Chapter 5: The Social Climbers
He brought me back to my Aunts and uncles house in New York. Their house was one of the first to be built in the town. The home had its own picket fence and garden. Plus many apple trees were grown in the fields of the property and tulips from the motherland.
The servant Delilah was the one to greet us. She was a frail young woman who is a survivor of a horrible disease which has left her scarred. She left without saying anything.
The house was decorated colonial style with a two fire places, several paintings, one of my aunt, and several of the both of them, and well built furnishings made in this town. As well as china from England.
My aunt and uncle were conversing with the Scottish general. My mother was with them.
"Mother? I am back." I said coming out from behind her.
"Helene! What have you done?... Thank you so much for returning my daughter to her family, Mr. Cormac." My mom started with me and ended with the fearless crusader.
"If this serves the greater, there is no need to thank me." He said respectively to my mother.
"So how are your daughters? General Munro?" I asked the man sitting in a chair next to the stone fire place.
"They are doing fine, Miss Van Brynn." He replied politely. "Your father was a genius and an enterprising man of great knowledge and determination, His loss was a loss to us all, our cause, but even greater for his own family."
I nodded with equal respect: "Your recognition is most heart felt in the core of my soul."
The younger sister of my father calls herself Greta Van Brynn and her husband is actually an English William Hamish Slade. A contradictory man of a sudden sugary fortune after the deaths of his three older brothers in the last war. Before that he wanted to live a life of a poet but fate contracted that too. While for Greta she is quite obsolete and had a practical and plain life. By the paintings she still looks the same as she was when she was ten years old: A dutch styled braid and a dimple smile but now much older and twice as ignorant.
"Helene, You foolish woman. You almost gave your poor old mother a heart attack." Greta patronized me from behind her hand fan.
"How did you find out who took me?" I requested putting the prism on the coffee table.
"Almost a week ago: We were informed by a rather repulsive figure. The kind of low dweller who hangs out at taverns and gets immensely drunk." William foretold using the fork to turn the fire wood.
"I was gone for THAT long?"
"Yes, You were." Greta claimed.
"So, Where are my brothers and sisters?" I asked.
"They are in their studies. Best not to disturb them." William remarked taking a tea cup from the tray on the coffee table.
I left them and returned to my mother: "Did they do anything to you? Rape you or torture you?"
"No, Mother, They didn't." I claimed honestly.
"That is good." She hugged me almost crying. "That would be horrible and scarring..."
"Shay, Did you kill Daniel Crackerhouse the mouse? The hooded assassin who dresses like a bum?" I hoped his answer would be yes.
"He escaped without a fight by jumping into the river waters. Back with the assassins Daniel is a beginner who has been lucky in his pursuits in against the Templers." He explained frankly.
"Oh, I see the mouse has survival instincts." I felt disappointed. Predictable that Daniel would run away instead of fighting and being killed. What a coward! "Still, I myself have not thanked you formally. If it wasn't for you I would still be with that mouse and probably dead by now. Thank you so much!" I nodded.
"It all is due to the quick thinking of General Munro and your family, My part was a vary small part of it."
Greta took my arm and lead me away: "Let's get you in some better clothes."
"As such?"
"A corset, a pretty dress, make up and jewelry." She noted as we went up stairs.
"A corset? Are you trying to kill me by suffocation or rupturing my organs?" I stopped in defiance. "I have seen some women with deformed waistlines because of corsets!"
"God, Helene! Beauty is pain! Do you want to grow older and became a spinster haggard?" Greta detested. "Don't say it won't happen or will not be horrible because it will."
"Yes, Because you almost became one." I chuckled.
Greta sneered: "Yes, A lady of a few outlets to the world like myself is in a direct path to spinsterhood, Unless she puts effort to work out her charms on eligible feeble minded men. That lady will be you."
"Who said all men have feeble mines?"
She began to giggle: "You are jousting right?"
"I must be an ignorant fool." I remarked dramaticly. Trying to act like Greta.
An idea came to Greta's mind: "After we get you dressed. I will bring you out into the city and we will go to the bookstore. Delilah! Please help me with this ignorant woman!"
Delilah agreed and followed Greta. The unexpected thing was that my young aunt treated her servant like her best friend. Because of her social climbing tendency. Greta stirred most of her old lady friends away in order to live a luxurious life style with a richer husband. The price to pay for riches was her happiness and friends.
Greta and her husband's room was unexpectedly simple. The walls were white and the wood floor had a large ottoman carpet. A cosmetic desk with a mirror. A bed with soft pillows and blankets. A closet and a bucket. Windows with drapes.
I was dressed in a magnolia colored satin dress with, bodice, fake flowers, embroidery, ribbons, and lace. Lastly heeled shoes. Delilah styled my hair and tied a flowered bonnet around my head.
"You look beautiful, Lady Helene." Delilah said finishing her master piece.
"You are an artist." I hugged her.
"Now let's prim up our dear Delilah."
After dressing up. We headed out into the city. We entered into the corner bookstore and my aunt spoke to the man at the desk. He gave her five books and we sat in two chairs.
She gave me a book that had nasty pictures. "Uhm, What is this?"
"Oh, Sorry. That one is for me..." She gave me another book.
"A self help book?" I said to Greta.
"Helene, You need it. Your many current dilemmas demand it." She claimed looking down at the picture book.
"I can talk to people just finely without being judgemental." I assured myself and Greta in a way."Wait... Is someone watching us?" I looked out the window.
Greta agreed:"We have protection... Don't worry."