An Innocent Affair

XI

"A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man." Charles Dickens

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XI.

Despite having been in London for a month, Cressie felt as though she was seeing all the streets anew as they flew past the hackney's windows. As the distance between Cressie and her mother grew, she knew that her guilt ought to have been growing. But in that moment, she couldn't feel it. All she felt was excitement. She felt it coursing through her body.

Cressie finally tore her eyes away from the window and looked at Jem. He had been watching her, a smile on his youthful, handsome face. She could see the same excitement there. They mirrored each other. It made her laugh, which drew an amused grin from him.

As they laughed and looked at one another, Cressie felt her stomach seize, as it had done so many times before, only this time she was beginning to understand the cause.

"Where are we going?" Cressie asked him, becoming aware that she really had no idea where he would be taking her.

"Hixham," replied Jem. "It's not far, or so I am told. The Ashwood butler informed me that it is there that we might find some Caribbean food."

"Caribbean food?" repeated Cressie, sounding surprised.

"It is unparalleled," he told her emphatically. "Never will you taste anything more flavourful in your life. Did you ever happen to read about when Lady Susanna married Alex Whitfield? Truthfully, I hope you did not as what the papers reported was mostly vile, but when Alex returned to England, he brought his mother along with him as she now lives in Ashwood with my mother and I. Madame Amélie ensured that I was never late home for my supper again." Jem chuckled to himself.

Cressie found herself suddenly entranced by Jem's story. It was spoken so simply, so offhand, in such a casual way that one would share titbits of information about themselves. It occurred to Cressie, then, that she really had never spoken to Jem much about his life or his family. She had never had the opportunity to, of course. But she found that she utterly adored receiving it, alarmingly so. She wanted to hear more as a multitude of questions bubbled to her lips, but she resisted shouting them all at once as these feelings overtook her.

"What is your favourite dish that Madame Amélie prepares?" Cressie asked, impressing even herself with her controlled tone of voice despite her desperation to engage. What on earth was the matter with her?

"Soup Joumou, undoubtedly," Jem replied immediately, without having to think for long. "It is a delicious soup of meat and vegetables and one could smell it wafting through the village a mile away." Jem smiled fondly, before he asked, "Pray, tell me. What is your favourite dish to eat?"

Cressie wasn't at all sure that she had something to compare to Jem's partiality for Madame Amélie's cooking. She certainly had no fond memories of family dinner tables or traditional meals. She and her mother had often benefited from the mercy of friends and their meals as she had grown. There had never been any abundance of food, nor had they ever had the means to purchase expensive cuts of meat. Cressie had never eaten a meal, let alone taken tea, in public before as they would never have been able to justify the cost. Mealtimes were never an occasion, Cressie realised. They were a source of stress for her mother. A side of mutton and potatoes, if that was all they could manage, were a means to an end.

Cressie knew that she was fortunate in that she had never gone hungry. But she was a little sad in that moment in realising she had no connections to a family supper.

"What have I said? Are you alright?"

Jem's questions were fired at her in quick succession as Cressie realised her face must have been betraying her realisation.