Authors Note: This is the first draft and is raw at the moment - when I have completed all Parts I will start the editing process. (All critiques welcome)

Lavinia sat cross-legged on her bed in her picture covered room feeling that her visit with Charlie had gone wrong somehow, she had miss-stepped. It was just a feeling, something in her gut told her that she'd upset Charlie, she sighed and half-heartedly threw her white through pillow across the room, it hit her lamp and she flinched.

She could hear Anna pottering downstairs and knew it wouldn't be long before she was summoned for dinner and forced to smile through another one of Anna's dastardly meals. It was one of Anna's sweeter flaws, her desire to be a good cook and her will to feed her family with home cooked food, but for Anna, this dream was never meant to be.

Between them Lavinia, Sam, Andy and George had suffered food poisoning eighteen times, nowadays their large bulbous cactus receives more of the dinner than they do, the cactus and next doors dog, a scruffy Jake Russell named Frank who is always grateful and forever hungry.

Frank also ate poo so what did he care about a bit of poor cooking, in fact from Frank's point of view the nastier the better, Frank thought Anna was a Michelin star chef... well he would do if he wasn't a dog.

After dinner, Lavinia found herself once again at her desk staring at blank sheets of paper.

It's a funny thing, Lavinia thought, she had promised, to be honest. It means nothing if in your heart you have no intention of keeping such a promise. Somewhere deep inside Lavinia had promised she was going to be utterly honest to Charlie and it was a promise she intended to keep so, she picked up her pen and began to write once more and let her honesty fall upon the page.

It's funny what you remember Charlie, I remember it clear as the conversation we had today if I close my eyes I can imagine myself back there. It was a Saturday afternoon and my mother, my sister Percy, a few servants and myself had gone to a dress fitting for my wedding, I knew I did not want to marry Nial and as the dressmaker tightened my corset I felt all the surer of it but what could I do.

Papa would never let me go free and part of me was doing this for Percy now, for Fay so they would never endure a day like this. With every lace I lost more of my breath and somehow I was losing part of myself also. Promises had been made, deals had been struck as the final string was pulled on my corset I knew I would never feel free again.

"Can you just get off me for a moment" waving the maid away I stood with my hand on my forehead trying to find a breath, of course deep down I knew it wasn't the corset making me lose my breath but my own ill fate. I tried to focus on Fay and Percy and knowing I had done the right thing but when I was gasping for air standing in what would be my wedding dress I found the fortunes of others very little consolation.

"What's the matter?" My mother asked fanning her flushed face in the small warm dressing room.

She touched my face with her tiny hands and looked me in eyes.

"I cannot do it, Mama"

I could feel my body separating from the world around me, everything was getting so I hot and I was getting dizzy- I tried to focus on Mama's face. I kept my eyes firmly on hers not because I wanted to look at her because in all honesty I didn't, but because I was afraid if I did not find something to focus on I would pass out right there on the fitting room floor.

The maids backed away from me for a moment they could spot a disagreement between Mama and I a mile off.

"You can and you will." Said my mother. Who just went back to fanning herself.

The maids returned and began refastening my dress, as I still struggled to find my breath.

Percy, who had heard our exchange looked at me horrified, like the words that had left my lips were some sort of crime. I knew she was angry with me but she didn't say anything she just lit her cigarette and turned her back on me, her dark black hair was like silk that rested in perfect waves just above her shoulders. My mother hated it when she smoked but my continuation to press on about not wanting to go through with my marriage had provided Percy with the perfect opportunity.

"But, Mama, I do not love him" I cried. The dress felt even tighter now, and I was hot and red faced and I could feel my curls pinging free from the carefully styled do that my ladies maid had worked on this morning.

"And what of love? You will marry Lord Nial because he is an appropriate man for you to marry and he will succeed where we have failed. He has promised to quash this votes for women nonsense, monitor what you read, no more writing..." Mama made a disapproving 'tsk' sound as if exasperated that her daughter should dare to have so many ideas.

"Hopefully, he'll knock that spirit out of you because Dolly, it does you no favours."

"How can you say that Mama you're woman! Don't you want me to educate myself, to learn, to grow, to fight for my rights..." I would have continued but Mama was having no of it.

"I'm very well aware of my gender thank you, Dolly, there is no more to be said, you have accepted him and you will not cause a scandal by backing out of his proposal and you know what your father's had to say. Lord Nial can give you a position in society and a comfortable home what more is there..." My mother trailed off waving her small delicate hands in my direction, Mama might have been small and refined but she was not to be trifled with so that's what I did, I didn't trifle.

I don't remember how I got in or out of my dress, though I'm surprised I did it without fainting by the time my mother was finished lecturing me on my future I was standing in the centre of the room in my own clothes dumbfounded. Percy was still silent and still smoking, I shot her a glance when Mama was busy giving the maids instructions, I still wished I had never asked.

"Stop looking at me Dolly because you won't like what I have to say," said Percy.

I said nothing, and just stared at her I knew I was egging her on but I needed to know what had got her knickers in a twist.

"You have got everything" Percy spat at me. Suddenly her black hair was falling over her porcelain skin it seemed to frame her big, darting black eyes that in that moment seemed pupilless. She stubbed her cigarette out on the wall of the fitting room and flicked it away one of the maids gave her a horrified glance.

"You have the handsome Lord, the wedding, you are marrying into one of the richest families in England, I don't understand what more you could want, what else is there?" Said Percy her big eyes wide, mad and honest.

"You know I don't care about any of that!"

"I do know Dolly and I also know you're a fool" spat Percy she twirled from the room, she had such elegance, such grace even when she was angry. Percy was black satin and cigarettes and I was wild curls and romping hills, we were so different, we never agreed on anything but we were sisters by the time we got home all of this it would be forgotten.

The posting schedule for The Girl That Fell Out of The Ocean is Wednesday and Sundays!