„If you don’t know the mystery’s source, try to live in the shadow”
London. A city Eva knew once, for she was born in that city and also there she find out, for the first time, what betrayal means, one day when she was walking as usual with her governess, with Miss Anne Ground, and she saw her father with another woman.
And the fact that she saw Alfred with another woman has been for the 5 years old girl something really impressive, but not in a good way. And that pain felt in the girl’s chest was due to the cruel reality that also grinned at her for the first time - she found out the reason why her father never found time for spending with her.
But that thought that she has been abandoned by her father wasn’t just an invention of a 5-year-old girl’s mind, but it was the reality, for Alfred was almost always gone and it could pass days, weeks, or months till he returned home, and his absence hurt Eva’s heart each time.
In time instead, his absence felt like a routine, Eva stopped waiting for him and took refuge in books. And it didn’t even matter what that story was about, but the simple fact that the little Eva could identify with one of the characters, living its life as being hers, was giving her a reason more to live and smile.
Then, also in time, Eva started to smile only when she imagined herself being a character. In the real world instead, she found fewer reasons to be happy, for nobody took care of her, except the governess, who was teaching her a lot of things, but who didn’t have a place in her heart for love to share with Eva, and the fact that she was almost all the time by herself didn’t mean something good too, for she got often to suffer because of a character’s sufferance, something that made her heart bleed so much all the time. Yet, being free to do what she wanted, Eva could enter the world of books, find new worlds, and meet new friends to complement her loneliness.
She even remembered that when she and Miss Anne saw Alfred and his new mistress, the governess tried to turn to a side street to avoid useless sufferance for the girl. But Eva saw them already and stopped, staring at Alfred, who was too busy courting his new conquest to look around and see his daughter. For him, that woman was the most important at that moment, and the simple fact that his girl was standing and watching him, wondering how her father could act like that in the middle of the street, was something that wasn’t bothering him. And, even if he had turned then and seen her, he probably would have just passed by, pretending not to have seen her, not to know her, that nothing happened, convinced that a 5 years old girl doesn’t have the slightest idea about such stories, that she’ll forget soon as all the children of her age do, and that she’ll live her life.
But he would have been wrong, for Eva didn’t forget anything. Why? She also didn’t know why. She tried to forget, that incident, but she found it impossible, for it was similar to a thorn well stabbed in her heart, a thorn that was sinking more and more in the bleeding wound when she was trying to get it out of there and throw it. And, in time, that thorn got a foothold in the girl’s heart and she got to hate any woman seen next to her father.
Then, when she grew up a little and she could understand more about life, Eva gave a name to that thorn: Alfred Stonebridge, who was her father and protector, but who, in fact, was a big jerk, someone who didn’t pay to much for her sufferance as he had never been careful with Helen’s heart.
And if Helen Walker had known what kind of life would have had her little girl next to such a man, she would have probably never asked Alfred to take care of her. She probably would have thought twice about what would have been better for Eva. She probably would have understood that it was better for her girl to grow up in Alice Huntington’s house as a servant than to move from one place to another, to call „mother” so many other women, to suffer because of her father’s absence, being surrounded only by imaginary friends and Helen probably, if she had known all these, would have never told the man about the divine gift received from God: a child.
Maybe this way it would have been better for him too, someone who had been always a gambling addict and who decided to never give up on that addiction till his death, even though creditors were always behind him, people to who he owed so much money that everybody in town, good people actually, got to avoid him when they were seeing him somewhere in town. But even so, Alfred had the shame to ask for a loan again from them each time he needed that, having no remorse when he was asking again for money from those who he didn’t even pay back what he owed already.
At one point actually, after they had turned back to Image, thinking that problems forgot them, both Eva and Alfred found out that it wasn’t like they thought, they found out that being addicted was a strange and dangerous disease, which couldn't be healed with a simple medicine and, to get rid of it, one needed a strong will, a steel one actually, for that vertigo, called gambling, was the fearest enemy of humans, something that was grinding down the „sick man” from inside, leaving him without friends and soul, without family and desire to live, but which was never allowing the „sick one” know ever that it was there, inside him, and that he must get rid of it once and for all.
Right after they got to find out about such a disease, came the next big lesson of their life, a lesson taught to Eva too early when, one day, coming back home after she had been on the field picking up wildflowers and she entered her father’s office, she found him on his knees, in the middle of the room, with the barrel of a rifle touching his temple while strange people, men she could name without being mistaken „hyenas” were looking through their stuff, throwing everything on the floor, mercilessly, to find the money.
