“They are not marbles, Father,” she said, her exasperation rising by several notches. “They are minerals. Minerals.” She’d expect a collector of fine marble pieces would appreciate the difference and, at the very least, respect her collection.
“Yes, well, do have a care with them. Your aunt Leslie nearly shattered her neck on several pieces you left out.”
Her heart fell. Left out? She’d had them in the Corner Parlor, that room so aptly named for its placement at the end of the townhouse that provided glass windows throughout and offered views in three different directions of London, and also light enough to examine those stones her brother Arran had given her right before he’d made his first journey abroad. “Did she break them?”
“Why don’t you run along and see,” her father suggested, his tone more hopeful than suggestive.
Run along and see . . .
As though she were a child.
She may as well have been for all the attention they paid her.
After all, every Englishwoman knew the only person less heard and seen in the world than a woman was a child.
She should go. She should just leave as they wished and see to her minerals. “They were in the Corner Parlor,” she said as patiently as she could manage, unable to leave.
“And?” her mother asked distractedly as she packed several hair combs in that rapidly filling bag.
“Annnd the room is in abject disrepair.” It was also one of the reasons those rooms had forever been her favorite. When Myrtle wished to avoid the natural noise that came from an enormous family whose every member had made it their life goal to needle her about something, she escaped there.
Except she inadvertently provided her mother an opening. “Which is why we’ve builders and are leaving for Christmas. Now run along and see to your marbles.”
“Minerals,” she said, her annoyance mounting. “They are minerals.” And she wasn’t a blasted child anymore.
Alas, it mattered not whether she’d managed to score the Regent Diamond; her parents had already forgotten her and gone back to packing her belongings.
As though she were a child who could not see to her own things.
Though in fairness, she’d never had any intention of packing her jewelry. She’d never had much interest in or need for shiny baubles to wear. To study. Yes. To don. No.
“And why, if we aren’t celebrating the holidays as we usually do, must they join us?” she insisted.
Her mother gasped. “They?” She touched a hand to her chest. “Do not be rude. The people whom you refer to as ‘they’ are, in fact, your family.”
“How ironic that you think I should require that reminder,” she shot back. “I’ve been all but ignored since I’ve arrived from Mrs. Belden’s.” She curled her toes into the soles of her slippers, wanting to call back those words, which revealed too much. Words that made her look like the child they’d always treated her as.
And hating that she should so care that they’d both sent her away so easily, and that no one had seemed to either notice or care that she’d returned.
“Tsk. Tsk. You’re not forgotten, lovey,” her father said in a matter-of-fact way, as if in so doing he made that statement somehow true.
“Dear heart . . . would you please help me carry this piece to Myrtle’s valise?”
With that request from her mother, however, in a great show of irony, Myrtle was once more truly and completely forgotten.
Gritting her teeth, she quit her chambers and found herself lost amidst a sea of servants racing and rushing about.
Heading down to the foyer, Myrtle went in search of those fine stones her brother Arran had given her. He’d insisted all people should have some artifact special to them.
All the while, she attempted to breathe deeply and calm her fury and outrage, because fury and outrage had only ever landed her in more trouble.
Why did she still allow herself to forget her role within her family?
She was not so self-absorbed that she didn’t realize her big, loving family was one most of the young ladies she’d attended finishing school with would have traded their left waltzing arm for. But she was just selfish enough to wish that they wished to have her about. That they cared enough to remember this was her favorite time of the year, because they were a family together.
Her exuberant ways had seen her sent off to finishing school. But the Christmastide Season proved the one exception. With a family gathering that continued on for days, the festivities were a grand, jubilant affair. It was the one time when she was accepted, and when the high-spiritedness that had gotten her sent away was permitted. For an all-too-brief few days, she, the odd piece, found herself sliding her way back into the multifarious puzzle that was the McQuoid family.
Myrtle firmed her jaw.
And if that hadn’t mattered to them, then she’d at least have expected—hoped—they’d remember her birthday was in just a few days, and she’d soon be a woman married and off on her own, and then her time, the memories she’d created in this household, would be just that—memories, not moments that she was part of.
Myrtle reached the bottom of the stairs, where the butler now spoke with a pair as different as days: one fellow stocky and short with beady eyes, the other tall, lankier in frame, and with a cap that fought desperately to constrain the wild mane of crimson curls atop his head. She’d never seen hair that shade of fire.
While the shorter fellow spoke with Hanes, the other periodically nodded and took notes but remained largely silent in the exchange. The two put her in mind of a lion and a badger.
“Mr. Phippen was asking whether the family’s plans to vacate remain the same . . . ?” the short one asked.
“Ah, yes. Please inform Mr. Phippen they’ve since moved up their plans and will remain gone over the next two months.”
“Mr. Phippen,” she muttered. She’d be glad to never again hear that blasted name.
At least Mr. Phippen was enjoying the benefit of her family’s focus.
The lanky fellow who’d gone silent as Hanes spoke did an assessing sweep of the foyer and the halls beyond and above; there was a keen intent to his study, his eyes lingering briefly upon the marble busts sitting on various pedestals throughout. That collection of rare stone her father had inherited from his father’s father’s father, valuable artifacts to which he’d only added over the years. Surely her father knew they were coveted for their worth and in need of greater looking after . . . than whatever this haphazard madness was.
Just then, that hard gaze locked briefly on Myrtle.
She paused, something cold in his eyes stopping her briefly in her tracks. A glimmer of greed and . . .
He smiled.
That grin reached his eyes, and he tipped the brim of a small cap before going back to whatever it was that trio now spoke about.
Frowning slightly, Myrtle gave her head a shake.
She was in danger of being the fanciful, imaginative creature her family had always teased her for being.
Though if she were being mature in the moment, she could acknowledge it was hardly the builder’s fault her family had chosen Christmastide as the time for him to oversee the renovations.
Myrtle made a purposeful path for the Corner Parlor to retrieve those stones from Arran, a traveler extraordinaire, who’d been not rushed off to finishing school but instead allowed to explore the world in search of extraordinary artifacts, and who returned to the adoring praise and interest of all their family.