Copyright 1999-2001 Sean and Rob MorrisSarah's Modesty
by Sean and Rob MorrisChapter Seven - Dignity Is Reclaimed
As poor Sarah felt every ounce of her exposed young flesh crawl, her mother's chastisement began, without reason, let, or mercy. Spinning round her like a buzzard over choice carrion, Mrs. Tara held Sarah's barely-recovered clothes in her hands. That she was livid was easy to see. Mrs. Tara had her still-unclad daughter standing all at attention, her Grail-like garments just out of reach. On occasion, Sarah would attempt to grab them back. The response was always the same, and it was not one she enjoyed one wit.
"So now the wanton suddenly wishes she were dressed like a proper young lady. Well, you've seen fit to grant the world a good long look at your business. I should think that you'll just stand there a good deal longer, and like it."
Biting her pretty full lips, Sarah tried to achieve calm, for her sake, and for her mother's, as well. But this was a doomed effort.
"Mother, if you will only hear me, all may be made clear."
"Clear? Why, I think that its your clothes that are so very clear, I can no longer see them at all! As for hearing your words, why should I so bother, when its known that seeing is believing?"
As Sarah's heart again increased its motions, her suspicions from the lakeside began anew. So she chose her next words well, and carefully.
"Mother, this is all Clarice's doing. Yes, I swam as I was born. But she stole my every last garment while I did so, and laughed well and hearty at my expense."
As Sarah surely knew would follow, the denials were not long in coming.
"No, Mrs. Tara. Sarah had very strong drink, then giggled like a mad witch, and doffed her every stitch like they were bars in a prison. She said she was free from what she called your horrid, horrid despotism."
So said Henrietta.
"No, Mrs. Tara. Our Sarah's a wild woman, when your back is turned away. She even boasted that she would go out looking for boys to show her unshelved wares off to."
So said Janice.
"We pleaded and pleaded with her to recover herself, Mrs. Tara! Yet she heard none of our words, proclaiming to the heavens above that a form and a figure such as hers should be a naked blessing upon the whole wide world."
And thus spoke Clarice, from whom Sarah expected nothing at all, in any event.
"Mother, that is all Clarice's jabber, an art with which you have said you were well familiar with and quite contemptuous of."
Mrs. Tara shook her head and took Clarice's hand.
"Oh, my---No. Why, Clarice is more a daughter to me than you ever were. So truthful and honest and chaste. Why, I have often said that she is the best friend a sorry one such as you could ever have found."
Clarice was now in her prideful glory, as well she might be.
"So, Sarah, it would seem that you have nothing at all. Not clothes, nor friends, nor family either. You are nothing!"
To the shock of all, Sarah grinned.
"And all of you are less than nothing, for I fear my panicked imagination has taken hold of me, yet again. This inquisition never happened at all, but in my mind."
Her mother's voice grew louder, now.
"Sarah! SaraH!!!! SAARAAHH!!!"
The shrew disappeared, and in her place came Sarah's true mother, who spoke gently to her dear one, as Sarah knew she always would.
"Sarah, I think it would be both meet and fit if you put your clothes back on, now. This part of today's untowardness is done with, in any event. Plus, my sweet one, I think you must be cold. It pains me to see you so unsettled, and near to frantic."
But whether in daydreams, nightmares, or true life adventures, one constant was Clarice's ceaseless mouth, and that moment was no different.
"Mrs. Tara, doubtless you will hear many untruths, in the hours to follow. I ask that you remember the source of these tales, so that justice may better be rendered."
To Sarah's shock, her mother did as in fever dreams, and took Clarice's hand. But this was not a dream for vapid Clarice.
"My dear girl. You are almost grown, so at last I may tell you certain things, as propriety kept me silent on, when you were younger."
The artful had become the artless, as Clarice's smile showed.
"Yes, Mrs. Tara?"
Mrs. Tara would come to treasure this rare moment of pure, radiant justice, delivered well without undue comfort.
"I have, many times since the unfortunate day my Sarah poorly chose you as a friend, thanked Heaven many a time that you were not my own daughter. Even though your mother is my dear friend, I still sometimes give such thanks. As I give them today."
Sarah, who was now almost fully redressed, joyed to hear this. Janice and Henrietta were given to chortle, which quickly drew a glare from the woman still holding dumbstruck Clarice's hand.
"Rather than throw fits of giggles, girls, why don't the two of you speak to my Sarah upon your previous and oh-so similar connivance with Clarice? For then, there was not a young lady imperiled—but a young gentleman sorely tested."
