Chapter 17 #2
“Put your finery up there so’s it stays dry,” advised the dipper, pointing at the shelf.
“Once I shut this door”—she rapped her scarred knuckles on the wood at the back of the machine—“you’ll have all the time you please to change.
The horse is as calm as the water. Once we’re out far enough, I’ll open that for you.
” She pointed to the other door at the front end of the machine.
“Thank you,” Flora said. She appreciated the short explanation, novice that she was.
The woman began closing the back door, then paused. “One last thing,” she said. “D’you want to be put in the water gentle-like? Or do you prefer to be tossed?”
Flora blinked politely. “Tossed?”
“The dippers in this area are renowned for their strength,” Verbena said. “It’s something of a tradition to be flung into the sea by them. Saves everyone a lot of tiptoeing in, I suppose.”
The dipper puffed up with pride. “If I may say, I have a reputation as a champion flinger.” She rolled her sleeve up to her shoulder and flexed her arm, demonstrating the impressive bulge of muscle there. “Name’s Prudence,” she said, putting her sleeve back in place. “Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”
“No, but I am the poorer for it. I, for one, would love to be tossed!” Verbena said, her cheeks pink with excitement. “And you, Flora?”
“Well, I suppose—if it is traditional—” Flora could hardly construct a complete sentence, entranced with their dipper as she was.
How wonderful to see all sorts of women in the world!
And how wonderful to see a woman who was lauded for her physical capabilities, as divergent as they were from the usual willowy delicacy.
Prudence nodded approvingly. “Two tosses, then,” she said, and clapped the back door shut, plunging them into shadow.
Verbena immediately sat and removed her slippers. “I am so glad you agreed to come,” she said. “After all the fuss we endured last night, I wanted to speak to you. Alone.”
Flora sat on the bench opposite and slowly unlaced her heeled boots.
She heard the horse whicker, and then the machine jolted into motion, its wheels slowly churning through wet sand.
Hooves splashed into the water. “I feel the same. After last night, we should clear the air.” She concentrated very hard on her laces.
“Why did you insist I turn my interest to William Forsyth?”
A quick glance showed Verbena occupied with the buttons of her short jacket. “Ah. That. I should explain.” She shrugged off the jacket and stood, lifting the hem of her dress.
Flora bolted to her feet and turned around. “Don’t forget, you promised,” she said, hushed. “Back to back, yes?” She stared hard at the shadowed wall.
There was a long pause before Verbena, unseen behind Flora, laughed lightly.
“Of course. Although…” Her stockinged feet shuffled against the floorboards as she turned, her voice now directed away.
“If you are ever able to overcome your shyness, perhaps I could tempt you to swim in the nude. I hear it’s excellent for the nerves. ”
“Not for mine,” Flora mumbled to herself. Then, clearing her throat, she began undoing all the little mother-of-pearl buttons down the front of her walking dress. “To return to the topic of William—”
“Yes, I still maintain that he could be a fine match for you,” Verbena said.
There was a shush of fabric falling to the floor.
Flora wished she could look Verbena in the eye right that moment; she couldn’t imagine what the woman’s face was doing.
She sounded completely matter-of-fact about the whole ordeal.
“You…do not want him for yourself?” Flora asked.
Perhaps there was something to facing away from each other for this conversation.
It was somewhat easier to speak boldly. Flora shucked off her dress, then hurriedly pulled the long linen shift over her head.
She kept her arms tucked into the voluminous thing and went to work on her stays with some level of safety.
Another laugh echoed from Verbena’s side of the machine, this time more brittle. “Why would you ask me such a thing?”
“Why do you find the notion so amusing?” Flora shot back.
She removed her stockings and smalls, not taking her usual care with the delicate garments.
She balled them up and shoved them in her bag.
“I do not need a husband. You, on the other hand…” She struggled out of her stays and flung them onto the high shelf to join her other clothes.
The overlarge shift, she was relieved to see, hid the shape of her body well.
“Forgive me for saying so, but all of London knows your father’s financial plight.
Why are you so obsessed with seeing me married off when I have no pressing reason to make a match? ”
“Are you finished changing?” Verbena asked sharply. “I would like to say what it is I have to say to your face, if I am permitted.”
