Tears of a Bluebird

Part Two - Chapter One

Part Two – 1953

Chapter One

I had now been at Bayside for just over one year. Life hadn't altered much — it was still all the same. My bond had increased with Nessa, Janey, Connor, the father, Anna and Dr. Grey but patently it decreased with Ms. Harrington and her eldest. It decreased to such an extent that I actually saw the mistress spit on the ground one evening when I walked by her. Spitting? That was just so undignified and disgusting beyond belief. Far too unladylike for the likes of Ms. Harrington, who thought she was a high-top and snooty Catholic. Connor witnessed this spitting. His face dropped completely and he could not take his eyes off from the lump of saliva which grimaced back at him from the floor. He used to request Master Richard to not spit in his or the girl's presence. This request caused Master Richard, and I quote from Nessa, to "grog" even more. It made everyone sick, especially Connor and I.

Master Richard's relationship with me, as well as his mothers, had decreased profoundly. I once tried to put an end to his treatment towards me, and I attempted to even befriend him civilly, but he would not allow it. He was sitting on the wall outside in the garden when I tried to bind him. His response to my words was a high pitched laugh, an inhale, then another one of his famous, green spits. Mortified, I turned my back on him and entered the scullery, telling myself it was too late to save him, for his brainwashing mother had definitely savoured his soul. It was from then on when I cut all routes inside me connecting to Master Richard. Too late. His spitting got me thinking though:

Why did I revolt Ms. Harrington so much? I mean, it was hard enough slaving after them all in the hope that one day - just that one perfect, fantastic day - that I'd see my baby boy once again, but to have such a being treat me the way the mistress did - it was becoming too much.

The chores, the cooking especially, was bearable. The journeys up to the tip of the long and steep hill was bearable - I was seventeen and fit. Seventeen! In the eyes of the people and law, I was a woman, not a child. However being inside The Harrington's house and being near Ms. Harrington, even when I was caged inside of my attic bedroom, it was aging me drastically and becoming more unbearable. The thought of her sickened me actually. It sickened me something awful. My Sunday's weren't just the days I spent crying by the lake, those were the days I spent trying to wretch my heart out from my heaving chest. Those were the days when I often thought of committing suicide; but the thought of Nessa and the other kind ones whip-lashed me and brought be back into realism. My fears and memories of my son, my life back up in Ayrshire where I actually lived a normal as routine; met Zackary's father; had friends and so on, were banished. I was not allowed to think of them. In fact, I couldn't. I wouldn't be able to cope with the torment of their faces and memories. As for the duckling transforming into the swan... Well, that was dead. Long dead. I was seventeen, and was still the ugly duckling. My plainness which degraded my formation would live on with me long into my future.

　

* * *

"You look sick, wee lass. You know, dead wabbit-like!" Complained Anna from outside in her back garden. It was the beginning of summer again; the summer of 1953. Anna and I were sunbathing on chairs out in her immaculately prim garden, soaking up the rays of the sun. "You got a fever or somethin', eh?"

I shook my sweating head, murming, "No, no. A little tired, perhaps."

"Aye but look at you, Molly! You should be burning – tanning like — not looking as peely-wally as you do. And your eyes-'

'Look Ms. Flo, I'm perfectly fine!' I tired to assure her more formally by using her surname.

"Wait here a minute wee lass. Finish off my Ginny or somethin'. I'll be back in a jip." Anna, with some effort, got up from her chair and scurried into the back door of her house, and entered her brightly designed kitchen.