Sarah's mood perked up at that. The thought that a young man could have been in her prior state had an improper but yet a definite appeal. Though the matter of Clarice's involvement in this story vastly diminished that appeal before the first words were spoken of it.
Mrs. Tara's aspect was baleful indeed as she took in the three conspirators, who were conspirators before, as well.
"For you see, dear Sarah, yours was not the first heart broken in this manner. Nor were your eyes the first to tear. Faced with Clarice's antics and the unthinking loyalty of her easily persuaded cohorts, even a young man may know tears. For though young men claim to love exhibitionism, in truth, no one at all likes vulnerability. Surely, it was in such a state of vulnerability that young Daniel was left."
In spite of her own better nature and her own very worst ordeal, Sarah nearly fell out of her recently recovered dress, to hear that the victim of the previous prank was Daniel---Daniel, who was well spoken of.
"Daniel? You three saw Daniel as he was---?"
Clarice grinned anew, to see such a lapse on Sarah's part.
"Oh, how our angel falls from grace, when her own interest is gained."
But Sarah had already fought down the unworthy thought, at least outwardly.
"I do desire to see such a one as Daniel in such a state, Clarice. I also desire to see my room laden with money and gold. That, then, does not justify the robbing of a bank, or the waylaying of a coach."
Cut down by both Sarah's honesty and her own hypocrisy, Clarice sulked and sat silent once more. Mrs. Tara then took back the floor.
"I obtained a great deal of this story at a remove, of course. This was last summer, when you, Sarah, were away at Aunt Tilda's house, travelling with your father."
Sarah again felt a bit put off that so much adventure seemed to occur only in her absence, til she realized that she had less taste for such adventure, after the day's sorry events, which included not a few betrayals.
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THE PREVIOUS SUMMER
Daniel was always a good-looking boy, and he only became more so while working for Henrietta's father. A blacksmith's assistant must be willing to work long, hard hours in heat that is double and often triple that of the sweltering summer world outside. He had many admirers, but only one heart, and her name was Susan. Most of his lady admirers accepted this as a hard and true fact, not to be altered or trifled with. Then again, there was Clarice, who often regarded herself as being past all such strictures. He ignored her gawker's eye as he worked, and kept to his tasks. He had even informed his Susan of this attention, but she spoke of having no worries in this, and we quote :
"Now, if it were Sarah doing such, I think I might come by and stand watch over you. But unless Clarice purchases a long rifle and holds it to your neck, in her I have no worries at all. For it is easy to know when to avoid Clarice, and that is when one sees that her lips are moving."
Yet, Susan would still have worries, and Clarice needed no long rifle to cause all manner of ill mischief. Add to this, one often did not see the danger in Clarice's moving lips. It was how she lived, after all, to seem avoidable when one had distance from her. This distance, though, was very often quite impossible to truly maintain, in polite society.
Just over the hill, three onlookers took his heroic aspect in, and had strong thoughts of taking in far more than just that. Henries spoke first.
"My father likes him, for he pays me no nevermind. Oh, that Susan, to lock in so grand a prize so early on. Why, she had his eye before either of them looked remotely like adults. What would you call such a thing?"
Janice fought back the urge to lick her own lips, or perhaps even to drool.
"If you should be so lucky as to lock in a smithy, their work keeps their form and shape fair for many a long year. Daniel was already a comely lad before this began. No beer-bellies or avoidance of duties for him. But Susan, who has ever drawn the eye of every boy that did not look in Sarah's way, is the one he'd walk half a thousand miles to be with. Love is unfair--a poor man's game of tic-tac-toe with two moves given to the player that starts first."
If perhaps the first two knew that such unworthy talk was to remain merely talk, the third knew only thought, desire, and then action to fulfill that desire, no matter the cost.
"He is hot."
Janice and Henrietta shook their heads.
"Clarice? Is that some odd manner of compliment?"
She smiled.
"Hmmm. I suppose that it could be. But I meant it as a literal statement of fact. Our Daniel is made hot by the weather, hotter still by his work. Those who are hot--must needs cool down somewhere. Henrietta, does your father allow him use of your house's bath?"
Henrietta frowned.
"No. Father fears that I may be in some state of undress, and so Daniel has agreed to keep back from the main house."
Clarice folded her arms, nodding.
"Janice, is his house not out past yours? Yours being a fair distance from here, on such a humid day?"
