The Gilded Cage - Finding My Place

Lies and Revenge

"They are different girls, aren't they?" Annie admitted, as we waved our girls off into school for another day. She was talking specifically about the three Brewsters, of course. I had showed everyone the video from the day before, and the effect was extraordinary. If Henrietta had been so excited and unusually affectionate towards me the afternoon before, all three of them were transformed by the sight of themselves and their new friends performing together, and more importantly the reaction of everyone else to it. They were simply desperate to get back to school and rehearse some more, and as Annie spoke, I was watching Georgina rush headlong into her class paddock and hug one of her classmates. It was really so good to see. The Meadvale magic was starting to work, I hoped, on them as well as me. I so wanted them to be happy in a place where I already felt so at home, and everyone could see that they were getting there.

"Performing seems to be important to them...not because someone makes them, or because they are getting paid for it, but just for the joy of it...and they are really good, aren't they?" I grinned, so delighted for them.

"Two million views in sixteen flipping hours! I should say so...the Christmas concert tickets are going to sell out in seconds!"

"I told Philippa how well she had done, and she acted like no one had ever said that to her before...and she really cuddled me last night...it was almost Caris-like!" I said, holding my cloak tighter around me as the wind tried to tug it apart. I was so proud of the girls, and it felt so right being with them, so full of love.

"Oh, maybe that was the new you? Where did you get that dress, you silly thing?"

"Helen...she was so delighted about me dressing up yesterday and wants me to do it all the time for work...because she thinks it will encourage the children more...and she is buying me a whole new wardrobe as a bonus," I admitted, a little sheepishly. I was wearing a gorgeous dark red gown, trimmed with a little lace, and I absolutely loved the colour, but dressing like that, and working in it, was a very real commitment, and I was getting a little bit tired of Annie teasing me. So, I skipped my normal coffee with her and kept an earlier promise to call on Mrs Deacon, Bella's grandmother, who liked to be updated about her granddaughter, every once in a while. At least there, at the home of one of the most traditional daughters of Eve in Meadvale or anywhere else, my appearance would not be mocked, I thought, feeling very ladylike as I approached the house with my cloak flapping in the breeze.

"You really are a remarkable young woman, Miss Scott." Edwina Deacon said, once she had me settled in her drawing room with a cup of coffee and a generous slice of her rather delicious homemade fruit cake. It was ridiculous, really. There we were, in the middle of the twenty-first century, looking like two Victorian ladies enjoying a tete a tete. But that was what her life was like, and what the upper echelons of the very rich and powerful community were like. And I did feel like a proper young lady, as Helen had described it. I was really enjoying my new look and it felt so right, somehow, there. I felt like a proper grown-up, probably for the first time in my life, not a teenager. I felt physically uncomfortable, because of the corset, but mentally so very much at home. And any discomfort I felt disappeared when I looked in any mirror, because I liked the look, I liked the idea that I was a young lady, not just a teenager, an overgrown kid with anxiety problems. "Outsiders seldom take to our ways so well, or so readily...or come to understand us quite so clearly, my dear?"

"Thank you, Mrs Deacon...I hope everyone realises how much I respect the people here, and I just wanted to show it, I suppose...I do love this village." I replied, honestly.

"And you obviously care for your charges, dear...thank you for your efforts with Arabella and for being such a good friend to her."

"I hope she thinks I have been a good friend, Ma'am...I have tried to be professional, and carry out your wishes, whilst also trying to show Arabella that I care about her?"