Dark Matter

“I have a mind to study our cipher,” he explained. “So I will say good night to you, Mister Ellis.”

“Then I must be leaving, too.”

“Shall you go?” asked Miss Barton.

“Pray, stay a while longer, Mister Ellis,” insisted Newton. “And keep Miss Barton company. I insist.”

“Then, sir, I shall.”

Newton retired to his library and, that being done, Miss Barton smiled sweetly at me and for several minutes we sat in silence, savouring our privacy, for this was the first time we had ever found ourselves alone, Mrs. Rogers having long before retired. Gradually, Miss Barton began to talk: about the war in the Netherlands and Mister Dryden’s newest book that was a translation of the works of Virgil, and Mister Southern’s latest play, being titled The Maid’s Last Prayer, which she had seen and very much enjoyed. It seemed that she was nervous and sought to find herself at ease in conversation.

“I did not see that one,” I confessed, although I might have added that her own uncle kept me too busy ever to go to see plays performed. “But I saw the one before, which was The Wives’ Excuse.”

“Which I have not seen. But I have read it. Tell me, Mister Ellis. Do you agree that cuckolds make themselves?”

“Not being married, it is a little difficult for me to speak about that condition,” I said. “But I should think that a wife would only ever be provoked to cuckold a husband because of his own failings.”

“That is my opinion also,” she said. “Although I do not think that because a man is married he must be a cuckold. For that would be scandal upon all women.”

“Yes, it would.”

In similar vein we spoke awhile, although I found it difficult to rid myself of the very vivid memory I still carried of the whore at Mrs. Marsh’s house, whose name was Deborah and who resembled Miss Barton as two peas in a pod—which made me sometimes tongue-tied, for I had the apprehension that at any moment Miss Barton might shrug off her Mantua and her silk embroidered corset and mount the dinner table and strike an indecent posture for my amusement.

And, truth to tell, her conversation seemed mighty sophisticated for a girl of her age and somewhat at odds with her youthful beauty and apparent simplicity. She even asked me about the murders in the Tower, which Newton had told her about, and it was quickly clear to me that she was not the modest white violet Newton had led me to believe she was. Indeed her discourse was so lively that I soon formed the impression that her intelligence was almost equal to his own. Certainly she had as much desire to experiment with life as he—perhaps more so, as I was about to discover. But while the garden of her mind was laid out with the same symmetry and logic as her uncle’s, much that was planted there had yet to grow to maturity.

“Mister Ellis,” she said finally, “I should like you to sit beside me.”

I drew my chair close to her, as she asked.

“You may hold my hand if you choose,” she added now; and so I did.

“Miss Barton,” I said, encouraged by our proximity, “you are the loveliest creature that any man ever beheld.” And I kissed her hand.

“Dear Tom,” she said. “You kiss my hand. But will you not kiss me properly?”

“With pleasure, Miss Barton,” I said, and, leaning forward, kissed her most chastely on the cheek.

“You kiss me like my uncle, sir,” she admonished. “Will you not kiss me upon the lips of my mouth?”

“If you will permit it,” I said, and kissed her rosebud lips most tenderly. After which I held her little hand and told her how much I loved her.

She made no reply to this declaration of love, almost as if she already knew how much I loved her and took it as no more than her due. Instead she spoke of the kiss, with such forensic choice of language as one might have used to plead in an English court of law.

“That was most enlightening,” she said, curling her fingers in mine. “Brief, but stimulating. You may do it again whenever you wish. Only this time, longer please.”

When I had kissed her again, she exhaled most satisfiedly, licked her lips as if enjoying the taste I had left there, and smiled brightly. And I smiled back, for I was in heaven. In England it was not at all unusual for young women to take the lead in sexual matters, often with the connivance of their parents. Once or twice I had bundled with a girl in the presence of her mother and sisters. Yet I had not expected one so angelic to be quite so forward.

“You may feel my breasts if you wish,” she offered. “Come, let me sit on your lap, so that you may touch them more easily.”

So saying, she stood up, untied the ribbons that laced her corset, and, baring her breasts, which were larger than I had supposed, sat down upon my lap. Hardly needing a second invitation, I gently weighed these bubbies in my hand, and kneaded her nipples, which seemed to afford her no small delight. After a while she stood up, and fearing that I might have gone too far, I asked what was the matter.