Ward of the White Worm

“Truly? You cannot stay?” Mrs Greene asked, pleadingly. She had followed Olli and Theodore through the house like a fish-faced ghost after Mister Greene had shaken hands with Theodore and wished him a speedy journey home. “Would you like to play whist, perhaps? Or maybe quadrille?”

The way she had haunted them was enough to annoy Olli out of her thoughts and to nearly cling to Theodore’s hand as he walked down the entry hall. They passed by a small round table holding a silver plate with little cards atop it, with Theodore even picking up his pace afterwards as though he feared lingering by it.

“Are you certain you want to make the trip to your inn when it is growing so dark?” Mrs Greene again pleaded as Theodore stood by the door, taking his hat and coat from a waiting servant girl that he palmed more money into the hands of. “My lord?”

“Ah, unfortunately not. I fear I may already be testing Olivia’s stamina,” Theodore said as he pulled on his coat.

“But would it not be better to stay then?”

“Oh the weather at my estate would be more beneficial,” Theodore countered. “Less coal smuts and miasma, and the sharp arbor scent invigorates the lungs. Mister Fredrick told me this.”

“Well,” Mrs Greene’s nostrils flared as she tried to think of something else. “Well, perhaps you can leave your card behind then?”

Olli watched Theodore make a show of checking his pockets, “my, it seems I have forgotten them back at House Graef. I believe I hear the carriage. Adieu!” Then he opened the door and swiftly pulled Olli after him, allowing her one last look of Mrs Greene’s despondent face before the door shut to the Cherryhouse.

Luckily, right outside was the carriage with a human Mister Burke awaiting looking happy to see them both. “Good evening, sir! I saved some of the chessboard cake from the inn for Miss Olli and a beef-marrow tart for you.”

“Thank you very much, Mister Burke,” Theodore said as Mister Burke opened the carriage door. “How was your meal at the inn?”

“Oh, quite wonderful! There was plenty of white bread, cod and lamb’s brain stew, buttered porridge, dry and sweet biscuits, and roast duck. How was your meal, sir? Did you enjoy it?”

“Absolutely not,” Theodore said as he stepped into the carriage. Then he and Mister Burke helped Olli into the dark confines of the carriage. The door was still open, so Theodore continued to speak to Mr. Burke. “However, I did gain a candidate for governess.”

“Oh? It must be Miss Marsh, Mister Greene’s niece!” Mister Burke said, holding the door.

“You know of her?”

“Only a tad, sir,” Mister Burke replied. “Just what I know from conversations with others. The tragedy of her family, being taken in by the Greenes, and her occupation as a governess.”

“Hm.”

Mister Burke gave a bow, then closed the carriage door.

Olli leaned close to Theodore, whispering, “What’s a governess?”

“An unmarried woman who teaches young children and older girls their lessons and manners.” Theodore explained briskly while the carriage lurched forward.

“So a teacher?”

Theodore narrowed his eyes at her through his spectacles, which caught the faint moonlight to turn into two small moons themselves. “You have suddenly become rather talkative, are you done thinking?”

Olli tapped her chin with a finger, again thinking. She was not quite sure anymore of why she had been thinking for so long. The missing faces in her mind were not faces that she felt a twisting of sadness in her chest for, or really anything else. They had become an increasingly matter-of-fact thing to her. If she forgot, what did she lose? She did not like them anyway! She did not like anyone! They did not like her either. So nothing was lost, nothing at all!

“Your face is turning pink,” Theodore’s voice floated into her ear.

“No it’s not,” she said, and before Theodore could say anything else she added, “you don’t like Mrs Greene very much, huh?”

Theodore raised his eyebrows, “what makes you say that?”

“You do this things around her sometimes,” she tried to mimic that awful almost-smile he kept giving the woman. Bloodless, cold, thin. Her impression was likely not very good, since she had some warmth to her face compared to Theodore’s constant pallor. “It makes you look like you’re a… uh… like a vampire, or something. Like you want to eat her.”

“Well vampires aren’t real,” Theodore leaned against his seat and set his hands in his lap. “But maybe I do wish to eat her, what about that?”

“What?” Olli frowned, “people don’t eat people. That’s weird.”

“I never said I was a person,” Theodore said.

“People talk, so you’re a person.”

“What sort of definition is that?”

“A good one.”

The two sat in silence for some time, with only the clip-clop of the hooves outside and the occasional wooden creaking breaking it before Theodore spoke once more, “you are right. I do not like Mrs Greene very much. She is the worst sort of gentlewoman, a social climber who collects the seals from letters titled people send her to show them to her friends, and who freely speaks about who she associates as a way to increase her standing. I am not sure how anyone quite stands her. I have met both of her sons and they left home as soon as they could, and her husband is a good man but utterly oblivious.”

“It’s okay, I don’t like her either,” Olli nodded her head, “she’s very ob-toxious.”

“Do you mean ‘obnoxious’?”

“That’s what I said,” Olli’s ears burned a little as she lied, both to Theodore and herself. “Why did we come here, since you don’t like her?”

Theodore sighed, taking off his spectacles to clean them with a small monogrammed cloth. “Because maintaining good relations is important, even if you do not necessarily like someone. I have just gotten a possible governess from coming here, and despite everything Mister Greene’s connections in agriculture are rather helpful. So sometimes you must tolerate a terrible dinner.”

“Huh,” Olli shrugged, beginning to return to her own thoughts. “I’d just say I was sick and not come!”