The Lesser Portal Ch. 13

The village vicar, the Reverend Binyon, was young, prematurely bald and newly married, and an amiable soul with whom I was on cordial terms. I should make this last point plain, lest the reader think I feel animosity towards all Christian ministers. Nonetheless, I wished him away the next time I saw him.

The occasion was the first of the Doyles' afternoon teas of the year -- on New Year's Day, to be precise. Apparently the vicar and his doting, somewhat older wife believed it their religious duty to call on his parishioners around tea-time, especially if an exceptionally lavish tea was available.

The sanctified pair sat firmly one either end of a sofa, each nursing a tea-cup and a slice of rich cake, obstinately refusing to go to -- their Christian place of damnation -- devoutly though I prayed for it. And all the while, there sat close to them the exquisite Lydia, her gold hair set off by a leaf-coloured dress, while in my waistcoat pocket was an engagement ring of pretty much the value of my entire savings.

Lydia had been monopolised by Mrs Binyon for some time. The aetherial Lydia seemed especially insubstantial compared to Mrs Binyon, and my botanical side fell to wondering what in the vegetable kingdom Mrs Binyon most reminded me of. A bottle-gourd, perhaps -- one of the shapely Chinese variety.

At last the Reverend expressed to Doyle his considered opinion on ritualism, and Mrs Binyon overheard, and turned to her husband to exclaim at his wisdom. Lydia fell silent and adopted a poetically pensive expression.

I moved to a nearer chair, and said quietly, "Can we not be alone, Lydia?"

She replied in little more than a murmur, "Mrs Binyon considers a priest the perfect match for a woman, and an outspoken Evolutionist pretty much the worst. She is watching us from the corner of her eye for the slightest suspicion of impropriety." She added with absolute sincerity, "You know, Frederick, how greatly proper behaviour matters to me. Oh dear!"

I had just a moment before taken a mouthful of tea, and now alarmed her by almost snorting it out through my nostrils. This was the "proper" young lady in whose round-doored back-hallway I had twice had the great pleasure of leaving my calling-card! But I could hardly remind her of this fact, and blew my nose and then diverted the discourse.

At long last the Reverend and Mrs Reverend left. Doyle smiled at Lydia and myself, and said, "Jaspers, Mavis gave me a volume of botanical illustrations as a Christmas-gift. I know you'll be interested. Lydia, would you show him the way to my study?"

I had been in Doyle's study a dozen times at least, as he well knew.

This study always struck me as a sort of book-mine, by which I mean a small cavern dug into a seam of scientific volumes. I sometimes found myself looking around for pit-props. The principle light just now was a lamp in a gap on the shelves, turned down very low. But Lydia added a twilit mystery to her beauty by standing away from the lamplight, close to the window, with her face just barely lit by the winter's dusk, so that I seemed to be closeted with a lovely phantom among the black shadows of the room.

Knowing her, I should guess that she had rehearsed the scene in her mind many times. She clasped her hands over her heart, and gave a quiver and a passionate sigh, her lovely lips trembling. She said, "Marriage, the wise all tell us, is the great decision of a woman's life."

She clearly had more lines to deliver, so I waited and admired the beauty of her profile.

"We are so different, you and I," she continued. "My steadfast faith..." She sighed again. "But even St. Paul says nothing of the human heart. The truth is, dear, dearest Frederic, you have a soul that works strangely on mine."

As she went on, I began to feel impatient, not for the first time in Lydia's company. My attention strayed. Outside was the grey garden and greyer sleet streaming by. I was stood against a shelf of books, and absently I rested my hand on their tops. One book stood proud of the others. Its touch was oddly familiar, and I glanced down at it. Even in the gloom I recognised it as one which, in my impecunious student days, Doyle had often loaned me.

Lydia sighed yet again, turned dramatically and stepped with grace to where the lamplight brought her loveliness all at once into reality. "A woman must sometimes look only to her heart for guidance, Frederic. I think you know the question I am longing to hear from your lips." She paused; then, perhaps deciding that I was overcome by a manly shyness, she prompted helpfully, "And I believe you know how I will answer the question you are about to ask."

I said, "No."

"No?"

"My sincere apologies, Lydia. I don't mean to be brutal, but it's just struck me that we've both been more in love with romance than with each other." The doorway began to draw me magnetically. "I find I have a pressing matter to attend to, so...." I would have gone at once, but chivalry demanded a little more, so as I stepped sideways to make my exit I added, "I'll always have a soft heart for you, and maybe a hard -- you know -- if you need one, but for the present, adieu."

