It's 1843 in London, England. Prior to this chapter, 17-year-old Charlotte Wimpole sat in confidence with her best friend Rosena Ivanya and pondered the facts of life, where Rosena passed on something she heard from Dora Drake: that a girl could get pregnant if a man stuck his tongue in her ear. The myth went on to describe how male saliva passed down the ear canal and entered the brain which triggered a reaction in the womb and
voila
the girl is pregnant. And the reason regular kissing didn't produce a pregnancy -- female saliva cancels out male saliva. Of course, level-headed Charlotte discredited it all as fantasy right away.
All too soon the time arrived for my father to escort me to meet Albert Wedgeworth. When I emerged from my bedchamber cocoon, my three brothers did not recognize the butterfly which had emerged from within.
"Is that you, Charley," John said, "under all those petticoats?"
I feigned royalty. "It is not she, peasant. Bow when in the presence of Queen Victoria."
"I would believe you were the Queen's daughter," Shelley said.
John gave Shelley a friendly shove. "Silly ninny. Princess Victoria is only three years old."
Fenny swooned. "I did not realize you were so beautiful."
My heart fluttered at the compliment as I tiptoed forward and kissed him on the cheek. "And I love you as well, Fenny."
"Here," my mother said, handing me a small mirror. "You ought to see how well you wear womanhood."
When I looked into the glass, I almost dropped it. In it peered back a beautiful young woman wearing a dark grass-green ensemble consisting of a close-fitting bodice draped across the front with folds starting from the shoulders and meeting in a V-shape in the center. The sleeves, edged in white lace, stretched to three-quarter length. The long skirt fell to the floor highlighted by five flounces along the way, each edged with the same lace as the sleeves. A cute matching green bonnet framed her face and bright red hair; but I could not accept the beautiful woman in the mirror as me.
I scurried to my mother and embraced her. "Oh, mother, thank you for making the dress." Handing her the mirror and not waiting for a response, I strode to my father and hugged him. He pulled away, but I knew he would. Never very huggable, I always forgave him for not being so. "Thank you, father. It must have cost a fortune."
"Well
" He paused, as though searching for a special compliment. "It is the most important time in your life. Surely we can spare the expense of it."
That satisfied me. A practical man, as most men are, I could see his unsaid admiration shine through his eyes-and it told of his pride in me. I gave him the added surprise of kissing him on the cheek, and then we were off.
A coach-for-hire waited outside. I gawked at my father, shocked he would go to such extravagance as he offered me his arm and smiled.
"Nothing but the best for my little girl," he said, prying liquid emotion from my eyes.
Taken aback by the means, I forgot about the ends. At the time, I cared for nothing but enjoying the moment. The potential disaster awaiting me in the Wedgeworth parlor meant little to me then.
The coach carried us to Castle Street, a little south of Holborn and just a block from the Commodities Exchange Market. Designed for Albert Wedgeworth and me to meet, the party turned out small. Other than my father, Albert's parents, and me, only two other couples sat in attendance. After a handsome dinner, we all sat in their front parlor and chatted.
Albert Wedgeworth swooned over my looks, and, as I found out at supper, he simply adored red-haired women. Now he wanted to crack open my skull to verify its supposed emptiness. I resented it, and for two reasons. One: I did not want a suitor in the near future, nor was I sure I ever wanted one. My state of indecision left me still working things out, and I needed more time. Two: I resented being a decoration hung on a wall for the sole purpose of beautification-to be admired, criticized, and fussed over.
Possessing quite handsome features, Albert Wedgeworth appeared on the surface to be nice enough; but he presented himself a bit off color at times, which fell somewhere between sensual suggestiveness and outright indecency. He seemed a bit anxious to intensify the sensual issues-whilst measuring me as a target of his passions. It placed me in a most uncomfortable position.
Lesser things about the man stood out as plain as Queen Victoria without her crown. His loud and obnoxious laugh grated on my nerves. His ego soared as high as the full moon-and his boldness exploded in full force a few moments after we broke for tea-well, you will see in a while what I mean, and how I thought it almost ruined my life.
