No marriage is happy ever after - On VERY temporary hold!

Music before breakfast

It was surprisingly easy for Louisa to remember the way from the staircase back to her room. If she had continued down the corridor from her room instead of turning when she did, she would have found the corridor leading to the staircase to conjunctions later.

She could not really mind, though, as she had had a wonderful little adventure on the way.

Silently Louisa slid back into her room. The issue now was to keep herself occupied until breakfast. The vice had started pressing on her temples again, but she knew that should she fall asleep once more, she would be late for breakfast. The mere thought of Lord Hiddleston scorning her for being late for her very first meal at Oakdale was not something she would like to endure.

Instead, she turned to her trunks once again. They had all been terribly disarranged last night and she had to search through several trunks before she found what she had been looking for. With a triumphant smile she pulled out a carefully wrapped bundle of sheet music and brought them along to her bed.

Louisa unwrapped the papers with great care and spread them across her bed. They were sorted by difficulty, from sweet nursery rhymes to elegant pieces of music, suited for entertainment at dinners.

Louisa took one of the more elaborate pieces and stretched out her hands in front of her and slightly to the side as if holding the strings of a pedal harp. Her eyes gazed at the sheet in front of her to note the beginning chord as her fingers moved to strike that very string on her imaginary harp.

Slowly, Louisa went through the sheet several times, remembering the feeling of the strings on her fingers and attempting to memorise the exact movements of her hands to play this particular piece.

She felt the urge to play on the actual strings, to feel them quiver between her fingers as the sounds resonated through the room. Alas, it was still too early to play as she would certainly disturb other people in their sleep, and besides, her harp had not yet been brought from Midgrove to Oakdale. Louisa fervently hoped that it would arrive today or at the very latest, the next day.

Instead, she contended herself with her imaginary harp and kept practising beautiful pieces of music strewn around her bed.

So engrossed was Louisa in her pretended play, counting the pace and reaching for the right chords, that she did not notice the time passing. When the sound of a throat being cleared behind her, went through the room, she jumped with fright right then and there.

Louisa turned around with a hand held to her heart and saw the face of a stern looking maid gazing at her in front of a closed service door.

"Oh, dear, you scared me!" Louisa panted as she tried to collect herself once again. "Please knock before you enter my room another time."

"I did," the woman said curtly. "Three times, milady."

The woman was a small, stout person. She was probably in her sixties with her grey hair tied in a tight bun on her head. With her dark brown dress and apron she resembled an old governess.

Louisa blinked shortly in surprise. Had she really not heard three knocks on the door? Then she woke from her stupor and straightened her back. She was a lady of this house and she would have to act like it, not sitting and looking like a frightened deer.

"Then I apologise for my absence of mind, Mrs...?"

"Heathcliffe, ma'am," the woman replied as clipped as before. "I am assigned to be your maid until a proper one is found."

A maid. Suddenly, Louisa thought of Ashley and her ceaseless smiles end gentle teasing. It tugged at her heart to think of her old friend. She had only had time for one very brief letter to her own family, stating that the journey was going well, but she had not had any time to write to Ashley yet. The letter from the butler still lay unopened as well. This would have to change soon, but Louisa knew as well that it would require time to write as well as to compose herself afterwards. This was the reason she had not performed these particular tasks to pass her time this morning.