By the next morning, I sort of have an excuse planned. I don’t want to put Violet in a position where she has to lie for me, so I wait around to have breakfast with everyone (Violet helping to get the others there earlier). Helena’s concern when she sees me, while misplaced, is very much appreciated.

“That’s right, I should say I didn’t properly explain myself to Lady Dover yesterday,” I say when I feel the time is right, a lull in the conversation. “I was a touch under the weather, but my absence from lunch was due to visiting a friend in town. We meet most weekends, you know, something of a routine of ours, and I am awfully sorry for disappearing unannounced like that.”

My explanation turning rambling, I shut up with a smile.

“Will you be going today?” Lady Hythe asks.

“Oh yes, I will,” I say.

This time it’s Helena who asks, “Would you like us to accompany you?”

Sure, but ignore how I’m dressed and that we’re going down an alley to the staff entrance of a café, thanks. “No, I’ll be fine. A maid escorts me there and it’s rather far, so I couldn’t trouble you.”

“It would be no trouble,” Helena helpfully says.

It really would be a lot of trouble for me. “I was thinking of going for morning walks during the week,” I say, somewhat bluntly steering the conversation away, but Violet joins in to cover for me. Thanks, dear.

Once I finish eating, I excuse myself, hoping that Violet will be good enough to help me some more and keep them here long enough for me to change and escape. Rushing as I am, my poor hair has to make do with a most basic bun, my makeup just foundation. Len says nothing of my appearance when I leave my room, such a good maid, and we walk an even faster pace than yesterday until we’re outside the grounds.

It’s quite funny, really. I ate breakfast late, rushed to get ready, and now have nothing to do for, what, an hour? Lottie and Gwen at church and Sunday school, I usually leave later. Am I going to need to sneak out early every Sunday from now on? I don’t think Neville would mind me coming in early, but I’d like to do something more productive than sit around in an empty café.

As it is, the chill is tempered by a thick layer of clouds, pleasant enough to walk around. Len looks to be fine with this mild cold too. So I detour us to the stalls, many already out at this hour with hot food and drink. I guess for the churchgoers? Better to sit on a cramped pew with a bellyful of something warm.

Looking around, I feel somewhat rich (speaking of only the coins from my wages). Here I am, just shy of eight shillings, and there’s cups of tea being sold for a penny. Sure, I’ll buy fifty teas and still have money left for a couple of cakes. Putting away my gloves, I take out a tuppence and hand it over to the man.

“Ta, luv,” he says, his smile missing a tooth and the rest of his teeth yellowed—tobacco? I think my father has a habit for it, but mother doesn’t let him smoke in front of or around us. She’s not fond of the smell either.

“Thanks,” I say as I pick up the cups. Mugs, I should say, wooden things.

There’s a box next to the stall full of them, and he gestures at it. “When yer done.”

No souvenir for me. Well, this isn’t some plastic cup manufactured by the millions.

Shuffling back, I turn to Len, a sweet smile on my face. “Here you go,” I say, and hold out a mug for her.

Oh she gives me a look, and she glances at the man. Go on, Len, I won’t tell anyone. Slowly, she reaches out and takes it from me. “Thank you,” she says, and I can hear her add, “mistress,” in her head.

This being the sort of main street of the town, we’re by the river. I shuffle over that way and she dutifully follows, joining me as I rest against the low wall. The mug itself is somewhat hot and I would say the billows of steam coming from the tea has something to do with it. I’ve had my gloves on, so it’s really only keeping my hands warm, but Len hasn’t had that, and I watch as her cold fingers seem to dance, the prickling heat keeping her from clutching it. A mild amusement for me while I blow on my drink.

My mind drifts back to earlier, to my sense of richness. I mean, I have spending money because I don’t have to pay rent or food. A half-peck loaf would put me back sixpence and cover about one meal a day for a week. So maybe two shillings on food for a week, rent I have no clue. I think Ellie’s world had a notion of… half the pay goes to rent, but was that in London? Was it a third? At one shilling a day wage, say I worked a six-day week like a single person living alone would have to, then it would be between two and three shillings on rent every week. Six shillings pay down to one or two, and I’ll have to save those in case I need to replace clothes—thankfully, I can at least mend them, so I should be able to make every dress last. Ah, but, I’ll need heating in this cold, can’t stay up all night using magic and I doubt my tiny flat will keep the heat in. Most people buy wine or beer too. Oh right, washing as well, so soap for me and detergent for the clothes. Wait, how can I forget tea when it’s right in front of me? Am I supposed to just drink water like a fish?

