Dorothea woke. The room was in half darkness. The morning light was making the blinds at the window glow with a twilit eeriness. It confused her and she had no idea of what the time might be.
She lay still in the bed. As her mind awoke to the fact that this was another new day, it began to register what she was feeling. Dorothea initially poked at the feeling gently, as she used to poke with her tongue in the space where a tooth used to be; tenderly checking that feeling was still there; wondering if the jelly-like rawness would meet her touch or whether the broken skin was beginning to heal.
She checked her spirit for feeling and what she found was a sorrow that wrapped itself in resignation.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. There wasn’t supposed to be any comeback, any sense of sorrow. The sadness in the pit of her stomach was the point where it all ceased to matter. The sadness had no name.
The fingers of Dorothea’s mind had denied itself the curious pleasure of poking and prodding at what had happened until now.
In the wildness of that stormy night, she had been occupied. The concentration needed to navigate the short distance through the wind and the rain from the Bensons’ back to home had meant that her mind was unable to register the sadness fully.
In the days that followed, she had avoided the thought that hung at the centre of her being.
The Worth dress still hung from the door of her closet where she had placed it days ago. She had undressed herself that night. She had dismissed the maid as soon as the gown was unhooked, so that she could shrug it off and regard her new found form in the mirror.
The body that she had always taken for granted looked different, reflected there in the mirror. Her eyes had seen the curves and hollows of it, the places where his fingers had touched her skin.
She could not see the place inside that had wanted more; the place that had ached with a longing she didn’t really know but had recognised immediately. Lying in bed now, Dorothea knew that it was a place that needed to be touched, and that there was no doubt that it would be.
This, she thought, was what made her sad; that her innocence had ended and she must be a woman now. She saw that she was in competition with her sisters, and she understood that they would be the losers. Something in Rex’s eyes had communicated itself to her soul and brought her to life. The innocence of childhood was gone and the business of living had begun.
Dorothea looked again at the gown hanging like a shell, a skin sloughed off, never to be part of her again. The gown, although it had created an effect that night that spoke of maturity and womanhood, was too childlike for her now. She knew that she would never wear it again. The colour and the pattern of the fabric had a demureness that didn’t match her newly discovered persona.
Her aunt, on the journey back home, huddled into their overcoats inside the carriage that was battling against the wind and the rain, had understood the difference in her, she knew.
The following day, Elspeth had drawn close to Dorothea and murmured to her that they would go shopping in the city; that she would buy Dorothea a new wardrobe; something more suitable to her age.
“I think you’re a little too old now for pinafores and wool stockings, don’t you?” Elspeth had said to her at lunch, as Dorothea watched with new eyes her parents and sisters seated at the table with them.
It was as though she had never seen them before in her life.
The silence of her bedroom and the distance of days led Dorothea to think again about the soirée. The excitement in Rex’s eyes and the way it had over-ruled his hesitation had stirred up a similar excitement in Dorothea, but hers was an excitement tinged already with regret. She had felt the sadness of understanding, without really knowing, that this was how it would be; that the romantic stories that had fed her imagination of how it should be were nothing more than lies and wishful thinking.
Staring now at the ceiling with unfocused eyes, Dorothea lay in her bed and placed her hands on her body. She felt the weight of her hands through the thinness of her nightgown and remembered the electricity of Rex’s touch through the pale yellow, flower-sprigged silk of the gown.
There was a tap at the door.
“Come in,” Dorothea said, not moving in the bed. She continued to stare at the ceiling and hold her hands against her body.
Her maid opened the door and came to stand by the bed. She carried a silver tray on which was placed a small white envelope.
“It’s a message for you, miss. Your aunt advised that I should bring it straight up.”
Dorothea removed her hands from her body and sat up in the bed. She gazed steadily at the maid whose eyes met hers. Neither girl flinched under the other’s gaze. Dorothea took the envelope from the tray.
“Thank you, Milling,” she said. The maid curtseyed and removed herself and the tray from the room.
Dorothea opened the envelope. A calling card that was familiar in its style and form lay coldly inside. She drew it out. It was a card that she had seen Minette hold many times. Cream and heavy with a gold edge and Rex’s name in brutal black type.
She turned the card over. His cursive hand had left its imprint on the back.
“I must see you.”
Dorothea felt nothing in response other than a long cold certainty that this was how it would be. If she thought about it, she would probably have expected her stomach to flip; the nerves and excitement brought on by the attention of an older man should have registered with her more naively.
