Nick mulled over his newest textbook, wanting to have the whole thing read before everyone came back from their short spring break. They didn’t have summers off like some other universities so every few months they’d have a week where they could return home and see their families. Nick had decided that for the exception of Easter and Christmas he would stay at school to catch up on the work he’d missed during first semester. He didn’t have to do that, and the school didn’t expect him to, but he planned on finishing the year at the same time as everyone else. Originally he had wanted to just stay all year including the holidays, there was a chapel at the school after all, but his mother wouldn’t allow it, she wanted him home for the special holidays. 

When Nick had chose to come to England for school his parents also decided not to return to America. They had packed everything up and moved home to England so they could be closer to Nick while he studied, so there was no way his mother was letting him stay there when he could be at home. He felt like his parents were a lot happier in England where they were closer to their families, and around people who spoke and acted just as they did. They hadn’t been as successful in the states as they had let on and the yearly trips back home had put them into serious debt, all to make it seem as if they were doing so well. His father had almost the same job now that they were back, no different from the one he was working before, but he would never let anyone know that truth. 

His thoughts were interrupted when there was a soft knocking on the door of his dorm room. Nick got out of his seat and grabbed a jacket to put on before he opened the door. During normal school times undergraduates and junior fellows (essentially rich students who were given fancy titles and privileges) were required to wear their school robes at all times. During breaks though only a suit and tie were required. 

Nick swung open the door, smiling at the person at the other side, “Yes?”

“You have a visitor,” the man from the dorm’s front desk replied, “They’re waiting for you outside.”

“Outside?” Nick asked, looking at the other man strangely. They’d never asked his guests to wait outside; there was a sitting room on the ground floor.

The older man nodded, “Yes sir, no women allowed in the building.”

A smile immediately spread across Nick’s face, “Thank you,” he said, moving past the other man to quickly walk down the hall and stairs towards the front door. He took a deep breath as the air hit his face and he looked both ways for his visitor, spying her reading a plaque on the wall of the building.

“You came!” he grinned from ear to ear as he approached her. 

“You told me to,” Charlotte smiled back, swinging a basket on her arm. 

“When I got your last letter it didn’t seem like you were too sure about coming,” he admitted. Since he had left for school he and Charlotte had suddenly developed a friendship and had taken to corresponding through letters. He had thought it slightly peculiar that after years of avoidance his cousin had suddenly taken to him. She had been asking him all sorts of questions about his life, his school in America, and about how he was doing now like it was the first time she had ever met him rather than the first time she’d ever been interested. 

“Well, I’m here,” she shrugged, “I brought us some lunch.”

“Fantastic, I was getting kind of hungry actually. Why don’t we go for a walk and find some place to eat?” he suggested.

“Why don’t we stay here?”

Nick looked around them, “I need to get out of here for a while everything is stone, I need to see some grass.”

“But,” Charlotte whined slightly, “I want to see the school!” 

“And you will,” he assured her, leading her back towards the entrance to the town that housed the university and it’s colleges, “After we eat.”

“Fine,” she reluctantly agreed following him down the sidewalk, “but you’re carrying the basket. I had to carry it all this way.”

“That’s alright with me,” Nick said, taking it out of her hands. When he put the basket on his arm Charlotte reached into it, taking out the local newspaper.

“A nice man gave me his paper on the train,” she explained as they walked, turning to the last page she’d been reading, “Have you heard about the latest murder in London? It’s all over the paper. I had heard my father mention this whole Jack the Ripper business but I had never gotten to actually read the papers. It’s very interesting.”

“You should not be reading about that,” Nick told her, taking the paper back from her so quickly the pages rippled. He saw a picture of a dead woman on the front page and shook his head, “That’s not something you should have ever seen.”

“Why?”

“Because...” Nick stuttered, putting the paper back into the basket, “Girls your age shouldn’t be reading about and seeing pictures of dead whores.”

Charlotte’s shoulders stiffened, “They were people too.”

“No, they were whores,” Nick dismissed, waving her off. He had of course seen the papers and all the pictures that accompanied the articles and even he found some of the descriptions to be slightly disturbing, he couldn’t imagine how a naive mind like Charlotte’s could handle such things. He always felt if they were going to ban a woman from anything it should be reading the newspaper. They didn’t need to know about the horrors that went on while they were safely asleep in bed. 

“I don’t see it your way,” Charlotte spoke up.

Nick shrugged, “You don’t see too many things my way.”

“It’s because you’re wrong,” she muttered softly under her breath knowing full well that Nick could more than likely hear her.

Nick ignored her comment, clear his throat loudly as he stopped near a tree, “How is this spot?” he asked.

“Why do you act as if you think women should be able to do what they want, then tell me I shouldn’t do things?” Charlotte asked, ignoring his question.

Nick sighed, setting the basket down, “Just because I think you should be able to get an education does not mean that I think you should be involved in all aspects of society. Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t think you need to know about dead bodies, rapes, or any other crimes against women. I think there still needs to be barriers because like it or not you’re a lady and you should act like one.”

Charlotte scoffed at his statement but pushed the rest of her comments aside looking left and right before nodding her head toward the spot he had picked previously, “This looks good.”

They laid out the blanket and Charlotte took the cutlery and bowls of food out of her basket. Her mother had prepared the entire meal when she had told her that she was to go visit Nick and bring him a care package from his family. She was surprised by how willing her parents were to let her take the train out to Cambridge for an overnight stay. Her mother said they trusted her but in reality she knew that they trusted Nick to not let anything happen to her before she returned on the train the next day. They had arranged a room for her at a friend’s house nearby and they would be waiting for her at the train station back at home the next afternoon. 

Charlotte put some food on a plate for Nick and handed it to him before fixing her own, “So you like it here?”

Nick shrugged, “Not as much as I thought I would. What I miss most is being outside actually.”

“They don’t let you outside?” she asked, eyes wide. 

“They let me outside,” Nick laughed so hard he had to put his plate down to keep from spilling it, “we mainly stay inside the school walls though, and when I’m able to come out here I’m usually in my room studying so I just see a lot of walls.”

“Well I’m glad I could get you away from your books for a while,” Charlotte smiled, “My mother was wondering what kind of grades you need in preparatory school in order to get into a university like this. Obviously they’d love it if my brothers got in somewhere so prestigious. You wouldn’t happen to have that kind of information?”

Nick took a moment to chew, wondering why his Aunt wouldn’t just ask his mother a question like that, “Of course, I have my transcripts with me in case I need them for anything here at school. Some courses I’ve already taken so I need the letter from my prep school to prove that.”

Charlotte smiled and stored that information away in her memory banks for later use. Little did Nick know, but all the while that they’d been writing she had been asking him specific questions and making a note of his answers. She was compiling information about his life and his schooling that she needed to know. If he ever wondered why she was asking she could always say she was making some sort of family history, explaining who her cousin really was, but should he never ask then she would never have to tell him the true reason behind it. 

She would never have to tell him that along with a few documents slipped away from his parent’s bureau and hopefully soon his prep school transcripts she might be able to visit him a lot more often, as more than just his cousin, but as a peer.