A Passing Fancy

[finch]

People talk about the wild, crazy, dangerous, brave young woman whose love of science or adventure is so true that she disguises herself as a boy, the better to pursue what she wants. It’s not that she doesn’t secretly crave womanly things and a good, kind, probably rich husband – no, she just is doing what she has to, this distasteful but oddly romantic image of passing herself off as a boy.

That is not me. That was never me.

And while they may adore having stories written about them in pamphlets and illustrated showing their girlish good looks in a newsboy’s cap, I wanted no such thing. That didn’t stop them, of course, when they found out. I was from a good family. I was expected to do certain things, in a certain fashion.

After the story got out there, of course, I got the strangest proposals from the kinds of men who find those women attractive – there are two types, really. Those who want a strong woman so they can break her, and those who want a strong woman so they can hide behind her. Neither held any appeal for me. I wanted to sneak away again but my parents would have none of it. I was carefully locked away, and on the thind floor. I had only begun plans to build an escape device when the final letter came.

Something about it was different from the moment I saw it. The envelope was gently perfumed and the handwriting delicate and perfect. Under my parents’ watchful eye at breakfast, I opened it and read it over.

It was not a terribly forward letter. He said only that he thought he understood why I did what I did, and he would very much like to meet me and discuss it over tea, but there was something in the way he phrased it…

I told my parents that I would see him. They were delighted, if confused by what seemed a sudden change of heart. Still, neither of them much believed in studying the mouths of gifted equines. Letters were sent, mutual friends were pressed into service. I wrote a reply, carefully worded, elaborating a bit on my adventures and thanking him for his understanding. Another round of letters and a stifling visit entirely in the company of both our mothers, three aunts, and a grandmother had to be put out of the way before I was able to steal a few minutes to walk with him through the grounds.

“You said you understood. Explain,” I said, dropping the polite pretense I’d put on to please my mother.

“I… that is to say… you replied that you appreciated my understanding.”

“I want to make quite clear what it is that we are both understanding, sir.”

He stopped and swallowed hard, looking away from me. We stood for an interminably long time there beneath the flowering garden trees as he knotted and unknotted his handkerchief, long enough that our mothers no doubt got all sorts of wrong ideas.

“When I was younger,” he finally said, his voice so quiet that I had to lean in to hear him, “I thought that one day I would leave. Just leave entirely, taking passage on a ship or a train and never return. Instead I would arrive in some far country where I had never been, and become an entirely different person.”

I waited, but he seemed at a loss again. “What kind of person, sir?”

He looked me in the eyes then, though his hands shook with the weight of what he was saying. “The sort of person who is quite suspect travelling without a husband or brother or aunt.”

“The sort of person who- oh,” I said as I unraveled it. “You wish to arrive somewhere no one questions that you are a woman.”

“And you, I suspected from your accounts, were far from ready to leave behind your life as a man.”

I smiled at that, just a quick motion, and I think we both relaxed now that we knew where the other stood. She straightened her jacket and looked back toward the house.

“My father has associates in the orient,” she said. “Men I’ve never met, but to whom he would write letters of recommendation. If we wed, I could quite reasonably ask that we go there to make my fortune. And when we disembarked in that far place, where no one knew us… well, if you were Mister James Redgrave and I were your new wife Judith, who would disagree?”

“Your words are very tempting, Miss Redgrave,” I said to her, just to gauge her reaction. She looked as if she might swoon, and the color in her cheeks was delightful. For the first time I supposed that I was lucky to have gotten away in the first place. That she might be offering me a second seemed almost too much to hope for.

Her face was honest, however. I knew her confession would cost her more than mine had, if it ever became common knowledge.

“Let us make a go of this, then,” I told her. “Though it saddens me that we must keep up the pretense through the wedding, I suspect the fantasy of the wedding tour afterward will strengthen you as much as it does me.”

She shoved her handkerchief back into her jacket pocket and took my hand. “Then you would agree that we have… an understanding?”

“I would very much agree, Miss Redgrave,” I said, and allowed her to take my hand and lead me back to the house where our families waited.

Mirrored from Jack-a-dreams.

Comments

[mending_souls]

This is...awesome.

[finch]

Glad you enjoyed it! :)

[whitemage]

I second the awesome.

[ilthit]

Very neat!