He had come to the house, as usual, the evening after the soirée in order to sit in the parlour with Minette and her parents. Dorothea had seen him briefly as he removed his hat, coat and gloves in the hallway. At the moment he handed the items to Barker he had looked directly at her, and then he was gone, into the parlour and polite conversation with the sister he didn’t want but would have to marry.
Dorothea looked again at the gown; thought again of Rex’s touch, his hands pressing urgently against her frame as his mouth pressed urgently against her forehead and then against her lips. She pushed her mind further back into memory, to the thought of her excitement as she was dressing. How different she was then. How stupidly excited to be dressing as a woman, although still a child; how excited at the thought that she would be out and among people older and wiser than her.
How little she had known.
She left her bed and crossed over to her writing desk. She drew a sheet of paper from a drawer and placed it square on the writing surface in front of her. She opened the ink well and caught the first metallic tang of the ink, sharp on the inside of her nose. She took up her pen and dipped it in the ink. She wrote.
“Today. The Park. Eleven.”
She folded the sheet once and placed it inside the envelope. She wrote Rex’s address on the outside. Then Dorothea rang for her maid.
“Miss?” Milling asked, standing at Dorothea’s side a few moments later.
Dorothea hesitated. She was unsure of what she wanted to ask of Milling. Again the gaze that stretched between the two girls was uncompromised by awkwardness or superiority. They were two people and Dorothea understood that Milling was complicit.
Dorothea had instinctively known while writing that to send her response with the other letters and cards that would leave the house this morning was too much of a risk. She had to find another method.
“Milling, I have a letter here for Mr Van Klempf. I do not wish it to go with the other letters this morning.”
Dorothea paused. Milling was non-committal in the way that she listened.
“I would like you to take the letter to Mr Van Klempf’s house later today, and explain that it got left behind by mistake this morning.”
Dorothea held the letter out to her maid. Milling took it silently and bobbed briefly.
“Thank you, Milling,” Dorothea said.
“Yes, Miss,” Milling replied and pocketed the envelope. Just before she left the room, she drew the blinds and allowed the morning sunlight to flood into the bedroom.
After the other girl had gone, Dorothea remained seated at her writing desk for a little while, gazing into the distance.
She didn’t want to turn and look at the gown again. She knew that she should put it away, or return it to her aunt, but something made her wish to leave it where it was; a trigger; a memory; a person, perhaps, in its own right.
The dress was not loyal to her, she knew that. The dress had seen too many things to be loyal to anyone.
She thought of the excitement she had felt, not only at being permitted to go to the soirée, but at the chance to wear an adult dress.
The gown had been made some fifteen years earlier for her aunt. Dorothea realised that Elspeth could not have been much older then than she was now.
She remembered her hands fluttering around the primrose silk as her maid attempted to adjust and pin the gown to fit her body. Dorothea had watched the process in the mirror, admiring the way the gown flattered her shape, swaying her hips slightly to hear the rustle of the silk and see the way it made her body look.
Milling had grown impatient with her.
“Please, miss,” she had said through a mouthful of dangling pins, “stand still a minute, won’t you?”
Dorothea had only complied when Milling had pricked her with a pin.
As Milling pinned the silk so that the silhouette of the gown began to resemble something more modern, Dorothea’s aunt had come into the room.
“Oh, stupid girl! What do you think you are doing?” she had cried, rushing across the room, her skirts swishing.
The maid had stopped what she was doing and both she and Dorothea had looked guiltily at the older woman. Neither one had been sure to whom the aunt was speaking, and both assumed it was her.
Elspeth had swept Milling aside and begun to manhandle Dorothea’s bodice, neatening the line of the bustle and narrowing the skirt of the gown.
“It must be tighter,” she had said, pulling and fitting until Dorothea had thought she would stop breathing.
“Aunt Elspeth, you are threatening to cut off my circulation,” Dorothea had told her aunt indignantly.
Her aunt had ignored her. When she had discovered that Dorothea’s father expected his youngest child to attend the evening event dressed as a polite sixteen year old should be, Elspeth had mocked his conservatism. She had announced that Dorothea would have her old Worth gown, remodelled and brought up to date.
Dorothea’s mother had expressed concern. She worried that Elspeth would turn the child’s head. Dorothea, sitting on the stairs where she could hear the conversation in the parlour, had smiled.
She had listened as her father had said, “Let her have her project. I believe the harm has already been done.”
