The Girl behind the Throne (Editing)

Chapter 9

I was home before lunch. The King and Queen had gone to London to go to the opera for the evening and have chosen to stay at the London palace for the weekend.

All the chores had been done, and dad had dismissed most of us, keeping a skeleton staff around to cater to the boys, but I knew most of that was largely for Richard's benefit. If it were just Jamie and Andrew, they would be happy to sit in front of the television, eating fish fingers in their pants.

I changed out of my uniform in a hurry, the sweltering heat causing the black cotton to feel constricting and roasting. I took a quick shower, and jumped into denim shorts and a baggy t-shirt, I was sweating again before I even got into my clothes. I grabbed my sketchpad and my pencils and made my way down to the cottage's relatively large kitchen, and planted myself down beside the open patio doors.

My mother was best friends with the Queen. My mother, amateur local painter and artist, wife of a former mechanic, was best friends with the Queen. My mind spun, and even though the logical part of my mind calmly informed me, that I was best friends with the future King, I didn't feel like these were the same thing.

I darted into my father's bedroom, which was down the corridor from the living room, and opened the door. The room was plain, completely devoid of any personal touches, bar a pair of reading glasses resting on the bedside table, a worn copy of a Stephen King novel and the bottle of my mother's perfume. It felt weird snooping around the room while he wasn't there, and I had to force myself to cross the bedroom's threshold and walk over to the antique writing bureau, and pulled out the book of photographs.

In it were varying photographs of my mother mainly. In one, she and my father stared at each other; she was heavily pregnant, her small hand resting on his, them both cradling me in the womb. In another, she appeared to be very young, and was smiling at the camera, her violet eyes twinkling.

I did look like her; we had the same texture and shade of hair, that off black, rich brown with a smidge of red, the same waving curls which were ridiculous and unmanageable. Her eyes were larger than mine and shaped like almonds, but the shade, again, was similar, blue with a touch of purple. We had the same heart shaped face, full smiling cheeks and long, straight nose with a bump at the bridge.

I spun the photograph around; Violet at the fair, aged 19 had been written on the back in pencil. She was the same age as I was now, when the photo had been taken. Pretty, and happy and full of life, in eight years she would be dead.

I closed the book; my heart feeling like it had been torn out and kicked around like a football. I placed it back in the writing bureau, creeping back out of the bedroom and closing the door. My poor dad, judging by how worn some of those photographs were, he must have taken them out and stared at them thousands of times. Trying to relearn and retrace the face of his dead wife.

I blinked away tears, and went back into the kitchen. I picked up a pencil, before putting it straight back down on the table. There was no way I could design anything at that moment. I couldn't even conjure up a mental imagery of a t-shirt, my mind was racing that much.

I sat still, staring out at the sunny fields, at the beautiful view from my house. I couldn't even go and ask my dad, he was busy organising the caterers and set up for the ball. I knew one thing for certain; I would go crazy just sitting here. I flicked the kettle on for a cup of tea, and it boiled, and cooled while I stared at it, my mind working overtime.

I didn't know much about my mother's family, I just knew that she had met and married my father young, that their romance had been a whirlwind and that her parents weren't exactly overjoyed at their only genius daughter marrying a man four years her senior at twenty, pregnant at twenty two. Dad flat out refused to talk about her, choosing to let the subject drop like a stone whenever I asked.