The letter remained on my pillow all night.

When I woke, the edges were even more crinkled and had pressed into my arm when I slept, leaving impressions of the paper on my arm. Outside the window, the church bell towers tolled twelve times and I kicked the blankets off my body, swinging my legs over the side and stretching my arms out behind me. The sun was shrouded by clouds that made everything look dark and gloomy, but clouds meant snow, so I didn't feel all that disappointed. I would have given anything for just a few snowflakes.

I changed out of my nightdress and attempted to run a brush through my hair, leaving it down and slipping out into the hallway. James had given strict instructions for me not to rise before mid-day, which I had done, but I had my doubts he would be up at all. He had drunk a lot of wine at the ball and I expected him to spend the day in bed complaining that his head hurt, not that I minded. He couldn't spend all day nagging me if he never left his room.

The floorboards creaked as I snuck along the hallway, pausing briefly at James' bedroom door where his snoring was loud enough to penetrate through. I snorted and quickly slapped my hand over my mouth, listening out for any movement inside, but they slept on. Movement from the floor below travelled up the stairs as I darted past James room to the stairs, avoiding all the creaks and squeaks that would have woken someone up.

Upstairs may have been silent, but I could hear Mrs Baker moving around the kitchen the second I step foot in the hall. Mrs Baker always arrived earlier to prepare breakfast, but it sounded as though she had just arrived since none of us had any breakfast. I tip-toed down the hallway and down the few steps that led to the kitchen, pausing by the door to listen to Mrs Baker's humming as she prepared some sandwiches.

"Good afternoon," I said, pushing off the doorframe.

"I knew you would be the first one awake, you always are," she said. "Hungry?"

"Starving. Although picking at biscuits and tarts last night was fun, it doesn't really fill you up," I said. I pulled out the chair at the table and took a seat. Usually, we ate in the dining room, but no one else was awake so I didn't really see the point. It reminded me a little of eating in the Ealing's kitchen with Esther and Mrs Jenkins.

"Let me finish these. I doubt your brothers will be rising any time soon, if at all today. They seemed to have drunk an awful lot last night."

"So I heard, they weren't quiet when they went to bed."

"Hm, I had to put Christopher to bed myself, Kitty put James to bed, but she did struggle."

"I bet Lady Thatcher regrets inviting us, what with me and Tommy ruining the dances."

Mrs Jenkins laughed and returned to the sandwiches, buttering the bread and adding slices of ham. She placed them on a plate, and I started to take them, even though she hadn't finished making them. It didn't seem to matter though; I didn't think anyone other than Kitty would eat during the afternoon as alcohol and food was never a good combination as far as I knew. My experience with Father had shown me all I needed to do about the effect alcohol had on a person so I didn't quite understand why James and Christopher would touch the stuff. Each to their own I suppose.

I ate a couple more sandwiches and then sat back against the chair and drummed my fingers on the table. With James and Christopher out of action for the entire day, I had nothing to do and I didn't really feel like spending the day in my art room. My art was mostly restricted to the night, when I couldn't sleep, or if James and Christopher wanted something for their offices. After Christmas, I was supposed to start selling the paintings and although I loved art, it just didn't feel like it was for me.

My art had always been about airing out just what was on my mind, the thoughts and feelings that had built up or were caused by a nightmare. The few paintings I had done that weren't like that felt different, they didn't feel good enough because there was nothing behind them. They were just brush strokes on a canvas and nothing more than that, they didn't represent anything, and they never would. I agreed to Christopher's plan because it gave me something to do in my free time, but if I took Doctor Ealing's offer, I would have something to do.

Art had always been a hobby for me, and I never thought of it as anything more than that.

"Any plans for the day?" Mrs Baker asked. She washed her hands at the sink, bending around to face me.

"Not really," I said.

"I'm sure you'll think of something."

"We'll see."

I stood up from the chair and fell forward against the table as my knee gave out. The dancing may have been fun, but it looked as though my knee didn't agree.

"Are you alright there?"

"I don't think my knee was too fond of the dancing yesterday." I steady myself against the table.

"Go up the living room and I'll bring some ice up for you. Looks as though your plans for the day have been decided." She laughed.

"Hm, apparently so."

She gestured me to the door before grabbing a cloth from the drawer, most likely to fill with ice so I didn't put ice directly on my skin. I gripped the table and hopped to the doorway, using the wall as leverage to pull myself up the stairs and back out into the hallway. From there, I used the wall again to move down the hall and into the living room where the clock ticked loudly. I shuffled on over to the sofa and sunk down against the cushions. The issue with my knee hadn't even crossed my mind the night before, I just wanted to enjoy myself a little bit and ended up doing a little more damage then I wanted.

