#thistlebelle

The Gentleman with the thistle-down hair was passing strange, it was true, but not without his warm effusions. It confused her, made her anxious. She felt betrayed and stunned when she had first come back to herself and found that her feet had carried her across a lonely stretch of moor for mile after weary mile in the middle of the night under a dark and formidable sky threatening snow, unearthly shapes lingering and twitching in the shadows watching as her aching toes pushed on across barren rock and scrubby grass. She could see her breath coming out in clouds, but despite her surroundings she did not feel the chill one wit. Inside though, the cold gathered round her and stabbed at her heart! Had Jonathan not known her, had he looked right through her when she had called to him at their bedside as if she were a stranger?

Arabella had felt compelled to get dressed, to straighten her hair, collect one measly shawl that would do nobody human any good in the dead of Winter and to exit the house sometime before dawn.  She remembered feeling like she ought to take her leave of him before going. Had not she tried? And all he did was look at her sleepily, waving his arm before flopping back into bed.

It is vague, but it feels like someone came to collect her and that Jonathan said that it was fine with him, that she was not wanted on that day or indeed on any other, not any longer. She could do as she liked as far as he was concerned.  Belle felt anger such as she had not before. Oh sure, he had vexed her in the past, they had quarreled and she had usually, no always, won in the end. He always yielded, made some concession when he had seen that he had hurt her. But not this time.

What was the bargain? Did they promise him access to greater magic, power that he could not imagine, greater even than that of his obsession, the Raven King, if he renounced his wife? It has become fuzzy, but Arabella is certain that there was a struggle. She did not wish to go, but upon hearing his open rejection, of how he chose magic over her, it seemed somehow only natural that she should go be with her ill friend, Emma Pole. And so she allowed herself to be led away to this place, the phantasmal and brooding house where her dear friend now spent her days as well as her nights.

How surprised she was to find the Gentleman there, her long acquaintance from back at Harley Street, the buoyant, friendly, charming man who would greet her and keep her company when her Ladyship was indisposed or too unwell for visitors. Belle had tried to describe him on more than one occasion to Jonathan, but he scarcely troubled to look up at her when she agreed that he was handsome and had offered her many peculiar gifts such as singing trees and friendships with women of royalty in distant lands. It had sounded odd to her ears as the words left her mouth and yet it was all true.

Arabella did not feel like herself when she first arrived at Lost Hope even with Emma there looking radiant, more alive, more healthy than she ever had at her house back in London. But most unsettling of all is that now that it has been weeks or perhaps even months, she cannot be sure, now that she is settled in a way, resigned even, feeling more clear headed than ever before, she has entertained thoughts and feelings that her England self would find appalling, engaged in dances and processions and the like that would strike many a good Christian man or woman as wrong, perverse even. And yet none of it distresses her. She and Emma have grown thick as thieves, going to one another for support. Without Sir Walter or her perceived madness, they are free to spend time and to communicate in a way not permitted to them before. Arabella relishes this, this eerie freedom whilst still being a prisoner in a strange land. She feels mildly guilty, but she will not deny it, will not deny what her heart, her mind, and her body crave.

Her first three days and nights there are a tempest, a ferocious dream wrought in stone, ivy, and roses set to the creeping airs of a lone, desolate violin. She sips a drink like wine that tastes of beautiful melancholy and which is so dark that she cannot see to the bottom of the silver goblet she holds in her cool, trembling fingers. She feels not afraid but giddy, alight with a bizarre passion that torments her unless it is fed. Each night, there is the dance and though she enjoys it, weaving in and out of the crowd, being courted for the next set by people polite and elegant yet utterly foreign and eerie in their movements, there is a pain underneath the joy, almost like an illness. She must dance, does not wish to stop for too long because she must not, for to stop is to hurt, to stop is to feel shivery all over for several minutes before it settles into a dull ache. Eating and drinking seem to resolve these feelings a little as does wandering through the house, moving one's feet underneath one, moving period, even if it is not to dance, anything to abate this feeling of restlessness. Would that there was a cure, but there is none, only a temporary cessation, an impermanent relief. But even her human life was nothing more than pauses in between activity, rests and then restiveness, fear or happiness, certainties leading to insecurities.

