If there is any such thing as 'perfect happiness', I'm certain that nobody has it. Despite what Jane Austen her muck might have any of us believe. Francis and I spent the rest of the miserable ride endeavoring to pretend to be happy while sitting across from each other, both of us moping. It was was obnoxious. I wasn't happy. Francis certainly wasn't happy, being all quietly despondent. Miss Martin was confused and probably frightened, Mr. Lewis was dangerous and angry. And I had no doubt that wherever, whenever my family and coworkers were, they were despairing of never hearing from me ever again. And the other passengers and the crew of my downed plane were dead.
'Perfect happiness' - as described in those romance novels I had liked so much in my previous life - could bite me. This Anne Radcliffe, Bronte Sisters gothic heroine bullshit was miserable.
I wondered, briefly, if perhaps someone else from my flight might be going through this same nonsense. If anyone else might have survived. Could another ship have pulled someone out of the wreckage, or had even those who had lived through the crash as I had sunk to the bottom of the ocean? And just me and my stupid luck, and a yellow inflated lifejacket that had been meant for someone else had prevented me from following down after.
Francis and I stopped for dinner in a public house south of London. I'm miserable with maps, and getting directions straight in my head, but I knew we were south, at least. There was a pub meal of more overboiled vegetables and coldish meats, some sort of savoury pie that wasn't half delicious, and the beer was fantastic. It reminded me of all the best microbrews from back home, and slowly, sip by sip, I grew morose and sank back into my chair, clutching my mug. My turn to be the cranky, sullen one, I guess.
"Miss Jessie?" Francis said, after our empty plates had been cleared away.
"I just miss home," I said softly, and covered a trembling bottom lip with another healthy slug of hoppy amber brew.
"Of course," he conceded. And then slowly, tentatively, as if testing the ice on a newly frozen pond, he asked: "Will you tell me about it?"
"What's to tell?" I asked with a shrug. "I live in a coral condo complex with in-shell cleaning service and a parking spot for my seahorse."
He grinned slyly at me and reached forward and took my ruined hand between his. He pressed it gently, then leaned forward and fanned his lips out over the knuckles.
"Uh. Okay, what now?" I asked, staring at him.
"I have been thinking," Francis said softly. "That nobody here knows who we are. Of what we are to one another."
"Well, they're getting a pretty good idea now," I hissed, ducking my head low so no one else in the crowded public room could read my lips. "What the hell are you doing? What about your precious Miss Gale?"
"She is not here, and you are." He sent a flirtatious, smouldering look up through his eyelashes at me, and pushed his kisses onward, over the rim of my glove. They were wet and warm against the underside of my wrist, moist against the cuff.
"I'm confused," I said. Flutters ran up my skin, tingling in the bend of my elbow, lancing into my chest, making my heart stutter and my breath go shallow. "I thought we were done. You're marrying her."
"Yes, but you have made it clear that your desire for pleasure --"
"Where did you get this idea that--"
"Do you think people don't talk to one another, Jessie? That the grooms didn't see you playing the rake with Miss Martin? That they wouldn't tell me?" Francis' hand slid up my arm, his face lifting, tucked close, breath warm against my neck.
"They what," I yelped, startled. "They knew?"
"The groom was worried for my virtue, for my reputation travelling with you," Francis smirked. "But of course, his warning had the very opposite effect of what he had hoped for, I fear. In learning that you give your charms so freely to whomever desires it, I realized I needn't worry for my future marriage. You and I can--"
"Fuck off," I hissed. "Don't you dare paint me as one of those greedy bi sluts. I slept with you because I like you, and I kissed Miss Martin because she was curious and I was lonely. But if you think-" here I pushed him back, forced him slowly into his own seat, "if you think for a second that I'm going to help you get your dick wet just because you're horney, after everything that's happened, after everything you've said, you can go jump off a cliff."
"But you--" Francis sputtered, confused, "You want--"
"To be loved. Not used."
