Whitebridge (Wattys 2016)

Chapter 2: The calm before the storm

By this time Charlène was sitting before the piano, numerous music sheets flashing before her eyes. The jazz music had been stopped and everyone seemed ready to hear her. She'd finally settled on one, and after stretching her fingers, she started to play. She was fully concentrated on the music and on how to play it gracefully and with compassion so she couldn't see the frustrated expression on the demoiselles' faces. Her governess seemed bored too, but at least she made some effort to hide it even if it was quite strenuous for her. She glanced at the man sitting next to her, and flashed him a smile, but he didn't even notice her, focusing all his attention on his daughter's performance. So Elizabeth Stevens looked away, embarrassed, she was never a fan of classical music.

The piece came to its end and Charlène received an applause, mostly from her father and uncle. She went back to the table and sat next to his uncle, the music had seemingly brought her appetite as well.

„You've made great progress since the last time I've heard you. I am proud of you, Charlène." The bearded man praised her adeptness and extolled her style.

„I am proud of you, Charlène.„

The youngest Lady mimicked her father derisively a few hours later, after everyone had retired to their room, but the demoiselles sneaked into Joanne's and had been chattering there for half an hour now. Their main subject was their cousin, Charlène, for they were jealous of her.

„Everyone is praising her when she is nothing special." Breanne continued, wording her indignation.

„We are smarter, bonnier, and more talented than her."

„We deserve our father's appreciation. He is our father, for G-d's sake!" She emphasized the word ‚our'.

„We are just simply better in every aspect." She drew the conclusion.

Even though Breanne was the youngest of the three sisters, she had the most depravity in her. Her inky eyes turned pitch black as she spoke with rage; intrepidity and pique filled them. She had always been the most stubborn one and she had always taken what she had wanted. Everything had to be hers and she had to be everyone's everything.

„But what are we going to do?" Lorene asked the question which troubled all three girls.

There was a deep silence for some minutes, until an evil laugh destroyed it.

„We teach her a lesson. I've heard that they are all going away tomorrow so we are going to be all alone. We will certainly find an opportunity wherewith she will forever know where she belongs."

„It's a good deed, to shepherd the lost sheep back to her own flock." The eldest agreed with a grim look on her resentful face.

They could sleep now and maybe among the awful dreams they had they found all the details of their baleful plan.

A few meters from the demoiselles a door was opened. A woman dressed merely in a dark blue camisole with black lace at its hems was making her way into the room with the opened door as she was holding a lighted candle in her left hand. She stepped in and closed the tall and massive wooden door after her. Then turning to the man who was standing before her, she formed an O shape with her lips and blew out the taper in the most erotic way possible.

The woman was the governess and the man's name was Joseph Moor.

„I hope no one has seen you." Joseph said as she started to unbutton his shirt.

Elizabeth Stevens' face flinched, she rolled her eyes and she stepped away from the man, leaving him with a half-unbuttoned shirt and with his bare chest peeping through the garment.

„Of course no one has seen me, the children are sleeping and that woman is in the other end of the house. Stop being ashamed of me!" She wasn't actually offended, this was only one of her tricks.

„I am not ashamed of you, Eliza. It's just Charlène. She is too young to understand that I can't love her mother all my life when she is not with me." The man took a step towards Elizabeth.

„So you love me." The governess smirked and licked her lips as she made her way into his arms.

„Of course I do, do I always need to demonstrate it?"

„Yes... you need to... prove your love... over and over again."

And thus I found out that the cedar-haired woman and the grieving widower had been having an affair. But I won't describe it for I hope even Charlène will hear about this story and I do not want to make her feel uncomfortable.

Charlène just couldn't sleep that night. She had a nightmare and after that she was visualizing all kinds of monstrous and gruesome things. She sat up in the bed and clenched her fists, letting some tears of frustration escape her eyes and travel down her chiseled face. It was the middle of the night, she was certainly tired, so tired that her eye lids fluttered than closed for a moment. She was calm for some time, half-sleeping, half-sitting in the middle of the room she oh so loved! But then those dreadful creatures filled her head again and she saw them in her dreams before she stirred awake, weeping. She was too terrified to close her eyes again so she just sat there, checking every part of the room with her eyes again and again being apprehensive about seeing them there, in her reality, in the finest room of the castle. Then she stood up in the gloomy, unlit room and she slowly made her way out of it.

The act seemed actually really strenuous to her. She had to rake up all her courage and had to borrow some from the darkness. But she was forced to do it, there was no way that she would be sleeping there alone that night. She tip-toed on the surprisingly cold floor of the corridor trying to find her father's room in the mirk. And when she thought that she had found it, she put her hand on the knob, and a door actually opened. But it wasn't the one she was in front of for she stopped and stepped away scared, as she heard the other door flung open. Her heart was throbbing, her palms were sweaty and she instantly thought that the monsters from her cauchemar were about to catch her.

But there were no bete noires in the hall, but Charlène and the French au pair on her way to comfort her.

„What's the problem, ma chérie?" She asked her as she reached her.

And then Charlène told her and the French woman went with her to her bedroom and spent the whole night there. She narrated a tale in French which calmed her down and put her into a deep sleep. And as she was kipping soundless her head resting in the woman's lap, she didn't envision gruesome creatures again but she dreamt with her mére or with the au pair, she couldn't decide.

This way Charlène was saved from the sight of her father sleeping with another woman, the one who was her governess. She had never actually liked her, but that way, she would have even had an adequate reason for it.

But I am glad that the French woman came and thus the ingenuous life she had didn't end and her world wasn't shattered; she could still have the illusion of her father's deeply loving her dead mother. Because the next day something that marked her entire life happened.