“You make it sound as if you’re already pregnant.” George snorted and then looked into Poppy’s light brown eyes hidden beneath her eyelashes, and he sighed, “Fine, Pops, I’ll see what I can do.”
Poppy laughed, and then her laugh faded into her breath as she slid a finder under the flap of the letter, wincing as she heard the paper rip. The door opened, all of a sudden but it did nothing to break the tension that could have been cut by something much sharper than a knife. Perhaps, there is nothing sharper than a knife, but that of a woman’s wit.
A stray Norlan held up his hands as he walked in to show his mother that he wasn’t a threat, and a shy man who looked fairly similar to Norlan, but still had the light brown hair that was a staple for all Merryweathers followed behind him. Norlan sat back down on the floral couch, two seat spaces away from his sister, with his legs crossed. He was nervous for his sister, but he didn’t need to show it in his face because his leg was shaking. The whole sofa was shaking. Poppy would have glared at him, had she not been so focused on the task at hand.
She pulled the slip of paper out of the envelope, and as she did, Lizzy and George’s eyes met across the room, sizzling with worry. Karolina noticed the silence and turned to Stuart who was frozen in the archway, one foot inside the room and the other foot outside the room. She then hollered for Katherine, several times despite Lizzy attempting to reassure her that she had her butler and a maidservant already in the room.
“You’re Poppy’s maidservant, not mine! Where is that blasted girl?! Katherine? Kather-” She broke off into another bough of coughs. Shoes clip-clopped like that off horses hooves against the floor and a lady appeared, her chocolate skin dark under the dim light. Her hair was tied back in long braids that were big and thick and secured tightly under a pretty white lace bonnet. She looked flushed and out of breath, as she panted.
“Dear, do secure the doors fast shut. My son has a habit of not knowing where he should stand.” Stuart blushed in muted embarrassment and hurried towards his brother, sitting down too quickly. Poppy in her shock had loosened her grip on her letter as she read it. Her heart beat too fast and she panicked. She dropped the note on the floor, her eyes worriedly darting from side to side. George picked up the letter, skim reading it and then his eyes to the end to get the gist of it. His knuckles whitened. Lizzy watched him, every molecule of her body wanting to assure him that everything was going to be okay.
“Yes of course, ma’am. I just was out getting the grocers, and a young sir came to the door looking for the young lady, so I tol’ him to wait in the waiting room, so he’s in the hall downstairs pacing. Do you want me to send him up?” Katherine proceeded to close the door, waiting for a reply before she slid the bolt over.
“Nicholas is here?” Poppy stood up, her curly light brown hair bouncing against her shoulders, as it fell out of the pins that struggled to keep it up in a bun. George sent a look of disappointment to Lizzy who in turn shrugged her shoulders, and moved away from Karolina’s side in order to switch positions with Katherine.
“I do believe the young sir goes by that name.” Katherine nodded towards Poppy and moved away from the door, which swung open ajar.
Norlan grunted. “What are the test results then, since we’re all gathered, we might as well fucking know.” Stuart took in a sharp breath at Norlan’s use of the curse word. Karolina sent a glare their way and harrumphed.
“It’s positive.” George turned back to the window, and watched it steam up as he drew flowers in the misty glass. Lizzy stepped towards George but she then pulled herself back knowing that it was not her place to comfort him when they were around their employers. Her dark brown hair framed her face and fell forwards into her eyes as she looked down at her feet in nervousness. Poppy placed a hand on her arm, gently and nudged towards the door.
“Yes, I’m pregnant, so be it. But you don’t get to rip Nicholas away from me, the only one who gets to do that is me.” And with that she stormed off, slamming open the door and walking towards her love. Lizzy muttered something about death, but from what George was now sketching in the condensation of the window; Norlan could tell that they were thinking the same thing. Stuart coughed, ahemmed and announced his presence before cracking his knees as he got to his feet. He patted his brother’s leg and smiled at his mother.
“With that, I must depart back to my office. I have many a paper to sign, and many a people to not communicate with.” Stuart left the room, with George staring out the window. Karolina moved into a spluttering fit again, and Katherine rushed to her side, her dark eyes wide with concern for the woman she frequently cared for.
Lizzy looked around the room shakily. She didn’t usually like confrontation. She didn’t ever like confrontation. She was not akin to it but after arguments with her own separatist family she had begun to prefer the quietness in situation that the Merryweathers tolerated, at least, until now. The peace was broken. And so, she followed after her mistress, trying to breathe through her nose to calm her beating heart.
