We That Are Left ("Weather" entry)

[templeremus.livejournal.com]

Title: We That Are Left
Rating: PG for some dark subject matter, era-typical attitudes to race and class.
Genre: Angst/Missing Scene
Author: templeremus
Characters: Martha Jones, Jenny, John Smith
Word Count: 495
Summary: It's the autumn of 1913, and Martha waits for a battle she knows must come. Set prior to the events of Human Nature/The Family of Blood.

Before the first week is over, Martha has trained herself to wake ahead of the bell.

Jenny, grumbling in the bed opposite, will oversleep and need shaking just before six - which means that this window of time belongs to her alone. She gets dressed in the dark, smooths her apron with both hands and uses her fingers for a hairbrush. At this hour you could easily break an ankle misjudging the crooked steps down through the servants' passage, so she feels her way to the kitchen via the main staircase. Occasionally one of the boys will pass her, returning from the washroom. Out of their own uniforms they look startlingly vulnerable, even the ones who are taller than she is. They blink at her in confusion, as if she's a piece of furniture that's been moved from its place, and say nothing.

If possible, she tries to visit John's study last. He sleeps haphazardly, and his routine varies according to the dreams of the previous night. Sometimes she finds him in bed, gazing at the ceiling with the uncertain air of a man who's just landed after a fall and is wondering how badly he's been hurt. On other mornings he's up and padding about, slippers discarded in a forgotten corner of the room. Barefoot on the Moon, her brain supplies, and she has to bite the inside of her cheek to stop something - laughter, or anger - from escaping.

Very soon she's calm again, and they can chat about some aspect of school life while she pours the tea. The senior masters think him too free with her, she knows that much. A man in his position shouldn't be gossiping with a servant, even if the matter under discussion is no more contentious than which division won yesterday's rugby match. Let them huff all they like. It will give staff and boys plenty to dwell on once the two of them are gone - the coloured girl and the history master, arriving together and eloping in a matter of months.

Until then, there is the autumn to get through. The boys count down the weeks between themselves, growing restless as the weather starts to turn. Two sixth-formers are caught smuggling firecrackers into their dormitories. Somebody liberates a rat's skeleton from the science master's office and leaves it outside the kitchen doors for a prank. Cook kicks at it before realising her mistake, and Martha spends half an hour gathering up the fragments.

On November 5 it rains doggedly all morning. The pyre on the village green takes four attempts before it catches. Jenny stamps her feet with cold and impatience, her breath hot on Martha's cheek. The boys are rapt, stiff to attention like soldiers. One of the youngest is chanting to himself, quiet enough that nobody save his immediate neighbours can hear him: remember, remember the fifth of November-

Afterwards, walking back by firelight, Martha tells Jenny that her eyes are only weeping from the smoke.