Janice thought of the many times the handsome young man had passed by, and wished just once he would stop in.
"Surely. But its odd--for one who sweats and toils so very much in this place, he always seems cooled off as he nears those parts. But the walk itself could never do this, for he seems well and truly refreshed."
Clarice finally showed her hand, at least in part.
"If he is hot here, and cool at the end of a long, often uphill walk, then it only stands to reason that somewhere twixt here and his home, he finds a place to lose his heat. Janice, are his clothes sweated through, or are they merely what one might expect for this weather?"
"Well, that's odd, too. They are so sweated when I've seen him leave here, but look dried out when I see him pass later."
Clarice felt an acquisition was at hand.
"So. When Daniel loses his heat--he loses something else, as well. These are his clothes I describe. Ladies, I suggest we make for the woods beyond, ere Daniel finishes his day's work. We will be looking for a quiet and secluded watering hole twixt here and Daniel's home. There, we shall view an unwrapped prize of immense worth."
Henrietta grew wary.
"And what would this prize be, Clarice?"
To draw them in, Clarice turned and patted them each on one shoulder.
"Why, that prize would be nothing less than Daniel himself, his every bit of clothing--hung out to dry."
The foolishness of youth was never an exclusive province of the male.
Clarice's deductions soon led them to exactly the sort of thing they were looking for. Blocked from warming sunlight and hugged by large trees, the small pond was exactly where a young man might go to cool off by himself. The rocks within the sun's reach would dry Daniel's sweaty things most effectively. Janice called lightly to her two friends.
"He's coming."
Now, the first rule that a voyeur obeys is the most obvious. If one can see, then one can also be seen. Even though they were aided by a boy's slightly bolder nature, Clarice and her cohorts knew that Daniel was more apt to look around than not. So small rocks were fitted atop large ones, to create limited but workable peepholes.
"Now, if you need air, breathe it in slowly. If you are sore, do not rise. If either of you should ruin this thing for me, I will tell your mothers it was all your game. Understood?"
When Daniel arrived, he did look around, as one would expect. But to the hidden conspirators' utter delight, he just as quickly took off all his things, once he was satisfied of privacy. They were happy to see what they came for, but almost fainted when the targeted young man climbed the rocks near him, to let his clothes dry. Janice found she could not blink, for her nearly supreme vantage point.
"Oh, Lord. Let the Priest be wrong--do not take my sight now."
If any rational thoughts had been in Clarice's scheming head, the sight of Daniel splashing about surely pushed them out. She spoke, rasping.
"The sunlight blocks my view--but it also blocks his. Yes--he cannot see up here."
As she rolled away quietly, Janice spoke once more.
"Oh, what will we do, if we are found out?"
Henrietta undid one blouse button, and fanned herself.
"That is simple. Having seen all his wares, we will have to be fair and reciprocate such a favor. Such a great, great---favor."
Janice began to overheat.
"Yes---we must be fair. Fair. So--fair."
Now, Clarice bid them both retreat behind a tree. Fearing their own exposure of a sort, they bid this precious viewing goodbye, and joined her. They were grinning.
"Clarice! This was such good sport. I will never forget this day—not ever."
"Nor I. Oh, please don't make this a sin. I wouldn't want to confess
it."Clarice's grin was even wider.
"We viewed one prize. Now behold another. The very gift-wrapping our wondrous and beautiful present came in."
They did gasp, now. Clarice had used the blinding sunlight to take Daniel's things straight from the rocks. Henrietta pointed.
"But now poor Daniel has nothing at all. Clarice, we have all had fun. Great fun. But must you steal his clothes as a trophy?"
"You misapprehend me. It is not Daniel's clothes I seek as my trophy, so much as Daniel himself. You must both aid me. You are a part of this, and now have no choice in the matter. Henrietta, you will say what I tell you to. Janice---take off your clothes."
Disbelieving and somewhat furious, Janice reacted with the strongest dismissal to Clarice's untoward suggestion, though her voice never raised above a coherent whisper.
"What do you mean that I should take off my clothes, Clarice? Why would you ask me to do such a thing?"
Perhaps it was Clarice's very nature to take on a haughty look, for it was with such an aspect that she folded her arms and grew ever more strident and shrill towards Janice.
"Are my words then all unclear? What part of my simple instructions do you not understand? Janice, you will remove your clothes, and you will do so without further discussion."
As in times past, and as in sorry times yet to come, Janice decided that simply appeasing monarchical Clarice was a surer path than opposing her quite circular arguments.
