One for Cards

Chapter One

29/3/18: Here's Chapter One! Sorry it's been so long since you've seen new material from me. I don't exactly have a fixed date for the Chapter Two drop yet, but do keep a lookout for it :) As always, I would so love it if you'd leave me your votes and comments – they really keep me writing!

ADDIE ENJOYED WATCHING THE SUN SET.

    After coming home from finishing school, there were few better ways to avoid completing her sewing assignments than disappearing to the roof of their small townhouse. There, she would look at the sky as it turned all shades of purple and pink, not returning indoors until a maid came upstairs to call her to dinner. It was the only place she could ever feel truly alone – not lonely, but alone, and living in the world she lived in, solitude was often something she needed for the sake of her sanity.

    On this Tuesday evening she found herself there again, sitting up on the roof atop a rug she had laid out for herself, feet tucked underneath her heavy skirts and her chin resting in her hand. The sky was a creamy orange today, the sun a swelling circle of red on the horizon. It wasn't even five o'clock yet – winter was creeping closer to her city of Altarc with every passing day, but the quilt pulled over her shoulders kept her warm enough.

    She would miss being up there when it started to snow; her mother would never let her steal away to her special spot if it risked her catching cold. Each evening she took the time she had on the roof to think: mostly she ruminated about what life would be like if she had a father. Today was no exception.

    The other girls had laughed at her again. She had forgotten to bring her crewel needles – it must've been the third time that month – and for some reason unbeknownst to her everyone found it hilarious when Mrs Montgomery gave her a good dressing-down for it. She had never understood the capability of others to build their joy on the sorrow of others. Perhaps they had no joys of their own. She frowned to herself. She was not particularly fortunate, but she had never picked on another girl the way some of them picked on her.

    Poor dear Adelaide, you don't seem to have learned, one of them had said to her after class. Her words were honey-sweet but Addie could taste the poison in them. You won't ever be one of us. You can't even remember your needles, so I understand it might be difficult – but you would do well to remember your place.

    Another girl had chimed in then, her voice like nectar but her words anything but. I'm sure your father would have told you, but, you know. He won't. Then the pack of them had sauntered off giggling and she'd stood there trying not to cry.

    Addie had always been considered something of an oddity at school. She supposed it was not without reason. Since she was old enough to remember, her mother had hired her tutors, some of them men, to teach her things from literature to politics. She never did understand this fully, because most girls only had a governess, but she enjoyed her lessons nevertheless; unfortunately, others did not like that she took them quite as much. People frequently whispered that the widowed Mrs Smith would not have been so strange if she had a husband to remind her that girls did not need to learn things such as these. She was raising her daughter to be married, after all, not to be Prime Minister. Finishing school should have provided enough knowledge for someone like her, and all her other hours would have been better spent on practicing her scales or learning to sing or paint or even sketch. Addie was outstanding at none of these things, conversation being the only thing she excelled especially at, and yet Mrs Smith spent her energies having her learn politics and science. She was clever enough with the way she managed the lands she owned, but when it came to her daughter her intelligence seemed to dissolve to naught.

    Surely Mr Smith would have known better, had he still been alive. This was what happened when a woman and a girl were left to their own devices.