the marquis's memory 7

 

Chapter 7

 

Geoffrey spewed out the mouthful of wine he had just taken.

“I beg your pardon?” he said, when he had finished coughing.

“I said, I think I might be a girl,” said Pip. “Mama prepared me for bleeding, she said it was something I should have to keep secret, which is why I wondered if it was a curse caused by what happened to him. But she raised me as a boy, just told me I should not take off my clothes in front of anyone.”

“Oh, my goodness!” groaned Geoffrey. “She did it to protect you from that dreadful man she was married to, of course, but… you have no idea how to be a young lady, do you?”

“None whatsoever,” said Pip. “Shink I’d be able to be a young gentleman, though.”

“How old are you?” asked Geoffrey.

“Eighteen,” said Pip. “Mama said to keep that quiet, too.”

“Yes, you aren’t in any way like a young man of eighteen,” said Geoffrey. “And I should think it will get harder hiding it; it’s only because you’ve been a loner all these years that you’ve managed.”

“Well, what are we going to do about it?” asked Pip. “I wouldn’t mind being female if you wanted to play with my body. I explored it a bit and I thought it would be very nice if you were touching me.”

Geoffrey gasped.

“Pip!” he exclaimed.

“What have I said wrong?” asked Pip. “You said that a man should not be with a woman unless he makes her enjoy it and I wanted you to know that I think I would.”

“Your manners are delightfully frank, but unfortunately, society does not like that, in women,” groaned Geoffrey. “You can’t say things like that in front of people.”

“I’m not saying it in front of people; only in front of you,” said Pip. “Now I know why I felt a bit cross about the idea of you marrying Miss Effie, because I think I’m jealous.”

“You’re adorable,” said Geoffrey, suddenly realising that she was.

He kissed her.

Pip wriggled ecstatically against him, letting her mouth open under his. Then he lifted his mouth from hers.

“I like that,” said Pip. “Are you going to put your thingy in the slot for it now? I know I’m not good enough for you to marry, but I wouldn’t mind you keeping me in secret on your boat.”

“No,” said Geoffrey.  “Despite the bad examples you have had from your real father and that fellow you call ‘Da,’, I am a real man who does not take advantage of a woman. You are, I fear, both too innocent and too ignorant for it to be anything but indefensible of me to make love to you. You are, however, perfectly good enough to be my wife, and we will get married when you have learned to be a lady so that you can go into society without people making fun of you, because that would hurt you.”

“Well, how am I going to learn to be a lady?”

“My friend, Simon, turned several different colours when he met Miss Effie, and I think he has a tendre for her,” said Geoffrey. “I wanted to rescue her, in any case, so if I pay her to take one of my cousin’s byblows under her wing, nobody will think twice; Simon and I can visit you, and then when we get married, we can have fun in the bedroom as well as me liking you a very great deal. But I want you to have the chance to grow up, because you’ve been stuck in being a child. And that’s not fair. And when you do grow up, and learn to be a lady, you may… may want to be with someone else, and not want to be with me anymore.”

“Why would I want anyone else when I’ve met you?” asked Pip.

“Because, my sweet, people do change as they grow up, and I will not chain you the way your grandfather chained your mother. I want you to choose me, but I want you to do so freely.”

“Well, I don’t think I’ll be so very different; but… but will you check out that I am a girl, and I’m not something strange?”

“I… if it is important to you. But a lot of things fall into place, now,” said Geoffrey. “If you put on your nightgown, I can, er, feel through it after dinner, when we go to bed.”

Pip blushed and wriggled, and Geoffrey was almost shocked at how hard that made him. The idea of any of his mother’s choices of bride welcoming his advances with such happy anticipation would have been ludicrous!

 

It was sweet torture for Pip and Geoffrey both to be natural and chat to Gaffer Keeble over the meal; and then they withdrew, and Pip put on her nightgown, and climbed into bed with Geoffrey.

“I don’t even need to feel; I can see you are a woman,” said Geoffrey. “You have a pair of dear little breasts and your shape is… womanly.”

“I think you should check,” said Pip.

“That’s a dangerous path to go down,” said Geoffrey,

“I want to feel nice,” said Pip.

The temptation was unbearable; and Geoffrey cupped her breasts, and ran his hands down to her trim waist, and let his fingers drift further down. Pip touched his chest.

