A World Apart (6 page)

‘Hurry. You said you were hot. The water's a mite cold, but it's lovely.'

‘But I — '

‘Come on in. Don't be frightened. Come in, or I'll come and push you in.'

‘Very well, then, but turn your back.' Eliza was indeed tempted by the cool dark water. The day was hot, but she was uncomfortable with the wickedness of the idea. They were defying their elders, and there would be certain punishment if they were caught. She unbuttoned her clothes, and as Harry turned, he saw her.

‘You're pretty,' he said. ‘I never see Louisa naked. She's very private about it. She always shuts her door when she undresses. Sometimes I see a bit of her. But not…everything.' He continued to stare at Eliza. She found herself enjoying his attention. She wriggled her belly and watched his round eyes follow the movement.

‘Louisa's not beautiful like you. Girls really are different, aren't they?'

‘Yes. They have to be.'

‘Why?'

‘They have to have a place for babies to come out. And breasts to give the babies milk.'

‘I suppose so. I've seen some of the servants' breasts. In the kitchen when they didn't know I was there. When they change their dirty clothes to go back to their quarters. They have huge breasts. Why don't you?'

‘Because I'm only seven. I'm not ready to have babies yet.'

‘How do you know all this about babies and such?'

‘Everyone knows.'

‘I don't.'

‘Well, when you've seen a cow dropping a calf out of its bottom, or a dog pushing out puppies, you begin to wonder about how people do it. Lots of books discuss it. Your father has a book about anatomy. With pictures.'

‘Does he?'

‘Of course.'

‘You must show me.'

‘Very well. I suppose I could ask Mrs Hawkins for it. But how is it that you don't know, Harry?'

‘Because nobody told me,' Harry said. His cloistered education had taught him nothing about the basics of life. ‘I'm not allowed to talk with the farm labourers, nor come close to the animals. Nanny would never allow it. She can't abide mud and dirt. And Mr Harcourt wouldn't tell me. I wonder if he even knows himself.' They both laughed.

‘And Father, well.' Harry shrugged. ‘You're the only girl I've ever really talked to. Or seen — like that.' He looked suddenly shy. ‘Come into the water.'

‘Very well.' She stepped cautiously into the lake, felt the delicious chill of the water round her feet. It lapped to her knees, thighs, waist, intensifying her gasping delight at each step. She watched Harry's splashing and copied him. Soon she gathered her courage and put her head under the water. She pulled it out quickly, spluttering. But after gentle coaching from Harry, and holding onto his shoulders as he ducked, she learned to enjoy it.

As the afternoon lengthened, they decided to return to the Great House.

‘I can't put my clothes on. They'll get wet,' Eliza said.

‘We'll sit here till the sun dries us, then,' Harry said. She agreed. The sun disappeared behind a cloud, and a breeze rustled the leaves overhead. Eliza shivered. Harry put his arm round her.

‘Poor Eliza. You're cold. I'm warm. I'll warm you.' She smiled up at him.

‘This is nice. I like it when your skin touches mine. You
are
warm.'

‘I like it too.' He pulled her closer, and she nestled beside him. After a while, he looked down at her.

‘I'm going to marry you,' he said. She giggled.

‘Thank you. I hoped you would.'

‘I love you.' He smiled, shy but intense.

‘And I love you.' She basked against his warmth.

‘I'm going to carve your name on every tree in the park, like Orlando did for Rosalind. Remember
As You Like It
? And when we're grown up, we'll get married.'

‘Is this a declaration of your intentions?'

‘What's that?' Harry had no inhibitions about questioning his junior classmate on any subject.

‘It's when a man asks a woman to marry him.'

‘Well, of course it's a declaration of my intentions, then,' he said masterfully.

‘Then I accept.'

‘Good,' Harry said. Eliza feared she might burst with happiness. She felt her face almost splitting as she grinned.

‘I think you're supposed to kiss me now,' she said. Solemnly, he turned to her and kissed her lips.

‘That was — lovely,' Eliza said when she drew breath and opened her eyes. ‘Will we do that often when we're married?'

‘Of course. Every day,' he said.

