We reached the school gates and I bid farewell to Marsh, trying to hide the limp and fighting to keep a somewhat straight face despite the pain flaring up my leg with every step. My boots felt unusually tight around my ankle and foot which I knew was probably a bad sign. Still, I tried to act like nothing was amiss and followed my usual routine of depositing my satchel and hat in the cloakroom and removing my slate, chalk and books.

I sat down and rested my foot gently on the floor rather than placing it flat like usual. My ankle still ached, but it didn't feel as bad as it would have if I put all my weight on it although I tried to keep it as still as possible. With any luck, a few hours of rest will help it a little but only time will tell and I knew I would have to keep it still and try not to jar it for a second time. If I made it worse, I'd have no choice but to tell Father.

"Good morning," Evelyn said, dropping into her seat. I smiled at her. "I told Mother that I would be late today if you want to keep going with our debate plan."

"Great! I thought we might stay and work here rather than return to mine. Mother said she wants to pack this afternoon and I don't want us to get in the way," I said.

"Alright, that's fine with me. We might be able to get some more work done here."

"We can use the chalkboard, it might be better than a bit of paper."

"Or both. So we can keep our notes."

"Good idea."

"When do you have to be out of your grandfather's house?"

"Thursday. She gave us just over a week."

Evelyn nodded and turned towards the chalkboard when Miss Reid entered the room to call everyone to attention so she could take registration. I answered my name when prompted and started to stare at the chalkboard, but I felt like I was looking through the board rather than paying attention to what Miss Reid had been writing once registration had finished.

For the past few days, I had been trying to ignore that the date for us to leave had been getting closer. Evelyn made me realise that we only had two and a half days before we were due to move out and I had yet to even start packing my things. We had two and a half days until we would have to leave Grandfather's house and I knew it would be the last time we saw it. Two and half days until I had to leave him behind. I didn't think I could do that.

Not only that, but I hadn't really noticed how much time had passed since we found out about Grandfather and the sinking. We had already passed two weeks, but that felt like no time at all given everything that had happened in such a short time. Still, it had only been two weeks and yet Mother and Father had both forgotten about Grandfather. I couldn't even remember the last time they mentioned him.

I shook my head a little to shake myself from my thoughts and turned back to Miss Reid as she talked. Even though I tried to focus, I still found myself drifting in and out of what she was saying, mainly because I didn't have the attention span to remember so many dates and pieces of information that came with our history lessons. I welcomed the lunch period.

"Have you spoken to your uncle about being a lawyer?" Evelyn asked.

"Not yet, I haven't seen him. I'll get around to it." I swallowed a small piece of my sandwich. "Do you know what you want to do when we finish school?"

Evelyn shrugged her shoulders. "No idea. I haven't really thought about it."

"Maybe you could do something mathematics-related, it is your favourite subject."

"But what? I haven't heard of too many female mathematicians."

"Mother said something once about Florence Nightingale studying mathematics. She used it to create statistical analysis during the Crimean War which helped to prevent unnecessary deaths on the battlefield."

"How do you remember all that?" She laughed.

"I'm not entirely sure. Useless facts just seem to like me."

Evelyn laughed and took a bite from her apple whilst I continued to shred my sandwich but only ate the smallest pieces of it. Under the table, I flexed my foot and tried to rotate my ankle a few times but I could barely move it at all without causing pain and I had to bite my lip to stop from crying out. Perhaps sitting down wouldn't help my ankle as much as I thought it would.

My boot still felt far too tight around my foot but I knew I couldn't remove it to have a look in the middle of class, I'd have to do it at home. When I went to collect my sandwiches from my satchel, I had to bite down on my tongue to keep from making any reaction. I didn't want anyone to see me limp so I had to grit through the pain and hope no one saw me. By the time I made it back to my desk to sit down, I thought I was going to start crying.

I liked to think I had a high pain threshold, but usually, my injuries would be dealt with by Father not long after they happened. This time I had refused to tell anyone what had happened and so ended up making things worse for myself. If I had told Mrs Smith, I might have been able to get some ice before I left for school. Of course, telling her would mean receiving a lecture about my reckless behaviour and I didn't want another one of those.

"Have you done any preparation for your augment, Miss Ealing?" Miss Read asked just as I wrapped up the remnants of my sandwich.

"We did some work yesterday afternoon," I said. "Actually, could we stay behind when school finishes doing some more work here?"

"Of course, I won't say no to extra studies just as long as you tidy up after yourselves. I'll be here for a little longer myself so I can answer any questions you have."

"Thank you, Miss Reid."

She nodded. "I expect good things from your argument." With that, she turned and walked towards the front of the classroom to call the last few minutes of our lunch break.

"No pressure or anything," Evelyn said.

