Chapter 2
" Are you sure sending Joya away was the right thing to do Jemima? I mean we are like parents to her, and parents don't just send their children away to prison. It just doesn't seem right." said George Riddle, running his fingers down his stubby white beard and staring out the window in to the rain.
" I don't know George, I couldn't stand it any more. We never should have stolen her in the first place. If I never believed in karma I sure do now." she turned away from him and walked into the damp kitchen to get tea. " And besides we are not her parents, everyone knows that." she called, coming back in to the living room carrying two cups of herbal tea in her shaking hands.
" I know. She is strange, I have to admit it." He took his cup of tea from her, but didn't drink it, instead he set it on the coffee table next to where he was standing, and went back to staring out the stain glass window.
" I wonder some times who's child she really was and what they were feeling when they found out that she was no longer in the nursery." She signed and slowly brought the cup up to her pale lips but split tea all over her white blouse for her shaken white hands.
" Oh Jemima, there you go again spilling tea all over yourself. You should really let the doctor take a look at you. You can't even lift a finger without it shaking all over the place!" George stormed out of the room to fetch a towel. "Tanya, bring Jemima some more tea will you." he called from the linen closet.
"Tanya, their new housekeeper went at once to fetch more tea, her apron flying after her and leaving something behind beside Jemima as she left. It was a picture of baby, just born and its mother smiling but exhausted from labor. It was torn in several places and stained from water. Tanya must have been holding it before she left to fetch the tea.
George came back into the parlor and handed Jemima a white cotton towel. To then go back to staring out the window, the heat slowly draining out of his tea.
" And besides" Jemima said leaning down to pick up the picture. "That place, how ever dreadful it might be, will do her some good. That man, Ronoio said so."
" Are you really going to go off and believe that shifty man Jemima, I don't even think he's a real doctor. That way he looked at Joya, like she was a piece of rotten meat!" He glared out the window, someone could tell Jemima they had seen a unicorn and she'd believe it, the old fool. Every plan she had ever had was a failure and a mistake. Like buying this damp house and paying that ridiculous man, with the foreign name, Ronoio Black.
Tanya returned with a brown tea pot and proceeded to refill Jemima 's cup.
" Tanya, my dear is this yours? Who is this beautiful baby? Is it your sister's?" Jemima asked raising the picture to Tanya's eye level.
Yes it is mine. The baby was my own my lady. But she died shortly after birth. I miss her dearly, and always will." Jemima handed the picture to Tanya and she paused for a moment fading into a day dream.
"I am very sorry my lady your tea is getting cold. I am deeply, deeply sorry for involving you in nonsense when you have so much on your plate all ready." She hurried off to the kitchen, tears streaming down her face and the picture clutched in her hands.
George turned away from the window and stared after Tanya. " The poor girl," he signed and reached for his tea.
"They think they have it bad!! They don't know what bad means. They haven't had to change their last name and wear a wig just to stay in London, or ,or have to play a dramatic housekeeper to pay their rent, or fetch more tea!!" Tanya Black screamed infrustration as she left the Riddle's house for the night. She had been posing as Tanya Ellis in order to stay in London, for the Black family had been exiled for the murder of two entire house holds. " Yes we killed a couple families. So what! They STANK!! They stank like rotten eggs and lettuce all rounded into one!" She screamed again throwing her apron and purse into the nearest puddle. No wonder the Black family was exiled, they're all crazy! Tanya's whole body began to quiver, shake ,and dip with sweat. "What is happening to me! Ahhhhhh!" She ran in the trees, still shaking.