Chapter nine.

Myself, Daniel and Clara arrived back home by midday. My younger siblings were delighted to see us. Gwen practically threw herself at me, her curls bouncing in the wind. I was not in the mood for smiling. I tried to act happy to see her but in my heart I was too drained to try. It was finally hitting me that Sir Henry, the kind, fair man who I worked for, for the last three years, was gone. I knew my grief could never match Ella's, I could not imagine losing a parent like that, but I was quite fond of the master, and it upset me that he had died.

We walked through the door, our heads hanging low. My mother turned around, surprised, and looked at us confused. We placed down our bags, and began to explain the events of last night and this morning. She didn't say a word, but when we were done, she stood up and wrapped her arms around us.

'Oh my dears, I'm so sorry.' She whispered at us. Her voice sounded a little hoarse, like she was fighting off a cold. I looked up at her curiously, and she coughed.

'I'm sorry, I'm just feeling a little under the weather.' She told me, and then smiled. 'Nothing I'm not used to. Now, you need to go and unpack, Marion and Clara, you can move back into Gwen's room, the mattress' are kept under the bed. And Daniel, you go back in the boy's room. Robbie, can go back in the boy's room again too.' She moved to the closet, and started pulling out sheets.

'Marion, I think you should go and tell your Father what's happened. He should be in the wheat field, with Alexander.' She coughed again. I moved toward her, but she batted me away. 'I'm fine, really. Go and find your father.' I nodded, and went to go and find Father and Alexander.

I walked down the lane towards the wheat field. The sun was shining brightly, making the golden fields almost aglow in the summer sun. Butterfly's danced in front of me as I walked, but my mind was too distracted to notice the beauty of the day. The lack of sleep and the dread of telling my father the story of the last few hours did not marry well in my mind.

As I rounded the corner and passed through the gate, I saw about twenty men harvesting the wheat with scythes. The mechanical motion of swishing the scythe back and forth was familiar to all of them, and to me.

I had spent a lot of time in my childhood sat by underneath the apple tree on the far side of the field with Alexander, Daniel, Clara and then Richard. We sat there playing games with cards and dice for hours. Our Father was supposed to watching us, but he was busy with working, and more often than not we would amuse ourselves. Mother would be occupied with the littlest ones, so I would be left in charge. Unfortunately, the downside of putting me in charge at such a young age was that I was adventurous, and liked exploring. This lead to Daniel breaking his arm after falling out of a tree aged seven.

After that incident, Father would pay much closer attention to us. We were forced to sit and watch the men working with the scythes, we were not allowed to run off, or climb anything. This is how were would sit there for hours coming up with stories to tell each other, many of them I later wrote down in the cover of my Exodia book.

I glanced up, and I instantly spotted my brother Alexander. His tawny curls stood out amongst all the other heads of short straight hair. He always liked to wear his hair long, Mother hated it. She thought boys should have short hair, it made it much easier to handle. He only ever had short hair once, when he discovered the pain of having your long hair brushed. Over time, he cut it just short enough to avoid having to brush it daily, but long enough to annoy mother a little.

I waved at Alexander. He didn't look up for a minute, he was concentrating on the task of not injuring himself with the large blade he had in his hand. When he stopped to wipe the sweat away from his brow, he looked up and saw me and waved back. He shouted something to the man next to him, the one with his back to me, something I could not hear. The man turned around and I saw the face of my Father. He smiled at me.

They both picked up their scythes and made their way toward me. I tried to smile back at them, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. When they were closer, I noted the change in both of them, my Sunday afternoon visits had happened at such a time of the day that I only occasionally saw my Father when the weather was too bad to work in, and the same thing happened to Alexander when he started working in the fields about a year ago.

Father had always been tall, broad shouldered, but not enough to be intimidating. Due to the fact he worked in the fields doing manual labour all day every day meant he always looked strong. But he had always had a kind look in his eye, caring and considerate. Alexander had changed to, he had become taller, he was now almost the same height as Father. People had always said that Alexander looked like my father, but with lighter coloured hair. I had not realised how right they were until now. At sixteen years old, he did look exactly like a younger version of Joshua Brown.

