By the next day, I wanted to find out as much as I could about Matilda and just what made her act the way she did. I had asked Esther that night whether Matilda was known to have dramatic shifts in her mood, or attitudes that were so stark in contrast I wondered if she was just making it up. However, Esther had said that for as long as she had been working for the Ealing's, Matilda's mood had been known to change drastically, especially towards new staff. There was no reason for it, no explanation, it was just how she was.

Of course, I wasn't going to accept the idea that Matilda's mood swings were just part of who she was. In my experience, it was rare for someone to change their mood so quickly, there was normally a reason for it. Whatever that reason why, I was determined to find out, though it wasn't going to be easy. Matilda already disliked me, and I didn't want to give her more reasons to despise me seeing as her liking me might end up being the reason I keep my position after the two weeks were up. There was a lot resting on whether Matilda could grow to like me and getting to the bottom of her mood swings looked like it would be my best bet.

Getting to the bottom of her changing moods was going to be difficult, though, especially as the preparations for Matilda's birthday party started the next day. According to Miss Jenkins, the party wasn't for another few days, but the preparations and planning started early per Matilda's request. She wanted everything to be perfect and it was going to happen, it just meant more work for the rest of us. Unfortunately, due to the bruising to my wrist, Dr Ealing had put me on restricted duties, something I had already been doing since I'd arrived. In response, Miss Jenkins had decided I was to help Charlotte choose one of her many dresses, a task that sounded easier than it was.

Charlotte was rather particular about her outfit choices and she had to go through every one of her dresses at least five times before she decided on one. As time-consuming as it was, I found it rather enjoyable. It was much more fun than having to clean the parlour for the third time or having to deal with Matilda for longer than a few minutes.

"I want to try the yellow one," Charlotte said, her eyes scanning across the mountain of dress laid out on her bed. I had never seen so many clothes in one place, especially for someone as small as Charlotte.

"You just tried that one on, Miss. How about one of the ones you haven't tried on?" I suggested, trying to locate the yellow dress that had been buried under the other dresses on the bed.

"The yellow one!" Charlotte demanded, stamping her foot on the ground.

"Very well, Miss." From the pile of clothes on the bed, I pulled out a pale yellow one Charlotte had already tried on several times.

The dress was a pale yellow colour with long-sleeves that had ruffles along the shoulders, the skirt pooled around Charlotte's knees in neat pleats. Around the waist, a small white bow was tied at the back, making the skirt look a little bigger than it was without the bow. The one thing that never changed about her outfit was the white cotton stockings that she wore to cover her legs. Each dress was almost identical, just with a different coloured fabric and a different style of shoe to match. Some of the other dresses had more ruffles on the sleeves, extending down to a small cuff around her wrist. They may have been simple in comparison to some of the clothes I had seen Matilda wear, but they were more extravagant than anything I had ever worn in my life.

I helped Charlotte change out of the pink dress and back into the yellow one, watching as she walked up to the mirror in the corner of the room. She paraded herself back and forth in front of the mirror, making poses and pulling faces as though that would help her judge whether or not to wear the outfit to the party. I struggled to keep a straight face as she posed in front of the mirror, placing her hands on her hips, occasionally giving a little twirl. From my perspective, it all looked rather trivial, spending so long choosing an outfit, but I had never had that luxury, so I suppose to Charlotte it was more than just a dress, it was a symbol of who she was. I couldn't imagine having that pressure put on me at such a young age.

Isabel and I always used to dream about leaving the factory and joining the higher class, but the more I spent time around the Ealing household, the less I wanted that dream to come true. My experience with the Ealing's had shown me that not everything in the higher rankings of society was as it seems. There was so much pressure to look right and act right that the fancy clothes we always dreamed off just didn't look worth it any more. I was perfectly happy being a servant for the rest of my life, there was more fun involved, amongst all the hard work of course.

"I'm never going to find the dress! Tilda gets a new one, and I don't, it's not fair!" Charlotte whined, throwing herself onto the floor in a heap. She looked like a bowl of custard.

"It's Matilda's birthday, of course she gets a new dress. I think we can make do with what we have, don't you?" I said, untangling myself from the pile of clothes and stepping over to Charlotte.

"No," she replied, her voice muffled by the floor.

"Come on, up you get. I have an idea but I'm going to need your help to make it work. Can you do that for me?"

"Fine." Charlotte pulled herself up from the floor and looked at me. Her eyebrows were drawn together in a frown whilst she simultaneously pouted, clearly not agreeing that there was anything to be done about the dress situation.

"Come on, sit down and close your eyes, I'll let you know when I'm done."

Charlotte took a seat on one of the chairs in the room and closed her eyes, her feet swinging backwards and forwards. With her eyes closed, I set about playing with her hair, brushing it off her shoulders and down her back before setting to work tying it up. Using a small, yellow ribbon I started to plait her hair back off her face, weaving the ribbon in and out of it until I reached the end. Asking her to hold onto the plait, I moved onto the other side, doing the exacting same thing with another small section of hair. With the two sides plaited, I took both sections and pinned them together at the back of Charlotte's head, using my own hairpins to keep it in place. I then did the exact same thing with two more sections, once again pinning them up.

