"Come in, Evangeline," Kitty calls out from behind the oak door before I've even finished knocking.

Her attire is the most casual I've seen her in – 'casual' being relative. Her outfit is distinctly alpine chalet, with fitted jeans that are undoubtedly designer, and her even more fitted sweater – hot pink and distinguished by the small but distinctive high-end logo stitched on in one corner. She's fiddling with something at her desk, but she's stood with her slender back to me, so I can't quite see what it is, and stand by the door awkwardly like a handmaiden summoned.

"Sit," she says. Without turning to face me, she tilts her head towards two velvet armchairs to her left.

"Oh, right, thank you," I blurt, scurrying and sinking into the chair much larger than me.

"Tea?" She asks, although I'm certain the question was a rhetorical one. Sat here, I can see her hands, and smell the rich camomile scent. She's already pouring steaming tea from a large floral pot into two matching ceramic teacups.

"Sure, I'd love some."

Kitty keeps pouring without another word. The steady sound of the streaming tea is loud, but not quite loud enough, and I'm certain this is the most naked silence I've ever endured. Am I sweating?

"Something has come to my attention, Evangeline."

She finally turns around, extending the ceramic cup to me, and I lean in, handling the delicate decorated saucer with more care than anything I've ever held. I hold my breath – not solely for fear of spilling the tea. Kitty doesn't sit opposite me, although the chairs are sat opposite each other interrogation-style. Once she's given me my cup, she retreats to the table and leans against it, stirring her tea with a slim, golden stirrer. Watching feels vaguely like being put under a spell.

"It's come to my attention that my son is rather fond of you. Both of my sons in fact, as it appears," she speaks without raising her eyes from the rotating stirrer, her movement unnervingly mechanical, but when she finishes, her gaze snaps to mine. Then, down to the untouched cup of black tea balanced on my lap. She smirks, her lips stretch thinly to one side.

"You can take a sip, Evangeline. I'm not trying to poison you, if that's why you're so hesitant."

"No, I- of course not," I laugh, raising the china to my lips. I watch her take her sip before I take mine, though.

She exhales, and the steam winds from her mouth. "Pip seems to think I harbour some sort of resentment towards you. I don't. I apologise," her lips barely part to let the word pass, "if I made you feel at all uncomfortable last night."

Her reluctant apology comes while she stares into her tea, and I find myself marvelling at Pip's powers of persuasion, biting down on my inside cheek to stop my own smirk from spreading. Oh, Pip.

Mum says you should never say 'it's fine' when it isn't, so I say "thank you, Kitty" instead.

"But that isn't why I wanted to speak to you."

And the nerves are back. "No?" I say.

"I won't mince my words, Evangeline," she takes the seat opposite me, with crossed ankles and an uncharacteristically sincere expression, "you seem like a smart girl. You must be for Auby to have become so infatuated in such a short space of time."

Her word choice makes me blush, but there's no accompanying warm smile that tells me she meant to compliment me. Her frank look makes me shift in my plushy seat.

"There's a very specific... path laid out for Auby. A very specific course that he really has no choice but to follow."

"A specific path?" I question. Dear God, is this the part of the movie where she tells me that Eric's the crown prince of some small European nation?

"Less of a path and more of a single concrete strip of road," she enunciates each word through tight lips, and finishes with a rigid smile, "an iron-barred carriageway, perhaps – paved by a long, long line of Macklin men. Macklin men who hold a certain occupations, live a certain life, associate with a certain sort of woman."

From the way she holds my gaze, sapphire eyes icy with condescension, I can guess her implication well enough: I'm not that 'certain sort of woman'. When I don't speak, she looks me up down and sighs, and I'm overcome by an acute awareness of my pyjama bottoms and 'I'd rather be asleep' t-shirt. The smallness I felt under her glare at the bar last night threatens to bubble up again and destroy me. But this time, I screw my cotton-socked feet to the sticking place, and I don't back down.

"Alright. What 'sort of woman' do you mean?" I ask evenly. I sit up straight against the chairback and hold her gaze as intently as she holds mine.

I don't think she expected me to contest – it takes her a moment to respond as she lowers her cup from her lips.

"The sort with a Russell Group university education." She speaks with the taut cadence of an uncompromising mother. "Preferably Oxford – Cambridge at worst. Slightly older than...him," she says, but the subtle smirk she attempts to hide with a sip tells me that she means slightly older than me.

"She's from a pre-eminent English family from within the investment industry, - or finance, perhaps. Avid skiier, speaks three languages at the very least," she's listing the characteristics like an age-old shopping list, and I let out a humourless laugh as I stare down at my stripy lap.

"That's just the sort of woman I've always seen him ending up with," she finishes. "It simply makes the most sense."

I let a beat pass before clearing my throat and saying the implication out loud,

"So, not me."

Another one passes and I meet her eyes. Pity swirls about in them, but I can tell she means every word she says.

"No, I wouldn't say so."

This must be what Pip meant by Kitty's 'shitty magic trick' that makes all of Eric's girlfriends disappear. There's nothing quite so discouraging as being told that your fire's destined to fade. In her eyes and words and false pity, her thoughts are clear – she doesn't think Eric and I can last.

"You're saying," I speak slowly, as I piece together her grand scheme, "he'll end up with a girl like that because that's his path. You think that because he went to Eton and Oxford and comes from high society, everything he does, everyone in his life has to be in line with that path... You're saying Eric has no control over it, and neither do I."

