Angel in Scarlet

by Jennifer Wilde

  Solonge and Janine had comfortable rooms on the second floor, but I much preferred my snug, cozy room up here under the eaves with its bare hardwood floor and slanting ceiling and low, odd-shaped windows that looked over the back lawn. A feather comforter and faded sky-blue counterpane covered the old four poster. The ancient overstuffed blue velvet chair was in deplorable shape, the nap worn to threads, one spring broken, but it was large and seemed to enfold me when I snuggled up in it to read or sew. There was a sturdy table beside the bed with white porcelain pitcher and pot, a small bookcase filled with my favorite books, a tall wardrobe. Flickering candlelight washed over the bare brown walls with a lovely golden glow. It began to rain as I curled up in the chair with sewing kit and turquoise gown, and the pleasant patter-patter made a soothing background as I nimbly removed velvet bows and rows of fussy beige lace.

  As I worked I thought of all that had happened today, all I had learned about Hugh Bradford, the sod. Sure, I felt sorry for him, but … but he was still a crude lout with that striking, foxlike face, all sharp angles and planes, not at all handsome, not like Clinton, but … I couldn’t forget that face, couldn’t forget the strange, bewildering sensations I’d felt when he manhandled me so roughly. Bleedin’ sod! My bottom no longer stung, but I felt a curious prickling feeling down below and my legs seemed to be growing numb. I shifted position in the big chair and, bows and laces removed, began to snip loose the tiny stitches that hemmed the neckline, the turquoise silk rustling and sliding over my lap. Solonge found him exciting, had a yen for him, she did, would like to wrestle with him in a stack of hay, have him stick his stiff thing in her, and him a beanpole smelling of sweat and manure. Couldn’t understand it. Didn’t make sense, not when she could have any man she wanted—and usually did. The prickling sensation down there wouldn’t go away no matter how many times I shifted my rump and moved my legs. Wudn’t really that worrisome just … just slightly irritating. I tried to ignore it, tried to think of something else besides the stableboy who had smacked my bottom so forcefully.

  I worked for an hour or so in the candlelight and decided that Marie’s rich sauce hadn’t agreed with me tonight. I began to feel strange, strange indeed, kind of aching all over like … like an upset stomach, only lower down. My legs ached, too, but that wasn’t unusual, climbing the wall, scooting along the tree limb like I did. Felt almost like I was coming down with some kind of fever, only it was different. I put the turquoise silk aside and stood up. My legs felt kinda shaky, the backs of my knees weak. I took off all my clothes and washed myself with water from the pitcher and dried myself off, then slipped on my thin cotton chemise, shivering now but strangely flushed. That ache down below was turning into an itching sensation that made me want to rub my private parts. I’d never felt so peculiar in my life. No more of Marie’s fancy sauces for a while, I decided, and I intended to be extra careful climbing trees, too, if it was going to cause my legs and thighs to ache like this.

  I blew out all the candles except the one by my bed and climbed under the covers and picked up Captain Johnson’s book and started reading. Nothing I loved better than reading in bed, particularly if the rain was pattering on the roof and making slippery silver-gray patterns on all the windowpanes. I got caught up in the book immediately, but, curiously enough, I kept seeing Hugh Bradford in sweeping black cape, pistol in hand, his lower face covered with a black silk scarf. Ruffian like him would make a dandy highwayman, all right. I had been moved by everything Father had told me about him, but … he was still a ruffian, sullen and savage.

  I read about Jacob Halsey, a dreadful rogue indeed, and he had Hugh Bradford’s face, those dark brown eyes, those wicked eyebrows, that dark tan complexion and unruly black hair. “My pretty lamb,” Halsey told the maiden he was about to rape, “an insurrection of an unruly member obliges me to make use of you; therefore I must mount thy alluring body, to the end that I may come into thee.” The Bastard … Hugh … was saying that and his eyes were glowing and I was the maiden, shivering with fear and aching all over, particularly down below. My free hand slipped under the covers. I couldn’t help it, that tingling ache was driving me barmy. My thighs tingled, too, like the skin was flushed and stretched too tight over my flesh.