Entering that day in the office, Eva remembered that she froze for a few moments, staring with frightened eyes at her father that was making weird sounds while asking for mercy from his butcher each time that man threatened him with pulling the trigger. But she also remembered that that day, after the scare passed, she calmly reacted: even though those hyenas were still there, walking back and fro throughout the room, Eva approached one of the books thrown on the floor, took it in her hands, cleaned it of dust as the governess taught her to do, then held it to her chest and left the room. After that, also calm, she left the house and went to read on that wooden bench next to the lake.
And that calmness and coldness of a 7 years old child, who reacted so strangely in front of the humans’evil, amazed both Alfred and his creditor, who left him alive only because he saw so much courage inside the heart of an innocent child. And that man told Alfred that day: „thank God that He sent an Angel here today to remind me about manhood. Otherwise, I would have pulled this trigger and without remorse.”
Eva suddenly winced and saw the night lurking at her through the carriage’s window while they were advancing at the horses’slow step onto those dark streets of London. Suddenly, when the wheel passed over a stone, probably forgotten there by time right in the middle of the road, the carriage jolted and Eva finally reacted, awakening from her daydream.
And, after she had finally understood that she was utterly awakened, the girl forced herself to look at the outside world through the window colored in the pitch of the night, through which nothing was actually seen. But… they didn’t have to spend a lot of time surrounded by darkness, for right after the night took completely over the world, Albert, the teamster, stopped the carriage, lit a small gas lamp, and gave it to Eva in case she was bored and wanted to read something.
Eva instead had nothing with her to kill the boring, for she had preferred to take with her less possible stuff - only the necessary. Yet, she took the lamp from Albert’s hand, slowly bowed her head showing her gratefulness, and after the carriage had again hit the road, the girl moved a little bit the lamp to see better the carriage’s inside.
Big deal to see there wasn’t anyway: a carriage like any other, lined with black velvet, comfortable and expensive enough actually, a hint that that Miss Davis knew how to spend her money - not on small things, but on real important ones, for she seemed to be someone who cared about what others thought about her.
Then, when she finally got bored watching the small details of the carriage like the tapestry, the small curtains which were hunged at the windows, and the one single-leg silver candlestick that was hunged from the ceiling with a half burnt dipped candle in it, Eva finally looked at Emily, who seemed asleep at that moment.
But even if that woman seemed to her extremely usual at first, looking at her from close, Eva found her really interesting. What made Eva admire her was her posture of sitting on the rear seat of the carriage, with her back straight, with her hands carefully put on her lap, with the clothes perfectly arranged on the chair not to crumple, with the hat put on one side of the head, something that was giving her a certain charm, making her seem a real elegant lady. And Eva’s thought about Emily wasn’t random, for her vestment really reminded her of those used by the ladies from the Royal Court when the main characters of her favorite novels were gathering in the ballroom, elegantly moving while dancing to valorize their garments and also to vaunt with their bodily and soul’s charm.
Later, after she had watched her for a few minutes, Eva remembered those few words Emily told Alfred before leaving Stonebridge’s house and taking Eva with her: a well-mannered style of speech, well thought, choosing each word and never saying anything randomly as if she knew that each word spoken wrongly might turn to be a weapon against you later.
Yet something in Miss Davis’behavior offered Eva food for thought and even alerted her at one point. Why exactly, she didn’t know. But she knew very well that she started to feel this after catching Emily’s cold glance and she managed to look into her eyes for more than 3 seconds as she used to look into someone’s eyes.
Suddenly, Emily opened her eyes and saw Eva’s glance focused on her and carefully analyzing her face: „something happens, Miss Stonebridge?” she asked Eva in a sweet voice, carefully arranging the folds of her dress, even if the material didn’t crumple at all.
„Nothing special,” Eva said dryly. „I just wondered if there’s still much left till we get there.” Eventually, Eva looked elsewhere, trying to hide the nervosity she felt in her chest, which started to be felt so alive when Miss Davis talked to her.
„A quarter of an hour, if not less. It’s right in the Center,” said Emily and, taking a book from under the pillow she had on her lap, she sent Eva the message that the interrogatory was over, even if it didn’t even start well. And Eva understood that message well, for it was too obvious: Miss Davis was „reading” in semi-shadow, for the lamp from Eva’s hand was too far from the book’s leaves and the lamp’s light was enough blind to allow one to read from so far from it and more in that rocking of the carriage.