"So, Miss Wimpole," Albert said. "What do you think of the Maori revolts in New Zealand?"
I do keep abreast of the news by reading the Daily Telegraph and other tabloids my father brings home when he is given one by a client. Albert tested me for one specific reason I believed: to see if I had a brain or an opinion hidden away instead of the correct, simple-minded way of thinking for my gender.
'Well, Mr. Wedgeworth. I suppose it is frightening, but I will leave that sort of thing to the men.' That was the proper answer a male expected from a female living in our society; but instead, I offered him something he had not bargained for. Britannia ruled the waves, Columbia was the gem of the ocean, and the sun never set on the British Empire-so, I delivered this:
"I find it typical. We English burst upon someone else's society and force them to abandon it, for their own sake mind you, to take up ours instead; because, you see, we know so much better what is best for the rest of the world."
"Sounds a bit
colonial," Albert said. "What do you think, Mr. Wimpole?"
I continued before my father could answer. "We English, simply by being English, think we have all the answers whilst the rest of the world has only questions. And, by the magistrate's whiskers, if our answers do not exactly fit their questions
then we shall make them fit."
"Shoo," Albert's mother said. "Mr. Wimpole, do you not think it a bit extreme?"
Again, before my father could open his mouth, mine engaged. "If you were a little boy, Mr. Wedgeworth, and I took away your favorite toys and forced you to play with mine, you would pitch a witch's fit, I am sure."
"Oh," Albert said, after a short snicker. "I would not mind playing with your toys."
Then he rolled his eyes, which multiplied his suggestion tenfold. He had been throwing round that sort of lewd indecency all evening. Did he suppose me so unworldly I would not take notice? Did he feel my father's low station would cause him to stand by and allow his daughter to be treated as an object of lust?
No rights existed in this house for the lower class, but I insisted upon them at any rate. Though he had no flame, the man still championed a hot wick; but I would cool it off double quick.
"I would not dream of allowing it, Mr. Wedgeworth," I said, firing all one hundred cannons from my first-rate ship-of-the-line, the H.M.S. Counterattack. "You seem quite accustomed to playing with your own." Oh, yes. I knew something about it. After all, I lived amongst three brothers.
The other guests coughed, choked, and wheezed, but, nonetheless, some could not keep a grin from adorning their faces. I was certain they understood the fullness of my metaphor.
My father scolded by only half his usual magnitude. "Charlotte, be civil."
"It is all right," Albert said, sitting forward. "I like a little fire in the night. It brightens everything up." He stared at me through his grinning teeth, and it made me want to thrust a foot into them. "What of literature, Miss Wimpole? What is your opinion on
say Dickens?"
"A good writer, who says what needs to be said."
Albert sneered. "Many people find it appalling how he dredges up the underbelly of our society for the entire world to feed on. Take Oliver Twist for example. We all know the workhouses and the poorhouses exist. Where is the need to dredge it up for the whole world to see? What gives him the right to be the national conscious?" He stretched out a hand in my direction. "What say you to that?"
"Truth and imperfection," I said, looking at my father to see if his attitude offered any indication as to my performance. The moment my eyes met his, he turned away. Good. I hit the target.
"That simple, is it?" Albert asked. "Come now, Miss Wimpole, I am sure you have more to say on the subject."
"Fiction is truth embedded in a make-believe world, Mr. Wedgeworth
and imperfection? It is our very nature as humans. Even our well-to-do English society has it problems. There are flaws even in the crown jewels."
"Very nicely put, Miss Wimpole," Albert said, clapping his hands together like a child watching a Punch and Judy puppet show. It was odd, but the more I insulted him the happier he became. I could not help wondering if I would ever be able to understand the mind of a man.
"Miss Wimpole," Albert continued, "I hear tell you can spin a good yarn."
"That I am a liar?" I replied, knowing full well what he meant.
"No, my dear, no," Albert said. "I would never presume anyone who looks as fine as you would ever allow a fib to escape her lips. I hear tell you are a good storyteller."
