My sort of fluffy mood from being home for so long carries with me into the trip, not really thinking, just staring out the window at the landscape. The snow didn’t last long out in the open, but there’s patches lurking in the patchy shade beneath evergreens and atop the odd high hill. Still fairly early in the morning, there’s blankets of frost where the sun has yet to shine, my breath hanging in front of me and fogging up the glass if I breathe carelessly. The beat of the horses’ hooves is nearly enough to lull me back to sleep.

Georgie and Liv are accompanying me again. Excited to be going home last time, I didn’t pay much attention to them, but I look over now and then this time. As always, Georgie is the perfect maid. Liv’s inexperience shows, a fairly common thing where new-hires get anxious if they sit around and do nothing for too long, or so I guess. This job is probably really important to them—to her. It pays well, hires uneducated and inexperienced women, and a good reference can open doors (if she doesn’t leave to become a housewife). When I think about it like that, it’s only natural to worry.

There’s not exactly anything I can ask her to do to keep her busy and settle her nerves. Well, it’s not too bad, I think, so she should be fine.

Rolling hills become barren fields become a small village, the sight outside changing over and over until the familiar surroundings of Tuton come into view, the familiar architecture and familiar stores—we even pass Café Au Lait on the way, from what I can see one of the tables near the front in use.

Then up the road to King Rupert’s Preparatory School.

I send my scarf and shawl / blanket to my room with all my luggage while I go for lunch. The dining hall is mostly empty, I guess most coming back this afternoon and tomorrow. I wanted to leave early so the carriage wouldn’t have to go back in the dark, but that’s probably not something that concerns other people here. It’s not snowing or icy out, so it wouldn’t be a problem for the horses or the servants, but I’d rather they not have to put up with the chill that comes when the sun sets.

Once fed, I head to my room. While I have to pack up my things at the end of term, the maids hang up or fold what clothes I bring, leaving just things like books for me to arrange as I see fit. I do fiddle with my clothes, though, organising them in the order I like.

By evening, I’ve only really done a bit of reading. As such, I don’t have much of an appetite, but I push myself to the dining hall anyway and chew through a portion of something like a veggie burger, and happily have a raspberry mousse. (For all these years, mousses were my ice cream substitute, similar and yet different.)

Violet told me she’s only coming back Sunday in one of her letters, giving me no reason to check the lounge or knock on her door. Though I don’t have work tomorrow (my shifts only starting next week), I head to bed early.

In the morning, I hurry through breakfast and then re-dress myself in my “casual” clothes: my pink dress (with matching scarf) and dull coat on top, along with my little maid’s cap, and umbrella in hand. Ah, it’s funny that I have a scarf to go with this dress, a shawl to go with my green one, but no blue dress to go with the scarf I brought back with me (the one Lottie knitted for me all those years ago). I guess this means I know which of my fabrics I’m working on next.

Brimming with enthusiasm, I open the door and—

“Good morning, mistress,” (maid) Len says, bowing her head.

Ah. I smile politely, and I say, “I promise that I honestly forgot all about you and I wasn’t at all trying to sneak out.”

“Of course, mistress,” she says, no emotion to her words.

Ugh. Can’t she just call me “miss”? It sounds so patronising, even if it’s supposed to be correct. Well, that’s how it is, I guess. If I want to be called miss so badly I’ll just have to become a teacher.

Rather than share any of my thoughts with her, I lead us to the gate and beyond, the walk into town refreshing after doing little exercise since Cyril left. (He really likes the pond at the manor and it’s not a short walk.)

There’s a different air about the town. I guess the holiday spirit is lingering, some decorations out the front, either taken down and waiting to be thrown away or more to do with winter than Yule (fake robins and mistletoe and snowflakes). There’s only a couple of stalls on the route we take, but they’ve also moved on to snowy trinkets.

Len naturally taking the lead, we go down the more residential streets, and Lottie’s street in particular seems to have a lot of young families going by the Yule trees outside. It comes to me now, from one book I read, that they might wait for them to dry out and then have a bonfire. Given that we don’t go a week without rain right now, I’m not sure if they’ll ever dry entirely, and evergreens aren’t a good wood to burn, I think; all that sap likes to spit.

My musings last until we arrive at Lottie’s house. Oh, it’s been too long.

I knock and I turn to Len, bowing my head. (She at least lets me get away with dismissing her like that these days.) Of course, she waits for the door to open before I hear her footsteps tap off behind me.

“Who is it?” comes Lottie’s distant voice.

Looking down, I burst into a smile, and it’s returned along with giggles.

“Ellie!” Gwen shouts, practically tackling me with how her shoulder digs into my gut, her arms wrapped around me.

It’s difficult to keep my balance, but I do. “Hullo, Gwen,” I say, giving her head a stroke and then awkwardly over to give her a squeezy hug. Okay, two squeezes. “How are you?” I ask.