"Just a small amount, tiny really."

"Absolutely minuscule."

I laughed and crushed the napkin full of sandwiches in my fist. With only a few minutes to go until our afternoon lessons, I gritted my teeth and crossed back to my satchel to deposit the napkin. With every step, the pain in my ankle grew until not even sitting down could help stop the pain. It became a dull throb in the background, but it never went away completely.

Our afternoon lessons were simple with Miss Reid setting us some needlework practice. Despite the soothing nature of the task, I couldn't stay focused with the continuous throb coming from my ankle that refuses to stop for even a moment. My boots crushed around it and I knew that they weren't helping, but I could do nothing about it until I returned home that evening and that wouldn't be for hours.

Since Marsh would be picking me up at the same time that he is due to collect Father, I know I'm going to have to deal with the pain even longer and try not to give myself away. I also had to pray that Marsh said nothing and if he did, that I could cover for it and play it off as nothing. My ankle would heal on its own and I knew it was nothing more than a minor sprain or something, no reason to get him involved.

Uncle Matthew might have claimed that Mother and Father would want to help me, but all they had given me so far was lecture after lecture and I did not want another one of those if I could help it. Mother had proven that much when she had decided to give a lecture about not thinking before I acted before I had even left for school. That didn't feel all that helpful to me.

How could I trust them?

I couldn't.

When the school day finished, the throb still lingered but I continued to ignore it as Evelyn and I started planning my argument for Friday.

"Alright, what should your opening line be? We need something memorable," she said, tapping the end of the chalk on the blackboard.

"I think we should go with the most important part of the argument. The fact that women work, pay taxes, contribute to society and have to follow the laws so we should have the right to vote for them."

"You don't want to run out of material too early. How about we use that, but open up with women who have contributed to life and society. So, Florence Nightingale who you mentioned earlier or Queen Victoria."

"That's going to be a lot to remember." I laughed.

"True, but it means you've done your research and you can lead into the fact that these women all contributed to English society in some way or another. I know Queen Victoria isn't exactly a good example because she was Queen, but Florence Nightingale did a lot of medicine, as you said, but would not be able to vote on whether something like hospital regulations were changed."

"Good point. We can also mention that the Isle of Man already allows women to vote if they own property, which happened in 1881."

Evelyn scribbled it down on the chalkboard and I copied it onto a piece of paper. "Where did you hear that one?"

"Uncle Christopher mentioned it once, he had a case for one of the WUSP passed his desk."

"Not bad. It works in our favour since it proves that women have the vote elsewhere so it is possible to attain."

I nodded. Evelyn and I continued to bounce ideas off one another until we had a better formation of where we were going with the main argument. Miss Reid sat in the corner of the room for some of it and I could see her smile as she watched us figure out where we were going to go with each step of our argument. She seemed rather pleased with it so I had to hope that we were at least heading in the right direction.

When it reached half-past five, Evelyn cleaned off the chalkboard and we made sure to put everything back where we found it. I tucked the sheet of paper into my satchel and swung it up on my shoulder, putting weight onto my ankle but trying my hardest to ignore the pain. Together, we left the school where we said a quick farewell at the gate.

Marsh had already collected Father and he sat in the front seat of the car, drumming his fingers on the door impatiently. I clambered into the back and dropped my satchel onto the seat beside me, watching Evelyn walk away when we pulled away from the curb and drove off from the school gate. On the ride, I continued to roll my ankle, but it still ached. No amount of sitting appeared to make the slightest bit of difference.

For most of the car ride, Father didn't even acknowledge me. I hadn't seen him since my outburst on Sunday and he almost appeared to pretend I wasn't there. Eventually, however, he turned around to face me.

"Why were you late out?" he asked with an accusational tone.

"I stayed behind with Evelyn to do some school work, we have a project to do." I paused. "Before you say anything, Mother knows I'm late because I told her this morning and we had permission to stay in the building."

"She also told me, Sir," Marsh said. I didn't know if he was trying to defend me, but I couldn't help but smile.

"Very well. I just wanted to make sure we wouldn't have a repeat of the last incident."

I rolled my eyes and said nothing. Instead, I watched the city fade into the background as we followed the road towards Grandfather's house. The closer we got, the stronger the small bubble of anxiety and nervousness in my chest became. There would be no Marsh to defend me, not Uncle Matthew. It would just be me, Mother and Father.

The thought of it terrified me.

~~~

A/N - We are back!  Chapter Twenty-Two is here and things aren't getting any better for Izzy... But, we reached 1K reads which is awesome! I love you guys!

Questions! Do you think Izzy should tell her father about her ankle? Is Robert being too harsh on her?

Comment below!

First Published - October 5th, 2021