By now I was on the landing, and next moment I was thundering down the stairs fast enough to put my neck in danger. I snatched my coat from its hook in the hall, shouted a brief apology to the assembled company, and dashed out into the driving sleet.

I had run between the village and Cambridge a few times, but wearing athletics togs, in fair weather, and I'd had the sense to pace myself. Rushing pell-mell through mud in a waterproof overcoat and dress boots was a different matter, and after a mile I stopped in the shelter of a leaning willow-trunk to pant and collect my thoughts.

There are times, scientist or no, when impulse will rule. I turned up my collar, brushed my wet locks from my eyes and set off at a more measured pace into the night.

The gaslit chemist's shop seemed like a glowing haven when it first came into view. Soon I could see Jenny. She was alone, bent over a book, her forearms resting on the counter. I entered, dripping. For a moment she ignored the bell and still read, and I saw even at a distance that she was studying Notes on Organic Chemistry again -- the textbook I had found under my hand in Doyle's study.

Then she looked up, a tow-headed, topaz-eyed, smut-loving angel, and her smile was sunlight.

I seized the moment. "Jenny,' I said, clasping her hands in mine, "I know we can't marry. But won't you escape your husband and come to live with me? I'm sure you'll learn enough of chemistry to pass as a lab assistant, in these days of Girton girls and Somerville ladies -- in fact you'll be invaluable -- and there's an apartment above the lab where you and I can live discreetly."

Her face fell at once into a look of distressed concern. "Freddy, the first time we met, you said that you were afraid you'd trifle with my affections. I never thought I'd trifle with yours."

"Do you mean that my body is all you need from me?"

She pulled her hands free. "Please stop and think. If we lived together and my husband publicly denounced me, I would live under a cloud of scandal for the rest of my life."

I was abashed. "I could never ask for such a sacrifice."

"If we are to live apart, then, you may ease your mind by forgetting all about my feelings."

The sleet seemed to have followed me in and found a way to pelt my heart.

Just then a grunt issued from a back-room, followed by a groan and the sound of her husband's unsteady footsteps. As I was leaving I heard Mr Jones grumble, "D'you give the customer what he wanted, woman?"

"It wasn't anything we supply, Mr Jones," was her response.

*

In the weeks following I tried to bury my sorrow under work. I had little heart for social intercourse, but felt obliged to continue to attend the Doyles' teas, at which Lydia treated me distantly. The discomfort of the situation was heightened by the hypocrisy of Mrs Threlfall. Still a regular attender, she was now prone to debate religion with, or rather at, me, while smiling archly and drawing my attention to her extensive bosom by placing her forearm under her twin mounds and easing them upwards until they threatened to erupt through her décolletage.

It was February when Morwena greeted me in the village bakery, the scent of fresh pikelets emerging from the basket she carried. She asked with concern, "Why so down in the chops, mister?" (she did not consider me a "real" doctor).

I accompanied her towards her mistress's house warmed by a newly-baked bloomer loaf under my arm, and explained my situation.

"They say as when one goes up another comes down," she remarked reflectively. "My Johnny is out o' chokey in a few weeks, and 'e's goin' to come up to be near me and look for work with the gee-gees, what 'e is good at, and then we'll be set ter get married."

"But what splendid news!" I exclaimed, thoughtlessly imperilling the pikelets by placing an arm around her shoulders and delivering such a very congratulatory sideways hug that she almost dropped the basket. "Soon we'll see lots of little Morwenas and Johnnys running about the village, no doubt," I teased. "Well, you won't get them by doing it the way you've done it up to now."

"That's what the Rev. says at the start o' the weddin'-service in't it?" she asked with dignity. "Obliged to do it in the 'ole what Nature intended."

"Oh I see. 'For the procreation of children.' Quite right."

"But mister, I'd cheer you up by lettin' you sweep my back-parlour chimney again, only I 'ope you understand that's out o' the question now."

"I do, my girl."

"There's always Mrs Cargill, o' course," she mused, "only I doubt she's quite ready for any sort o' pokin' without me there to tempt the silly woman astray. Though she does get a deal lively when she's bin at the trifle sherry."

"Really, don't trouble yourself about it. Thank you for your solicitude, though. Listen: you'll have to leave Mrs Threlfall's service, but I'll always be ready to help you and Johnny."