She was clearly frightful and unsettled, but she tried to shake it out of her system, clenching her fists in the brown fabrib of her petticoats. Her black shiny shoes, worn by time and wear tapped against the oak floor, as she left the door to the drawing room to close shut behind her. The house breathed and moved beneath her like it was a living thing, and she felt her own body rising beneath her. But it was just sick rising in her throat, sick that she swallowed down. She wiped her own forehead, forgetting that she was wearing makeup, the tips of her fingers coated in foundation. She must’ve looked a mess to anyone that walked past her. But there were not that many workers in the house, as she waved to a couple who had come in cleaning the floors, she remembered that there were only perhaps twenty servants on Karolina’s employ.
The lady Merryweather had taken all of the servants from the old manor and crammed them into this tiny house, and everything was out of order, even still and it had been a good twenty years since the Merryweathers had moved out of Aernford.
“I just don’t want to end up like Auntie Fiona, Nickie. If I end up like Fiona, will you still support me?” Poppy was anxious as she paced in front of the pre-pacing Nicholas. Lizzy entered the foyer after she had taken the stairs rather unwillingly. She was uncertain of this conjoining between Poppy – an upper-class young lady, first daughter of Lady Merryweather, and Nicholas – a middle-class man, with no title to his name.
Nicholas knelt to one knee. “That’s why-”
“Are you two eloping?” Lizzy wandered forward, her face the perfect picture of ghastly horror.
“Lizzy!” Poppy turned to her and then upon realising what Lizzy had just said, she turned back to her beau, “Nicholas! Is this true? Are we eloping?”
“Well, I was just going to ask if you would marry me. So I would suppose so. We could elope if that makes it easier.” As Nicholas uttered those words, a shadow ran at him from the shadows. It was small and looked like a ball of stuffing from the innards of a pillow which had grown legs and eyes. It assaulted Nicholas as it leapt for his chest, its claws outstretched like pin-hooks grappling for hold in his shirt clothing. He laughed as he fell backwards taken by its momentum.
“Of course, a hundred times yes. You know I love you and so does Lord Hugo of the southern isles.” Poppy giggled as she watched her now fiancé, fall backwards onto the floor, a creature of grey and white fur pinning him down and licking his collar. Lizzy watched with an eyebrow raised, she found the site amusing but only the quirking of her lips would allude to that.
“Should we go tell the others back in the drawing room?” Querying, Lizzyn observed the crinkling of the lines around Poppy’s mouth as she turned to her maidservant with a smirk.
“Definitely, but we should let everyone know, you know I don’t talk to Lucinda, so if you get Norlan to do that, then I will happily announce my engagement to a room filled to the brim of unsuspecting witnesses.” Lizzy sighed as she patted her locks down under the cap that she wore for work. She turned on her heel and waltzed back up the stairs, slowly taking the steps one at a time, dejected and stressed out. The drama that Poppy brought tended to make her feel like she was aging faster than everyone else and she was only twenty-four.
As they walked up the stairs, Lizzy heard the house-phone ringing, and Norlan shouted ‘it’s for me’ and then the phone stopped ringing. By the time Lizzy had reached the top of the stairs, she glanced over the staircase balcony to see if Nicholas was still on the floor, but he was gone, walking up the first flight of stairs in vibrant conversation with the cat.
Poppy reached the door to the drawing room before Lizzy did and attempted to open it, but of course they had locked the door. For some reason or another. Karolina always presumed that robbers were out to get her and would try for the drawing room first because of the valuable golden framed image of her hung on the wall.
Reaching the door, Lizzy nudged Poppy out of the way and knocked a rapid pattern of knocks on the thick wood. She hoped that the sound went through, and was right because shortly after she heard the bolt loosen and open up. The first face she saw was Katherine’s and her face dropped because in her heart she expected George.
“I have news, the grandest of news! Mama dear, I’ll soon be out of this house!” Poppy shoved her way past the two maidservants and entered the room, the sleeve of her blue-purple duo chrome shimmery dress catching on the door. The lace frill of her sleeve tore a bit, but she tugged the threads off of the door frame as she entered, not noticing that part of the fabric fell to the floor like a light feather.
