23. Easter

6 April 1890

Dear future husband,

How are you faring? I must say, it feels very strange to miss someone that one has never met, whom one may not even (but hopefully does) love. Yet I confess that is the state that I find myself in.

Do not be mistaken! I adore my life at present. I do enjoy my time with Papa although it is rather upsetting to be at home, without girls of my own age again, now that Anna has decided to abandon me to the wretched solitary existence of friendless isolation. Pray, do excuse my melodramatics, as I would excuse yours if your only friend had not only left you but accused you of the vilest and most unforgivable actions. Truly, I assure you that my straits are far from dire. Yet I cannot help but long for a place I have never been, for acquaintances I have laid eyes on, and even emotions I have never felt.

Perhaps it is only the routine that I have fallen into at the Sherborne Girls School, and it is possible I have grown bored with it. After all, doing the same things day after day and night after out, following the same schedules, and being around the same people, does tend to have a rather stagnating effect on one's mind. I had hoped that reading a good novel might cure such boredom and dissipate my state of tedium, but unfortunately, I cannot sit still long enough to properly finish any novel. Instead, I find myself leaving Mary Shelley's Frankenstein half-open and unfinished, right next to Bram Stoker's Dracula and even the far slimmer tome, Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days. Despite the supposedly riveting adventures that these characters take, I am unable to follow through to see any of their ends!

Hopefully, you will forgive me for these slights against literature and you will not be an immense fan of these novels yourself. If not, then, I at least hope you would accept me, even with all my faults and with my inability to finish a novel being one of them.

At least we have plenty of Easter festivities to keep us occupied. Our annual egg-jarping competition has taken place and I found myself the victor! Father insists that he graciously allowed me to win, but I believe that the force of my boiled egg (dyed a lovely pink, of course) was enough to crack his (which he had varnished a brilliant blue). Do you have any such festivities or do you consider these games beneath you? At Grenledge, even the household staff will play these games. I saw one stable boy crow victory over another as he splintered the shell of his friend's egg and I thought of you and how you might be celebrating. Of course, I do not mean to insinuate that you are a stable boy-perhaps that leads me to end my letter here.

I must be going as it is tea time, but I wish a happy Easter to you.

I remain,

Yours sincerely,

Rosalie Winthrop

***

Rosalie folded up the letter, sealing it tightly with her own personal wax seal-a gift from her father for her birthday last year-and tucked it away into the box where she had placed the rest of her notes to her future husband.

"Rosalie, your father requests that you join him for tea," came a voice from her bedchamber door.

"Tell him I shall be there directly," she responded, quickly placing the box on a high shelf. She nearly tripped over a pillow that had somehow made its way to the floor and the box spilled from her hands. Rosalie yelped.

"Is everything quite in order, Miss Winthrop?" the maid asked.

"Yes, yes, nothing is the matter." She felt bad for lying, but something in the box caught her eye. Though she had originally believed the hatbox filled with letters to be empty, it was now clearly not the case.

What is this? Kneeling on the Oriental rug, she gazed at the items of the box. A deep blue velvet pouch, with a tasselled drawstring, sat in the depths of the hatbox. Pulling it out, she felt the heft of it in her palm, nearly sliding from her grasp. Undoing the strings, a gasp escaped her lips at what she saw inside.

A diamond necklace, with a pendant the size of her thumb, surrounded by small sapphires, dangling off of a slim chain, sparkled up at her. When she gingerly reached out a finger to touch it, Rosalie found that there were engravings on the back of the pendant. She turned it over and read the tiny letters. Cornelia Wright.

The necklace slid between her fingers onto the floor. Cornelia was her mother's name. Was this a gift that Papa had given her during their courtship? If so, why would it be here? Would it not be in her mother's old rooms, along with the other dust-covered objects and surfaces that no one dared to touch? Why was it accompanied by a sealed envelope, stamped with the signet ring of an unfamiliar lordship? That seal was quite strange indeed... it looked nothing like other insignia she'd seen, but it resembled a circle with a hash mark through it.

"Rosalie, are you alright?" Her father's voice now rang throughout the room, along with a pounding at the door.

"Yes, I will be right out!" She tucked the envelope into the pocket of her gown and shoved the items back inside the box and put the box back on the shelf before dusting off her clothing. Rosalie dashed out of her room, hoping she didn't look more dishevelled or suspicious than usual.

Her father gave her an odd look as she exited her room. "The cook has prepared your favourite: Battenberg cake. Will you not come and partake of it? I must confess that I myself do not find much delight in the delicacy."

"Oh, certainly, Papa," she responded, doing her best not to sound reluctant. "Then, let us go and eat."

The suspicion on his face was replaced with fondness, as he extended an arm for her to grasp. She tucked her gloved hand into the crook of his arm and did her utmost to brush thoughts of her mother's betrayal and the strange necklace out of her mind. Yet it plagued her all the way through their tea, the letter burning a hole in her pocket. When she had finished her tea, even the Battenberg cakes tasting like dry and flavorless crumbs in her mouth, she excused herself and dashed back to her rooms to read the letter.

Carefully peeling back the wax, the scent of freesias washed over her in a wave, and she felt tears inexplicably spring to her eyes. She held the letter away so that she would not stain the fragile, yellowing parchment with her tears or smear the ink that bore a spidery hand.

Rosalie needed a mother. Perhaps not her own mother, and perhaps she was perfectly happy with her father, but she felt now, with the aroma of perfume wrapping around her like a cloak, that she needed her mother. She wished for a mother to hold her in a comforting embrace, to wipe away her tears, to whisper sweet nothings into her ear. A father could try his best to do such things, but it was simply not the same.

It wasn't that she did not love her Papa with all of her heart, or that he did not prevail in his efforts to shower her with affection and attention, but he was only one person. Had God not created them male and female for a purpose? But, no, she turned her gaze, now clear and free of tears, back toward the page.

11 June 1874

Dear Eliza,

I write now to my sister, on the eve of your elopement with the earl, Lord Samuel Winthrop.

Rosalie nearly dropped the page and let it flutter to the carpet. A sibling? Her mother had had a sibling? Did she have an aunt or uncle somewhere? Why had no one ever told her about such a thing? What if she had cousins, playmates with whom she could have enjoyed time? She continued reading, her pulse quickening.

This is the beginning of a very important journey for our family. I must warn you of what you must already know: do not, under any circumstances, reveal your true identity to your husband.

Her true identity? What on earth did that mean? Who was her mother, truly?

I gift you this necklace as a reminder of who you are. Do not forget, dear sister, what you have come to do. Do not forget among the trappings of your new, fine life, that there are those who would wish you to be torn from it. Most of all, do not forget that there are those who rely upon you for their well-being.

Rosalie sucked in a deep inhale at the words on the paper. Each line was creating more and more confusion in her mind. What did he speak of? Who was it that had depended upon her mother? Why had she married her father-for love, or for money? Who had sought to tear her parents apart? Was it her grandparents, whom she rarely saw?

I remain,

Your loving brother.

Edgar Wakefield

How peculiar! This must have been some sort of coincidence. Her mother's maiden name had been Wright, so how could this man claim to be her brother and go by the name of Wakefield? Yet, he had addressed her as the betrothed of Rosalie's father, Lord Winthrop. Was this another one of those letters that had been addressed to the wrong person?

Who was Edgar Wakefield, and who had her mother truly been?