They stopped in front of me, placing the heavy scythes down on the ground. My Father opened his arms and embraced me.

'Marion! How nice to see you.' His voice had a magic effect on me, it made me feel safe and happy. It comforted me slightly, but not enough to make me smile. He pulled back to look at me. His brow creased in confusion when he was my expression. But before he could say anything, Alexander had picked me up, and began to spin me around.

'Arry!'

This had been his pet name for me, ever since he could talk. We discovered that 'Marion' is quite a difficult word for a toddler to say, so the resulting mess of sound that came out of his mouth when addressing me sounded like 'Arry' and the name stuck. He set me down, beaming. My Father was still looking confused.

'Marion, why are you here? It's not a Sunday.' Father asked me. 'Shouldn't you be at work?'

I looked down at the ground.

'I do not have work to go to anymore. I was dismissed this morning.' I informed them in a quiet voice.

'Why? What happened?' He said, his voice sounding worried.

'Sir Henry is dead, he caught the fever last night. Lady Cec- I mean Kingston told us all to leave at once.'

'That's horrid!' Alexander exclaimed. 'Poor Miss Ella. She's now an orphan. That must be hard.'

'It was horrible, Lady Kingston threw us all out, and she does not like Ella at all. I don't know why, but she doesn't.'

'Did she say why she was dismissing you?' Father asked.

'She told us that 'their new financial circumstances forced them to make certain economies'.' I told him, impersonating her Ladyship's shrill voice.

'So, does that mean your brother and sister are also back home?' He asked.

I nodded.

'Well, it will be nice to have you all home again, and we have enough saved up for you three to have a small break from working for a while, but is there any chance you could get your position back? Or a new one?' He asked hopefully.

I hung my head and shook it. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him raise his eyebrows questioningly.

'Marion, what did you do?' He asked. When I didn't respond, he asked again, 'Marion?'

'I may have shouted at Lady Kingston, calling her a bitch and a stone cold monster.' I told him quietly. He stared at me incredulously. There was a moment of silence.

Then he broke the quiet with a loud chuckle.

'That's my girl.' He said, tapping the end of my nose, like he did when I was a child. Alexander was laughing now. I allowed myself to breathe, he wasn't mad.

When they had quietened down, he looked at me. 'Although we could do with the money, she deserved that. I'm glad I have never met the woman, but if she's even partially like what you described, then she deserved all of that and worse. You've always been to fierce for your own good, but this time, I think it was warranted.'

He turned to Alexander. 'I think it's about time we ate our lunch, don't you?' Alexander nodded enthusiastically, and walked off to retrieve the satchel containing the food. Father sat down on the grass, and gestured for me to join him.

'Now, are you going to tell me exactly what happened then?' He asked me.

I began retelling the night's events, in as much detail as I could remember. I relieved the happy arrival of Sir Henry, the screaming of Ella when she found him, the carrying him to bed, and the long, long night I waited with Ella, slowly watching the life drain out of him. Alexander came and joined us on the grass, listening attentively. We stayed there for a good while, I lost track of how long we were actually sat there. Somehow, telling someone else about it did make me feel slightly better. I finished my tale, and we sat there talking, not about anything in particular.

Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Daniel, running down the lane. My father waved at him, smiling at the fourteen year old. His smile dropped when he noticed Daniel's haste and serious face. I began to wonder what was the matter. Alexander stood up, confused.

'Hurry, quickly.' Daniel was shouting. 'Hurry.'

We all stood at that and began to hastily make our way towards him.

'What is it?' Alexander shouted back at Daniel.

'It's Mother!' Daniel shouted. 'She collapsed! Help!'

My heart stopped. Panic filled my heart. I began to run after Daniel, Alexander slightly in front of me and Father behind me, mumbling the word 'No,' over and over again.

We sped down the lane, not caring about the shortness of breath, or the pain in my side. Alexander had caught up to Daniel by this point, and was asking him questions about what happened. From the snippets of the conversation I could hear, I pieced together the story.