  I read on, rubbing, trying to assuage the ache, and came to the passage about Patrick O’Bryan, another rogue, even worse than Halsey. He looked like Hugh, too, and there I was, trembling at the side of the coach, and he turned to his confederates and grinned. “Before we tie and gag this pretty creature I must make bold to rob her of her maidenhead,” and then he led me into the woods and I put the book down and stretched my legs as far as I could, writhing, rubbing, harder now, not really understanding what was happening to my body, what was happening in my mind. There I was and I was wearing the turquoise silk gown and I was on the ground, writhing, and he was standing over me with his cape blowing in the wind like black silk wings and the scarf was over his nose and mouth and chin and his brown eyes were glowing darkly and he was chuckling, legs wide apart, fists planted on his thighs, me helpless and all atremble.

  I rubbed, eyes closed, and it felt … it felt good, like a thousand tiny needles jabbed my skin lightly, not really hurting, just irritating it pleasantly. Something was happening inside, too, something frightening I’d never felt before, and I stretched my legs until the tips of my toes touched the foot of the bed and something seemed to snap inside me and I could feel a flow and my hand was suddenly wet. I pulled it out from under the covers quick as I could and cried out when I saw all the blood. Scared me something awful, it did, thought I’d wounded myself, and then realization dawned and I caught my breath.

  Jemminy! So that was it! I threw back the covers and dashed over to the pitcher and took off the chemise which was spotted with red. I washed myself, but there was still a trickle flowing. What did one do? Rags, Eppie Dawson had told me. You use clean rags. I folded one up and put it down there and climbed back into bed, shivering again, feeling awful, feeling frustrated. I hated it. I didn’t want it to happen. I wanted to cry. I wanted to curl up in Father’s lap and have him stroke my hair and tell me it would be all right. I wanted … I wanted to be in Hugh Bradford’s arms. I wanted to look up into those smoldering brown eyes. I wanted him to … to do to me what Patrick O’Bryan did to his poor, defenseless victim.

  No! No, it was disgusting! I hated him, the lout, and I wasn’t ever goin’ to let a man do that to me. I wasn’t goin’ to change. I wasn’t goin’ to be like Janine and Solonge, always thinkin’ about men. Not me. I blew out the candle and listened to the rain and watched thin, thin rays of moonlight seeping into the room, all murky and making watery pewter reflections on the floor and ceiling. I didn’t want to start bleedin’ every month. I wanted to be like I was before this happened, before I started havin’ these disturbin’ thoughts about the stableboy who might or might not be a bastard, who probably was, who had held me tight and spanked me soundly and made me … made me feel all peculiar.

  Time passed, hours probably, and the rain stopped, just dripping from the eaves now, patter-patter, soft and gentle, and the moonlight was brighter, making blurry silver patterns that danced against the blue-black walls and ceiling. I was feeling a little better now but still strange and disoriented. My chest felt funny, the tiny buds no bigger than beans aching, like flesh pushing against warm skin. Next thing you knew I’d have breasts, too, bloody inconvenient when you were climbing trees or scooting under shrubbery to find a smooth round pebble. Thunderation! Wasn’t anything I could do about it, not a bloomin’ thing. I wasn’t going to let it make any difference, though. I was going to go right on being myself, just like before, and … there was a bright side. I could hardly wait to see Eppie Dawson. She wouldn’t be so bloody superior when I told her I was a woman, too, now.

  Chapter Three

  It was a warm spring afternoon and the village was peaceful and placid, too peaceful, too placid. At fifteen I had an inordinate thirst for high drama and excitement, s
omething completely missing in my life. There had been no real drama since that day I had scrambled over the wall at Greystone Hall, and that had been three years ago. It seemed even longer. The feisty, rambunctious child had vanished, transformed into an awkward, too-tall fifteen-year-old subject to all the moods and contradictions of that age, silly as a goose one moment, silent and wistful the next. I hated being fifteen, hated it sorely. When she was fifteen Solonge was already a woman, mature and alluring. Me, I was like a gawky, skittish colt.