All paths eventually lead to loss.

On the fourth night that Arabella attends the ball, she is pricked with a keen sadness. A man asks her to dance, a little tall but nothing extraordinary with curly hair and a kind, but crooked smile. Though they dance only one set, she is put out of humor for the next several, scarcely attending to her surroundings. Their host, the enigmatic Gentleman with the mass of shining silvery white hair watches her. He watches her from the sidelines as he talks with Stephen Black, watches her from over the shoulder of the current dance, and he watches her standing as stil as a pillar in the center of the room before threading his way between moving bodies swathed in silks and jeweled fineries, eyes shining in the blueish light. The Gentleman offers one of his pale,elegant hands to her and she takes it, allows herself to be spun round and gathered to him, his cool, high cheekbones and his long frame seem more unearthly and stunning than ever they did back at Harley Street where they would talk for hours. He is exactly like the sort of fairytale being one finds in a child's book of cautionary tales, of wandering too far into a dark wood on the eve of Winter, of wolves howling in the distance, and shadows creeping, branches clutching like fingers, and being spirited away from one's friends and loved ones forever. But she does not mind. She pined, and thought, and invited him here. She longs to be spirited away from her cares.

As they turn about the room, her feet and hands tingle and she feels herself being buoyed up by a solitary flute, reaching into her ears, playing only for her. She is as light as a feather and he as strong as stone and perhaps she might place a toe on one of the prevailing notes and float up to the ceiling. She can feel herself rising like flying as he lifts her up effortlessly and then sets her back down with a flourish, his hands lingering at her waist. It burns where he touches her. She is about to burst out.  

The music continues, but he has stopped their spiral motion to run the backs of his fingers across her flushed cheeks. Has she been weeping? The gesture is so very similar, such a gentle caress, conciliatory. Arabella leans into hands, their soothing coolness makes her forget to draw breath. Her eyes drift closed as the tune winds down into silence.

"Beauty…" the fairy whispers. "May I call you that? For your name means 'beautiful', and 'graceful' and 'loveliness incarnate'…."

The Gentleman produces a tiny rose of the palest pink, still coiled tightly around itself and smelling sharp, new, and places it behind her ear. She cannot hear a new set, but she can hear the wind, and birdsong, can smell damp wood. She shudders. She is afraid to open her eyes.

"I would crown you in roses, my lady…." the Gentleman's deep voice rises up growing lighter and brighter on the last syllable like the twittering song around them.

Arabella lifts her head to speak, opens her eyes gradually and discovers that the dance has vanished or more correctly, they have vanished from the dance. They are either in a room that resembles a wood or a wood pretending to be a room. Either way, the effect is striking, more palpable and present than any wood in England. It clings to her like a secret without heaviness, more like a promise. Here she is safe, here she need never be sad or alone. And no one need ever know.

The Gentleman places both his palms on her face and she feels a heady rush of anticipation, stealing the words forming, drowsy, lingering; she wants to close her eyes again and succumb to it.

"When I saw you standing, alone, my dear, " his voice drifts up, "I thought of that dreary life you endured behind the invisible bars of that narrow, suffocating society in which you were meting out your days, unlooked at, unloved, forlorn."

"It was not always so, so lonely as all that, " she manages remembering their comfortable chats, his solicitous nature, his gifts, as he caresses the backs of her eyelids with his impossibly smooth fingers. Her days past crumble in a heap on top of her abandoned resolve with his next words.

"I would take that pain away. Let me be your sanctuary, my lovely, gracious lady…" he intones leaving a kiss on her forehead.

Arabella opens her eyes again.

Please. Oh, please, if only for an hour or two….perhaps….

She is not sure if she has spoken aloud, but they share a glance and he is leaning toward her, his pale eyelashes drawing nearer, his breath coming out like a fog. His lips resemble lilacs in their hue, but they taste cool, almost a sting with an undercurrent of something earthy. They are soft as they nibble at her gently, as his tongue slips into her mouth, and then stills. His fingertips graze her temples and she can feel him everywhere. She is properly frightened because she wants this, wants to grant him the permission he seeks, to invite him in. Her tongue creeps forward to touch his and she feels him start slightly as if surprised before leaning in.