But what Eva didn’t know was that Emily actually loved to talk to others, especially with those she considered worthy of talking to. But, at that moment, she decided to interrupt the conversation for the simple fact that she didn’t want to explain what was going on.
And there was one more unknown truth about Miss Davis: that she loved more to listen than to talk when she was at a social event and, in the majority of the cases, she didn’t involve in nonsense discussions because she knew that it’ll be better for her, for, generally, those discussions were gossip about those who weren’t present there and sometimes people even started to offend others by insulting them, and Emily hated to be part of such cheap social theater’s plays.
Actually, what Emily hid from others was her past: she had been born in the family of a famous piano player, who died too soon because of debts and of a cruel disease, something quick, that put him on his knees in front of death in only a couple of months, to be later forgotten by everyone.
And Emily decided not to talk about her past due to a tragic event that marked her life, an event she considered unfair and cruel for her: she, like Eva, has been sold in the past, by her mother.
She remembered that everything started at the moment her father fell ill, shaken by fever and that none of the doctors summoned by her mother into their house could tell her exactly what kind of illness had her husband or how to heal it. That’s why they tried everything, because of ignorance: traditional medication that was extremely expensive but resulted inefficient, different potions that also didn’t do miracles, as other crazy ideas told by others like throwing back a coin into the lake and asking for a miracle, something that actually never happened, for, very soon after, she became orphan at the age of ten and her mother a grieved wife, who didn’t know too much about how things happened in this world and who saw herself drown in debts.
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
That’s why when her mother realized that they had almost nothing left, she took that awful decision and, one Sunday Morning in December she took the girl to present her in front of that famous world known as the „Red Ants.”
Emily remembers that after her mother had knocked three times on the door of that house, it was opened by a lady about 70, called Miss Marcial, who let them in without saying a word.
And they followed her right away, without wondering at least why that old Miss has been impolite with them and why she didn’t even bother to say hello to them. Then, after they had stepped over the threshold of that house, the girl felt that she entered a totally different world.
That feeling, however, hasn’t been at all random, as nothing in that house was unexpected, neither the name „Red Ants” - actually everything in that house was covered with black and red velvet, and only the wooden furniture was of a dark or bright brown, with strange sparkles on it because of the stairs newly renovated.
And that madness of weird colors gave the little Emily a pleasant feeling, and the friendly and warm atmosphere of the house was accompanied by piano music, heard from one of the rooms on the ground floor. At first, Emily thought that a real person was playing the piano, but soon after getting into the living room, she could see, through the open door of one of the rooms, that that music was actually played by a gramophone.
This amazed her a lot, for she has never seen before a gramophone. She always used to listen to her father playing the piano while being in their house while he was intending to create a new musical composition, something that each time was special for him, a masterpiece, something that will make him famous and unforgettable.
More by taken, Emily also learned to play the piano since a little girl, for her father was stubborn and he insisted on her to learn playing even if she merely turned 5. Soon instead, he understood with unpleasant amazement that the girl didn’t have his talent and, very soon after that, he had a breakdown. So, he started to spend less possible time with his daughter, thinking that she didn’t deserve to waste his precious time with her anymore.
But his attitude didn’t pass unnoticed: after many times of unsuccessfully approaching him, after many hours of practice while hardly trying to make him happy, Emily understood that it was useless, that it was a sure thing that she hadn’t her father's talent to play the piano, and if someone doesn’t have talent, he can’t buy it somewhere to use it later as if something his because if this had been possible, the girl would have probably done this too. So, Emily could only give up and because her mother was too busy trying to find the miraculous medicine for her husband, she got to spend her time mostly alone, and, because of this, she became introverted and talked little.
But… let’s turn back to the morning when Emily and her mother entered that big house, so weirdly furnished, seen through the little girl’s eyes, who was used to the simple furniture of her house, but still comfortable enough:
„Good morning, Christine,” Emily heard her mother saying to an elegant lady that came from the room where she heard the piano music played on the gramophone. „How are your things going?”
Hearing her mother talking like that, Emily peeped behind her mother and carefully looked at the woman that was staring at her mother as if she was seeing, right in front of her at that moment, her worse rival: „you know that my things always worked fine, Marie. And it’ll be always so.”