"I knew the first time you rubbed my nibbin you was one o' the true an' proper sort, acos you cared about pleasin' me as well as your own satisfaction. But now I must get these pikelets indoors. Mrs T. 'as woke up impatient for a pikelet."

The next fortnight passed in moving the laboratory to Cambridge and generally picking up the thread of our experiments. For a time I still lived in my village "digs", and I was packing a trunk for the move to the town when I heard Morwena singing in the street outside. Next there came a rap on the street-door. My landlady being out, I trotted down the stairs as the song resumed.

"Says the pink young lady in the li-ttle-boat,

Won't you tickle me nicely till my boat's afloat,

Then ki-i-indly put on your overcoat,

And -- "

Morwena broke off as I opened the door. "Hush, fair maid," I laughed. "You'll scandalise the neighbours. Though I admit I have no idea what your symbolism means."

"Well, where I come from a Mackintosh is of them sheaths what they make out o' rubber these days. I wanted to say Mackintosh on'y I couldn't make it rhyme so I said overcoat. Which reminds me, why don't you wear a overcoat when you're doin' your pluggin'? Ain't that the most sanitary way?"

I answered sotto voce, "I tried one on once, but I found it unbearably tight. But come inside, girl, before you blacken both our reputations."

"Well, I admit I'd miss the nat'ral feel of it," she said, stepping into the hallway. "The whitewashin' partic'ly. So I ain't complainin'. But I'm 'ere to deliver a letter from a mysterious stranger what we is both acquainted with. I met the stranger buyin' pastries the other day and I passed on the information that you wanted cheerin' up." She handed me an envelope. I opened it, and recognised Florence's writing.

"To the High Priest of the Cult of the Lesser Portal.

Your attendance is required to officiate at the Initiation of a new Supplicant into our Cult. Be assured she will have been instructed in our Mysteries by a Priestess and will have undergone the necessary Training and Preparation. She is to endure an Ordeal to test her Dedication and then partake of the highest Rite of our Order. Therefore please attend at The Croft on the 29th of this month at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

Signed,

Your Faithful Assistant Priestess."

"All my-eye-and-Betty-Martin if you asks me," commented Morwena, who was evidently aware of the letter's contents, adding with unusual directness, "Why not just f--k the blessed woman's a---'ole in front of a audience if that's what she wants?"

"You lack the romantic sensibility of today's educated young ladies," I responded. "Or perhaps their peculiar sense of humour, in Miss Florence's case. Tell the mysterious stranger that the High Priest will attend."

Doyle had to go up to London on business on the 29th, and was to take Mrs Doyle with him so that she could shop for the latest fashions. The day happened to be the customary servants' afternoon-off in the village. All of the aforesaid meaning that we of the "Order" would have The Croft to ourselves.

Nonetheless, as I approached at the appointed hour, I was surprised to see no light whatever at the windows despite the afternoon being another murky one. I rang the bell, and through the stained-glass in the Doyles' front door I saw the flame of a candle approaching.

It proved to be borne by Morwena. This was a deduction rather than an observation, since she wore across her face a piece of black cloth masking all but her eyes, with a black head-scarf above. The costume was completed by a long black dress rather too big for her. In short, she looked more like a nun than anything else. However, those large eyes, which somehow were both dark and luminous, could belong to no-one else.

She bore the candle in front of her in a ritualistic brass candlestick, and her first action was to put a finger to her lips to enjoin a mystic silence. Then she beckoned me to follow her. After ascending the stairs, we proceeded along a corridor into a darkly-furnished back-bedroom. This was lit by clusters of candles, but nevertheless much of the room was in shadow. The window was immured behind an exceedingly heavy curtain.

Ahead, two other masked, nun-like figures stood like waxworks either side the foot of an old four-poster bed, a funereal edifice so massive that one might have dragged the hulk outside and let it to a distressed-genteel family. The room was clearly its place of exile, and so this was equally clearly a guest-bedroom.

One nun was taller and more willowy than the other, and must be Lydia; the other I therefore surmised to be Florence. What with the candles, the darkness, the old-fashioned carving of the monumental bed-posts, and the fact that the sombre velvet curtains of the bed were drawn as if guarding some inner shrine, the effect might have been impressively mysterious had each figure not held a carpet-beater -- a common cane carpet-beater with a clover-leaf business-end -- ceremoniously upright before her.

