Work Text:
Rain rattled on the roof of the little house, driving down in sheets across the rolling green fields, running in rivulets that collected in the corners of the window-panes. Penelope watched from the window seat, frowning. The particular subject of her attention was the garden just below her perch, where one lone stalk of foxglove rose above the others, luminescent pink against the overwhelming green. It was being torn apart, piece by piece, as each little flower succumbed to the relentless pressure of the rain. It was painful to watch, almost.
A tear rolled down Penelope's cheek.
How dramatic, she thought, and hesitated before deciding not to wipe it away and indicate to the other girls that she was crying. They were sitting on their beds, whispering: "Did she truly say women should be able to vote and run for parliament?"
"She said we ought to be endowed with the rights of man. I didn't get far enough for the specifics."
"That must be why the old hag took it. She doesn't want us reading about 'rights' of any kind, she’s afraid of mutiny!”
There was a fit of anxious giggles. Up until that moment Penelope had been almost unconscious of the wave of emotion welling within her, and now that she was forced to contend with it, she found herself feeling aimlessly depressed. The other girls were giggling again, she could see Sally, in the window’s reflection, standing with one foot propped up on a chair.
"I suggest that we behead all powerful men!" She stage-whispered, "And keep the weak ones in harems, lying on cushions and eating grapes all day, so that they do not cause any more trouble!"
Now there were girls deriding the author of the treatise, laughing hysterically.
Penelope smirked, but only for a moment.
Their topic of discussion was Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women, a book that Penelope was originally responsible for bringing into the school. Sally, who was fascinated by books about women’s place in society, had been reading it at the breakfast table that morning when Mrs. Troughton, the headmistress, took it from her. Penelope sighed mournfully. It was her fault, really, for not warning Sally. She'd known it would happen. That was why she'd hid the book under her mattress for the month and a half since she'd bought it. She sniffed, as quietly and slowly as possible, and tried to wipe her face discreetly.
"I think I saw her holding it earlier. She went into her study with it," said one of the girls from further away, Anna, who had not been at the scene of the crime.
"Oh!" Said Sally, "Do you think she's going to read it?"
"Maybe it'll teach her something." Another girl said, snickering.
“I wish I could have finished it. I promise I wouldn’t have agreed with it all, but it can’t be that dangerous, if it’s still circulating.”
Penelope bit her lip, an awful little plan forming in her mind. One of Mrs. Troughton's favorite rituals was to nap in the afternoon, and she often fell asleep in the study.
"I could go and retrieve it," she said quietly.
Sally looked up at her. "You don't have to."
Penelope carefully pried off her shoes and set them on the bench, steeling herself to keep from bursting into tears again. It was her fault, and she ought to take responsibility for it.
"I should go now," she said emphatically. While Mrs. Troughton was asleep, before supper. If she waited until nighttime, she would have to climb down the trellis outside and sneak back into the house–the door to the dormitory got locked at night–which would be an immense hassle.
"All right then," said Sally, shrugging, “If it means that much to you.”
I thought it meant something to you, Penelope thought, but she said nothing, she was already committed.
She left the room quietly, careful to walk on the outside of the stairs, pressing her feet to the spot where they met the wall so that she didn't make the floorboards creak. The dormitory was on the top floor, the study on the second, and at the base of that thin attic staircase a long hallway stretched, four doors on either side and a window at the end which bathed it in dull grey light. The first doorway was the room the cook and groundskeeper shared, and the guest room across from it. Then there was the room Mrs. Troughton had shared with her late husband, and across from it the study.
The door to the study was closed, and when Penelope pressed her ear to it, she could hear the old woman snoring.
She turned the knob slowly, and opened it to see Mrs. Troughton, who was tipped back in her rocking chair with a book on her lap. Her face was serene, her hard mouth hung open and her hands curled gently in her lap. Penelope wondered if that was the face her husband saw every morning when he woke, and whether he loved her. His chair, a red velvet wingback, sat across from hers, on the other side of the door. Maybe he did.
Penelope tip-toed over the carpeted floor and leaned over the woman. She stirred a little, and Penelope froze, her eyes squeezed shut.
A moment passed. The rain pattered on. Mrs. Troughton let out a ferocious snore. Penelope opened her eyes and looked at the book in the old woman’s hands: it was what she'd been looking for.
She would have to steal it out from under the woman’s nose. Perhaps she could replace it with another book. She snuck over to the shelf beside the wingback chair, and was just about to pull one out when a sudden guest of wind pulled the open door back into its frame with a bang!
Without thinking, Penelope dove behind the wingback chair. She came down hard on her left arm with a very audible thump, laying behind the chair at a precarious angle, her legs splayed half-bent against the wall, and her petticoats bunching up around her waist. The rails of the rocking chair clacked, and Penelope craned her neck to see under the chair.
Mrs. Troughton's shoes crossed her line of vision. Then, the door opened and clicked shut again.
Has she left?
More footsteps, and the chair clacking again, and the rustling of skirts as Mrs. Troughton straightened them. Inch by inch, staring at the slippered feet, Penelope slowly bent her legs, pulling them close enough to her chest that they wouldn't be visible if the old woman were to stand beside the wall and look at the chair. If she happened to look in that direction the next time she stood in the doorway, she would see Penelope's legs, and then it would be over.
