His Theriac

     The sun was now hot through the still closed curtains. Suits and trousers were scattered on the unmade bed. The room was in a mess that should have taken days to create, not hours.

     Today Henry Branwell had finally summed up the courage to do it. Recently, his father seemed to support the idea of him proposing to Miss Charlotte Fairchild, the daughter of the head of the London Institute. The young man had been longing for the day he would face her father and in good faith ask for her hand to be the one he would hold for the rest of his life.

       He looked at himself in his mirror. Henry had always known himself as a man who didn't care to dress perfectly as long as he looked decent. Today, however, he spent more time with his head inside his closet than he had ever spent sleeping. The young man had literary been up for nine hours -- since six, and now it was fifteen -- picking his flawless suit and trying on every one his hands touched. For long breaks between that mess of coloured clothes, he would sit down and rest his back against the bed post as he wondered whether he had any chance. Those breaks were what actually let most of the nine hours pass by. It was just so hard for him to put himself together as he thought of his few encounters with her. Her braided hair, keen and kind eyes, dresses perfectly free of wrinkles, dignified posture, and the words she spoke and how she spoke them. And now, as he stared at his reflection, he saw his cheeks turning red to match his hair at the repeated thoughts of her. He could think about her over and over for hours or weeks or years and never get tired of the image of her in his mind.

     He reached for his hair to run a hand through it again. Hair especially was one of the things he was worst at keeping from being in disarray. It would always be a mess of ginger locks covering his forehead and framing his face, but now he was struggling to keep it back and orderly for once. Damn, just this once! He frowned at himself as if he would blurt out and start scolding his hair for being messy.

     "Henry!" There was a knock on the door, accompanied with the voice of Henry's mother. "You missed lunch, dear!"

     "Mother," he called back, "I'm busy!"

     "You have been busy all morning!" The woman pushed the door open to let herself in and closed it again before approaching her son. She stopped midway and curved her path to open the curtains, letting the sunlight in. Henry groaned as it embraced his eyes, and he rubbed one of them. When his mother reached his side, he had to look down at her because of the great height difference. "Your father told me. You needn't stress yourself so much, darling. Ms. Fairchild is a very sweet young lady. And you are a very sweet young man indeed."

     "Still..." He felt his cheeks grow warmer than they already were. "I need-- It needs to be perfect. I need to seem worthy. Ms. Charlotte is beautiful. What if nothing I do could make me worthy of her?" Paranoid, he turned back to the mirror and ran both hands through his hair this time in another attempt to keep it neat.

     "Now, don't say that. I don't see a reason why she would reject you," said Mrs. Branwell.

     Henry shook his head at her. "Mother, please. I'm almost done. Just one more hour and I'll be ready. I have to wear the suit I chose and fix my hair and wear cologne; that's it."

     She chuckled in amusement at her son's words, shaking her head slowly. "Why an hour for that?" she asked.

     "Because my damned hair wouldn't stay in place!" he whined, running his hands through the red locks again as he turned back to the mirror.

     She frowned now, looking up at her anxious son with her hands folded in front of her. "I hear there are men who fix their hair back with oil, but I've never really seen one. Besides, it is disgusting."