Morwena put down her candlestick on the mantelpiece and picked up a piece of paper, which she held close to the candle to read, murmuring the paper's written words to herself: "The Priest is to disrobe." She turned to me and said, "Right, mister, let's get you nekkid as a fresh-shaved frog." Lydia tutted, Florence quaked with stifled giggling, and Morwena stripped off my coat.

Pretty soon the rest of my clothes were deftly folded and placed on a chair. The superabundance of candles had warmed the room and I felt rather comfortable in my state of nudity. Lydia eyed my genital apparatus with curiosity -- she had never seen me naked, you may recall -- while Morwena returned to the sheet of paper and read, "The Supplicant is to worship the Priestly Member."

Without a by-your-leave she put one hand in the small of my back and propelled me right up against the curtains, and arranged them so that said Member poked through the place where the curtains met. Then she secured the curtains shut with an ordinary wooden clothes-peg. Next moment I felt a pair of hands fondling me, and naturally I -- rose to the occasion.

It transpired that the Act of Worship involved lavish use of the Supplicant's lips and tongue on penis-head, interrupted by smackings of the lips and feminine exclamations of, "Mm!" and "Ooh!" At once my genitals were aflame with pleasure, and when a hand gently massaged my testes it drove me to further heights of carnal passion.

My instinct was to thrust in and out of the Supplicant's mouth, and as I began gently to do this the pleasure in my male parts burned still higher. But no doubt my rear view was uninteresting for the three nun-priestesses, for -- much too soon for me -- Florence took charge and declared, "Now let the Supplicant present herself for her Ordeal." My organ was released, and after some eager bouncing that shook the bed-hangings, a pair of female feet emerged from under the curtain, toes pointed downwards. I stepped back, and the feet were followed by the usual appurtenances, viz. two legs and, in due sequence, a pair of buttocks, all naked.

Their owner planted her feet on the floor, and the bed being high in the old-fashioned way, and her legs being on the short side, all was well-presented for inspection.

The womanly rump now displayed was broad but nevertheless well-rounded. Below, her thighs were stout as bolster-cushions, but all was shapely and pleasing.

No doubt for our primitive forebears the sight of naked legs and rump was an everyday occurrence, but in our century they are seen all too rarely, and so my male part did not slacken. Lydia quite forgot to act her part in the drama, and salivated audibly at the sight of my impressive size and hardness.

Morwena read, "First Inspection of the Portal," and stepped forward, to stand beside the rump on display and place each of her slim brown hands on either buttock. Whilst Florence held a candle near, the plump buttocks were drawn apart, and the pink knot between them was revealed to be tied tight.

Florence handed me her carpet-beater. Morwena pushed and pulled me into position facing Lydia across the Supplicant's wide expanse of buttock-flesh. Florence then declared, "Let the Ordeal commence," and Lydia fetched the cheek nearest her a whack with her beater. I took the cue and followed with a whack on the other cheek.

From behind the dark velvet there at once came excited, panting breaths. This level of excitement did not satisfy Lydia, however, for she took her beater in a double-handed grip and whacked still harder. The Supplicant gave an appreciative moan, so I struck harder too, bringing forth another moan of arousal. Florence giggled, my erect organ stood hard and high as I swung back my implement, and Lydia smacked her lips before whacking again.

After a few more strokes, Florence ordered a pause in proceedings so that we could all admire how the curved canes had imprinted the large white cheeks with a decorative tracery of pink and red lines. The Supplicant, however, shook her rump impatiently at this interruption.

A dozen, seemingly highly satisfactory, further strokes had been delivered when Morwena spoke up. "No need to tickle her, mister -- is you a rower or not?"

I took the hint, drew back my beater, and used all my strength to fetch the nearest globe of flesh an almighty thwack. Now I elicited a cry of pain, and with my thwack to the other globe an even louder one. But after that, afraid I might cause real injury, I ceased my thwackings, even though Lydia glared and plainly considered me lacking in the qualities that built the Empire.

Morwena did not let the impasse last. She declared, "Second Inspection of the Portal," and stepped forward, and again parted the pillows of flesh, revealing that the pink knot was now loosened.

"Proceed to the Initiation," commanded Florence. She and Lydia seized a leg apiece and held them out horizontally. There was then a certain amount of fumbling while the Supplicant turned herself onto her back. The legs were raised up high and held apart. A plump, dark-haired mons veneris was presented, its inner folds invitingly glazed with their natural juices. But my business lay to the southward.

