Clarice doesn’t say anything else to me before she leaves, a simple goodbye and then I’m once more alone with my thoughts. I’m not sulking now, though, merely brooding. Is that any different? Who knows.

What I mean is that I’m not running away. I am slowly trying to make sense of my feelings. It might sound silly, but I don’t know how I should feel. I don’t know. As much as I want to be someone reasonable, emotions are hard to reason with, aren’t they? But the first step is finding out how I feel, then why I feel that way, and then telling myself I’m stupid until everything fixes itself.

Okay, that last bit is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but the first part is right, right?

How I feel…. Not hungry, I can say that much. The morning passes without so much as toast, stomach in knots.

When I spoke with my mother, I said it was about my friends, but were my feelings that straightforward? I like Iris, Millie, Len and Annie, I do, but… I did only see them a little bit every week. I chatted with one or two of them a little before work, a little at lunch break, and then a little with all of them after work. Can I really call them precious?

I know so little about them, yet I do care for them. I’m reminded of the tiff Len had with her fiancé. It did trouble me, I did think over it plenty, and I did feel relief to hear they’d made up. Would I feel that way hearing the same story from someone else? Would I feel so strongly?

If I put that aside for now, why else would I have taken my mother’s words as poorly as I did?

It did hurt me how insistent she seemed that I made a mistake by working there. Put however nicely, she all but told me I’m wrong. Am I someone who gets upset from being told I’m wrong? I don’t think so, but this is something more personal.

With Gerald, I got so upset because it was about Violet. This time, I can’t say I got upset on someone else’s behalf, can I? As much as they mean to me, I don’t think I’m all that important to Iris and the other waitresses. If I resign, it might make work a bit more difficult for them, especially if Millie has to cover some of the ladies from King Rupert’s, but I’m sure they can cope and that Neville can find another waitress to replace me. Since Len is “retiring” soon, he probably has someone lined up who can just start earlier.

What about it makes me upset to be told I’m wrong? I mean, I already know that I am in the wrong, that a Lady (capital L) shouldn’t involve herself with such work. If it were to get out, such a rumour would follow me for the rest of my life and might well impact my marriage opportunities.

Ah, that’s it, isn’t it?

I’m being told to conform to the very society that rejects me. I have to follow the rules even if I’m losing. This is the sort of argument we could have had any time in the past, whether about me climbing trees or speaking familiarly with maids or, well, most of what I did when I was a child. I was given “freedoms”, but only so long as I grew out of them.

Rebellious years, huh? Yes, I guess that fits, right? I’m testing boundaries and oh so sure of myself and all that.

How very teenaged of me.

And so we come to the part where I tell myself I’m stupid, having lunch and supper in my room rather than face my mother. I still don’t know if I should apologise. By what I told Gerald, I don’t think I should, but the other side of apologies is realising that your difference in opinion isn’t more important than the relationship. In that regard, I should. I do love my mother and, while this decision hurts, I do understand she is doing what’s best for me.

Weighing up whether the loneliness I feel now is worse than the damage of such rumours, I can’t blame her for thinking the latter is worse for me. It’s almost cliché, right? Me, all young and impulsive, caring more for the present; her, older and wiser, caring more for the future.

Despite thinking that, it’s… hard to apologise when you don’t mean it. I’ve had lots of practise apologising, yet those were always warranted. It’s a lot harder coaching myself than Gerald. For starters, I talk back more and make more sense when I do.

I know it only gets harder with time, but I settle into a troubled sleep for now, no point thinking myself into a tizzy when it’s already this late.

In and out of dreams I fall, far from refreshed by morning. I can’t tell if it’s any earlier or later than yesterday, but there’s soon tea for me and clothes laid out. With something of a headache, I push through my routine, quietly curling up on my bed afterwards, curtains drawn. In the mild darkness I dwell, slowly blinking away my sleepiness until the headache passes.

Just as I’m readying to look for my sewing things (desperate for something to keep me distracted for now), there’s a knock on my door.

I hesitate, almost afraid it’s my mother even as I hope it is her, wanting nothing more than to be done with my tantrum. “Who is it?” I ask.

“Papa.”

My mouth actually drops open, so surprised to hear his voice. It takes me all of a second to recover my wits and then rush over, lifting the hem of my dress to run quicker, opening the door with a broad smile. “Papa,” I say, tears in my eyes.

He’s a tall man, or at least he was when I was young. Though I still think of him as a giant, he’s not that much taller than Gerald and Cyril, but he has a build more like Evan’s—not someone you’d call lanky, but not fat or muscly either.

And as always, he gets down on one knee so I can hug him. I can just about get my arms around him these days, but it must have been hilarious to see me try back when I was a kid.

Cold to the touch, an earthy smell around him, yet his embrace warms me.

“Welcome home, Nora,” he says, gently squeezing me.

I can’t help but feel a child at times like this, still six years old and causing mischief and running off to papa when I’m worried mummy won’t ever forgive me for breaking her vase in the garden.

So much changes, so much stays the same.

Moment’s fragile, I only have a few seconds before the words I expect come. “Your mother is in quite the state, you know,” he softly says.

