Work Text:
She fell in love with her words before they ever met.
---
Eleanor Penleric sighed and fanned herself with the latest proofs as she corrected the spelling on an article about women's suffrage. "Good heavens," she muttered, the scratching of her pen the only sound in the oppressively humid silence, "Has this woman never met a comma she didn't like?"
The little bells on the door jangled, and she looked up, torn between annoyance at being interrupted and relief at not having to stare at a comma-riddled essay. "Good afternoon," she said with a smile, "and welcome to the offices of the Union Signal, newspaper of the Women's Christian Temperance Union."
The woman in the doorway seemed to hover, indecisive, but Eleanor noticed her eyes were sharp behind a pair of owlish glasses. "Yes, I was..." She stepped forward, holding out her hand. "I'm Harriet Tolliver, and I'm here to meet with--"
"Miss Tolliver!" Eleanor rose hastily from behind her desk, coming around to clasp her hand, which was cool and slightly bony. "I'm Eleanor Penleric. I copy-edited your article. And may I just say how thoroughly I enjoyed it. Your writing is--it's so fiery and passionate, I quite lost myself in it." Indeed, she had been forced more than once to stop editing the article and simply read it, caught up in its cadences and intensity.
The women before her didn't seem particularly fiery or passionate, however. She cast Eleanor a dubious look that made Eleanor suddenly feel quite young and rather grubby, her hair damp in the heat and her fingers stained with ink. "My thanks," she said, as if doubting Eleanor had read it at all. "I was asked to come in to sign the paperwork before publication."
"Yes, let me get that," Eleanor said, relieved to get away from that sharp look. Finding the forms, she put them on the table in front of Miss Tolliver. "If you would read and sign these..."
Miss Tolliver peered at the forms. "I was somewhat surprised the Union Signal was willing to publish my essay," she said. "After all, it has nothing to do with temperance in the slightest."
"Oh," said Eleanor in a rush, before she could stop herself, "But the Women's Christian Temperance Union is about so much more than just that one issue, Miss Tolliver! We believe in a wide variety of reforms, from the vote for women to improved public sanitation to prison reform. Many of our constituents care deeply about unjust labor laws, and child labor in particular is of course an issue close to the heart of many a woman. After all, 'our hope for the future cannot flourish in the darkness of a mine or the squalor of a factory.'"
At the sound of her own words on Eleanor's lips, Harriet Tolliver looked up from her paperwork. A startled and surprisingly sweet smile suffused her features, illuminating her narrow face from within, and in that instant Eleanor saw the ardent soul that wrote the lines she had loved, and was lost.
"It's...always a pleasure to know someone is reading one's words," Harriet said. "Sometimes it can feel like shouting into a vast silence."
Without thinking, Eleanor touched the back of Harriet's hand with her fingertips. "Oh, never," she breathed.
Harriet looked down at her fingers, then met Eleanor's gaze. "Well," she said, and bit her lip. "I'll just sign these, then."
Her signature was as bold as her writing, and Eleanor felt like it was engraved directly on her heart.
---
Harriet Tolliver began to come to WCTU meetings--she was recently arrived in Chicago, she said, and was pleased to find kindred souls in the city. She spoke about the children working in the coal mines of West Virginia with such fervor in her softly-accented voice that the WCTU agreed to prioritize the issue at their next annual convention.
After the third meeting, once it was clear it was not a fluke, Eleanor asked if Harriet had a church she attended in Chicago. "I mean, if you attend church at all, of course," she added.
"Ah, no," Harriet said, with a small, almost nervous smile. "I haven't settled anywhere yet."
"Would you consider coming to my church? I believe it's near your apartment. And I'd love to see you there."
Harriet looked away. "Oh, they won't want an old rabble-rousing suffragette like myself."
"What nonsense!" Eleanor laughed. "We have many socially aware members. Didn't Jesus tell us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked? And besides," she added, "You are not old at all."
Harriet merely made a scoffing sound. But the next Sunday Eleanor found her standing in the back of the church, talking earnestly with some members of the congregation. Delighted, Eleanor went to her: "You must sit with Mother and Father and I," she said, and Harriet allowed herself to be dragged to the Penleric family pew.
From then, every Sunday was a delight and a torment to Eleanor. Sitting so close to Harriet--sometimes when the pew was more crowded their knees touched--listening to her voice, sharing a hymnal with her--it was heaven. For her part, Harriet seemed unmoved, both at WCTU meetings and at church each week. And yet Eleanor felt that the sweet and delicate thing that seemed to hang in their air between them could not be entirely her imagination. Was her voice slightly more gentle when she spoke to Eleanor? Did her fingers nearly brush Eleanor's as they held the hymnal together? Eleanor agonized for months, growing so wan and languid that even her parents noticed.
