16 November

The end of the year is growing to a close; the autumnal air, crisp and delicious and tinged with the scent of apples, has begun to slowly make its way into the stinging, foggy mannerisms of the snow. Even this morning, a gentle mist of icy dew settled on the Radcliffe house, and coated everything outside of my window in a near-crystalline residue. It was hard indeed to recognise the day from the one prior, which had been delightfully warm. How the horses of Lord deCourt fared in the sudden decline of the weather nagged at my mind for the better part of the day, and of course, at the state of the joints of the disabled Lord.

In the aftermath of our excursion, he kissed me on the hand and bowed low to Evie, who, woefully uncomfortable with any addresses to her new station, merely blushed and frowned before inclining her head in return. Myself having never been touched by a man other than my father or a doctor (or the more recent grasps of the desperate Atticus), I found I was terribly pleased by the show of respect and attention. Blushing myself, for an entirely different manner than my friend, it was with a warm countenance and the resolve that Atticus was completely unwarranted in his warnings that I made my way back into the depressing walls of the Radcliffe house.

I likely should have known that nothing good ever lasts, no matter how short the period of pleasantry. Entering my unfortunate new home, I found a scene that made me wish at once I had not descended from the steps of the carriage. Atticus, glowering in the corner behind the wall separating the kitchens from the main hall, was giving me the sort of look that said quite plainly that I told you so. The reasoning for his grim expression was immediately ascertained by the light-sucking presence of Dr. Radcliffe.

Having spent only a little bit of time in his presence, in the grand scheme of my time in England, I found I was grossly unprepared for a surprise visit with the doctor. His hair was swept back in a messy pile, as though being recently departed from the company of the wind, his eyes dark and filled with a panicked look.

"Where...!" was all he could cry, rushing forward and grasping his newlywed by the shoulders, pulling her into an embrace that belied his simmering anger. Pushing her back in remembrance of propriety, he turned to me and his entire person seemed to ripple with a rage I had only seen in slivers. "You! You ought to be in bed! Your health... you know you are incapable of wandering the outdoors without severe consequences." His voice trembled and he approached me quickly and suddenly, lowering his voice so that only I could hear it. "I brought you here for Evelyn, young lady, as a kindness and so that you might find some peace in your health at last, and you continue to defy my orders for your recovery. You will go up to your room at once, and you will remain there until I have cooled my impatience with your obstinance!" There was nothing else for me to do other than flee as quickly as the confines of my dress would allow, tears blinding my path the whole while. 

How stupid I was to travel to this country of eccentrics and vile men! So eagerly did I rush upstairs that I tripped over the hem of my dress three times, the third propelling me into the door of my room, which I took great satisfaction in slamming as hard as I could. I did not even find it in myself to maintain a sense of dignity; I wept, long and loudly, until the sun had completely disappeared beyond my veiled window, until I fell over in tear-depleted exhaustion behind the door. It should not require any explanation on my part as to why I was so vexed, but I will note that yelling of any sort ought to be outlawed everywhere that people have voices. Never has an argument been solved or a point made clearer by the shrill exhalation of a maddened set of lungs. It is not any great surprise that I should find myself more so vexed at the presence of a yelling. Even at my clumsiest, my most thick-headed moments, my mother, ever the disciplinarian, refused to raise her voice beyond the stern shaking of correction. 

My health, as much as I would have willed it to remain in perfect condition to spite the doctor, took a sudden and severe decline when I awoke next, crumpled uncomfortably in the darkness on the floor. I wiped the salt stains from my face and the spit on my cheek (yes, how unappealing a description, but this is my journal) and wondered why I had woken up. There was a thunderous pain in my head, and every ounce of my skin felt as though the sun had sent an army of burning ants to crawl upon it. 

"Open the door, wretched woman!" A knock rattled the wood I was reclined on, and I lurched forward with half a scream. "Do shut up; open the door and you won't need to yell." Recognising Atticus' voice, I hastily stood, feeling my legs and back crack with the effort, and let him in, only to be pushed to the side so that he could close the door. "Oh, don't look at me like that," he groaned, throwing himself on the bed. 

"What do you want," I sneezed, feeling too depleted to be cross with him. He had warned me, had he not?

"To tell you I was right... and to see if you were well." He looked quite upset with having to admit this, but I was still touched. 

Groaning and moving over to the bed, I threw myself beside him and said, "I do not deserve your concern, but it is nonetheless appreciated. Have you seen any of Evie since our return?" I sneezed again and drew the blankets from the bed and over my shoulders. Rolling his head to look at me, his hair falling past his shoulders, Atticus raised an eyebrow and said that he had not. 

