The Edges of Grace

Chapter One

Felicity

I poke my head out of the carriage window, and feel the sun plant its gracious kisses all over my face. Meadows and fields roll by, swaying in the breeze. I've never been one for prayer to God, because I've always believed that it's nature that created mankind. But the day feels too glorious for me to not believe that there is a grand artist somewhere painting it for us, and so under my breath, I whisper someone a thank you.

The coachman audibly sniffs, his way of telling me that I'm making a show of myself. Proper young ladies, especially orphans, don't smile at the sun while poking their heads out for the wind to tousle their carefully braided hair. But I know he doesn't consider me an orphan; he considers me the fortunate heiress to Mansfield Estate, who is now going to be mollycoddled her entire life. I don't correct him, because he doesn't say it all out loud. Ideas that haven't been expressed are still changeable, and maybe I'll be able to display a better, truer side of me to him before our path ends.

Madam Bridgette called it 'relentless, insufferable optimism,' 'foolish hopefulness'. And then, when the letter reached us last week, she gave a rare smile and said, "Well, well, Felicity, looks like your lunacy had a magic of its own." Which was quite a grim thing to say, considering the fact that it was a letter containing news of my aunt's death.

Aunt Luciana. The angel of my life, who since my earliest memories, has never made me feel uncared for. She was the one who told me, one Christmas eve, that my father was long dead, and my mother died giving birth to me. My mother was her sister. Despite my insistences, she never told me her name. She believed in all kinds of quirky superstitions, and one of them was that you never said the names of dead ones aloud. I trusted her, and so I followed her. She taught me to identify plants by their leaves. She taught me how to weave wreaths out of flowers. She bought me my first book, and when Smelly Ruth who shared a room with me stole it, she commissioned an entire mini-library inside our orphanage.

It was Smelly Ruth who'd burst into the children's room, and shouted over the din of clamouring children, crying babies and general hoodlum that I'd got a letter. An ashen-faced man handed it to Miss Bridgette, and whispered something in her ear.

And that's when I learnt about cousins, who in all the years of my life with Aunt Luciana, she'd never mentioned. And that's when I understood why, despite being my family, she never took me home. And that's when I was informed of her will; which along with all her possessions, made me the owner of Mansfield estate.

I feel a lump in my throat as my eyes travel to my pendant, the type inside which you could keep a photograph. It hits me once again; she's gone. I'll never again be able to ask her anything. Including why, despite having two children, one of them being a lad of my age, she gave everything away to me. I felt the burden of questions I'll have to answer in her place press on to my chest. Her daughter, Mileva Mansfield. She'd written the letter. Cold and precise, not a word wasted. By her letter, I could make out that she was the kind of person who would assault me immediately. What bond did you have with my mother? Why were you kept a secret from us? And more.

For the hundredth time, I unclasp the pendant and stare at her. The grainy faded photograph doesn't capture what she was. Next to her, is a simple one of me. My hair, as usual, in a loose braid mandated by Miss Bridgette, who insisted that my 'fair locks' didn't look good unbridled. 'Unladylike', and 'rebellious' besides, she termed it.

I feel an unexpected nostalgia for the orphanage, my home. The squashed ginger cakes. The lumpy cushions everywhere. Peabody, our cat. Smelly Ruth, who always knit me yellow socks for Christmas. The smell of eggnog.

I almost tell the coachman to stop. I know herbs, I understand the land. I can forage for myself. I can hitch up my skirt and tie my hair in a knot and pretend to be a forest fairy. I can eat a meal a day. I can survive with nothing but my own thoughts and poems for company.