“I do not wish to get to know him,” Marjorie frowned.
Edith, surprisingly, smiled. “You sound like an insolent child.”
“You know what I mean to say,” Marjorie tried to defend herself. “I would never take or expect to get what does not belong to me. His father took me in, and there was a time when I hoped we could be like siblings. He could be my older brother, and we would be like a brother and sister from fairy tales. But…” She looked down at her hands. “That is not how it happened. Which is why I doubt that he could ever get to know me well enough to know who I would wish to spend the rest of my life with.”
“It seems to me you have not really given him a chance to prove otherwise,” Edith wondered. It was her turn to reach for the teacup.
Marjorie glanced at Edith’s rough hands. They were completely unlike her own. While hers were tended to, mostly hidden from the elements by dainty gloves, Edith’s hands were the hands of a working woman already. Still, Edith did not seem to mind one bit. Her troubles were not the kind Marjorie had. Hers were more basic, and they tended to revolve around the orphans that the two of them looked after together, when they could.
“Oh, I do not wish to speak about that man any longer,” Marjorie waved her hand dismissively. “Yesterday, after the meeting with the solicitor, he was all I could think about, him and this entire mess that has arisen. I swear, sometimes I wish like none of this happened and I was never brought into his home.”
“I’m certain you do not mean that.”
Marjorie felt bad. She certainly did not mean that, and Edith knew it. She was merely out of her wits that Alexander dared to accuse her of having something to do with this. The thought still made her blood boil.
“No, you are right, and I am sorry. Please, forgive me, my friend,” Marjorie smiled.
“There is nothing to forgive,” Edith smiled back. “I understand that this is a predicament you would like to solve as painfully as possible, but it seems that– “
A sudden sound of oncoming footsteps interrupted Edith’s words. The two young women turned around, noticing the arrival of Marjorie’s young servant girl, who was an orphan taken in off the streets. For the past half a year, she had worked for Marjorie as her servant, lady’s maid and cook. In return, the girl was provided with lodging, food and even a small sum of money to dispose with as she saw fit. The arrangement was more than suitable for both parties involved.
“Miss. Marjorie?” The girl, Annie, spoke apologetically.
“Yes, Annie?”
“There is someone here to see you,” Annie announced.
Marjorie knitted her brows. “A visitor?” She could not recall expecting anyone this afternoon, apart from Edith. “Who is it?”
“I… I do not know, Miss Marjorie,” Annie apologized regretfully.
“We spoke about this, Annie,” Marjorie explained patiently and without any scolding tone in her voice. “When someone arrives, you ask their name, so you can announce them to me.”
“Yes, Miss Marjorie, I am so dreadfully sorry. I truly am. Please, forgive me…”
The girl started to crack her fingers, and looked down at her feet, her entire body slumping downward. Marjorie knew why this was. The last place she was lodging at, they were taking advantage of her, forcing her to work from dawn til dusk, and if she did something wrong, she would be beaten terribly. Marjorie jumped up from her seat and rushed to hug the poor girl who had started to tremble at this point.
“It’s quite all right now, Annie,” Marjorie smiled, cupping the girl’s face with her hands and making Annie face her. “There will be no punishing in this house, you know this.”
“I… I do…” Annie sniveled, wiping her nose with her sleeve. “I’m sorry.”
“And enough with the apologizing,” Marjorie added. “Now, where is my visitor waiting?”
“In the salon,” Annie explained, her eyes slightly reddened from the tears that she did not allow herself to cry.
“Splendid,” Marjorie nodded. “See? That was done very well.” Then, she turned her attention to Edith. “Do wait for me while I see to this unexpected business, will you?”
“Certainly,” Edith nodded. “I am also curious to find out who you have visiting you without prior announcement.”
“I assure you, it is no one of relevance,” Marjorie assured her occasionally nosey but still endearing friend.
What she could not know at that moment, but what she did find out mere five minutes later, was that the unexpected guest indeed was someone of relevance. In fact, he was relevant to such an extent that he himself held the keys to Marjorie’s future in his own two hands.
“Alexander,” Marjorie greeted him as she entered the small, but cozy salon, which had once been a music room, but seeing there was no one to do justice to that old piano that stood in the corner gathering dust, she reinvented it into a salon. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your unexpected visit?”
She accentuated the word unexpected, wishing him to be painfully aware of the fact that, while they are considered family in some manner of the word, he is still not at liberty to come unannounced and expect to be entertained. This would be the first, and hopefully the last time he had done so.
He was glancing out of the window up to the moment when she addressed him, so she was certain that he had been looking at her and Edith the entire time.The insolence.
