Her distant--and hopefully, soon to be 'close'--relative lived in humble dwellings.
The townhouse was dwarfed by the departed home and the confined rooms only spacious by minimal furniture. Silk curtains danced, defying minor restrictions by drapery swags, before an open window to the right. The outdoor scenery illuminated the enclosed room with a soft, pale-yellow glow.
Breathing was done invitingly.
Emotions could not restrain her to the sofa's confinements; she relied upon mid-morning air to aid in their settling. A clash of Phoebe's belief that her hostess would be as inviting as her windows and fear of how to handle the situation should she be wrong sent a tornado through her stomach.
On the opposing end, of the square container, the eggshell-colored door rotated on its hinges. Phoebe rose hastily, the fabric of her petticoat wrinkling beneath her white knuckles. Vein-pumpingly glacial, the obstructer-of-entry came to the agreement of finally allowing survey of their host.
Lucrecia Danielle Barrettmore--or so Phoebe hoped it to be--was dwarfed in the open space between her and the doorway. Her girth was exemplary of favorable income and (though the style favorable toward the late Antoinette) fitted beneath unmended silk. Half of her silver locks were pulled back in a mild-pompadour while the remainder pooled at the nape of her neck. But more note-worthy was the woman's incumbent approaching.
Phoebe extended the corners of her closed lips.
The English woman gandered at her guest and remained beneath the cross-bridge between the room and hall. Her gaze went from the excessive, lengthy end of Phoebe's gown to her sea-salt, crusted hair. All of this done without pronouncing any wrinkles in her cheeks. Even going so far as to tuck in a cheek at one point.
"Olivia," The host called in a tone commonly used amongst the deaf.
"Actually, it's Pho--."
"Yes, ma'am?" A maid scurried in from the hall.
"My old bones ache. Shut the window," Lucrecia said without batting a grey eye.
Phoebe watched as the yellow glow slowly disappeared from the corner of the room. Her skin puckered in the absence of the cool air.
"Do you intend to leave?" Lucrecia said from the opposing sofa she took while her guest was distracted. Olivia had closed the door behind her.
Phoebe's lips parted and the stability of her joints were tested. Certainly Phoebe required more time to offend.
"No...?" Phoebe begged to stay, considering she'd just arrived.
"Then won't you sit?" Lucrecia raised an open palm to the opposing settee.
The loss of friction chilled Phoebe's interior. Phoebe's head continued to nod concurrence until she sat.
"I trust your trip was pleasant?"
An involuntary introduction of air started her reply, "Very pleasant, thank you for the inquiry." Phoebe neglected to release said breath, which complicated the statement's completion.
Lucrecia briefly pursed her lips, but offered no additional statements or inquiries.
Suspecting it her turn to propagate a new subject of conversation, Phoebe found herself in a worse predicament than the wood encounter with Mrs. Emmons. At least, in that confrontation, she knew Emmons was a widow.
"I suppose," Lucrecia thankfully began again, "your father is displeased with the risk my request placed you in."
Phoebe's sucked in her lips. 'Yes' was the answer she wanted to give, but honesty and her conscious conspired against her. "Well, I found the--uh--potential risk...pleasant."
Lucrecia stone-facedly declared, "Well, I feel ashamed of my selfish wish. So, I shan't blame him."
Phoebe sucked her cheek. Guilt over the incapability to alter another's mind was incurable.
Lucrecia returned to eyeing her carefully, more-than-likely composing another list of flaws. "How old are you dear?"
Phoebe was delayed in obstructing the questioning rise of her brow. "Nineteen last month."
The elderly woman shrugged her lip. "That's...quite a long time."
The American girl nodded her head and briefly extended her lips to their northern corners. Remembering the exception to the rule, Phoebe didn't return the question. But, once again, she was left in a predicament without a conversation starter. The resulting frustration intensified from Lucrecia's pursed lips and continued inspections from the lower horizon of her eyes.
Tucking her labii, Phoebe realized that it might have required an additional decade to speak to her own grandmother.
"Do you eat?"
"Pardon?" Phoebe replied, hoping she misheard.
"You look famished," Lucrecia confirmed otherwise.
"Oh." Phoebe rubbed her neck, hoping to send her collarbone back into her chest.
"I--," the young American was about to divulge her lack of appetite as of late, but remembered it was rude to divulge ones woes upon another. Granted, this was suppose to be her relation, but Phoebe desired to avoid spoiling first impressions.
"I eat well enough," Phoebe finished, but was half-way through her statement before catching her error.
"Not to say your observation is flawed. But, that--Oh, no, that wasn't a smite toward your eyesight. Though, you probably didn't think it was, so now I've condemned myself. No--I..." Phoebe placed her hands in her lap, observed the ceiling, and finally decided to ponder over her next statement. "What I meant was I'm fed generously, but I understand the foundation of your observation. And that I'm sure there's validity to it."
