We are Belmonts

- 3 -

(briars for is #42)

When I wake up the next morning Mother has already laid out an outfit for brunch. A knee length cotton dress with petite purple flower embroidery sewn into the fabric. It's simple but so beautiful, she must have made it herself.

I take a look at myself in the mirror, I look so tired. I never should have stayed up late with Theo. My dark hair tumbles down my shoulders and the bags underneath my eyes match the flowers on the dress. I am shorter than most of the ladies in the family, but taller than all the girls my age. Us Belmonts are very tall, we have blond or brown hair, we have green or brown eyes and we are pale as a sheet of paper. The press calls us 'old money and beauty at it's finest'.

what a load of rubbish 

When I wake up the next morning Mother has already laid out an outfit for brunch. A knee length cotton dress with petite purple flower embroidery sewn into the fabric. It's simple but so beautiful, she must have made it herself.

I take a look at myself in the mirror, I look so tired. I never should have stayed up late with Theo. My dark hair tumbles down my shoulders and the bags underneath my eyes match the flowers on the dress. I am shorter than most of the ladies in the family, but taller than all the girls my age. Us Belmonts are very tall, we have blond or brown hair, we have green or brown eyes and we are pale as a sheet of paper. The press calls us 'old money and beauty at it's finest'.

what a load of rubbish

I slip on the dress and comb my hair till it's smooth and soft.

In the coffee room brunch has already commenced. The smell of freshly baked baguette and salted butter wafts down the hallway. I can almost taste the almond pastries, apricot tarts and banana cakes that are surely laid on the table for us.

The aunties and the grandparents sit around a large coffee table whilst my mother pours ginger tea out of an antique brass tea pot Edmund brought back from Germany a year back. He has travelled halfway around the world so far and every time he visits a new country he brings us each a gift. When mother got her brass teapot, my brother got me a locket in the shape of a heart. I still haven't put anything inside it, I have no memories worth a space in my silver locket.

I hope to add something this summer.

The french doors are wide open and the dewy summer breeze floats in and out. Outside, Theo and the rest of the children sit in a circle on the slightly damp grass, eating little banana and oat cakes.

The early morning sun rises up through the hills and meadows surrounding Belmont Manor, they stretch on for days and some are filled with wild ponies at this time in the morning.

My bare feet freeze in the wet grass as I skip over to the group. Looking around for that certain person I have been dying to see all year. Theo beams at me from behind Aurelia who is blowing dandelions in his face, the way he smiles at her could keep a flame going for days. He has always been so good with the children, even though they know he isn't really family. I swear they would trust him with their life.

"Briar!" Juliette squeals and leaps up from her spot in the circle and throws her arms around my neck and breathes me in, I return the embrace equally as content. "Oh Briar I have missed you so much, this summer is going to be the best."

Every winter Juliette and her siblings go to Cambridge to visit her father Kingston. Clementina and Kingston split up around four and a half years ago so she spends the winter in busy Cambridge and the summers on the island. Every year I always miss her terribly and the summer can't truly begin until they arrive. So that's why we are celebrating with brunch, then playing at summervale and big beach , and then the most elaborate masquerade ball. It's tradition.