She had sat on her bed for hours now, arms curled around her legs and chin propped on her knees, just staring at the letter’s contents. She couldn’t show it to anyone else, of course, but she felt sure she wasn’t reading it right. But there were five sentences, and she had as good as memorised them all. It was the last one she kept getting stuck on, mostly; that was the one that wouldn’t sink in. It would have been you. If he had begun looking for a match, someone to marry, it might – would, he said – have been her.
She didn’t even much care that he was wealthier, or a quidditch player, or from a family of muggle nobility – it was only that he was somebody (somebody who had once asked a girl to dance whom she’d mistakenly hoped was her), somebody she had honestly truly liked and hoped for and wanted desperately to want her in the same way and here he was admitting that it might actually have been possible one day, only it had – come too late.
She thought she could have gone through it all (the marriage to a man who was being all but coerced into it; the social reprobation; her own family’s misery) bravely enough, if not for this. And she had cried countless times already in the last few days, had thought she had as good as flung her heart out already, but the sobs that came from her now broke another dam inside her entirely.
She couldn’t do that to him, even if he really did mean it in more than kindness. She was ruining enough people’s lives already without dragging his name into the mud with her too – he would never be free of that stain again if he eloped with her, if she let rumours rise about her and yet another man. He was blameless, and his family would always hate her; and her parents would not forgive her either for that new disobedience, after all they had done to secure some semblance of a reputable future for her. It might be the last straw for them. And she cared for Jack too much to make him, of everyone in the world, pay for her mistakes.
She didn’t even much care that he was wealthier, or a quidditch player, or from a family of muggle nobility – it was only that he was somebody (somebody who had once asked a girl to dance whom she’d mistakenly hoped was her), somebody she had honestly truly liked and hoped for and wanted desperately to want her in the same way and here he was admitting that it might actually have been possible one day, only it had – come too late.
She thought she could have gone through it all (the marriage to a man who was being all but coerced into it; the social reprobation; her own family’s misery) bravely enough, if not for this. And she had cried countless times already in the last few days, had thought she had as good as flung her heart out already, but the sobs that came from her now broke another dam inside her entirely.
She couldn’t do that to him, even if he really did mean it in more than kindness. She was ruining enough people’s lives already without dragging his name into the mud with her too – he would never be free of that stain again if he eloped with her, if she let rumours rise about her and yet another man. He was blameless, and his family would always hate her; and her parents would not forgive her either for that new disobedience, after all they had done to secure some semblance of a reputable future for her. It might be the last straw for them. And she cared for Jack too much to make him, of everyone in the world, pay for her mistakes.
18th February, 1894
Jack,
I can’t.
Jemima
The following 5 users Like Jemima Greengrass's post:
Alice Dawson, Fortitude Greengrass, Jack Humphrey-Mavis, Noble Greengrass, Philomena Sprout
Alice Dawson, Fortitude Greengrass, Jack Humphrey-Mavis, Noble Greengrass, Philomena Sprout