"And after everything I've done for you--" I put my ruined hand over his mouth to stop him.
"It still doesn't mean I owe you."
"Let me, please," he pleaded, eyes dark and sinful. "If I am to have the reputation of a libertine, let me benefit from it at least."
Jesus; I'd had nearly the same thought about Miss Martin. What an ass I was.
"And who's been calling you that?"
Francis sat back, the smoulder turning into a simmer of slow anger. "It escaped no one's notice that I squired you around Gibraltar, Miss Franklin," he said. "And sailors gossip about on-ship activities as much as fishwives. When I had the ship sent on to Bristol, half the ton was in a tizzy about where my Miss Gales and Miss Franklins may be, and Mr. Lewis has not been silent about--"
"So? Whose fault is all of that?" I challenged, pressing a sharp finger into his sternum. "Cause I sure as hell wasn't the one to flirt with the mermaid when I knew I was already engaged. Just saying."
He folded his arms over his chest and huffed, scowling. "I find you irresistibly fascinating."
"And that's flattering," I said, voice low if not soft. We were attracting attention that I seriously did not want. "But it's time to be grown-ups about this. You have a fiance, and I have a future as a maid or something, and I'm going to have to stop relying on you and find a way to be happy in his shithole era. So let's stop this, okay?"
"What if I don't want to?" Francis grabbed my wrist again. "What if I want both--"
"Well, you can't." I slammed my mug down on the table top hard enough to slosh out an amber wave, and got to my feet. "Good night, Captain Goodenough."
Then I went up to the group room I was to share with several other travelling ladies. They were still downstairs, so I had plenty of time to sulk under the covers and fall asleep before they even tumbled up the stairs into bed.
In the morning, Francis had a massive hangover and the most hangdog look of the trip so far. He apologized profusely for his ungentlemanly behaviour, and for his assumptions, and most importantly, for his apparent 'assault on my virtue'.
And I forgave him, because his fuckboi nonsense had finally, once and for all, put paid to any kind of non-friend feelings I might have had for him. Men, it seemed, were the same in any era, gentleman or not.
* * *
The village of Godersham was in the Ashford district of Kent county. That meant jack-all to me, but Francis - with whom my relationship had settled into a sort of sibling-style friendship of teasing and blunt honesty - assured me that it was quite pretty, especially in the spring time when the orchards were in bloom and the gardens flourished. It is located on the eastern side of England, close enough to the sea that a weekend in a beach house wasn't improbable, if unlikely due to the English's obsession with Bath and Brighton. We finally hit Godersham in the early afternoon of our third day of travel and my sore ass rejoiced. I missed cars, trains, public transportation that moved at speeds faster than a horse, dammit.
It was now the early days of February, mild and lamb-like, and the road was turning into a muddy mire with all the snow melt. The winter wasn't even remotely close to finished this time of year back in Canada - I sometimes went skating in April - but Great Britain was surrounded by ocean, benefitted from the Gulf Stream, and didn't yet suffer from the global climate change that had made summers hotter and winters harsher.
We pulled up what I was assured was a 'modest' drive to the front steps of a harshly symmetrical house. It was three stories tall, made of clay-red brick, with an even number of stingy looking windows on either side of the door.
We dismounted. The carriage was taken away by a not-at-all grand groomsman and a stable boy after directly after Francis' trunks and hat cases had been disgorged onto a wide gravel walk. The bags didn't stay there long, as nimble house servants had seen our approach and were already waiting to whisk us inside.
The furnishings were a bit dowdy, a bit sagging, but they all looked comfortable and lived-in. Every scuff on the floor or mark on the wallpapers, or little tear in the cushions was a place where life had happened. It wasn't at all showy and sterile like Mr. Lewis' house had been, or starched and proper like the Jenkins'.
I felt singularly foolish sitting in wrinkled jeans and an oversized brown coat in a fine parlour, especially next to Francis, who had made a point of putting on his most excellent waistcoat that morning. But I refused to be seen in the dress I had decided I was going to hand off to Ms. Gale. Her fiancé had spent his money on it - money that was supposed to be for her - and I was going to be selfless, dammit.