Mrs Baker appeared a little while late with ice wrapped up in a cloth which she handed to me before returning to the kitchen. I placed the ice on my knee and then my leg on my table, slumping back against the sofa. With my knee well and truly out of action, I could do nothing for the entire day but sit there and stare at the wall and listen to the ticking of the clock. There were some things that I found ridiculously boring, this just happened to be one of them.

When I had first moved in with James, my knee still bugged me after Mrs Ealing's attack with the cane. James had decided that I had to sit with ice on my knee and not move around, easier said than done for me. Boredom had never agreed with me and not being able to do something other than sit and stare at the wall drove me mad. I couldn't wait for the day James released me from the house and I could finally travel to the shop with him and have something to do. If Christopher and James weren't dealing with the aftermath of their drinking, I would have company.

A knock from the door caught my attention, and despite knowing I shouldn't move from the sofa, I did. I placed the ice on the table and limped out of the room and back into the hall, listening out for either Mrs Baker or movement from upstairs. The entire house was silent as I hobbled to the door and pulled it open.

I almost slammed it shut it again when I saw Matilda looking back at me.

"If you slammed the door, I would not blame you," She said, as though she had just read my mind.

"James and Christopher are still in bed, I don't want to wake them," I said. I wanted nothing more than to slam the door, but I didn't want to get into trouble.

"I know I am probably the last person you want to see, and I do not blame you, but I was wondering if we could talk? You don't even have to invite me in."

"You can come in, my knees playing up so I need to sit down."

"Thank you."

I stepped to the side and allowed Matilda to enter, closing the door behind her and once again using the wall to move back down the hall to the living room. Matilda seemed apprehensive to even enter the room and it wasn't until I had once again settled against the cushions and put the cloth back on my knee that she sat on the opposite chair. She refused to even look me in the eye and sat with her eyes downcast and her hands clasped together on her lap. She certainly didn't look like the same girl who had slammed me into a shelf just over a week before.

"Does anyone know you're here?" I asked.

"No. We spent the night at Aunt Sybil's rather than go home, everyone was still in bed when I left. The servants won't tell anyone where I am."

"That's adventurous of you. I thought Robert was the rule-breaking type, not you."

"There is a first time for everything, and this is important."

"You said you wanted to talk, and you are free to do so. I suggest you do it quickly so no one notices you're missing."

I hadn't intended to seem harsh, but it no doubt came across that way to Matilda who shifted awkwardly in her seat. In all the months I had known her, Matilda had never seemed anxious or timid about anything in her life. She carried her head with an air of confidence unlike anyone I had known before and seemed confident about everything, even when she knew she was wrong. This was a side to her I had never seen before.

"The other day, when Father bought me here to apologise, I came with the intention of a genuine apology. I hate what I did, and I wish I could take it back because that was a side of me I never wanted to see. Mother decided that I didn't need to apologise as I had not done anything wrong and I stupidly went along with her."

"You didn't have to," I said.

"I wish it were that easy. You know Mother and you know better than anyone just what she is capable of when she puts her mind to it. She knew I wanted to talk to you that afternoon, but I promise I never meant for it to go as far as it did, that was never my intention. All I wanted to do was talk but she thought you needed teaching a lesson and I didn't want to, really, I didn't. I never meant to hit you so hard either, Robert always said I didn't know my own strength. The moment I had done it, I regretted it."

"And yet you smiled afterwards. I saw you. If you truly mean what you are saying and that you never for meant for it to go as far as you did, why on earth would you smile? Why did it take you so long to finally explain it to me? You could have said this the other day instead of standing there looking disinterested."

She went to speak.

"Don't use your mother has an excuse."

Matilda fell silent and dropped her eyes to the ground. I wanted to believe her to be genuine, I always wanted to see the good in people even they had never shown any of that good, but things had changed. My promise to Robert meant that I had to stop seeing the good in people, start to see them as they were rather than who I wanted them to be. Not everyone could be redeemed, and I started to think that Matilda was one of those people regardless of how she had treated me in the past.

At first, I thought her to be protective of her siblings but nice if she knew that a person was not out to get her or them. For six months she had been nice to me and I even went as far as to consider her a friend, but her demeanour had changed almost immediately. She was rash, hot-headed and aggressive for no reason other than to prove a point. Perhaps her and Alexander Warrington would have been good for one another; they both had the same view about me.

