Chapter Eight - Pending Closeness
Susan opened her eyes one morning, she could hear the light patter of rain outside. She sighed, as it had been doing that for a couple of day by now. She groaned, as she realized it was another day that was dingy and dim. That was not what she had wanted on this day, storm clouds that matched her inner turmoil.
It had been six days since the little ‘incident’ between her new Mother and herself. Respectfully it was also the same amount of time since the other thing with Alice. On that day, she had returned into the house that day, after hiding out back until nightfall came and the darkness and the spring’s coolness had chased her in.
When she returned, Susan found the mood of her mother so cold. The woman simply did not say a word to her until the very next morning, the now well known anger steaming inside of those intense eyes. Mrs Smyth was obviously still so very cross with just how insolent Susan had been towards her... and that translated into the woman’s behavior towards the chestnut brown haired girl.
Susan felt so uneasy with how her simple yet truthful reactions she had shown to her mother had ended up bringing such a violent act of repercussion from the woman... because of that she actually felt more frightened than she ever had been in her entire life. As the next few days went on as they should have, she felt as if she was walking on eggshells around her mother.. trying not to have the woman’s wrath come on to her again.
There seemed to be only one way to get out of this situation, and she hated the fact that it might be the only way to make some peace in the house. The one way was if she would just conform to her to what her mother was wanting, without hesitation, and just see this boy like she was wanting her to.
Aside from the problems between her parent and herself, she had another thing she constantly was thinking on... something that she had kept well hidden deep within her very own mind. It was the many very intense feelings she had been wrestling she was feeling towards the red headed Alice.
These feelings were so strong inside of her, they were almost making her feel like she was caged up like some songbird. It felt so wrong to be experiencing this type of strong attraction towards another girl, yet in the very deepest part of her own soul, she found those same taboo yearnings for Alice to be so very pleasing at the same time.
Through the rest of that week, Alice had continued to do her work for Susan just as she had before, although strangely... Alice did everything in silence. Without any real conversation between them at any time, the red head simply went about her work with great efficiency. The brief looks that Alice gave Susan though, made the young Smyth girl shiver with each and every glance.
When the girl was with her, and even when she was not...Susan could not shake what had been said by the so pretty servant girl back at the pond that one day....and just what it was that those few words had ended up implying. Could it be that she is attracted to this girl, and that she was with all girls?
Inside of her head, the holy words of her Priest back home when she was a little girl came out strong and loomed in her mind. She knew what was written about this type of thing in the bible from the constant hours of bible studies she had taken when she had been confirmed in the church. It was clear.
The holy word has layed it out like a crack of thunder on a stormy night... this was wrong for her to be feeling and God will send you straight to purgatory for such a thing. As far as she knew, the good book never really told of how she could stop feeling so attracted to another girl, it just commanded that love between two girls... was wrong.
Confused, then silenced by the continual conflict that raged in her, she just was glad that Alice never brought it up again... even though she always felt like she wanted to. It was a urge that seemed to continually grow with the passing of time.
Not long after the incident, her mother upped what she wanted. Constantly suggesting that she needed to entertain Young Master Banks advances, she sternly worded that ‘it would be in the family’s best interest’ to at least see the boy awhile to save face from that one day when she had done her little disappearing act. It was not a very subtle proposition the woman was giving.. it was more like an very blunt order wrapped up in a loose guise of being a motherly type of suggestion.
Grudgingly, Susan finally did agree to just see the lad for awhile. Her all too strong feelings for her continuing resistance to the unwanted attention the young Banks boy was giving... made her more than just uncomfortable. The young girl was very sure of one thing, she could see he was interested in her more than she could ever have pretended to have for him.
Mrs. Smyth was elated that Susan had seemed to have backdown and had put her family first finally. The woman made a very clear warning for Susan to be on her best behavior and to stop giving her any more sass back. Defying the woman was out of the question. Susan nodded her head to agree to do it, but hated herself for actually agreeing to this arrangement in the first place.
The young Smyth girl ended up spending a part of the very next day in the company of Victor, under the watchful scrutinizing of her mother. Where they were, she was... giving this almost blindly fake smile..
Susan found herself to be annoyed as ever with the lad as he sat beside her at every turn, while regaling her with many prideful boasts his family and their great wealth. Mor than once, Victor was seemingly trying to sit real close to her as time progressed. She felt so uncomfortable with the lad’s ever increasing closeness... but could see that her mother seemed to be letting that go at every turn
No matter what the youth was saying....Susan was still unimpressed with the young braggart, but made sure that she was being as nice as she could be to the lad while her mother was always near listening with a small smirk of satisfaction. It was like torture just to be with the lad, and having to be this nice for a long time, but she just did it out of fear mainly... the beating she had gotten from her Mother driving that..