By the time I was finished, the front sections of Charlotte's hair had been pinned up whilst the rest flowed down her back in little ringlets. All of the plaits were held to the back of her head with my hairpins, the pins covered by a small clip with a yellow bow on the front. My own hair was now hanging down my back, having been removed from the constraint of the knot it had been in for the whole day. I didn't mind too much as long as Charlotte was happy.

"You can look now," I said, tugging on some of the curls to make sure they laid flat against her back. Charlotte opened her eyes and glanced into the mirror she had been looking in for most of the day.

"Can you do my hair for the party?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the mirror.

"I can. Does that mean this is the dress you're going to wear? It's going to take a while to put all of these back into your wardrobe."

"Yes, I'll wear this one. Come with me, I have to show Mother."

"Miss, I really should put these away, we've made rather a lot of mess in such a short space of time, your Mother would go ballistic if she saw this."

"You can clean it later! Come with me!"

Charlotte grabbed my hand and dragged me from the room, pulling me down the stairs and towards the parlour. She continued to drag me into the room and finally released my hand when we entered the room. Sat in one of the armchairs reading one of the many books was Mrs Ealing whilst Robert was once again sat behind the piano, occasionally pressing one of the keys. He glanced up when he saw Charlotte drag me out of the room, giving me a raised eyebrow and a small smile as though he knew what was going to happen next.

Leaving me standing awkwardly in the doorway, Charlotte practically strutted across the room to stand directly in front of her mother, who hadn't even looked up from her book. To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure why Charlotte had dragged me with her if she was just going to leave me looking like an out of place piece of furniture. Nevertheless, I stood in the doorway and waited for Charlotte who was still trying to get Mrs Ealing's attention without saying a thing. After several minutes of failing to do what she set out to do, Robert spoke.

"Is that the dress you're wearing to Matilda's party?" he asked, a smug smile on his face.

"Yes! Do you like it? Rosie did my hair for me," Charlotte said, grabbing the skirts of the dress and giving a little twirl.

"That would explain why your hair isn't up," Robert said, glancing to me and nodding to my loose hair. "I think you look very pretty, Charlotte.

"Thank you. What do you think Mother?"

"I think you look beautiful, my darling. How about we go and show your father? I'm sure he would love to see what you're going to be wearing."

"Okay! You stay here, I'll be back," Charlotte said, looking to me.

This time, she grabbed her mother's arm and dragged her from the room, presumably in the direction of Dr Ealing, though I had no idea where that would be. So, I stayed put. Standing in the doorway to the parlour with Robert sat the piano I had absolutely no idea what I was to do next. Charlotte had clearly given me an order, but it was a rather strange one to have been given so I wasn't entirely sure if I had to obey it. Although I felt awkward simply standing in the doorway, I thought it best to not go against an order and remained in the room with Robert, though neither of us spoke.

That was the common habit we found ourselves in. Whenever we happened to be in the same place at the same time, we just sat around not saying anything. Whether it was because we had nothing to say to each other or just didn't feel like talking, I didn't know, but it was a little strange. Back at the factory, there were few moments for awkward pauses of silences, we almost always had something to discuss and to not have that here was something that would take a lot of getting used to. For the time being, it was simply a case of waiting for someone to tell me what to do, in this case, Charlotte.

Robert seemed to have found something to distract himself and set about pressing various keys on the piano and scribbling something down on a sheet of paper. He looked so involved in what he was doing that I didn't want to break his concentration, not that I had anything to say to him anyway. Instead, I watched him press the keys, creating a little tune and occasionally playing out what he had already scribbled down before adding another note or two to his creation.

"What do you think or this? I'm planning to play it at the party for Matilda, but I'm not entirely sure it sounds worthy," Robert said, brushing his hands over the keys and replaying the tune he had been playing on and off since I had arrived.

"I'm no music expert, but it sounds professional," I said.

"I can take professional, I just hope I can finish it in time. I'm not a big fan of making things up on the spot, usually because I'm terrible at." Robert laughed. "If you end up doing Charlotte's hair for the party, what are you going to do about your own? Surely you can't work if your hair is loose like that."

"Matilda has decided that I am not to serve at the party, something about my arm being an eye-sore," I said, shrugging.

"That can't be fair, you didn't burn your arm on purpose and it's less of an eye-sore then most of the outfits I have seen Matilda in."

"I don't mind too much, I think I would prefer to be out of the way. Being around so many new people for the first time would be a little disorientating so I'm rather happy she has instructed me to remain out of the way. It is probably the one thing your sister has done with the intention of being mean that has actually had the opposite effect."

"Well, when you put it that way it makes sense. I don't think I've met anyone who hasn't wanted to go to a party before."

