Shades of Grey

Wedding Plans

I awoke with a start to find my bedclothes in disarray. I had slept badly, waking at every tiny sound that might, to my fuddled mind, have been a threat. The room had just been brought back to sightfulness with a glimmer of sunlight on the opposite wall. I checked the bedside clock—it was five in the morning. I rolled out of bed and carefully removed the chair from under the doorknob, quietly opened the door and padded across the landing to the bathroom.

I had a pee and walked back into my bedroom and almost yelled in alarm. Staring at me from outside the window was none other than Violet deMauve. When she saw me jump, she put a finger to her lips and made a gesture for me to raise the sash, which I did, foolishly realizing at that moment that with all my elaborate plans to safeguard myself the night before, I had neglected to note that my window was easily accessible by standing on the back-door porch below.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered. She didn’t answer, but simply clambered in, then turned and gave the thumbs-up to her unseen companion below, who took the ladder away. Violet then pulled down the window, jumped noiselessly onto the rug and started to remove her clothes, smiling coyly at me as she did so. I couldn’t deny that the fashion in which she did it was alluring. After all, Violet was not the sort of girl for whom anything could be left to chance, so she had doubtless rehearsed this often.

“You had no right to cancel my half promise to Constance.”

“That would have been Mother,” she said. “Goodness, she is so naughty. But when she has her heart set on her daughter wanting something, she’s pretty unstoppable.”

“It’s not just naughty, it’s unforgivable—and rude.”

“Tish, Edward. You stood me up last night, and that was very rude. If I weren’t so desperately in love with you, I might be offended.”

“Listen—”

“I’m not miffed, sweetness. The path of marriage can be rocky, and I am willing to forgive you, as you will surely forgive my mother for telling that beastly Oxblood tramp where to get off.”

“I don’t want to marry you, Violet.”

“Don’t be silly, darling. You get to jump up five hues and be Red prefect, I’ll eventually be head prefect and our strong Purple offspring get to preside over East Carmine’s residents forever and ever. What’s more, you and I and your father get some folding in our back pockets. And Daddy has jam. It’s a win-win-win-win-win situation.”

“So what are you doing here, if it’s all decided?”

“Father has made an offer depending on your bestowal, but I wanted to make sure you were the one.

What do you think?”

She was by now entirely naked. Violet, it seemed, was giving me a private viewing. Naturally enough, I had seen many girls naked, and many had seen me—at swimming, changing rooms, communal showers.

If there hadn’t been a punch-up at hockeyball, we would doubtless have seen each other in the changing rooms there. But showing one’s body to a potential partner in the context of premarriage courtship was quite a different matter. In this instance, Violet would be showing me not just her body, but her desire for me to see it. And I, for my part, would be expected to look at it in a way that showed I appreciated the gesture.

I tried not to look at Violet, but it was, I am ashamed to say, difficult. Her postcode had been expertly scarred using a typescript that looked tantalizingly just outside permissibility, and the rest of her was pretty much perfect. It was a difficult situation, and if I hadn’t been thinking of how much I wished she were Jane, she might have seen the whole thing as a washout and been gone in a second. As it was, she beamed happily at me, and before I knew it, she had slipped between the sheets.

“Violet!” I said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m just making sure. We wouldn’t want to get married only to find there had been a frightful mistake, now, would we?”

“The Rules—”

“My father administers them, sweetness.”

“Then what would your mother say?” I asked, in a feeble attempt to shame her.

“It was her idea.”

I looked nervously out the window. “She’s not watching, is she?”

“Of course not, sweetness. She said we must make sure that everything is functioning correctly—for dynastic purposes, you understand, and definitely not for physical enjoyment.”

“Of course,” I remarked sarcastically, “perish the thought.”

“Stop talking, Eddie, and do as I tell you. It’s not the time and place for our first argument, now, is it?”

“Look—”

“I said no talking.”

Apparently, I passed muster. Or, rather, as Violet put it, “We can work on your technique.” In any event, within no more than ten minutes and with only the minimum of talk—commands from Violet, mostly—we had committed a potential five-hundred-point demerit together. For me, the first time. Violet quickly dressed, kissed me on the forehead, told me she would report to her parents that all was well, then silently lifted the sash, lowered herself to the porch below and jumped to the street with surprising agility. I stared at the ceiling but didn’t move, my mind in something of a whirl. It had been momentarily pleasant, but I couldn’t help feeling a leaden sense of betrayal deep down. Not to myself or the Collective’s strict moral code, but to Jane.