Phoebe came to the conclusion, that following morn, that sleep was a deplorable task with its wicked temptation and denial to those who desired it most. Flipping her pillow over, she tried to seek compassion against the burning pressure in her left temple by burying it in the cool side of the pillow. There was only a spiritless nature in the recess of feathers hidden in a cloth exterior and she was exposed to be played the victim by plagued thoughts.
In this world, there were gods, there were mortals, and then there were Phoebe's. The latter being the runt of the group that Spartans cast on a journey for Poseidon's judgment. At least that's what society should enact upon her kind.
She harbored no love regarding Mr. Claremont. This did not supply denial on her part, for she would have acted upon romantic beliefs if any had inconveniently manifested after all these years of withholding. No, this was the muses taking the strings of her puppetry to contrive a harp that would play the tune of Ares and Aphrodite's love with improper timing.
No, that was a drastic assumption. She would be too hasty if she were to degrade the emotions with such a title. Not to imply that she was inclined to judge those who found pleasantries out of wedlock, but merely that she could find no motivation for her own participation in the hobby. Preoccupied in attempting to resolve her distress of social decorum, she couldn't imagine enduring the hardship of fearing the possibility of being found a hussy. Then being branded by it.
Then there was the act itself. Her conversations being passable at best, any comfort to be found in an embrace seemed lost upon her. No, it was certainly not lust.
Phoebe felt pain. Not the pain inspired by influenza, but the pain of having one's chest hollowed like the trunk of a tree rotten out after the harvesting by carpenter ants. This was not the feeling prophesized in many a sonnet and serenade.
Sitting up, she felt her temper cool to equilibrium as her bare feet grounded themselves on the wooden floor. She wiped the moisture off her brow with the palm of her hand and a thought of Mr. Talwin surfaced. Even in thought, the man could numb her. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to steady the pulsating veins in her wrists.
Mr. Talwin and she were not courting, and any bindings they had were in gossip. If she was smitten by Mr. Claremont, she was free for subjecting to his pursuing (the occurance of such a design being a matter of its own entirety), but that was not her desire. This anonymous emotion was painful and terrifying and if anything, she wished for Mr. Claremont's existence to dissipate.
Reaching for her jacket and recently completed book, she quickly left the room and made her way downstairs. Perhaps she could exhaust herself to slumber with a walk.
"Was that an apparition I saw just now?" A voice halted her as she was making her way out the back door.
Biting her inner cheek, she backtracked and redirected to the kitchen that harbored the owner of the previous utterance. Upon entering the room, she felt pins of heat prick the high corners of her cheeks and a dry sweat emerge through her temples. Two sources of illumination made exception to this room compared to the dark and musky cloak over the remainder of the manor: the windows adorned with unceasingly opened curtains and a fire seeking air that was excessively dwarfed by the wall-engorging fire place.
Outlined in the window's light were two figures. The first was a middle-aged gentleman who was more occupied in a jar of smoked sausage than aiding in food preparations. Homer Hans Barrettmore wore his sleeves rolled and boots muddied for the fall harvest. Despite owning their max of seven slaves, Homer still felt inclined to give aid during the busiest season. It gave him an appropriate refusal to the season's festivities in favor of early rest. Not that the inaccurate acceptability of the excuse detoured him from enacting them any other season.
The other figure was a middle-aged woman of soot colored skin. Mima could always be depended upon to be retrieved from the kitchen if one went looking. She currently employed herself with grounding spices and chastising Phoebe's father for engorging himself in winter's stock.
"Wanted early leave of the house?" Homer sacrificed his daughter to Mima's attentions.
"Not without breaking fast first," Mima succumbed to the bait, "You can 'ave some pork if yer father will give ye any."
Homer grunted.
Phoebe shook her head. "I have no intentions to be gone long."
"You never do," Homer retaliated, earning him a light smack to the wrist and a sideways glance of mirth from Mima.
Mima pointed to an empty stool on the other side of the kitchen work table from where the two already inhabited. "Bread's 'bout done. An egg shouldn't force yer waitin' long."
"I really have no--."
"Phoebe, sit," Homer decided for her.
She complied with the task and quickly occupied herself with tracing her nails in the wooden table's groves. A letter was slid into view before she could inflict substantial damage. Glancing at the letter's provisioner, she inspected Homer's face, fearing that the author may be a gentleman whom she unfortunately had to avoid dancing with and would take the reason for doing so to her grave. Her father's face was devoid of any assistance to deny or support the identity, but it was unpleasant nonetheless.