Flora steeled herself, though privately she winced. “If you must.”
Soft hands cupped her shoulders and turned her until Flora was looking into Verbena’s eyes. Lovely though they were, they were stricken with the sort of pained determination that Flora had heretofore seen only in artists trapped in the fugue of creation.
“I—” Verbena began, and then stopped. The bathing machine stopped as well.
The whole compartment swayed as they came to a standstill.
The sea lapped at the bottom of the machine.
A wave that must have been larger than the ones before sloshed its way under the front door, wetting their feet and the hems of their shifts with frigid water.
Flora gasped at the cold, but Verbena held her firm. Held her close. And placed her lips, slowly, sweetly, upon Flora’s.
It took Flora a long moment to realize that she was being kissed.
She had endured kisses before, but none like this.
Verbena tasted of highly sugared tea and honeyed sweetness, yet after the first hesitant touch, she took Flora like a rake might, groaning into her mouth and wrapping her arms about her waist. Flora gasped as they pressed flush together, some latent fear clawing at her mind—Verbena would know, she would feel Flora’s body and know—but she could also not resist. She succumbed to Verbena as the parched earth does to rain, opening to it and letting it inside.
Then it was over. Verbena pulled back, her mouth red from their kiss, her hands still clutching Flora tight.
“This is what I want,” she said. “This alone, whatever you may call it.”
Light dawned in Flora’s soul. She was a terrible poet, she saw that now. Nothing she had ever written, no verse she had ever composed, had moved a heart the way Verbena’s words moved her.
“It is the same with me,” she said, unable to say anything more. She needed to, but where to start? She needed to tell Verbena about William, she needed—
A loud rap sounded at the front door of the bathing machine. Both of them startled badly, Verbena disentangling herself from Flora and leaping, in the span of an eyeblink, clear across the small space.
“You ladies ready to take to the water?” Prudence boomed through the door.
Flora looked wildly at Verbena. Her face was as red as Flora’s own felt, her lips as tenderly used.
“We will raise suspicion if we do not,” Verbena whispered.
“But…” Flora could not imagine pausing this world-changing conversation for any reason, least of all a swim.
Verbena stepped closer and pressed her hands around Flora’s. “We can speak on the return trip. Yes?” Her eyes sought Flora’s, despite Flora’s inability to hold her gaze for more than a moment. It was all so overwhelming.
She nodded. “Yes.”
Verbena went to the door and swung it open.
Flora watched in a daze as Verbena chatted with Prudence, laughing about how much force the dipper would be using to toss her into the waves.
As if everything were perfectly ordinary.
As if the earth hadn’t stopped turning the moment their lips had touched.
She watched Prudence heft Verbena in her strong arms, feeling a stab of inky jealousy.
Verbena squealed in delight as she was flung, her lithe limbs flailing in the air, the white of her shift like a cloud against the summer-blue sky.
She hit the water with a tremendous splash, resurfacing with her red hair plastered onto her head.
“Flora, come join me,” she cried, holding out her arms. “It’s amazing! Don’t worry, your toes can touch the bottom.”
Flora stepped out onto the small platform outside the machine door and blinked in the sudden sunlight.
The canvas shade was rolled up against the mouth of the bathing machine, likely only put into service if other bathers were swimming in a separate party, so that they might be shielded from one another.
Today, however, there was no need for it.
She and Verbena were the only ones in the water. The only ones in the world, it seemed.
Well, except for their strong woman.
“Gently, if you could,” Flora said as Prudence scooped her up.
It was like being picked up by Artemis herself.
She weighed as much as a sack of feathers in the dipper’s grip.
Then—weightlessness, the giddy freedom of flight, the sharp catch of Verbena’s laughter on the wind, before the cold dark of the sea swallowed her.
Flora surfaced with a shocked gasp. Verbena had been correct; the water was not so very deep.
Flora could touch her toes to the sandy bottom and stand with her head and shoulders above the waves, though it took a moment to find her footing.
Verbena, meanwhile, was already sluicing through the waves like a nymph, circling Flora and splashing a great deal of water into the air.
Droplets hung like diamonds in the morning light.