At last I withdrew. We both stood upright, she turned, put her arms around me, rested her dark-haired head against my broad chest, and breathed, ”Oh, thank you, sir. You are a true gentleman, and no mistake. You done this girl just the way she likes it, and I think I must’ve pleased you too, sir.’
”You pleased me well indeed, my girl.”
At this moment I heard a faint rustling amongst the leaves which crowded one of the glassless windows. I glanced that way, and seemed to glimpse in the shadows beyond, a conventional white mob-cap such as all Mrs T’s servants were made to wear. Well, I thought, let old Gargil have her pleasure, even at second hand, as I’m sure she gets none otherwise.
The servant-lass whom I now held in my arms, and who turned her face up to mine with a smile, I knew by sight. She was a lively-looking Londoner, an East End sparrow, with the bright black eyes of that bird, small-built overall, even a touch scrawny. She had the knowing glance which comes from life on hard city streets, and her straight black hair and liquid eyes argued something of the Lascar in her parentage.
”Morwena, isn’t it?” I asked.
”Yes sir, and you are Mr Jaspers.”
”Well, young Miss Morwena, since you know my name, you probably know my occupation. I’ve left certain scientific potions slow-seething away, so I’m afraid I can’t linger.” I bent and picked up my trousers. ”But perhaps half a sovereign for your troubles, eh?” And I felt in my pocket for the coin.
”Oh no sir,” she said with dignity. ”I’m not for sale, sir, for all it’s not my first time at the game of bee-in-the-dahlia, as you probably guessed.” She looked quite haughty for a moment. ”Just you get dressed and run along.”
And thus dismissed, I was soon striding back to the “lab”.
Reader, I had not forgotten my pledge of faithfulness to Lydia. But I had my eye on a noble goal: satisfying the urges of my precious Lydia’s loins. True, I knew Mrs T’s secret, but no gentleman would stoop to blackmail. So if I was ever to be alone with Lydia, I really had no other course but to pander to the dragon Mrs T as best I could.
All the same, as I slipped my white laboratory coat back on, I felt a definite confusion about the whole episode. I decided that Mrs Threlfall had not thought that so slight a girl as Morwena could relish “punishment” with so large an organ as mine. How very wrong I was, the reader will discover in later chapters. But for now, I will say that young Morwena’s posterior was not the last I must perforce enjoy as I pursued the captivating Lydia.