DESIRES

1. Childermass

A tear rolls down the girls face. “But I don't want to go to London!” she wails, rubbing at her eyes. “It isn't fair! I don't want to go!”

Childermass passes her a handkerchief and watches as she blows her nose. “But why, Dido?” he asks. “Look at Hannah, she's not afraid.”

They both turn to look at the third occupant of the small room and Hannah, perched upon the windowsill stares back and laughs. “It's an adventure, Dido. We're off to London in the masters baggage!”

This does not help, the tears come again. “It's all right for you!” Dido replies through the folds of the ever dampening handkerchief. “You're just like Mr Childermass there, neither of you got no family to leave behind, but what will my poor old Mam do without me?”

Hannah cackles with laughter. “She'll be well enough. She's got three other girls to take care of her. You mean what will you do without her!”

Childermass leans back and watches them talk. Dealing with the minor concerns of the housemaids has always been one of his less important but more amusing tasks and one which greatly aided the smooth running of the household. Despite the tears it was clear that Dido was beautiful. With her fine, pale skin and smooth blond hair it was easy to imagine her as a privileged servant at a fine house in London. If her character had matched her icy beauty she would have been ideally suited as a lady's maid, decorative as well as useful as she helped her mistress dress and arrange her hair. Yet her nature precluded such work, making her over prone to weeping and to other displays of emotion, helpless and unstable without a strong hand to guide her. But Hannah, nut brown Hannah, whose wild curls always escaped their pins would never look like anything but the peasant girl she was. And yet, he mused, it would be Hannah, born to run barefoot across the wild moors, who would learn to negotiate the city streets without fear or trembling, Hannah who would lead Dido through the labyrinth of her fears and bring her safe to the other side.

“Enough!” he slaps his hand down upon the table, breaking the train of his own thoughts as surely as he silences the girls. “Hannah. Stop teasing her, it is not helpful. Dido, if you would remain in Mr Norrell's service you will have to go to London whether you wish to or not. You may write to your Mother from there and, if an opportunity arises for someone to return here I will make sure you are considered. Now,” he nods toward the door, giving her no chance to reply. “Get back to work, the floors do not clean themselves.”

Still clutching the crumpled handkerchief Dido gives a last, bitter sniff and closes the door behind her. Childermass turns to Hannah, still seated upon the windowsill. “And do you have no work to do?”

She shrugs and stares out through the window. “Dido said I was like you.”

“Dido doesn't know her arse from her elbow.” Childermass frowns and studies her profile. “You are afraid, aren't you?”

She presses her face against the cold glass. “London's big, isn't it?”

He nods and lays his hand upon her shoulder.”You'll do all right, lass.”

“I wish I was like you,” she says with a small laugh. “You're not afraid of anything.”

He lifts his hand and, very gently, touches her cheek with his finger tips. “No,” he says. “You wouldn't want to be like me.” Then, before she can reply, he is gone, the door swinging shut behind him.

That evening, in the attic room they share, Dido sits brushing her hair while Hannah sprawls upon her bed. “What do you make of him?” she asks.

Dido pauses, her brush poised for the next stroke. “Mr Childrmass? Bit of a cold fish, in't he?”

Hannah grins and wriggles her bare brown toes. “Bit of a challenge, you mean!”

2. Dido

On Sundays when the weather was fine a small fleet of carts and carriages would exit Hurtfew Abbey and travel the few short miles to the Parish Church. For Norrell this was more in the way of a duty than a pleasure and the smallest grey cloud in the blue sky would be excuse enough to ensconce himself in his library before his ever burning fire and forsake the wisdom of the sermon.

When he did venture forth however, those of the staff that could be spared from the house were encouraged to accompany him for the moral welfare of their souls. Or, if the housemaids were to be asked, for the opportunity to wear their best dresses and bonnets and to be seen by the footmen and grooms from the neighbouring houses and farms.

On this day Dido was amongst those free to attend and she stood at the back of the church with the other servants, neat in her dress of pale muslin, her eyes fixed forward toward the pulpit. Yet it was not the vicar at whom she stared, instead her eyes were directed to the occupants of the first pew where her master sat in silence, his head bowed as though in contemplation, thinking, no doubt, of the book left open upon the library table. Beside him sat another man and it was to this dark creature that her thoughts were turned. As the pastor's voice warned in dire and lurid terms against the weakness of her flesh she found that it woke in her mind thoughts of sins unimaginable, sins of darkness and night, sins beyond the comprehension of the vicar in his pulpit. Sins that would make her mother ashamed, committed with the dark man who sat so still beside her master.

Back at Hurtfew she seeks him out, finding him alone, closing the door behind her. She sees him turn and, knowing that he sees her, is glad that she is dressed, still, in her best.

“Dido?” he asks, frowning at her interruption.

She steps closer, her hands clasped together before her, suddenly shy when moments before she had felt so brave, lost for words in a conversation she has rehearsed a hundred times.

Again the frown, deeper now, cutting furrows upon his brow. “What's to do, girl? Not still upset about London, are you?”