Phoebe squeezed her hands to detain another onset of 'correct-the-error'.
Conversation did not respire. Phoebe spent the musical arrangement of longcase clocks struggling with keeping the quivers of her hands undiscovered.
"Well," Lucrecia interrupted the symphony, "I'm certain you're at least parched now."
Specter hands pulled and twisted at Phoebe's abdomen flesh. All her predictions were playing accordingly. Sea sickness was a tempting alternative.
The elderly, English woman grasped the arm of the sofa and began elevating. Her eyes went to the door. Then she froze.
Phoebe feared Lucrecia's back gave out. Sitting up, Phoebe parted her lips to express such concern.
"You're not one of mine, are you?"
Phoebe's eyes widened, now knowing what Lucracia espied. The American girl placed her hands in her lap and turned to the closed window.
"No, ma'am," was heard from the out-of-view corner.
The floorboards, under the opposing sofa, piped from the returning weight. "Oh...so she's yours."
Phoebe withdrew from the window to find herself the subject of examination from the lower corners of Lucrecia's eyes.
Again, Phoebe had to deliberate the least-spoiled option to reply with. Phoebe could say 'yes'--as the law declared valid--but feared the outcome of her father catching wind of the declaration. She could say 'no', but that would open the door, to a new bag of worms, for revealing to a relation who was vocal about Phoebe's flaws.
"She's my governess." The hands were squeezing her dry.
"'Governess'?" Lucrecia's brows flexed momentarily. Then turned to the corner once more. "I hadn't realized the colonies were so...radical."
Giving up on the friction from shakes, Phoebe's body numbed under the stale air.
"Your son--," Lucracia's head whipped back as Phoebe replied, causing the later to break for a swallow. "Homer...thought it a novel idea."
Pursing her lips, Lucracia glanced back at Mima while the English woman's face was still toward Phoebe.
Then, Lucrecia raised a hand to Mima. "Well, I shan't have a governess blending with my corner. Come into the light, dear."
Each creak, thereafter, increased in volume. Then ceased as a shadow entered Phoebe's peripherals.
"Well? Won't you sit, or can you not think for yourself?"
Phoebe made an effort to expand the available option for Mima. The shadow rested to the right of Phoebe.
"How do you call yourself?"
"Mary, ma'am," Mima said, giving her Christian name.
"And how do you strategize your teachings?"
The only creaks in the shared furniture were caused by Phoebe.
"Mr. Barrettmore 'as me given a teachin' of 'is likin'."
The clock ticked seven times.
"Which consists of?" Lucracia inquired.
Mima always complied. "He says I oughta be learnin' 'em letters and readin' 'em and--."
"You read?" Lucracia raised her sculpted brow.
"I infer some."
Lucreacia pursed her lips. "Well, you know 'infer', so I'll credit you that."
Mima examined her lap.
"Well, is that all?"
"No, ma'am," Mima said to Lucracia's shoes, "I be learnin' her 'em modern languages and--."
"Oh? Tu parles en français?"
Lucrecia was looking at Phoebe now. The later on the verge of detaching her abdomen.
"Euh...ouai. Une petite, mais...je..." Realizing too late that she oublier'd 'only', Phoebe regretted attempting to add an additional sentence. She ransacked her mind to find an alternative wording. "Je...je ne suis pas...euh...muy--." Spanish. "Más." More Spanish. "Muchos." Also Spanish. "Je ne suis pas...bien...á parler il."
Lucracia blinked with her brows too close to the bridge of her nose. Then she glanced back to the governess. "What were your credentials again?"
"I 'adn't given 'em, ma'am."
"Yes, I recall. I'm asking now."
Phoebe's knuckles went white with the folds of her dress between her fingers. Air moisture condensed comparatively against her skin. She considered asking to remove the stale air, but didn't have the heart to reach down her throat and fetch the words.
Lucrecia reexamined Phoebe once more before the later realized many of her own facial muscles to be clenched.
The English woman examined her lap to the point that her expression was out of view. Her hand slid over the other. "My apologies," Lucrecia began, "I'm sure your father has had enough experience with an erroneous upbringing to guide you otherwise."
Phoebe released an unknowingly held breath. The American girl hated hypocrisy and she was about to commit the one act that she dreaded others committing toward herself: prejudice.
Her fear of being judged had blinded Phoebe to the concern behind each prompting. Like daughter, like father, Phoebe could see where Homer may have went astray. Though, one issue still concerned her.