"Why do you need me to do such a thing?"
Feeling her power firmly, Clarice shook her head while unbuttoning a stunned Janice's upper blouse.
"Yours is not to ask such things. My Janice's purpose is that of a fulcrum, which merely sets the loom's wheel to motion."
Janice now wondered of Clarice's appetites, as her skirt was pulled away. She then decided that she would actually prefer if Clarice were such a woman, for at least then her purposes would be all clear. But Clarice was not such, and if she were, she would be no more honest. For beyond the call of flesh, her first love was control. Seizing it elated her far more than might the seizure of a button or buckle.
"I wish I were a loom, so that I could make new clothes to replace the ones you fairly tear from my form. How shall I get about, wearing merely my underthings?"
With almost a ripping motion, Clarice offered up her answer by totally denuding a horrified Janice's upper form.
"Perhaps my words were unclear. I meant certainly that you should remove all your things, for this scheme of ours to work. And do not cover yourself with your arms. There is no boy about to see you, and little for him to see, if he were here."
Shaking from fury, shame, and the unneeded insult, Janice took back one last measure of control by pulling away her own skivvies. Briefly, Clarice puckered her lips, and began to whistle. But Janice balled her hand into a fist.
"Is it that you wish to whistle only one last time, Clarice? Now, quit this foolishness and tell me of your plan."
"Hmph! I think that for your threat and presumption, I might almost leave you this way. Fortunately, I am a very gregarious creature, well capable of magnmanity when the mood should strike me. Now, though your plight amuses me, I think that you should not strut about so, and put on Daniel's clothes, instead."
Janice looked at the boy's things with something very near to disgust.
"But Clarice! A boy has been in them! And all of a boy's----things."
"Yes, and he shall wear your things that have held your things. Isn't turnabout still held to be fair play, even in this day and age?"
Janice again tried to dissuade her, using logic that Clarice's mind was seeming proof against.
"How can you be so certain that Daniel will readily accept wearing my clothes?"
"Why, quite simply, I shall arrange that he is offered a series of choices that shall lead him to see only one choice, that between embarrassing clothes or humiliating nakedness. Now, which do you think he will choose, eh?"
Clarice, ever the ruler in her own mind, now waved the newly tomboyish Janice away.
"Get gone, and do so with dispatch. Await Henrietta at your own house, and there we will exchange clothes tween you and Daniel anew---albeit much later. Try to have a separate set of men's clothes for him---though to my thinking, you don't have to search hard. I think that I will like our Daniel in things from his brand new wardrobe."
A half an hour went by, and a scared young man made a disturbing discovery. Seeing Henrietta in the distance, he made a choice that was in fact merely a part of an elaborate and ornate trap set for him for the crime of looking handsome and catching the eye of the wrong girl.
Henrietta was partaking in the least leisurely stroll that ever a young lady had thought to take. Her eyes burned. Her throat was quite parched. Her gait was a slow one, but she felt as though she had run a grueling marathon. For the stroll was all art and all plan. Clarice's plan, and these never went right for any save Clarice herself.
Yes, sighting Daniel in his state was a piece of good fortune, one she would not soon forget, if ever. But now Clarice had laid out one of her fabled traps for the boy, and Henrietta wondered if the viewing was now at all worth the trouble it would bring. She had seen the unfortunate target out of the corner of her eye. Yet now his Olympian aspect and Edenic dress made him seem less desirable than vulnerable. Playing her part and partly wondering why she was doing so as well, Henrietta made certain to walk just out of his own view, knowing as Clarice did that this would increase his desperation and at last force him to a choice. His shouted voice confirmed this.
"Psst! Henrietta! Over Here!"
Taking care to turn and then gasp all in one motion, Henrietta also turned away, though she hardly wished to.
"Why, Daniel! Is that you? How can you go about like that?"
Perhaps panic and fear are indiscriminate robbers, for Daniel never once heard Henrietta's voice break, despite all the times it did.
"I am sorry. I would never reveal myself so to almost anyone, especially one of Susan's friends. It doesn't help any that I call your father boss. But I am quite desperate. While I swam, someone awayed with all my clothes. I have nothing. Henrietta, please fetch me a wrap, a towel, or anything with which I may make my way home. The water is no solution for me, and this tree I hide behind is barely any cover at all."
Henrietta nodded, fighting the urge to steal behind that tree. The sorriest part of being in one of Clarice's plan's was the intoxicating feel of power they gave. All rational thought was shunted out quickly.