"You are a smart girl." Her words cut but not with the sharpness of malice. She sits upright, lifting her teacup to her lips, and I realise that what strikes me most in this moment isn't any pang of pain or hurt or anger – it's that she truly believes what she's saying. She honestly believes that Eric and I won't last just because we come from different worlds.

"I know it all sounds rather cruel," she goes on, and I assume she's taken my silence as saddened shock or some sort of stunned acceptance of this new fate as she places her saucer down and stands to cross the room. With leisurely strides to the large window where she perches on the sill herself elegantly, she has a comfortable air, as though she's done this, said this, before.

"But I'm sure you understand," she sighs, brushing non-existent dust particles off of the sill and staring out across the grounds, "there are paths for everyone. People cross paths on occasion, but there comes a time, an obligation, to... fall in line – follow the line – untangle the mangled pathways that weren't intended to be."

"Bullshit." When Kitty's gaze snaps to meet mine suddenly, with stern eyes, my heart drops and I let out a gasp. Shit, did I say that out loud?

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'm sorry, Kitty, I just... that's b- I don't believe that. Not for a second."

Kitty sits up, her Botox-pumped features stretching as best as they can into a faint look of surprise.

"What exactly do you believe, then?"

I shrug. This should be the moment where I step back – shut up and apologise for misspeaking – but she's made it clear that I'll never have her approval. I've got nothing to lose.

"That every path that crosses is supposed to, but people can choose their life, too. Where it goes, where their hearts are, what their purpose is."

She simpers and cocks an eyebrow. "And where's your heart, then? What's your purpose? To marry my son?"

'Marry' throws me off and makes my hairs stand on end. I laugh a nervous, plastic laugh,

"Well, not marry, not now, I don't know, I mean I'm only- I'm still young..." My tea is on the other side of lukewarm now, but I hold wrap my fingers tightly around the cup.

"I mean, obviously I have a purpose beyond Eric... I really like music, and stuff – literature." I shrug again, not sure why I go on, but I do, with my eyes firmly fixed on my lap.

"I applied to Trinity Dublin for Music and Philosophy. The programme is just... amazing. It's not Russell Group," I laugh lightly, "and I don't think I'll actually go, but... I mean, I'd have to leave London, leave my family, leave Er-" I bite my lip, running my finger around the rim of my cup. "I don't know where that fits in my purpose, but it's..."

Unsure of where my words will take me, I let my speech trail off, and my cheeks warm as I look down. Somehow, I almost forget Kitty's there until feel her eyes on me, staring. But when I look up, she looks away quickly, out of the window, and speaks without looking at me.

"Have you told Eric that you want to go to Dublin?"

It crosses my mind to deny it. Deny that I want to go; deny where my heart is – but I don't.

"No," I say.

An undeniable silence falls. Then...

"Evangeline," she begins, bold-voiced, "a lot of people believe youth to be a weakness in... love and things. I don't. I was only a year or two older than you when I met Jono, and God knows we've got a few years between us."

Despite the Botox, and the fresh highlights and flashy clothes, Kitty's face seemed quintessentially young to me from the moment I met her. Much younger than her husband's, at any rate. Now it makes sense.

"Youth isn't a weakness," she continues, "but it is ripe with opportunities for regret. If I-" when her voice trembles, she stops. She clears her throat, roughly, before she tries again. Her voice is softer; her tone further away – a whole lifetime away, perhaps.

"If I woke up your age tomorrow, I'd be another woman. I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't have this," her heavy eyes scan the manor's boundless grounds, "but I'd be... passionate. I'd have chosen a path that was my own."

When her sigh comes out shaky, she lifts her tea for a sip again, and I can hear her sincerity in her silence – I can see it.

"Dublin's a beautiful city," she says after a while. I make a soft noise of agreement.

"Music and Philosophy." She says, finally looking at me. Her eyes are clear of tears. "So, do you want to be a musician or a philosopher?"

I laugh. "Um, I like thinking, but I like music more. A free-thinking musician, I guess. It's sort of my dream." I don't intend it, but my voice drops into a whisper with the final word. I've never said it aloud.

Kitty hums, and though her gaze remains cool, she smiles the warmest smile I've seen on her.

"Women like me live with a lot of regrets, Evangeline. Some are misplaced, certainly, but they all haunt just the same. Still, I've never met a woman who regrets following a dream. Have you?"

At just the right second, I hear the door crack open behind me, and Pip's spirited voice erupts and breaks the quiet.

"Mum, Nel needs you."

"G- What for?"

"I don't know, she just said I should get you. Sounds urgent though – she's in the kitchen eating honey-covered breadsticks or something? I've got no clue how she snuck those in."

"Oh, Christ." Kitty's up in an instant at the prospect of Nelly up and carbo-loading so early in the morning. When I turn around, Pip, stood innocently by the door, shoots me a wink as Kitty struts out of the room, patting his shoulder before she's gone.

"What's wrong with Nelly?" I ask him.

"Nothing," he says, wandering over to Kitty's desk to pour himself some tea, "she's still in bed, I think."

"Wait, so why did you say she was in the kitchen?"

He shrugs as though the answer's already obvious,

"To rescue you. Duh."

"Oh."

"You're welcome," he grins after a slurp of tea. "Now, get dressed."

"Why?"

"Because we're going out to breakfast, Sherlock," Pip says, before glancing down at his wrist and correcting himself, "– or brunch."

"Pip, I just ate."

"The pitiful yogurt on the counter?" He laughs as he leaves, and I don't think I get a say here.

"Out front in 20 minutes!" He calls from the stairway.