Charles Henderson was of the opinion that Elspeth, who was his wife’s younger sister by a dozen years, had been the indulgence of his father-in-law. This was an opinion that he voiced regularly, and yet Dorothea knew that he loved his sister-in-law for her spark and vitality.
A frequent stair-listener, as a child Dorothea had listened to the debates that fell into weighty silences then rose back up again into the heat of passion that flowed late at night from her father’s study. She understood that her father enjoyed something about Elspeth that, had he been a different man, he might have chosen over the stability of his social standing and his reputation.
He had married the correct sister for the purpose of his life.
Dorothea turned from her writing desk to look again at the yellow gown hanging from the door of her closet. She tried to imagine her aunt at eighteen in that dress, but couldn’t. The colour was all wrong; chosen, no doubt, for its demureness. Dorothea felt instinctively that her dark haired aunt would have managed to corrupt the sweetness of the fabric in much the same way that she, Dorothea, had done those nights ago. The certainty of the way in which Elspeth held herself; the way her chin was firm, her gaze determined, her intelligence shone from her eyes and challenged the casual enquirer; Dorothea knew that the gown would have been remade as something else while it clothed her aunt’s body.
She remembered the way that, shortly after their family had entered the Benson house, Rex had spied Minette from the drawing room and walked purposefully to greet them. He had exchanged greetings with her parents, spent time bowed over Minette’s hand and gazing into her eyes, bowed politely from the waist to Hetta and tried to hide his surprise at her own appearance. The pause in his normally smooth conduct was minute, but Dorothea knew it was there.
“Mr Van Klempf,” she had said, nodding her head to him.
“Dorothea,” he had said. “You look lovely.” Then he had turned towards her aunt who had been watching the exchange. “Miss Mackenzie,” he said, his formality returning as though Dorothea’s appearance had never disturbed it.
“Mr Van Klempf,” her aunt had replied, offering her gloved hand for him to take and kiss, smiling knowingly at him.
As Minette had taken Rex’s arm and he had led her into the drawing room, Elspeth had glanced at Dorothea and smiled.
“He’s quite right,” she had said. “You do look lovely.”
Dorothea stirred herself from her reverie, got up from her writing desk and walked over to the closet. She took hold of the dress and opened the closet door. She suddenly needed to have the gown out of her sight. She looked at the shelves and the hanging space; at the new clothes that her aunt had bought for her to replace her childish garb. She looked for a place to put the gown and stuffed it, without care for the fabric or the gown itself, as far back in the closet as she could send it.
She was angry with Rex for wanting her. She was angry with herself for enjoying it and for wanting him back. And yet she knew that it could not be any other way. Rex had too many hopes pinned on him by his family and by hers. His marriage to Minette, as the eldest of the
Dorothea thought of the life that her eldest sister would lead and knew that she did not envy her. She moved away from the closet and stood instead in front of the mirror. She regarded her body, pulling back the thin fabric of her cotton nightgown the better to see the shape that was developing. She was no longer the slim-limbed child. At sixteen, Dorothea had curves and a body that, clothed in the right garments, she knew would turn men’s heads.
She wondered whether her sisters, at twenty two and twenty four, had similar thoughts about their own bodies. She wondered if Minette knew the power that her form could have over Rex. If she did, then Dorothea knew that Minette would understand that Dorothea’s body was the more dangerous. At sixteen, Dorothea instinctively knew that.
She pulled her nightgown over her head and looked at her naked body. She placed her hands in all the places that Rex’s hands had touched her through her clothes. She pressed down where she had felt him pressing against her, at the place where the ache of longing now resided.
The pressure of her fingers against her body felt good. She closed her eyes and moved her fingers, feeling her back arch, feeling her desire grow. She stopped, unsure of what it was that she was doing, and allowed her body to relax. She opened her eyes and looked at herself again in the mirror. The pupils of her eyes were large and black. She turned from this view of herself and busied herself with undergarments. She brushed out her hair and regretted sending Milling on her errand before she remembered to ask her to help her dress. She washed at the stand, pouring out water into the basin and sponging her body methodically. Then she clothed herself in the cottons of her undergarments and chose one of her new outfits to wear; a simple skirt and blouse in cream and taupe.
She made her way to the breakfast room. Her father was seated at the table reading the morning newspaper. He glanced up at his youngest daughter as she entered the room.
“Good morning, papa,” Dorothea said.
“Good morning, child,” her father responded.