And then one week, they were singing the hymn "Abide With Me." Eleanor heard Harriet's thin but true soprano lifted beside her: "Abide with me, fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide; When other helpers fail and comforts flee..."
On a sudden intuition, Eleanor turned to look at Harriet and found the other woman looking directly at her. "Oh, abide with me," they ended the verse together in harmony.
Harriet dropped her eyes hastily, but Eleanor knew, and rejoiced.
---
"I can't take this," Harriet said, flustered. "This is yours."
"I want you to have it," Eleanor said, pressing the little leather-bound book into her hands as the members of the WCTU took their seats in a rustle of silk and linen. "Please. It's a token of our friendship."
Slowly, Harriet took the Bible from her. "I...thank you," she whispered.
Eleanor went to sit down in her usual place a few rows behind Harriet, but watched as she touched the cover of the Bible gently, saw her notice the bookmark and open to the marked pages. After a moment she closed the book again, but Eleanor could see the tremor in her hands.
Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.
She was breathing quickly, and Eleanor saw her reach up to touch her cheeks as though the room was hot, despite the fact that summer was over and the air was crisp with autumn.
How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!
When the chapter president called on Miss Tolliver to report, she started as though she had no idea she was supposed to speak. She stood and addressed the meeting briefly, looking straight ahead and not gazing around the room as she usually did, her voice shaking very slightly.
Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb: honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
"Harriet, we've been friends for months now and I've never had you to my house," Eleanor said after the meeting. "Won't you please come over for tea this Saturday?"
Harriet looked up from her bag, her expression almost imploring. "I don't want to impose on your parents," she said.
"Oh, my parents leave Friday for a trip to Kansas City. Banking business. I'll be terribly lonely, rattling around in that big old house all by myself."
"I don't want to impose on you," Harriet whispered.
"I told you," laughed Eleanor, "I'll be all alone and at loose ends. I would so like you to come, Harriet," she said. "It would be so pleasant to get to know each other better, don't you think?"
For a moment she thought Harriet would refuse, but then she said, her voice low, "I would like that very much, yes." She met Eleanor's eyes squarely. "Very much."
---
"What a lovely house," said Harriet, turning about in the foyer to take in the chandelier and walnut stairs.
"Oh, Daddy always believes in having the best," Eleanor said lightly.
"Forgive my presumption, but you certainly don't need to be working as a copy editor," Harriet said a little tartly as she followed Eleanor into the sitting room.
"My family believes that it's important for a young lady to not be idle," Eleanor said, sinking onto the couch. "Lily--that's my sister--and I were always encouraged to keep busy in the public sphere, at least until we were married."
Harriet settled onto the edge of a chair, her back straight. "And after you marry?"
Eleanor smiled. "I don't have any intention of marrying," she said.
"Oh," said Harriet, "I think when you're older you'll find someone you care about enough to marry."
Eleanor sat up straight, sudden anger tightening her voice. "Don't condescend to me," she breathed. "I know full well I will never be able to marry the one I love." The word fell heavy into the air between them, a great painful thing. "Yes, love," Eleanor went on, her voice rising. "I'm not a child. Do you think I don't know what it means to love a noble spirit, to wish to be together in all things and at all times? Do you think I'm too young to know my heart, too young to know what passion and desire are, to want to hold one's beloved close and--"
"--No," said Harriet. "No. I don't think that."
Something about the look in her face stopped the flow of Eleanor's words entirely and for a time they merely sat in silence, the low ticking of the grandfather clock the only sound in the room. Then Harriet took a breath as if collecting herself and gestured vaguely toward the bay window.
"What a lovely orchard you have," she said, with the air of closing a topic.
"Would you like to take a walk through it?"
"Why yes, of course." Harriet smiled brightly, looking relieved.
The branches of the little orchard's apple trees were heavy-laden with fruit, ruby-red apples bending nearly to the ground. "My mother makes so many apple pies this time of year that we can't eat them all," Eleanor laughed. "We give most to the needy." She plucked a particularly glossy apple and breathed on it, polishing it on her sleeve. Leaning against the trunk of the tree, she took a bite.
Then she held out the bitten apple to Harriet with an inviting smile.
Harriet stared at her, then started to laugh as if she couldn't help herself.
Eleanor found herself giggling too, the bitten apple trembling in her hand. "Too obvious?" she managed to say.
Still laughing, her eyes bright, Harriet came close, nearly close enough to touch. "Too everything," she whispered. "Oh, my very dear."
