Time & Tide - Original Wattpad Version

Chapter Twenty-Three: In Which Jessie Reads

I shouldn't have been winded halfway up the hill, but I finally forced myself to accept reality and slowed down to a walking jog. Three months on a ship and two more sitting around in parlours and carriages had really done a number on any cardiac strength my frequent walks around campus had given me. I hit the top of the hill, turned left, and pushed back into a faster pace for the straight away, the left again and halfway down to end in the Goodenough's garden. I paused to stretch again, to walk in circles around the outhouse to force my blowing lungs and heart rate back into a more restive pace, and did a few lunges and squats to round off the workout.

All in all, not bad. I felt miles more restive and calm.

Margaret was in the kitchen when I returned, staring at me peculiarly when she noted the sweat stains on my chest. She had a cup of tea in hand and it was obvious that she had come into the kitchen early for a fortifying drink and probably, judging by the papers in her other hands, to give me something she wanted me to read.. I raised my hands about my head and arched my back to get rid of the last kinks. I felt my shirt pop out of my jeans, and Margaret stared at my bare belly for a few seconds before hastily turning away.

Interesting.

"Exercise," I said, tossing a wink and smirk at Margaret as I passed her on my way to clean up and change. "Does a body good."

* * *

When I returned to the dining room, this time in proper attire after helping Miss Brown finish up breakfast, I was presented with a new sheaf of papers and a cup of tea. The ink was still wet enough to leave black marks on the opposite pages.

I felt my hips and calves stiffening up as we sat and had toast and discussed Mrs. Goodenough's plans to rearrange the dining room to accommodate a longer table, the same way that Mrs. Nosy-Neighbor had last month. Both Margaret and Rose looked down at their breakfasts and said nothing, but I could see the discomfort. It wasn't that they were embarrassed by their financial situation, or that Mrs. Goodenough was obviously spending every penny they had, just that the topic of money was ... awkward. I mean, how do you say "absolutely not" to your own mother, especially when she was clearly used to a past life of quite a bit more luxury?

Mrs. Goodenough noted their silence, seemed to remember herself, and turned to me to discuss my liking of Bath and when I thought I was going to take the waters. I would have given anything for a hot soak right then, the knotty muscles all protesting their exertion this morning. But no power on Earth was going to get me into a hot tub with fifty other people who were sick.

I made polite noises about feeling too well to go to a spa for sickies and Margaret and I were released shortly thereafter. We moved to the parlour with the customary cart of tea things, and she picked up another page, which had been left on the desk to dry, and added it to the bottom of my new pile. The few edited pages that weren't in my hand sat in a new red folder to the left of Margaret's blotter, neatly arranged and waiting for Margaret to go back through them and make a fair copy.

"When do you sleep?" I asked, even as I settled down into the sofa, stocking feet up on the ledge of the hearth to warm up my toes, to soak the heat into my muscles as best I could. April in Bath was warmer than April in Toronto, but not by much, especially given that there's no double-paned energy efficient glass in the windows or foamy pink insulation in the walls.

Margaret smiled and tilted her head teasingly and turned back around to the desk. Dismissed, clearly, I riffled the manuscript and, - trying to tease, to get her to turn around and give me a smile and maybe a kiss- pricked a random page from the middle of the stack and read aloud:

"And with infinite patience and tenderness, Jane reached for Mary's hand, pressed between her palms the fingers of her very dear friend, and kissed her not on the cheek, but on the soft sweet bud of her... oh, god, Margaret, is this..." I cleared my suddenly tight throat, blinked back the heat prickling at the back of my eyes and sat up - gave this paragraph the dignity it deserved; the weight of the history it was about to make. The world swam with some sort of haunting, bubbling disconnect. All the ease in my own skin I'd cultivated that morning fled in a shivering prickle.