The Gilded Cage - Accepting My Place

Promenade

"Being allowed to collect you is another test of my progress...so, don't let me down please Hermione? I have to be perfect for Grandma, or else, and that means I have to do really well with you?" Bella hissed as she took firm hold of my arm and walked me purposefully down the drive, sketching a final wave to Mama, who had seen us off the premises. She did not have a pacifier, of course. Because she was in charge of me. I did, so I could not reply, but I got the point and did my best to comply with her instructions. My overnight things would be dropped off by car, but Bella was being allowed to take me for a pleasant stroll before we joined her grandmother for some lunch at her house, which as she had said was probably a test of her own progress, as much as mine. Although she would be under discipline if she was with her mother or her grandmother, she was being allowed to take charge of me, which was a sign that she was on the right track, and a pointed message to me. She was trusted to behave, and not be chaperoned for the ten-minute walk to our house, whilst I still had everything to learn before I reached her giddy heights of independence. "I will take that thing out just as much as I can, I promise...but let's get a bit further from the house first...Helen is probably reporting back on me and I want her to see that I am taking good care of you and making you behave? Grandma has spies everywhere!"

I nodded, discreetly, as we walked along the drive, and then took the path towards the park as expected, because there was really nowhere else to go in the village. It was the long way around to the Deacon house, but the sun was shining and we had permission, so I let Bella lead me along and concentrated on not tripping over our mingled skirts. She waited until we reached the main road, quite close to the park, and then finally reached out to remove my pacifier from my mouth. I smiled at her. "Thank you, Miss Deacon."

"Bella, when we are alone...we don't have to be so stuffy when we are alone...and we so rarely are alone, we should take full advantage...how is Miss Davenport, Hermione?"

"Annie is keeping her out of trouble as far as possible, but she is...devastated? She is so unhappy?" I replied, searching hard for the right word, but speaking freely. "I hate what they are doing to her, Bella..."

"Most people do I think...or at least, they find it just a bit much...but my fanatical cousin is making a point, I think?" She sighed, giving my arm the sort of squeeze friends do, when they care for each other, and we did care for each other. Bella and I were following similar paths in life, albeit from very different starting points, and we had a lot in common. "He is setting an example to everyone else, one that he expects his subordinates to follow, for sure. And he justifies his actions towards his sister and Karen by claiming that he is saving them in God's love...as the doctrine demands...not to mention keeping Madelaine out of jail..."

"Your cousin? Mr Ellesmere?"

"My grandmother is his aunt...surely you knew that?"

"No? I mean, most people here seem to be related to everyone else, but I never heard about that?" I said, genuinely gob smacked by that news, but then again, Edwina Deacon was by far the most traditional person I had met in Meadvale. Her treatment of Bella alone proved that, as far as I was concerned, and although she was a good friend of both Helen Montague and my own mother, her views were always extremely conservative.

"Grandma is an Ellesmere, but after she married, Grandpa Deacon proved not to be quite as doctrinaire as they expected, which was why I was allowed more freedom, I suppose. Grandma was not exactly disowned, but the Deacon's and the Ellesmere's don't really socialise, although things have thawed a bit since Grandma helped with the purge...well, since my poor Grandpa died, really...I suppose?"

"Which is what this is all about, according to Papa? The purge, I mean?"

"Sort of...I think...but Richard Ellesmere was always really embarrassed about his sister...it was like a dark cloud hanging over the whole family...so, purge or no purge, I think he would have wanted to bring her back into the fold if he could, and remove the black mark against the family name? If he ever got the chance? And he did, of course!"