174 Carriage of Death
When they reached the carriage stop, the carriage arrived on time. Rosetta said to Eve,
“Wait! Let me come with you.”
“Will it be alright?” Eve didn’t want Rosetta or herself to get into trouble. The vampiress quickly nodded and said,
“I don’t think it should be a problem with me going and spending time with my friend, right?” And saying it, she quickly turned to look behind her, while Eve pulled out her little pouch and offered coins to the coachman for two persons to ride in the carriage.
Though Eve stepped into the carriage and took her seat, Rosetta didn’t get inside. She looked back and forth, not behind her, but at the carriage that had ‘only’ two horses, and the terrible woodwork of the carriage, which wasn’t like the carriage she was used to riding in.
The coachman asked her, “Are you getting inside, Miss?”
“Yes, I am,” Rosetta tipped her chin up in pride, but she couldn’t get herself to step foot on the carriage.
Eve noticed Rosetta struggle in wanting and not wanting to get on the carriage. For the young mistress to still be considering it only meant how much she wanted to get away from her parents’ scoldings about the failed alliance with the Moriarty family.
“Are you okay, Rosetta?” Eve asked in concern because she knew that a young woman like Rosetta had never used the local transportation.
Rosetta nodded, “I am fine. I just need some fresh air.”
The coachman waited a few seconds before reminding her, “Miss?”
“Yes! Yes! I am going!” Rosetta snapped at the coachman, sending a small glare toward him. Her father owned better carriages that all had four horses attached to it, unlike this carriage in front of her. The coachman was supposed to feel grateful that a person like her was even near it and planning to travel in it.
There were already two people in there along with Eve, and she wondered how she could share such a small space with many people… people who came from the lower society.
Eve placed her things to the side and offered Rosetta her hand. The vampiress looked startled at Eve’s gesture when her friend stretched her hand forward,
“Why don’t you hold my hand and it won’t be that hard,” Eve assured her.
Rosetta hesitantly placed her hand in Eve’s hand and finally stepped inside the carriage. With her dress which had many layers, it took quite a few seconds before she finally settled down next to Eve. She made her hair proper so that she still looked like a member of the elite family.
“See, it wasn’t that hard. You did well,” Eve praised Rosetta, whose cheeks tinted pink in pride as if she had crossed mountains to be next to her friend.
But when Rosetta turned to look at the other two passengers in the carriage, they stared at her, giving her curious looks. This made the vampiress glare back like a child, making the two of them look away.
Rosetta looked at the cramped space and leaned toward Eve. She whispered, “How do you travel in this small box?”
Eve couldn’t help but smile at Rosetta’s innocence. She replied, “You get used to it. It isn’t bad and you meet different people every day, sometimes familiar people.”
“That’s good?” Rosetta furrowed her eyebrows.
“In a way yes,” Eve nodded, “Life isn’t as mundane as it usually is.”
“I could never see it that way,” Rosetta’s eyes were wide, which looked at the broken ceiling of the carriage.
Every bump created by a stone or puddle on the ground worried the young woman as if the carriage would fall apart at any moment, mainly because the carriage creaked way more than it normally did. She wondered if this would be her last ride, and she clutched her dress as if it were her life.
When the carriage finally reached the Meadow town, the coachman opened the carriage for the passengers to step down, and Rosetta was the first one to jump out. She walked away from the carriage of death to take some deep breaths.
Eve let the other two passengers step down from the carriage before she got down. She saw Rosetta had turned her back and was looking at the town. At the same time, one of the passengers, who was a woman Eve was familiar with, asked,
“How is your work going on, Genevieve? I heard that families from high society pay their people well.”
Eve offered a polite smile and replied, “It has been going wonderful so far, and I guess one could say that. How was your trip to your sister’s house?”
“Just the usual. Teaching young girls about etiquette is hard, especially when all they want to do is play. Only if I could afford you,” the woman laughed, hoping Eve would find time to help her nieces.
“I would have loved to teach them but unfortunately I am busy. I have been helping in the repair of the house,” said Eve, and the woman nodded.
“I heard that you are having a new flooring done,” the woman’s eyes brightened as she said that. “You should get the garden redone too.”
