The Gilded Cage - Accepting My Place

Adjusting

"How many likes did the last post get?" Helen asked, peering over my shoulder as I checked my phone. She had only given it back to me when we got back home after the school run, as a reward for better behaviour on the Monday morning. Reverent maidens did not carry mobile phones, and I was informed that I had to earn time on it, which would only happen when it was convenient, although Mama had promised me that my good work with the Brewster Sisters social media channels could continue, because it was proving so successful and pleasing the Elders. With Annie back with her own litter, she had needed me to work, or help as she called it, in my new guise, and I had happily and readily obliged, which seemed to please her, as much as it pleased me. It felt like we were back to normal, almost. Neither of us had mentioned my humiliating and painful paddling as I tried to make up for my very rocky start, and she wanted to forgive and forget, I suppose. I had decided that I had to give myself some time. Becoming a member of the Church of Christ the Reformer was a serious commitment, and although I had been warned that I would be a maiden after pledging my dutiful obedience to the doctrine, I had severely underestimated what that actually meant in practice. Because I had never really thought about what that status felt like, I suppose, or meant in practical terms. I had obviously helped Bella be a good maiden, but that process, driven by her pious grandmother, had involved taking her right back to the nursery first, to focus her on her future in God's love. And the main lesson my dear friend had needed to learn it seemed to me, had been blind obedience. Meadvale had a defined social hierarchy entrenched deep within the very fibre of the community. Elders and betters all helped their youngsters make the right decisions, and the community had rules and red lines, which no one could bypass or disregard. Including me, and nothing that had been done to me was any different to how I had treated Bella in California. I wanted to be a part of the community, partly because I liked the security of those rules, and I wanted to feel safe and secure. So, it was quite illogical of me to make such a fuss when I assumed my proper place in that hierarchy, which was fairly close to the bottom, of course. Maidens were essentially just adolescents, fresh out of school, which in Meadvale, within a traditional family, meant fresh out of the nursery, and they were supposed to accept that they needed help and advice to prepare for adult life. I was only a year and a half out of school in all reality, and the first cheerless year of that had been wasted at university and then getting over my meltdown, or whatever you want to call it, so it was really quite ludicrous of me to ever believe that I could play around with my maidenhood, as if I did not need the help and advice of my betters. I could justify my initial indignation by pointing to my successes as a nanny, but I had turned my back on that life for something more meaningful in God's love, and if I wanted that to work, I had to behave. I had to be a good maiden, and do as my Mama said, or suffer the consequences.

"Seven hundred thousand, Mama...it will be over a million by teatime," I grinned, looking at the picture of Henrietta hugging Caris which we had shared from the day before. It felt so good calling Helen Mama, like I really was part of the family. "And the live charity broadcast of the Christmas concert already has two million people registered...that will mean ten million pounds for our good causes...isn't that amazing?"

"And we have seats in the front row...it really is quite exciting." She said, moving back to the coffee machine, to pour us both cups. "You are a bit of a whizz on social media, Hermione dear...the Elders are absolutely delighted with what you are doing because such skills are not exactly commonplace in the community...church attendance is up almost twenty percent all over the country and those three girls are so pleased to be performing again...when they know how much they have earned for charity they are going to be over the moon! I heard Henrietta tell Caris that she thought they might raise a few thousand pounds, but this is incredible!"

"They have all grown so close to each other...the choir, I mean...even Nicola seems to be enjoying it...and Caris looks after Henrietta, Georgina and Philippa like a mother hen, the dear thing," I smiled, scrolling through all the photographs we had taken. "I rather like thinking of them as my sisters, Mama?"