She eventually was pushed in to accompanying him to church on that following Sunday, chaperoned by both sets of parents so proudly. Even there under the hallowed vaulted roof of the church that lay o the very edge of the City limits, the lad was incessant with his boasts and brags... and he was starting to make little hinting statements around on how much he liked her... and even was talking about thinking on marrying someone in the near future, all without even posing it to her. Just the thought of her ending up married to Victor, gave her the creeps.
Sitting in the pew of the church right beside the large nosed youth dressed in his finest suit, herself in a dress that just awhile ago... she never dreamed of even having on, she found her spirit, her mind and very heart were not even wanting to be there. She felt as if she was alone, only the overwhelming bitter taste of dislike and the constant reminder of her resentment to Victor was firmly inside of her.
Beside the revulsion that she was feeling for Victor as a whole, she was still also fighting those strong feelings she has had all along towards the fiery red headed girl known as Alice. The image in her head of this brazen yet so interesting girl, fueled something deep inside of her that grew and became almost alive in herself.
It was a strange and extremely confusing time for her, with the hate of the lad that was trying to court her, mixed with the strange sense of attraction she had for Alice. Each of these were now taking sides. Her own little internal war was waging a battle that was in stalemate deep inside of her every waking thought she had...neither one was seeing any decisive victory as of yet.
Now on this very dreary Monday morning, Susan was now up and dressed, puller herself sleepily to enter the large dining room on the main floor of the mansion for her breakfast. With the day starting out so dreary and dark like it was, she felt like just running back up to her room... jumping into bed and hiding there until the day was over. Here inner battle was taking it’s toll on her.
The girl quickly noted upon entering the room, that her ‘new’ little brother was strangely absent from his place at the table where he always glared at her for the entire meal. Only her Mother and Father occupied the large room. She paused to look at the empty place, before continuing on to where she usually sat.
Susan tried not to crack a smile when she had noticed, as the lad’s absence from the meal table. It did not break her heart that the lad was gone... after all, he was just her adoptive brother, and a real pain at the best of times. The overjoyed fact was that he was nowhere to be seen, and that was all she wanted or needed to really know.
She took a seat at the far end of the table, while a dark skinned servant girl hurried to bring her the morning meal on a very large plate. Looking over the serving of eggs and some sort of potato, she could see that her ‘father’ was intensely busy reading a very large book at his usual table spot and did not know she was even there. Her ‘mother’ on the other hand had seen her come in right off the bat.
The woman seemed to be eyeing the girl with a very peculiar type of look on her face. It was one that Susan had never seen before on the woman...she noted the look with a great deal of misgiving, but she made herself quiet to give it some time to see just what it might be all about. Even after this very long week that had past, things were still more than a little strained between them, and that very uncharacteristic look on her Mother’s face made her pause about things all over again.
The woman set down her coffee cup daintily and leveled her gaze right at Susan. The brown haired girl saw how her mother was looking right at her now, and just braced against whatever might be coming from the woman, her mind flashing as she was expecting some sort of tirade to come out at this point.
“ We have had a change of plans today for you today...” She said, so matter-of-factly that it was almost monotone.
“ A change?” Asked Susan, not expecting something like that. She thought of what it was, and became excited “ Is there no lessons today?”
The woman nodded and looked over at her husband, who was still so engrossed in reading the book, that he had not heard a single word from his spouse. She flashed a sour scowl at the man with a cold stare, then simply turned her attentions back on to her daughter. She was very angered that he had not even seen the look.
“ You are going to be taken into the city sometime after breakfast by our driver.” She said frankly.
“ Into the city? ” Susan said, her mind finding her mother’s words to be so strange to be hearing. “ Why?”
The woman stared at Susan, almost as if she hated the fact that the girl had reacted this way towards what she was saying. She cleared her throat and continued on with what she had been saying.
“ You are going to stay with my older sister, Nicolette her husband and their two daughters, while your Father and I leave for a week for a meeting with other business people in Chicago to set up a coalition of mining groups to help out your Father.” She said.
“ Your...sister?” Said Susan, not being able to stop herself from saying it.
“ Your brother has already gone off earlier this morning to stay with your Father’s brother, Adam, in Rocksand City which is many miles away from here.” She informed, almost void of any feeling to her loud voice. “ Ambrose is close with his three cousins there, and will probably be staying out there for a longer period of time than you will be spending with my Sister.”
Her first thought was the fact that she had never been to a city ever in her life, except for church on Sundays. She never got a chance to see the main part of the large settlement when she attended with her Parents, and was hoping that she could. It struck her then about the who she was going to stay with.
“ I have an Aunt?” She asked in her usual open way.
“ You do.” Gruffly said the woman.
In all the time that she had been living with the Smyth’s, she had never was aware that there were any other sides of her new family... she had never even thought about it. With this large revelation literally dropped on her out of the blue, Susan was now being sent off not only to meet them, but to stay with them while her Parents went on a trip. Total shock was not a strong enough word to even come close to expressing what the young girl was feeling.