  Eppie Dawson and I sauntered idly down High Street, warm sunshine washing the old brown cobbles and the rows of weathered tan shopfronts. Painted signs hung over the doorways, colors faded with age. Through the bakery window we could see the baker kneading his dough, a heavenly smell wafting out onto the pavement, and up ahead the knife sharpener was turning his stone, sparks flying as he honed the blade of a knife. A little boy with flaxen hair was playing with a dog across the street, tossing a stick the mutt fetched with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, and a few village women were shopping, faces grim as they examined the bins of vegetables in front of the greengrocer’s. Eppie kept an eye out for boys, but nary a husky lad appeared. I paused to look at the books in the window at Blackwood’s but saw nothing of interest. I wanted splendor, spectacle, sensation, anything to relieve the tedious monotony that seemed to mark each day.

  “I was hopin’ Will Peterson might be hangin’ around,” Eppie said. “He lounges about the square sometimes when he idn’t busy at his father’s farm.”

  “Will Peterson’s a dolt,” I informed her.

  “Oh, Will’s all right. He’s randy, always thinkin’ about tail, true, but he’s got a lot of charm.”

  “And a vocabulary of approximately twelve words,” I added.

  Eppie gave me an exasperated look and clicked her tongue, looking more than ever like a giraffe with her straw-colored hair piled up on top of her head, her enormous brown eyes, her long neck and tall, angular body. Eppie was a bore at times, but we’d been friends most of our lives and she was the only person I could really talk to. Eppie was a simple girl who never had a serious thought in her head, never worried or wondered about life, perfectly satisfied with her lot. Give her a shiny new hair ribbon and a rousing tryst with a muscular oaf like Will Peterson and she was blissfully content. Sometimes I almost envied her.

  “You know what your problem is, Angie? Your problem is you need to get laid. That’d cure you of what ails you quick enough, I promise-ya.”

  “Bull,” I said.

  “It’s ever so excitin’, Angie, and much better than any silly tonic you might take. Can’t tell you how wonderful it makes you feel—warm and cozy all over, like you’re glowin’ inside.”

  “I’m not interested,” I told her.

  “All the boys find you fascinatin’,” Eppie continued. “They’re always askin’ me about you, askin’ why you’re so aloof and distant. Will Peterson said he’d love to ask you out, said he was scared to, scared you’d give him one of your cool, haughty looks and freeze his balls off.”

  “Someone should,” I said.

  “I often think you really are a snob, Angie,” she replied. “The boys all say so.”

  “I haven’t the faintest interest in what the boys say.”

  “Bosh! You’re interested all right, you just won’t admit it. They’re certainly interested in you.”

  I sighed, bored, and Eppie gave me another one of her exasperated looks and told me that if I wanted to spend all my life moonin’ around and readin’ dreary books and bein’ a tragic princess that was fine with her, she intended to have a good time before she got too old. I pinched her. She pinched me back. We both burst into titters of laughter then, and Eppie grinned and said I was still her friend even if I was a snob. We sauntered on down the street, full skirts swaying.

  Eppie’s dress was faded pink cotton, mine pale lavender with a ruffled white cotton petticoat beneath. My low-healed soft black leather shoes were scuffed, and I wore no stockings. Hated stockings. Still hated shoes, too, for that matter, but I always wore them now, however reluctantly. My dress was old, the hem too short, revealing my ankles, and it was too tight at the waist, too tight across the bosom, too. That bosom was the bane of my existence, my breasts full and round and, to my way of thinking, much too large. The low cut bodice left a goodly amount of them exposed. It wouldn’t be so bad if the rest of me was rounded, but I was skinny as a rail everywhere else and felt like a freak.

  “Don’t you ever think about doin’ it?” Eppie inquired as we approached the square.

  “Never,” I lied.

  “That ain’t even natural,” she protested.

  “I’ve more elevating things to think about,” I said airily.

  “Bosh! You’re lyin’ through your teeth, Angie Howard. I’ll bet you do think about it, too. I’ll bet when you’re alone in bed at night you think about it a lot. Every girl does.”

  “Not me.”

  “Liar!”

