The Sins of the Fathers

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The Rosen Estate

Sanibel Island

Florida

"Pull a bit harder, Mom...if I don't maintain it, I will be in agony when Miss Klein gets her hands on me again?" Grace sighed as she did the sensible thing and took Brett's annoying advice. Not that he was primarily concerned with her ruining her tight-lacing regime whilst she was at home and paying for it when she was returned to her keeper. Having decided not to travel down to Florida himself, partly due to pressure of work and partly because it might not look great to his bosses, he wanted her to maintain her image as a dutiful gentlewoman as far as possible. Her family background was no secret, but Stuart Stoddart's reputation in Boston and Brett's talents had allowed him to get into BIB, and then she had gone the extra mile to prove herself as a suitably devoted wife. But Brett did not want to ruin all that hard work by her doing her chameleon thing at home, in case someone saw her.

"I understand the corset...you would hurt yourself...but if you are not leaving the estate today, you don't have to wear a gown, Grace?" Brianna said, pulling harder.

"Mom...you are wearing a gown?" Grace panted, trying not to fill up her lungs so that the laces could squash her some more.

"Only to make Caris feel more comfortable..."

"Well, I don't want to make her feel uncomfortable, do I? So...I'll stick to gowns...and if we go out...like to church...I'll have to go the whole hog?"

"Hmm...I don't like the sound of that...how was New York?"

"Super strict...and Olivia was right in the thick of it...Brett saved me from the worst of it really, polishing his slightly liberal credentials...but Howard was so busy sucking up to his clients that Olivia was under discipline the whole time?" Grace moaned, still worrying about her friend as her mother finally tied off the laces.

"She tells me how happy she is in her letters?" Brianna reminded her, and that made Grace sigh again, because she was still getting the same message.

"She says the same thing face to face...she says she is what she is and that she can't help it after spending her whole life being...obedient?"

Brianna helped Grace into her gown, and then Grace helped her, before going downstairs to sit with Caris, who was at prayer. Much to her mother's surprise, Grace decided to join her. Grace had arrived quite late the night before, and had only briefly met their guest, but she knew all about her, of course. She wanted to help Caris just as she felt that she had helped Olivia. And praying in the mornings was becoming a habit for her. Brianna watched her little girl fall to her knees next to Caris, in her red silk gown and tightly corseted waist, wondering what other habits her daughter was falling into.

"Uncle Sean told me so many stories about you, when I was little?" Grace said, an hour or so later, when they were sitting in the drawing room, drinking iced tea and really enjoying the air-conditioning on another blisteringly hot day.

"Did he?" Caris asked, rather shy in front of a stranger, even if she knew that Grace would not be a stranger for long. She was being treated as a part of the Palmer family, and she knew that Grace would help her mother fuss over her. Not that she minded being fussed over, as it kept her mind off the past, and the future.

"He tried to get you drunk once, at some do, for instance...and so you drank him under the table...he said he could hardly walk and you were still drinking on?" Grace said, trying to remember the details and looking at Brianna for help.

"Not just any do...it was Imogen's wedding...you remember Imogen, Caris?"

"Of course...very well," Caris whispered, trying to see Imogen on her wedding day, rather than Imogen on her death day. Imogen had been mentally ill, driven mad by the horrors of life in the Order, and quite unable to work, so she was one of the Sisters transferred to the Winstanley Priory for termination, on the instructions of Mother Bernadette. It was not a fast process. She had not been allowed to waste drugs on the condemned, so they were simply denied food and water and given regular beatings, or smothered if Bernadette wanted some fun, which she usually did if anyone lasted too long. All Caris could see when she tried to think of Imogen was her lying on a filthy cot, strapped down, just fading away, just like her mother before her. "It was a beautiful day...and then Sean was sick over my shoes...and the bottom of my dress...right after telling me that he loved me?"