The imposing woman gave a very pronounced scowl, obviously not liking that the girl was even innocently questioning her like this. She flashed a unmistakable look of being very irritated at that moment, and Susan already had learned enough to just be quiet and let her mother continue on with whatever was going to be said. Questions were not in order to be answered at this time.
“ If you must really know...I have three sisters and a older brother on my side of the family.... my own Parents have been passed on for quite some time, Susan dear...” She quickly informed anyways, muttering her words almost as if she was condescending to the girl...that was how it was delivered. “ You are going to stay with the sister who is closest to my age, for the simple reason of she is the closest relative of mine around here and their girls are roughly your age.”
Susan nodded slowly, knowing that asking things was not quite the thing to be doing right now. With this knowledge after everything that had happened, Susan had already choked down every one of her questions she had and forced herself not to even speak.
In seeing the girl’s demeanor change to her satisfaction, Mrs. Smyth continued with her train of thought, a self important smile was firmly on her beautifully angled face..
“ You will be polite while you are there... and act like the young lady I have worked so hard to get out of your uncouth self...” She said, noticing that her husband was still preoccupied with his book. She ignored the man with a snuff of being still upset with him. “ Under no circumstances will you act up or do any thing that would embarrass our family here in any way... do you hear me.”
“ Yes, Ma’am.” Susan said, swallowing the resentment of being talked to like she had been.
“ You better do as I say... you hear me” Was the woman’s final words for the moment, spoken with great warning to it.
“ Yes. Ma’am...” Susan gulped, hearing just how forceful the woman’s warning was.
Mrs. Smyth fell silent for now, her steely glare now averted away from her daughter and was now intent on jotting something down on a piece of paper she had. The woman seemed almost pleased now.
Susan quietly returned to eating her morning meal, yet her mind was busy trying to digest that she was going to be away from her mother for an extended period of time... and that brought on such a curious sense of calmness to her. For the young lass, It was almost like a dream come true.
The young girl was finding herself more than just welcoming the break from her overbearing Mother, nor was she feeling any guilt that she was thinking like this in the first place. She was starting to be worried in a way as well. It could very well be that her newly discovered ‘Auntie’ might end up being someone that she never wanted to meet... and she was nervous with what the city might be like as well.
Susan found herself more than just worried that her mother’s sister would end up being a carbon copy her adoptive parent, or perhaps cold actually be even worse than her overbearing parent. Whatever the fact would really be like as she stayed with these people... her Aunt Nicolette and family could be a welcomed surprise. Whichever it end up being like, she would have to deal with once she was at her Auntie’s place. She was hoping that at least, her Aunt was a nice person.
Thinking this whole thing over for a moment, she had to pause because she found she liked one thing about this other than the obvious. There was the fact that she would be away from the snobbish Victor for all that time, as well as escaping her mother’s overbearing ways. The two things together were an added perk that she was finding welcomed. Setting it all in her mind, she felt that this could be a change that just might be a adventure.
The silence was then broken by a sound from Mrs. Smyth. The woman had suddenly gasped loudly, almost as if she had forgotten something. Susan heard it and frowned, wondering what could be next.
“ I am sending your girl Alice with you as your personal servant on this trip... My sister does not have any extra servants she could have for you.” The lady said, smirking at that last part
“ Alice?” The girl asked, catching herself being almost happy yet also being nervous about it.
“ She will ride with you when you leave, stay in the same room as you so as to attend to whatever you are going to be needing during your stay with Nicolette and her husband Thomas..” Said the woman, adding. “ I will instruct her to do everything for you as normal.... except for meals, I want her to be at your beck and call day and night while you are staying there.”
Susan caught herself shaking like a leaf, as she heard the last little bit of this startling development and it resonated through her. She could now only nod dumbly and continued on with her meal, as the rest of her mother’s words faded off into a hazy muttering of words about her bags being packed up at this very moment and things like that.
This was a definite change of plans... as if being adopted into such a family wasn’t enough already.
Almost two hours after breakfast had ended, found Susan sitting in the carriage along with Alice right beside her. Susan dared not to venture a look over at Alice, as her mind was focused on not thinking on what has been said between her and the girl.... not to mention the kisses that had came from the girl next to her. She was still very much at odds with herself over the strong attraction she had to the beautiful red maned servant... And those things were not going away as she continued to force the urge to turn and kiss the girl.
Neither of the girls had spoken, not even while her already packed bags were been loaded up by the driver and a horse hand. They both had simply gotten into the shiny wood carriage and were off on the trip to the nearby city... that was only about two hours away by horse.
She constantly fought herself as she wondered why she felt like this... but simply just made herself look out of the window as they went. She was hoping that it all would go away, instead of growing like it was.