She gasps in relief, his words opening the floodgates of her own. “Oh, Mr Childermass, I'm so afraid!” she says, allowing her blue eyes to fill with tears, reaching out to grasp his hands in her own, pulling herself toward him, pressing her breasts against his chest, staring up at him, trembling and helpless. “I need you,” she whispers softly, bringing their clasped hands to her mouth, touching her lips to his fingers.

For a long moment he is utterly still, his gaze far distant as though he saw something other than the young woman before him, as though he felt something other than the heat of her body against his. Then, with a sharp tug he frees his hands from her grip and pushes her away, leaving her alone, bereft.

“What nonsense is this?” he asks, his voice like ice. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”

Desperately she shakes her head, flinging herself again upon the fortress of his disinterest, her pale hands slipping beneath his coat, touching the hardness of his muscles beneath the softness of his shirt, begging for his hands upon her soul. “I need you,” she says again. “I want you,” and the burning tears overflow her eyes and stream down her face.

Again he pushes her away, seeing her desire, her distress, her terrible need, unable to hide a faint look of disgust upon his face as her grasping hands reach out toward him, as though she would devour him, as though her desire had teeth sharp enough to bite and tear.

“You need to compose yourself,” he tells her, in a voice that is cold but not unkind, pushing her down upon a chair beside the fire, turning away. Then, just as his hand reaches out to the door, just as he is upon the point of leaving it seems that something within him relents and he turns back, his hand held out to her, not quite close enough to touch.

“Not me. You do not want me,” he tells her, his voice soft with something that is not quite regret. “I am not what you need.” Then he is gone, closing the door behind him.

Left alone she weeps in frustration and defeat beside a fire as cold as his heart

3. Hannah

The low winter sun streams across the room lighting slanting columns of dust that spiralled and twirled. The room, empty for years, now held a single occupant and surely it had been he that had flung the cupboard doors wide, pulling linen sheets and feather pillows onto the dusty, wooden floor. If so he was no longer ransacking the room, instead he was sitting upon the wide expanse of window seat looking out onto the rain misted grounds, his coat cast aside, his shirt sleeves rolled up to expose strong wrists, lean muscled arms.

“What do you want, Hannah?” he asks without turning, surprising her with his knowledge of her presence, although almost certainly he saw her reflection in the window glass.

She does not reply, instead she walks across to the window, cleverly side stepping the sheets, the pillows and the blankets that sprawl across the empty floor. Seating herself beside him and staring out at the damp green fields, the bare tree branches against the grey sky, the darkly turbulent river that tumbled between its heavy banks.

“You'll miss it, won't you?” she says softly as his black eyes turn from the distant horizon to meet hers. “You'll miss Yorkshire. You'll miss the north.”

He shrugs, he nods. Yes, he will miss it, it is his county, his country, as much of a home as he ever had.

Gently, tentatively, she reaches out, placing her small, work roughened hand upon his, a wicked glint in her eyes as she looked at him, as she watched the puzzled curiosity run fleeting across his face.

“First Dido, now you?”

She laughs. “We had a bet, who could get you, her or me. We tossed a coin to see who'd get first go at you.”

For a moment she saw her own merriment reflected in his eyes and then he was solemn once more. “And she won?”

“No! She lost, but I let her try first because I knew she'd fail.”

“And you, will you fail?” he asks, his hand turning beneath hers to grip, to hold her there as the rain, harder now, drummed upon the glass beside them.

“No,” she whispers and presses her mouth to his, tasting the scent of him, the flavour of wood smoke in his dark hair, the aroma of male sweat and clean linen. She takes her free hand and presses it against his chest, touching the heat of him, the strength.

“Sure of yourself, aren't you?” he says, pushing her back, their eyes locked, their hands clasped together, a taut circle of fire that flickered and burned.

She nods, a small smile curling her lips, yes, she is very sure of herself. Carefully, as though afraid to frighten some wild thing, she stands, her eyes never leaving his, stepping round so that she stands before him, tugging her hands free from his to lift her skirts and straddle his legs, her body arching, her breath coming in gasps as he runs his finger tips up her bare brown thighs, soft and smooth like honey.

“You've done this before?” he asks, as though he has some duty to ask, some duty to refrain from taking that which cannot be replaced. But yes, she has done this before, the first time with the governor of the orphanage where she grew up, he had taken her upon his knee and told her that it was to be their secret. The second had been a boy, a foundling like her, who had taken her beneath an oak tree, in a field, in the sun. There had been more since then, though never many, never for money.

“Have you?” she replies, pulling him to his feet before her, laughing as he reaches behind her, tugging loose the laces of her dress, allowing it to fall, cascading into a pool of darkness about her feet, leaving her golden in stays and chemise, her hair tumbling around her shoulders, her honey breasts rising and falling with each breath she took, capturing his dark gaze, mesmerising him with their terrible rhythm.

He runs his hands up the length of her stays, his fingers traversing the hard length of the bones to the soft flesh above, to the sharp curve of her shoulder, the column of her neck. There, reaching behind, he grips the long, dark tresses that have fallen long and loose behind her, using them to pull her head back as he presses his lips to hers, as he pushes her down upon the pillows scattered upon the hard floor, in the sunlight, in the cloud of dust that spins and circles above them.