TMIAP Chapter 6

Monica closed her mouth. Opened it again.

"Why did I come—well. That's quite something to hear, Lizzie."

Why did she come. Of all the things she might have expected from an old friend—someone she had shared years with, cold corridors and all—this was not among them.

Monica had simply—

'No—'

No.

'That couldn't be right.'

She was not going to deceive herself. Liella had been hostile from the moment she set eyes on her. "That person"—that impersonal address, used for a stranger—had been it.

'She'd recognized me already by then.'

It would have been the same for Liella as for herself: the moment she saw Monica, she had known. Here was the girl from the orphanage. The one she had shared her years with.

If she hadn't recognized her, she would have defaulted to minimal courtesy. That was how women of this class operated.

"As you can see."

Monica took one quick look around the room and returned her gaze to Liella—open, unhurried. Liella stood watching her, brow furrowed, eyes intent.

"I received a letter of introduction and came to be governess to Martinael Mollette. Your brother—yes? I had no idea you were here—"

"Stop lying. What is it you're after?"

Monica's own brow contracted.

Liella folded her arms.

"Yes. I recognized you. Monica Orphen."

"..."

"I was going to pretend I hadn't. But since you insist on calling me that, I suppose acknowledging it is only polite."

"Lizzie."

Monica said it carefully. Liella cut her off.

"My name is Liella. Liella Mollette."

"Yes. I'm sorry—Liella."

She said the name with deliberate softness.

Because Liella's manner had the quality of someone in flight—that sharpness, that velocity. As though she had already decided Monica had come here for reasons she intended to have out, and would not hear otherwise.

"Why are you here."

"..."

A sudden interrogation. Monica was not flustered. She decided to extend the allowance she would extend to any old friend in distress.

Because: a magnificent house, kind adoptive parents, a sweet younger brother, beautiful dresses. If after all of that a girl from the orphanage appeared on your doorstep after ten years, anyone would be alarmed. Monica was old enough to understand that much.

She also knew the name Orphen well enough to loathe it herself. Hearing someone else say it aloud must have been precisely what Liella had not wanted. No wonder the memory of it, arriving in the form of a person, was unwelcome.

"No scheme whatsoever. I think you're mistaken, Liella. I came here on a referral and nothing else."

The letter of introduction occurred to her at exactly that moment.

She reached into her old bag and drew it out—and before she had quite finished extending it, Liella had snatched it and was reading from the top.

"Mm."

"A friend I nursed alongside—she couldn't take the position herself, so she suggested I come in her place. I was startled to find you here too—at first I—"

Rip.

The color left Monica's face.

Liella had simply torn the letter in her hand.

"Lizzie! What are you doing!"

She reached forward without thinking. Liella had already torn it a second time.

"Give that back!"

Monica lunged for what remained. Liella's jaw set; she held on. For a moment their fingers were a graceless knot.

Then:

"Oh!"

Liella's fingernail caught the back of Monica's hand. Chemical lace gloves were far too loosely woven to conceal an aristocratic girl's long fingernails entirely.

Monica snatched her hand back as if burned. The scratch swelled red at once—small drops of blood beaded along the line.

She stood looking at her own hand. Then at Liella.

Liella was shaking out her own hand with an expression of displeasure.

The right glove: a clean hole punched through at the tip of the index finger. The nail had apparently caught the glove as it caught Monica's skin.

"That hurts—"

Liella's voice stopped. Her eyes had landed on the blood rising on Monica's hand. She had not meant to draw blood; that much was visible.

But the moment Monica's gaze met hers, Liella raised her chin.

"Very accomplished liar, I'll give you that."

"You—"

"And I believe I said my name was Liella. Monica Orphen."

Liella released the torn pieces of the letter she had been holding and flung them onto the floor.

Four fragments, torn and crumpled. They drifted down without much conviction. The paper had not even been particularly good quality to begin with.

"My letter—"

Monica crouched without thinking and began gathering the fragments.

Letters of introduction were ordinarily taken by the household's butler, who verified the issuer's seal or credentials against the public register. An immediate check was impossible by design; that was the entire function of the document.

'I should have given it directly to Mistress Oraingne.'

Pieced together, the fragments would still be legible.

But the image of presenting Madame Mollette with a letter in four pieces—Monica arrived at it mid-thought, and the ground dropped out.

Who hired a person who arrived with a torn letter?

Even Madame Mollette, that portrait of graciousness, would be confounded.

Monica thought it through to that conclusion and looked up at Liella.

Liella had been looking down at her with an expression of irritation. When their eyes met, she spoke as though she had been waiting for it.

"Whatever you've come for after ten years—give it up. You won't even be allowed to start."

