Pain flared up my right leg as I hit the floor. Mrs Ealing stood behind me with her arm raised and the wooden cane grasped tightly in her hand. She looked at me, anger rising behind her eyes as she flexed her fingers against the cane as though preparing to hit me with it again. She wouldn't get the chance.

The door handle jolted slightly before the door swung open, revealing Robert standing in the doorway with a confused look on his face. Mrs Ealing lowered the cane and rested it on the floor beside her, but she didn't take her eyes off me as Robert glanced around the room before he spotted me on the floor. Every slight movement of my leg would send a wave of pain up and down my leg, but it would always come back to my knee. Even if I wanted to, I knew I wouldn't be able to stand up. Whatever Mrs Ealing had done, she had done successfully.

"What on Earth happened in here?" Robert asked, kneeling down beside me as I tried to shuffle myself backwards to lean against the sofa cushions.

"Stupid girl walked into the table when I asked her to straighten the throw on the sofa. I've never known someone to be so clumsy," Mrs Ealing said.

"What are you planning on doing with that? Beat her with it?" Robert gestured to the walking stick in her head.

"I thought she might need it, though I expect she's being dramatic."

"I'll be the judge of that," he muttered.

I slumped back against the sofa, rolling my head to the side to watch Robert. He lightly took hold of my knee and pressed his fingers lightly around my knee. The moment he touched it, pain spread down my leg and it twitched slightly in Robert's grip in an attempt to stop him from pushing down on it again. He muttered an apology but kept my knee in his hand as he slowly twisted my leg to the side. It had hardly moved before another burst of pain originated from my knee and I almost ended up kicking Robert in the face, unintentionally. Slowly he lowered my leg to the ground and said nothing before looking to Mrs Ealing and placing his hand on his knees.

"She's not being dramatic, Mother. Whatever Rosie's done, it's caused some damage. I need to get Father."

Mrs Ealing looked at Robert but kept her lips tightly pursed together. I didn't want to be left alone in the room with her for a second time, but I could hardly tell Robert what had happened. The last thing I wanted to do was to cause their relationship to break down all because Mrs Ealing didn't like me. Even if I was lying to Robert, it would always be better than the truth in this situation. At least that's what I thought. In truth, I didn't know if keeping it a secret would end up causing more harm than good, but I didn't want to find out. I would keep the secret no matter what the outcome of the incident may have been.

Robert pushed himself into a standing position and left me sitting on the floor with Mrs Ealing standing in the same spot she had been in when the cane had come down on the back of my leg. Even as Robert left, she kept her eyes fixated on me as though I was about to do something stupid. I couldn't even stand up, let alone fight back or do anything against Mrs Ealing to get myself into more trouble. I hadn't done anything to deserve a cane to the back of the knee and I certainly didn't want to do anything that could end up putting me into more trouble.

"You breathe a word about any of this, and you'll be out of that door by midnight. Do you understand?" Mrs Ealing asked. She narrowed her eyes at me and took a small step forward, rising the cane slightly as she went. I knew she wouldn't hit me again, especially with Robert having only just left and the injury being new.

"Yes," I said through gritted teeth, my knee still sending waves of pain up and down my leg.

"Good. Not that anyone would believe you anyway."

I didn't say anything, but I knew she was right. Even with the bruise no doubt forming on the back of my leg, no one would believe what had actually happened. In a way, it was similar to how things worked at the factory. We knew that no one would believe us no matter how many times we told the story or who we told it too. We would have been labelled as children who wanted to get back at the person who looked out for them when their parents couldn't. I knew that no one would believe if I told them and resolved to keep my mouth shut. Just like the foreman, I hoped Mrs Ealing would slip up, but it had taken the foreman years to do that.

Mrs Ealing and I just stared at each other as we waited for Robert to return with Doctor Ealing. He appeared to be taking his time, but I suppose Doctor Ealing had a habit of being where we least expected him. Still, I wished he would hurry up, so I didn't have to spend much longer with just Mrs Ealing. I didn't know what to expect from her any more, and I certainly didn't like the idea of her holding onto that cane. I wished Robert had taken it off her when he left, purely because I didn't like the idea of her using it against me for a second time.

"What have you been gotten yourself into this time?" Doctor Ealing asked when he spotted me on the floor.

"You know me, full of surprises," I replied, attempting to make a joke of the situation. Doctor Ealing looked less than impressed with me.

"Let's have a look, shall we?"

"If we must."

Doctor Ealing knelt down beside me and placed his hands around my knee, pressing lightly against just as Robert had done earlier. I winced slightly as he poked and prodded at my knee, though I wasn't entirely sure what he hoped to achieve because it just ended up hurting me rather than helping. After a few minutes of poking my knee, he leant back on his heels and ran his hands over his thighs. He still looked unimpressed, though I couldn't figure out why. This hadn't been my fault, not that I had told them that, yet I had once again found myself injured and, by the looks of it, out of work for a little while.