"I merely entertain my brothers. I am the eldest, and I suppose I always felt a responsibility to look after them."
"Ah," he said, as though he, the mighty hunter, had stumbled upon a plush mink caught in his trap. "A forerunner to your gender's station of tender, motherly love. God's in his Heaven and all's right with the world, hey?"
If necessary I would chew my leg off rather than remain in that man's trap. "I know not where God is. He is surely nowhere nearby, or He would know about the workhouses and poorhouses you speak of
and He is definitely not in the Wofford Foundling Hospital. The graves in the burial ground behind it stand as a testament to that."
A glance at my father found his face in his hands. When I turned back to Albert, I saw only a face full of smile. Well, I had done enough damage for the evening. I was sorry for my father, but for the first time in my life I had spoken my mind and it felt wonderfully juicy-like biting into a fresh plum. Everything I said in the Wedgeworth parlor issued straight from my heart; and I did not regret any of it. Then the little incident happened I thought would ruin my life.
After returning from the privy, I had stepped in the back door and turned to one side whilst slipping on my gloves when I felt my hair being touched. Before I could turn round, something lit in my left ear as though an insect had flown in. I slapped the ear with my hand and jumped away. When I spun round, Albert Wedgeworth's grin appeared like that of a jolly butcher's who had just been thrown the most gorgeous cut of meat.
I offered him my nastiest glare. "What on earth do you think you are doing?"
"You are a little spit, are you not? I think you and I ought to pursue a relationship even before you are old enough: the behind-closed-doors kind. I prefer those, do you?"
I thrust a gloved finger inside my ear, pulled it out, and stared at its tip. "By the magistrate's whiskers, it is wet in there."
"You know how we men are," Albert said. "Metaphorically, males are bees of the secret hour desiring only to flit from flower to flower."
My life was over, I thought. He had thrust his tongue in my ear, and what Dora told Rosena screamed through my mind. I knew it to be ridiculous and absurd all rolled into one, but Albert Wedgeworth chose to do that very thing to me. Why would he do it if it were not true?
I thrust another gloved finger in my ear and wiggled it about.
"I must get it out!" I said, turning my head on its side with my left ear down. Then I jumped up and down on my left foot, and pounded my right ear each time I landed. "Oh! It is still wet in there. I must get it out!"
"What is all the fuss?" he asked, as though he had executed the most normal thing in English society.
"Get away from me!" I stomped part way down the hall, stopped, and turned round. "And if you think I am going to marry you, Albert Wedgeworth, you are as loony as a
a
a loon!"
I twirled round and sprinted for the front parlor. With everyone sipping his tea, I burst into the room. All eyes jerked towards me as Albert pulled up beside me.
"I am pregnant!" I blurted with the hope someone would assist me in drying out my left ear. Looking round the room only seeing shocked and bewildered stares, I realized no help was forthcoming from those petrified mummies-so, I pulled off my gloves, spit in one hand, dabbed my fingers in my saliva, and crammed it in my left ear. Then I wrung out my ear again with the finger of one of my gloves. For several seconds no one seemed to know how to react.
"W-W-What?" papa said.
Albert's father glared at mine. "In a family way?"
My father threw up his hands. "She is obviously delirious, Mr. Wedgeworth."
Albert grinned again. "Who is loony now?"
"Wha-wha-what have you two been doing?" Albert's father said.
"What, father?" Albert asked, pointing first at me and then to himself. "You think she and I-"
He managed to say no more, because I pushed past him and dashed to the front door. Opening it, I burst out onto Castle Street and ran towards home, all the while imagining myself placing a wrapped infant at the door to the Wofford Foundling Hospital nine months henceforth.
Oh, if I were a boy, I could run away and join the French Foreign Legion and avoid my death by my father's hand. However, if I were male, I would not have to worry about dealing with an unwanted pregnancy. "My kingdom for a horse!" Shakespeare said. Horse be damned! My kingdom for a worm.
YOUNG ADULT 
W I N N E R ! 
Chapter 12:
