Chapter 6: 17th June 1804
The girl was young, maybe only 15 or 16 but the boy had never seen anything so beautiful. She was slim and blonde and she was wearing a white lace blouse and a long white skirt with blue trim on the hem. The skirt had been pulled up to above her knees revealing pale but perfect legs and dainty feet.
She was sitting on the riverbank and those dainty feet were dangling down into the cool, clear water, Every now and then she would kick her feet upwards making the water splash onto her legs, skirt and even her blouse making it almost transparent. Every time the water splashed upwards she let out a little shriek of pleasure. The water cooling her down from the hot summer sun. In her hands were some wild flowers that she had picked during her walk to the river.
He was 15 nearly 16. He was watching her from behind a tree. He had not meant to spy on her, but he couldn't help himself and the feelings he felt were strange and new. He was tall for his age, nearly 6 feet, but he had the gangly awkwardness boys that age sometimes have. He had grown by nearly a foot in the last year and his clothes, although relatively new, looked like they were too small for his body. It looked like they had shrunk while he had stretched.
Girls, or at least noticing them, was new to him. At Eton College girls were a rarity, unless you count the servants and it was not good form to speak to them as they were below your station. Since he had returned from school he had noticed girls more often. The servants at the house, well the younger, more attractive ones anyway, would smile and greet him and he would be entranced by the sound of their voices, the look of their skin and the shape of their bodies.
His father had sent him to Eton 5 years earlier.
"It will make a man of you" his father had said.
He still remembered the first night in the dormitory. 4 older boys had beaten him with broomstick handles on his legs and buttocks. He had cried himself to sleep that night still holding the miniature portrait of his recently deceased mother in his trembling fingers.
Despite this unfortunate start to his Eton experience, the boy quickly distinguished himself academically and on the sporting fields of the great old school. As he grew he became more and more popular with some of his classmates and some of the tutors and soon he saw the school as his home. The only downside was because of his background. He had come from "New Money" as some of the upper class men called it. Most of the pupils at Eton had come from nobility or had followed their older brothers, fathers, uncles and grandfathers into the school.
Robert Foxworth's father was a commoner who had married into the gentry and made money out of the exploitation of human beings. On the one occasion that his father turned up at the school he was branded by Robert's friends as vulgar because of the way he used money to get what he wanted. Robert felt real shame at his father's behaviour and was glad he only visited once. When he had mentioned this to his father, George had exploded with rage and told his son that as he was his heir he would get the best that money could buy and he encouraged his son to "damn the stuck up little snots, they are just jealous of our success".
Robert was still watching the girl from the trees and he was trying to pluck up the courage to go and talk to her when he stood on a twig that snapped loudly. When she heard the snap she swung around quickly to look what had made the noise. He embarrassed tried to hide behind the tree but he was too slow.
"Oi! Who is that? What you doing sneaking up on a girl like that for?"
Her beauty may have been incandescent, but her voice was not the voice of an angel. Discovered he decided to face her directly and he walked slowly down to the riverbank so that he stood only a few feet away from her. He decided there and then that this girl was what he wanted. His mouth suddenly became dry and he could feel his heart beating harder in his chest. He stood up straight so she could get a better look at him and then he bowed deeply.
"I'm sorry" he managed to blurt out. "I saw you from the path and I am not ashamed to say that I was transfixed by your beauty. I could not take my eyes off you. I hope you are not offended by my oafish behaviour."
"Offended, no" she said. "No one has ever called me beautiful before though, especially not a handsome young man"
She smiled a brilliantly white smile and then she blushed.
"I have never called anyone beautiful before" Robert replied and he blushed too. "My name is Robert Foxworth"
"Abigail, Abigail Colville" she said as she got up from the riverbank. She was suddenly aware that her skirt had not fallen down and that her legs were still on show. She pushed it down quickly to hide her embarrassment.
Robert held out his hand the way his mother had taught him was the proper way to greet someone and he was a little taken aback when Abigail didn't take it. She just looked at it, with a puzzled look on her face. Suddenly she burst out laughing at his formality and Robert suddenly felt vey silly. He blushed even more and she saw his embarrassment.
"I'm sorry Robert, but I have never shaken a boy by the hand before. It is a very strange way to say hello/"
He regained his composure and then realised that his hand was still outstretched towards her and he quickly pulled it back to his side.
"My father says that you can tell a lot about a person by the strength of his handshake" Robert explained.
"OK then" she took a large stride towards him, puffed up her chest so that her breasts pushed against the material of her blouse and grabbed his hand firmly and started pumping his arm up and down as if she was trying to pump water from a well. He was so taken by surprise that he actually yelped at the strength of her grip.
"Are you alright Mr Foxworth?" she asked with a cheeky grin on her face.
"Yes thank you Miss Colville." he managed to gasp.
All he could actually think about was how soft the skin on her hand was and that he wondered if the rest of her was as soft. He realised that he had not yet let go of her hand and he didn't want to. She let go of his hand and then sat back down on the grassy riverbank. She patted the grass next to her as an invitation for him to also sit and he quickly joined her.
"So Robert, what does my handshake say about me?"
Robert thought for a moment. To his eyes she was a vision of beauty, pale hair and pale almost porcelain like skin. Her eyes shone with a dazzling brightness and her body was desirable. He could feel that desire rising in himself. When she spoke she sounded not like an angel or the ladies he had met before but like the dock workers he had met while watching his father's ships being loaded and unloaded at Tilbury. She had the handshake and grip of a man twice her size. He tried t put it into words but all he could say was, 'You're nice."
Abigail looked at him with those beautiful eyes and said "Nice?"
He panicked. "Yes nice, no beautiful, amazing. I have never seen anyone so lovely and all I want to do is hold your hand again and never let go."
He realised that he was getting more and more flustered and that his own mouth was becoming a liability. All he wanted to do was dig a deep hole for himself and hide. It was then she started laughing again and he realised that she had been teasing him, and that he had fallen for it.
"You're a funny one Mr Foxworth." she said, "Where are you from?"
"I live in Stelling Minnis, but I am away at school most of the year. I am back for the whole summer. Where do you live, Miss Colville?"
"My father is the miller" she said, "we live in the windmill. My mother died a few years back and I look after him."
"My mother is dead too" he began, "She drowned"
"I'm sorry" she said and she took his hand again but this time her grip was not as tight.
They sat silently for a while, watching the river float gently by. Robert was enjoying this day more than any other in recent memory. He turned to Abigail and said, "Abigail, the time I have here is so short and I don't want to waste any of it. Would it be alright if I spend my time with you? I would very much like it if we were friends."
"Just friends? That would be such a shame."
She leant forward and kissed him. He had never kissed a girl before and he decided that he never wanted to kiss another girl ever again.
"That's settled then, fancy a swim?"
She stood up and pulled her blouse over her head, slipped out of her skirt and before Robert could even blink she had jumped into the cool water. He watched her for a second as she surfaced just her undergarments on her legs and arms now bare and he decided that he wanted her. He quickly removed his own clothes and shoes and dressed in nothing but his underwear he jumped into the river and joined her.
It was going to be an interesting summer.
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