Since Jemima’s only escape plans were to wait it out and hope the flames burnt out of their own accord, or alternatively that someone heard their shouts for help through the wall before they went up in the blaze, she wasn’t completely convinced by his response.
But the physical contact, ridiculously, helped calm her slightly where his words didn’t; and Jemima almost wanted to lean forwards even more than she was and let herself be held and be comforted in that moment – which of course was horribly impractical, and one extracted moment of comfort by a stranger probably wasn’t worth dying for.
So Jemima resisted the urge to put her head on his shoulder, and after a moment of swaying there, drew back with a nod and latched onto his plan instead. The walls. Good, yes, fine. She could test the walls, if he knew a spell.
“Alright,” she murmured, forcing a determined expression onto her face at the flash of her own fear she caught in the mirror behind the sink; she paced down the wall, rapping her palms against it as if she knew anything about walls and whether they were internal or not, and wracking her brains to remember the wider layout of the Sanditon. In – determination or desperation, she wasn’t sure, she even hauled herself up onto the counter in a muddle of skirts, in case there was some way through nearer the ceiling, some weakness to blast through there.
“I’m Jemima, by the way,” she said resolutely, teetering up on the countertop and aware that this perhaps was her most useless addition to their endeavour yet – but in case they didn’t find a way out, at least they didn’t have to die complete strangers.
But the physical contact, ridiculously, helped calm her slightly where his words didn’t; and Jemima almost wanted to lean forwards even more than she was and let herself be held and be comforted in that moment – which of course was horribly impractical, and one extracted moment of comfort by a stranger probably wasn’t worth dying for.
So Jemima resisted the urge to put her head on his shoulder, and after a moment of swaying there, drew back with a nod and latched onto his plan instead. The walls. Good, yes, fine. She could test the walls, if he knew a spell.
“Alright,” she murmured, forcing a determined expression onto her face at the flash of her own fear she caught in the mirror behind the sink; she paced down the wall, rapping her palms against it as if she knew anything about walls and whether they were internal or not, and wracking her brains to remember the wider layout of the Sanditon. In – determination or desperation, she wasn’t sure, she even hauled herself up onto the counter in a muddle of skirts, in case there was some way through nearer the ceiling, some weakness to blast through there.
“I’m Jemima, by the way,” she said resolutely, teetering up on the countertop and aware that this perhaps was her most useless addition to their endeavour yet – but in case they didn’t find a way out, at least they didn’t have to die complete strangers.