"I am afraid our wonderful doctor was all a nervous wreck with you ladies gone. No doubt, he's wrapping her up in his embrace." The thought was enough to disgust the both of us. Sharing a shudder, we contemplated the nature of such a thought, before Atticus broke the silence again. "He really shouldn't have come home so early," he mumbled, rubbing at his chin with his dirty fingers. 

"Do you suppose... do you think he knew?" 

"I doubt it. He's the eyes of a hawk, but he was out of town again. No mortal eyes could have envisioned the two of you leaving, not unless he was doctoring the heavens." The idea was ridiculous, but the point was made. A grim point, but the surprise of Dr. Radcliffe's appearance was made only more shocking. How ill our timing was! The vexation this caused me brought forth another ailing sneeze, to which Atticus pointedly reminded me that the doctor was not wrong in his point. 

"You'll never get any better if you run along after Evie wherever she goes." 

"I'll never get any better," I said hollowly, having lived two decades more than my acquaintance with Evie, and knowing the scope of my limited health fully. "Do you know how wretched it is, to watch as your friends run around in the snow, confined to pining through the window? Or, how grievous it is to the soul, knowing you'll spend the rest of your life indoors while those very friends grow up and forget about you in their haste to develop their own lives?"

"Isn't following your newest friend why you're stuck in here?" Laying his back against the bed and resting his hands under his hair, he harumphed to himself. I reached for a pillow and threw it over his face. 

"Aye, but how worthy a cause! At least we found company in our walks and our gardening and the mysteries in my house."

"Mysteries?" 

"Mm. Letters and violins, all smashed up in my attic. We haven't read terribly much of them, not since that odious man arrived, but I have them somewhere around here..." Had I known how much excitement this would have sparked in Atticus, I likely would have shown them to him sooner. Bolting as though struck with lightning, he gazed at me with a newfound intensity in his eyes. 

"Letters in your house? What do they speak of?" 

"Nothing good! I had quite forgotten about them," I said as I stumbled to the desk and pulled the whole lot of writing from the drawers, "with the arrival of Lord deCourt, but yes, yes, they're all here." Upending the papers on the bed, I winced as Atticus struck a light against a candle he's stolen from my bedside. "Ignore those, it's all nonsense." Trying to nudge my personal writing out of the way, I was unsuccessful in hiding them completely from the quick hands of the cook's son. 

"You won't be let off so easily," he said with a surprising smile, a look that suited his tanned face far more than his scowls. Smiling back in spite of myself, I shrugged and bound myself tighter in the sheets. "Now, you'll have to read me these." He waved the mysterious letters in front of his face, the smile having been replaced by a look of mild annoyance. Being an occasionally foolish person, I only blinked emptily at him. 

"Why is that? You have the candle, don't you?"

"What's a candle got to do with it?" 

"W-what have I got to do with it?" Throwing his hands in the air, the letter he'd taken floating neatly in front of me, Atticus blushed so severely that the reddening of his cheeks would have been visible in total darkness. 

"I cannot read," he declared, pride making his voice waver. He did not wish to be looked down upon, I could see that at once, and I blushed myself at the pain admitting that must have caused. 

"Have you spent your whole life in the kitchens?" I asked gently. "Did the doctor not supply any sort of governess for you?" While I was prepared for Atticus to be upset, I was not so for his cackle of laughter.

"A governess?" He looked for a moment to the door, and when nobody came in to curse him out of the room, he returned his amused face to mine. "You must be spoiled indeed, little lady, if you think the servants of any man ought to be the educated responsibility of everyone they serve."

Feeling as though I had spoiled whatever rapport we had built (how I loathed being called little lady, and how much did he know that!), I scowled and crossed my arms. 

"I'm terribly sorry I didn't expect a man almost into the next century to know even his letters." Chuckling despite my frown, Atticus lifted a page of my writing and beamed. 

"How fortunate I know a writer, then!" 

If someone had said I would travel to England to follow a friend around the country, and then teach the helpless cook's son in her new husband's house how to read and write, I should have told them I wish I'd thought of the idea first, so fanciful and fictional it sounded. Alas, Winnifred Yulia Peterson became the irritated instructor Atticus, Son of the Chef (I did not know his surname, and he only scowled when I asked it of him), a relationship that often found its feet in the kitchens during breakfast. As he served me my eggs and toast, free of dirt and other soiled things now, I gave him a sheet of letters and crudely-drawn pictures that could best be remembered with the signs. (I suppose I ought to write that I've picked this up several days after the initial entry on the sixteenth of the month, as I did not very well write of a week or a month in this one day!) After maybe a fortnight of this, I am pleased to say that this mere chef's son blossomed into a reader of his alphabet, and could pen every letter with only mild difficulty. 

Supposing I ought to start a new entry afresh, I shall end here to say I am pleased to have become a teacher in my own right, and to induct another member of this earth into the realm of reading!

Excitedly, Winn