Margaret's mansion was becoming something of a favourite port of call for her growing circle of younger friends. Once through the sturdy oak door, the visual richness of the surroundings wove its spell round them, transporting them into another world. Margaret's sparkling conversational manner heightened their senses and opened them to fresh experiences that filtered through to their consciousness. Her living room was peaceful and civilized, their consciousness of time wavering backwards into the past and forwards again. It wasn't a one-way trade of experiences as this older woman's conversational abilities were sharpened by these interactions as she asked intelligent of them all but inevitably, the conversation drifted to the older woman's many experiences. It felt that the picture of the three naked women leaned in overhead in an interested fashion over the chattering crowd.
"How long have you lived in this house, Margaret?" Claire asked politely enough one evening as sunbeams angled low from over the back garden into their room.
"This house?" Margaret said in distant tones as she turned to look around her. It had been such a fixed part of her life that she had problems in thinking when it predated her existence. This stretch back into her past started to disorientate her for a moment.
"I remember the very first time I visited the house. I was nervous of course."
"So tell us what it was like living with Julia," Jenny said, kind-heartedly. having not been around when she had first told Nikki and Helen the story. It felt as if she was being prompted to ask the question.
"Julia Desmond," Margaret echoed the words, which lingered on her tongue like vintage wine." Yes, that is where my life really started looking up. Let's have another cup of tea and I'll tell you all about it."
The thrilling sense of discovery of the unknown was becoming familiar to Nikki and Helen but this was new to the other two women. While Jenny with her North Country ways was openly wide-eyed at the prospect, a feeling of excitement ran through even the normally composed Claire.
"This is like going back in a time warp. Who know what we'll find?" Helen murmured in a state of dreamy spaced out acceptance.
"Trust Margaret to be our guide," came Nikki's positive reply, ready for anything.
**********
At last, after many delays as military needs prevailed over passenger transport, the clanking overworked train wheezed its way into the darkness of the high arched wrought iron shelter of St Pancras mainline station. This was Margaret's first confused introduction to London as steam hissed in all directions from overworked boilers. With muscles the two women didn't know they possessed, they heaved their heavy suitcases onto the wide platform and past the neat lines of anonymous khaki clad soldiers queuing for the adjacent train. Hectoring sergeants drilled them into order with loud military voices. As they passed near them, their questioning glances appraised Julia as her fresh faced beauty and tight blond curls clashed with her confident strides and mannish trousers and stylish jacket.
"'Hey, what do we have here? Men wear trousers, women wear skirts. So what's up with you them?" called one loud aggressive voice to the side of them.
"None of your business. This isn't the Victorian age. Don't you know there's a war on? Julia retorted with brazen cheek pushing her case past the man.
This emboldened Margaret who would have linked arms with her lover if she weren't so burdened. They weren't going to ask them for help in manhandling their luggage as they took their place in the ticket queue. The ticket master coolly clicked their tickets and let them through for Julia to wave madly to a middle aged man, dressed in a smart, dark suit and a bowler hat as shouting was futile over the uproar.
"Daddy, thank you for being your usual reliable self. Neither Hitler nor the blackout has put you off."
Her father smiled weakly at the theatrical display of his eccentric and above all determined daughter.
"We've been clear of bombing ever since you went gadding about the country."
"Well, it all goes to show you, I didn't need to be on stand-by, driving ambulances past all those bomb craters. All the horrid bombers have stopped scaring the ladies out of house and home," Julia retorted lightly, with an undertone of seriousness. Margaret's eyes opened wide as her lover hadn't told her this side of her.
Her father and mother knew better as she had told him of her exploits in a curiously self deprecating fashion. Bold as brass, Julia had volunteered for duty and her strength of purpose and unexpected adaptability enabled her to faultlessly drive her bulky ambulance along the lunar landscape of the badly bombed backstreets of London. Overhead, the brilliant white searchlights had drawn white pencil shapes in the darkness overhead to try and pinpoint the source of the droning sounds overhead. He sensed from distant sounds heard through the underground bomb shelter that the center of London was lit by blazing fires and billowing smoke and that his beloved daughter was somewhere in the middle of this Knowing all of this, far be it for him to criticize his daughter's lifestyle. Such considerations seemed petty in the great scheme of things. The war changed everything, big and small.
In this way, Margaret's cinematic view of her induction into London life jumped and juddered its progress in her waking perceptions and to the keen observers of the scenery.
Suddenly, the slim dark-haired woman stepped out of the echoing building, into the briefly lashing rain, onto the running board of the shiny black Bentley and into the upholstered back seat right next to her beloved Julia. As her left hand was linked into those finely shaped fingers, a lightning flash from the thunderstorm overhead illuminated the blissful smile on Julia's finely carved features. This was like it, Margaret murmured blissfully, as the car skidded along the wet cobblestones streets, wending their way to Julia's parent's home in Hampstead.. However uncertain and disjointed her future appeared, it must be better than the deathlike certainties of the family she'd left behind.
The full opulence of the life to come opened up for Margaret as much as fifty years later, it opened up for Nikki, Helen and their friends. They saw through the older woman's eyes her former self as young, eager for life, slim, dark haired and clutching her heavy suitcase, that solid oak door open up in front of her, her beloved Julia and her very accepting father. The only difference was that, moving back in time, the dark and formal Victorian furniture wasn't yet transformed by the overflowering theatricality of style that their union was to produce. Either way, Margaret's mouth hung open in much the same way as in a later era, her young friends would behave.