Monica's brow tightened. Liella's pace of speech was far too fast for someone who wasn't running from something.

Before she had made sense of it, Liella continued.

"Who in the world is going to hire the likes of an orphan? A nursing sister, of all things."

"..."

Only then did Monica understand, instinctively, what Liella's hostility actually was.

It was not that she found Monica unwelcome. It was not that she disliked her.

She had seen this before. At the front. Soldiers who screamed if you so much as touched their wounds. Who refused anyone near them. Who threw things at orderlies, who kicked out. Not because they hated the nurses.

Because they were afraid.

And Liella was afraid of her.

'But of what, exactly?'

Monica could not work it out.

What soldiers feared was their wounds. The war that had made them. The possibility of being healed and sent back into it. That was the shape of the fear.

But what did Liella have to be afraid of?

She had not resolved the question. Her mouth opened.

"Why do you speak like that, Lizzie."

Liella's face crumpled.

"My name—"

"You were an orphan too. Lizzie Orphen."

The color left Liella's face entirely.

"Shut your mouth."

She had not known a face could change that fast.

Monica rose, letter fragments still in hand, and took one step toward Liella.

"No. I won't. I understand that you don't find me welcome here. But you haven't seen this person in ten years. What do you call this?"

"...You may have fooled my mother. But not me, Monica."

Liella's face had gone the color of paper. She was whispering, and fast.

"You came looking for—"

For me. The last two words barely crossed the threshold of sound. If Monica had not been paying close attention, she would not have caught them at all.

She had.

Now she understood. What Liella was afraid of. Why she had come at Monica with what's your scheme the moment she arrived.

'Good heavens.' Liella believed Monica had come here deliberately. Looking for her.

Liella's gray eyes searched the room for somewhere to settle and found nothing. Monica drew a breath—and reached out with her scratched hand to close it around Liella's left arm.

Liella, arms still folded, flinched and tried to pull away. Monica did not release her grip. She said, low:

"The thing you're frightened of—"

Tap-tap-tap.

Three bright knocks.

Both of them turned.

The knocker did not announce herself. The door simply opened.

Madame Mollette.

"I'm sorry—how forgetful of me! I never collected the letter of introduction—"

She looked around the room and her eyes went wide.

"My goodness. Have you two already made friends?"

Her gaze had settled on Monica's hand, still closed around Liella's arm. Monica let go.

But Madame Mollette's attention had already moved on. She was looking for the boy who ought to have been present.

"Where has Martinael gone?"

"He just went to his room for a moment."

Liella answered with speed. The composure was back—flawless, where moments ago it had been anything but. She smiled and continued:

"Mother, did you ask Anvie to clear away Martinael's blocks? He caught her doing it and was rather put out—I simply couldn't talk him down. Is he not in his room?"

"I thought as much! His door was standing wide open—but he wasn't there?"

"Then poor Anvie must have finally won the day."

"Oh, that boy. Walking out on his new teacher! Liella, you ought to have stopped him."

Liella raised her eyebrows and moved her eyes with the particular expression of a young woman who found her brother's ways both bewildering and endearing. Madame Mollette made a sound of fond exasperation. No real anger in it.

Monica watched all of it from outside, transfixed.

A small private language, passing between two people who shared a long and comfortable history. Monica had no part in it. It ran for several more exchanges.

"He simply can't help himself. He's so devoted to those blocks."

"I never should have bought them. Five hundred pieces—what was I thinking, I really ought to have known better!"

Madame Mollette made a small fist of self-reproach. Then, as though the thought had just arrived: "Oh!" She turned back to Monica.

"I keep forgetting everything. I am sorry, Monica dear—that wasn't what I came to say at all. Your letter of introduction—would you give it to me?"

"...Oh."

Monica's eyes dropped to the floor, almost before she decided. The torn fragments she had not quite finished gathering were still there.

Madame Mollette smiled and added, in the tone of someone cheerfully reconciled to her own lapses:

"I should have asked earlier. My memory these days—well. After two children, what can you expect."

Monica blinked.

'Bore them?'

She looked at Liella.

Liella Mollette—who had once shared Monica's surname—raised her chin with the air of someone owed no particular explanation.

But her gray eyes moved. Madame Mollette. Monica. Two passes. Three.

Brief. But in the space of it, Monica had time to see everything those eyes contained: confusion, fear, dread, the spinning disorientation of someone whose footing had gone—and then the brazen composure that people who have made a misstep invariably produce, contradictory and reflexive.

As such people invariably do, Liella was moving to speak first.

"Mother, that's—"

And then it was all pointless.

"I'm so sorry, Madame."

"...Yes?"

"I'm afraid I've damaged the letter of introduction. An accident."

Madame Mollette's face filled with gentle puzzlement.