by Alice Kirks
“But Father!” Sophia refused to believe that Aunt Louisa could simply say that to be mean, and she was not going to receive any kind of punishment for scaring Sophia so badly.
“I will talk to her, but I do not believe that she would have said any of what you said. If you heard what you heard, perhaps ‘tis time for you to go to bed for the night.” He took her into his arms as he stood up. “I will go talk to Aunt Louisa.”
“But Father, I am sure of what I heard!” Her sobs renewed.
He spent another hour trying to calm her down, but in the end, Aunt Louisa admitted what she said, but told her father that she had misunderstood Sophia’s question.
Again, and again, Sophia tried to tell her father that it could not be, but her father would brush her off every time.
“Silly Sophia,” he’d say. “She was reading a book, was she not?”
It was true. Ever since that night, Aunt Louisa had taken to carrying a book with her everywhere she went, and it was her best defence to keep her brother-in-law from realising that Sophia was telling the truth.
***
Sophia startled out of her dreams. More like nightmares. There was no way she could have enjoyed that kind of dream.
What had brought on that memory in her sleep? Had it been something Aunt Louisa had said that day? Or was she simply disappointed that her father would not listen to her, no matter how much she had tried to justify that night?
She got up from the bed. Then she saw the book, a copy of the fairy tale Cinderella that her Aunt Louisa had left her a few years ago, when she really was too old for fairytales anymore. Then again, she had picked it up to read, apparently.
“Oh boy…” She took in a deep breath. “Why have I allowed the fiction to influence my recall of the past?” She shook her head.
Sophia grabbed the book from the nightstand. The moon was still high, but she now could not believe that she had only recalled the one instance of when Aunt Louisa had acted as the stepmother had in this fairy tale.
They had been small things, and her father still had no idea that she was being mistreated like this. She had grown up with both her father – the sweet, gentle Duke Eisendowr – and her Aunt Louisa watching out for her. The night she had dreamed about had shattered her confidence in her aunt’s love, though she was able to feign it for her father.
Then again, she had never stopped loving her aunt. She had simply learned not to trust everything Aunt Louisa said. She knew best, but when was she using that to her benefit instead of Sophia’s? It had tossed everything into a whirlwind for quite a few years.
For the most part, now that Sophia was reaching the age where she ought to marry, she had forgotten that night. Now, she sided with her father a little more. She believed that Aunt Louisa had been tired that night, as those incidents happened more and more when Aunt Louisa was too tired to filter her thoughts before they reached her mouth.
She took in a deep breath as she put the book back on her bookshelf. Her father had insisted she have a bookshelf in her room, though Aunt Louisa had worried that the books would encourage her to stay up too late and have bad dreams.
If she had known that Sophia had indeed had a bad dream because of a book she fell asleep reading, then Aunt Louisa would have the books moved out of her room for good. She did not want to lose the one activity that she could do in the privacy of her own room.
As Sophia walked back to the bed, trying not to make more sound than she had to on the old creaky floors, she wondered if her aunt was even awake.
It was well before sunrise, from what she could see in the window. The moon still sat high in the sky. It shone across her bedroom floor, illuminating just enough of the room that she could get around without having to light a candle.
She laughed softly to herself.
Once, as a child, she had been able to go out stargazing at this time of night with Aunt Louisa. That had been before the night where she had started to avoid doing things alone with her aunt for a while.
She could not fathom the change in the household. It had been building slowly. That night had been the hammer to shatter the mirror, she felt. Before that outburst, her aunt had always been encouraging her, acting as though there was nothing in the world that Sophia could not do.
After that, and more now that she was of an age where she could be married, Sophia had noticed that Aunt Louisa had allowed a distance to grow between them. Many of the commands were now issued with a harsher tone of voice. She wondered if her aunt’s words that night had been true, but she forced that thought away.
It would not be worth worrying the night away over words that had been said a decade ago, at the least.
Sophia laid down on her bed. She closed her eyes.
Though she did not want to stay awake for much longer, her body refused to let her sleep. It seemed that the jolt of energy from when she had relived that night for the first time in at least two years was stronger than she had thought it had been.
“Oh, Father, I wish I could confide my thoughts to you.” She whispered softly to the air, looking towards her father’s room. “Why do you brush me off as though you know everything about Aunt Louisa? You do not spend all day with her… you do not have to spend every minute being fussed over instead of doing as you please.”