We were met in the parlour first by a servant with a silver tea service - thank god, tea! I was frozen to the bone! - and second by Mr. Gale, who shook Francis' hand and welcomed him home and inquired after me. The look he tossed me was calculating and all encompassing; no, he didn't fear for his daughter's prospects, but he did wonder what her fiancé was doing travelling with a single woman with her hair shorn off and a propensity to dress in men's trousers.
I explained, as best as I could, using the same story I had pawned off on Mrs. Jenkins' friends: lost, alone, orphaned, no prospects, no clothing, no protection. Mr. Gale's expression both softened on the surface and went marble hard below; perhaps I was a threat after all. I made a point of exclaiming over how cheered I was to be in the presence of a young man in love, so devoted to his partner, and pretended really hard that I was an old softy at heart, that I loved happy endings and marriages. And if the words tasted like choking, no one knew but me. Mr. Gale looked appeased, (it was a good show, I nearly believed it myself) and the three of us were called in for luncheon.
It was the first time I had arrived in a place and sat down to a meal without first being whisked off to fix my appearance, and I found that I actually appreciated it. This is who I was, and this is how I was comfortable - though I wouldn't have said no to a bath and power nap - and Mr. Gale seemed to respect that.
We sat to our meal and I waited patiently for Miss Elizabeth Gale to come vaulting into the room, cheeks flushed with joy and mouth curved up. I wondered if she was pretty. I wondered if Francis thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. I wondered if my time with him might have changed that. I couldn't decide if that was a good or bad thing and so I decided not to make my mind up not at all.
But I didn't have to brace for Elizabeth's flurried entrance at all - she had walked to town with her mother, Mr. Gale said, to purchase new ribbons for something or other, and some good tea cake. They would be lunching with Mrs. Gale' sister by now, so there was no fear of them being home before everyone was (and here he did look at my creased tee shirt) settled.
"You may have your regular room, of course, Fly," Mr. Gale offered.
Francis said something else, that he was grateful, and about his family planning to journey in this direction on their way to somewhere or other, but I missed all the details because I was too busy boggling over the nickname.
"Fly?" I asked out loud. "For serious?"
It was the first real interjection into the conversation that I had made, and both men stopped to stare at me. Mr. Gale with humour, and Francis with not a little bit of horror.
"Oh, Jessie, no," he said but it was too late. I was already laughing.
"Fly!" I repeated. "Oh, that's perfect! Captain Fly."
"Miss Franklin, please," Francis pleaded. "It's a childhood endearment. If it got back to London..."
"Cross my heart and hope to die," I said, running a finger along my chest in the familiar 'x' pattern and then miming zipping my mouth shut. Neither gesture meant anything in particular to my companions, but I think they got the general idea. I added the locking and throwing away a key gesture to the end, and the confused frown that always sat between Francis' - Fly's - eyebrows when I did something particularly twenty-first century smoothed out and away.
After lunch concluded, I was shown into a guest room (how many of these did they have, anyway? How many guests could they possibly be expecting to accommodate at once?) and while the maid balked at my request for a full bath - and no wonder, we were on the second floor - she was more willing to fetch an ewer of warm water and let me sponge myself off. The Gales provided fresh perfume and tooth chalk, serum to slick out the tangles in my hair, and some accoutrements for pulling it back. It made a stubby little ponytail out of the back of my neck and I wondered at its length, that I hadn't cut it in so long. Normally I kept it at the bottom of my ears.
My clothing was taken down to the servant's area to be washed and pressed, and I was left to have a nap on my own, the shutters pulled closed and the curtains shut tight to keep any sliver of daylight out of the warm twilight that the fire in the grate created. I slept for a few hours, balled up and trying not to think too hard, but the curling doubt in my stomach made for strange nightmares. In one dream my parents popped out of a wedding cake and yelled "Surprise! Fooled you!" in air steward uniforms. It was just verging on real twilight when I woke, sweaty and confused.
