My pen scratched against the piece of paper on my writing desk. I drummed the fingertips of my left hand against the wood of the desk, watching for words form on the page. Sunlight streamed in through the window and lit up the paper as I wrote on it. The soft breeze helped to cool me down somewhat, but the heat was still unbearably strong.

I paused my writing for a second, glancing out the window at the dry, yellowing grass and the trees that were the only offering of shade against the harsh sunlight. In one tree, I could see a small bird hopping around on the topmost branches, tweeting and occasionally rustling its feathers with its beak. What I wouldn't have given to be a small bird in the trees on a hot summer's day without a care in the world.

Alice had once again decided to spend the day with Rebecca, aided by the fact that her etiquette teacher, Mrs Percival, had been suffering from fainting spells so had to rearrange. They were to spend the day playing with Sooty, the cat who had spent the entire evening on Rebecca's bed. The servants were less than impressed with the arrangement, as was Father when he came home to discover Sooty prowling around upstairs. Alice had made a decent enough case for him to stay.

I glanced down at the sheet of paper, clenching my fingers around the pen. Father had shown leniency to Alice that he never would have shown me had I asked for the same favour. I tried to push those feelings down, to ignore the anger that had erupted when Father relented to Alice's pleas, but they remained tucked away. He had never treated us the same way, and that had become abundantly clear as we grew older.

She never had to prove herself to him. I had everything to prove.

"What are you doing, Master Nate?" George said, creeping up behind me.

I jumped. My heart threatened to jump from my chest as I turned in my chair to look at him. "Just trying to figure something out, that's all."

"I thought you might be studying. I would imagine that might take priority with the free time you seem to have acquired."

"It's too hot to think about the law and studying." I sat back in my chair. "The heat has turned my brain to mush and I cannot think straight. I thought I might try to do something useful for a change."

"And that would be?"

George raised an eyebrow at me and glanced down at the sheet of paper in front of me. My handwriting was a struggle for anyone to read, and George was no different. He frowned at the sheet of paper and looked at me for an answer; I wasn't sure I wanted to offer him one.

"I'm trying to figure out just how much information we have about Miss Edwards. There are some things she has told me that feel familiar, but I just cannot place them where I want them to."

"What feels familiar? I've been around a lot longer than you have. Maybe I'll have the answers you need." He chuckled to himself.

"Have you ever heard of someone having a horse called Abacus?"

He shook his head. "Can't say I have. I've met a lot of horses in my time, but it isn't a name that sticks out to me as being very important."

"Miss Edwards said her father had a horse called Abacus. I thought it sounded familiar, but I cannot figure out how or where I have heard such a name before and Alice is of no help. When we were in the village, I asked Joseph about it and he said he would ask around the other stable hands, but that might take an age."

"Do you have anything else?"

"Other than her name and the fact she had a cat called Luna growing up, I have nothing. The horse is the only thing of any use."

I glanced down at the sheet of paper again, slumping down in my chair at the sparseness of the list. After almost a week since Father's deadline, I hoped to be further along than I was, but I was no closer to finding out the truth than I had been originally. The time I had spent with Rebecca had offered me little to go off. If we didn't find something soon, Father would send Rebecca off to an institution without a second glance at her or me.

It had been my goal to find out what had happened to her and see that the person who did it served their time, but that didn't seem like it would happen. Father was going to send her away regardless of what I did or didn't do, and I couldn't help but wonder if I was making things worse for her. All I had done was push for information about her life before, and although I had tried to be subtle about it, I didn't think I had been that successful.

Alice knew what she was doing by bringing the animals into it. She saw Rebecca as more of a person, someone who needed help, not questions. I wasn't doing anyone a favour by asking so many questions and expecting so much out of it. All this time I thought I had been trying to help Rebecca, but it had all been about me. It had all been about proving a point to Father.

My chest squeezed, and my mind spun. I looked down at my hands. A small tremble started in the tips of my fingers, spreading down my hands until the pen started to lightly tap on the writing desk. I slammed the pen down and pushed my chair back. George jumped out of the way when my chair leg almost hit him in the thigh. I stood up, crossed to the window and threw it open a little more, sticking my head out and letting the soft breeze cool the beads of sweat on my forehead.

With shaking fingers, I undid the top button of my shirt.

"Master Nathaniel?" George said from behind me. "Are you alright?"

"Fine." My voice shook, and the words were lost on the breeze. I pulled my head back inside and sat down on the window seat, turning to look at him. "Do you think I'm wasting my time?"

"With what?"

"Trying to find out where Miss Edwards came from. All this time I thought I was doing it for her, trying to find out the truth so that whoever did it would be punished for their actions, but I don't think that's what she needs. She knows who did it, she knows where she comes from and refuses to say so, most likely because she doesn't want to relieve it all again. All I'm doing is pushing her. I'm not offering her any help. I'm making it worse."

I ran my hands over my trousers, the palms of my hand slick with sweat. Despite the window being wide open, the room seemed warmer than it had been just a few minutes before. Sweat trickled down my back. The shaking in my fingers became more prominent. My chest became tighter until it felt as though I couldn't catch my breath. Everything just spiralled.