The Gentleman presses closer and she feels the same dizzy delight that she did back at the dance as they sink to the cool, soft ground. It smells of moss and grasses and things growing in profusion under a dripping sky that is never far from the earth. The fingers alighting on her cheek smell just the same, as if he is molded with the wood around them, the winds swirling through the leaves are his breath as they kiss. He is polite with his mouth, capturing but holding her lips so very carefully, her breaths coming out in ragged gasps, to match the tempo of her heart, pushing at her insides like a flustered bird trying to escape her chest, while he pushes a slender knee in between her legs. Arabella returns the kiss more fiercely, hungrily, biting hard enough to draw blood as his knee is replaced by a hand, those long, pale fingers stroking the inside of her legs.

"My sweet, Beauty, " he whispers like the grasses around them hissing in the breeze. "Are you certain this is agreeable to you…..?"

"Yes!" she whispers in return against his ear, running a gloved hand through his hair.

The Gentleman shivers at the sensation before slipping his fingers further up and in to tease at her shuddering warmth. The feel of his hands on her is unlike anything she is accustomed to, not just for their coolness, but his movements which are both gentle and intense, able to find and center on the very places that set her nerves alight, the places she thought that nobody but herself knew best.

"You look so exquisite, " he breathes leaving kisses all over her face, his hand disappearing, his pale hips uncovered. He brushes up against her and she pushes her hips forward to accept him.

"I will make you feel as you never have, as no one else has ever made you feel…" he sing-songs thrusting, twisting like the branches that scrape and clutch above their heads. The leaves are gone, the watery sun of the faerie wood has hidden itself, the blue greys and the greens that should be muted blaze up in her vision. It tickles and grabs hold of her throat, this feeling; she hears the colors like a roaring in her head that dampen the cries crossing her lips as he moves inside of her.  

There is a pinching in her chest, but she muffles it, focusing on all of the points where they touch, her fingers clutching his hips, pushing away the images that try to intrude and haunt her, carry her back to the place she used to live where the sun moved across her face. Now there are only the fairy's words like light touching her mind and searing her body, drawing her out and up. The Gentleman pulls her to rest on top of him and she rides him, floats atop the visions that seep into the corners of her thoughts, promises of joy and ceaseless nights of pleasure.

Arabella stares into his cool blue eyes, the softest, sweetest pain pooling in her groin and burning up her spine and she is breaking over him, claiming his mouth on an agonized moan. The Gentleman embraces her, holds her tightly, crooning against her lips where their heated voices mingle as he feels his release melt out of him, feels her shaking against him. She digs her fingers into his arms  to see if his flesh will yield as she slowly comes down and finally stills.

She can hear the Gentleman's silken refrains drifting up again on the airs calling her "beautiful" as he withdraws slowly causing her to shudder. He re-situates her with many careful touches on her skin and hair and clothes as if he is putting her back together again. If he thinks that he will mend her in the aftermath of their encounter, he is gravely mistaken. The Gentleman smiles unevenly at her as he helps her to her feet, his own coat and breeches look untouched, his hair shimmers as do his looks, all adoring as he hovers over her, running his lips over the top of her head. But she knows, she heard the depths of his sighs at the height of his own pleasure; he will leave the wood feeling as disheveled as she.

Beauty holds his secret fast to her breast, can sense even now that they have become separate flesh, the source of his unrest. He pines and pines and yet never grasps what he longs for most. They are alike in this respect, their hearts twins in silent pain. Equal.

The Gentleman offers his hand which she takes as they step through the enchantment and back under the eaves of the beautifully decaying stone, ivy and bone of the house that hope has fled.

Emma Pole awaits them on the threshold, her eyes a fevered glower, wet with unshed tears, the rictus twisting her lips, heightening her cold beauty as she sees the Gentleman lightly brush the folds of Arabella's skirts with his fingertips when she steps to pass in front of him, a declaration for his Lady to witness. A confession.