Lady Jane

LADY JANE

Lady Jane sat in her red-brown ermine fur, severe on Christmas evening.

 Surrounded by her typically Victorian style bookcase, from the attentions of the butler George and her usual brandy, she seemed to feel right.

With one hand she was busy holding the cigarette holder, with the other holding the newspaper dated precisely December 24, 1905.

She spread her legs slightly apart and dropped the newspaper softly.

Between a cloud of smoke and the other the butler George began to hear strange moans, like sobbing, while out there some silent snowflake made its first appearance. Something had happened.

Jim used to do innumerable street work, occasionally: he sometimes distributed flyers near Covent Garden, sometimes flowers, sometimes Irish potatoes.

 In short, he was doing it. He was tall and slim and definetely beautiful, like a rose without a thorn, we cuold say. He was naive, after all, but filled up with consciousness of living and loving ... extremely.

His greatest gift was the passion he instilled as a whirl in everything he did. Also in love. Many times he was reprimanded by his drinking companions to be a little too "impulsive", but what could he do?

The charm of some silk skirt or taffeta attracted him greatly.

Yet, in his impulsiveness, he was of a spatial gallantry: he wrote texts and he often played them with such ardor.

A few months before Christmas Eve, he had started dating a noblewoman of the highest London society.

They had seen each other from one flower to another at the Covent Garden market.

Their looks had intertwined like thorns. She was very beautiful, tall, with supple body and beautiful brown fawn eyes.

Jim understood that in order to love such a woman he had to emancipate himself.

So, one day he spent all his September salary for a new gray suit. And from that moment, when he saw her again, he smiled amiably (he no longer seemed the same old foundling) and she returned. He seemed bewitched.

All he had to do was follow her (as discreetly as possible) to leave her a token of his admiration. A simple poem, if necessary to be musical, where he declared himself his servant for eternity. Of love. From that moment began a dense correspondence between the two, not only verbal or epistolary.

Lady Jane was more and more thoughtful and nervous wrapped in her expensive fur in the very hot winter room. She instantly thought of that newspaper headline: "Boy accused of harassment sentenced to death on Christmas evening".

 She felt like crying. The day was ending, and so was her heart: once it was icy and severe and superb, now it was lost. She felt like crying again. She all of a sudden remembered when she was little: a sparkle, a feeling, a laughter. But it was not enough serenity for her, unfortunately. Not that day.

An exact month before Jim and his noblewoman saw each other again. It was full November but they decided to take a trip to the Thames to relax on the shore. Things were going well between them: in spite of his inferiority of class, she had understood him and accepted him quietly. They talked about their dreams and Jim reminded her of his desire to leave for America and make a career with his writings and his inventiveness.

To which, the woman changed considerably. He thought he had sworn to love her forever. But Jim was very impulsive and although madly in love, very suggestible and, after all, very young. The woman was already in her thirties, Jim had ten less good.

They ended the evening with a kiss and then separated. Immediately before separating, she gave him, somewhat sustained, the money needed to pay for the ticket to America and, in return, he gave her a handmade medallion, engraved with the words of his poetry: " Just heed this plea, my love. On bended knees my love…

I pledge myself to Lady Jane”.

Lady Jane was overcome with despair. That newspaper headline was obsessing her.

Why had she done it? Why had she thus denounced his love? Why had he exploited his social and legal influence to cut off his life?

Just because he had dedicated love verses to her, it did not mean that he would have sworn eternal love for her. He wanted to leave for America. Did she think he was going back rich and maybe marry her? Perhaps he had only exploited it. Or maybe not. He really loved her. Or maybe not. Perhaps only for the time to read those few verses had really wanted it. These thoughts animated the woman's mind.

The fact is that after that night at the Thames, Lady Jane, (it was she, the woman who had protected Jim for so long), was completely mad.

"Do you want to report a fact, madam?”, she went to the police station on a cold December night.

She accused Jim of harassment very untruthfully so that his behaviors so innocent and pure were described by Lady Jane in the most distorted and shameful way possible. For Jim, whose ship to America was due to sail on January 2, there was nothing to hope.

"Young boy accused of harassment sentenced to death", newspaper headlines echoed in her mind like nightmares.

On Christmas Eve, Lady Jane opened the medallion and reread Jim's words.

 "My dear lady Jane, when will I see you again? Your servant am I, and will humbly remain! "

On Christmas Day Lady Jane remained motionless, cadaverous, impassive, without her fur. He had thrown her away. Into the river.

He went to prepare the last brandy of his life. He fired George, his former servant.

And while he was sinking his last sips of life into his increasingly hot room, set on fire and burning curtains, he thought back desperately to what had really been his only servant: his only true love.

 And to the service that she, out of pride, self-love, perversion, had unjustly reserved for him.