embarrass me by mentioning them ? It did not occur to him until much later that she probably meant: Don’t imagine I’m looking forward to this sex business as eagerly as you are .
*
They were married on the last day of October 1893, in church. To salve his secular conscience he made a token effort to persuade Isabel to have a civil wedding in a register office, knowing full well that she and her mother would never agree. Isabel had made her conditions for marriage clear – enough money in the bank to afford a decent home of their own, and a ‘proper’ wedding. He had fulfilled the first one, taking a lease on an eight-roomed house in Wandsworth, an undistinguished but respectable suburb in south-west London, and he was not going to postpone their union any longer by making an issue of the second. There was a wedding breakfast – actually more of a meat tea – for family and friends in a restaurant round the corner from the church, but no honeymoon. The wedding night was spent in their new home.
It wasn’t the rapturous naked embrace he had dreamed of for so long. Isabel was shy of exposing herself to his hungry gaze. She used the bathroom first – their house boasted a proper bathroom with an efficient hot water system – and while he took his turn she disrobed and got into the double bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. When he prepared to get into bed beside her she asked him to turn out the light first, and when he stripped off his nightshirt and took her in his arms he found her swathed in a lawn cotton nightdress which she refused to take off. ‘I don’t want to, Bertie. Don’t make me,’ she begged. He was obliged to push the folds of linen up round her hips in order to enter her at last, and she gave a gasp of pain as he thrust through the hymen and spent, almost as quickly as with his first prostitute. Early the next morning, with a faint light coming through the curtains, he threw the covers off the bed, drew the nightdress up and over her weakly protesting head, and took her again with passionate urgency, trying in vain to arouse in her some reciprocating response. She winced and whimpered faintly under him as he plunged in and out, but that was all she did, and when he collapsed and rolled off her she pulled the sheet up to cover herself and turned away, weeping. ‘I’m sorry, dearest,’ he said, appalled, and putting his arm round to comfort her. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ ‘I know, dear,’ she murmured, wiping her eyes on a corner of the sheet. ‘I know you have to do it.’ After a few minutes she sat up on the edge of the bed with her back to him and put her nightdress on again.
And that, sadly, set the pattern of their intimate life. He made allowances for her innocence and inexperience, trusting that in time she would begin to get some pleasure from intercourse and return his caresses, but she remained a passive partner in the act of love, regarding it as a kind of licensed assault inscrutably ordained by the Creator for the propagation of the human race, which women must therefore endure. He wondered gloomily if all women who were not prostitutes took the same view, but this hypothesis was pleasantly disproved one afternoon by Miss Ethel Kingsmill, a young woman who was an assistant and pupil of Isabel’s in the art of photographic retouching. Since her marriage, Isabel had worked at home for her old employer in Regent Street, collecting and delivering work once or twice a week, and her mother, Aunt Mary, had moved in with them to help with the housekeeping. As he himself often worked at home, all eight rooms were needed. Ethel was frequently in and out of the house, and always gave him a nice smile and a warm greeting when he encountered her in the hallway or on the stairs. She was quite attractive in a vivacious, wide-mouthed way, with a neat figure which she dressed in a showier style than Isabel: striped blouses with puffed sleeves and skirts that fitted closely over
*
They were married on the last day of October 1893, in church. To salve his secular conscience he made a token effort to persuade Isabel to have a civil wedding in a register office, knowing full well that she and her mother would never agree. Isabel had made her conditions for marriage clear – enough money in the bank to afford a decent home of their own, and a ‘proper’ wedding. He had fulfilled the first one, taking a lease on an eight-roomed house in Wandsworth, an undistinguished but respectable suburb in south-west London, and he was not going to postpone their union any longer by making an issue of the second. There was a wedding breakfast – actually more of a meat tea – for family and friends in a restaurant round the corner from the church, but no honeymoon. The wedding night was spent in their new home.
It wasn’t the rapturous naked embrace he had dreamed of for so long. Isabel was shy of exposing herself to his hungry gaze. She used the bathroom first – their house boasted a proper bathroom with an efficient hot water system – and while he took his turn she disrobed and got into the double bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. When he prepared to get into bed beside her she asked him to turn out the light first, and when he stripped off his nightshirt and took her in his arms he found her swathed in a lawn cotton nightdress which she refused to take off. ‘I don’t want to, Bertie. Don’t make me,’ she begged. He was obliged to push the folds of linen up round her hips in order to enter her at last, and she gave a gasp of pain as he thrust through the hymen and spent, almost as quickly as with his first prostitute. Early the next morning, with a faint light coming through the curtains, he threw the covers off the bed, drew the nightdress up and over her weakly protesting head, and took her again with passionate urgency, trying in vain to arouse in her some reciprocating response. She winced and whimpered faintly under him as he plunged in and out, but that was all she did, and when he collapsed and rolled off her she pulled the sheet up to cover herself and turned away, weeping. ‘I’m sorry, dearest,’ he said, appalled, and putting his arm round to comfort her. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ ‘I know, dear,’ she murmured, wiping her eyes on a corner of the sheet. ‘I know you have to do it.’ After a few minutes she sat up on the edge of the bed with her back to him and put her nightdress on again.
And that, sadly, set the pattern of their intimate life. He made allowances for her innocence and inexperience, trusting that in time she would begin to get some pleasure from intercourse and return his caresses, but she remained a passive partner in the act of love, regarding it as a kind of licensed assault inscrutably ordained by the Creator for the propagation of the human race, which women must therefore endure. He wondered gloomily if all women who were not prostitutes took the same view, but this hypothesis was pleasantly disproved one afternoon by Miss Ethel Kingsmill, a young woman who was an assistant and pupil of Isabel’s in the art of photographic retouching. Since her marriage, Isabel had worked at home for her old employer in Regent Street, collecting and delivering work once or twice a week, and her mother, Aunt Mary, had moved in with them to help with the housekeeping. As he himself often worked at home, all eight rooms were needed. Ethel was frequently in and out of the house, and always gave him a nice smile and a warm greeting when he encountered her in the hallway or on the stairs. She was quite attractive in a vivacious, wide-mouthed way, with a neat figure which she dressed in a showier style than Isabel: striped blouses with puffed sleeves and skirts that fitted closely over
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