As she began to break the wax seal, she attempted to quell her shakes with reasons for why Mr. Talwin's informing her of his loss of interest was a fortunate occurrence for her. After reading whom the letter was addressed to, she examined whom the letter was addressed from, in confusion. This was further fueled by its origin being that of London.
"Dear Mr. Homer Hans Barrettmore,
I'm addressing you as thus to convey my comprehension of your desire to deny the ten hours of labor I endured to bring introduction toward your ungrateful soul. In return, I should desire to set about my own declaration in that should you refuse to continue answering my letters, you will soon find them timesed by seven. If those letters are also to be neglected, I shall seek out my lagniappe, your child, to receive my replies.
Although I have written this in my previous letters, I'm certain the flames have made a good meal of them by this point. If you read the previous letters, you are aware of the unfortunate and ill-timed demised of my son, your brother (unless you have chosen to deny him additionally), earlier this year. My son (your brother, should you not deny him in death) had not opportunity to give me the gift that you have. As you know, without needing trouble yourself with retrieving the previous letters (unless you have forgotten us during the excitement of living amongst barbarism, in which case, blacken your hands), that leaves your daughter as the sole heir to my estate and title. As you are well aware, as a living example yourself, I shall not hold her responsible to this inheritance. However, it would be regrettable for her not to be made aware of this option for her life.
Upon writing this letter, I have come to notice that I am ignorant of the name of this darling girl. Though, I suppose, given our relationship, I should be grateful to be made aware that I have a grandchild. However, as you will hopefully come to learn yourself soon, it is in the definition of grandparents that we are intended to shower our grandchildren ('child' in my case, which I suppose I must be grateful for this too) with our affection. After losing the only person willing to keep with family, you can see that my need to bestow such affections have increased in the past year. Deny my love, deny your identity, but do not deny me my definition. Keep in mind that your brother, or my son, may be calling me to join him soon. While both of you were raised in equal settings, though I admit you had to bare the majority of my affections, he still wishes to see me. However, I shall find no rest in my seventh slumber should I never meet my lagniappe.
With love (what mother's do despite their child's refusal to reciprocate),
Lucrecia Danielle Barrettmore."
"You're not required to go," Homer informed Phoebe after she checked the address a second time.
Growing up, her father had spoken very little of his English nidus to her. The information that had been gathered spoke of parochial clans in smoky rooms, friends as stiff as the clothes they wore, and family members that abused connections for status elevation. She never doubted the claims he made, and over time came to inherit his fears. Yet, as she glanced over the elegant script and the constant badgering against her father's abandonment of his previous life, she couldn't help but to emphasize on her feelings of sympathy to a bond never forged.
"Why haven't you told me?"
When Homer could only supply silence, Mima supplied, "We both choose t'tell y'now. Yer pa was worrin' 'bout t'ings, but we both know it'd you that aught to wore 'em."
Phoebe nodded, disappointed in the answerer. She inspected her finger as it played with the corner of the note. No anger could be forged to either party present, but she could not say she was of the same temperament with them as she was moments prior. In truth, any original distaste she held for both were now magnified by the paper in her grasp.
"What if I wished to go?"
"No immediate decision is required," Homer emerged.
"But what if I did?"
Homer thumped his fingers rhythmically upon the table, the hollowed sounds forming a lump in her chest. "Do you?"
She bit the inside of her cheek. "I don't know, but I might."
"She's not a pleasant woman," He said flatly, earning himself a frown from Mima.
Phoebe began to wrinkle the page's corner. "Perhaps, but...what if she is?"
"She's not. I lived with her for ten and seven years. I know."
"But what if she is and you just misunderstood her? I misunderstand people all the time and easily take offense—."
Homer scowled. Phoebe retreated her eyes and hands to her lap, dragging the letter as hostage.
After touching every corner of the room with her eyes, she piped the inquiry, "Must I still break fast?"
"No, you can go," Mima answered and Phoebe was almost persuaded to stay in retaliation.
Phoebe didn't cease walking until immersed in miles of unclaimed acreage with her calves aflame.
Her sole companion was an ill-qualified hunting dog whose failure had earned him a place in the Barrettmore home, as opposed to the others that resided in the barn. Rastco had survived enough training by her father that secured him the freedom to wander as he willed. And as Phoebe began to recuperate her breathing pattern, her companion continued to venture the terrain. Leaving her to wallow in the usual self-disappointment that one's mind would wander to when permitted to run unchecked.
Bound to return to the estate, she knew no peace of mind could be achieved until she gave her verdict upon the letter. Correction: contrive proper justification for her lack of agreement with Homer.