For a moment, the world rocked and swayed, pushing and sucking and buoying up all it once, like it had under the ocean, cold and crushing.
Then I was back in the pretty little guest room, asleep on the seatee, a fire burned low on the grate. My jeans, tee-shirt and the brown coat clean, dry, pressed, and folded carefully on a nearby chair. Someone had been in the room between the time I fell asleep and now. I wondered if I had been babbling in my sleep. I wonder if they'd heard, and if they'd understood.
* * *
I thought meeting Elizabeth would be easy. I was way over Francis, I told myself. I had no reason to be jealous or spiteful or anything else towards her. I just meet the love of the Captain's life and we'd be cool. I could smile and breeze through it and never drop a hint that I'd already had what was hers, that I used to want what she was going to get.
Only it didn't go like that.
It was late, and the lingering horror of my nightmare wouldn't let me close my eyes again. So I figured I could distract myself with a late night snack, and maybe, if I could find it, some of the wine left over from dinner. I tiptoed down the stairs - boy was it dark here, with no candle to guide me and no electric lights, or screens, or even devices with a tiny LED bulb to indicate it was on, or charging - and was heading for the back of the house when I heard a little giggle from one of the side rooms.
This was the parlour, where I was told ladies-of-the-day usually did things like knit, or paint, or read, or after dinner, take tea and talk about boys. The door was partially ajar, and so, nosey little thing that I am, I peered in. There were no lights save for a low fire on the far wall throwing the furniture, and the two inhabitants of the sofa, into stark and cozy-looking relief.
Their backs to the door, Francis had his fingers entwined with a young woman's, his forehead resting on the side of her neck, a posture so intimate, so tender, that something inside me shivered. Certainly they were seated far too close for what was proper for this era. But then, I'd already been proven mistaken when it came to thinking I knew the mores of this place.
Was it me who taught him to forget propriety, or had he always been like this? He'd always made a point of keeping a gap between our bodies...
But his temple was on her shoulder and he was looking up at her, adoringly, and she brushed a gentle hand across his chest and he captured it and kissed her fingers and... God, he loved Elizabeth, didn't he? He loved her.
And she loved him back, obviously, and probably pretty desperately. Her lips were resting on his ear, free hand was carding gently through the soft hair at the nape of his neck, running clean round fingernails through the curls, separating them to spring apart in fly-aways. Fly.
It hurt me more than I thought it would, surprised me with a gut punch of self-anger. The truth of it was that I didn't want Francis particularly, that was over and done with, but what he had . What I did want was the affection I saw between them. I wanted to pull that away like sticky toffee, wrap it around my own shoulders.
I was pathetic, so desperate for affection and approval that I was willing to steal it away from someone else, someone who from first impressions was gentle and wonderful and sweet, someone whose father had opened his home to me. They had given me everything they possibly could - hospitality, compassion without demands for explanations - and in return I had taken the one thing of hers that she had not offered up, the one thing that I had no right to, the one thing that was her own possession.
I had used Francis' body, yes, but what I had wanted to take was that love.
And I had no claim to it.
God, Nightingale Syndrome much? I was a pathetic, lonely baby duckling, imprinting on the first positive thing to happen to me after the crash. Jeeze.
My left hand curled against the door frame and I backed away, quietly, without announcing myself, and went to into the kitchen to beg a cup of wine from the scullery maid who had, apparently, just woken to begin her day.
She pointed me toa jumble of leftover bottles on a sideboard, pointedly and not audibly judging my choice of morning beverage. They must have been from yesterday's dinner. In a nod to the time of day, I poured out the dregs of one bottle into a fresh tea cup.
I had a bit of a sit down to calm my nerves. I was still not very practiced with my weaker left hand, and I ended up splashing wine over the rim, watched the deep ruby drip down the soft blue porcelain, spread into a hazy dark stain on the unvarnished butcher block.
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