𝑰𝑵𝑲 • 𝑻𝒆𝒘𝒌𝒆𝒔𝒃𝒖𝒓𝒚 / 𝑳𝒐𝒖𝒊𝒔 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒈𝒆

The First Of Many

5 months ago

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I need you to know that I feel no regret,

About the things that I've done and the things that I've said,

You mean more to me than I could ever reflect,

You are my birth, my life, and my death.

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Every year, every summer, there's a moment in time that's unaccounted for. Where it could be Monday or Thursday and you wouldn't know, or what could have felt like a week might have just been one or two days. And usually it's caused by boredom, by having nothing to put into a schedule or give structure to your days. But this year, It felt more like not knowing what to do with myself.

Not knowing how to begin again.

It's another one of those rare occasions where I've got the day off from chores as well. Lady Tewkesbury and the Dowager have left to attend the wedding of some distant relative. According to my mother, most of the staff would be required to help out. The men, by providing service, and the women, by preparing the bride. Everyone who didn't go with them took the liberty of just going home. But my home is here, on the estate.

I'd asked my mother if I could go, not really wanting to waste another day away. She told me I ought not to know such things yet. That I should save the excitement for my own wedding day. Needless to say, I didn't really want to go anywhere with her after that. The prospect of marriage has a habit of leaving a nasty taste in my mouth.

And so now I find myself on the front steps of the manor. I'm stood up straight to the far left, hands tucked in front of me by my apron, having just bid everybody goodbye for the day. Tewkesbury's here too, but stood a little less proper. He's leaning up against one of the pillars, undoing his cufflinks and unbuttoning the ends of his sleeves.

I need to be more cautious than he does, unable to take such liberties with how I hold myself. It isn't until I see the train of carriages turn the corner and disappear from sight that I can let out a breath. The way my shoulders fall could either be from grief, or perhaps exhaustion. I haven't been sleeping well, not since it happened.

I watch him push off of the pillar and make his way over. there's a summer buzz, the constant hum of nature. I can hear cicadas screech on tree trunks and it makes my head hurt. I rub at my eyes until they sting worse than they did before. He stands beside me and follows my eye line, looking out onto the vibrant green gardens that surround the entrance.

"So," he begins, sounding incredibly bored already, "what do you want to do first?" Before, he wouldn't have even had to ask. We would have headed straight for the kitchen, then make our way outside to cause trouble in the pastures. But we're older now, and I don't feel like reliving the past.

I reach up to my hair and let it down, pulling out a few pins. It's too hot outside and my eyes are now burning from how bright the sun shines. What do I want right now? What is it that I want to do?

What do I want.

"Wine cellar," I say after a short pause, "I think I want wine." I ponder how much of my answer was me genuinely wanting to drink, and how much of it was me trying to convince myself that that was what I wanted. I knew to stay away from the stronger stuff, having seen T under their influence plenty of times, it wasn't a very pretty sight. But wine would just take off the edge, put me at ease. Wine would fix things for a little while. At least, that's what I've heard.

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The keys of a piano shift beneath my fingers in an uncontrolled and unrefined manner. Their unstructured sounds filling every corner of the parlor . Notes fly everywhere, each one more horrendous sounding than the last. And yet I'm laughing. It doesn't frustrate me, I find humor on my talentlessness.