The adulteress

"Well, it has its little town wherein the good firm of Rosen, Stead and Rosen are housed."

"But for a man of affairs ..."

"This suits my affairs very well. I am near the sea ... That is good, but best of all I am close to Eversleigh Court and because of that I met you, Zipporah."

I sat quickly: "I think I should be returning home to Clavering soon. They will be missing me and I have done what I came to do."

"Don't talk of that now. Live in the present. It's good to live in the present. The past is usually full of regrets. Never feel regrets, Zipporah. They change nothing. As for the future, that is the unknown. It is the present that has to be lived and living is the whole meaning of existence."

"Too many generalizations are never quite true," I said.

I was already beginning to feel the spell of the house ... or perhaps it was his presence. I felt like another person. Trying to make excuses later I told myself that from the moment I had entered the house I had been taken into the possession of someone else.

We reached the top of the stairs, our footsteps echoing on the bare wooden boards. He opened a door and we were in a corridor.

I said: "How silent it seems! A strange sort of alliance ... almost as though ..."

"Perhaps the ghosts have come out today. I've got an idea they don't much care for those giggling servants. They like a silent house."

"We are here," I said.

"On a tour of exploration. I am sure they want the house to live up to its eerie reputation.

"This is not an exceptionally large house," he said. "There are five rooms on this landing. Above are the servants' quarters. How quiet it seems."

He opened a door. I was in a room in which was a large four-poster bed. The hangings were of brocade—white and gold. There was other furniture in the room but it was dominated by the large bed.

I had the uncanny feeling then that I had been there before. Or did I imagine that afterward. My emotions at this stage were so intense because I knew that I was being propelled toward some tremendous climax. I was trying to hold back yet urging myself forward.

"They prepared this room for me when I arrived," I heard him say. "I believe it was a sort of honor. It's the bridal suite."

"But you brought no bride," I said.

He had taken my hands and was looking steadily at me. I tried to withdraw them but I could not do so. I was not sure whether it was because he held them so firmly or because my own will would not allow me to relinquish the contact.

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I remembered something I had heard about this room. Hadn't the bed curtains been blood red ... rich, velvet at one time; and hadn't they been changed to white and gold. There was a reason.

The past seemed to be closing round me and I was a part of it. I wanted to escape from it. I wanted to be in the present ... I wanted to live as I never had before.

Then he put his arms round me and held me close to him. I could feel his heart beating against mine. I was in love with him and this was different from loving Jean-Louis or anyone I had loved before. This was something I had never experienced, had never understood, had been vaguely aware existed ... in romances of the past. Tristan and Isolde, Abelard and Heloise ... the sort of overwhelming passion for the sake of which people sacrificed everything ... even that which they held most dear.

"Zipporah." He was saying my name as I had never heard it said before. I seemed to be floating along in his arms. We had left the world and all its little conventions a long way behind. We were together ... we belonged together ... and there was no holding back the tide of passion which was enveloping us.

I heard myself say: "No ... no ... I must go ..."

And I heard his gentle laughter as he loosened my dress. I was still protesting but without any real conviction, I knew, and he knew it too. I was desperately trying to remember so many things. I was Zipporah Ransome, wife of Jean-Louis; our marriage was a happy one ... my family ...

It was no use, I was not with them ... I was here in this house with my lover.

Yes, he was my lover. I had been conscious of this tremendous attraction between us from the first. It had happened in that very moment he had risen from the ground and stood before me.

It was no use fighting, I must let this emotion sweep over me, submerge me ... teach me what I had never known before—that I was a deeply sensuous woman who had never before been aware of this.

I made no attempt now to hold him off. I was his completely and he knew it. Perhaps being wise in the ways of women he had always known it.

Afterward we lay on the bed side by side. It was so still, and then away in the distance I could hear the shouting and laughter of the fair.

It occurred to me that I would remember that forever as the background to my ecstasy of passion and my shame.