by Bella Bryce
“You wanted to see me, Father?” Alice asked as she crossed the grand sitting room. Her eyes scanned the various zones of furniture arranged throughout the massive room and having spied his head peaking over the wing chair, she neared it. Who she didn't see, however, was her mother, whose view was blocked by the oversized chair as Alice began approaching.
Brayden made eye contact with Sally and then stood up and put his arm out toward Alice. “Your mother is here,” he said, in a tone that told Alice that he believed she was strong enough to handle whatever conversation might occur.
Alice stopped walking before she reached Brayden and stared at the aged woman sitting on Brayden's nice furniture. It was as if Alice were seeing her mother for the first time - her rough skin, her greasy hair, her careless appearance and the bitter, scornful look in her eyes that had been there far too long.
Alice looked up at Brayden and then saw he was waiting and carried on walking toward him, albeit slowly. She arrived and Brayden put his hand on her back to encourage her to walk into the open space between the sofa where Sally sat and where he had been in the wing chair. Alice stood just inches from the mother she hadn't seen in ten months. She’d thought that when Brayden had said she had to speak to her Mum, he’d meant eventually. She’d had no idea that he’d meant that day.
They stared at each other for a long, quiet moment. Sally Oliver barely recognised Alice; for one thing, she looked like a privileged child from the Victorian era. Her curled hair was pulled back by a black satin ribbon and she wore a velveteen dress that stopped above her knees with white woollen socks that went to mid-calf. Alice stood with straight and confident posture - the exact opposite of how she felt - and gave the impression that she had more authority than her mother. Alice looked well, healthy, and despite her expressionless face, she seemed happy.
Sally had never seen her own daughter look so tidy.
“Greet your mother properly, please,” Brayden said, gently breaking the silence.
Without even considering the awkwardness, Alice immediately went forward and kissed her mother on both cheeks and then returned to where she had been standing. “Good morning, Mother. Are you well?” Alice asked, in a tone that was distant, but civil.
Sally turned to look at Brayden, wondering if he was the reason why her daughter seemed to be overly polite and well dressed. She figured he had to be. “Why is she dressed like that?” Sally asked, suddenly taking a dislike to Waldorf Manor and all it stood for, despite having coveted it only moments before.
“Because she is my daughter now, and it is how I wish her to be. Would you like to sit down, Alice, and have your tea?” Brayden asked, maintaining a rather stiff demeanour. He had the perfect balance of firm and polite.
“What do you mean she's your daughter? She ain't your daughter. It were me who gave birf to 'er, weren't it?” Sally asked, her voice rising as she added a ridiculous laugh to the end of the rhetorical question.
Alice frowned and Brayden had to abstain from closing his eyes in irritation; he believed if there was anything more irritating than listening to council estate people moan about benefits, it was listening to them speak.
“Mum, there's no need to raise your voice. I'm listening. What is it you wanted to say to me?” Alice asked, taking more of an active role in her mother’s sudden and unexpected appearance that morning.
Sally frowned. She didn't like the posh house, the chauffeur, the nice clothes, the beautiful furniture and she really didn't like Alice standing there amongst all of it looking well adjusted and comfortable.
“This chap thinks he's your daddy now does he?” Sally asked, nodding toward Brayden. He remained calm, as he always did, his hands behind his back, and let Sally shoot her mouth off. “You ain't got no Daddy, love, he left before I even got ya home from hospital."
“I have. I've been adopted. Now, what is so important that you had to be brought here to tell me?” Alice asked.
“I just wanted to see where you was. Can't nobody know? You up and disappeared on me almost a year ago. Nearly bloody called the police,” Sally said, glancing at Brayden.
“I didn't disappear, Mum. You knew I was moving out. In fact, you locked me out of the house that night yourself. Don't you remember? I didn't have a coat in the middle of February. And it was snowing.”
Sally frowned and looked at Brayden and then at Alice. “Is that what you're telling people?” she challenged, squinting her eyes as her lip curled.