Eleanor held up the apple, and Harriet took a bite from it, her gaze locked on Eleanor.
"Eating out of your hand," she murmured. "I should go. I must go."
But she drew closer and rested her cheek against Eleanor's, her breath trembling in Eleanor's ear. And she did not draw back when Eleanor turned her head to bring their mouths together.
There were so many buttons, little pearl buttons that rose up to enclose her throat like lacy armor, and Eleanor wanted to kiss each one open. In between kisses her hands came to rest on Harriet's waist, and when she felt the harsh bone stays beneath her hands, she gasped. "Oh Harriet, why in the world are you wearing a corset? How barbaric!" She slipped her hands around under layers of linen to begin to unhook the long line of little hooks running down the back, bending to kiss the newly-bare throat. "You know these are unhealthy to the internal organs," she murmured, her hands busy.
She felt the gurgle of laughter beneath her lips. "Oh dear," sighed Harriet. "Vanity of vanities, I am caught out...I wanted my figure to look good for you."
Eleanor felt thrilled desire shudder through her. "Your figure is flawless without a corset on, my love." The last hook gave way and she felt Harriet exhale in relief as the corset fell to the grass. "And it will be more flawless without anything at all on." The bodice and chemise slid up underneath her hands to reveal skin reddened with long vertical lines where the stays had bitten in. "Oh Harriet, your poor beautiful body," she murmured. She bent to kiss the top of one of the cruel lines, her lips brushing the lower swell of Harriet's breasts, then kissed her way downward, detouring briefly to lick the belly button, just to hear that laugh again, to feel it move the glorious body that lay under her hands and lips. Lower still, until her lips brushed golden curls. "Harriet," she said. "I love you."
"Eleanor." Harriet's voice was rough and unsteady. Her hands tangled in Eleanor's hair, tense and trembling, and Eleanor thought for a moment she was going to push her away. Then she sighed, a sound of sudden surrender, and leaned back against the apple tree, her hands going lax. "Forgive me," she whispered, her eyes closed.
Eleanor wanted to tell her there was nothing to forgive, but she was far too busy making her long-fevered fantasies come true to say anything at all.
A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
---
There was a bit of bark in Harriet's disheveled hair; Eleanor plucked it out and kissed her temple. It was growing dark, and faint stars could be seen through the branches of the apple tree they lay beneath. "You'll stay the night?" she asked. Already she was imagining waking up next to her lover--her lover!--in the morning sun, kissing her awake and making her cry out in abandon once more.
Harriet was gazing up at the sky, her arms around Eleanor. "Your parents," she said. "They might come back--"
"--Don't be silly," Eleanor chided, kissing her nose. "They're in Kansas City, I told you."
"But if they came back early, if they found us together..."
Eleanor shook her head, smiling, but Harriet's face was grave in the gathering gloom. She sat up suddenly and took Eleanor's face in her hands with a terrible tenderness.
"I should never have come here," she murmured. "You're so young, so...innocent."
Eleanor arched an eyebrow. "Hardly," she said, licking her lips. Then she blinked as Harriet shook her face slightly, an almost violent motion, abruptly checked.
"I don't mean that," Harriet said. "I mean that...you don't understand. You don't understand." Her eyes were bleak, and for a moment she seemed to be looking through Eleanor entirely, seeing something far away. "But God help us, I love you."
Eleanor smiled and raised her head to kiss her once more, but stopped in horror as Harriet's eyes welled with sudden tears.
"I swear," Harriet said, her voice a fierce whisper, "That if any harm comes to you because of me, you shall never see me again."
"Don't say such things!" cried Eleanor, sitting up to seize Harriet's hands in her own. "We shall always be together from now on, and nothing will ever part us."
Harriet kissed her lightly on the brow. "I hope that it is so," she murmured.
"As long as we love each other, how can it be otherwise?" And Eleanor kissed her, alight with joy, and Harriet said no more about it.
---
"Let us close with prayers for two members of our congregation," the minister said from the pulpit, "Miss Penlaric and Miss Tolliver, who leave tomorrow to travel to the hills of Appalachia and bring learning to the needy people there."
Eleanor flushed with pleasure at the approving murmur of the congregation. Her things were nearly all packed; Monday morning they would leave Chicago and board the train headed east, to North Carolina and the little schoolhouse in the mountains waiting for them. As the first notes of the hymn she loved above all others rang out and the congregation stood in a rustle of paper and cloth, she shared a quick, happy glance with Harriet.
I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless; Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness...
It would be hard, of course. There would be distrust to overcome, and lack of resources, and all the challenges of such a project.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
But they would be together, and Eleanor knew that with Harriet at her side she could face anything, overcome anything.
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.