Eleanor Ashworth

The lamp is turned low, and I'm very glad.

I'm sitting on the edge of the bed with my knees together and my hands folded in my lap, in a white cotton nightdress that my cousin helped me choose. The mattress is enormous. I keep thinking I could lie across it sideways and not touch either edge. There are white roses on the dresser, a few petals already dropped, and my trunk is still half-unpacked in the corner, because I didn't know where anything went.

Mother said to be brave. She said it twice, in the doorway. She didn't say how.

I've been sitting here for twenty minutes. I counted. It was nineteen and a half, and then I lost track. The wedding was long, and lovely, and I smiled so much my face aches. There was a cake. A toast, which I didn't hear. A great many people shook my hand and told me how lucky I was, and I said "thank you" every time, and I meant it every time, and I still don't know what I'm supposed to feel.

I've met him twice. That's the number I keep coming back to. Twice. Once at a dinner, where he asked me, politely, whether I preferred the country or the town, and I said "the country," and he nodded. Once in a drawing room, with both our mothers pretending not to listen. He was courteous. He was composed. I couldn't tell if he liked me.

I said yes. I want that understood, if anyone ever asks. Nobody made me. It made sense.

It does make sense. Our families are good together. The merger is good for everyone. And I'd been thinking, for a long time, that the next thing, whatever the next thing was, would be a marriage. It seemed right. It still seems right, in the daytime.

The night is different. The night has a closed door in it.

I smooth my nightdress over my knees. I tuck my hair behind my ear, and it falls out again. I twist my ring, the plain gold band that still feels like someone else's, around and around my finger. Downstairs, a long time ago, I heard the iron gate click, and then footsteps on the gravel, slow and even, and the front door open and close. Now there are footsteps on the stairs.

One. Two. Three.

I count them. It's a habit. It helps. My heart is going so quickly that I can feel it in my throat, and my palms are damp, and I'm not afraid of him. I'm not. I'm afraid of the question mark. What happens now? What if I do it wrong? What if I can't look at him?

The footsteps stop outside the door.

I stop breathing. I fix my eyes on a point on the carpet, a small brown flower in the pattern, and hold very still.

The handle turns.

I wake up first, and for a moment I don't know where I am.

Pale gold light is coming through a gap in the curtains. A bird is singing somewhere. There's a ceiling I don't recognize, and a pillow that smells faintly of soap and cedar, and a weight across my waist that is warm and heavy and wholly unfamiliar. I lie very still and let the morning arrive piece by piece.

Oh. It's the house. It's the new house. And that's...

I don't turn my head. I look at the ceiling. My cheeks are already warm.

Last night comes back in fragments, and I let it, because there's nothing else to do. The lamp. I remember the lamp most of all, and how I said "dimmer, please," in a voice so small that I wasn't sure I'd said it aloud. I remember the sheets, cool and then warm. I remember closing my eyes and keeping them closed, so tightly that it hurt, because I couldn't have looked at him if the house were on fire. I remember biting my lip until it stung. I remember a sound I made that I didn't know I had in me, and how I turned my face into the pillow and wished the bed would swallow me.

And I remember that I said yes. Each time. A nod, a whisper, a hand that didn't pull away. It was slow. It was so slow that I had time to stop being frightened, somewhere in the middle, and begin to be something else.

I'm a wife. I'm actually someone's wife.

My body aches, in a deep, tender, unfamiliar way, and there's a faint soreness that I think is normal. Nobody told me what it would feel like afterward. My nightdress is somewhere on the floor. The sheet is up to my chin, and I hold it there with both hands.

I peek, very briefly, at the edge of the pillow beside mine, and then look away again so fast that my neck aches. I can't believe I did that. I can't believe I'm lying here in daylight.

It's light. It's actually light. Nobody can see anything yet, but it's getting lighter.

The mattress shifts.

It's tiny. A slow roll of weight, a low, sleepy sound from somewhere beside me, and the arm across my waist tightens, just slightly. My breath catches. I squeeze my eyes shut and pull the sheet up over my nose, and hold absolutely still, and wait to find out what comes next.

He's coming home early tonight, and I've known since lunchtime.

It was only a note, in the kitchen, in his careful handwriting: "Back by six. Don't wait supper." That's all. A perfectly ordinary note. I read it four times and put it in the pocket of my apron, and I've been walking around the house with it ever since, like a hot coal.

Two weeks. It's been two weeks. I should be used to it by now.

I'm not. I know what happens when he comes home early. We've never said it aloud. He doesn't say anything, and I don't say anything, and somewhere around the second glass of water, the house gets very quiet and we both pretend not to notice. And then it's dark, and I'm upstairs, and I'm listening for his key.