“That's exactly what happened so that's how I tell it,” Alice confirmed, her jaw getting stiff. She was beginning to lose her patience.
Brayden put a hand on Alice's back to encourage her. He would let Alice speak to her mother firmly, but not disrespectfully.
“I ain't apologising for that, you ran off,” Sally retorted.
“Then what did you want to apologise for, Mum?” Alice asked.
“It's you who should be apologising, Alice! Nobody knew where you bloody was,” Sally said, her frustration visibly growing.
“I told you I was moving out. I’m eighteen years old and have every right to make that decision. It just turned out that I moved here. Anyway, you never cared before where I went and what I was up to,” Alice stated plainly.
“You were a troublemaker. A li-lle tough love is what you needed and a good smack round the 'ed,” she said.
“Tough love? What, like making me wear shoes that were two sizes too small for my feet? Refusing to collect me from school because you couldn't miss East Enders? Spending all of your money on vodka instead of food? Pushing me down the stairs? Pulling my hair? Telling me I was worthless? Spitting in my face? Backhanding me?” Alice asked, as her voice became more confident with each accusation. “Is that the kind of ‘love’ you think I needed?”
Brayden maintained a straight face as he supervised the conversation, but inside, his heart was breaking as he heard Alice ask for answers to treatment she’d endured that no person should. He hadn't known most of what Alice said had occurred.
“You deserved it. You were a lazy git,” Sally shot back.
Alice's mouth dropped open and before she could say another word or look at Brayden, he spoke. “Now that is quite enough,” he said, pulling Alice back and taking her place in front of Sally, who still sat on the sofa below him. “You will not call my daughter names nor will you speak to her in that manner, especially not in front of me,” he continued, his posture and tone telling Sally she had better be mindful of her tongue.
“She ain't your daughter, lovey,” Sally said, in a mockingly kind voice as she stood up from the sofa and spoke more to his waistcoat than his face, due to her small height. “She came out of me and she's coming back home with me. Come on,” Sally said, reaching around Brayden.
“Kindly put your hands back at your sides,” he told her in the same tone he used when he was correcting Alice.
Sally looked him up and down, laughing. “Who do you think you are? Mr. Posh telling me what to do with me own kid.”
“You have one more opportunity to say what you wish to Alice before I have you abruptly escorted from my estate. I suggest you choose wisely,” Brayden told her. “Bearing in mind, of course, that she now shares my last name and any threat to her will be taken very seriously.”
Sally frowned and looked around him at Alice. “You don't want to stay here with 'im, do ya?” Sally asked.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” Alice replied, locking eyes with her Mum.
Sally let out an unbelieving laugh and shook her head. “You posh people think because you got money you can just do wha-ever you please, like taking me own kid! Bloody brainwashed, you are,” Sally shot at Alice.
“It was my choice to come here and it’s my choice to stay,” Alice said determinedly.
Brayden looked at Alice and then back at Sally.
“Yeah well, you always were a good for nothin’ anyway,” Sally shot at her, casually.
Brayden was about to speak when Alice stepped
forward and shook her head at her mother. “I’m not a good for nothing,” Alice replied, maintaining her composure as best she could.
“Well, what are you good for?” Sally asked, in a menacing voice as she leant toward Alice.
Brayden put his hand on Alice’s back protectively and, with fiercely calm confidence, said, “You have ten seconds to take your leave,” keeping his manner apparent that if she didn’t do so willingly, he would see to it regardless.
Sally let out an insulted laugh and then to everyone's surprise, she snatched a pastry from the nearby tiered tray before stalking across the sitting room. Wellesley, who had been standing across the room at the double doors as per Brayden's orders, opened them immediately and followed her into the foyer to ensure that Sally went straight into the waiting Rolls Royce, unable to cause further upset to the Waldorf household.
