Page 8 of The Spinster & the Sock

“Best get this over with. Any luck and he’ll take me out too, so I don’t have to endure ten years of tongue lashings,” Jo groans, moving behind my back and pushing me towards the hall.

“Will you hate me if I win?” I ask over my shoulder. “I’m a pacifist, normally, but I’m not just gonna stand there and take a beating.”

“Sir—”

“Blaze,” I interrupt.

“Hells above.” She rolls her eyes. “You do know that he intends to kill you, yes?”

I roll my eyes right back at her. “Answer the question, Jo.”

“Fine. I don’t exactly like you very much to begin with, so if you miraculously manage to best my father in this duel, no. No, I won’t hate you. I shall dislike you every bit as much as I do already. You and your stupid wet sock, ruining an already perfectly rotten day. Now how am I supposed to ensure Jonathan Thomas finishes the deliveries in time?”

“Hey, it’s me and that sock against the world,” I laugh as we both step through the back door and into the garden. “Those are my lucky socks. I bet if I had that puppy with me right now, we wouldn’t be in this pickle—Gerty didn’t walk in until after I took it off! Wait, did you just say Jonathan Thomas? Like, first name, last name?” I raise my eyebrows and tilt my head in her direction.

Her answering guffaw attracts the attention of her family. “Please worry about the present and not my poor delivery boy,” she quips.

“As her father, I am within my rights to reclaim my daughter’s honor,” Daddy Dashwood proclaims, speaking more to his family than me as he draws a flintlock pistol.

“Father!” Jo exclaims behind me.

“Enough! This is fair,” the man literally spits.

“Now I wasn’t a four-point-oh student, and I mostly slept through history and civics—not to mention I know fuck-all about UK laws—but I’m pretty sure this is, at least, a little illegal,” I mutter.

“Will you, for once, shut up?” Jo seethes. She’s done that a lot today, and I’m not sure if she’s an impatient person by nature or if it’s just me. I kind of like it, honestly.

I let my head fall back for a second, eyes closed as I breathe in the dirty city air. Of course it’s not smog, but the streets are flooded with shit and piss from horses and chamber pots. I miss the crisp air of the farm. Hell, even the cold ass wind on the boat would be better than this.

Jo is arguing with her father and Gerty—who actually seems to be on Jo’s side. Maybe the old bat was really hoping for a wedding. I roll my neck and unbutton my jacket, carefully folding it over the fence before rolling up my sleeves. I’m not about to ruin Jo’s inventory by blowing the stitches out of the nice coat or staining it by dumping it in the dirt.

“Can we get this over with?” I shout. All heads swivel toward me.

“So be it,” Jo’s father says, and advances on me, gun raised.

I rotate my shoulders and shake each arm out with my fists clenched. “I’m well-bred and corn-fed, so let’s fuck around and find out.” While I really don’t like to fight, it doesn’t mean I won’t, and I had my fair share of skirmishes back in the day.

One more step and the gap closes, the muzzleloader in line with my chest. Thank God for high school football and its four years of pass rush drills. I deflect his arm, slip to his side, and send a quick left hook to his ribs. His weapon flies from his hand as he recoils from the blow, but there’s no pulling this uppercut now, and my fist makes unblocked contact with his jaw. Mr. Dashwood crashes to the ground with a thud, and then all hell breaks loose.

Crabs

Josephine

I screech, and for some unforgivable reason I’ll never comprehend, I also laugh like a hyena. I can thank my uncontrolled impulses for getting myself into horrible situations such as this to begin with. On any ordinary day, it is easy to conceal how I am a strange fit to society, but extreme circumstances such as these? I am simply not built to withstand the stress on my nerves and…laughing breaks the tension.

Once, at my grandfather’s funeral, where my father was sharing a fond memory of the sweet old man’s final days, and something about the way he wished my grandfather a ‘smooth passage free of strain’ immediately brought to mind an image of the frail man as a constipated spirit, desperately searching for an afterlife loo.

I laughed. At a funeral, while my father said goodbye to his father. There was an unbecoming little snort that accompanied said laughter, and the number of heads turned my way marked the beginning of my descent into shame. Unfortunately for me, I have come to terms with my need to laugh at the most inconvenient times. I just can’t help it.

Apparently, this is no exception, and really, it’s at my own expense, so perhaps that makes it less tasteless than the graveside cackling.

Thankfully, Mother, Grandmother, Georgia, and the rest of my siblings are too transfixed in horror to notice my inappropriately placed giggle, so I am briefly left alone with my own self-loathing. That is, before the monstrosity with red hair yanks my father up by his fine shirt and…growls, followed by a snarl and a beastly shake of his head. This is not a dominant form of male communication. It is an actual growl, like he is a dog or bear. If he survives this, I remind myself to ask him about it. I am not sure I can live with animalistic growling for the rest of my life. Nevermind that!

“Father, duck!” I cry before clamping my hands over my mouth in continued horror.

Blaze heaves to punch father in the nose, but in all his elegance, trips over an exposed root, tackling father’s knees instead. Both men land in a pile on the ground, but my father is quicker to recover. He stands, evoking a round of applause from my family, followed by a chorus of ‘ooohs’ as he buries the toe of his boot between Blaze’s legs. From the ground, Blaze squeaks like a mouse who has been stepped on.

“Watch out, Blaze!” I warn, hopping in place as I fear the whimpering man is about to experience round two. I think the last time I heard a cry like that, my little brother was whining about eating his…wait. Who am I cheering for? I should figure that out before throwing alerts into the wind like prizes for the both of them.