If her father had heard this, she would have been thoroughly scolded.
So, instead of continuing to whisper aloud, she walked quietly to her writing desk. Her father had got her a journal the year before, and though she wrote a few things in it regularly, she did not use it to house her deepest thoughts.
Today, that changed. She picked up the pen, and then she confided all her thoughts about Aunt Louisa to the journal. It felt as though it had all been bottling up for years, and now that she was letting it out, she could hardly stop her hand from shaking.
She was suddenly thankful that everyone else was asleep in this house.
When Sophia finished writing all her misgivings about Aunt Louisa in the journal, she felt better. It did not solve every problem that she could list, but it would help her keep it all from bubbling to the surface when her aunt provoked her tomorrow.
She could feel it coming. Her aunt would certainly try to get a rise out of her the next morning, especially if she found that Sophia had been awake at a time when she should have been asleep.
So, Sophia put her journal and pen away. Then, she slid her slipper-clad feet across the wooden floor, attempting to prevent anything from squeaking at her.
When she lay on the bed this time, closing her eyes brought a sense of relief.
It did not take long for sleep to come back over her, and for another memory to take over her dreams.
***
She watched the butterflies fly. She was older now, and still hurting from being told she looked too much like her mother. The glass between her and the butterflies felt too thick, as if being behind it was suffocating her.
“May I chase after the butterflies, Aunt Louisa?” Sophia looked longingly out of the window.
“No. Chasing butterflies is a pastime for childhood, and you are no longer a child. Now, if you do not focus on your studies, I will draw the curtain closed and make you study by candlelight.” Aunt Louisa only looked up from her needlepoint to give Sophia a stern look.
“Yes, Aunt Louisa.” Sophia sighed. “I understand.”
“Good. Now, finish the paper. Aloud.” Her aunt looked back down to her needlepoint.
Sophia envied the butterflies that day. They could fly away from Aunt Louisa, but she was forced to recite the paper again. She had already said it thrice, not messing up in any of the recitations. Her aunt was never pleased where her memory was concerned.
“Sophia, you have it wrong.” Aunt Louisa shook her head. “More feeling. More intonation.”
“You told me to lessen my intonation…” Sophia furrowed her brows.
“You must aim for somewhere between this recitation’s intonation and the last one’s.” A
unt Louisa still did not look up from her needlepoint.
“Yes, Aunt Louisa,” she gulped.
“Recite it again.”
Sophia recited it again.
***
She tossed over in her sleep. Why did her aunt not like the way her voice sounded? Too monotone. Too excited. Too… just too much of everything.
Her sleep was not peaceful that night, but she did not know why she had expected anything better after letting everything out in the journal.
Chapter 2
Louisa looked down at the letter she held in her hands. It was the last one she had ever received from her sister. It told her that she was close to childbirth, but the doctors were worried about her. They were worried she would not survive. That she was going to lose her child, and perhaps her own life, when she delivered. She was too weak to even walk when she sent that letter.
Louisa sighed. Why had her sister been so weak? Had it been something she had not done? Was it a food she had been eating while she had been pregnant?
Whatever the case, Louisa knew one thing that had rung true since that letter arrived: her sister had been living a life that Louisa coveted. She was unmarried, while her sister had married a duke. She even had a child.
***
Louisa held the letter in her hand. It had not come from her sister, but instead from her brother-in-law, Duke Eisendowr. Her sister had died in childbirth.
The young child – a girl – would need a mother in her life. Duke Eisendowr did not feel that it was his place to look for another bride, but that was another problem for another day. For the moment, the letter was asking Louisa to come out to the mansion and help care for the young girl.
She had felt so elated to hear that the child was safe, but she had been devastated at the same time to know that her sister had passed away. Either way, she had a decision to make.
She had not taken more than perhaps two days to think it over. As much as she resented her sister for living the life that should have been Louisa’s – after all, all the men had chased Louisa as a child and not her sister – she could not leave her brother-in-law to wonder if she was going to come.
She wrote back, using the guise of not having received the letter until a couple of days after it arrived because she was away on business, and told her brother-in-law that she was willing to help him raise the child. Her only request was that the child call her by the title Aunt instead of anything else. She wanted that boundary to remain clear in the child’s mind.