Her heart hammered in her chest, and she felt warm under her arms and peculiarly cold everywhere else. This was a mission of utmost peril, and she had failed tremendously. She should have realized that the air pressure would cause the door to slam, and used one of her shoes to prop it open, but she'd left her shoes in the dorm, which would further incriminate her upon her inevitable discovery. Nobody would go around in just stockings in this weather, it was too cold!
Penelope squeezed her eyes shut, mouthing a string of the foulest curses she could imagine, which were not very foul.
By now she had maneuvered herself so that she was curled up in a ball, hugging her knees to her chest and facing the direction of the door. She waited for what felt like an eternity, measuring time in the rasp of turning pages. Would Mrs. Troughton fall asleep again? Unlikely. She measured her options. She could reveal herself and be swatted on the ass and subject to humiliation, or she could wait until supper and be late to the meal, which was but a minor offense.
Unless you were Penelope, who was always late. She was due to lose a meal at the very least for tardiness.
"Nonsense! Ungodly nonsense!" Mrs. Troughton muttered, slamming the book shut. She clicked across the floor again, and left the room, slamming the door behind her as well.
Penelope sighed, and then sneezed.
She unfolded her sore joints—even for a young girl of sixteen, she was not very flexible—and crawled over the chair. Looking around, on top of the desk, under the rocking chair, on the shelves, she realized Mrs. Troughton must have taken the book with her, wherever she was heading.
Penelope paused in the doorway. There was nothing stopping her from returning to the dorm and admitting failure. She might even receive a pat on the back—sympathy—attention.
But it was her book, and she wanted it back, and this had become an ideological matter, she decided. It was her responsibility to resist Mrs. Troughton’s reign of terror, and it was possible even as she stalled in the doorway that the old woman was about to toss the book in the bin.
She slipped out of the office and hurried downstairs, where she nearly ran face-first into Mrs. Troughton’s chest.
"Penelope," said Mrs. Troughton, holding the girl at an arm's length.
She looked down.
"Why aren't you wearing slippers?"
"I don't own any," Penelope blurted. It was true, at the very least.
Mrs. Troughton frowned, looking her over.
“Is something the matter, dear? You look like you’ve been crying."
"I... that book you have," said Penelope, taking a deep breath. She was prepared to take full accountability for it, when she was struck by the very beginnings of an idea. Another one of her little schemes.
"This book?" Mrs. Troughton held it up with her other hand, "What about it?"
Penelope swallowed.
"It's an awful, nasty book," she said. Mrs. Troughton nodded sagely.
"Indeed it is."
"It's full of all sorts of poor ideas... it's not exactly good for women to do what men do, and it's foolish to claim women are oppressed when we actually have it easier, it's ungrateful is what it is!" Penelope had never said anything more vile and untrue in her life.
"Yes," said Mrs. Troughton.
"I should burn it." Said Penelope, trying to summon the appropriate amount of vitriol.
"Burn it? Maybe you should."
"Make an example." Said Penelope.
"You clearly feel very strongly about this."
"I do."
Now was the moment; it would take more tact than Penelope had in her to finesse the book out of Mrs. Troughton's hands. Mrs. Troughton made a face, pursing her lips and looking out into the distance.
"If you feel that strongly." She handed the book to Penelope, just like that, and she stared at it for a moment before offering Mrs. Troughton a solemn nod.
"Thank you, ma'am."
“It’s good to see you taking a stance on something, Penny.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Mrs. Troughton paused for a moment. She put a hand, carefully, on Penelope’s shoulder, and looked her in the eye.
“I’ve really seen improvement in you lately. You’re going to be a fine wife, a…” she hesitated for a moment, probably summoning a Bible verse, “Jewel in the crown of your husband.”
Penelope smiled weakly.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
It was praise that would have made her glow, two years ago, two months ago, even, but now it made her feel almost ill.
She made her way back upstairs awkwardly, stilted, wondering how this could possibly have happened.
When she returned to the dormitory, she stood in the doorway and meekly held up the book.
"Oh, bless you!" Sally said, reaching out to take it from her.
Penelope pulled it back and shook her head.
"Wait."
She sat on her bed, which was by the door, and began ripping each page out, working quickly but trying to preserve the integrity of the text. Sally began to collect them.
"What are you doing?"
"I promised her I'd burn it." Penelope explained.
Now she was tearing entire signatures out, setting them carefully aside. In a matter of minutes she had deconstructed the whole book.
"Maybe feed a couple of those pages to the fire," she suggested, "Or extra pages from another book that you can afford to use."
"Yes. Yes, I'll do that." Said Sally, almost horrified.
It was an ugly thing, the gutted book, and it made Penelope feel an irrepressible disgust. She ran her finger over the tender stubs protruding from its spine and wished she had been competent enough to steal it without waking Mrs. Troughton. Or that she had simply waited to purchase another copy.
But this was about more than that, wasn't it? Penelope flushed as the other girls thanked her, drew her into their little huddle around Sally as she found a needle and thread with which to re-bind the pages. For that fleeting moment they had brought her into their flock. It wouldn't hurt if she stood a little closer to them, as though warming herself by the fire. It wouldn't hurt if she made a comment here and there–laughed at their jokes—and came to sit, on the bed, at the very end, perching there unobtrusively...