"The Anointing of the Sacred Sceptre," read Morwena, adding, "Where's the effin' pot o' stuff?' Before I could offer to look for the lubricating jelly, however, she had discovered it behind a cluster of candles. "Now you keep still, mister, an' let this lowly servant o' the Order slosh it on yer pump-'andle so yer 'ands is kept clean." There came an excited giggle of anticipation from behind the bed-curtains.

The girl proceeded to coat my jutting bowsprit enthusiastically, and perhaps for longer than was strictly necessary. I said with a smile, "I think that's enough now, young lady."

"Oh, don't pertend you don't like it, mister," she retorted, and favoured me with a wink.

Lydia snorted impatiently, Florence announced in deep, portentous tones, "The High Priest will now Initiate the Supplicant," and Morwena pursed her lips and reluctantly released the organ that she so delighted in.

I approached said Supplicant and gripped her behind her knees to force her legs further back, thereby tilting up her pelvis and offering her anus to me. My shadow obscured all that was of most interest, so Lydia commanded, "Candles!" and all three women fetched candlesticks -- Lydia brought a candelabrum, to be precise -- so that in a few moments an oasis of brighter light illuminated the luscious spheres, the furry mount, my rigid member in its glistening coat of lubricant, and the eager target-hole. Excited curiosity brought Lydia's face in close, and it was hard to say whose breathing was the more elevated, hers or the Supplicant's.

Morwena took my sexual pole in her hand and positioned the smooth tip against the enticing little opening at the centre of the pink knot. I pushed, and the tip forced open the hole a modicum, and a moan of both pain and pleasure came from behind the bed-curtains.

The hole was tight, there was no denying, but Morwena applied a finger to the Supplicant's "nibbin" and rubbed. Meanwhile I subdued my instincts, only pressing harder and softer in a rhythm without attempting ingress -- and to be sure, this thrilled my penis-head enough for the moment. The Supplicant uttered whimpers which said in any language, "Sir, I do need impalement now, my body ready or no." But I knew that this would risk injury; and my patience was rewarded, for in a little while Morwena's sacred ministrations relaxed the Portal, and with careful thrusts the priestly Intruder was able to distend it by degrees, until the head was buried just inside, and next my shaft was encroaching inch by inch through what was now a well-stretched ring. Meanwhile the passionate groans from beyond the curtain encouraged my taking possession.

As her ring relaxed further I was able to up my pace somewhat. The groans of the Supplicant grew more frenzied, and the slap of skin on decorated buttock grew louder and louder. But my performance was insufficient for Lydia, who suddenly seized the base of my member and pushed me with velocity into the pleasing hole, then pulled me out in an equally peremptory manner. My pace she made positively heroic, and it was a question how long I could go at it without erupting.

As I grew nearer and nearer to anointing the Supplicant's passage, Morwena rubbed the harder, until the Supplicant bucked wildly in ecstasy. Her paroxysms were so intense that as I let fly my seed I had to hold her rump against me with force.

I did not withdraw after this High Communion of our Order, however, for I felt I was not yet quite done.

Continuing gasps of pleasure were coming from one side of me, and I discovered that Lydia was holding hard against one of the sturdy bed posts as she moved her groin up and down over its curvature, her eyes half-closed and her sensitive parts protected by skirts and petticoats from its antique grooves and protrusions.

Such randiness I found deliciously encouraging. I had softened, but began to harden again. I withdrew almost my full length to give Lydia a sight of my manhood, then commenced driving in and almost fully out, and quite as rapidly as before. Morwena resumed her ministrations, and under the attentive eyes of the little throng of excited women, I again filled the air with the rapid slap of skin on well-spanked skin. Morwena's eyes were fastened on the ramming motion with lascivious interest, and even the cynical Florence seemed to breathe more heavily.

The second paroxysm took a shade longer to arrive, but again the invaluable Morwena ensured that the Supplicant and I reached our ecstatic seizures together. This time the novitiate emitted a series of little high-pitched squeals as her legs bucked yet more wildly.

This bucking disturbed the curtains at the foot of the bed. The clothes-peg flew off, and next thing I knew she had kicked them apart. And then I found myself gazing over a pleasing naked bosom at the face of that paragon of propriety, Mrs Binyon, the vicar's piously devoted wife!

That good lady seemed so much elevated to a decidedly unChristian Paradise at that moment, that she merely smiled slowly as if at a vision, at the sight of a naked athlete rooted in her posterior. The appalled Lydia, however, gasped, broke off her self-stimulation and snatched the curtains shut, whereupon a disappointed "oh!" came from beyond them.

