Saints and Sinners

Chapter Four

February 2065

Riverside Mansions

Meadvale

Surrey

Stephanie Balcombe watched almost dispassionately as her grandmother received a severe auto-punishment at the end of their morning devotions. She was rather surprised that anyone could fail to reach the new movement standards, which had been reduced after the President's intervention had made everyone perform much better, because every single Daughter of Eve had surely learned from that awful experience. Stephanie had received two auto-punishments during that stressful time, which were doubled by her keeper, Miss Brown, and that had been more than enough to raise her game. But her grandmother was getting old, she supposed, and her father had always said that Caroline Blackstone was overindulged when Mrs Slade was her keeper. She was making such an embarrassing fuss, and disturbing everyone.

"Stephanie...it is rude to stare?" Miss Brown snapped as she stepped around Caroline, who seemed to be writhing around in a most inelegant way that would certainly earn her further discipline. Stephanie thought such behaviour was rather common.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Brown," Stephanie replied, hanging her head in deference to her keeper as she had been exquisitely trained to do. At just sixteen years old, she was a genuine renaissance girl, born to parents who had little or no memory of before and raised from the cradle to be a pious and obedient Daughter of Eve. Her father had been just seven when the revolution began and her mother barely five months old, and Stephanie, her sister Penelope and her brother Ben had no shadows of the past hanging over them.

"Come with me...there is no room in here?" Miss Brown said, helping Stephanie stand and then guiding her around her grandmother and out into the hallway.

"Yes, Miss Brown." She responded, obeying her leash, holding her mittened hands before her body with the skirts of her tweed travelling gown swirling around her legs. They had been driven down early, partly so that they would arrive in time to offer their devotions and partly so that her father could catch his flight to Boston. She was expecting to be changed as soon as their prayers were done.

"Stand here, Stephanie...keep still...and remember your place?" Miss Brown commanded as she tethered her youngest charge to one of two rings screwed to the wall beside the front door. Stephanie rightly presumed that the rings were for securing her grandmother and Mrs Slade whilst their keepers got them in or out of their outdoor garments.

"Yes, Miss Brown...thank you, Miss Brown." She murmured, looking down at the ring as she was facing the wall, her nose just inches from the plaster. Miss Brown just wanted her out of the way, as the drawing room was a little small for five Daughters of Eve to kneel on the floor, especially when one of them was rolling around on the carpet. She fully expected someone else to join her, as there was a second ring to use, and just moments later, she heard someone moving behind her.

"Wait here with Stephanie, Diane...you may talk, but quietly, please?" Miss Doyle said as she tethered Mrs Slade to the spare ring.

"Yes, Miss Doyle...thank you, Miss Doyle." Diane said as her keeper hurried back into the drawing room, before glancing at Stephanie. "How are you, Stephanie?"

"Very well, thank you, Mrs Slade...it is nice to see you again?"

"We didn't get much of a chance to talk at Christmas...you have grown up so fast?"

"Miss Brown seems generally pleased with me, Ma'am?" Stephanie replied, glancing at the former Miss Walker, who looked quite respectable in a dark blue, pin-striped gown, and not at all like a failed keeper. She was not at all sure that a former keeper was a suitable wife for anyone, or that her grandfather's friendship with Mr Slade was quite proper, but her father had suggested that they stay in Meadvale. And there were things that she had heard that made her want to talk to Mrs Slade. "Is it true that you and Grandmama are on friendly terms with Lady Osborne, Ma'am?"