‘I'd like that. I'd like to be married to you, ‘she murmured. He kissed her again. Reluctantly, they dressed and retraced their steps to the house.

‘I loved that, Harry,' Eliza said as they reached the house. ‘Can we do it again one day?'

‘We'll do it every day,' Harry said, and squeezed her hand.

Notwithstanding the vagaries of the English summer, the pair swam in the lake many times during following months. Eliza noticed her white skin turning brown, and worried that her mother might ask her how this had happened.

‘I can wash myself, now, Mother,' she said. ‘My friends at the Great House will think I'm a baby if my mother must wash me.' Her foster-mother sighed.

‘My beautiful baby is growing up. Let me wash you sometimes, child. I like to see how beautiful you're growing. I was pretty like you when I was your age.' Eliza nodded and slid away. Her foster-mother would not approve of the golden tan now covering her whole body.

A string of smiling summers wafted over the village of Marley. Harry and Eliza grew to adolescence, still enjoying their naked afternoons by the lake each year. As Eliza's shape changed from girl to fertile woman, she watched Harry's body make its transition to manhood
from one summer to the next. Still, during their afternoons lying close and naked after their swims, they shared the innocent closeness of their time together as young children.

‘We're going to be married one day, Eliza.' Harry said one balmy afternoon as they nestled close in a patch of sun. ‘Remember. All those years ago?'

‘I know. I want to marry you.'

‘I've already declared my intentions, remember,' Harry said. ‘And you've accepted. So what happens next?'

‘We wait, I suppose,' she said, not wanting to hint at the blooming passion she had long felt for the youth she'd known for most of her life.

How long do we wait?

‘A very long time,' she said. ‘Until you're twenty one.'

‘But that's five years.' He sighed. ‘Wait. I have a wonderful notion.' It was not often that Harry took the lead in creating good ideas.

‘What is it?'

‘You remember Mr Harcourt told us about savages; their ways, their customs? How they live on islands and catch fish. And eat each other?'

‘Yes.'

‘And how when they promise something very special, they mix their blood, and that makes them keep the promise, even for years and years?'

‘Yes.'

‘So why don't we?'

‘What a good idea. But where do we get the blood?'

‘Oh. That's easy. Here.' He pulled a pin from the lapel of his discarded jacket, and before she could protest, he had pricked his palm, grabbed her hand, and repeated the act. ‘I'm sorry, Eliza. I thought if I did it quickly, it wouldn't hurt so much.'

‘I suppose you're right.' She looked down at her hand and saw the trickle of blood oozing into the lines of her palm. He held it in his own bloodied hand.

‘I promise that I, Harold James De Havilland, will marry Eliza Downing when I am one-and-twenty. So help me God. Now you say it, Eliza.' She looked solemnly into his eyes.

‘I promise that I, Eliza Mary Downing, will marry Harold James De Havilland when he is one-and-twenty one and I am twenty, almost, so help me God.' She drew her hand away from his and looked at her palm. Already their mingled blood had become sticky. She kissed him on the lips. Kissing had always been a pleasant habit for them, though Eliza admitted to herself that for the last year or so, she had looked forward to it with a strangely melting passion. Through many a sleepless night, she held her pillow close, kissed it longingly, whispered sweet nothings to it. And wondered whether Harry might perhaps have begun the man's version of the same. Now, they lay together on the grass, still naked, hand in bloody hand.

‘How many children should we have, Harry?' Eliza asked, tweaking her voice to sound lighthearted, jokey.

‘Four. Two girls and two boys.' He smiled, turned to her has they lay close. ‘Then there's the simple pleasure of making them. Which I…rather look forward to,' he said, and fell silent.

Eliza had often marvelled at Harry's slowness in showing the behaviours that grow with men's bodies as they reach manhood — the surge of hot blood that turns some men into rutting male animals overnight. She'd seen such happenings all her life; seen village boys grow
tall, sprout beards, fight, brag, flaunt their strength, court maidens they'd scorned all through childhood.

Now, in the languid heat of the summer afternoon, she watched Harry's member grow rigid. He had led with the interesting question of making children. She watched his eyes lock onto the triangle of golden curls that had lately blossomed between her thighs. She smiled to herself. Could this be his manhood's awakening?

