Ceasebury: Chapter Thirty-One

The night before the wedding came around with surprising speed. I ascended to my chamber at my usual time (as chimed by the clockface) and soon, Cheyenne followed up behind and helped me dress into my white night dress. She was her usual, happy self and began to whisper in heightened tones about her wisdom.

“Miss Theodosia, are you looking forward to tomorrow?” she asked.

“Yes, of course I am.” I replied.

“This time tomorrow you’ll be in his manor.”

“Yes, I suppose I will be.”

“This time tomorrow you’ll be Marchioness Theodosia Ravenswood.”

“I know.”

“This time tomorrow, you might be pregnant with his child.”

“What?” I asked in surprise.

“Well, this time tomorrow you will have made love for the first time.” She smiled “With him as your husband, I mean.” She laughed slightly.

“Well, we haven’t done that yet anyway.” I said shyly.

“You’ll have for then.” She laughed.

It was not that thought that consumed me for the brief moments that followed, it was the thought that this time tomorrow I could be pregnant with his child. It did worry me. I didn’t feel ready to be a mother, not yet. Cheyenne seemed to recognise a tone of worry in me.

“Miss, if you don’t want to have his child just yet, you can use a French Letter.” She whispered.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Well, they’re made out of animal intestines and you just put them over his little solider before he puts his little solider anywhere.”

“Oh?” I swallowed “Where do I get those then?” I asked her.

“I have some from Mr Jameston, I’ll get some for you.”

“Oh.” I said. I had never considered that Cheyenne might be somehow sexually involved with a man. She left my chamber hurriedly and emerged from the corridor again a few moments later.

“I kept them in Gabriella’s room. I gave her some before she left, well, I tried to give them to her, but she didn’t want them. She said she wanted to have a baby.”

“What?” I gasped “Gabriella wants to have a baby?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes. And why shouldn’t she? Its like in that book you love to read ‘younger than she are happy mothers made.’”

“That’s Romeo and Juliet and its not a book, it’s a play.”

“Same difference.” She shrugged.

“Not really. But okay, do you really think that Gabriella could be a mother?”

“Yes.” She said. “And you could be too if you don’t use one of these.” she passed me a greyish piece of material. “Wash it out between uses.” She said, half grave, half joking. “Put that into your packing. Don’t let anyone know you’ve got it, except his, of course.”

“Why can’t people know I’ve got it?” I asked.

“Because it’s not really the done thing, well, people pretend it isn’t.”

“Well, how come its never mentioned in any of Mr Jameston’s novels?”

“People don’t think its very romantic.” She laughed “People want to pretend that either people only have sex to procreate, which definitely isn’t true, or they like to pretend that people have amazing love making and no one ever gets pregnant who doesn’t want to, which of course its true either.”

“Oh.” I said, bemused.

“Oh indeed. Well, you need to get some sleep. Goodnight Theodosia.” She left the room. Still with the French Letter in my hand, I dashed over to the trunks I had packed and shoved it into the side, beside a white night dress.

I sat on the bed for a moment and the colossal significance of this night finally dawned on me. I was going to leave Ceasebury. The place I had lived since I was a girl, I was now going to leave behind forever. This place with the columns and the rolling green fields would soon pass into my memory. And when my parents died, that’d be the only place it’d be. My parents had no sons, so when my father died, Ceasebury Manor and all it’s lands would go to my husband. Valentine. Soon, Valentine would be Master of Ceasebury and it would become a place where the paint rotted and decayed from the walls and the carpets went out of style and the paintings began shrouded in a thick layer of dust. Much like our world, I suppose.

Despite the fact that Ceasebury would crumble to the ground, the river would live on. It would continue to flow and trickle down its rocky path to Ravens’ Wood where Valentine and I would live forever and up the river there would still always be the White Woods which could hold their memory of a young girl with dirty blond hair who pulled a brunette girl behind her each day for the entire summer of ’76. And Ceasebury Creek, that’d always still be there. Even after Valentine and me and all of our descendants (despite the fact that there may be a limited number due to the thing I had stowed away in my trunk) were long dead, there would always be a place between the two banks and, perhaps, another little boat would take the place of mine. And perhaps another girl would sit in that space and ponder her place in a world that was not made for her. And then – like me – she would realise that no world in no time and no place is made for anyone. We have to make it for ourselves.

And if we don’t, we only exist in memory after we are dead.

I tucked myself into bed with uneasy thoughts swirling like ravens flying gracefully in a cluster through my mind. And then I felt something hard beneath my pillow. I felt for it gently and found that it was that writing book Gabriella had given me just twelve days ago (back when she had been Gabriella Kingston, that is). I began to write in it. I just wrote my name over and over again as it was about to be. The swirly black formations on the page looked like pathways blotted by the ink. They seemed as if ends in themselves, while their one trail led – or seemed to lead – me to a different place. The T at the start of my name was a path down and then across; the S was a swirling cascade downwards and the R (of Ravenswood) was a path directly down, joined by one that flirted before descending. Yes, this was my future, I could see it all so clearly now, my life was to descend down the river and there I would be happy.

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