When she had arrived at Duke Eisendowr’s home, she had not realised the state of the house. It was a beautiful, large estate. Its warm white colour seemed to welcome Louisa immediately, as if it could sense that she was wearied from her travels and that she only wanted to sleep.
There seemed to be an air of hope to the home. She wondered if that was the collective hope that her sister would have survived the childbirth issues, or if that was the hope that Louisa would be a suitable woman to help raise the child.
One of the butlers opened the door for her, and then escorted her into the sitting room.
Inside, the house was no different. There was a sense of lost hope or false hope – she wasn’t sure – but it did not overpower the sense of hope that had come over the home. It felt comfortable and calm in the hallway, and the sitting room felt grand and powerful.
Her sister had certainly picked a good man to marry, she had to admit that.
She was surprised to find that the child was in a crib in the sitting room while Duke Eisendowr was working on his papers.
“Louisa! What a beautiful surprise. I was not expecting you until tomorrow,” Duke Eisendowr smiled at her.
“I suppose my coach was able to travel faster than I had anticipated, Jonathon.” She smiled.
The one thing she had never told her sister was that she had suffered a miscarriage the same day her sister passed away in childbirth. A man passing through the woods, through the town, had wooed her, and she had fallen victim to the man’s charms. He had not stuck around when he realised that he had got Louisa pregnant.
He would not have cared. While all she wanted was a family, that man had never shared her wishes. Realising that had hurt more than the miscarriage.
“So it seems,” he nodded slowly. “Here’s the child. I have called her Sophia, after your mother and in accordance with my wife’s wishes.” His face paled as he spoke of his wife.
“I am sure that she would be glad to know that I am here to help you, Jonathon.” Louisa smiled before picking up the child.
Young Sophia had had beautiful brown eyes, something that both sisters had. However, she had been born with no visible hair, and her face was slightly more like a heart than round. She certainly had traits of both her father and her mother.
Louisa felt nothing but love that first day she held Sophia.
“What is it that you expect of me, Jonathon? How long do you expect I will need to stay?” She did not know what he had thought when he sent the letter, and she had warned him when she wrote back that she would be asking these questions.
“I do not know, honestly. I expect a helping hand, of course, but beyond that, I have no answers for the questions that must be buzzing around in your head like bees around flowers.” He shook his head. “I apologise if that makes it hard for you to stay, but I know that I need the help. I am too busy with my business, and I do not feel comfortable hiring a nanny.”
“Do not worry about it, Jonathon. I will help you for as long as I can. With young women, that may mean until she is married.” She looked down at the young child. “I can make sure she marries well. Sometimes, we women pick up on things that men do not see before ‘tis too late to protect the young woman from it.”
“I would appreciate it if you could stay until Sophia marries, but with that being at least sixteen or seventeen years away, perhaps more if it takes her longer to marry, I cannot ask that of you comfortably now.” He looked at Louisa. “I would not blame you if you did not stay that long.”
“Of course,” she nodded slowly.
“I appreciate anything you can give me.” With that, Jonathon returned to what he had been doing before Louisa’s arrival was announced.
Louisa sat down on a couch, holding the little girl to her chest.
The little girl opened her mouth as if to cry before closing it and falling asleep on Louisa. Louisa only smiled.
“I promise that I will do right by your mother, Sophia.” She spoke quietly to the sleeping infant. “She would have wanted to see you do the best that you could, and I plan to help you do that.”
***
Louisa sighed, putting the letter down. Sophia had been a delightful child to look after. A delightful baby, perhaps, was the better phrasing. As Sophia had grown older, and now that she was twenty years old and unmarried, it had become harder to believe that Louisa had been taking care of her as she would have her own child.
The house too had seemed to change while she had been here. Time had ravaged the outside and inside, but Jonathon had done his best to take care of any damages. The spirit in the house, however, had changed from something Louisa perceived as hopeful to something more dour and constricting. Perhaps it was because she had to impose more rules on Sophia as she had grown older than she had when she was younger.
She looked over to her bookshelf. The books there had been covered to make sure that her brother-in-law did not suspect something was wrong. She felt too much like it would be a burden to leave Jonathon with Sophia and no woman to help raise her, but she had started to resent the young woman.
