Chapter XII

Sarah and Susan. • At the key-hole. • A village fair. • Up against a wall. • An unknown woman. • Clapped again. • My deaf relative. • Some weeks felicity. • Sarah's secret. • Susan's history. • Sarah with child. • Amidst black berries. • Susan's virginity. • Susan with child. • Sisters' disclosures. A row. • A child born. • Emigration.

I had now passed my twentieth year. The new servants were sisters (how many times have sisters fallen to me!); the eldest who was cook was named Sarah; the youngest, Susan. Sarah was about twenty-six, Susan nineteen or twenty. I carefully arranged the key in the key-hole of their door the first night, but saw nothing for two or three nights. Then oh! fortune again. They rose later than my mother liked; she came up to their room one morning and found them locked in, so she took away the key. Now I had as far as the key-hole permitted, a fair field, but then clothes hanging upon pegs on the door were often in my way; yet I was so persistent in looking when they went to bed, and arose, that I saw a great deal. How cunning I had got; I had filed and oiled the lock and hinges of my door and theirs, so that I could close and open them noiselessly, used to stoop daily with my eye to their key-hole, stepping from my room with naked feet. I was nearly caught several times, but never quite. It now seems wonderful that I was not.

I was so demure and quiet in talk about women always, and had kept myself so circumspectly, that my mother never had the least suspicion of me, — but in all matters of love and intrigue, mother always seemed to me as innocent as the babe unborn.

For all that, my mother just then, and to my dismay, seeing that my little games would be much interfered with, said I better change my room, and have one on the first floor. Mrs. *** had remarked, that being a man now I ought not to sleep on the servants' floor. “As you please, — it's one flight of stairs less for me, but Mrs. *** is a fool,” I cried. “And which room?” “Your sister's. Annie will always be with her aunt adopted, and Jane is only at home in the holidays.” But I would not be pushed into a small room; where was my tub to stand? Where my books? I must have the spare room. There was much altercation, I made my mother cry by saying that when of age I would get chambers away from her, and into the spare room I moved.

It was next to my mother's. Installed there I did nothing but complain of its inconvenience. I smoked incessantly in it. The smell got into mother's bed-room, and she could not bear tobacco smoke. I made a noise when she was in bed, — that annoyed her. I did all in a quiet way to make her as uncomfortable as possible. An uncle and aunt who stopped with us when in town, just then came from the country; and not liking my sister's room, went to an hotel, which wounded mother considerably, so she said I had better go upstairs again. I refused point blank; being down there I would remain, and so managed, that she thought I went back as a favour to her, and much against my will; but was I not glad! — and got to my spying immediately.

Within a month I had seen them both stark naked, for being sisters they had not hesitated to strip. I had seen the cook piddle, wash her cunt, and put on her napkin. Susan's bed was not on the right side for me, but nevertheless I saw enough of her to compare her with her sister. Sarah was demure in manner, stout, with a splendid bum, and with little hair of a lightish brown at the bottom of her belly; she wore black stockings of which I then had a horror. Susan had a wicked, merry face, and a splendid bunch of dark hair on her motte which attracted me largely. It struck me that I should have a better chance with her than with her sister, and began making approaches; when one Saturday night seeing Sarah wash herself from head to foot, I got such glimpses of her round fine haunches, and the split between them, that I fell into a fit of randy adoration, which settled the direction of my attentions to her instead of Susan..

I feared to go on with either, because they were sisters, but lust got the better of my fears. I began kissing cook Sarah; who returned it saying, she would not have her sister know it on any account. Shortly after I kissed Susan, who made nearly the same remark; and I found that each was careful not to tell the other; which was just what had occurred with two sisters, of whom I have already written. This was very jolly. Meanwhile I once or twice had a cheap poke on the road, but always with fear of disease.

I had but little chance of the cook having now no pretext for going into the kitchen, and the sisters were not much separated; but I looked up my chances inde- fatiguely, and finding Sunday favorable, to the horror of my mother, left off going to church in the morning because the cook was then alone. After our early Sunday dinner, I used to go to my bed-room nominally to lay down, but really to look through the key-hole at the cook who on that day only, dressed and washed herself in the middle of the day, her sister being down-stairs. I got on but slowly; in two months only having taken outside liberties; till meeting Susan coming away from the privy one day, I saw her press her clothes against her belly to dry her cunt, and she saw me. Whenever I met her afterwards I used to tuck my frock-coat between my legs and smile at her. It was an old dodge.

I had then bought a Fanny Hill which I kept in my bed-room locked up. One morning I forgot to put it by, thought of it and rushed upstairs, entered the room where the servants had been making the bed, and saw Sarah intently looking at the book. I had feared that my mother had entered my room, and seen the book. I stood for an instant motionless, she turned round, gave a cry, dropped the book, and rushed out of the room, her face like blood. I locked the book up feeling somewhat uneasy, but afterwards joked her about it and the smutty pictures, and this took effect.

There was a fair held not far from us at that time, the girls were to go there each on separate evenings. Before Sarah went out, I went out, she had agreed to meet me at the fair; it was dusk, she had a female friend with her. We went into a dancing booth and had drink, then into the long room of stalls in which was a dance mob, shouting, crying, pushing each other, scratching backs, blowing trumpets, and speaking baud- ily to the women. As it got later, the men used to feel outside the women's cunts, and many a so-called modest girl felt a man's prick outside, and passing in the mob without being found out. Many a grab have I had at my prick which could only have been done by a woman, who looked quite demure whilst she did it. I got excited, put Sarah in front of me, and in the first rush, put my hand round and gave her cunt outside her clothes a grab. She upbraided me, rushing out of the crowd at the side to escape me, I after her, into a dark passage, between the backs of the booths, where men were pissing. They hailed her with laughter, asking her if she had come to piddle. Back into the crowd she rushed, I with her, and did the same thing, talking baudily, and kept this up until it was time for her to go home.

I said I should walk home with her. The village-road had but occasional oil-lamps; at places it was quite dark, loving couples were walking or turning off into dark bye-places by hedges and fences to satisfy their amatory wants. This I pointed out to her, and talked of the prints she had seen in Fanny Hill that morning. Altogether she had gone through enough that day and night to make a female randy. Suddenly a girl in the dark squealed, and a masculine voice in the dark shouted up, “That's right, shove your prick well up her, old boy.” I tried it on with Sarah on the way home, but it was no go. I felt her bum and thighs, got her hand on to my prick, but she would not let me have her.