"I will return, Daniel. But finding something may in fact be difficult. Will you accept simply any old thing I offer?"
"I will. So long as my waist is done up and cannot be seen, I am safe. Be thankful, Henrietta, that this sort of thing has never happened to you, with so much more to hide."
It was difficult for her not to see those words as a compliment. Perhaps, she thought, Clarice's part in this could be negated.
"Daniel, do not fear. I will not tell my father of this chance encounter, although he knows you to be honest. But perhaps I have done you wrong. My blouse is a large one, and could serve as wrapping for your waist."
Daniel was very quick to respond.
"No. In viewing such as you unbloused, my lower half would grow more, not less noticeable. Please find something else. And quickly, Henrietta. This is not a good place for me to be stuck at."
"All right, Daniel. But just you stay put, while I fetch something."
"Staying put and out of sight is my one and only concern, after covering myself. Henrietta, please do hurry!"
Quickly running off to her rendezvous with Clarice, Henrietta gained perhaps a glimpse of the schemer's true aims.
"You did well enough, I suppose. But why then make an offer of your overstuffed blouse? That was no part of the plan."
Henrietta shrugged.
"You mean to say that it was not part of your plan, dear Clarice."
The haughty rarely learn anything at all. When they do, it is quickly passed out of their systems, which are not made for such rich and heavy meals.
"They are one and the same. Now, in ten or so minutes, we shall return to him with our news."
"Ten minutes? But Clarice, should we not wait longer?"
"Oh, my Henrietta needs so much education. To the panicked who have been offered a bare glimmer of hope, ten minutes shall seem as an hour or more. He is mine, whether he knows it or even senses it."
Sweet sightings of Daniel's body began to be displaced in Henrietta's shamed mind by views of his lost face, so worried about an exposure that would do but little more for a boy than for a girl. In either way, the talk would be nigh unceasing. Alan, the oddish poet of the bunch among the town's young people, had once aptly compared bored gossips to demons, who would tear the wings off an angel just to pass a moment's time in Hades.
"Daniel? I have both found something and brought someone to help, as well. Are you still here?"
"And where else would I be in my predicament, Henrietta? What have you brought, and for that matter, who?"
Perhaps he was more relaxed around Henrietta, who knew already of his plight. Daniel still held behind the tree, but shifted not so often as he had before. He would regret this. For now merciless Clarice stepped forward, and was glad for his reflection in the water at his back.
"Why, Daniel, it is I. Fortunate are you, for dear Henrietta persuaded me to part with these things, mended after poor Janice took a fall."
Even when panicked, simple math was not beyond Daniel, who began to refuse this offer that was trap as well.
"Clarice, you have my thanks. But I will not wear a girl's things. If I am seen in them, I am finished in this town, just as surely as if I were seen as I was born."
Clarice slowly closed the unseen loop that circled poor Daniel's neck. She would not hang him with it, though he might prefer a good honest noose to the leash she would make of it.
"Daniel, I shall be blunt. We are searching for a man's things. Henrietta will further that search, I swear. But in the meantime, my house is not far from here. We may gain it by back ways, and no one at all is at home. There you may wait til we find something. But either way, do you not need cover? I will walk with you, even as you are now, but surely people will talk."
Daniel tried logic, a tactic useless against the inherently unreasonable.
"I might still be spied walking with you, and people will still talk loudly of a boy who wear's a girl's things!"
"I say that you shall not be seen. In any wise, you shall wear Henrietta's own bonnet. Note also, that your face's pristine features could easily be taken for those of a girl. Now will you accept the choices offered you and cover your nakedness?"
Daniel's face looked crestfallen.
"I will. I see now that I have no choice. But you must neither of you speak of this day, nor must you say such things about my face, ever again. It is a man's face."
Clarice continued to mock him, but only just enough to ruin his coherent thought.
"Our---Danielle---is so very sensitive about her looks. It is agreed. I shall come around and hand you your things."
But as Clarice went to view her intended prize up close, Daniel's strong arms snaked around the tree and grabbed the dress and underthings.
"Stand back now, Clarice. I think that you two have seen quite enough of me, for this day."
A bit stung, Clarice told Henrietta to shoo, and begin the false search for more suitable male clothing. When Daniel emerged, he moved with no grace at all, in things he had barely ciphered how to put on.
