"Mama I simply must have my own room."
Cora looked up from her embroidery to see her oldest daughter standing in front of her. Mary's defiant tone matched the way she was standing there so erect with her arms folded across her chest, her dark eyes blazing.
She took a moment before responding, noting how much her daughter reminded her of her mother-in-law. Only ten years old Mary was already a force to be reckoned with and Cora suddenly dreaded the teenage years coming ahead.
Sitting her embroidery on the sofa beside her, Cora tried to keep her voice calm and pleasant. "Mary you know that you'll get your own bedroom when you're twelve."
In reply Mary stomped her foot. "But Mama I need my room now. Just now -"
Cora, tired of the constant bickering between her two eldest daughters, cut in before Mary could relate her latest perceived transgression of Edith. "Mary you're too young to have your own room. If you need space to work or read I'm sure you can find plenty of places to sit for an hour in this huge house or on the grounds."
Without commenting, Mary turned and stomped out of her mother's sitting room.
Mary rolled over on the narrow bed, keeping her eyes shut and the covers pulled up to her chin she hoped to avoid the inevitable for just a few more minutes. Through the open door to the adjoining room where the nannies slept, she could her one of them rustling around probably getting dressed.
Something soft brushed across her forehead and without opening her eyes she instinctively batted it away. But the fly, or whatever it was, was persistent and brushed again against her forehead only this time more slowly. Mary reached up her hand but couldn't feel anything on her forehead.
She pulled the sheet up across her face hoping this would encourage the fly to move on but it only moved to the top of her head where it now lightly brushed across her hair.
Mary sighed deeply in frustration before quickly raising both of her hands in hopes of squashing the pest. When her hand felt something warm and soft, something definitely not a fly or any other insect, she squealed and jumped out of bed causing Sybil to keel over in laughter.
"Edith must you keep groaning? I'm trying to sleep" an exasperated Mary whined.
"But my stomach hurts."
"Well no wonder after all that pudding you ate."
"It was very good pudding" Sybil piped up from her bed. "I think it's my favorite."
Edith loudly burped causing Sybil to giggle and Mary to dramatically sigh.
"What are you wearing to Granny's tea?" Edith asked her sister but Mary was in no mood to talk. Why did Edith wait until they were in bed to have these conversations?
"Mary I asked what you're wearing to Granny's tea" Edith repeated her question thinking that Mary hadn't heard her.
Mary knew she'd have to answer or Edith would just keep asking. Maybe if she let out a few snores Edith would think she was asleep but Edith would probably know she was faking.
When her mother asked what she'd like for her eleventh birthday, Mary told her the only present she wanted was her own room. She wouldn't need any other presents. She wouldn't even need any Christmas presents. But Mama wasn't moved and here she was still stuck in the nursery with her sisters.
"Patrick makes me so mad" Sybil had jumped out of bed and was pacing up and down. "He never lets me play."
"He just thinks you're too little" Edith sleepily responded which was certainly the wrong thing to say.
Sybil stopped her pacing and stood right beside Edith's bed. Stomping her foot she cried "I'm not too little. He's just mean."
Seeing how upset Sybil was and realizing they'd never get any sleep if she didn't calm down, Mary quietly stated "Tomorrow we'll tell him if he doesn't want to play with all three of us then we won't play with him."
"Really Mary!" Sybil jumped up and down and clapped her hands. "You're the best sister" she said as she leaned over and kissed Mary on the cheek.
"I'd rather be a bird."
"A bird?" Edith was puzzled. "Why ever would you want to be something so small and bland?"
Sybil let out a long deep breath as if Edith was foolish for not realizing how grand it would be to be a bird. "Then I could fly silly. Just think of how much fun that would be. You'd get to-"
Mary rolled over to face the wall trying to tune out the incessant chatter of her sisters. If I had my own room I wouldn't have to listen to this insane conversation of would it be better to be a bird or a lion. Really her sisters could talk about the stupidest things.
Her twelfth birthday had been her best one. Not because of the gifts she had received although they were nice of course but they had been the usual sort of things she always received. No this birthday had been the best because she finally escaped from the nursery and now had her own bedroom. Having her own room was a sign that she was maturing, that she was no longer a child but a young lady. That she would no longer have to sleep in a room with Edith was just a bonus.
Mary had been bragging for days about her new bedroom. I'll have my privacy. No one can come in without my permission. She had particularly glared at Edith while saying that one. Sybil didn't understand why her sister was so happy about being alone. Wouldn't she miss the books they secretly read in bed long after nanny insisted the lights be turned off? Or nights when the sisters traded stories with each other? Or just when they talked? Sybil thought it was so much fun when they laid in the dark and talked.
Mary had described her new room as sophisticated and elegant; words that Sybil didn't quite understand. She had sneaked in there earlier when Mary was busy with her piano lesson and her first thought upon seeing the room with its dark red wallpaper was that it was rather stuffy and unwelcoming just like most of the other rooms in the house.
"With Mary's bed gone, it gives us a bit more room in here" Edith proclaimed. Sybil couldn't believe how quickly the small single bed that was Mary's had been removed for tonight was just the first night she was no longer sleeping in here.
"Maybe it should have stayed in here" Sybil replied "just in case Mary wants to sleep here sometime."
"Why ever would she want to do that?" Edith was already dreaming of next year when she'd get her own room. Maybe she'd start deciding now which room she wanted.
"She might just get lonely sometime."
Mary was sitting at her new vanity table rearranging the various jars and porcelain boxes that littered the table when the sound of the bedroom door slowing opening caught her attention. Turning towards the door she found her seven year old sister standing there in the door way with one hand on the door knob of the partially opened door and holding something Mary couldn't quite distinguish in the other hand .
"May … may I … come in Mary?" Sybil hesitantly asked.
Mary started to chuckle at seeing her usually exuberant sister so restrained but quickly realized that something was bothering Sybil.
"Of course dear" Mary replied as she set one of the porcelain boxes back on the table.
Sybil took a few steps into the room and then stopped. Taking another look around the room, she found she didn't like it any more on the second viewing that when she had been here earlier. It was just too … too … she wasn't sure exactly how to describe it … too cold and dark … there just was no hint of her sister who now occupied the room. Sybil tightened her grip on the small frame she was holding in her hand. She had searched the library and the parlors until she had found just the right one on a small table in her mother's sitting room that held a variety of framed photographs.
"I brought you something for your new room" Sybil finally spoke as she lifted her arm holding the small frame.
"For my room?" Mary repeated as she took the offering from Sybil. Turning it over she saw it was a framed photograph.
The photographer thought it had been a very long morning. He had a hard time getting the older two girls to smile and the youngest one, who was only three or four, had a dazzling smile but couldn't sit still for more than a minute. He finally suggested to her ladyship that he try for some candid shots rather than the stiff portrait photographs.
There was a croquet set on the lawn. The photographer suggested that maybe the girls could play. The croquet mallet was almost as tall as Sybil so Mary stood behind her with her hands also on the mallet to help Sybil hit the ball. Luckily the photographer was all set and captured the image of pure joy on both their faces when the ball went through the wicket.