Much like the foreman, Matilda and Mrs Ealing were never to be redeemed. Regardless of how they may appear at first or how fast their mind could change, they were violent, aggressive people. That sort of behaviour could be dangerous, I had experienced that first-hand. Matilda had demonstrated her violent tendencies and that would never be redeemable. She could apologise all she wanted, but it would never change who she was or what she did.

I had accepted her apology once before and nothing had changed. I refused to accept it for a second time.

"When we first met, you hated me. There were elements of kindness, but they were few and it always came back to the hatred. You said the day Isabel died that you never hated me, that you said and did what you did to protect your family, but you don't get to use that excuse twice. There is protecting your family and there is using violence for the sake of it. I gave you the benefit of the doubt after Isabel died because I wanted to believe that you weren't as bad a person as you seemed. You turned into that person again rather quickly for someone who was adamant that it wasn't you.

"I know what it's like to live with someone who knows no limits when it comes to the types of abuse and hatred they use on a regular basis. The difference is how you choose to respond to them. You have followed your mother's footsteps more than you could ever know and yet Robert has not followed her, in fact, most of what he has done goes against her. Your mother does not control your actions any more than the foreman ever controlled mine.

"You are responsible for your own actions; no one else."

The clock ticked louder.

I always found that when situations grew uncomfortable, ever noise nearby appeared louder and louder. There was no other sound more strenuous and annoying than the sound of a clock as it ticked, as though counting down to something that was approaching. We never had a clock at the factory, but the creaking of the machines was enough to fill the void. No matter where I was, a silence was never truly a silence. There was always something to break it.

Matilda looked up from her lap for the first time since she had sat down and started to try and explain herself. The innocent look she had put on when she first walked through the door had been erased. Instead, her face had twisted and contorted into the same hatred she had demonstrated the day she pushed me into the shelf at the shop. That hadn't been staged for the sake of her mother, she meant what she did, and the apology had meant nothing.

"You're not as stupid as you look then," she said.

"Apparently not. Why are you really here? It certainly wasn't too apologise."

"I just said that because you wouldn't have let me in otherwise." She sat forward. "I came to warn you to stay away from Robert."

"Not this again. Do you ever get bored of saying the same thing?" I took the cloth of my knee, the ice having melted, and threw it onto the table.

"It seems the message has yet to make an impact. Leave my brother alone, he is too good for you. You're nothing."

"Have you ever thought about what Robert might want? About how you and your mother are just pushing Robert away, the complete opposite of the effect you want to have? No one likes being controlled and Robert proved the other day that he is sick of the way you and your mother are behaving. If he knew you were here, he wouldn't be happy."

"You know nothing about my brother."

"I seem to know more about him then you do. He's not like you, he never has been! Robert doesn't care if someone is in a lower social class to him. A person is a person as far as he concerned and you should do well to remember that rather than continue to act as though you are better than everyone else but you were still willing to sink as low as the foreman to prove a point. That doesn't make you a better a person, just an ugly one. Someone willing to use violence as a means of success but you don't gain anything from it.

"If that's how you intend to do well in the future, I feel sorry for whoever may end up as your husband. You and Alexander Warrington are welcome to each other as far as I'm concerned; you're both as spiteful as one another."

"How dare-"

"I don't think you're in a position to start telling me about what I dare to say." I paused. "Now, I would like you to leave my house or I will have to go and wake my brothers up to escort you out."

"You shouldn't talk to me like that."

"She asked you to leave, I think you should honour that request before I fetch the constable," James said from behind me.

Matilda's eyes darted to the door and she stood up almost immediately, as if startled by James' sudden arrival. I didn't know how long he had been lurking in the doorway, but I was grateful for his intrusion. She never would have listened to me, regardless of how many times I asked her to leave. I turned and watched James give her a pointed look and nudged his head towards the door. He didn't have to say anything, but Matilda appeared to understand that he meant it.

She stood up and dated to the door, closing it behind her.

"You handled that very well, though I must ask why on earth you let her into our house in the first place."

"To see if she were genuine. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they sit and react to things."

"Hm. Well, it seems your judgement was right, I was standing out there for a while and you handled your own better than I would have." He paused. "I doubt that isn't the last we'll see of her, though. Or her mother"

"Somehow, I think you're right."

~~~

A/N - Chapter Twenty-Four is here! Honestly, this chapter was a little therapeutic to write, Rosie having a go at Matilda? Wooo!!!

Also, in case you're curious, I'm on Chapter Thirty-Two of the draft so we're getting there! Eeeekkkk

Anyway! Questions! Are you guys as proud of Rosie as I am? Because I'm pretty proud!

Comment below!

Dedication - This chapter is dedicated to court123abc who mass-voted on the entire trilogy! It meant a lot!

First Published - June 23rd, 2020