The Conversation We Didn’t Have (#4)
Late April, 1912. Reflections after a society luncheon.
I wore the yellow gloves.
They’re a touch too bright for my taste — cheerful in a way that feels almost juvenile. I told myself they were a seasonal indulgence. But the truth is, I wore them because I needed something to hold on to. Something to steady my hands, should they decide to betray me.
The luncheon was hosted by Lady Penwood — a garden affair arranged with exquisite calculation. Lace-covered tables, polished lemon forks, violets suspended in water glasses like tiny drowned secrets. Music drifted in from somewhere behind the hedgerow. I arrived deliberately late. I didn’t want to be the first one seated. Not with him there.
He was already seated.
Yates Everett — at the far end of the table beneath the striped linen awning, speaking to someone with far too much enthusiasm and not nearly enough attention. When I stepped into view, he looked up. Our eyes met — only for a moment. I nodded. He did the same.
They placed me across from him. Not directly. But close enough to hear his laugh when he let it out (which was rare), and close enough to notice the stretches of silence when he didn’t.
I tried not to look. I tried not to let my gaze linger on the space between his collar and his jaw. I tried to pretend my pulse wasn’t reacting to something I wasn’t even willing to name.
He spoke first.
“The roses are doing far better than the weather deserves,” he said — casually, to no one in particular. Or perhaps only to me.
“They always are,” I replied. “Nothing blooms quite so stubbornly as a rose with something to prove.”
He blinked — not surprised, but something close to recognition. He smiled, barely. And for a moment, the conversation at the table carried on around us like water around a rock.
We returned to our respective companions — or at least pretended to. Lady Kent was discussing her niece’s wedding in great detail — embroidery choices, guest list errors, something about an inappropriate toast. I smiled when required. Nodded where expected. But I wasn't there.
He passed the sugar bowl across the table — slowly, like someone momentarily distracted. It was nothing. But I watched the pause in his hand as if it meant everything.
The sunlight filtered through the awning above us, casting soft silhouettes on the white linen tablecloths and turning his profile into something that didn’t belong to this world. For a moment, I imagined we were elsewhere. Somewhere we might be permitted to speak plainly.
But we didn’t.
I think that’s what I will remember most:
That we had every chance to say something,
and chose instead to say nothing.
When the last of the tartlets had been politely consumed, someone — I believe it was Lady Ameline — suggested a game.
“Something to stir the blood,” she said, with a clap that echoed far louder than one might expect from a woman in gloves.
A tray was brought out, lined in velvet and scattered with twenty small objects: a thimble, a button hook, a half-burnt match, a toothpick case, a silver coin. The Memory Tray. We were to study the items for thirty seconds, and then retire in pairs to list as many as we could recall.
I wasn’t surprised to find myself partnered with Yates Everett.
Lady Ameline does enjoy orchestrating things — be they amusements or possibilities.
We were sent to the side garden, where a small wrought iron table had been arranged with quill and paper. We stood beside each other — close enough for our arms to brush now and then, though neither of us acknowledged it.
He reached for the quill, then hesitated, and offered it to me instead. I took it slowly. Our fingers touched.
A brief, electric nothing.
No one else noticed.
But I did.
I always do.
“How many items do you remember?” I asked, pen poised.
“Not nearly enough,” he said. Then after a pause, “Though I remember you reached for the match at the same time I did.”
I looked up.
He was already looking at me.
We wrote in turns, trading memories and half-jokes, neither of us speaking about what we were really doing — which was not writing, not remembering, but standing in the shadow of something neither of us dared call by name.
When the bell rang, we returned to the main party. Someone made a teasing comment about our delay. I smiled. He did not.
During the prize ceremony — if one could call a tin of sugared almonds a prize — I caught him glancing at me. Not boldly. Not long. But directly.
And later, as I was stepping into the carriage, he walked past and said, quietly:
“I forgot nearly everything on that tray. Except the way you held the pen.”
Everything we said today was wrapped in politeness.
And still — it felt like a confession in slow motion.
—L.B.
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