When It Rains

It was the third evening that a select group of six gentlemen, all of them recent university graduates, had met in the secluded corner of a small tavern they thought was charming, and which was, in fact, just the only place of its kind they could afford. 

Their residence being London, it was not unusual that rain made an appearance, and each of the men took turns grumbling about the state the streets would be in when the night had come to a close, while privately enjoying the water washed glow of the streetlights that seemed to seep into the rough, exposed oak of the tavern benches, and infuse the rapidly cooling cups of coffee the men held with a navy shade of melancholy. How beautiful London is when it rains. 

A tin of biscuits that had been successfully smuggled in was just being passed around the table when the door of the tavern burst open, permitting a stifling rush of humidity, followed quickly by a young woman struggling to battle the dead weight of her soaked skirts. The men shared a quick frown- one of the reasons they chose to come here (or so they told themselves) was the infrequency with which the appearance of another customer permeated their quiet. This disruption to their peace, rather than the fact that this particular tavern did not allow women, was the men’s primary concern, and even that was quickly dispelled as the young woman disappeared behind a flurry of extremely bored looking staff. 

“As I was saying, gentlemen,” Charles Hafford cleared his throat excessively as he spoke, presumably in an attempt to assert his own importance. True, Charles was the one who had brought them all together that first evening in February, the fourteenth as luck would have it, or rather because it was the fourteenth and none of the six men had anyone to spend it with. This very loud and often somewhat grotesque habit Charles had begun to develop was wearing on the nerves of several of his companions, more than one of whom were considering staging an intellectual coup of sorts. “The use of the poison in this scene is an obvious allusion to Romeo and Juliet. We can see, then, that the death of-”

“I must disagree, my friend! The death here is not one of passion, but of hatred, very much unlike our fair Juliet and her Romeo,” Theodore Calkins interrupted. He had unfortunately bit into a biscuit just before the inspiration to speak had struck him, and Victor Milton, seated directly across the table from Theodore, made a great show of removing his glasses, wiping the lenses, and replacing them squarely on his nose, all while demonstrating an impressive grimace of disdain. 

“I hate to make a habit of it, but I find myself agreeing with old Hafford over here,” Benjamin Oliver mused. 

“How so?” 

“You see, Victor, I would argue that the death of Romeo was one of hatred, but also that there is passion in the death of-”

“Have you gone mad? I could have sworn that mere months ago I sat next to you in a lecture on Shakespeareian Romantics in which you valiantly defended an interpretation of the play as a love story.” Felix Arnolds was a friend of Oliver’s from childhood, and of the group, the two knew each other best.

“Good lord, let a man finish. Neither Romeo nor Juliet are killed by an outside party, rather they kill themselves,”

“If I’d have known that you knew so much about the play, I wouldn’t have bothered to read it in grade school,” Julius Harrison grumbled. Julius had been the third, and far less liked member of Benjamin and Felix’s childhood trio.

“Oh, shut it, will you?” Felix hissed. 

“And why do they kill themselves? Because their one love has died and they are so filled with hatred and despair for the rest of the world that they decide their only course of action can be to simply end it all.” said Benjamin. 

“And the bit about there being passion in the death of-”

“That’s easy. Hatred is of the same vein of emotion as passion, it is only natural that they should mix often.”

The voice was a new one, and quiet from the distance at which it came. The young woman had drifted away from the small knot of staff who, having apparently decided that this girl was not worth their trouble, had resumed the hand of Rummy they often whiled away their shifts playing. It was very obvious that the girl had been eavesdropping, and she made no move to apologize for having been discovered, although, in fairness, it had been her who had revealed her presence. 

“Can we be of any assistance, miss? We are in the middle of something rather important,” Charles made a poor effort to sound indifferent, but it was obvious to anyone with eyes that his posture had straightened considerably at the sound of a girl’s voice. 

“Hmm?” The girl’s eyes scanned the room as if searching for a court trial, or perhaps a marriage ceremony to appear in one of its shadowy corners. “Oh, you mean your little book club?”

“Wha- I beg your pardon, miss, but we are not a book club,” Charles sputtered. Rosy splotches had crept up from the collar of his shirt.

“Do you prefer the term Reading Circle? Or maybe the sacred Brotherhood of Books?” 

