Carry Me Home

Thirty-Eight

Evelyn

"Evelyn, don't go to your room just yet." I was stopped in my tracks yet again but this time it was by Grandfather. I sighed before turning around and facing him with a smile on my face. "Your grandma and I would like to talk to you."

His wife was seated beside him and as per usual their high status and wealth radiated from both of them. I sat down opposite them and placed my hands on my lap. They both placed their teacups onto the table and resumed their rigid posture. 

"Are you actually Colin's daughter? Or are you here for the wealth?" Grandfather asked, leaning forward slightly with an icy look to his eyes. 

"I'm not interested in your wealth and I didn't find Dad, he found me. He said I was his daughter after I confirmed my name." I didn't mean to come off as rude but apparently I had as my grandmother looked taken aback by my comments. 

"Fair enough but then why are you so set on ruining our name?" Grandfather leaned back into the sofa and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. 

"How so?"

"You were seen hugging the servant!" Grandma yelled. This was the first time I had ever heard her yell because she liked to remain as civil and restrained as possible. 

"I wasn't hugging a - oh, you mean someone saw me hugging Elliot?"

"In this house relationships with people like that aren't allowed. Then again your type of people don't follow those invisible rules, do they?" If it was any other person then I would've slapped them but this was my grandmother talking and, just like Elliot said, people deserve respect. 

"People are equal. If you're calling me lowly because my mother wasn't upper class like you but actually lower middle class then that's disgusting. I apologise for being rude but you started it."

"What an insolent girl you are! How has your mother raised you?" Grandma gasped and proceeded to taunt me in her high, piercing voice. 

"She did the best she could before she died." My irritation slowly become evident as it leaked its way into my tone. 

"Please do us both a favour and act like a Lawson if you're going to carry on living here and do not go frolicking around with the servants. Do I make myself clear, Evelyn?" Grandfather maintained stiff eye contact with me as if he was daring me to rebel against him. I nodded slowly and asked to leave but wasn't granted the opportunity. He asked his wife to leave so that he could privately talk to me. 

"Do you have more things to criticise about me?" I asked, lazily raising my eyebrow at him.

"No, I do not, Evelyn. I just wanted to ask how your life has been for the past nineteen years?" This question too me by surprise as I was at the assumption that both of my grandparents despised my guts, but here my grandfather was contradicting everything I had previously thought. 

"It's been tough for the most part but my aunt and uncle did an excellent job at raising me."

"When I saw you for the first time I wanted to hold you and just look at you because you were the tiniest thing I had ever seen since your father was born. Unbeknownst to your grandmother, your birth was more special to me than Colin's was. A different type of emotion is created when your child is having their own baby. Your grandmother and I had, and still have, very strict morals and we're both traditional. The fact that Colin had impregnated your mother before either of them got married to each other was absurd. 

"Honestly, I hated you before you were born because you were going to damage the family name... but then I saw your little face and all of that hatred melted away. If your grandmother wasn't beside me at that time then I would've held you at that moment I first saw you." Complete sincerity was painted in all his features whilst he spoke to me and for the first time I didn't get bored whilst listening.