It's half past four. I put down the book I haven't read a word of and press my palms against my cheeks. They're hot. I can feel something, low in my stomach, a slow, warm, restless feeling that wasn't there a fortnight ago. I shift in the armchair, and there's a small dampness between my thighs, and I freeze.

Oh. Oh, no. Already? Just from a note?

I blush so hard that my ears sting. I stand up too fast, smooth my skirt, and look around as though someone might have seen. The house is empty. The clock ticks. There's a cat asleep on the windowsill, who doesn't care at all.

"Right," I whisper, to the cat. "Shower. Then... something. A nightdress. Not the cotton one." I stop. "Maybe the cotton one."

I climb the stairs, two at a time, and run a bath instead, because a shower feels too quick. I wash my hair twice. I rub lavender oil on my wrists the way my cousin showed me. I put on the pale blue nightdress with the thin straps, then take it off, and put on the white one with the lace collar that I wore on the wedding night, because it's the one I know.

I make the bed. I make it twice. I straighten the pillows. I light two candles on the dresser, then blow one out, because two seems like a lot. I turn the lamp down as low as it will go, and stand in the middle of the room, and hold my elbows, and look at all of it.

It looks like a girl who's expecting something. Which I am. Oh, goodness.

I sit on the edge of the bed with my hands folded in my lap. I check the clock. It's ten to six. My heart is going like a bird's.

Outside, on the drive, there's the crunch of tyres, and the click of the iron gate.

"Someone will hear," I whisper, and my voice cracks on the last word.

I'm in the small washroom off the drawing-room hall, with my back flat against the cool wood of the door, and my heart going so fast that it makes me dizzy. The tap is running. I turned it on myself, to cover the sound. The light is dim and yellow, a single shaded bulb over the mirror. A little window with frosted glass. A basket of folded towels. Through the wall, quite clearly, I can hear the murmur of voices and the clink of glasses.

My husband's business partner is downstairs. And his wife, and her sister. They came for supper. They are, at this very moment, sitting in my drawing room, eating my lemon cake.

I excused myself to fetch more napkins. That was eleven minutes ago.

I'm flushed all over. My hands are shaking against the door. The washroom is so small that there's nowhere to stand except very, very close, and my husband is in front of me, close enough that I can feel the warmth of him through my dress. I can't look up. I'm looking at the third button of his shirt.

"They're right there," I breathe. "Mr. Collins could come out for the lavatory. Or Mrs. Collins could... or the maid. Anyone." I swallow. "I don't think we should. Here. I mean... I do. I mean..."

I stop. I can't finish. My face is on fire.

I don't want to stop. That's the trouble. That's the whole, enormous trouble.

There's a laugh from the drawing room. A chair scrapes. I flinch, and bite my lip, hard, and my whole body tightens, and then slowly, very slowly, it loosens again. The tap is still running. No one is coming. No one is going to come.

I press my forehead against his chest for half a second, and then pull back, and close my eyes.

"Whatever you ask," I said. I'd like it noted that it was my idea.

It was three weeks ago, over breakfast, when I asked what he'd like for his birthday, and he said he didn't want anything, and I said everyone wants something. I remember the toast going cold in my hand. I remember saying it, in a rush, to the marmalade: "Then... then on the day. Whatever you ask. I'll say yes."

I didn't think about what that might mean until I'd said it. Then I thought about it for three weeks.

It's his birthday. The cake is in the pantry. There were candles, and a glass of something golden that I only pretended to drink. And now it's night, and the lamp is on the very lowest setting, so low that I can barely see my own hands. I'm on top of him, on the big bed, my knees on either side of his hips and my palms braced flat on his chest. My hair has come down around my shoulders. I'm in nothing at all.

I don't think I'd have the courage if the room were any brighter. I've got my eyes shut. I've had them shut since I climbed up, and I'm not sure I could open them if I tried. I can feel everything. How warm he is. How hard. How full I am, slowly, so slowly, and how my whole body hums around it.

I move. A small, careful roll of my hips, the way I've practiced in my head. My breath catches. A sound escapes me, high and thin, and I clamp my teeth over my lower lip to stop the next one. It doesn't work. I try again, and the next sound is louder, and I take one hand off his chest and press it over my mouth.

It's all right. It's allowed. He asked. It's his birthday.

It's strange, how much I want to give him this. How badly I want it to be good. I rock forward, and back, slow and shy and clumsy, and every movement sends a long, bright shiver up my spine. My thighs tremble. My cheeks are burning. I can't look at him, and I wouldn't, even if I could. If I opened my eyes and saw his face, I'd die.

I turn my head to the side, as far as it'll go, and breathe in shaky little gasps through my fingers.

"Is this..." I try, in a whisper, and have to stop and start again. "Is this all right? Am I... is it what you wanted?"

My fingers are damp against my lips. I keep my eyes closed. I don't stop moving.