“We are the Society for Literary Scholars, a highly privatized group of-”

“Really, six brains between you all and that’s the best you could come up with for yourselves?”

“It is a very distin-”

“We have no need to defend ourselves to you, miss,” Benjamin figured he was doing Charles a favor in stopping him while he was only several miles behind. “Might I ask who you are and how you came to be here? As I am sure the staff made you aware, this institution does not permit women.”

“I am Josephine Marshall. You may call me Ephi. I was on my way to meet a friend when it began to rain torrentially, and, having failed to bring proper rain gear with me, I was forced to make a short detour here first. As you can see, I am soaked to the bone.” She was indeed extremely wet. A small puddle had begun to spread across the floor, towards the men’s already rain warped shoes. “The staff has kindly allowed me to take shelter here until the storm has let up, so long as I don’t disrupt the customers” 

“And yet here you are, disrupting us,” Julius deadpanned. Felix elbowed him soundly in the ribs. 

“I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation, and as I am quite interested in the subject of literature, I thought I might add my own thoughts on the matter. I am something of a literary connoisseur myself, and I wondered if I might join you for your little club.”

“It is not a cl-” Felix’s elbows got a significant amount of use that evening.

“You are a woman.”

Ephi looked down at herself.

“I can see that, yes.” 

“So you can’t possibly be part of the cl- damn it, Society.”

“I will agree with you that this dress has been known to hinder my ability to walk much faster or longer than a brisk turn around the park, but I assure you, it has no impact on my ability to comprehend literature.”

“Besides the fact that this tavern, which is our regular place of conversation does not permit women, this is a Society for well-educated men who can opine on a wide variety of literature, not the half-pence nonsense you read.”

Ephi narrowed her eyes. 

“I find it a poor reflection on your personality that you so swiftly make judgements on my reading tastes. My tutors might not agree with you that I am uneducated, but I suppose there was only so much that Oxford could teach them. While you and these staff members consider me unfit to step foot in this dreadful little tavern on the basis of my being a woman, I would argue I am not a woman, but a young woman, which I think you would know are two very different things if any woman could possibly tolerate your presence long enough for you to know her.”

The men sat stunned. Theodore, always one to channel anxiety into eating, reached for the biscuit tin, only to find it empty but for a few meager crumbs. He dusted off his fingers glumly. 

“Miss Marshall, you seem a very compelling speaker. Have you considered requesting an audience with a member of Parliament to discuss the, er, orphanages of London, or perhaps, the, ah-” Charles broke off, hoping to hear a chorus of suggestions from his friends on what exactly it was a charismatic woman did. He was unsurprised to hear them come up as empty as he had. 

“The fact of the matter, Miss Marshall, is that you are not a man, and we therefore, cannot allow you to join our society. It would simply be improper for such a thing to occur. Surely you understand that this is just the way things are? It can’t be helped.” Victor supplied at long last. He attempted to press his lips into a sympathetic curve of a smile, but, like all of his expressions, it appeared extremely condescending. In fairness, there was a good chance the latter emotion had not been by mistake. 

“Well, if you are so intent that I be a man, you may call me Joe, and I shall wear a large, ugly coat like you lot, and I will gossip only about the stock market, like so” And she did a very accurate impression of what could have been any of the six men seated in front of her. When she had finished, to a rousing applause from Benjamin and Felix which was cut short by what one could assume a kick to the shin for both of them, judging by the twin muffled yelps, Ephi dragged a chair from a nearby table, and promptly plopped down between Benjamin and Theodore. 

“Please, do carry on. I look forward to criticizing your opinions." 

If a passerby had looked in upon the little tavern that evening, or on the fourteenth day of each subsequent month, he or she would have found it rather odd to see a young woman holding court at the head of a long table in the back corner, where the shadows hid important matters. But it was London, and the rain came each month, and most of the potential onlookers would become occupied with how much of their paper would still be readable when they got home from their walk through the rain, or worry over the new leather shoes that they had known were a gamble to wear anywhere outside the house. A few, though, would be kept from the window by that melancholy glow of the rain in the streets, that feeling that a syringe full of the streetlamp whisper and the cobblestone moss had been injected it into the very stuff of their bones. And if they noticed, they smiled to themselves, and held their tongues. How beautiful people are when it rains.