“Definitely a woman; and I’m going to sleep in the bed on the floor,” said Geoffrey.

“Do you have to?” asked Pip.

“Yes,” said Geoffrey. “I want to touch you and make love to you all night, but I want you to feel confident as a woman before you invite me to your bed. Do you understand?”

“Not really, but so long as you want to, and are not touching me for good reasons that make sense to you, I accept it,” said Pip.

“I wonder what your real name is,” said Geoffrey, cupping her face in one hand.

“I’ve only ever been ‘Pip,’,” said Pip.

“I’ll go look in the parish registry,” said Geoffrey.

“It says ‘Philip P.A. Moyse,’” said Pip. “I assume I was called after him so I could claim on his estate, or something; Philip Paul something.”

“Ohho! Your mother was clever,” said Geoffrey. “Philip P. A., could be for ‘Philippa.’ Which is a good name, and I can still call you Pip in private, if you would like it.”

“Oh, yes, it will be special for us,” said Pip.

 

 Geoffrey woke to find Pip naked and washing uninhibitedly from the ewer of water.

“Pip!” he said, in shock. “You should not be naked before me until we are married!”

“Why not? I belong to you,” said Pip. “But I will be getting dressed shortly.” She proceeded to do so, and Geoffrey took advantage of her tripping downstairs to sort himself out.

He had just finished washing and dressing himself, bar his jacket, pleased he had managed to shave himself, when Pip hurtled back into the room.

“Geoffrey! There’s a great big coach with a unicorn on the side of it just pulled up!” she hissed.

“Damn  my mother! She’ll have had two coachmen drive all night, I suppose,” said Geoffrey. “Well, you’d better make yourself scarce; I doubt I can escape her in an inn this small.”

“Pack everything,” said Pip. “Don’t leave anything she can identify as yours; you gave back the reverend’s things, didn’t you?  And I’ll show you how to escape.”

Geoffrey could hear his mother’s loud tones in the inn as he finished throwing everything into his valise.  Pip was doing something to the wall panelling between bed and fireplace, and a dark slit opened up.

“Be careful, the stairs are steep, but I don’t want to kindle a candle, she’ll smell it,” said Pip, who also threw open the window, to dissipate the heady scent of Geoffrey’s arousal. Geoffrey went ahead, feeling his way down steep steps.

Pip leaped into the cavity with her own valise, and shut the secret door just as there was a knock on the room door, and Pigeon saying, ‘Mr. Jefferson, I’ve a visitor for you, and a classy piece she is too, if a bit old.”

There was the sound of a slap.

“How dare you! I am no lightskirt, I am the Marchioness Calver!” cried Geoffrey’s mother.

“Ar, tu be sure yew are,” said Pigeon. “Umma out o’ me own seat as Duke o’ York meseln.”

“How dare you mock me!” cried Lady Calver.

Geoffrey grinned. He owed Pigeon for that. He doubted his mother had ever been treated like an Abbess before. Pip was shaking with suppressed giggles.

They kept going down, and emerged in a cellar with a tunnel. Pip kindled a light and set flame in a dark lantern, convenient to the stairs. She opened another hidden door, which opened out of a tun supposedly of wine.

“Leave some gold; we’ll need vittles’,” she said.

Geoffrey left gold, and they relieved Mrs. Pigeon’s cool larder underground of a raised pie, a whole ham, a jar of pickles,  and a small keg of some beverage.

“I can’t carry all this and a valise,” said Geoffrey.

“We’ll take food, and come back for the clothes,” said Pip. “I bundled the blankets and pillow from the bed on the floor into the passage, and I will have to go back for them.”

“Where are we going?” asked Geoffrey.

“Through the crypt, and down to the staithe,” said Pip.  “You know it runs right back to the river cliff?”

“Oh! We come out underneath it?”

“Exactly!” said Pip. “You keep going; I’ll go back for things, and make the trip a few times.”

“Go and get the bedclothes, and we’ll tie up the food in it as a bundle, and you can tie it on my back,” said Geoffrey. “I’m strong enough, just with a broken arm.”

“Oh! That’s clever,” said Pip, running nimbly back up the stair. She was down presently with the comforter, blanket, and sheets, wrapped around the pillow. “Now we can both have a bed, as I expect you would rather not share mine.”