She lets go of me and takes a step back, brushing the front of her dress. (It’s gorgeous, a neat cut and wonderful shade of turquoise, and it has a fabric belt around her waist patterned with flowers.) “I am well, and you?” she says, taking on a rather proper tone that’s just like her mother’s.

“So very well,” I say, my eyes narrowed in a serious look and head nodding.

While we’ve gone through that, Lottie has appeared in the kitchen doorway, something of an amused smile on her face. “I didn’t know if we’d see you today,” she says.

“As if I would miss the chance to play with Gwen for an entire day,” I reply, straight from the heart.

Gwen positively glows at this news, her cheeks all puffed up from her broad grin, and her eyes just twinkle at me, so brilliant. No, don’t pinch her, Nora. You hated that as a child.

“Not to be the bearer of bad news, but we do have church today,” Lottie says, and she says it with a wry smile.

Oh I’d glare at you if I was just a smidgen more childish.

Gwen isn’t so restricted, turning to face her mother with a pout. “Do we have to go?” she asks.

“Well,” Lottie says, drawing that word out for a good second.

But I don’t want to interfere in their routine. I mean, I’m already trouble enough, usually being walked to the café and back to school. “Won’t your friends miss you?” I ask, squatting down to better talk to Gwen.

She turns back to me, hanging her head and pouting so much she looks like a duck. Rather than speak, she gently nods her head.

“Then you shouldn’t disappoint them. I understand that you already have plans and it would be rude to change them at the last minute, so I’ll wait until you finish, okay? It’s not like church will take all day, right?”

Oh she scrunches herself up, as if trying to look smaller. “Yes,” she mumbles.

Smiling, I pull her into a brief hug. “What a good girl. Your parents must have paid so much for you,” I say.

“What?” Gwen exclaims, freezing up.

Doing my best not to giggle, I say (in a most convincing tone), “You didn’t know? When a mother and father want a child, they have to go to a special store and buy a baby there, and things like good manners and kindness cost extra. Why, if I had to guess, you were probably… a thousand pounds.”

Gwen’s wide eyes stare blankly at me, her mouth agape, and then she spins around (so fast she nearly falls over) to set that look upon her mother.

Lottie shakes her head, letting out a sigh. “You’re terrible,” she says to me, before informing her daughter that, actually, I was making it all up.

Of course, such topics have a tendency to end in one particular dead-end. “Where do babies come from, then?” Gwen asks.

Clearing her throat, Lottie sends me a particularly threatening look. “I was going to say before, Ellie could come with you to Sunday school.”

Nicely done, Lottie, that’s really going to distract her…. Wait a second. “Me?” I ask, pointing at myself for good measure.

Smiling oh so sweetly, Lottie says, “They are always looking for volunteers.”

To cut a long story short, I spend an hour in a somewhat crowded room, treated to the pleasant sounds of some twenty odd kids talking over each other as they read aloud from the holy book. But it’s not really all that bad, a chance to meet some of Gwen’s friends (who are, of course, also adorable). Also, she’s rather shy outside of her comfort zone, so I see for myself that she can, in fact, sit quietly.

Once it finishes, we wait for Lottie to pick us up, and then we shuffle through the crowd of other children and mothers to get outside. (I’m sorry, Mrs Green, I have work next week and can’t help ever again.)

Despite the fact I was with her the entire time, Gwen makes sure to tell me half the things she learned today, telling her mother the other half. I already had a good idea of what Sunday school entailed from what she has told me before, but it’s nice to confirm. We read the bible and asked some comprehension questions and talked about morals and sins. I think there’s a younger “class” as well, for under fives, which is more a playgroup while their mothers attend mass.

In the lull after Gwen exhausts herself, I find the chance to ask Lottie something in private. “I’ve brought some money with me, if I could treat Gwen to something for her birthday. I’m not sure what’s good for her, though, so…” I say, trailing off as I don’t quite know how to put it.

Lottie hums a note, and then says, “There is a store down the High Street that has sewing accessories. She may wish to choose a cute pouch to keep her needles and thread.”

“Ah, that’s perfect,” I say, clapping my hands, incidentally getting Gwen’s attention. While she looks at me, I look at Lottie, and Lottie looks at me, so I look back at Gwen, smiling. “Say, shall we visit a store? I hear there’s a good one on the High Street.”

“The sewing one?” she asks excitedly, her whole body perking up.

“You know it? Then we have to go,” I say, taking her hand. “But we’re just looking, okay? I didn’t think I’d need my purse today, and there’s no way your mother has any money in her pocket after the donation tray was passed around.”

“Okay,” Gwen says, still as happy as before.

Really, Lottie, you paid two thousand pounds for her, didn’t you?