"All these layers, merely to protect modesty! How do you ladies go about in these sweatboxes? I myself was never so heated, even when working as a smithy."
As they made way to Clarice's house, she smiled when he could not see, and deridingly answered his question.
"Why, if my Daniel is overly warm, I may even have a solution to that, waiting at my home. We will see all when we get there."
"I, Clarice, cannot wait to get there. I can feel eyes upon me, as though they had been there all day. I simply cannot be seen this way. I hope your house is proof against public exposure."
"It is so proofed...against public exposure."
The house, which was safety to Daniel's mind and cage to Clarice's, was at last sighted. The schemer saw him race anxiously for the front door.
"How sweet it is, to have the apple race for the peeler of its own volition. Daniel, after this day, I vow that you shall forget who Susan ever was!"
Daniel's comfort upon entering the house was not at all a long-lived thing.
"Where is Henrietta? Oh, I feel as though these walls were not here at all. I feel as though a great many prying eyes are upon me."
Clarice sat next to Daniel, much more closely than he would have preferred.
"My Daniel need have no worries. Henrietta has not been away that long, and these walls are quite solid."
At the very least, frenzied Daniel kept some few of his wits about him, though against Clarice's incessant scheming, this was not as much help as it ought have been.
"I think that I am not your Daniel, Clarice. As to the rest, Henrietta may not return soon enough for me. Are you so certain that I may not merely borrow a few of your father's things, while he is away? I shall return them, cleaned and pressed, I swear it."
Lies are carefully constructed, and so often seem more true than truth, if left unexamined.
"Most of his things are with him. Those that are not are locked in his room. And if I had a way into that room, I still would not risk his terrible wrath when he sees that his things have been gone through, and touched. In any event, is sitting here next to me truly so miserable a fate? Perhaps you are only bored. To pass the time, perhaps we two should have a picnic just outside. Inside, you could put aside that dress and try on many of my own fine things."
Daniel stood up, in part to stop the slow certain advance upon his person. Clarice's hands seemed to have twice again the presumption and avarice heard in her words alone.
"I will not away outside, looking as I do. I have no desire to be in this dress, let alone try others. And though you sorely test my patience and Susan's trust in us both, I am not made miserable by the company I keep. Clarice, our world is one of expectations. No one at all expects to see me in Janice's clothes, any more than she should be seen in mine, except for occasions of odd work. Why, if I should be seen to defy those expectations so very brazenly and completely, it is all I will ever hear of, and that will be that for me."
Clarice heard only those words that to her, were not unlike a fox hunter's horn.
"Daniel, if you are so very uncomfortable in that frilly dress, then I say, you should remove it. Also, since I wish to be just and fair, I will remove mine as well."
Justice was nowhere near Clarice's thoughts. But her skin that showed as her dress fell all away was quite fair, and in fact was much fairer than she herself would ever likely be. Daniel kept himself as well as he could, but the schemer had now made a distraction of herself that kept him well on his toes.
"Clarice, please put your things back on! have my Susan to think of, and she would not want me to be near to an undressed girl! And do not any longer rub your person against mine. I will not lose this dress, though it is an affront to me. I would rather be seen in a girl's outer garments, if pressed to choose, than in her very underthings!"
Daniel, poor soul, could not know that there was no persuading Clarice by words. He had been taught well, but unwise to such obstacle as she presented. For she merely pressed her attack to the final measure.
"Hmph! You've little gratitude, and you a fish rescued from the frying pan! But I am again a just host. If you so gravely mislike underthings even more than dresses and skirts, than we shall both remove all our things. We shall be equal, then, and equally prone to the embarrassment
you so fear."Daniel turned toward the wall, desiring but wise enough to not take what was being given him so readily.
"Clarice, I beg you, turn your hands away from those buttons and latches! I am very much a young man spoken for by one I like and perhaps even love very, very well. I wish not to betray her, by thought, word, or deed. More--I desire not to be the source of her pain, in any wise."
But to Clarice, strong protest from a target meant only that victory as she saw it was at hand.
"As soon as I am completely undone, you shall beheld my truest charms and forget that nattering Susan. She and perfect Sarah may then fly off together to Heaven. For us, though, Paradise is regained right here."
But Heaven is a place of judgement, as well as bliss, perfection and peace. A form of avatar of its judgement then clasped Clarice's hand, preventing her skivvies' final divestiture.
"I think, Clarice, that you are completely undone now. Dress yourself, with all speed!"