“I want to share yours far too much,” said Geoffrey.

The bundle was awkward, but not heavy, and Pip held up the dark lantern to guide their steps. It was not far to a heavy curtain, which opened into a place which smelled to Pip of mouldering bones; and, indeed, they were in a crypt.

“This is the undercrypt,” said Pip in a low voice. “It hasn’t been used by anyone but smugglers for centuries. But pull back the curtain, it’s canvas painted to look like stonework.”

It was a clever piece of trompe l’oeill and Geoffrey duly admired it in haste as he tweaked it back. It seemed newer than some of the hangings in here. There was a rough altar, which Pip pushed aside to reveal steps down. Geoffrey went down, not without some difficulty with his bulky load. A scraping sound above suggested some mechanical device was able to put the altar back.

“You’re remarkably familiar with these passages,” he said.

“I’ve taken pay to help stow goods,” said Pip. “I haven’t been out bottle fishing, if that was what you were wondering.”

“I did not quite like to ask,” said Geoffrey. “How much further?”

“About half a mile,” said Pip. “Goodness knows how old these passages are, but if they’re more recent than the time of the reformation I’ll be surprised. “Shink they were made for priests and other catholics to get away originally. And the Staithe has stone piers to hold it up, you know.”

“It does seem likely that it originated in a time of religious turmoil,” agreed Geoffrey.  “There’s a trapdoor.”

“Gaffer Keeble’s barn,” said Pip. “Why do you think he was so keen to buy that cottage?”

“I see!” said Geoffrey. “The Free Trade is deplorable, really, you know; in the long run it makes everyone pay more taxes on common goods to make up for what is lost on luxury goods.”

“You won’t stop smuggling in Suffolk,” said Pip. “No more than you could stop a robin singing.”

“You remind me of a dear little robin, perky, and capable of being aggressive,” said Geoffrey.

“Oh, Geoffrey! Really?” said Pip, diverted. “Coming up to the way out; I’m going to put out the lantern.” She suited actions to her words, and Geoffrey could see a lighter rectangle ahead of him. The floor was sandy, though the walls and ceiling were built of stone. Possibly robbed out of some former religious institution if made at the time of the Reformation.  And then he was half stumbling into the light, down a couple of steps into soft, wet sand from the receding tide. The stones on either side had planks above; and cautiously, he looked out from under the wooden-topped jetty. The only being in sight was Sarey, the hog, who sat in the shallow water, grunting happily.

“Come on,” said Pip.

 There were stones set apparently haphazardly at the side of the staithe, which acted as excellent steps; and then Pip led him up onto the meadow where he had dozed the day before. Geoffrey was stumbling.

“I’m not used to being so weak,” he said, apologetically.

“I’m sorry, I should have taken it into account,” said Pip.

“No, it was good to move fast, and escape,” said Geoffrey. “Where’s your sty, then?”

Pip pointed to the mound.

“Really?” said Geoffrey.

“Yes, well hidden, isn’t it?” said Pip. “The entrance is covered by a gorse bush, but if we go round the back, up against the hedge, I cut a way into it. I got an old gate, and fixed it to this hawthorn tree, so it looks like part of the hedge, and we can pull it back, and go across the back of the sty, into the gorse, and then, see, it’s easy, steps down  into what was the pen, which I roofed over and put earth on to make the mound, and the inner room which was the pigsty itself. My chimney comes out in the hedge to hide the smoke.” The gorse bush, as high as a man, hid their approach.

The whole had been dug down into the sandy ground, and though Geoffrey had to stoop, it was plenty high enough for Pip.

“It must have taken you a while to dig out,” said Geoffrey.

“It did, but when I was hiding from Da, I had little else to do,” said Pip. “And I figured, if I was going to hide here for days on end, I might as well make it as nice as possible. I’ve got a bit of old glass for some light, by the hedge, but I’m afraid it is a bit dark.”

“Cosy, though,” said Geoffrey, taking in the careful fireplace, all edged with stone, and the bed made up on the floor, a palliasse filled with something to soften it, and a gay random patchwork over a couple of blankets. A niche dug out at the side had a tin or pewter chamberpot in it.

“We can put up a curtain,” said Pip. “I don’t dig a pit, the smell gives it away, so I empty the piss-pot in the hedgerows where it feeds the plants.”

“Practical,” said Geoffrey.