Alyson Way (closed)

[Sweet_Secrets]

Knowing there wasn’t much she could do to stop her Uncle; she stepped aside in defeat and watched him go to where Jarvis was. She only hoped her Uncle wouldn’t hurt him. Surely not! He was only trying to make her happy, give her a ray of light rather than let her stay in that crushing, depressing manor. Her sharp eyes saw how Jarvis trembled when her Uncle sat next to him and the two started to talk. Not wanting to sit anymore, since she knew they would be leaving now, she stood there and did her best ignoring the stares people were giving to her thanks to her status and her state right now.

She was used to people staring, God knows she was. What she wasn’t used to was worrying about the fate of another because of her stupidity. Finally, her Uncle came back to her after shaking hands with Jarvis. Her Uncle went to her, his eyes holding some sort of light she could not pinpoint again, and said:

"We are going to now girl," he told her matter of factly, not expecting an argument from her about this, and was now offering her his arm so she could hold it like the well bred woman she was supposed to be so they would walk together in a polite, high-class fashion.

Pfffft, she could not help but think when he did that for her. The arched eyebrow she gave to him and cool, insultingly insolent look she shot at im also showed her thoughts. He was expecting her to act like a lady after this? Really? If she was a proper lady, she wouldn’t be here wouldn’t she?

She looked at him for a long, quite second, wondering what was wrong, and she turned around, looking at Jarvis to quietly ask him about his opinion on this and saw him just standing there… Looking at her with sadness he was trying to hide as the pub continued to stay in a deadly silence. That set the alarm bells in her head. The girl was wondering why he wasn’t following her. He wasn’t going to drive the cart himself, will he? She couldn’t imagine it so why wasn’t Jarvis going up to them or—

Then it punches her in the gut, making her realize the gravity of the situation. The pieces of the puzzle were slotted in place and she got it now: Jarvis got fired and it was her fault he no longer had a job. It was because she was obviously miserable at the Manor and he was just trying to cheer her up. He had lost his job over this one mistake when he no doubt did his best, even if he was a cheeky one, for her Uncle for years and years. No one else would do this, she was sure of that. Her own mother, a harpy with a temper that was delicate as rice paper from the Orient, hadn’t fired their maid when the woman had done the same thing and brought Alyson with her to the marketplace!

If her mother wasn’t going to do something her Uncle had done, it spoke something… Her heart beat harder when she thought those thoughts and also thought that her Auntie Katherine wouldn’t do this at all. If anything, her Auntie would laugh it off and brush it aside, saying ‘Do no more’ and give a light scolding about the importance of informing the elders and such. This was a foolish thing to do, she will admit that, but did it truly allow someone to be stripped of their job, their only income?

It was just a bloody mistake and Jarvis was going to be punished for that?

This wasn’t fair. Not at all. She looked up at him, glaring openly at the man her Auntie fell in love with and the girl could not help but wonder why her Auntie had fallen in love with someone like this.

“No,” Alyson said to her Uncle, backing away from him and shaking her head in disgust. Her voice was loud and clear, sharp as a knife in that sliced through the thick, thick tension that hung in the air of the pub. “I will not go with you until you promise me Jarvis comes with us and he is still part of the household. I said it was my fault! Don’t you dare pin this on him you… you… you big bully! You won’t do anything to me because my parents would get mad at you but Jarvis can’t do anything so of course you punish him for it. It just isn’t fair to him! He’s my friend and he’s being a bloody better host than you so far.”

At her last words, people took a collective intake of air and the men looked ready to jump up and restrain Daniel in case he lost it there and tried to attack Alyson for her impudence. This was a sight, no doubt! A well bred lady telling off her elder to defend a fired servant. How very, very odd. Then again, she wouldn’t by Alyson Way if she wasn’t an odd duck no?

 

[DeeperWater]

Daniel was dumbstruck at the girl's effrontery. This was beyond anything she had do before. He had behaved more than honorably toward Jarvis. By all rights he should have sent him away without a letter of recommendation, much less tanned his hide. He might even be within his rights to charge him with kidnapping. Now the girl was telling him how things would be and threatening him with retaliations from her mother?

Daniel debated his course of action and was struck that none of them were desirable. He would be within his rights to simply spank the girl here and now, like the ill-tempered child she acted. He could simply drag her back to the house and lock her in her room, but she would probably keep cursing and screaming, which was not acceptable, or simply escape. He could send her packing and stick her back on a train to her mum, which seemed like a good option at the moment. None of them erased the further public humiliation she had caused him. While he no longer cared what the world though, the world left him along. She had drawn him back into the world and he did not like it, one bloody bit.

Finally, he hissed at her. "Frankly my girl, I do not believe your dear mother gives a tinker's fart what happens to you! She sent you to me like one throws out a broken toy one is tired with, and tosses in onto the rubbish heap. You were broken, so she sent you where the broken things are left to die!" He was speaking as quietly as he could, trying to retain some dignity, but in his heart he was screaming.

"Now you can go crawling back to your mother, beg her forgiveness and see just how far the quality of mercy is strained. Do not show up at my door again, expecting to be treated with respect and hospitality! Hospitality is extended to those I desire as guests, and not those who sneak of dressed like a boy, involve a good lad in their nefarious plottings and defame my character in the public square. If you decide to show up again at my door you will either act like the Christian young woman that you obviously are not and allow your former suitor to court you, or you will be treated like the common, course, lower being you appear to be, and be put to work in the kitchen as the new scullery maid!"