It was still the social norm that religion, law, and economics supported racial bias. Phoebe had learned to coexist with such a mentality to support her pacifist lifestyle, but it succeeded in killing her already impossible-to-maintain, conversational abilities. However, a racist made only a fraction of a person. Regardless of her displeasure in sightings of the trait.
"I'm sure he's made a few errors of his own." Phoebe added a giggle at the end, in hopes that Lucrecia would understand the humor. Or pretend to.
Her grand--Lucrecia sought Phoebe's hand from across the coffee table. There was a strong urge to crawl into the elder-lady's lap, but it was quelled by the fear of harming the brittle woman. Then reasoned against by the requirement of abandoning propriety to commit the act.
Lucrecia struggled to keep her lips from expanding their northern corners with her eyes intent on the junction. "Well, your father certainly had skill in raising my granddaughter."
Phoebe giggled unattractively, but Lucrecia never severed the conjunction.
"I--." Lucrecia's voice cracked and Phoebe watched her with genuine curiosity. Then straightened her back and looked anywhere but where her grandmother's hand grazed over the outline of her index finger. Partly in result of every nerve down her back sparking in response.
"I'm under the impression you've read at least one of my letters, and--," Lucrecia stopped to smile at Phoebe's bobbing head of confirmation, "--and hopefully this doesn't come to any surprise--or offense--to you, but...I...Homer never told me your--."
"Phoebe. Phoebe Mae. You know my surname. Is it true she's my great-grandmother?" Phoebe finally breathed.
Her grandmother actually laughed. The kind of laugh as if she was amused with her kin, rather than at her expense. "You share her name, yes. How kind of your father to honor her."
"I always did find that odd," Phoebe the talking volcano continued. "He rarely spoke fondly of family, but still named me after--."
In her excitement, her arm grazed Mima's and her gift of conversation returned to the gods. Phoebe stiffened, and returned her hands to her lap.
"Well, I like to believe he was still fond of certain aspects of his childhood," Phoebe altered the finale of her tangent.
The topic died then, which Lucracia thought to be a good opportunity for tea. But as their china clinked, the stale, improper removal of the taste of the previous conversation still lingered on Phoebe's tongue.
"You have a lovely home."
"I do hope you will feel at home here," Lucracia said into her tea.
Phoebe ungraciously lowered her cup upon its saucer.
"What is it dear?"
Mentally crumbling at the easy slip of an endearment, Phoebe caught her lower lips with her teeth. It was very rare that someone asked that she spoke her mind. She never minded the lack of intrusion.
Her eyes sunk to her lap where she ceased the intimacy between her hands and the china. "I--uh...my father wishes that I return in time for next year's season."
The white elephant suffocated further conversation.
Expanding her lips again, Phoebe glanced back to her grandmother and added, "But I'm sure I would."
Lucrecia completed the siphon of her tea before demonstrating how to properly lower a cup. "Well, then let's not waste what conversation we have left on your father."
London was a very grey city. Not a single green blade swayed in the wind and the buildings were a lifeless conjunction of the two extreme spectrums of monochrome. In addition, if it wasn't raining, it was riddled with puddles.
It was a fine, non-sky-mourning, Autumn morn that Phoebe chose to see what else the city had to offer past what she had seen from her window. Although growing affiliated with her new ability to function on minimal slumber, the morning fevers were impossible to grow accustom to. So, the cool London air was a welcome comparison to the humid Virginian air.
On her adventure, she came to learn of a new little undesirable quirk about London: the housing were kin. Or appeared to be kin. Or Phoebe had been circling the same lot while her grandmother's home was removed for some peculiar reason. Which was unfortunate, considering that Phoebe's feet were beginning to suggest that she make her way back.
Phoebe espied some vacant steps before a seemingly empty building and chose to rest her feet momentarily as she mentally retraced her steps. Wrapping her favorite jacket from home around her, she huddled into herself. As her retracing seemed to only prove to confuse her, rather than aid, she began to find difficulty concentrating with the way her jacket and dress clung to the little beads of sweat that had pooled over her venture.
She considered removing her jacket, but the once inviting air was now a bit more than her liking. And should a gust of wind pass by, it would chill any remaining beads of moisture. Clinging to her jacket could no longer detain the London air. Her skin puckered.
Phoebe tried to raise her head and keep a look-out for anyone else enjoying the weather. Eventually, someone would come and she could ask them for directions. Until then, she received what warmth she could from her jacket and kept looking. Then she would rub her hands together and look again. Her hands began to shake, so she placed them in her jacket while she continued looking.
Teeth chattering, she considered relying on herself to find her way back, but the wind began to howl again. And she had shelter on the stoop she occupied. And there was no telling how long she would be walking in that wind. And her teeth were chattering. And...
"Miss Barrettmore?"
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