"Breathe, Master Nate," George said, sitting beside me. "You're fine. Everything is fine."

"Is it though? I thought I was doing all of this for Miss Edwards, but I wasn't. This whole situation, everything I've been doing, I've been doing for me. To prove a point to Father."

"You are not thinking with a clear head, my boy. Take a minute, catch your breath, and then we can talk about this properly." George placed a hand on my back. "You have become all worked up and it won't do you any good to keep worrying about this whilst you are in such a state. Just take a deep breath, calm yourself down."

I pressed the palms of my hands against my thighs and took a deep breath. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Repeat. The breeze coming through the window cooled the back of my neck and I closed my eyes. Slowly, my heartbeat slowed down, the tightness in my chest faded, and my mind stopped spinning.

"Better?" George asked, his hand still resting on my back. His presence was comforting, something I had never experienced with Father.

"A little." I opened my eyes. "I apologise. I don't know what just happened."

"You don't have to apologise to me, Master Nate. It is my belief that it is better to feel things than to keep them hidden. Do you think you are able to talk about all of this now, or do you need a few more minutes?"

"I think I'm alright now, although I still feel rather warm."

"That is your body reacting to the stress. It should calm down now that you are not so worked up. I can have someone bring you a glass of something cold if you wish."

I shook my head, not wanting any of the other servants to see me in such a state. The servants gossiped, and I didn't want them to look down on me because I couldn't keep my emotions in check. George was different. I trusted him with my life and knew he would never tell a soul about what had happened unless he had to. He knew many of my secrets, many of the things that I wanted to keep hidden from Father or Alice, and he had never told a soul.

George took his hand off my back and shifted himself so that he sat towards me a little. I pushed myself back onto the window seat, crossing my legs and resting my hands on my knees. My fingers continued to tremble a little, but I felt calmer than I had before. I pressed my back against the window ledge. The breeze tickled my hair, and I took a moment to listen to the sounds of the birds in the trees and the rustling of the leaves.

"Right. Where did all of that come from?" George said. "I have never heard you talk so negatively about yourself in the past. You are doing what you think is best for Miss Edwards. That has always been your intention."

"I thought that too, but Alice is far better at talking to her than I am. It was Alice's idea to get her out of the house and introduce her to horses, her idea for Sooty to spend the night in Miss Edwards' room. In the time I have been working with her, I never saw Miss Edwards smile half as much as she does with Alice. Alice is trying to help her. I was trying to help myself."

"What do you mean?"

"Everything I did was about keeping to Father's deadline, to prove that I could find out where she had come from before those two weeks were up. I didn't consider Miss Edwards' feelings about any of it. About how she might feel if I found out where she had come from, about whether she even wanted to talk about any of it. All of this has been about me proving myself to Father, proving that I am capable of something other than getting under his skin all the time."

"But what you are doing may very well be helping Miss Edwards. You cannot know for certain how she is feeling."

"Because she hasn't told me. She rarely tells me anything. It was because of Alice that she told me about the horse and the cat. None of that was my doing."

George sighed and shifted himself a little. I looked at his face, seeing the calmness in his eyes, the warmth in them that just made everything easier to deal with. He was the exact opposite of Father. "You are doing your best, and that is all anyone can ask for. Who knows, maybe Joseph will come through the horses' name and we'll have an answer by the end of the day tomorrow."

"Maybe."

"You cannot put so much pressure on yourself, Master Nate. It is how you ended up in this state in the first place. Perhaps it is best for you to find something new to focus on, like studying, for instance. You are doing yourself no favours and it is only going to get worse if you continue to work yourself up like this. I have been witness to many men going the same way as you, and very few of them had a fortunate outcome."

"So, what am I supposed to do?"

"There is nothing you are supposed to do. Right now, you need to talk to your father about Miss Marlow, do whatever you must to sit through this supper in two days' time, and don't put so much pressure on what you do or do not find. Focus on what you can change at the moment, not what you can't."

I looked at George, frowning a little. He made it all seem so simple, as though I could just walk away from Rebecca and my promise without so much as a second glance. It didn't feel all that simple to me. I had made my promise and I couldn't just abandon it like that. I couldn't just forget about what had happened to her.

Still, he had been right in that my focus should have been elsewhere. Father and I were once again not speaking to each other and it seem right for the two of us to exist in the same house without exchanging words. The last time he had come to me, this time I needed to go to him to solve the problems in our relationship. I also couldn't avoid the supper with the Marlows forever and I needed to be in the best possible place to face them.

George was right. I needed a break from it all and to mend the things that were already broken, the things that I could fix at that moment.

"Alright, I'll try."

~~~

A/N - We are back with Twenty-One! I am on Chapter Twenty-Nine now and the end is in sight! This was one of my favourite chapters to write, as is a later one, so I hope you enjoyed it!

Questions!

Should Nate heed George's advice? Is he putting too much pressure on himself?

Comment below! 

First Published - February 28th, 2023