She was aware of the validity behind her father's disapproval of her possibly accepting the letter's proposal. After all, despite the years of his absence, he was always infuriatingly right about the hidden rules of society. However, this was not simply any unfamiliar woman reaching across leagues of sea to rejuvenate a severed relation; this was her grandmother.
Gemma Barrettmore née Carissa passed shortly after Phoebe's birth and Gemma's parents followed in her footsteps. Homer and Mima were always present, but claimed by chores. Then there were the slaves.
It wasn't uncommon for slaves and masters to never form relations, but the Barrettmores were never common in manners. Homer was very insistent about having meals with the "immigrants" and was lenient about allowing them into their home, rather than insisting they remain on their side of the lot. However, when a year had passed, their debt, acquired by purchase, was generally paid in labor by then and they would leave. That's what people did to Phoebe Mae Barrettmore's: they left. Perhaps, for this reason, Peter Talwin could not be faulted for possibly wanting to do the same. Her only wish was that he may take Mr. Claremont with him.
It was a shame these reasons hadn't surfaced earlier before she allowed a wedge to manifest between herself and the only family she had.
Reviewing the elegant curves of the inked words, Phoebe came to believe that this woman would only find flaws in her supposed granddaughter. She concluded that any relations still unknown to her would benefit more in ignorance of a relation with a gift for error. Perhaps in this act of self-sacrifice, she may obtain their adoration.
Tucking the parcel in an unoccupied slot of her herb stuffed book, she set out to retrieve Rastco. Last sighting of him was a disappearance into the near-by woods. Entering, she began calling for him, but received neither response nor sighting. She called out one last time before she caught sight of a figure. No, not a figure, two figures. Two vertically aligned figures.
Ceasing in mid-call, she squeezed every limb from the muscle out, in hopes that if she wished with enough physical and emotional sentiment, they would slight her in ignorance of her presence. Such an act was kinder on her conscious than should the opposite occur.
"Good morning, Miss Barrettmore."
Tucking her lips in her mouth, she quickly released them to present a closed smile and turned to give it to the figures.
She curtsied, "Good morning, Mrs. Emmons."
Phoebe turned slightly to address the second figure, but her nose momentarily flared to properly accept the excess air she brought in. Niall Claremont was in the process of escorting Mrs. Emmons so that they may dissipate the distance between themselves and Phoebe. She hastily curtsied and braced herself for an exercise in stomach clenching.
"Uh...Mr. Cla...Claremont, is it?" She grimaced after noticing her unachieved fakery of forgetting his namesake.
He gave a small bow at a glacial pace and she made a note to purchase him a ribbon accompanied by clippers, "Good morning, Ms. Barrettmore."
His bow eventually ceased, introducing an era of silence upon the newly acquainted party. Phoebe tucked her lower lip and took an inventory of the ratio of shortleaf pines to river birches.
"How is your father, dear?" Mrs. Emmons' words brought awareness of Phoebe's fingers abusing the corner of her book.
"Quite well, thank you for asking."
Phoebe considered returning the inquiry in regards to Mrs. Emmons' family, but thought it imprudent given the recently acquired status of widower. She then pursued the ocean of her knowledge of Mrs. Emmons to find a more appropriate inquiry, but found herself swimming in a desert.
Mrs. Emmons saved Phoebe from drowning in sand, "I was just informing the Wigner's last night that they increase their investment in pesticides. Perhaps your knowledge in Botony may aid my cause?"
"My apologies, but I believe you may be mistaking the study with Herboogy," Phoebe blurted, then made to correct the error, "I can advise you to an apothecary if you...?"
"No, no. It is nothing of consequence to warrant such attentions."
Phoebe nodded, mulling over her failed correction.
Becoming aware of Phoebe's responsibility to initiate the next subject of conversation, the anxiety kept the girl from deriving any substantial topic. Excluding one particular inquiry that only one person at present could answer. An inquiry that would require her to sustain a conversation with them.
"How is Mr. Talwin?"
No response was uttered in return. Phoebe worried her book cover and contemplated whether to commit his face to memory once more as consequence to understanding whether he heard her words. She regretfully acted upon such contemplations.
Her stomach hollowed. Capable of mentally admitting his features to be lovely, they were not the conductor for the hollowing. Niall Claremont's eyes were rounded and his lips were parted. Phoebe was forced to fear that such an expression revealed his contemplation toward revealing Mr. Talwin's faltered affections. At least Mr. Claremont was kind enough to contemplate informing her, and her stomach clenched.
With a twitch, he closed the gap of his lips and lethargically lowered his brows, "Well enough, I believe."
Phoebe nodded, not certain how to perceive the news.