Without waiting for a reply, and ignoring any responses she might make, he turn his tail and marched away, back toward the house.

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Jarvis stood in the door of the pub, hat in hand, and wondered how the day had gone so very wrong. He had never intended any harm, and though it all a harmless lark. The girl was so lonely and miserable in the gloomy crypt that was the manor house. The Daniel of old would never had handled matter this way. Jarvis couldn't blame anyone but himself, for he was responsible, but he mourned the death of someone he had once loved, who had thrown himself into his wife's grave, like an Indian widow of old committing sati. The whole matter was a great bloody mess, to be sure. He stepped out to the doorway, unsure of what to do next.

 

[Sweet_Secrets]

“Fine!” Alyson said as he marched out of the pub like the bloody, pompous arse he was. “If I have to work as a scullery maid, I’ll be a scullery maid!”

A person, okay people, nearby her looked honestly shocked and about to have a heart attack at her words. She puffed her cheeks and glared at his retreating back, crossing her arms in stubbornness as the door was slammed by him and made the pictures on the walls rattled. As if that was supposed to intimidate her, she thought. Her mother had thrown enough tantrums and fits at her home that she had become desensitized by such actions.

Like the idea of hard work would frighten her! She could work for her stay in the Manor until her parents got tired of waiting for her to submit to their stubbornness and let her come back. It had happened before, her parents just getting tired of her to bend to their will, and it’ll happen again. She scowled at his direction and stuck out her tongue, glad that old… lonely… clearly depressed man was out of her sight and… Alyson sighed, planting her hands on her hips and tilting her head a bit. Great she felt remorse now after Uncle Dan had left. Brilliant.

Fine. Maybe she could have had more tact when it came to making her message clear. It was why she was here in the first place, after all. She had shot down Ronald White in front of everyone in the ball and loudly stated her reasons. Not that she regretted that choice but Uncle Dan was clearly just a lonely, sad person. Her mother always complained how he kept Auntie Katherine all to himself in the Manor when Auntie Katherine moved in with him, not that her mother did anything but complain about that, and how he never seem interested in meeting other people. Auntie Katherine must have been his constant companion when she was still alive.

She wasn’t going to change her opinion on his bullying, though! She just wished she could change how she stated that opinion. The young girl rubbed her neck, huffing. No sense in moping about it and hoping it’ll change just like that. If wishes her horses, she’ll have a ranch at this point. Now, she had nothing but a mess that she needed to clean this up. A bit of elbow grease never scared her before, did it? Nope. Huffing, she slapped the cap back over her head and marched out of the pub, her head held high and her bright blue eyes unflinching in their steely quality.

“Hurry Jarvis!” she called out to her friend as she headed back to the Manor. “If we’re going to get my stuff out of the rooms and into the Servants’ Quarters, we’ll need all the time we need.”

------------------------------------------​

“What are you doing, Miss Way?” Mrs. McDougall asked her, clearly confused as she watched the girl drag her things out of her rooms. The woman knew something was wrong when Master Redmond stormed back into the Manor under such a dark cloud that both she and Edmund steered clear of him until he asked for something. It only increased when Alyson came back, wearing boy’s clothings , and went upstairs and started to drag her things out of her rooms.

Stopping to explain herself, and to fix her pants since they had wiggled loosely around her hips, Alyson said, “Getting out of the rooms, of course. Uncle Dan said unless I’m willing to bend to his will, after I had a fight with him of course, I have to work as a scullery maid to earn my keep here.” The girl shook her head and raised her finger, stopping the woman from talking yet. “If I say sorry, it means I have to be a ‘Christian woman’ that, as he had said, I’m ‘obviously am not’ and let that fool White court me! Ugh. That will not happen. So, I’ll be going to the Servants’ Quarters and will get to work ASAP. Oh, and here’s a letter to my uncle. Sorry it’s smudge a lot, I used some charcoal I picked up from a man when going here.”

The letter read:

Dear Uncle Dan,

I want to apologize. How I said my words to you at the pub was very rude and not polite at all. You are right in that aspect. However – I’m not willing to change my opinion itself. I’m apologetic of how I said it but not what I said. I am sticking to my opinion on how you reacted to Jarvis there.

Right now, I am dragging my things out of my rooms since I will be your new scullery maid and scullery maids don’t have nice rooms of their own. I’ll try my best to earn my keep.

Alyson

 

[DeeperWater]

Daniel sat in his study with the letter in his hand. He crushed in before putting his head in his hands. What was he supposed to do. He hadn't expected such stubborness, but he should have. It really did not do to have his relative scrubbing pots, but the damned girl was so stubborn that he knew she would. Whatever his mother intended, she did not intend that. She had hated him, and told him so, for stealing her sister to the country. Why had she sent her daughter to him as well?

He was also aware that he was at fault. The girl had been dumped into a house of death, even though she was so young and vibrant. She was so much like his Katherine, and yet not. Katherine had been quiet. She had loved her garden and spent her days planting and weeding. It have given him joy to sit watching her, or to lend a hand. Alyson had more energy though. He could imagine her on a swing or a horse, but not spending hours gardening.

He cried softly, for the first time in a very long time. He did not cry long, but it was a small break in the wall around his heart. He needed to find Jarvis and he needed to talk with his niece. He would not force an unwanted union on her, though he would encourage her to reconsider. He had not wanted her here, but if she was willing to lower herself to coarse labor, than she must be deserate. Katherine had loved her. Katherine would have been ashamed of him today.

A figure in white stood behind him and cried with him.