Everything just seemed as though it had started to spiral out of control. I had only been back at work for a short amount of time after the influenza and even then I had been put on light duties because of my shoulder and the wheeze in my chest. Now, it looked as though I would be right back to where I started with no ability to work and more opportunities for Mrs Ealing to want me gone. If Doctor Ealing was mad at me because I couldn't work, I didn't blame him. I had done so little work in such a short period of time that I even felt mad at myself, even if none of it had been my fault. I hated feeling as though I was no longer pulling my weight.

"I can't judge too much from here, but it feels swollen. I'm going to have to have to take a look at it to get a better judgment. Robert, go and find Esther for me." Robert nodded and swiftly disappeared from the room, Doctor Ealing then turned to his wife. "Can you leave us, Elizabeth? I don't like to have people hovering when I'm working."

"Very well," Mrs Ealing said. She leant the cane against the sofa and glared at me as she swept across the room and followed Robert to the far recesses of the house.

"I'm going to need you to be honest with me, Rosie," Doctor Ealing said when Mrs Ealing had long since disappeared.

"I don't understand."

"From what I can gather, you have done a fair amount of damage to the back of your knee, you wouldn't have done from walking into the table."

"I backed into it and caught it on the table. That's the truth."

Doctor Ealing said nothing. He sighed loudly and ran his hand over his chin where a small trace of a beard had started to show. I slumped back against the chair as we waited for Robert to return with Esther. Glancing down at the burn on my arm I couldn't quite believe that I had been forced into lying about another injury. With the burn, lying had been simply because no one had been there to witness the truth and the event I made up seemed logical compared to the reality. This time, I didn't think I would be able to talk myself out of a lie seeing as the injury had occurred to the back of my leg and walking into a table didn't match the story nor the injury.

If Doctor Ealing caught me, I would disappoint him far more than I have ever done in the past, including keeping my shoulder injury from him. Not only would I have lied about how the injury occurred, but about everything that had happened between myself and Mrs Ealing would come out into the open. Lying about how an injury occurred would be one thing, lying about what had happened over the past few weeks or even months could be catastrophic. So much was riding on Doctor Ealing believing the injury had occurred when I backed into the table, but I didn't think he would believe me.

After a few more minutes of silence, the door moved slightly and Robert walked into the room with Esther trailing behind him. She titled her head towards me and regarded me with furrowed eyebrows and a general look of confusion. Doctor Ealing rocked back onto his heels and pushed himself up before crossing the room and exchanging a few muttered words with them both before he turned back to me and pulled a pocket watch from his pocket. Glancing at it briefly, he snapped it shut and stowed it away.

"Right, I've asked Esther to help you out because if I'm going to need to examine your knee without your stocking and it would be improper if I did anything. Robert is going to get you some ice and he'll be staying outside until I've examined your knee."

"Alright."

"Good. I'll be outside, let me know when you're ready."

Doctor Ealing nodded towards Esther and he and Robert slipped from the room and out into the hallway. Robert's footsteps echoed away as he headed down to the kitchen to raid the icebox for the ice his father had requested. I sighed slightly as Esther partially shut the door before traipsing the length of the room to join me on the floor. She knelt beside me and placed her hands on her knees. Her dress fanned out around her as she chewed on the inside of her cheek in an attempt to process what may have happened. I suspected she too was sick of me constantly getting injured and ending up not being able to work.

"Just as a warning, Miss Jenkins isn't too happy about this. Especially since it is so close to the influenza and your shoulder injury," Esther said.

"This wasn't my fault."

"I know, but just be cautious. If you can't work, she might end up getting Sarah back."

"Just what Mrs Ealing wants," I muttered.

"Pardon?"

"Nothing."

"If you're sure. Come on, let's get your stocking off or Doctor Ealing won't be able to figure out what's going on."

I shuffled back a little further and Esther placed my leg on her lap. She inched up the bottom of my dress until she could reach my stocking and wrapped her fingers around the top of it. From there, she slowly inched it down my leg and when she reached my knee, made an attempt to stretch it to get it passed. Once it had passed my knee, the extent of the injury was revealed. My knee and the surrounding area had swelled up considerably and had turned a rather interesting shade of purple. On the back of my knee was a red mark that resembled the shape and size of the cane Mrs Ealing had hit me with.

Doctor Ealing wouldn't believe the lie with the evidence marking my skin.

