Walking the Labyrinth by Lisa Goldstein Page A

Harrison did not sit next to me this time; I knew that he felt guilt because of his desire for me and that he would not take advantage of his wife’s absence. I told one man where he had lost his tie pin, another that the woman he courted would be receptive to his suit.
    The session ended. There were so many things to gather up at the end of an evening in those days, hats, gloves, scarves, canes, parasols. Our guests would put one down to pick up another and forget where they had placed the first, so that it often took them an hour or more to get out the door.
    But after all the confusion and bustle Harrison and I were at last left alone. I made to move past him; he turned; his arms were around me before I realized it. He smelled clean and good, of macassar hair oil and strong male scent. I felt the hardness of his pocket watch, and that other hardness below it. “We must not,” he said. “Dearest Em, we must not.” But all the while he held me closer.
    We kissed. A servant would come at any moment to wind the clocks and douse the candles. “Come,” he said.
    He led me upstairs, to one of the house’s many guest rooms. We undressed, frantic in our haste: skirt, bodice, bustle, corset, undergarments, boots with their maddeningly small buttons. Finally, free of our clothing, we lay on the bed and caressed each other. “Em,” he said, kissing my mouth, my breasts, my stomach. “Ah, Em.” His skin was white and smooth, with pale blue veins; he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Next to him I was brown and coarse as a tree.
    I thought that if he stopped I would not be able to bear it. I kissed him back. He entered me, fierce and hard and sweet. “Ah,” I said. “Oh. Oh, my God!”
    He stopped. “Em?” he said. “Dearest, what is wrong? Have I hurt you?”
    “No!” I said. “Don’t stop, fool!”
    He began again, at first slow and wary, then faster and faster. This time when he felt my spasms he did not stop; I think he could not. He cried aloud once and was silent.
    I had never met a man so ignorant of women. I wanted to talk afterwards, to caress him, to explore and laugh and taste and touch. Instead he rose and dressed without speaking. As he left the room he said, “We must never do that again.”

FIVE
    Rue and Ant
    M olly and John had alternated reading Emily Wethers’s book aloud. It had been John’s turn to read about Emily and Harrison making love; as he read he spoke slower and slower, obviously tortured with embarrassment.
    “Oh, please,” Molly said. “Give me that.” She took the book from his hands and continued to read.
    I must now leap over several years, and so come to 1883. You, my old friend, must certainly be aware of the significance of the date; it was the year you joined our little group.
    One day while I was in the linen room I overheard Lydia Sanderson talking to Harrison. “Lady Dorothy Westingate would like to join our order,” she said. Her voice was low, intense; I saw that she valued the social cachet you could bring us.
    “Lady Westingate? Where have I heard that name?” Harrison asked.
    “You remember her, surely. Her husband died several years ago. She hopes we might be able to pierce the veil between our world and the other side, to receive messages from her husband.”
    “Receive messages from the dead? But we never have done. Our work is with Arton, a spirit—”
    “Yes, a spirit. If we can reach him, surely we can contact the dead.”
    “Arton inhabits a completely different plane. He is not dead—he has never been alive.”
    “I’ve already invited her,” Lydia said. “She’ll be at our meeting next week.”
    “Well,” Harrison said, “we’ll see what Em makes of her.”
    This was my first encounter with Spiritualism, a popular—should I say sport?—in those years. Although I understood immediately what Lady Westingate would want from me, I did not think that I would give it to her. I know nothing of what happens after we are