woman wants a baby, she must let her husband put his prick up into her belly to plant the seed."

"It might be a pleasure for the woman too," Constance said slowly. "Because I think girls frig too." They all turned and regarded her with keen interest.

"How do you know?"

Constance blushed. "I-I saw my maid doing it...at least I think that was what she was doing. She was under the bedcovers and her knees were wide apart...from the shaking of the covers, it seemed that she was rubbing herself...you know...between her legs."

The girls pondered this uncertainly.