  “I don’t happen to be obsessed with boys like some people I could name. There’s more to life than—than wrestling with a sweaty lout in a haystack, letting him kiss you, letting him invade you.”

  “Maybe so,” Eppie retorted, “but I can’t think of anything more pleasant.”

  I had to smile at that. Eppie giggled, pleased with herself as we sat down on the bench in the square. Sunlight brushed the pale green grass and gleamed on the old bronze cannon that had been here since Cromwell’s time. Eppie spread out her pink skirts and gazed down High Street, still hoping to see a pair of shapely masculine shoulders appear. The sky was a pale, pale blue, cloudless. The apple tree at the edge of the square was abloom with fragile blossoms that filled the air with fragrant perfume. I felt I was in some strange kind of limbo, suspended, waiting for something to happen. I felt that way most of the time these days.

  “Not much goin’ on in the village,” Eppie said. “I wish it were market day. Things’d be hummin’ then for sure.”

  I didn’t answer. I watched a robin hopping on the ground, looking for a worm. It finally flew up to perch on the cannon, its throat vibrating as it warbled a song. A bell tolled in the steeple of the old church beyond the square. The robin flew away, and a few minutes later a rowdy group of boys poured out of the school, laughing, shouting, larking about with boisterous glee. They filled the sleepy village with vitality for a short while, then dispersed, going their separate ways. The village seemed quieter than ever after the brief explosion of youthful exuberance. Most of the women with their shopping baskets had disappeared, and High Street was almost deserted now, deep gray shadows spreading across the sun-washed cobbles.

  My father no longer taught at the school. He had given up his classes a year ago, on Doctor Crandall’s advice. Father wasn’t ill, of course, not really, but he had begun to lose weight, begun to grow tired, had developed a bad cough. Doctor Crandall told him he should take it easy. Father quit teaching and devoted all his time to the History. He still had his private income, a legacy left to him by an aunt who had died years ago, so we weren’t strapped for money, but there were fewer new dresses for Solonge and Janine, less household money for Marie. She considered it a woeful hardship, grumbling more than ever, saying things would be much easier if we sold the cottage and moved to London and took a flat.

  I sighed, not wanting to think of the situation at home. Eppie looked at me intently with narrowed eyes, her mouth pursed.

  “You know, Angie,” she said, “you really aren’t all that plain. I’ve been studyin’ you, tryin’ to figure it out.”

  “Oh?”

  “You have something. All the boys notice you. There’s something about you that intrigues ’em. I’m not sure what it is.”

  “My winning smile,” I suggested.

  “If you weren’t so cool and standoffish, you could have your pick of ’em.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Of course you’re too tall,” she continued, “almost as
tall as I am. Your cheekbones are too high, and your eyes are that peculiar shade of gray with just a touch of violet. You’re too skinny and your legs are too long, but you’ve got glorious hair, so rich a brown, like gleaming chestnuts, so long and thick and glossy.”

  “Glad there’s something you like,” I said wryly.

  “Your mouth’s too wide, but it’s so deep a pink, a delectable mouth the boys say. You’re not beautiful like Janine or Solonge, haven’t got the coloring, haven’t got the shape, but you’re strikin’, Angie.”

  “I’m plain as a mud fence and you know it.”

  “You just think you are. Me, I know I look like a giddy maypole, but I never let it keep me from havin’ fun. Boys like all kinds of girls, and if you know how to flirt, know how to please ’em, they come flockin’ around in droves even if you do have a long neck and hair like a haystack.”

  “There are more important things in life,” I informed her.

  “Like what?”

  “Like—like making something of yourself. Like learning.”

  Eppie raised her eyes heavenward and treated me to one of her exasperated sighs, clearly finding me beyond help. The only thing girls like Eppie needed to learn was how to attract boys, and she was already expert at that. She’d continue to play around and dispense favors with merry abandon and in a year or so, maybe less, she’d get into trouble and get married quickly and end up on a farm or in a tiny cottage with a loutish husband and a passel of kids and never know anything about the world out there. Or care. That was the sad part. I wanted more. I wanted to do something with my life, and me a female and plain to boot. It was ever so frustrating.