Dorothea helped herself to breakfast and poured coffee from the still warm silver pot.
“What are your plans today, child?” her father asked from behind his newspaper.
Aunt Elspeth entered the room before Dorothea could answer.
“Charles,” she said. “Dorothea.”
“Good morning, aunt,” said Dorothea.
“Elspeth,” said her father, lowering his newspaper and smiling at her aunt.
Her mother entered and moved elegantly to kiss her husband good morning. Dorothea, lost in the bustle of family, concentrated on eating her breakfast. She had no wish to be involved in the conversation of her elders and siblings, much preferring to wander among the thoughts she was beginning to allow herself.
Her sisters appeared and teased her gently about her new stylish appearance.
“Our little Dorothea is growing up, isn’t she father?” Minette said laughingly to Mr Henderson. “She is quite the stylish catch, and soon you will have more eligible young men knocking at the front door.”
“And I shall send them all away again until she is much older,” their father retorted good humouredly, joining with the laughter of his eldest girl.
“You should be careful with that approach,” Aunt Elspeth said, buttering toast and not looking at anyone. “She might just cause a scandal.” She looked up, then, directly at her brother-in-law. “If the mind takes her to do so.”
Dorothea looked up from her own food in time to see her father blush slightly under Elspeth’s gaze.
“Well,” he said. “I don’t think that would ever be the case.” He returned to reading his newspaper, accompanied by stifled giggles from Hetta and Minette. They loved to tease their father, and to join in with their aunt’s teasing of him.
It seemed to Dorothea that neither of her sisters understood the true nature of Elspeth’s teasing. They seemed not to sense the dark undercurrent that threatened to break the surface at any moment and send this entire family establishment tumbling and crashing into confusion.
Dorothea could feel the rhythm of her aunt’s demeanour towards her father. She imagined her father’s hands against Aunt Elspeth’s body the way Rex had held his hands against hers. She was shocked by the sudden revelation, and looked around the table to see whether anyone had noticed her; if they had noticed any form of change come over her.
She looked at her aunt last and found her gazing calmly at her. The woman and her niece looked at each other steadily while the conversation and the eating of breakfast continued around them. Neither of them smiled, but it seemed to Dorothea that both of them understood.
Still looking at her aunt, Dorothea announced, “I might go out for a walk later.”
“That’s a good idea,” her mother said. Just a turn around the Square would do you good. You have been too long in the house lately.”
“Yes,” said Dorothea. “I think a walk up to the Park will do me very well indeed.” She paused. “If that’s alright, papa?”
She looked away from her aunt and towards her father, who lowered his newspaper to regard her.
“I have no objection,” he said. “I believe that you are old enough and sensible enough now to walk to the Square on your own.”
“Thank you, papa.”
At that moment, Dorothea saw Milling walk past the open door to the breakfast room.
“I have finished eating,” she said, placing her napkin on the table. “May I be excused.”
“You may,” said her father.
Dorothea tried not to rush from the room to where Milling was waiting for her in her bedroom.
“I have a reply for you, miss,” she said, and handed Dorothea an envelope.
“Thank you, Milling,” Dorothea said, trying to appear calm. “You may go.”
She waited until the maid had left her alone before opening the envelope with trembling fingers. Although she knew what the reply would be, she felt the flutter of nerves at the prospect of reading his compliance with her suggestion. She drew out the single sheet of paper that was the same cream as his calling card, and unfolded the note from Rex.
The message was simple.
“I will be at the Arch at eleven. RVK.”
Dorothea put the note back in its envelope. She put it firmly into the pocket of her skirt. The weather had been too warm since the storm, and so fires had not been lit in the bedrooms. Dorothea knew that the only way to dispose of the note was to return it to Rex.
She walked down to the hall and asked Barker to bring her overcoat. As she waited, she checked her hair in the mirror that hung in the hall and tried not to think about what she was about to do.
Minette appeared behind her.
“Are you going now?” she asked, looking at her sister with surprise.
“I am,” Dorothea replied calmly.
Her sister looked disappointed. “Oh. I had hoped that we could walk part of the way together. I’m meeting Selena and Rex’s mother and we are going into town.”
“I want to go now,” Dorothea answered her. “As mama said, I have been in the house too much since the storm. I feel the need to clear my head.” She smiled at Minette. “Of course, if you’d rather I waited for you.”
“Oh, no. It’s fine. You go now. You do look a little pale.”
Minette wandered into the library as Barker appeared with Dorothea’s overcoat. He helped her on with it, and opened the front door for her.
