Storm and Silence(218)

‘Yes.’ Sighing, I let myself fall back into bed. ‘We can celebrate.’

‘Topping!’ Two hands took mine in an iron grip and more or less wrenched me out of bed. Three seconds later I was dancing around the room in my nightgown, a trilling Eve as an over-energetic dance partner.

‘We showed them! We showed them! We showed them! Well, technically it was you, but who cares! We showed them! We showed those chauvinist sons of bitch… sons of bachelors! Huzzah! Huzzah!’

All I saw of the room were a few whirly impressions as Eve spun me around like a top. Occasionally, I would catch a glimpse of Flora’s anxious, but happy, face, and Patsy’s smile from where she stood in the background, leaning against the window, watching my impromptu dancing lesson. All this twirling around wasn’t doing much good for my woozy head, though. I saw lights beginning to flicker at the edges of my vision.

‘Eve? Eve, stop!’

‘We showed them! We showed them! We showed them!’

‘Eve? Hello, Eve!’

‘We showed them! We showed them! We showed them!’

‘Eve! I said stop!’

With all the force I could muster, I dug my heels into the ground. Unfortunately, the force I could muster after a night out on a bender wasn’t all that great. Eve rammed into me and we landed on the floor in a confused heap of cotton gowns, shawls, hats and shouts of ‘We showed them!’ You had to give Eve credit for being determined.

Spitting out the end of a silk shawl with purple peonies printed on it, I sat up.

‘What the dickens did you do that for?’ I challenged Eve. Sitting on her derrière, her crinoline flattened underneath her, she grinned up at me broadly.

‘We showed them! We showed them! We showed them!’

Apparently, she wasn’t quite ready for sensible conversation yet.

Scrambling to my feet, I turned to the other two. Flora gave me a shy smile, and Patsy… Patsy just stood there, leaning against the wall beside the window, in the background, where she was normally least likely to be found. The smile on her face was small, but unmistakably there.

Our eyes met.

She came forward. I came forward. The rest of the room didn’t exist anymore. We met in the middle, and she caught me up in hug so fierce it could have squashed an elephant into mincemeat.

‘Lilly!’ She said.

‘Pfft!’ I said.

‘I never should have doubted you.’

‘Plss let ggg!’

‘Oh. Sorry.’ Relaxing her grip, she stepped back, but I held on to her arms.

‘Don’t be,’ I gasped. ‘I needed that.’

‘Oh Lilly, Lilly.’ If I hadn’t known better, I would have said there were tears twinkling in the corners of Patsy’s eyes. But I did know better. She was much too tough to cry, right? ‘Lilly! You mad, ingenious, wonderful girl! Why didn’t you tell us what you were planning to do?’

Planned? Planned what? Why were they all so pleased with me? And then it struck me. She was convinced I had deliberately called off my participation in the demonstration, to go up on that stage and hold that speech for women’s suffrage.

Actually, I hadn’t planned a single little thing in the last week the way it had turned out, but I couldn’t tell her that. I could see in her fiery eyes that she had gotten it into her head that all had been part of my master plan. And to be honest, it would have been an ingenious plan - definitely worthy of me!

‘It was risky,’ I said, with an apologetic shrug. ‘I… well, if I’d told you, you all would have felt obliged to take part, and there was a much greater chance of success if only one of us tried to get up there on the podium. In any case, as soon as one of us started her speech, all would be discovered and the others forced to leave along with her. So, a solo operation just made more sense.’

‘Eve’s right.’ Patsy hugged me again, softer this time, but with undeniable warmth. ‘You are a genius.’

I looked up into her broad face with wide, searching eyes. ‘So, I’m forgiven?’ I asked, and wasn’t able to keep the quiver totally out of my voice. This very question had been torturing my mind ever since my quarrel with my biggest, bestest friend. Not to have Patsy watching my back would be like not having a hat on my head - a cold and unprotected life.

‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ she told me. ‘You’re my best friend, and always will be. Nothing will ever change that.’

‘Hey! And what about me?’ Eve protested from floor level.

‘You,’ Patsy told her, ‘are my most annoying friend, and will always be. Nothing will ever change that, not even an excellent governess hired to educate and restrain you.’