Private Universe

Braids. And Virginity.

 The rest of the day passed without incident. Jack had time and energy to wonder why it was so easy for him to get so involved with the older women of the house and why he felt himself holding back with the younger ones. Deirdre was easy to answer, he just couldn’t like her all that much. Abby he did like, but, by comparison with Fanny or Eleonora, she was the one holding back. Hilary? Hilary was fun. Had he met her before Abigail, then he had to admit the plans for sneaking off to town might have been with her instead. Being anything more than friendly and polite with her now felt like cheating on Abby, though, and he was reluctant to do that. He and Hil chatted, joked and teased each other through the evening meal, but Jack, conscious of being under the eyes of Charlotte, Eleonora and Fanny, stayed as simply friendly as possible.

After the meal he joined in a conversation between Fanny and Charlotte on poems they’d read published in the newspaper. Chief among them was one by a Canadian, John McCrae. Charlotte seemed surprised that Fanny expressed detestation for it and what the governess described as the ‘emotional blackmail’ that its publication was clearly aimed to achieve. Deirdre objected that the work was patriotic and found both Fanny and her aunt Eleonora disagreeing with her about it. Charlotte, seemingly unused to hearing so many opinions from these two, spent most of her time listening to what was said.

And then, suddenly it seemed, the evening was over and it was time for him to go to bed. Must be still tired, he thought, can’t really remember what we did to fill all that time. He couldn’t sleep and, knowing that Fanny was coming, didn’t want to try, so started reading again. He’d lost the track of Pride and Prejudice a little and had to go back over a section to remind himself what was happening. The book was still enjoyable, though he was finding that the writing convention of just telling what was happening made reading harder work. I suppose I prefer the flicks with stories I can see. I wonder if books will get more like that now? Showing the action instead of telling it.

His door opened and Fanny was slipping quietly through it. She closed the door carefully behind her and stood for a second, looking shy and unsure of what she was about.

‘Sorry I’m so late, but I wanted to be sure that the others would be asleep and the house quiet before I came.’

Jack wondered if she’d been feeling so confident about what she was doing now. Her body language didn’t say woman running eagerly to her lover, exactly.

‘Don’t worry. I’ve been reading Jane Austen, though I’ve got to admit I’ve been finding it hard to keep my mind on the story.’

‘Oh, I’ve never read that one. Is it any good?’

She’s looking for something else to talk about. Cold feet?

‘Yes, I think so. Come here,’ he patted the bed beside him, ‘I’ll read you some parts I like.’

Fanny came and Fanny sat and Fanny played with her hair and Fanny listened to Jack read and Fanny didn’t seem to know what she was doing there. Certainly not in a rush to get under the sheets. Perhaps this isn’t going to happen.

After a while, Jack took the excuse of a passage on the Bennett’s home life to ask Fanny about hers. Things being, as he said, different for girls. She took up the chance and, for a while they talked about her childhood and upbringing. She visibly relaxed, but still continued to sit upright on the bed while he sprawled around her.

He took her hand and rubbed a knuckle. ‘Nervous?’

‘I. Yes. Yes, I am. This is all very new to me, still. Planning it. We didn’t plan it the first time and it all seemed so easy, so natural. Even this morning, it was nothing to say I’d come to you tonight, but then it got later and I was thinking about, oh, I don’t know. What would I say and what would I do and, oh, it’s silly, but I feel so schoolgirlish.’

He kissed her hand. ‘Can I be honest?’ He looked at her for permission, but took it anyway. ‘I like it.’ He looked at her to be sure she understood. She nodded. ‘But I like you, even if I don’t really know much about you, and I don’t want you to be just it. No more than I want to be just it for you.’ She nodded again, looking relieved. ‘So if all we do tonight is talk,’ he shrugged. ‘That isn’t bad.’

‘I was so worried that I’d get it wrong and disappoint you somehow.’

He picked up a lock of her hair and held it under her nose.

‘Well, you’ve still done nothing about that moustache and you know I did oww.’

‘Rotter! You deserved that.’

‘True. Cuddle up?’

‘Umm.’

They lay down in a spoon together and, for perhaps an hour, just talked. She told him about her parents, who were fond of her, but distant and more concerned that she have a safe existence than anything that looked like an interesting life. She told him of her older brother who’d always been the important one and how worried she was about him being in the trenches in Flanders. “We aren’t terribly close, but why should I want him to risk his life just because John McCrae is upset about his friend and wants revenge?’

 She told him of her dreams of working in France and of how they’d been destroyed even before the war broke out, so that now she was only a teacher of French in England, instead of a teacher of English in France. She told him of her friendship with Eleonora and how it was becoming one of the most important in her life so far. She told him how, a thing she would never have believed, both of them having this relationship with Jack was cementing that friendship instead of breaking them apart.

‘You are so far beyond the pale for either of us to be involved with that it almost makes sense for both of us to be.’

He laughed at that.

‘But you are Jack. When I’m with you, you’re just you. You’re kind and strong and better looking than any boy who’s ever been even a little bit interested in me. I don’t think about your age because you always seem older than me. Lena says the same, though I think she’s had some really gorgeous Italian boys chasing her. But she’s the only person in the world that I could ever talk to about you. And I’m the same for her. You’re a secret we share. Do you think us terribly odd?’

‘No. This situation is, well, odd doesn’t start to cover it. I feel I’ve been given everything that I could ask for, only I can’t keep it. It isn’t mine. Before, I’ve dreamed of being able to stay in one place, but the only reason for choosing one over another is that I was already in one and didn’t want to move to another. Here… we’ve all had something we wanted taken from us. Maybe I’m just the next best for you and Eleonora..’

‘Oh no, Jack, don’t ever believe that. Lena’s husband is such a pig. Peter isn’t cruel, but even then, compared to you, he’s the boy and you’re so much more the man. I mean that, really I do.’

She’d partly turned to look him in the eye while she said that, so he kissed her for it. There was a half second pause and she kissed him back with a fierce intent he couldn’t ignore. They moved together.

A long and very energetic time later, a very happy Fanny Brampton kissed Jack on the nose and said, ’Virginity is a lot like braids, I think.’

‘If that’s a riddle, then I’m stumped.’

‘Well, since I stopped wearing my hair in braids, which you’ve never said anything about, you rotter, I like the look of the girl in the mirror so much more than I did before. And, after tonight, I don’t need to look in the mirror. I like not having braids and virginity. Lots. I like being me much more like this.’