Mother had been coughing ever since we returned from the manor, and had dismissed it as another small and trifling illness. Daniel had not been concerned until her coughing was so bad, her muscles forced her to bend over. Then, instead of coughing, she was sick all over the floor. They had gone to see if she was ok, when they saw blood in the sick. She then swooned and fainted into Daniel's arms. He had shouted for Richard to run to get Mr Smith, and told Clara to look after her, while he ran to collect us.

I knew instantly what had happened.

She had caught the fever.

She was not going to survive.

When we arrived at the house, Mr Smith was already there examining her, Clara holding her hand. Gwen, Robbie and Tom were huddled in the corner of the room. Gwen was crying and Robbie looked on the verge of tears. We stopped to breathe, but Father hurried to Mother's side, and took Clara's place.

When I had caught my breath, I walked over to the little ones, and sat down with them, taking Gwen and Robbie onto my lap, and tried to distract them. Alexander began pacing the room and Daniel had to sit down, he had run twice the distance we had. It seemed like forever, but could only have been a few minutes, when Mr Smith walked away from Mother's bed and tapped Father on the shoulder, and beckoned him to follow. He reluctantly gave Alexander Mother's hand, and followed.

I tried to stay calm, but my heart was full. This could not be happening, I could not lose my Mother! It was unfair! I could not lose two people in two days! I did not need to wait for Mr Smith to tell us, I knew. Sir Henry had done the exact same thing. I watched as my Mother's chest rose and fell quickly.

There was a muffled cry that came from behind the door, my Father had been told the worst, he was about to lose his wife. The others who were old enough to guess what that sound meant face's fell. Clara started to sob, which upset Gwen, who began to cry again. I started singing to calm her down.

'Are you going to Scarborough fair?

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

Remember me to the one who lives there,

She was once a true love of mine.'

Alexander, Daniel, Clara and Richard began to join in slowly, one by one. Our Mother had sung it to us since we were in the cradle.

'Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

Without a seam or needlework,

Then she'll be a true love of mine.'

The door opened, and the shell of Father walked in. His head was hung so low, I was surprised he was still standing. He paused next to where Clara was standing and placed his arm around her. I could tell it was not just to comfort her, he was using her as a support.

'Joshua…' My mother's voice sounded from across the room. We all looked at her.

'All of you,' she said. 'Come here.'

Father made his way to her side quickly, sitting on the far side of the bed and lifting her into his arms. I placed Robbie and Gwen down, took their hands in mine, and began to walk slowly towards the sick bed. Tears were now falling freely down my face. I wasn't sure when they began, but I made no effort to stop them.

I sat next to Richard, who was by her shoulder, and I once again picked up Gwen and Robbie, and place them on the bed in front of me. Gwen lay her little head down on mother's lap, she was still crying. Alexander lifted Tom up onto the bed, and Clara stood next to him. Daniel stood at the foot of the bed. I reached forward and took hold of Mother's hand. Her breathing was shallow, and her pulse weak. Her eyes looked around at all of us, and she opened her mouth.

'I know that this will be hard,' She said. 'But I have to leave you all now.' Father, bent down and kissed her forehead.

'But,' She continued, 'I want to you all to know how much I love you, and how sorry I will be to go.' She coughed again, a little blood dripping out of the corner of her mouth. Father loving wiped it away.

'I am relying on you,' she said looking at me, Alexander and Daniel,' To look after each other. And your Father.' I nodded slowly, and Alexander and Daniel followed.

'Be happy, I'm going to a better place, and I will always be watching over you.' Her breaths were getting shallower now. 'And promise me one more thing. Have an adventure, like in your stories. Go and fight the dragons, rescue the damsels, defeat the sorcerers. Go and live your lives well, and make me proud.' Her eyes began to close, but she looked up at Father. 'Joshua, I love you.' She closed her eyes, but kept breathing. They were few and far between now, but she opened her mouth one last time.

'I love you all, never forget, I love you.'

Her breathing stopped.

I was now motherless. We were all now motherless.

Father bent his head, and kissed her head, tears falling without restraint.

She was gone.

There was a large hole in my heart that could never be filled again. Sadness consumed my entire being. Robbie turned his head to me, and held out his arms. I held him, his tears staining my dress, as mine stained his shirt.

She was gone.