The turn of events seemed to have utterly unnerved Lydia, for she hissed, "Take him away! Take him away!"

The level-headed Morwena replied. "Garn, what's done's done. Let Mr Doc and Mrs Rev tussle a third round if they wants it."

Lydia was shocked -- scandalised -- aghast at this suggestion. Florence, almost dissolving with laughter, humoured her sister and took me by the arm to hurry me from the room. And the reader may decide whether my male part left Mrs Binyon's orifice with an audible "pop!" or not.

Morwena followed us with my clothes and, thoughtfully, a clean cloth to wipe my member. The two women unmasked themselves, and I kissed them my thanks before I left the house.

I next saw Lydia holding a demure cup of tea at The Croft. It could only have been she who had encouraged Mrs Binyon to explore the lewd Mysteries of the Lesser Portal -- but encouraged under a veil of proper language, I have no doubt. For her part, Mrs Binyon could never meet my eye thereafter, but only smiled, blushed and lowered her gaze.

*

Living above the laboratory as I now was, it was easy enough to devote myself to my work. Each morning I descended long before Doyle arrived from the village, donned my lab coat over my dressing-gown, then after working for an hour or so, went back upstairs to dress and eat a boiled egg before resuming. When I took exercise, it was in the form of rowing so hard that the effort drove out all thought. Still, from time to time I sunk into a miserable reverie over -- Mrs Jones, as I should now think of her.

Dawn was a ghostly pallor on the eastern horizon the morning I heard a frantic knocking at the street-door of the lab. I jumped up from the lab bench, unbolted the door, and was astonished to find Mr Thorpe, Mr Jones's shop-assistant and lover, in a state of desperation.

"Thank the Lord you're up, Doctor. There's someone needs you at once -- "

"I am not a medical doctor," I cut in. "You want McMurdoch, first left, two doors down." In the darkness, he must not have properly read the brass business-plate next the laboratory entrance.

"Thank you. Thank you." He was already dashing for the corner.

Like a thunderbolt it hit me that I must have got Jenny with child. That she had miscarried. That she was bleeding to death. I was about to run to her through the melting slush of a late snowfall in my bedroom-slippers and dressing-gown, when Thorpe reappeared, his face so drained by panic it was dove-grey in the gloom. "His housemaid has gone to wake the doctor. I'm sorry to have disturbed you." He was plainly too agitated to wait silently on McMurdoch's doorstep.

"But what's happened, man?" I felt like shaking an answer out of him.

And then a blessed voice asked urgently, "Have you found a doctor?" The voice was Jenny's.

She had run up from along the street, masked from me by the house-porch. And next moment she was holding Thorpe while he sobbed on her breast. The hem of a nightdress showing below her overcoat.

I was ignored, but what of it? She was well!

McMurdoch appeared after a short space of time -- good medical men keep themselves ready for emergencies -- and ran, black bag in hand, along with Thorpe in the direction of the chemist shop. Jenny did not follow. She turned to me and said soberly, "There's no hope, but I hadn't the heart to tell him that."

"But what has happened? I thought something had happened to you. My God, my heart almost forgot to beat."

"Forgot to beat! I'm afraid that's the case with poor Mr Jones. Mr Thorpe called at the shop just a short time ago -- he was impatient to make his peace one more time with Mr Jones, I think -- and through the shop door he saw Mr Jones collapsed by an open bottle of chloral. He rang the night-bell and I tried to wake my husband while Thorpe ran for a doctor, but the body was already stiffening." She shook her head. "Chloral after strong drink."

"Jenny, how terrible for you!"

"It's a shock for me. But poor Mr Thorpe -- they really loved one another, for all their storms and tempests. Freddy, hold me and stop my trembling."

And of course I did as she asked, there on the doorstep, with the early tradesmen and the day-servants beginning to pass by, and to stare at us or pretend to ignore us according to their individual natures.

The sky was brightening towards a soft blue by the time Jenny raised her face with her old sad smile and said, "It's a little way in the future, Freddy, but there will come a time when you must start to make up for the years I had no-one to please my body. I think I'll want you every night, and perhaps not only at night, and if you are very good -- well, I saw some of the tintypes, you know, and I might let you do that to me sometimes. Because I think you like it, and because perhaps I love you, if you love me."

Which I had no difficulty whatever in telling her.