Cedric:
The gaslight above hissed and sputtered, its flame guttering once, twice, before righting itself. I lifted my gaze to it—strange, how fickle the glow in such foul weather—and when I turned my eyes back to the lady before me…
She was gone.
Vanished.
My breath caught. There had been no time for her to flee, no passage nor shadowed arcade into which she might have slipped between here and the inn. The courtyard lay deserted, the benches empty, the storm my sole companion.
Surely I had not simply conjured her? That bedraggled creature, hair plastered to her face, eyes wide with exhaustion and grief—she had stood here, I swear it. I had seen her shiver. I had heard her voice, so soft, so uncertain. Peculiar, indeed, for a lady to be dressed in such manner, attired in trousers and blouse as though modesty itself were a trifle. Yet peculiarity did not diminish her… it made her singular.
And her eyes. Dark, searching, unflinching, though rimmed with the weariness of one long assailed by misfortune. I had not felt the like before. Not once, in all my years of study and cloistered fellowship. Indeed, my vows of celibacy had long kept me from any such distractions, and I had thought myself immune to them. But this… this stranger… she stirred in me something perilous. A longing I scarce dare name.
Who was she? Why should her absence strike me with such violence, as though I had been robbed of air itself?
I pressed my gloved hand to the lightpost before me, steadying the quake within my chest. If she were but a fancy, born of storm and solitude, why then did I still feel the weight of her lingering near?
The rain was dimming as I waited for the coach that would bear me south to London. It was but a brief sojourn I had planned—some days among colleagues, the dust of the Museum’s shelves, perhaps an evening or two in learned company—before duty recalled me to Cambridge. The term would begin soon enough, and I wished all to be in readiness when I returned to my rooms and my students.
Yet this interlude—meant to restore me before hearth and study—was most unceremoniously unsettled, intercepted by the remembrance of that singular woman who dared claim herself bound for Cambridge.
Cambridge! The very absurdity of it set my reason aflame. No woman has ever passed those gates with intent to study. Not one. And yet she declared it with such composure, such conviction, that I could not but believe she held the matter in earnest.
I found myself pacing beneath the awning, turning the matter over and over. Could it be mere fancy, some jest or delusion? Or is she mad, as her appearance—so unseemly in dress—did suggest? Her attire gave me no small pause. Trousers, indeed, and a blouse of curious cut, clinging indecently as the rain soaked through its fabric. A strange black contrivance bound her bosom beneath, plain to my eye, though modesty was ill-served by such a garment. Had I not thought to lay my coat upon her shoulders, she should have stood there near-bare in her immodesty, and no gentleman could have borne to see her thus. Was it then disguise? I have heard tell of women who don men’s raiment, who bind their form and trespass into places forbidden them. If that were her purpose, she performed it poorly, for her femininity was plain despite all contrivance. The thought is at once laughable and… compelling. What manner of lady was she, that she should cross my path in so unaccountable a fashion, vanish like mist upon the air, and yet leave behind a longing so fierce I scarce know how to name it?
My reflections were cut short by the sharp crack of a whip and the slow clop of hooves in the distance, tugging me back into the present as though from some fevered dream. I shook myself, willing this absurdity from my mind. A woman, in trousers, professing to study at Cambridge—nonsense, all of it.
And yet… my gaze fell once more to the courtyard about me, and I felt a fresh unease. My coat was gone. Entirely vanished. No trace of it lay upon the wet fences, nor upon the benches, nor anywhere my eye might fall. I knew well I had worn one, buttoned and fitted when I departed my lodgings. It had been draped across her shoulders—yes, I could recall the very sight of her clutching it as though it were her salvation.
But now? Nothing.
No coat. No peculiar woman. Only myself, damp and shivering, condemned to commission another once I reached London.
And still I could not decide what unsettled me more—that the garment was lost, or that in losing it, I felt as though I had surrendered some piece of myself I should never see again.
Absurdity! One would think me foolish—mad, even. Yet what else might I conclude? Had I, in truth, beheld a ghostly being? Some spectre sent by the storm to torment my weary mind?
Or was it something more profane—that my own heart, so long restrained by duty and cloistered vows, should rebel at last, yearning toward the very thing it is forbidden to seek?
No. Impossible.
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