"I've never been to a party, let alone serve at one. I'd rather avoid it completely then end up doing something embarrassing. Besides, Miss Jenkins has given me some tasks I can complete whilst staying out of the way."

"You're rather an odd girl, Rosie, but maybe that's a good thing. We could all learn a little something from you, maybe me bumping into you that day was a good thing."

"I can't say I agree, but time will tell."

Out of everyone in the Ealing family, I had found Robert the easiest to talk to. He wasn't judgemental, he wasn't rude or dismissive. I could say whatever I wanted and he either understood it in its entirety or would ask as many questions as possible to get to the bottom of what I was saying. To be honest, I was glad there was someone like that in the family, someone to defend me if anything were to go wrong. Back at the factory, I hadn't had anyone defend me so to have one person on my side was a welcomed relief, though I wasn't entirely sure it was going to do any good.

After our conversation, Robert went right back to playing his little tune on the piano whilst I continued to wait for Charlotte who was taking a remarkably long time to show her father her dress. In my mind, I knew she was going to go straight from Dr Ealing to Matilda and then, most likely, Zachariah. Even with the conversation with Robert, it felt as though I was going to be waiting in the parlour for a little while longer, so I decided to enjoy the moment. I tuned out of any other noises coming from other places in the house, the occasional sound of Esther walking up and down corridors, the birds in the field outside and instead focused on the sounds Robert played on the piano.

This was different from the last time he played. Before, there was a coherency to what he was playing, a pattern that he was following in order to make the right sounds at the right time. This time he played what felt right and if he didn't, he changed it. He played the tune the way he wanted and not because someone had told him to, it was the way he wanted not the way someone else said it was to be done. Occasionally, he would pause and scribble something on his sheet music or change his mind and scribble it out again. There was something so natural about the way he was playing, it just felt right.

I wished I could have been able to hear Robert play the song at the party, but I was optimistic that I would be able to hear the faint playing in the kitchen. Miss Jenkins had made a comment about being able to head the piano down there so with any luck I wouldn't miss it. I hadn't realised how much I had missed music until Robert had played.

"We can go back upstairs now," Charlotte's voice came from the doorway. Having been so wrapped up in the music, I hadn't heard her coming down the stairs and once again, she had scared the living daylights out of me.

"You need to stop scaring people like that, Charlotte, it's creepy," Robert said, not even looking up from his sheet music.

"I wasn't talking to you! Come on, Rosie, I don't want to ruin the dress before the party."

"Good luck," Robert muttered.

"Thanks," I replied, laughing slightly.

Leaving Robert tinkering with the piano, I followed Charlotte back up to her bedroom where we were met with the mountain of clothes that we had left behind. Returning the mess made it seem a lot bigger than it was, though putting it all in the cupboard was going to be more fun than getting it all out. First, I had to get Charlotte out of her party dress and into her normal clothing, though that was a lot harder than it first seemed. She may not have wanted to try the dresses on in the first place, but now that she had it on, she didn't want to take it off. I ended up having to bribe her with some of Miss Jenkins' toffee, though I knew that wasn't going to go down to well.

With Charlotte out of her party dress and distracted by several of her toys, I set about putting all of the dress back into her wardrobe, leaving the yellow dress hanging up on the back of her bedroom door for the party. Whether or not it was going to stay neat was another story, but at least her room was tidier then it had been for several hours.

"Now that you've done your work, will you play with me?" Charlotte asked, looking up just as I turned to leave the room.

"I have other work to do, Charlotte. There's lots to do for the party, you know that," I said, though deep down I wanted to stay.

"Just for a little while? You can tell them you were cleaning up and took a while! Please? No one ever plays with me."

"No one?"

"Esther always works, and Zach doesn't want to play with dolls. Please?"

"Only for a little while, then I must get back to work."

"You can play with this doll," Charlotte said, handing me one of her dolls.

The 'little while' turned into almost an hour of playing with Charlotte and her rather large collection of dolls, some of which were rather scary. Miss Jenkins wasn't particularly happy that I had neglected my duties in order to play with dolls, but I was glad I had done it. For the first time in a long time, I felt like a child again, as though the past seven years of my life hadn't actually happened and that I was still seven-years-old, playing with my own dolls. Deciding to play dolls with Charlotte, even if it was for such a short space of time, was one of the best things I could have done.

~~~

A/N - Three weeks in a row! I'm getting into this weekly update thing, fingers crossed it becomes a long-term thing. Again, there will be no update Christmas Day (it falls on a Tuesday) but there will be an update that week.

Back to the chapter! I love Charlotte so much! She's just an adorable little bean who must be protected at all times. Do you think Robert and Rosie will have a connection with the music? What about Rosie agreeing to play dolls with Charlotte? She's precious!

Comment below your thoughts!

Dedication - This chapter is dedicated to Bemythyst who left some amazing comments on the last eleven chapters! They mean a lot :)

First Published - December 11th, 2018