Miss Prior - Book #1

Chapter 5

The house wasn't lit very well. A single candle flame in the farthest corner provided the only slither of light. The place was small, only a room filled the entire first floor, inside was one low-set bed, a stove that looked as if it had seen better years and a small chamber pot lay by the bed. Three children lay in the bed, all squashed against each other on the cramped mattress. A woman lay beside the stove, a blanket tugged over her. Mollie assumed that the woman could have been Sandy.

"Come on," The sharp whisper lured Mollie further into the room. "Upstairs." She followed, being extra cautious of the people sleeping just a metre or two away.

Ada's room was no bigger. It had a small mattress on the floor and the same basic features as the room below. She couldn't help but notice it was a complete change from how she was living back at home. Mollie wondered how the transition was for her. The room slowly lit up as Ada turned up the gas light. It was terribly drab.

Ada turned to her. "I came down here with quite a bit of money so I could afford a room to myself. I had nothing left seven months later. Now, I barely scrape by. Tom is lovely, he gave me a job. But, I don't get enough money to pay for the rent and properly feed myself." She spoke everything that Mollie was wanting to hear. Yet, she stayed silent, looking at her sister with sympathy present in her eyes.

She sighed. "So, how did you find me?" Mollie raised her eyebrows at the question. "It can't be a coincidence you just happened to walk into that place."

Shrugging, Mollie stared at her feet. "It was a hunch, I guess."

Ada laughed. She wasn't stupid, Mollie knew that. Yet, she somehow seemed to try her hand at deception whenever she could. It almost never worked. Of course, there was the rare and unique occasion when it did work. Those happened very scarcely. "Liar." Mollie only smiled and shrugged.

"I wish I could explain it all to you, Ada. I really do." She crossed the room to put her bag underneath the window. "But I cannot tell you what I don't even know myself." Ada bit her lip, wringing her hands together. Mollie sighed.

The view outside the window she was now stood at was obscured. Though it may be better to say that there was no view at all. Another building was in such close proximity that the two may as well have been connected. She wondered if there was any point for the window at all. Lifting two apprehensive fingers, she lightly ran them over the window ledge. A small layer of dust lay on her fingers. Quietly, she studied it for a few moments, then blowing and wiping it away.

A frown crawled its way onto the face of Ada. "Anything wrong with my window that you'd care to tell me?"

"No, no. Nothing at all. Just-" She paused, the right explanation not coming to mind as easily as she would have preferred. "Another hunch?"

The scoff that followed ran through Mollie's head for minutes afterwards. It was frustrating. The feeling of not being believed or even ridiculed for something she was trying her damndest to make some sense of, really seemed to mess with her head profusely. Deep down, she knew Ada meant nothing of it. Never once had she been truly hostile. Though, from memory, Ada wasn't the best at understanding. Nor was she the warmest of people. But Molie knew Ada, and even after three years, she still was the same. From a first glance, at least.

"What?"

Ada sat down on the small seat she had. It was the exact same as her boss had back at the bar. Mollie guessed that she had been given it. Or it was stolen. That definitely wasn't beneath her. "Hunches aren't a thing." She noted Mollie's tilted head as she said that. "Don't try and argue with me. I know I'm right."