Posted in Posted by J. M. Barrie

    'ello guvnas! *tips hat* Okay, I'm just really pleased with my story right now. I am just so happy I've got a real plot line that's actually really interesting and good. And I have a good bit of foreshadowing (though I'm not saying where... muahaha) and other good stuff. I'm really happy. 'ere it is.

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     Upstairs, while Judith sits upon her bed, while she sighs blissfully for her husband to be, while her heart is all aflutter with her girlish dreams of happily ever after, while her eyes are fixed upon the hills, where her Hawthorne roams, Richard stirs in his own bedroom, pacing the floor. His mind cannot possibly be at ease while he knows his own dear sister has made such a sudden decision about something so permanent, so important! “It is very much like her,” he says to himself, “to do such a thing. To fly off, find a man who she finds handsome and want to marry him. And of course Grandfather will consent; he will consent to any of her wishes. Poor Judith. I should speak to her. But how to begin? No, no, no. “Judith, there is something I should like to speak to you about. I am not pleased with—” oh no, that won’t do. “Judith, when we were at dinner, you said something that—”of course not. What a horrible thing! Come on, Judith, you know better. I know you do. O God, please help her.”  Inside him something is stirring, something stirring that tells him he has not much time. “Fickle isn’t the right word to describe her. She always does change her mind, but for the moment she has made a choice, she is so strongly convinced that way is right. If only she weren’t so stubborn, that could help things, but she is. It’s my fault that this happened. I could have prevented it if only I had talked to her sooner. Of course I am to blame. Poor Judith will get married to this man we’ve never even heard of, and she has never even talked to, and I will be to blame. If I could find what to say to her, and if she would listen. It’s all my fault. I have to talk to her. I have to.”

    He strides out his room and further down to Judith’s. Shaking, Richard knocks on her door, biting his lip. After a few moments, no answer comes from inside, so he knocks again, this time receiving a response. Judith, smiling, dances to the door and flings it open, a wild glint in her grey eye. “Oh, Rick, what is it? Come in. What?” He slides in, and standing quite awkwardly, with his hands clasped behind his back, says with a shaky voice, “Judith—there is something I must tell you concerning—”

    “Richard, do sit down.”

    “Um, thank you. Now, what I was going to say is—”

    “Oh, it is stuffy in here. Let me just open the window.”

    “Judith, please.”

    “Oh, tonight is very humid. I’ll leave the window closed then. Too bad.”

    “Please listen to what I have to say.”

    “Of course, Rick.”

    He bids her sit down, too. Nodding her head, she spreads out her full blue skirts upon a chair and looks at Richard, eyebrows raised.

    “Judith, at the dinner table, you mentioned a man named Hawthorne, did you not? Yes? Well then, um—I did not like what—oh!”

    “Oh, what’s wrong? You seem ill.”

    “I’m all right. It’s just that I wanted to say— I hope you two will be very happy together,” he says quietly.

    Upon her asking him, quite confusedly, if that is all he has to say, he whispers yes; they tell each other good night, and Richard retires to his room, angry with himself for not having the courage to say what is right.

    jm