Esther rolled the top of my stocking to my mid-calf and then settled my skirt just above it so that the bruising the injury were visible. She then pushed herself up to a standing position and fetched Doctor Ealing from the hallway. Together, they both crossed the room and whilst Doctor Ealing knelt beside me to re-examine my knee, Esther settled herself onto the sofa for when Doctor Ealing needed her next. I watched as Doctor Ealing wrapped his fingers around my knee and went back to poking and prodding my knee and the bruising around it. He twisted my leg slightly to get a better look at the red mark that stretched down the length of my knee and down onto my calf.

Sighing slightly, he pressed back against his heels and dropped his hands on his lap. I watched as he ran his hands up and down the length of his thigh as though trying to figure out just what to say or how to approach the situation. I didn't blame him. Yet again I had found myself putting him in a difficult position, having to decide whether my duties ought to be changed because of an injury or if I could just walk through it, though that didn't appear to be possible.

"Well, there is an obvious amount of swelling and bruising to your knee. I'm going to be honest with you, Rosie, it doesn't look as though you got this injury by simply walking into a table. It looks like you've been struck across the back of the leg with something," Doctor Ealing said, raising an eyebrow at me.

"I told you what happened."

"I can't force the truth out of you and I'm not going to try. If you don't want to tell me what really happened then you are free to keep that to yourself and I won't press any more than I need to, at least for now. However, I would like to know how you came to acquire this injury because if someone else is involved, no matter who it may be, I need to know. For now, you can put your stocking back in place and then I'll get Robert to give you the ice for it. We'll discuss what happens next after that."

Doctor Ealing pushed himself up and returned to the doorway, closing it slightly and engaging in a conversation with the person on the other side, most likely Robert. Esther shuffled herself off the sofa and onto the floor where she once again grabbed the top of my stocking and slowly rolled it up my leg and past my knee. I flinched slightly as her fingers brushed the bruising and she muttered an apology as she pulled the stocking up the remainder of my leg and left it on my thigh. Form across the room, Doctor Ealing glanced back to Esther stand up once more and look towards him before nodding her head slightly. He nodded in response and re-entered the room with Robert.

In his hand, Robert held one of the cloths in the kitchen which was no doubt full of ice from the icebox. Together they returned to Esther and I and whilst Robert handed over the bag of ice Doctor Ealing took a seat on the sofa next to where I rested against it. I placed the bag of ice on my knee, wincing at the cold sensation as it surrounded my knee.

"There isn't much we can do about the bruising except keep an eye on it, like your shoulder. Unfortunately, you're back to light duties and I don't want you walking around unless you have to because it could make things worse. If you must walk on it, I want you to take this cane and put the weight on that instead of your knee. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. I'll go and have a word with Miss Jenkins and see about those light duties, these two can help you from here."

He whispered something to Robert before standing up and leaving the three of us alone in the room. I took the ice off my knee and placed it onto the table beside me before grabbing onto the edge of it to try and pull myself up. Robert, who had been standing next to me grabbed onto my forearm and used that to pull me up to a standing position. He kept his grip on my forearm and reached out to grab the cane that Mrs Ealing had left leaning against the sofa before she left the room. I rested my leg lightly on the ground but shifted all my weight onto the cane rather than my leg. It almost felt as though I was standing on one leg.

"Are you going to manage?" Robert asked, watching as I tilted to the side slightly after attempting to take a step with the cane.

"I'll be fine," I said.

"You keep saying that, and then you find yourself in trouble or injured one way or another. If you fall down the stairs, it'll be me who ends up in trouble for not looking after you."

"I can manage, I don't need my hand holding every second of every day. It's bad enough everything I do is watched and scrutinised, I don't need you following me around as well."

"I'll leave you to it, then," he muttered.

Robert glanced back to Esther but said nothing before tucking his hands into the pocket of his trousers and heading towards the door. I wanted to say something, to apologise for stepping out of line and let him know that I didn't mean it. Only I would be lying. Even if I didn't want to admit it, I wanted to stop feeling as though I had someone watching over my shoulder all the time and Robert just happened to be part of that. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, that was the last thing I wanted to do after everything he had done for me. I had done just that. It felt as though everything was collapsing around me.

"Come on, let's get you down to the kitchen."

~~~

A/N - We are back! Chapter Twenty-Eight is here and I am about to start Chapter Thirty-Three... Oooooo!! 

Also! I might have a title for the third book. How do you guys feel about 'The Apprentice Girl' for the third one?

Alrighty, thoughts on the chapter? Rosie is once again lying to Doctor Ealing and things aren't going all that well for Robsie... What are your predictions for the next few chapters?

Comment below!

Dedication - This chapter is dedicated to AngelaCorder who called Mrs Ealing an 'evil monster' last chapter and it made me laugh xD

First Published - November 26th, 2019