Time & Tide - Original Wattpad Version

Chapter Fifteen: In Which Jessie Is On Her Way

In the morning, Miss Martin helped me dress with a blush high on her cheeks and flagging over her nose. If she wanted to kiss me again, she could, but she never made a move towards it. I decided that I would wait for her to make the next move - if she wanted it, she knew I was here. If she didn't then I wouldn't get back into her face.

She smiled all the way through styling my hair, though, and her fingers lingered along the nape of my neck.

For all the screw ups I had been causing in this strange time period, I was happy that I had at least showed one sweet girl that loving another woman wasn't entirely the evil that I'm sure the church made it out to be.

And church – well, it was Sunday, and while I had quite often said 'no thank you' to religion at home, I was staying for free with the Reverend. It was the least I could do to attend the service, and it was entirely expected of me, as well. Miss Martin had washed my black dress again, and I was to have the privilege of sitting in the front row (oh, goody) with Mrs. Jenkins. It wasn't sitting beside her that I minded, but the thought that if I fell asleep mid-sermon, everyone in the parish would be able to see.

Stepping outside into the cold was a bit more of an unnerving challenge than I expected. Since my narrow escape from the altar and Mr. Lewis, I hadn't yet gone outside, nor had I any reason to. But the moment the manservant opened the front door for us, the sledge already waiting at the foot of the stairs, I balked and took a step backwards. The cold air blasting across my face brought back the horrifying memory of crouching behind a gravestone in the dark, trying not to cough or cry too loud, made my heart shoot back up into the back of my throat.

"N-no," I said softly, shaking my head, wrapping my gloved hands around my arms. The useless right one hung limply against my elbow, the shawl I'd been lent drooping down and sliding off my shoulder. "I'm sorry," I said, "I don't think I can..."

God, what kind of Gothic Romance bullshit was this? Drowned, then stabbed, then nearly frozen to death - I should just stay inside forever and be done with it.

But Mrs. Jenkins wasn't about to take any sort of nonsense about post-traumatic stress syndrome, and hauled me bodily out the door and down the shoveled path to the sledge. Miss Martin stood and fretted from the front door, but as the Reverend handed me up into the little shaking carriage, the manservant closed it in her face. And that was that.

The Jenkinses clambered on board, the driver whipped up the horses, and we settled thick blankets over our laps to keep off the chill. I was facing backwards, and the chilly wind kept sticking rude icy fingers down the back of my neck. I tugged fretfully at the bonnet I'd also been lent, trying to get it to sit low enough to protect that sliver of exposed flesh. A scarf appeared from under some other trunk lid or basket or somewhere in the crammed interior, and was pulled tight around my neck for me by Mrs. Jenkins.

"Thanks," I murmured, and she nodded smartly.

The church was close, and approaching it backwards removed a lot of my anxiety; I didn't see the graveyard, deep tracks of sliding footprints cut into the drifts, until it was time to disembark and hustle into the warmth – relative, as the ceilings were high and the walls stone, but at least there was no cutting wind and there were other bodies to throw off heat – of the church. Mrs. Jenkins hustled me some more, from this to that group of lingering neighbors for a quick chat, to talk about their sons and to speculate about any upcoming engagements or marriages among the eligible youth, and always an aborted attempt to converse with me, until my accent was discovered or my manners proved too strange to continue.

Quicker than anticipated, we made it through the droves of friendly parishioners and were plopped at the front of the tangle of pews and chairs, one of the blankets from the sledge shared between Mrs. Jenkins and I. And then the Reverend was preaching about rescuing one's neighbors and marrying for love and the deep affection between people in need and their saviors.