A hot wind surged round them, a miniature tornado. Then it died to a pregnant stillness. He smiled at her, and she melted. In his eyes she saw the love that had lately burst into the open on another languid summer afternoon. But now the glow in those eyes seemed even more alive, more overpowering, than ever before. He stretched himself at full-length on the ground beside her. His eyes beckoned her to lie beside him. Then he lay silent, looking up into the blue sky. A balmy quiet settled over them like a softly draped blanket, making her body relax.

‘I'm going to take a swim,' he said. ‘It's too hot to do aught else.' In moments, he stood before her, grinning. Now the sight of his body arrested her. She took in the mat of fuzzy dark hair that now covered his chest. His stomach muscles clenched as he moved. His shoulders seemed to have broadened by inches. He fired another quick grin at her, then dived into the water. She caught her breath in sympathy the moment the chill of the water hit his nakedness. He surfaced a few yards from the shore, and waved.

‘You must, must join me, Eliza. The water's perfect.' She turned away. ‘Come on, girl.'

She stood, watching his body turn rigid as she moved. Then, as his eyes widened, she threw herself into the water, laughing. It was as if they were children. They dived, splashed, caught each other by the ankles, swam between each other's legs. A hundred times he took her on his shoulders, then threw her into the water as she screamed with laughter.

After what seemed like an hour of childish fun, he left the water and lay on the bank. She joined him. The sun had all but fled the sky. How long had they frolicked, oblivious of all else but each other? The air was warm. They lay close.

‘What are you thinking, Eliza?' His voice wafted by her ear. She struggled to find a thought, any thought, that would distract her from the naked man beside her.

‘You may not believe this,' she murmured. ‘I was thinking of that scene from
The Odyssey
Mr Harcourt gave us to read. Where Nausicaa and Ulysses meet by the lake one afternoon. Perhaps you know it?'

‘How could I forget?' he said. ‘The story of two lovers, was it not?' He paused. ‘Ah, yes. Nausicaa discovers Ullysses, naked and wounded, as she prepares to swim in a hidden pool in the marshes?'

‘Yes,' she said.

‘Both were naked at the time, were they not?' he asked.

‘So you do remember,' she said.

‘I do. It was — romantic.'

‘Yes, Ulysses, it was. You were wounded in battle, and Nausicaa cared for your wounds.'

‘I'm wounded in battle again, Nausicaa.'

In moments, the sun would disappear behind the hills. In an hour, darkness would blanket the landscape. As Eliza decided to reach for her chemise, Harry rolled over and kissed her, hard on the lips. He took his time, savouring each moment. The glowing embers in her
body flared as the searing surge swept over them. She writhed with pleasure. And the more her body asked for more, the more he gave.

He lay close, naked, his body wet. The rising tide of his excitement flooded over her, lifting her high, matching his animal heat. Their kisses waxed longer, deeper, hotter. A hunger swept through her body; a hunger that could not be denied. She wanted more. More kisses, more flesh, more of the man she would always love. Her hand found his neck, his shoulders, his belly, his burning iron-hardness. She must have him — all of him. Yet he was…cautious. Decent. Even in the searing heat of the primal needs of their bodies, he waited.

‘I want you,' she whispered into his ear, licking it with her hungry tongue. ‘All you have to give me.' She felt his hand move; slow, questing, over her body. First it brushed her nipples, then lingered, exploring them in unhurried detail with thumb and finger. Then his mouth, his teeth, added heat to the fire his fingers had lit. Spasms of happy lust coursed through her wanting body. Those hot fingers moved on, tiptoed slowly over her neck, her armpits, her groin, her thighs, her buttocks, into the lusting wet female core that seemed almost to scream aloud for him. Every movement of those exploring fingers fired shuddering paroxysms inside her.

‘Now,' she groaned. Her voice was guttural with need. She must have him. Nothing else mattered. But he held back, fingering her, kissing her, whispering loving words in her ear. ‘Now! Now!' And still he held back.

‘No, Eliza.'

Tears of need — hot, urgent — washed her face. ‘But I — '

‘No.'

‘I want you. I beg you.'