As soon as the sitting room doors closed, Alice's tears appeared and she let out an unbelieving pained sob. Brayden pulled her into his arms before she could collapse as the realisation of the conversation began to sink in. Sally's rejection had been so blatant and raw that Brayden could tangibly feel Alice’s pain. He picked her up and sat right down in the wing chair, pulling her legs across his lap and holding her close to him. Alice hadn't moved. Her arms were plastered around his waist and her face remained buried in chest, colouring his waistcoat a transparent hue with her tears. He secured his arms around Alice and stroked her hair, softly kissing her head every few seconds.
“I'm sorry she said those things, my love,” he said, and continued to comfort Alice as she cried.
Her heartfelt pain was obvious and Brayden had to focus on holding together his own emotions. He finally understood what it meant to feel true compassion, which was only solidified by Alice's shaking body and fingers clutching his blazer. She didn't want to show her face and she didn't want to let go. Neither did he want to let her go.
“It's all right, my darling, I'm here,” he said, continuing to kiss her head softly and whisper through her curls. Brayden didn't have words that could, in that moment, mend a heart so tattered by rejection or make any difference. The only thing Brayden could do was hold his daughter as she faced the cruel words in her memory straight on.
“I hate her,” Alice whispered. “I bloody well hate her,” she said.
Brayden looked up at the ceiling as he stroked her back and held her head against his suit, still softly kissing her. “You mustn’t hate anyone,” he replied quietly. Brayden should have also addressed her vocabulary, namely the word ‘bloody’, but he let it go considering he would find it rather difficult to tell her not to use such language when the word was sticking in his own mind with regards to Sally Oliver.
Chapter Three
Alice sat in the bathtub with the bubbles consuming all but her shoulders in the deep, claw-foot enclosure as she stared ahead out the window on the opposite wall. Celia always insisted she draw the big, heavy drapes during her baths, but Alice countered by reminding her they had over one hundred acres of property and no one could get onto it without passing the electric gate and two husky-looking, uniformed guards.
“They seem to be on a never-ending tea break whenever I come and go,” Celia muttered before opening her book.
Celia stayed, usually, to wash Alice’s back and rinse her hair after putting conditioner in. She would read on the chaise lounge nearby, keeping the girl company and replying to conversation started by Alice. Alice made no conversation that morning. She stared out the window in front of her as if in a trance, until her vision went blurry and then she slowly rubbed the bubbles into her arms, appreciating the soft and gentle caress more than the cleanliness.
Alice’s mind began to replay the conversation from only an hour earlier when Sally’s mouth spewed hurtful and derogatory words. She closed her eyes and mentally repeated, “Stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it.”
She didn’t want to relive the conversation or the rejection. She’d cried all of her tears by that point and wanted to move on.
Alice had other things to focus on, like Elisabeth Warner moving to Waldorf Manor that day. She was looking forward to having another girl about, although Brayden hadn’t told her how long she was to stay. He hadn’t explained a whole lot just that, “Uncle Bennett quite likes Elisabeth and so she will be staying with us whilst he courts her.” Alice also made a note to ask Brayden why Elisabeth couldn’t just stay with Uncle Bennett if they liked each other. She hadn’t really asked any questions the prior day when Brayden took her out for a walk through the woods to a gorgeous, sparkling lake. They sat on a bench and had a long chat, which was when Brayden told Alice that Elisabeth Warner would be moving in with them ‘for a little while.’ Alice hadn’t really thought much of it at the time; perhaps knowing that the door to her old life had been slammed shut in her face that morning as demonstrated by her mother, and another one seemed to be enabling Alice to give herself more fully to her new one.
