“Fuck.” Lenna rubbed her eyes, a string of harsher curses followed.
This could not continue. Lenna knew that. She felt sick. She failed the woman in front of her who stood broken and alone. Marlo furrowed his brows, concern laced through his soft features. They deserved better than this life. This life that Lenna had gotten sucked into and stuck in. This life where she felt so trapped and alone.
How fast the perspective of time changed. Lenna contemplated that thought amidst the warring feelings inside her of sadness and anger. One moment she was happily married, moving into a bright, big mansion with a rich husband who doted on her, with all the luxuries money could buy. The next, she was nearing fifty-two, in a loveless marriage to a cruelman, stuck in a pantry with her husband’s mistress, and Marlo - who she could honestly say was her only friend.
And suddenly a wild, insane, completely nuts plan formed between the thrums of her headache.
Chapter five
Lenna
“Youneedtoleave,”Lenna said slowly, the idea forming rapidly in her mind. “Youbothneed to leave. Get out of this house, get to Bardon or a different town far away from here. Start your lives. If you go together, you can secure passage on a ship and watch out for each other. Orla–you know some of the sailors who are coming into town this week, would any of them help you and Marlo get to Bardon?”
Orla and Marlo stared at her, dumbfounded.
Finally, “We…couldn’t leave even if we wanted to,” Marlo sputtered, a hint of defeat in his voice. “We have no money, nowhere to go.”
Lenna shook her head, talking faster, her hands waving as she pieced together the plan. “I have jewelry–gold. You can have it all. It will sell well. Especially in Bardon. Leon will never notice any of it gone. And, if you sail to Bardon, there’s a small township two days’ travel west of there–Wilfur. My dear friend, Diana–she’s Lady of the Wilfur Estate. She would absolutely give you both positions in her Manor, or see to it that you’re secured with other jobs in town.” Lenna looked at Orla, noting the wariness in her eyes. Gently, Lenna added, “Lady Diana is a kind woman who would help you.” Lenna squeezed her hands together trying to calm her heartbeat.
This had to work. She had to help them live a life absent of terror and abuse. “I can write a letter, asking her to give you both work. Diana was my childhood friend and lived in Doortan until she married her late husband, who passed ten years ago. Take the letter to her.”
Though Lenna had neither spoken to or seen Diana in a decade, the generosity the woman always displayed was a gift time could not warp. Lenna felt a pang of sorrow as she reminisced on the friendship that grew stale and dusty over time, but the questions that Diana would undoubtedly ask were not questions Lenna felt she could answer honestly. Her marriage to Leon left an embarrassing stain on her heart, and curling up into a state of isolation was easier over the distance and years than admitting to her old friend that she was unhappy.
Marlo gave Orla a shrug, silently deferring the decision to her. Orla’s eyes filled with tears again. Lenna realized it was probably the first time in her life the woman could make any choice about her own path.
“It’s…too much, why would you do this for us, my Lady?” Orla choked, wringing her apron in her hands with such ferocity, Lenna waited for the garment to unravel and fall to the floor in threads. Marlo hovered between the two women, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
Lenna knew right then and there they would go. “Please, Orla, call me Lenna. I cannot leave, but you can. You have your whole life ahead of you. Marlo, you are my dearest friend here, you are strong and kind.Youcan leave, make a name for yourself, live to your heart’s desire. Orla, what my husband was doing to you, what your mother did to you, is unacceptable. You are in a bad situation. I can help. Iwillhelp.”
Orla looked up slowly, the first glimmer of light returning to those storm grey eyes. Setting her jaw, determination growing on her bruised features, Orla said, “I want to go. I want to get away from this place, frommy mother, andLeon,”she spat, forsaking his title, as if he did not deserve to be the Lord of Doortan. “I will owe you for the rest of my life if you help me.” Orla turned her attention to Marlo, “Helpus.” Marlo met her eyes for a moment, searching, before he nodded.
“We will go, Lenna. We will go, and never forget this kindness you’ve shown us.”
“Then we must prepare.” Lenna breathed a sigh of relief. She thought it would be harder to convince them, but seeing how Marlo looked at Orla, like he was finallyseeing herfor the first time, Lenna knew he would go–for Orla’s sake, and for his own shot at freedom.
Preparations were made right there in the cramped pantry closet, surrounded by the dwindle of servants coming in and out of the kitchen. Lenna would retire to her room, write the letter to Diana, and collect jewelry and gold for them to sell when they reached Bardon. Orla would return to the servant’s quarters, get some rest, and slip food into a pack in the morning before the other servants awoke. Marlo would notify the stable hands that Lenna wanted to ride into town, and to get three horses ready for first light by using the cover story that Lenna wanted to bring two of the servants with her to town to purchase more seeds for the garden. A lie that would sell. And Leon would be too hungover from the captains’ dinner to keep tabs on any of this.
When Lenna came back home, with two extra horses riderless, Lenna would use the excuse the servants stayed behind to enjoy a night at the tavern in town as reward for their excellent dinner service the evening prior.
Any excuses afterwards would be on Lenna to create. Lenna knew the biggest issue would be Olivera, who would be furious to learn her daughter disappeared. Furious the extra money would be gone–with no actual concern for Orla’s wellbeing. Leon would be a different story,but Lenna knew he would cut his losses and say two less servants meant two less salaries to pay. He didn’t care for Orla, not in a way where he would miss her.
He will find some new woman to torment,Lenna thought with a flash of hatred. But at least Orla would be safely out of his reach.
Lenna, Marlo, and Orla hurried out of the pantry once the sounds of servants disappeared and only anticipatory silence filled the kitchen, all three eager for this plan to work. Orla gave Marlo a swift peck on the cheek as she departed. Marlo watched her go, hand touching where her lips met, as if the ghost of the kiss remained.
Leaving the kitchen, Lenna kept her head low, slipping through the back halls and keeping to the shadows the night cast across the somber Manor. She slid into her room, closing and locking the door behind her, a signal that she would not need assistance getting ready for bed. Lenna didn’t know what she would do if she ran into Olivera. Part of her wanted to grab that scrawny bitch by the throat and give her the same bruising Leon gave Orla.
The fierce need to protect and help the less fortunate was a moral Lenna held onto dearly. As a young woman, before her marriage, she would hunt extra doves and rabbits to bring to the poorest in town so they could enjoy a nice meal for the night.
With no children of her own, Lenna adored helping the town’s orphans who weren’t taken care of. She did whatever she could to help make their lives easier through charity work and large donations that Leon would never notice on his ledgers.
Her migraines may have inhibited her from helping Orla prior to this, but now that she knew help was needed, Lenna would stop at nothing to see to it that Orla was safe and could begin making her own decisionsin her life, and that Marlo could have a true shot at making a name for himself outside of this dead end town.
The letter to Diana was written quickly, giving detailed explanation with an added little lie that Marlo and Orla were moving to Wilfur due to family circumstances. The letter asked if Diana had room for them, or if she could set them up with a job in town.
Lenna carefully worded the letter, keeping out any hints that they would be safer in Wilfur, or that they could not come back to Doortan. Diana shared the same soft spot Lenna held for the impoverished. Their pasts linked through an easy friendship that blossomed from raising funds and donating coats in the winter to help the people who needed it most. Lenna knew her old friend would see Orla and Marlo as two souls in need and would help in any way she could.
Wistfully, she added a line in the letter asking if they could meet next time she was in Wilfur, dreading the reality that it would likely never happen. Leon kept her locked up in this town of nothing, not caring to allow her the freedom to explore or go anywhere other than to town or to walk the outskirts of the forest surrounding the Manor.