Daniel gulped like he had swallowed a stone. He knew well the woman that now was the nail in his horrid afternoon's coffin.
"Mrs. Tara! I will beg you to let me explain this untoward scene."
"No such explanation is needed or wanted, Daniel. You have been had, the victim of a sorry jest and three poor jesters who are themselves sorrier still."
Looking like whipped animals, Henrietta in her own things and Janice, tellingly wearing Daniel's clothes, entered at Mrs. Tara's behest. Janice looked down.
"We surely meant no true harm."
Daniel felt as low as a man can feel without the specter of true life's tragedy upon him. He looked about at the conspirators.
"To my angry mind, true harm was done. I do not know you three. I shall confess this sorry episode to my Susan. Since Clarice was involved, she will perhaps even believe me."
Clarice dressed and shrugged her dismissive, near-monarchical gesture.
"Why tell her anything, if you do not need to?"
Daniel spoke only to the adult, now.
"Mrs. Tara--may I please change here, and have done with this sorry episode?"
"No, Daniel. I want you well away from Clarice's domains. I shall tell her parents of this, when they return. You may hide your face with a bonnet while we ride to my home. Both Sarah and her father are away. How fortunate that I saw Janice in things I knew were not her own."
Clarice sneered.
"You mean how very UN-fortunate!"
Almost absent thought, Mrs. Tara grabbed Clarice's right hand and slapped it.
"You will mind your tongue, in the absence of any true manners, girl."
Daniel still seemed hesitant, so Mrs. Tara tried to gently coax him outside.
"Daniel--you needn't be afraid. You have something of a lady's face, and you fill that dress better than Janice herself does."
Daniel turned ashen before her very eyes.
"Mrs. Tara---do not SAY that!"
Quick to realize her mistake, Mrs. Tara put her hand on Daniel's shaking shoulder.
"Forgive me, Daniel. I meant only to alleviate the sting of your unjust plight with humor."
Daniel now looked half-awake.
"Forgive my tone of voice, Mrs. Tara. But I fear I have no sense of humor left in me any at all."
As he went out to the buggy, Mrs. Tara shot an almost neck-snapping glance at the wildly unrepentant Clarice.
"That, Daniel--is quite understandable. You were ill used. Mark me, Clarice. This will not be forgotten."
Left quite alone, Clarice soon began to fume, and think thoughts of revenge both pointless and petty. She rubbed her still-sore hand.
"No, Mrs. Tara. This will not ever be forgotten. Perhaps you, or one you hold dear, will be swimming one day as they were born. And who shall protect their modesty then? When that event happens, it shall not be I who am afraid! Again I say--this will not be forgotten, Mrs. Tara. Not any. Not at all."
The summer air was yet hot and humid, bright and balmy. But a chill wind had begun to blow, and it would one day put goose pimples on the naked flesh of Mrs. Tara's own pride and joy. For it was that in everything but wisdom, Clarice's memory was long and sharp indeed. In the present, a young woman who thought her rage all spent stared at three friends who now seemed falser than ever before. The ticking of the clock was at that time, the only sound audible. This eerie quiet, as one might well guess, would not last very long at all.
-----------------------------
Sara sought to bookend her Mother's compelling tale of Daniel's woe with a simple query.
"So it was all of a plan? From Daniel's captivity by the lake to his donning of Janice's things?"
"Sadly, yes. Daniel would not leave the lake unclad, that much he had made clear. Clarice therefore took the offer of desperately needed cover and made of it a lure. For she also knew well that Daniel would not be seen in public wearing a girl's things."
Sara got up all of a sudden, and whispered in her mother's ear.
"Mother, forgive my impertinence. But Daniel is just so pleasing to the eye. Was he equally so in that dress?"
Mrs. Tara whispered back.
"Let us merely say that it was the meanness and cruelty of Clarice's prank that offended. The result of said prank was not offensive in the slightest. He looked so lost. So---helpless. Had he not been in such a state, I would have cheekily asked our fetching knight in distress to help me adjust your hem-lines. Your waists are of surprisingly similar cut and shape."
Sara said naught, hardly wishing cruel Clarice be given any comfort in the hour of her judgement. But within her welled giggles such as she had not felt all that day. Yet all that could be said or thought on the late plight of poor Daniel had been done. Now all that awaited was the final punishment of perennial clothes-thief Clarice.
She would not go quietly, nor was this expected of her. Little or nothing was now expected of her.
"So, there shall be a paddling? My mother shall hear of it, mark me well."