Margaret ought to have been tired out after the rigours of the journey and, oh yes, staring down her family's intense glowering disapproval in turning her back on them to live with her female lover but she felt strange being tucked up in a strange bed in a distant corner of the mansion. The room was completely dark, the blackout curtains dutifully drawn. It wasn't as if she felt suddenly homesick for her family but more that she felt disconnected, her lover sleeping in another bed. It didn't feel right. Just as she twisted sideways, shuffling the cotton sheets, a sudden glow of candlelight peeked its way through the narrow gap of the silently opening door. A slim black shape trod lightly through the gap, shut the door without a sound, and made her way towards the dark haired woman's unbelieving eyes. Her heart was in her mouth with excitement and hr breathing was rapid and shallow. Finally, the candle picked out in sharp golden outlines the features of the one woman she wanted to emerge into her world from out of the darkness.
"You didn't think I was going to let you sleep on your own, darling. Why else did you get the bedroom right at the end of the landing?" curled that very sexual aristocratic voice round Margaret's onrushing flow of libido.
"I won't if you come into bed with me," came her reply, tinged with lust. Her blue eyes locked with Julia's and she laid her hand on the sleeve of her crimson wraparound silk dressing gown.
"But only on my own," came the slow reply as she laid her candle on the side and slipped the tie free. The other woman's eyes opened wide as there was slowly revealed, not her nightdress, but only her glorious curves. In one impatient desire to be free, she immediately disrobed and the two women slid, sighing into each other's arms.
Julia and Margaret had kissed each other passionately on a number of occasions in that far off Northern town, once being spotted by the local neighbourhood busybody which had caused the balloon to go up. She had been reassured by Margaret's quiet determination to leave home with her as in truth, there was nothing to leave. Julia
had waited for everything to go quiet, as she had tiptoed her way to her heart's treasure and the landing seemed to stretch onwards forever Finally, all her pent up desires and fantasies were more than matched by the way that lithe athletic body slid on top of her and crushed her mouth in a passionate kiss. This gorgeously forward woman pressed against her body and caressed her with all the confidence in the world. They felt so deliciously in tune with each other physically and both women were confident emotionally in what they saw in each other. They moved smoothly round each other and lovingly explored the intimate regions of each other. Julia cried out in sheer joy as her lover's lips and tongue made their leisurely way down the length of her body, paying careful attention to her lips. Her hips started to move rhythmically and her legs felt deliciously wide open to Margaret's tongue as she cried out again and again in unashamed pleasure and delight. After that sensational orgasm , Julia was sure as nothing else on this earth that she was definitely going to let her lover know exactly what she was capable of…..
"I love you, Margaret. You're really unafraid of life. That's something that's really special," Julia said at last still trying to catch her breath. They were lying together, feeling blissfully damp, entwined round each other, and resting in the afterglow of their lovemaking.
"You're not just the perfect woman just to fall in love with but to elope with as well," the dark haired woman murmured with perfect commitment. That was what Julia wanted to hear as her lover clasped her arms round her.
"You mean every word you say,"she breathed. It had not always been that way for Julia. Back in the days of peace, it meant that her parents were more inclined to police her love life and one or two of her lovers had succumbed to the dictates of their Papa and Mama, just as in Victorian novels. Mind you, she was as headstrong as Margaret and it was only now that she was getting her freedom. After all, this was part of the cause for which she had driven ambulances in the Blitz- for her freedoms as she saw it..
"I love you too, darling. Beneath that dazzling aristocratic charm is a heart that cares."
Julia smiled freely at this shrewd observation as she buried her face in her lover's neck and spoke softly into her ear
"Not many notice that. How young you are to be so expert in the arts of love between women and to see through me."
"I'm nearly nineteen years old, darling," Margaret gently protested, sliding her fingers up to her lover's breast to make the point. She knew very well why this wasn't phrased as a question." I had my first lover when I was fourteen. Since then, I've never looked back."
Julia raised her eyebrows in wonder and moved her head to softly kiss Margaret's lips in gratitude. She was twenty-one herself and had gone through a similar journey.
"I remember when I first time I saw you drinking in that hotel bar. You took my breath away. You're the first woman I've known to dress in woman's slacks. You looked gorgeous with your fresh face and curly blond hair."
"Didn't that shock you?" Julia replied in exaggerated tones, belying her words in running her fingers through the long dark hair she loved. She had been sitting on a high stool in the hotel bar room in a town that she'd picked at random and had been coolly drinking a gin and tonic. Suddenly, she'd become aware of the presence of that dark bewitching beauty staring intensely at her. She held her pose for a few minutes to make sure she wasn't imagining things. When she turned her head, their eyes had connected and now finally so had their lives.
"It told me you are unconventional. That is so very sexually attractive to me and appeals to my heart and soul. I've grown up with conventional constrictions and can't bear them. I want to spend my life challenging them, to live the way I feel to be right. But tell me, Julia, how you manage to avoid compromising yourself?"
"You wonder how my family deals with an obvious lesbian in their family, darling? All I am asked to is not get caught out publicly and bring the family into so-called shame. Not that the idea bothers me dreadfully, darling, but it does give us our freedom. It means that mummy and daddy have given up on the idea of me being a breeding machine for future generations. They've put their hopes instead in my dashing brother, the famous fighter pilot and carrying on the family name. I've progressed to the point that I'm tolerated along with my lifestyle."
"Thank God for that. It means that we're here for the long haul together," came the dark smouldering reply, full of life's certainties. Julia's heart leapt inside her at this bold declaration of love, worth more than might be written in conventional Sapphic romantic fiction. There was a fine chance of that happening, she thought scornfully. Even if there weren't paper shortages for book publications, the stern puritan moral guardians of official culture sought to ensure that everything was kept militarily in line. They found it bad enough for young lovers to get married at Gretna Green but Julia exulted in how her lover strength of purpose went one step further to elope with her. Women like them were the subterranean unspoken dissent to the dispensation of official knowledge via Pathe Newsreels to the massed ranks in all the Odeons, Gaumonts and ABC cinemas up and down the country.