Words on the Pages (one shot collection)

Words on the page (one shot)

"...And if your were to draw it like this, would you come out with an Isosceles, scalene, equilateral or right angle triangle?" My tutor, Felicity, asks while drawing three lines on the sheet of parchment in front of me.

"An Equilateral, because each side is equal."

A knock at the door interrupts the lesson, and Harold, the family butler, walks in with an urgent look on his face.

"Miss Mary is to be seen by her Father now, even though it is to intrude on the lessons." His voice seems to shake and my Father walks through the door, with his harsh gaze falling upon Felicity.

"Right, I understand. Pardon me." She says, leaving the room with her head bent over. Harold follows after her, closing the door behind him.

I don't like what is coming next.

"Mary, I do understand it is against your dearest wishes to do so, but I would appreciate it if you would go into your Mother's room, and take out one of her old gowns that fits you. You are to go to a marriage meeting this evening with the countess of Wichfield's eldest son, Illias. This will be highly beneficial to our family's business and will give us an heir as well."

My face falls.

"And I should want to do this for these reasons, because...?"

His face remains like stone.

"But Father, I am only fifteen, I would appreciate it if you could understand that I don't want to be married yet, even if it is only a meeting." He had been trying to get me to go to one for the past three months, but I had already faked illness to escape those ones, so I had no way of running away now, and he knew it.

Admitting defeat, I stand up and walk up the stairs to my Mother's old room to see her clothes.

Opening the door I see her rusty, single bed, with moth bitten, lace sheets. A bench box stood at the foot of the bed, engraved with decorative patterns that looked like flowers, in the shapes of stags.

I open it.

And in it I find the most beautiful dresses, left untouched by the moths' wrath, looking almost made to fit me. I pulled a long, slim, deep blue, Marie Antoinette styled dress out and a red velvet covered book came tumbling from inside it.

I open that too.

On the inside of the front cover is my Mother's old scrawly signature and a pocket tab, with a fountain pen in it.

Testing it out on the page, the ink turns gold with exposure, slowly turning transparent, the words sinking into the page.

I had written I wish I did not have to go to the marriage meeting with the countess's son.

Soon after, I hear a knock at the door and Harold's voice echos through it.

"Don't mind about changing into formal gown Miss, the young Earl has fallen ill, and so the meeting has been postponed for a month or so."

What have I done?