10: London, Kingdom of Great Britain: April, AD1851
Beatrice and Harriet
A little over a month since its doors opened and it was still nearly impossible to get tickets for the Great Exhibition. The queue for open tickets ran nearly two streets back from the Crystal Palace at the centre of Hyde Park. And no wonder, for the newspapers had been filled with reports of the incredible, never-before-seen marvels inside. Exhibits such as Frederick Bakewell's amazing image telegraph, or the Koh-i-Noor, the world's largest diamond, or George Merryweather's Tempest Prognosticator.
Thankfully for Beatrice Bowles and Harriet Yuletree, they had managed to acquire tickets several months ago. As Beatrice had always had a knack for mathematics, statistics and business acumen, she had taken to balancing the books of several local and national businesses under a male pseudonym. It brought her amusement to know that even in a world dominated by the male sex, she was still able to skirt around their assertion that such tasks were the purview of men, simply by corresponding entirely through post. This work had also bought her important and powerful contacts, through which she was able to gain two tickets to the Great Exhibition, again all via letters.
And so, Miss Beatrice Bowles, well known local spinster, old maid, and sadly unmarried woman of twenty-seven walked through the doors of the Great Exhibition accompanied by her stalwart friend and companion, Miss Harriet Yewtree. The two women held hands comfortably as they pressed through the crowd around the entrance while the voices of the assembled masses echoed off the high glass ceiling above them.
As they moved along the maze-like paved paths of the inside of the colossal greenhouse, Beatrice and Harriet continually brushed off the numerous glances and side-eyes which were flicked in their direction by all around them. They were used to such glances, the sight of two unaccompanied women walking hand-in-hand was not common, but by no means unheard of on the streets of London. Mostly what the glances conveyed were looks of either pity or sadness. 'There go two more spinsters', the looks said, 'Two sad lonely women without husbands. At least they have each other, it's so important for such unfortunate creatures to have friends without a family to dote on.'
Such looks always made Beatrice smirk quietly to herself, and forced Harriet to stifle a giggle with a delicate gloved hand. Despite the magnificent achievements of the Empire of Industry and the myriad advances in science and technology, these stuffy, prudish men still could not get through their starched white brains the concept that two women, young and beautiful in their own rights, could find everything they needed in each other. That every night, the two of them went home together, gently undressed one another and laid together in the same bed. A bed that was sometimes filled with cries of glorious passion and ecstasy, and other times sweet and tender moments of quiet contentment, and everything in between.
- - -
Beatrice looked back at Harriet as she led her gently through the crowd and smiled a deep satisfied smile as she gazed on the gorgeous face of her paramour and lover. The look was reflected back at her sparkling blue eyes and the pretty smile of Harriet, who blew a quiet, secret kiss to her. Harriet was the shorter of the two, her celtic bloodline had given her a beautiful mane of long amber hair which flowed all the way down to her waist when let free. Currently this hair was tied up into a sensible bun behind her head. She was curvy but petite, her pale, freckled skin glowing like the sun shines through stained glass. Beatrice thought that she was the most beautiful creature that she had ever seen. Her sensuous curves and silky soft skin were currently constrained within a tight, well formed corset which magnificently accentuated her narrow hourglass waist and ample behind.
Harriet's smile was wide and full of life, with the cutest little gap between her two front teeth, or at least Beatrice thought so. Her cheeks, like her shoulders and arms were spotted with a constellation of freckles which multiplied in the summer sun. Beatrice had spent many happy hours attempting to count the myriad freckles across the body of her lover as they lay together. She had originally come to London from the Pembrokeshire Hills when her father's business had moved to the capital. Although the move had been when she was only a girl, Harriet still retained some of the adorable Welsh twang in her accent, which only made Beatrice love her all the more.
Beatrice on the other hand was medium height, for a lady, and as thin as a rake. Her brothers had teased her when she was younger, saying that if she donned a shirt and trousers and cut her hair, there would be nothing to distinguish her from another boy in the family. It was true that Beatrice did not have much in the way of curves or form to distinguish her as a woman, certainly in comparison to Harriet's gorgeous hourglass shape. But she was happy with the body that God had given her, Harriet certainly didn't seem to mind her boyish frame and skinny arms and legs.
Her face was narrower than that of her lover, with sharp cheekbones and a delicately pointed chin and nose. Her hair was a simple mousy brown colour, and she too wore it in a tidy bun behind her head. Her eyes were a pale brown with flecks of blue near the iris, and she sometimes wore a set of gold-rimmed glasses to read, which currently hung on a chain around her neck.