He’s not papa now but father. The head of the family. He stands up, taller than me, a neutral expression on his face.

“Let’s sit,” he says and leads me over to my bed. He takes the chair from my desk for himself.

Late, I whisper, “I know.”

He lets out a long breath that sounds every bit as heavy as my feelings. “When I really met your mother,” he says, putting me off-balance with this tangent, “we were both at King Rupert’s. In the same class, even. I came to pick up something I forgot at the end of the day and found her writing. Curious, I walked over unnoticed—not that I was sneaking. Looking over her shoulder, I caught her in the middle of writing a… rather heated scene.”

My face quickly feels hot too as the euphemism sinks in.

He lightly chuckles. “Of course, she caught herself in such a fright when I made myself known. And she was terrified of what would happen. From what she later told me, she had for long felt a keen shame for what thoughts entered her head, shame for what she wrote.”

I’m a little stunned, never hearing of this before. Well, it’s obviously the sort of thing I wouldn’t hear about, right? Yet that makes me curious why now, but I dare not ask.

With a light smile, nostalgic, he carries on. “She deeply worried what it would mean if her hobby got out, to the point where she refused my company for the longest time. My first proposal also fell victim to her worry. However, she slowly came to understand that my love for her wasn’t a fragile thing, not something that would break from what scandal she envisioned coming to pass.”

Pausing there for a moment, he looks over to me.

“When we married, I included one promise in particular in my vows: I wouldn’t tell her what she can and cannot do. That is, I wouldn’t stop her from writing.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. That’s so sweet, isn’t it? I mean, not really by Ellie’s standards, but for a man in this age—for a duke—it really is. And yet, because I know Ellie’s standards, I’m aware that, well, that sort of thing should be the norm. I shouldn’t be sitting here hoping that whoever I marry treats me as his equal out of generosity.

“When it came to you, Clara, and Josh, I saw no reason to not afford you all the same freedom. However, freedom comes with responsibilities, and the most important responsibility is….”

I bow my head, the answer coming to me. “To listen,” I whisper.

He pats my shoulder; his hand warm now, I realise just how quickly he came to see me after arriving.

“One thing I found when I became a parent was that, by trying to avoid the mistakes my own parents made, I made mistakes of my own. Because of that, you and your mother couldn’t be more different.”

So he just told me my mother was ashamed of her writing…. Okay, I know Violet has called me shameless at least, like, five times, but it’s a lot harsher coming from my own father.

Joking aside, I think I understand what he means. She wants me to always be proud of who I am. And I am. But she hasn’t forgotten, has she? When she thinks about what would happen if my waitressing became known, she remembers how scared she was, doesn’t she?

As if he knows his lecture has successfully lectured me, he gives me a bit longer to think before asking me the usual sort of questions I get when I come home from boarding school. (It’s hard not to notice how he avoids asking me about the princes, some parts of the male-dominated culture not so easily changed by a promise in vows.)

Somehow, it’s lunchtime when a maid interrupts us. I can only imagine I slept in really late, which only makes how tired I still feel more annoying.

He doesn’t ask me if I’m coming to lunch. But… I follow behind him, as if trying to hide in his shadow. The dining room is quiet when we enter, and I think for a moment we arrived first, only to meet my mother’s gaze when he steps out the way.

Maybe it’s just my imagination, but her makeup seems quite heavy today.

We eat mostly in silence, my every bite a struggle. Towards the end of the meal, Clarice and our father chat a bit about what he went off to do. He’s always quick to downplay his work as simply signing contracts the managers put on his desk and this time is no different, authorising payments and confirming staffing changes. I don’t know much about his companies; they’ll be left to Joshua, so it’s never been any of my business.

Though neither says anything, those two leave promptly at the end of the meal while still talking on that topic. Just me and my mother, I feel the words physically stuck in the back of my throat, unable to push them out.

What am I, a child making excuses? No.

“I’m sorry,” I say softly, my voice carrying across the silent room.

A second’s pause, and then she asks, “What precisely are you apologising for?”

That may sound spiteful to some, but I know it as what she always asks me when I apologise. If you’re apologising, you have to do it right, right?

“I’m sorry I made myself too upset to listen to everything you had to say. I can’t promise it won’t happen again, but I’ll try not to drag it out so long next time, and I’ll listen patiently if you have anything you wish to say now.”

“Apology accepted,” she says.

I let out a sigh, all my dark feelings draining out and leaving me refreshed. Maybe it wasn’t the sleep’s fault, huh?

“And I am sorry too.”

Wait, what?

I’m sure my eyes are wide as I stare at her, unsure I heard correctly. Are mothers allowed to apologise?

She has a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, a distance to her gaze that makes it seem like she’s looking at something far behind me. “When I visited, I saw how happy you looked—far happier than I have seen you in many years—and I selfishly wanted to take that away because of my own insecurities.”

And I stumble on one part of what she said. “Wanted to?” I ask, quoting her.

Someone who’s careful with her words, she catches what I mean and gently nods. “You may continue working there—given you meet certain conditions your father and I decide on.”

“Thank you,” I say, practically croaking.

Just… I’m so happy I could cry. I didn’t think….