Eve softly laughed and said, “I don’t think Aunt Aubrey would be happy losing the old plants. She loves them dearly, as her own children.”
“Oh, hush now!” The woman waved her hand and said, “What children, when you are there with her.” Her eyes then moved to look at Rosetta, who had walked around the carriage to look at the wheels that had almost killed her. The woman lowered her voice and asked, “Where did you find that unique piece?” She laughed at the end.
“Unique piece?” Eve raised her eyebrows, and the woman jerked her head in the vampiress’s direction.
“That arrogant girl with you. It’s strange to see you in a company like that. Very unlike you.”
Though Rosetta wasn’t in their direct view and her ears weren’t the best, she did catch the conversation between Eve and the woman. The vampiress took a step forward and peeked from behind the other side of the carriage.
The vampiress couldn’t help but ponder over the woman’s words. She heard Eve ask softly,
“Why would you think that?”
The woman waved her hand again, “You don’t have to be polite with me and can tell me the truth. A girl like her, especially a vampiress will only look down at us. That is what she was doing in the carriage as if we were some insects. I could tell just by one look that she is nothing like you, and is prude and arrogant. Snobbish might I add.”
Rosetta gritted her teeth, ready to pounce on the woman for having the nerve to say such things.
Eve smiled and said, “She’s a lovely woman once you know her.”
“You are too kind, Genevieve. Not to mention tolerant about such things,” said the woman and whispered, “I have met plenty of spoiled young mistresses like this, who think they can look down, when they don’t know how to earn their own shilling. Having someone force themselves on you must be a burden, who then reflects badly on you.”
Rosetta wondered if this was true, and her heart sank, her face turning small. She turned her back even though she stood behind the carriage. She wasn’t fit to be anyone’s friend… Nobody liked her. Her hands clenched while her eyes turned smaller.
“I think you are the only one thinking that way, Lady Nadia,” Eve’s words were ever polite that didn’t go up and down, and she said, “Rosetta isn’t arrogant but innocent in a few ways. Most of us have the habit of keeping it within ourselves, while she openly expresses it without hesitation. I think that is a quality to look for, isn’t it? At least we know what the person feels, that harbours ill feelings towards others and then complains about it to someone else.”
The vampiress’s eyes widened at Eve’s kind words for her, and her hands unclenched.
The woman huffed with a smile, “That’s because she comes from a wealthy family. People from wealthy families are often forgiven for their behaviour. In general.”
“Maybe,” agreed Eve, and she said, “But I would feel better if you don’t hold my friend to be one of them. Unless you think I have poor choices of people I talk to.”
“Of course not dear!” Lady Nadia placed her hand on Eve’s shoulder. “I will see you tomorrow then,” the two women offered their bows while Rosetta stepped away from the carriage and came into view.
Eve and Rosetta headed towards the house.
Mr. Humphrey had decided to speak to Eve on what she meant by calling a handsome and amiable man as ‘brother’. He wasn’t too far from the carriage stopped, now hid behind a wall. The man cursed his luck, not knowing why this vampiress was hanging around Eve. It seemed like he would have to wait again.
Rosetta felt comfortable and at ease in Dawson’s small house. Not because she was away from her parents’ scoldings but because Eve had stood up for their friendship, which made her chest puff in happiness.
Twenty-five minutes had passed since Eve had reached home, and from the kitchen, she saw Rosetta speak to her aunt while she and Eugene were in the kitchen. And as peaceful as the atmosphere was, someone knocked on the door.
“I will go see,” Eve informed Eugene, who was preparing tea for everyone.
She walked to the door and opened when she saw a woman with a fur coat standing in front of her. The woman’s eyes were longer at the sides, and her eyebrows thin while she sized Eve.
“How can I help you?” Eve’s words were polite with a smile.
“Rosetta,” the woman called.
Rosetta jumped from her seat and quickly appeared next to Eve. She looked stunned and asked,
“M-mother, what are you doing here…?”
Eugene peeked from the kitchen while Lady Aubrey got up from her chair and walked to the front of the house. When the older human’s eyes fell on the vampiress, her eyes slightly widened and her body stiffened.