“Thank you, Barker,” she said, as she stepped out into the spring morning.
She walked purposefully through the Village towards the Square. The streets were quiet at this time. The business men were in their offices or at coffee houses. Ladies were preparing for a day of housekeeping or social visits. Dorothea was free from the constraints of the house and the presence of her family, and as she walked she freed her mind to think about what she was doing.
At the soirée, Rex had found occasion to glance her way a number of times. Dorothea was forced to remain with her parents, or with her sisters, or with a trusted friend until her parents relaxed enough to forget that their youngest child was there.
It was then that she had managed to slip away, to walk in the fresh evening air of the Bensons’ garden. The storm had not yet begun to gather its wits and wreak chaos in their lives.
She was standing by the wall at the very end of the garden, looking out on this still unspoiled area of the island, where people had the luxury of gardens, when Rex appeared behind her.
He had held her by her upper arms, forcing her to remain facing away from him. She could feel the warmth of his body through the shawl she had pulled on over the gown. He had spoken into her ear.
“I almost didn’t recognise you, Dorothea, you look so grown up tonight.”
Dorothea hadn’t replied. She felt, instead, his hands slide slowly down her arms, along the fabric of the shawl, and then across onto her waist. His fingers had squeezed gently her already too-cinched waist, and she had thought she might pass out. Then one hand slid over the rise of her belly, and Rex bent his head so that his lips touched the skin of her neck and her now exposed shoulder.
He had turned her around then and moved his hands across her back, exploring her form, revelling in this new-found delight that he had not realised existed before tonight. He murmured nonsense into her hair and pressed himself close against her body.
Dorothea had raised her head slightly as she gave in to the pressure of his body against hers, and his lips met hers briefly.
He had pulled away then and smiled at her. His eyes looked into hers and the knot of sorrow had begun to form.
He had walked back to the house without another word, leaving Dorothea standing in the dusk at the bottom of the garden. She had known that this was only the beginning.
And then the storm had started to build.
She was slightly breathless when she arrived at the Park. She saw him from a distance, recognising his form immediately. She slowed her pace and tried to regulate her breathing, so that when she walked up to him she appeared calm and composed.
She handed him the note.
“Here,” she said. “I didn’t think it wise to keep it.”
He took it from her, raising his eyebrows and smiling wryly.
“You think of everything,” he said. “I will dispose of it later.”
They began to walk around the park. He took hold of her arm and placed it through the crook of his. He kept one hand on top of her hand, so that his body was pressed close to her side.
“Is this what you want?” she asked, not really knowing what she was asking, but feeling that the question had to be posed.
“Right now?” he said. “Yes.”
They walked around the Park once without speaking. As they returned to the Arch, Rex spoke at last.
“I have a room not far from here,” he said. “Certain aspects of a gentleman’s life insist on it. We could go there. It would be private.”
Dorothea felt the sadness grow, matched by an equal increase in the longing to be touched.
They began to walk around the square again. Dorothea did not speak for a while, and then, “Where is this place?” she asked him.
“The room?” Rex replied, as though the conversation was the most natural thing in the world. “It’s two streets from here. Very private. Nobody will see us.”
“Why do you want me to go there with you?”
“To talk. To enjoy your company. To get to know you better.” Rex paused. “You are a surprise and a mystery to me, Dorothea. You are quite unlike your sisters.”
“Will you marry Minette?” she asked him.
“Of course. She’s meeting my mother and sister today and I am quite sure that they are already planning the wedding.” There was another short silence. “But that has nothing to do with this.”
“And it’s what you want?”
“Yes.”
Dorothea surprised herself with her next words.
“Then you should take me to your room,” she told him.
They walked there in silence. Dorothea removed her arm from Rex’s grip and walked by his side, with a small but deliberate distance between them. She could not think of any words that would distract from their actions. Rex also seemed unwilling to speak.
The room, when they got there, was small, little more than a bedroom. Dorothea stepped inside and looked around her. She knew that being here was wrong. She did not really understand what was about to happen. She did, however, understand that she didn’t want to resist it.
Rex closed the door behind them. Dorothea was standing a little way into the room. She faced Rex, standing at the door. He walked across the room and kissed her, still in her overcoat, still crisp and fresh from the morning air. He kissed her, and as the storm again began to gather, Dorothea saw her aunt’s gown hanging on the door of her closet and began to understand.
© J R Hargreaves January 2007
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