“Where is George?” Lizzy turned to Katherine as the other maidservant pulled her into the roomn behind her. Norlan shh’d them as he was on the telephone, chatting excitably with some man with a low voice. Lizzy found herself leaning towards Norlan, in an attempt to listen in, but her escapades were everything short of fruitful.
“He’s gone to fix Karolina’s bed. We were readying to move her up, she says she feels a bit light-headed.” Katherine leant in to Lizzy’s ear, not wanting everyone to hear what she had to say next, “I’m debating to call the doctor, might see if Karolina’s worsening, she looks like she’s worsening.”
“So, mama, I’ve recently gotten engaged, I’ll move out to Nicholas’s tomorrow, and you won’t have to worry.” Poppy pranced around the room, but as Karolina watched her with the gaze of a transfixed eagle revolted by an attack of another eagle, there was a complaint to be made rather amicably.
“Dearest child, he has done you dirty,” Nicholas was on the verge of becoming a member of the troop centred in the room, when he heard what Karolina was saying and felt he must interrupt yet with respect for the old bat, he knew that he could not. “That dinglehopper has given you nothing but empty promises-”
Poppy pressed a hand to her own forehead. “Oh mummy! You shan’t!”
“Oh yes, I shall! I forbid you from following this preposterous endeavour and should you follow it, well you are no longer to live within this house!”
“Mummy please! You’ll break my heart!” Poppy’s eyes watered with fresh tears.
“Should we interfere?” Katherine tilted her head at Lizzy, proposing the question with the knowledge that though Lizzy was three years younger than her, that she had been in the employ of the Merryweather’s much longer than Katherine had. Lizzy shook her head in response, it was easier for the Merryweather’s to deal with their drama alone than it was to run the risk of being fired.
“Child! Quiet this instant!” Karolina coughed, “The boy hasn’t even sourced you a ring!”
“Actually, I have it here…” Nicholas tapped his fiancé on the shoulder as he took two strides towards her with his mildly long legs. He was of average height arounf five foot ten, and sometimes he both had the heart to brag and no heart at all. Poppy laughed in delight and held her left hand out for him to slip it on her finger, which he did in haste, before shoving his hands back into the pockets of his dress trousers.
“Indeed. This boy,” Poppy’s mother spat out the word boy like it was a stone in her favourite cake, muddy and had no right to be there. “should do good to take you with him, you have spilt the worst of a dried grapefruit on our family name-”
“How dare you!” Poppy shouted at her mother. Norlan jumped where he was on the phone and mouthed to Katherine to attempt to quieten the two Merryweather women, but with a look at Lizzy, Katherine knew that there was no point to it, and so she stood half in Lizzy’s shadow, avoiding Norlan’s gaze. He was growing in annoyance and impatience, so he said his goodbyes to the man on the phone line and hung up.
“I dare because I am your mother!” Karolina’s throat gurgled, her voice dry, so Katherine stepped forwards to ready a glass of water, but Poppy had already stepped closer to her mother, her face all up in Karolina’s personal space.
“You dare because you have already committed an atrocity – birthing Norlan, Lucinda and Stuart to an affair which broke my poor daddy’s heart, so much so he hung himself in our old manor house. My dad died of a broken heart. And now you’re trying to permit me to the same fate? What kind of parent are you?” Poppy’s head snapped to the side as a resounding slap by Karolina’s hand echoed around the room.
“Should we have brought snacks?” Lizzy nodded in agreement to the question asked into her ear by her friend.
“Get out at once.” The words were quiet but well taken by Poppy who had begun to cry as she ran out of the room, her skirts in her hands. Nicholas followed her like a well-trained dog. Norlan turned to the phone and dialled Lucinda’s number as Lizzy made her way over to him.
“Who was that on the phone and who are you calling?”
“That was a friend of mine. Everything is set for my presentation tomorrow. He’s just confirmed the list of possible investors.” Norlan looked grim, considering everything that had just gone down in the room. “You and George are coming tomorrow, yes?”
Lizzy nodded, assuredly. “Oh, yes, wouldn’t miss it for the world. Katherine shall stay behind to watch over your mother. Are you calling Miss Lucinda?”
“My youngest sister shouldn’t be exempt from the knowledge at least, that there is a growing rift in our family.” Norlan nodded and then put the phone to his ear. “Hello Lucy? This is Lan. I have a proposition for you…”
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