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Having my first sip of the tea, the imagination exercise comes to an abrupt end. No wonder this only cost a penny. I guess that mostly goes to whatever he uses to keep the “teapot” hot, certainly not to good leaves. Well, steeped at this temperature and for who knows how long, even the best leaves would turn bitter.

If Len doesn’t like the taste, she doesn’t complain.

My thoughts drifting as they do, a sadness starts to swell, the tide of emotions coming up. A notion of, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I could go to school with Len?” But that quickly spreads to Iris and Millie and (café) Len and Annie, and Georgie and Liv, and… who was the “clumsy” maid at the school? Lizzy or Izzy, I’m not sure.

It would be nice if, rather than working, we could all sit under an old oak tree out the back of school, eating our pack lunches, whispering about boys. No worrying about jobs, no worries about anything but the test next week and oh was that homework due in today and where should we go after school. Even if I wasn’t part of it, it would be nice if that’s how they spent these precious days. When you’re going to spend forty, fifty, sixty years of your life working, you should have a little bit of time to savour as an adult without responsibilities. So what if your degree in Medieval Metallurgy won’t help you punch in numbers in an air-conditioned office, you’ll look back at that time fondly, right? “What on earth was I thinking?” you’ll ask yourself, a nostalgic smile on your lips, flickers of names and faces.

Or maybe I’m too romantic, my memories of Ellie’s world rather biased. I’m sure she would have different thoughts on university and such after she graduated and had to find a job and see that trickle of money leaving her paycheck, going towards her student loans.

Really, I just want everyone to be happy. I want everyone to be given the chances and choices they need to become happy, not force them to find whatever happiness they can in the life given to them, at the uncaring mercy of fate.

That thought echoing in my head, I chuckle to myself, really falling into an Ellie frame of mind. It’s just the sort of thing she would have written for an essay. Of course, not from her perspective, but the main character’s; “Eve just wanted everyone to be happy,” and so on.

As bland as the tea is, I drink it all. Len does too, her gaze following the ducks quacking along the river. I wonder if she prefers this to being back at the school. No point asking, no honest answer coming and I doubt I can read her expression well enough to read her mind. I’d like to think she does, though. I’d like to think she does.

“Right,” I say, and I step back from the low wall.

Len follows suit, and we drop off our mugs, and we start moving towards the café in the meandering path I set, looking at some of the shops as we go. I think it’s still fairly early for me, maybe half an hour. Time to redo my hair and maybe my makeup, I guess.

So my day becomes routine. I go to work, have those little chats with the other waitresses, all the usual. Lottie and Gwen pick me up afterwards and we take something of a longer path back, stopping at the same shop as last week so Gwen can spend some of her birthday money on bright pink thread. It’s more expensive than the places Lottie took me before (when I was looking for fabrics), but not much, and I don’t think I saw any colours quite so bright in those shops—this one nearly fluorescent.

Walking up to the school, I’m once again plagued by a melancholy of this world, thinking that Gwen won’t ever come here. No, that’s a lie—she might well come here as a maid. Grow up, meet a boy, work until they get married and she’s with child. No matter how clever she is, how talented she is, nor how kind and compassionate.

Well, my life will be much the same but without the working. The greenfinch locked in her cage, the snowdrop buried in the soil, riding different carriages to the same destination.

“Are you okay?” Gwen asks, looking up at me.

I shake off the sombre expression, not writing any obituaries just yet. “Winter blues,” I say, and I go back to a smile.

She looks past me, up at the blanket of clouds. “It’s really more grey.”

I chuckle at that, giving her hand a squeeze. “It really is.”

Back in my room, I try to put my existential dread away and focus on measuring out the pattern for my blue dress. While I have the various sizes from last time, I am a growing girl, and I am going for a different fit this time. Yes, a tomboy’s dress. Loose at the top, closely fitted to the legs, maybe an actual belt rather than a sash across the waist. I’m mostly but not entirely settled on kites for the embroidery. It leaves most of the dress rather empty, yet it’s hard to think of something boyish to sew on. Creepy crawlies and swords and all that don’t fit as well on clothes as flowers and vines.

Eventually, suppertime comes. While we’re eating, Helena politely inquires about my friend, and Violet looks more relieved than I am that my misdirection has been accepted. Otherwise, it’s a pleasant meal, and that old feeling of not belonging has faded to a whisper by now. I wouldn’t yet call myself a friend of Ladies Hythe and Minster, but there’s none of the awkwardness between us. Indeed, Lady Hythe even says a good evening to me when I excuse myself to bed—her speaking first, not simply returning my goodbye.

However, for all that went so right yesterday and today, I can’t shake the melancholy. It’s a long, uncomfortable while before I slip into a troubled sleep.