But even if the one called by her mother „Christine” talked so coldly and somehow arrogantly to Marie, Emily found her beautiful, having about 30 at that time, with big eyes, of dark brown, shadowed by long black eyelashes. Her lips were painted in a bright red while her cheeks, also colored red, only a little bit, seemed to be two blossomed roses.
Christine actually wasn’t tall. But, at that moment, she seemed tall and beautiful in the girl’s eyes, despite she didn't have a slim body, and her arms and legs were chubby. Yet, she possessed long delicate fingers, like a pianist, something that gave her a particular charm, especially helping her to drive crazy a man, that one she wanted next to her. So, gently touching the man’s shoulders or slowly moving her fingers on the back of his palm, she was given him to understand that she wanted him. And Christine never failed doing this, for Mrs. Bircham had had always a lot of men hovering around her and she would have them hovering by her side long after that, for being very beautiful and knowing how to make use of her natural charm.
„Let’s go in the other living room,” suddenly Christine said, breaking the session of analysis of little Emily. Then, Miss Marcial, who all that time waited next to the door, motioned them to follow Christine and, after she missed for about 10 minutes, she turned back, bringing some tea, sugar, and cookies.
Being already in the big living room, both mother and daughter have been invited to sit down on chairs covered with black velvet. After that, Miss Marcial put a cup of tea in front of them and some cookies.
„Sugar?” Miss Marcial asked Marie.
„Thank you, Miss Marcial,” said Marie, smiling. „I use to drink it with two sugar cubes.”
However, even if Marie tried to seem extremely kind, Emily found her gesture weird, especially when she spotted that her mother felt fearsome with Mrs. Bircham’s presence and also because of Miss Marcial, who kept staring at them while being a few steps behind them. Yet, this gave the girl the feeling that they knew each other and that there was a story behind all that weird feeling. And… she probably wasn’t mistaken.
„Why are you here, Marie?” Christine suddenly asked and Emily spotted a strange blink of hatred in her eyes or maybe of old upset.
„I just…,” her mother stuttered and, to hide her awkwardness, she sipped some tea.
Christine didn’t bother at all and added: „it seems to me that you completely lost your shame eventually, once being Pierre Davis’wife and living in his house. Yet, I thought that you won’t ever turn back here, stepping on your pride eventually.”
Emily winced then, hearing Christine talking to her mother like that, and wondered, in her mind: „what did my mother do to this woman to hate her?” But she kept silent in her mind, seeing her mother squeezing her fist, as she was doing each time she was really upset or about to explode because of something she considered unfair to her.
And a strange feeling of pressure was felt in the air while the two women were glancing at each other and a kind of damageful energy, born from the vibrations of their souls, filled to the brim with hard emotions, was thrown from one to each other, energy that was felt like the touch of the fingers on the guitar's stops, looking for the desired musical notes.
„I’m certainly not here to ask you for a loan, Christine,” Marie Davis said in a severe tone. „I’m here because I don’t know what to do. I think that you already found out about Pierre’s death and that he left a lot of debts behind him. If I’m here is because I thought long about this and I decided this only when I understood that it’ll be the best for my little Emily. Please, Christine, accept her in this house! At least for a while till I have enough money for taking her back.”
Emily winced again: „what her mother was talking about?” she thought then. „Why should I stay here, with this weird lady that seems to hate you and who’s definitely not a good woman?”
And not for nothing Emily asked such questions then, about life, for she felt that something was so quickly changing in her life, nothing good, in fact. That something was floating in the air, above that red and black furniture, something that hurt her so much, even if she found them really interesting at that moment. And this was because she didn’t know what was going on: she didn’t know about her father’s debts, she didn’t know why she had to live in Christine’s house, and why her mother tried to get rid of her. But what she didn’t know was that she had no choice.
And this was really so because Emily Davis never left the house of the „Red Ants” after that. And this happened not because she didn’t want it, but because she couldn’t: soon after leaving her daughter with Christine, Marie Davis married a wealthy old man, thinking that he’ll die soon and that his fortune will be inherited by Emily, for her new husband didn’t have children. But who died eventually has been Marie: a half a year after only, killed by the same disease that ended Pierre Davis’life. And… along with Marie also died Emily’s soul.
And how that child’s soul shouldn't die when she found out too early what it feels to be an orphan, to be someone who nobody cares about and, to survive, she had to do everything she could?!