But Mrs. Tara was as quick to tear this mask of casual confidence from Clarice as Clarice had been to steal the clothing of the vulnerable.
"Your mother shall hear of it, and she shall hear all of it. But only Henrietta and Janice shall know a paddling, then it shall be done, away and away."
Janice looked up, and surprisingly to all, she did this with a hopeful look on her face.
"Then we shall be friends yet again?"
Henrietta looked less hopeful, fearing a trick for a trick was in the offing.
"Friends away and away, through and through, and yet by and by as well?"
Sara saw the repentance in their four eyes, and this shone even more brightly for the utter lack of such in Clarice's arched eyes.
"We have been so before. Your own actions not yet taken will say if this covenant remains. Let it be known that I shall abide pranks, but no more schemes. We three shall be as knights of old together. Knights, it is known, do not leave their fellows without armor--unless the mead has been too strong, and boasts made by common braggarts."
Clarice, in this, never understood the poverty of her position until it was far too late.
"You are a talker in ciphers, and my schemes have kept your dull lives bearable. Now, I demand to know my punishment, that all accounts may be settled."
She smiled that smile seen at countless gallows, when the condemned twists their vision and thinks that the rope shall slip off, or that the crowd will rise up and pardon them. But air would soon be pulled from her throat, and that pretty, pretty neck would do a last fateful dance.
"Now, will I be made to ride with my body bared? For I rather fancy a ride, and these clothes are so stuffy. Shall my harmless prank be made known to all? For most, it is known, possess the sense of humour which all of you want. Shall I be shut upstairs while a wondrous party goes on down here? For I will escape you stalwarts, and find proper things to wear, and my entrance will be grand as ever. Ohhhhh, surely I know my fate. Shall I be stripped bare, and then shoved bodily out of the carriage, for all to see? For I shall merely wink at every old man, reminded of what he once knew. I shall own every young man, who has never seen such wonder. I shall again be envied by every young woman, whose beaus will find their sights locked on my targets. And I shall plead to every old woman about how I was wronged by false friends. It is you two judges and you two hypocrites that will swing on the rope, burn in the town's square, face La Guillotine's blade, and feel the bullet's last sting. While I--I shall become as a true legend."
Sara and Mrs.Tara whispered to one another. Sara then merely brushed dust from Clarice's shoulders.
"I think not. We are none of us hypocrites, we know how you twist what is said, and how well you escape justice. Nor are we like to provide juicy gossip to such as whisper it. No, your punishment is not to be known to all. Merely unknown to four."
All, even the most chatty, were deadly silent as Mrs. Tara walked over with a quick stride and held open the door. Her words were few.
"Farewell, Clarice. I Do Not Know You."
Sara then stood next to her mother, her anger and exhaustion with Clarice being too great for any other remedy.
"Farewell, Clarice. For I Have Never Known You."
Turning as her neck lay in the grip of thick verbal
ropes, Clarice found no help from her old dupes."I Listened To Voices, Like A Foolish Child. I Hear Those Voices No Longer."
When Henrietta was done, Janice's face contorted as she thought of the paddling that would tan her skinny backside worst of all. This pain she gave back to Clarice in certain cold words.
"Ye Are A Ghost."
Walking, almost drifting out the door, as though a ghost, Clarice turned to plead her judgement.
"Mrs. Tara! No man found your Sara!"
She was wholly unmoved by the sudden tears. She closed the door as final words were spoken.
"But one could have. As you placed her in harm's way, so I do I put you out of our path. You and we are done."
Clarice made for her carriage, and rode it out, hoping to make back to her town before sunset. She was clothed, had money, a ride, and was on a road free of bandits and such. But her skin felt chills, and she felt very poor indeed. The great fear seized her soul that day, and she would never fight it off. She took one last look at the house where a good time was supposed to have been had.
"I---Am Alone."
Inside, Sara thought of the pain of banishing one who had once been so close. But her mother soon reminded her of the reputation she had kept up, and of what she had kept with her, even when her every inch was bare naked. Sara walked away from the window, and the diminishing sight of the carriage. She now brushed herself off, and sat on the couch while Henrietta and Janice received theirs in the next room. Punishment aside, she drew some satisfaction from their yelps, but only some. As she, exhausted, fell off for a nap, she whispered words that we all must wish, at dark times and diverse occasions, that we could whisper.
"Dignity Is Reclaimed, Justice Is Done, And Restored At Long Last Is Sarah's Modesty."
THE END