TW: Sexual assault and rape

June 30th, 1816

Over the next few weeks, Jenny and Elsie’s room devolved into a pigsty.  This was partly owing to Elsie’s habit of crumpling and discarding pages onto the floor, partly owing to the cold forcing everyone inside yet again, and partly owing to Jenny’s general untidiness going unchecked. 

Naturally, Caroline pinned the lion’s share of the blame on Jenny.  One day it became too much for her to nag any longer.  She handed Jenny a broom, when Elsie was out with Samuel in town.  Caroline would not, of course, ask a guest to clean their own room, even if they had made a mess.  Jenny swept the floor with a bitterness she didn’t really feel, and unmade the beds with a boredom she certainly did. 

Removing Elsie’s sheets, she stumbled upon a notebook.  It wasn’t like Elsie’s other books.  For one, it was thin.  For another, the pages were not carefully tended to, but torn at the edges, water-stained and wrinkled.  Jenny carefully opened the book.

May 16th, 1816

After an arduous journey, we’ll at last be arriving in Liscannor.  What with the restless seas and the constant rain…

Jenny flipped through the pages haphazardly.  She recognized Elsie’s languid cursive, which she could only just decipher.  Something told her that she shouldn’t have been reading this book—that Elsie wouldn’t have hidden it in her sheets if she wanted others to read it—but she kept going anyway, only allowing herself to catch snippets in order to ease her guilt.  Not reading it altogether was too Herculean a task. 

Frederick looked down, hesitant to answer.  Then he was quite adamant when he told me no.  He said it was a poor idea.  No one was going to publish them anyway, not when they were written by a melancholic woman…

Jenny frowned.  She turned back a few pages, and realized that what Frederick had called “a poor idea” had been Elsie publishing the Hag of Beara poems.  That didn’t seem like a poor idea to her at all.  She flipped backwards, to the very start of the journal.

They say that writing is cathartic, that it allows you to pin your thoughts to the page like butterflies in a glass case.  But it doesn’t do that for me.  The thoughts only loom larger, once they’re made physical.  Once I’ve acknowledged that they’re real.

I can’t escape from this feeling that the entire world is only pretending, every second of every day.

Jenny flipped ahead.

My doctor tells me that the problem lies in me.  Perhaps that’s true.  Maybe that’s why everything seems so awful all the time.  I only have my own eyes to look through.

There was more like this.  Self-conscious ramblings, full of a dull sorrow.  And then, they became different.

I love him.  I could only admit it here, but I love him.  He’s the only person I’ve ever met who is able to see me as I am.  If only I could tell him how I feel.  Perhaps someday I’ll have enough courage to damn the consequences.

This must have been when Elsie had begun to fall in love with Dr. Larson.  Her language became more vibrant here, her scrawl a little quicker.  Though she said she was in love, Jenny could tell these were just scribblings, nothing more.  She had seen enough of her sisters’ many infatuations to know that much.

I should really stop reading this, she thought, as she turned another page.  This next entry was short, unlike Elsie’s typically long and elaborate prose.  The ink was heavy and dark.

I told him how I felt.  We had relations.  I don’t know how I feel.  I tried to tell him that I didn’t want to, that I wanted to love him in the right way.  But Frederick said that this is how everyone does it when they’re courting.  And I love him, so I suppose I shouldn’t care.

Jenny couldn’t help it; she dropped the book on the bed.  She didn’t want to read anymore.  Her blood boiled.  What he’d done to her…knowing that Elsie was in his care, that she’d do anything to please him…Jenny wanted to tear the room apart.  And she wanted to tear him limb from limb.

Yet she was frozen in place.  A heroine in a story would have sped from the room, confronted the villain, shown him justice.  Tears streaked her cheeks.  It wasn’t fair.  It wasn’t fair.  She pictured Elsie’s sweet, trusting face, and a sob escaped her.  She clasp her hand over her mouth.

“Jenny?”

Caroline stood at the doorway, a full basket of laundry on her hip.  “Jenny, what’s wrong?”

Jenny wanted to tell her mother everything, but she remembered her promise to Elsie.  You can’t tell anyone.  She couldn’t betray her friend twice in one day.  First reading her private thoughts, next handing out her secrets.  But when Jenny turned around, the thin book was in her hands again.  She gave it to her mother and sank onto the bed.

“What is…?”  Caroline flipped through the yellowed pages, squinting at the cursive.

“It’s Elsie’s journal,” Jenny said.  “Dr. Larson…”  She hated herself.  “Dr. Larson did something awful to her.”

Caroline closed the book and held it to her chest.  She bent down to look at her daughter in the eye.  “What did he do?”

“He…”

“Jenny, what did he do?”  There was a ferocity in her mother’s voice, one she had only ever heard when her own children were in danger.

“Please don’t make me say it,” Jenny whispered.  “Please just read it.”

She watched as her mother paged through the book.  She watched until she couldn’t anymore.  Instead, she stared at her tears as they dripped into her hands.  She traced them in a circle on her palm, like she’d seen Elsie do with rainwater.  There was a new hollowness in the pit of her stomach that wouldn’t go away.  It just kept getting deeper.

Caroline whispered, “Bastard.”  She shut the book.  “Jenny.  Look at me.”

Jenny obeyed. 

Caroline’s gaze was hard, like stone.  “You mustn’t tell anyone about this.  Do you understand?  You’ll ruin her if you do.”

Jenny nodded.  She felt as she had when Elsie had made her promise not to tell anyone about her and Dr. Larson.  “I understand,” she said, guilt constricting her throat.

“Now listen to me.  It’s no longer anyone’s concern but mine.  Not yours, not Elizabeth’s.”

“But—but she loves him,” Jenny whispered helplessly.  She had no idea what her mother would do to Dr. Larson, but whatever it was, she wasn’t sure that Elsie would be able to bear it.  She didn’t want her to become like she’d once been, at the beginning of her journal.  But was she really any better now?  Maybe she had just gotten better at pinning her feelings away, clipping the butterfly’s wings and letting the caterpillars burrow into her.  She couldn’t imagine how Elsie had been carrying all of this.

Caroline’s expression darkened.  “He made certain of that.”

“She’ll be so upset if you do something to him—she’ll hate me.”

Caroline stared at her daughter with a sharp, sudden fury.  “How dare you think of something like that right now,” she said with a gasp.

“I just—”

“Don’t worry about yourself.  And don’t worry about Elizabeth.  She’ll be fine.  Much better, actually, once he’s gone from her life.  He’s hurting her.  Don’t you see that, Jenny?”

“I do, but—”

Caroline shook her head.  “If you do, then you’ll let me take care of this.”

Jenny wanted someone to take care of this.  She wanted someone to take this problem away from her.  She could feel everything bubbling up inside her, all her fear and anger and sadness.  And she was so, so tired.

“Please, Mama,” she sobbed, burying her face into her mother’s shoulder, feeling like a stupid child.  “Please just fix it.”