And she did it: when she was enough mature to talk about such things, Emily asked Miss Marcial if she knew the story between Marie Davis and Christine Bircham. And, the same day, Emily found out in amazement that Marie has been part of the „Red Ants” once, but when she married Pierre, she trampled Christine’s heart under her feet, for Mrs. Bircham wanted the same as Marie: to marry a wealthy man and leave that „business” behind.
„What kind of business?” Emily asked Miss Marcial. The woman instead preferred not to answer that question. She only muttered a „you’ll find out someday,” and, from that moment, Emily understood that the world was different as she imagined.
And she was right, for, 5 years after Miss Marcial’s death, when Emily was about 20, Christine sent her to meet her „first client.”
But even if she knew what she had to do and where Christine sent her, all the way to marquis Chesterman’s house, Emily cried: she was scared, she was shivering like an aspen leaf, and she wanted so bad to run. But she also knew that she didn’t have where to go. That’s why she wiped her tears, smiled when the carriage’s door has been opened in front of Chesterman’s luxurious palace, and greeted Luis Chesterman, smiling when he stretched his hand to help her descend.
„It’s such a pleasure to meet you personally, Miss Bircham,” Luis told her then, looking at her from top to toe.
At that time Luis was about 30, but charming enough and totally different from all those chubby men often seen on the London streets.
„Miss Bircham?” Emily wondered, staring at Luis. „Does he mistake me with Christine?” Soon instead, she found out that Christine presented her as her daughter, a child she had still being very young and who has been grown up by her relative, somewhere in the countryside. Only a few knew the real story behind Emily. But none of them was eager to talk about that „innocent lie,” for they owed a lot to Christine or they had business with her. And if someone was Christine’s partner or debtor, that someone had to keep his mouth shut, for Christine wasn’t only a beautiful woman, but also a real shark, for life made her so while swimming among sharks.
After that night, a new world opened in front of Emily: an interesting future, but weird, a future she didn’t want in fact, but which choose her and brought her to the house of a woman that had any man’s attention. And the same she taught Emily, for she thought that they were somehow similar when she was still young and innocent.
However, when Albert stopped the carriage, Emily also stopped the thread of her thoughts, just as she stopped staring at that open book on her lap. And, looking through the window, she saw the same house where she has been brought many years ago by her mother: the house of the „Red Ants,” a small palace actually, built by Luis and offered as a gift to Christine, who was known as one of his many mistresses, the most feared and respected, actually even more than his wife, Marianne Chesterman Loran, who always lived in Luis and Christine’s shadow, but only God knew for how long it will last. And all this because Marianne was proud, a woman that knew to make herself respected, and who actually hated to live in someone’s shadow, but who still kept silent, knowing that it wasn’t anything to do, for the moment.
„We’re finally home,” said Albert, opening the door.
„Yes,” Emily drily answered. „I thought that it’ll last forever, for I’m so tired. The way from Image till here seemed an eternity to me,” and a kind of reproach was felt in her voice.
„I’m sorry, Miss Davis,” said Albert, stretching his hand to help her descend. „After the rain, that forest road is so difficult to walk onto and…”
„Yes, yes, I got the point,” mumbled Emily. „Help Miss Stonebridge descend and later bring the luggage inside.” Then, she turned her back on them and headed toward the entrance, mumbling: „thank God we are back. I’m so tired. All I need is a hot bath and sleep.”
Behind her, helped by Albert, Eva also descended and looked around in amazement, for even if that place was weakly illuminated, it was still so beautiful: with all those bushes beautifully cut and having an animal form, with those yellow leaves fallen all around from the secular trees. And all that was a secret tradition of splendor and wealth.
„Let’s go, Miss Stonebridge,” said Albert, taking her small luggage from behind the carriage. „Looking at all this while being inside the house, it’s even more beautiful to watch. And, to be honest, while being at one of those big windows, with a cup of hot tea, and looking outside, you can afford to dream… a lot, while listening to how the flames are dancing in the stove, tightly hugging those beech logs.”
Then, Albert sadly smiled. Yet, his gesture has been pleasant for Eva, somehow giving her comfort, even if she didn’t know that he was showing his concern for her this way, for he knew very well where he brought that innocent girl. But he preferred not to tell her about this, he preferred to give her the chance to discover everything by herself, for having no mother by her side, who could tell her about such things, Eva was forced to learn about the world and find out alone its hidden secrets.