Alice loved Waldorf Manor. She loved Brayden as her father and she loved the Fowlers, even her Uncle Bennett. Sally Oliver, showing up and disowning her the way she had, only solidified Alice’s contentment and security with Brayden. Beyond that, having been raised in a vile environment, Alice was previously naïve to how uncommon, or rather, unacceptable, such behaviour was between a parent and their child. Alice had the benefit of being removed from that environment; and seeing her mother with fresh eyes, after ten months, shook her right out of that naivety. Alice saw more clearly than she ever had, just how broken her Mum was and had always been, and she felt it a sincere shame that they didn’t reconcile despite her original refusal to even speak to the woman. And reconciliation or not, Alice wouldn’t have left Waldorf no matter how transformed either of them had been by the time apart. Brayden’s fatherhood was forever and Alice would never walk away from it, but especially not after seeing how protective he was, and yet, he’d allowed Alice to stand her ground under his supervision. She hadn’t planned to say anything at all, but after seeing the state of her mother, Alice realised she was truly secure in her identity, by that point, to speak up about things deserving an explanation. Alice hadn’t received a logical one in the end, although she was proud of herself for having the strength to ask, and in a way that had been firm, but polite. In that regard, the credit was due to her time at Waldorf and under Brayden; had it been any other situation, Alice probably would have shouted in her mother’s face after coming to a proper understanding of how abused she’d been.
Brayden had held Alice for a long time afterward, reassuring her that her mother’s words and behaviour bore no reflection on anyone else, except just how miserable Sally was. Alice cried until she couldn’t anymore and Brayden had to fight rather hard to keep from saying anything against Sally in those vulnerable moments after she stormed out of Waldorf. He even had to fight his own emotion and managed to do so until he’d seen Alice into the hands of Celia for a late morning bath to help her recompose herself.
Brayden went straight for his study, removed his blazer and dropped it on the seat of one of the wing chairs in a most un-Brayden-like fashion. He was angry and felt completely disappointed in Sally Oliver, who had insisted she wanted to see Alice to mend their broken relationship. Brayden always knew there was a small chance Alice might leave with her if Sally had changed enough from what he knew of her, but clearly, it was all a ploy to find out where Alice had been living for the last ten months. She never intended to mend anything with Alice.
He stood at the windows in the study, which overlooked the back of his estate, hands on his hips, eyebrows furrowed. Brayden shook his head and closed his eyes, wondering how it was possible for a grown woman and a mother to behave so hatefully toward her own child and a complete stranger. Not to mention one who had taken her daughter in and treated her as his own.
Or rather, made her his own.
Brayden gritted his teeth slightly, causing his cheekbones to show more visibly and rubbed the bridge
of his nose as he shook the idea of his late parents being witness to the morning’s occurrence in their sitting room. It was unthinkable.
He recalled the way Sally told Alice she was ‘good for nothing’ without so much as hesitating and he couldn’t stop tears from forming in his eyes. The study door was closed, the staff wouldn’t enter without knocking and Alice was in the bath so he talked himself into allowing the tears to remain. He didn’t regret making Alice face her mother; it was critical to every person’s growth to deal with adversity, but he regretted assuming the woman would be civil and at the very least, reasonable. Brayden’s late parents had always held him to very high expectations and regardless of how the rest of society or the world beyond the gates at Waldorf behaved; he was expected to be kind, polite and long-suffering toward anyone of varying morality. Brayden had the very same expectations of Alice.
He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief, wishing he could have reassured Alice just a bit more. Brayden wondered how much damage Sally added that morning to the wounds she’d already caused Alice in the years before. He didn’t want to dwell on the words spoken against Alice – it wouldn’t benefit anyone. Dwelling turned to bitterness and bitterness was like an unseen mouldable, bendable substance that hardened after being ignored for too long. If a person allowed bitterness to harden, it would manifest in various forms and often showed in people’s lives in unpleasant ways. And it was very obvious when a person hadn’t tended to their emotions for an extended period of time. Brayden knew the dangers of being bitter and angry, so he quickly reminded himself that Sally was human and probably so broken that she was unaware of her own behaviour. He had previously concluded that only people who were hurting could so unknowingly hurt others, and Brayden was sure it was a strong conclusion.
There was no other explanation. Sally was angry, bitter and hurting and she knew nothing else. How could a woman who hurt inside possibly extend love to her daughter, or anyone else?
