Page 125 of Queen of Nothing

Father says nothing more to me.

Mr Younge escorts me through Elcott Abbey to the Green Wing. But as we pass the staircase above the foyer, I hear it.

The sound of celebration.

Laughter and music and the crack of a pool cue, and glasses clinking.

It’s all coming from the parlour room.

Guess I’m not invited to my own welcome home party.

19

The moment I’m in my bedroom, all my tears dry and I feel a little lighter. Not light, but lighter.

The lavish familiarity of my bedchamber is a world away from mouldy apartments and dusty motel rooms.

Beneath the silvery chandeliers, I wander around the bedchamber, and graze my fingertips along the polished tables, the buttery soft Chesterfield sofa, the smooth mantle above the unlit fireplace, even the sage-green wallpaper with soft white flower patterns.

I touch every piece of furniture in the room, drop the folder onto my desk beside the family photo that stands in a crystal frame, until I finally wander to the two doors in the corner of the room.

I open the door to my left, and it opens to a wardrobe with a fluffy rug that spans wall to wall, that feels like feathers under the scruffy canvas shoes on my feet, and that lights up with glittering lights when I flick the switch.

Not a wardrobe like any I’ve had in years.

Not a musty old wooden cupboard with racks and rails that bow under the weight of my clothes.

It’s a room in its own right.

A faint, tired smile breaks through the exhaustion and curves my lips.

My hand lifts to feel along the clothes that won’t fit me anymore.

Cashmere and cotton and linen and wool and silk.

A caress against my fingertips, buttery and smooth.

Now, I understand how it must feel to be in one of those perfume adverts on the television all the time, to be caressed by luxury. This is that.

I come around the shelves of my shoes, all dust-free and glistening under the lights, but I turn my back on them—and the jewellery bench in the centre of the room lures me in with glittering winks.

I look down at the glass top—and the jewellery beneath it.

I pawned everything I took to Bluestone, which wasn’t much, not compared to the diamonds and gold and platinum and pearls in the glass case.

I drag my fingertips down the glass, over the necklace Mother gifted me for my sixteenth, encrusted with rubies.

That would have fetched more than the earrings and bracelets combined.

The diamond bracelet, as thick as a cuff, was a gift from Father on my eighteenth. It’s gaudy and I always hated it.

I prefer the bracelet beside it, a simple white gold chain speckled with diamonds and crushed rubies.

That one was from Dray.

But the centre piece is a slight mound—with no tiara to fit onto it.

Grandmother Ethel never passed it down to me.