"Shall I send him a message on your behalf?"
Phoebe's lower jaw flew backward and her eyes rounded. Claremont's brows narrowed fiercely and parted his lips. She quickly corrected her expression, but the damage had been inflicted.
Her opposition wasn't from a lack of desire to enact upon the offer, but merely that no message she desired to give were free of incrimination on her part. She couldn't apologize about the dance without giving the reason behind her refusal. She couldn't apologize about certain sensations provoked by Mr. Claremont for there were many reasons why she couldn't. One particular reason being that Mr. Claremont should be the debtor of an apology to her. Finally, she couldn't use this as an invitation for Mr. Talwin's visit without creating impertinence, and she couldn't ask for invitation to his own home without neglecting propriety.
Yes, it was much better that the English city men leave and give rest to her anxieties.
Her brows lifted when Rastco's location was identified. Niall Claremont's hand was providing release to the itching sensations dominating Rastco's head. Phoebe dared a gander to the gentleman's face to find him examining the wooden ratio, as if he were familiar with strange dogs seeking attention from him.
"Uh..." She started, not certain how to introduce the topic.
Mr. Claremont seemed reluctant to give initial attention to her person, but when he did, he seemed reluctant to remove them. Slowly making his way south, forcing her breath to hitch, his eyes rounded at her finger pointing southeast of his person. With a flick of his head, he addressed his attention to the location, but continued applying friction to Rastco's head.
"Is he yours?"
Phoebe nodded, but quickly regretted doing so, for his attentions returned to her once more to receive his reply.
"Yes," She clarified.
He nodded, increasing the friction and moving farther from her desired response. Phoebe began to laugh nervously while snapping her fingers, too impatient to wait for Mr. Claremont to expire from spoiling the hound. Unfortunately, it gained her the human party's attention.
Mr. Claremont speculated her before lifting his hand, but the hound moved for naught. Phoebe snapped her fingers once more, but laughter she made to compensate for her embarrassment. Even the hound gave her a look of criticism.
"What's his name?"
Phoebe ceased her snapping, and snuffed her laugh, "Rastco."
Lifting a finger in her direction, he lowered his eyes to the dog, "Rastco, go to her."
Both master and hound were eying him in curiosity.
"Now," he uttered from his throat's chasm, sending Rastco to Phoebe and a cascade of awakening down her back.
Unlike the duration of his visit to Mr. Claremont's side, where Rastco sat patiently while receiving affection, the hound was now circling Phoebe like a spirited hawk.
"Uh, Ra-Ra-Rastco...go home, now," Phoebe attempted to mimic the previous command, only to excite the dog further.
"Rastco, go home," Mr. Claremont succeeded in Phoebe's stead, sending the hound home.
Now to give leave to herself.
"You must hold more affirmation in your commands, or else the party may be mystified as to your desire."
Phoebe relinquished a small laugh for a neutral response to her confusion as to whether the statement was a witticism or put-on.
"Do you often allow your hounds to walk freely?"
Her grip on her book intensified, "Uh...yes?"
"I see. Do you allow them to wander to anyone?"
Phoebe frowned at the blossoming interchange. A twitch occurred in the corner of his mouth, revealing a few teeth, which made Phoebe very aware of the menagerie in her stomach. She merely prayed he was not enlightened.
"We've not many visitors...here," The words seemed defined as a response. She settled with the definition.
The teeth shied away.
Phoebe's eyes shifted to Mrs. Emmons, who had watched the entire exchange with her cheeks wrinkled, "Your hound may be needing an escort."
"Thank you--Err, yes. Good morn--good-bye." Phoebe quickly retreated in mid-curtsy.
It wasn't until she was safely out of view of the woods that she noted the bronze exhibit of Mr. Claremont's skin displayed in a wrinkled version of the coat he wore the previous night.
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This came out a bit lengthier than intended. Don't get use to this. xD There was actually a third main event to occur in this chapter, but I moved it to a later chapter. Sorry if it was a bit wordier as a result of the lengthening.
Also, sorry this took longer to upload than the previous chapter. I should warn you all now that I have an impecable gift for loosing files in the most unique ways. By unique, I mean never the same way and some of them I can't figure out how. I'm saving the in-progress chapters on here and on a Word file, but don't be surprised if I find a way to botch that up with Wattpad's malfunctioning lately. #porque!? Also, I was having a hard time figuring out how to organize this chapter, so I went ahead and did the next two chapters before posting this. Therefore, unless my file-loosing abilities prevail, the next few chapters should be a week apart from one another.
If you liked this, please vote and/or comment. Thank you and have a lovely day. :3