Chapter 26
Cecilia made her way inside with a light step, locking and bolting the heavy oak door behind her as she had promised.
She’d been out far longer than she intended, and had done and experienced things that had been very far from her mind when she’d walked out onto the lawn and down the steps in the growing dusk.
But she found she did not regret a moment of it.
It was true that she’d been kissed before, once or twice or three times.
She’d done it and in the main, she’d liked it.
Some men would kiss girls they had no intention of marrying, but some wanted – and this was not unreasonable, she’d always thought – to try and see if they might enjoy kissing a girl, and she him, before they committed themselves to marrying her and, presumably, being obliged to kiss her, and a great deal more, for as many years as their lives and their marriage should last.
For one reason or another, none of these encounters had led to anything beyond a few moments of heated, snatched embrace on a terrace or in a shrubbery at a ball.
Dangerous, because of the fragility of any woman’s reputation should she be caught in compromising circumstances, but undeniably exciting too.
There had been a certain unspoken pressure to go further, on one occasion at least, which she had resisted with great firmness and only a little regret.
That had put an end to that, and she had been lucky, she knew – there had been no further consequences for her, as there easily might have been.
At this distance, she could barely remember the names of the boys, for they had been boys, with whom she had exchanged eager but inexpert kisses.
But now, her circumstances were utterly different.
Thrillingly so. In her previous life, she had had to wait for those boys to initiate kisses, and then respond to their ardour, or not; what would they have thought of her, if she’d suggested such intimacy, even shown herself in advance to be eager for their embraces?
If one of them had chosen to spread rumours of light behaviour across London, she would have been ruined, and not just her.
Her whole family’s prospects could have been damaged, her sisters’ chances of respectable marriages destroyed.
But marriage was no longer a necessity for any of them; it might happen one day, it might not, but thanks to Augusta Albery, she had a year’s precious breathing space in which to look about her.
She had promised that she would not engage herself to any man in the next twelvemonth, officially or unofficially; there had been nothing mentioned about not kissing Major Bartrum passionately on a tree trunk out on the moonlit beach.
Nobody had thought to tell her that he must not grow thrillingly hard against her, nor shudder deliciously in her arms, lost in pleasure in a manner she thought she must always remember.
Nor, for that matter, had anyone cautioned her not to scheme for some further clandestine meeting, where he would pay her back in full for the release that she had somehow given him.
She did not mean to marry him, or anybody, just now, but she had tasted precious freedom for the first time in her life and she meant to make the most of it.
There were still some unavoidable constraints on her behaviour, of course.
She must continue to have a care for her reputation, if she wanted to live here in comfort and security and not bring scandal on her sisters.
That just meant that secrecy was necessary; she had no quarrel with that.
Secrecy, she thought, might even be enjoyable in itself.
And she must always keep her head; she could not risk falling into what was so ridiculously known as a delicate condition – as if there was anything in the least delicate about being pregnant – since even an heiress would not easily survive such a scandal.
But she had heard, and her own native intelligence told her, that there were many ingenious ways around that danger.
She must indeed be excessively wicked; she had every intention of finding out just how wicked, and what was worse, she very much looked forward to seeing Major Bartrum in church on Sunday.
He would, she thought, be embarrassed. He would blush. She could hardly wait to see it.
Cecilia climbed the stairs, ready for her bed at last, but was checked when Bea’s door opened part way, and her dark head poked out. ‘Is that you, Ceci?’ she hissed.
‘No, it’s pirates, dashing female ones, come to ravish you and carry you off. Or carry you off and ravish you. Or both. Of course it’s me.’
‘Come in here before you disturb the others. You sound excessively odd; have you been drinking in secret?’
Cecilia followed her into her boudoir and sat down upon the ugly little sofa there.
‘Drinking? No, much better – I’ve been kissing Major Bartrum on the beach.
You note the manner in which I say it? That’s because I instigated the whole thing.
He was powerless to resist me. He didn’t even want to.
Being a man must be like this, I should imagine – the freedom of it.
It was wonderful, Bea. I mean to do it again as soon as possible.
And more. A great deal more. And why not? ’
Beatrice did not appear to be unduly surprised, and was certainly not shocked.
‘Well, I cannot criticise you for it. There must be something in the air down here. Perhaps we are running mad, both of us. I’ve been deflowering – I’m not sure if that’s the word, but it doesn’t matter – Miss Pallant.
Repeatedly. And being deflowered, which definitely isn’t the word, as well.
All afternoon, while you were out buying potatoes. ’
Cecilia had noticed Bea’s instinctive reaction when the beautiful Miss Pallant had first called on them; she could not be surprised that matters had advanced rather rapidly since then.
‘That’s wonderful news. Congratulations.
Your afternoon was far more thrilling that mine, then, Bea, and my evening than yours.
That seems fair.’ She was excessively pleased; everybody deserved to be happy, she considered, especially her sisters.
She did feel slightly intoxicated, it was perfectly true. Probably Bea did too, and no wonder.
‘Yes. Thank you. They were excellent boiled potatoes, though, so your afternoon wasn’t entirely wasted either.’
It wasn’t like Bea to make jokes, let alone literary ones, and after a second of incomprehension, Cecilia let out a crack of laughter, which she hastily muffled.
‘An exemplary vegetable!’ she agreed, choking, and they snorted, and clutched each other as they were seized with irresistible waves of laughter.
Perhaps it wasn’t really that funny, but they were both of them giddy already.
The need to muffle their amusement made it all the more shattering, and soon they were gasping and kicking their heels, hands over their mouths.
‘Do you suppose,’ Bea wheezed after a while, wiping her eyes, ‘that Bianca too has been out trysting with somebody or other? Some lusty farmer, maybe, in the hay? It seems wrong that she should be so deprived, otherwise, now that we are all heiresses and may do as we please.’
‘I hope so, if she’s careful, though I think in reality, she’s just been sketching and painting to her heart’s content. Or, in a spirit of fairness, Miss Macintyre, with old Mr Fisk, perhaps, in one of the summerhouses.’
This picture set them off afresh, and at length, Cecilia headed off to bed smiling.
She had not asked her sister, who was ordinarily such a prey to anxiety, what future might lie in any of it; Bea had paid her the same compliment.
Maybe there was no future, and maybe unhappiness lurked ahead somewhere, for both of them.
They could not know, and just now, she didn’t really give a fig.