Re: Vauxhall Gardens
She thinks the way he regards the handkerchief charming. Mind you, Mina has never met such a man as this. Her transgressions, as it were, took place with a man of title. She remembers that, or perhaps she's merely heard it whispered, but she's never been exposed to common men. Her father traveled the world, conquered darkest Africa, but Mina saw only approved gentlemen, and there is something delightfully new about this man and his handkerchief. Dirty fingers are novelties to the girl in unsullied white. "I am gladdened to reunite you," she says of his beloved fold of cloth, unbid; his expression warrants it.
She doesn't think of the cruelty of it, inviting him here, where everyone mirrors her, and where only the workers mirror him. She thinks it wonderfully defiant of the rules that hem her in like the strings of her corset.
She is quick to shake her head when he misconstrues the meaning of her words regarding Heaven, and she doesn't think to put distance between them, though the stares of the flowers bloom bright and wide. "No, Mr. K. I didn't mean it in that manner. I only met that I am quite divorced and not at all permitted entrance into Heaven." Protestants, yes, but mores were more important than an old king's desire for a new bride, and she was a sinner, and there was naught for it now. "You're not invisible to me. I've simply naught been allowed to look on you before. Will you walk with me? We may speak of rules as we defy them to the last."
If there are dangers here, the alabaster woman does not sense them. She's been locked away in sitting rooms of the dullest sort, unfit company for the more interesting men and younger girls of London. A woman cast off, young and wealthy yet, will steal all the men in the ballroom with her lewd knowledge of the bedroom, and the society mothers issue no invitations to the women of the Murray house.