- - -
The two women continued to make their way through the crowded Crystal Palace, marvelling at the numerous wonders and inventions around them. Here and there announcers and salesmen called out above the hubbub, extolling the virtues of this marvellous new device, or that fantastical new product. As they passed by an iced refreshment stand, Harriet eagerly pulled Beatrice over and the two of them enjoyed a delightful cone of crushed ice with raspberry juice dripped through it. The ice quickly melted on their tongues and lips, and Beatrice had to resist the temptation to lean over and kiss the sweet juice directly off of her lover's face.
The two of them were always very careful about displays of their affection in public. For some reason, society seemed to be able to accept the concept of two unmarried women being very close friends, who lived together and shared their lives and interests. But the concept of those same two women being anything more than 'close friends' was a sinful and aberrant concept to them. Thankfully, people rarely saw what they were not looking for, and so Beatrice and Harriet's relationship was able to pass completely unnoticed by nearly all around them.
But that didn't mean that they shouldn't be careful. Holding hands, and walking arm in arm was fine. Intimate conversations across small cafe tables, and sitting close on chilly park benches went without a second glance. But any more extravagant public displays of affection were strictly out of bounds. In such a tight-collared society even men and women rarely showed physical affection for each other, let alone a lesbian couple. To touch intimately or, God forbid, even to kiss in public would have been most scandalous.
Which didn't mean that Beatrice wasn't tempted every now and then, especially in moments like this when the bright red juice of the iced treat was dripping so deliciously down Harriet's lips. How decadent it would be to lean over and plant a full lipped kiss right on her face, to allow their lips to part and devour the flavour of each other's mouths with their tongues, right in full view of a crowd of thousands. Beatrice blushed even thinking of it, God above knows what the reaction would have been.
So instead she merely smiled demurely and offered a lacy white handkerchief to her 'friend', who smiled and dabbed politely at her lips in the proper way before taking another small bite of the sweet treat.
With their ices in hand, the two of them continued to stroll the enormous crystal chamber of the Great Exhibition, stopping every now and then to marvel at something new and exciting. But the real reason that they had come was that they had an appointment with a very specific part of the exhibition run by the American journalist, Mr Mathew Brady and see his amazing new daguerreotype method. Beatrice had read in the paper that with a mere few minutes of exposure, Brady could perfectly capture a moment in time and preserve that moment on a silver plate forever more.
Harriet took the lead again and led Beatrice by the hand over to where she could see the large black canvas tent that Brady had set up for his demonstrations. There was a small queue outside of others who clearly wanted to have their images captured, so the two of them joined the end of it. Outside the tent were set up several display boards with demonstrations of the many crisp duotone images that Brady had already managed to capture over the course of the Great Exhibition. There were dozens of the strange little still moments on display, ranging in size from nearly postage-stamp size all the way up to dinner-plate size. They displayed everything from bowls of fruit, to house plants, to pets and people.
Beatrice even saw that Brady had attempted to capture the magnificence of the exhibition itself, with the distant metal framework of the Crystal Palace just noticeable as a lattice in the background, the many large tents and apparatus of the other stalls in the foreground, and a wash of blurred movement before, which she supposed must be the hundreds and thousands of people moving through the hall, their passage through the hall represented as a grey smudge along the bottom of the plate.
As the two women admired this amazing new demonstration of 'photojournalism' the queue moved forward and they stepped forward to be greeted by an excitable young man who explained that he was Mr Brady's assistant.
'Thank you for coming ladies, and for taking part in this experiment. The whole process shouldn't take more than two minutes. If you could please sit as still as possible once inside the tent, and your daguerreotype will be available for you to pick up from our offices in a week.'
With that, the two of them were ushered quickly into the dark interior of the tent where they fumbled briefly with the long backless sofa that sat in the middle, before seating themselves on it and facing the small point of light that they could see at the far end of the tent. It took a moment or two for them to adjust their skirts and posture to a point where they were satisfied, and just as Beatrice had set her back and expression to what she thought of as a neutral civility, she felt Harriet reach around behind her and firmly grasp her bottom with her gloved hand.
At the same moment, she heard a soft click from the far end of the tent and had to work extremely hard to keep her face neutral and not let out the scandalous giggle which was trying to escape from her throat. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Harriet, sitting upright and still, just as she was, the perfect picture of innocent, sincere perfection. At the same time, her hand, hidden from the lens of the light box, stroked gently at the plump roundness of Beatrice's behind, gently squeezing and fondling. If anyone would have walked in behind the two of them in that moment, there surely would have been quite an uproar, but that would ruin the daguerreotype, and so Harriet's mischievous hand went completely unnoticed.
