Vera
The day has arrived. I'm finally going to meet Lord Vulcan face to face and quite frankly I'm nervous as much as I'm excited. The carraige ride is more comfortable than the one I had with Lord Henry and Cecelia while going to that masquerade ball.
"So Ms. Vera have you thought of what questions you're going to be asking him?" Lord Henry asks and Cecelia looks at me quite intently waiting for my response. I know what these two are thinking but it is nothing like that at all. I have no intention of entertaining any romance with Lord Vulcan.
I'm purely fascinated by his profession and nothing more but explaining it to these two would only deepen their suspicion so I don't bother correcting them. They can think what they want as long as I know myself that my intention is to only get to know more about his work.
"I infact have prepared some questions I am going to ask him" I show Lord henry my list of prepared questions and he takes the paper quite enthusiastically but as he reads it I can see a small frown is starting to form on his face. "Ms. Vera these questions make you look like you're a journalist interviewing him. All of these are very formal " He says and I nod proudly.
"Like I said I'm only interested in his profession and what he does" Both him and Cecelia look disappointed and I could not care less.
They are engaged now and I am very happy for them but they should mind their own business instead of trying to stir up unnecessary romance in my life. Although I appreciate the effort Lord Henry put by arranging this meeting.
As we enter the gate of Lord Vulcan's residence I can see he is quite rich. The gardens, the fountains and the residence itself is quite remarkable in size. Does his profession provide him enough to be able to own all this?
It looks like the question was quite evident on my face so Lord Henry answers "The wealth is quite generational. His Father passed down his inheritance when he passed away while Lord Vulcan was 12. It is hard manage the estate but he has got assistants so he still pursues psychology as a passion" I nod in understanding and as the carriage comes to halt in front of the main house entrance door, Lord Henry gets out first and gives a hand to Cecelia as she gets down the carriage and then to me.
I finally take in the whole residence while looking around the big garden and fountains along with the House's beautiful architecture. It's all very unreal. The Servants greet us as we enter the house and I can not help but admire the interior. It is definitely the work of a woman.
As we arrive at the main hall and seat ourselves on the sofa I notice something, a painting almost covering the wall from the ceiling to the floor. It's a painting of a family. I assume it must be Lord Vulcan's family. He is quite small in the painting though, he looks around 7 or 8.
The Mother looks Enchantingly beautiful and a little girl whom I assume is Lord Vulcan's sister resembles her mother's enchanting beauty just the same. The Father looks rather stern and has a sharp-glaring look on his face.
"That's the Vulcan family, like I said his father passed away when he was 12 henceforth he has been responsible for handling the family business and regrettably so his Mother also passed when he was 16" Lord Henry explains. I certainly feel bad for the siblings now
The servants serve tea and I ask one of them if it's fine to take a stroll around the garden since it seems lovely. "Why of course" I turn around to find a woman wearing an exquisite green dress as she's smiling at me. "Thank you Miss....?" I ask and she politely introduces herself. "You can call me Celeste" I bow politely and introduce myself as well. Celeste is the sister and she looks almost same as her Mother now. She has grown to resemble her mother more and more.
After sharing pleasantries for the next few minutes, all of us decide to take a stroll around the garden while having a very pleasant chat but I still haven't had a chance to meet Lord Vulcan.
"Theodore will be arriving soon" Celeste says in between chatting with Cecelia and Lord Henry and it made me realise I didn't even know Lord Vulcan's full name so far.
I suppose I have got to wait a few more minutes. While looking around I spot a bunny and decide to follow it. It's small, furry and adorable so what is not there to like.
While following the bunny I find myself near a tree and decide to climb it. Yes I climbed a tree so what? It was hard but worth it. After finally climbing a branch I decide to rest against it. The view is spectacular from up here and I'm having a pleasant time until I hear someone say "excuse me miss may I ask who are you and what are you doing on a tree in my garden?" I try to look down but I can't make out the person's face from up here. "Your garden? " I ask with confusion evident in my tone.
"Yes Miss this is my garden and I don't suppose I have seen you here before and neither do I know you so I'd like to ask very politely who are you and why are you here?" He is Lord Vulcan? His voice does sound familiar so I suppose yes. I look down but I still can not see his face due to the leaves coming in between. "I'm Vera Rose Frost. I'm an acquaintance of Lord Henry and I'm here with him and my sister who is engaged to him. He is your friend I heard" I say loud enough so he can hear me.
"Ahh, he did say he was visiting today but I suppose he must have forgotten to mention you. Miss Vera I must ask you to get down as it's extremely dangerous for a lady like you to climb a tree this high" He says and I roll my eyes, yes I know it's dangerous but it's thrilling so I simply do not care.
I do not want to argue with him anymore so I try to get down the branch but here's the issue. It looks like it's about to break.
Oh No.
I try to gently climb down but as my luck would be the branch breaks and I scream in terror as I'm about to hit the ground but I find myself hitting a person instead. I fell on Lord Vulcan and we both landed on ground. This can not be how I officially meet him. My eyes are still closed from the Shock and I suppose he is as shocked as me because ever since we landed on the ground he hasn't said a word.
"You can open your eyes M'lady" I gently open my eyes and my mind is blank for a few moments at what I see. When did I start dreaming? No this isn't a dream. The pain I feel from the fall is too much for this to be a dream.
"What is happening?" I mumble to myself and take a look at the person in front of me. This is unexplainable. I get up abruptly without taking my eyes off of him. "What in the world-" I say again questioning everything I have ever known.
"M'lady listen to me" He says. 'M'lady' why is he calling me that? Only one person calls me that.
No. No. No. No. No.
This can not be. I am losing my mind. Cecelia was right. Reading too much has started affecting my brain. I should stop everything. I start backing off from him and bump into someone.
"Good lord, Vera watch how you walk" I hear Cecelia say but I don't turn around to look at her or anyone else who's with her. "So you two have finally met I see" Lord Henry says coming forward and introducing us. "Vera this is Lord Therodore Vulcan and Theodore my friend, this is Miss Vera sister of my very lovely fiance Cecelia" Both me and him do not pay any attention to anyone else except looking at each other the only difference was my eyes are filled with confusion and his with fear.
What is he afraid of? "Forgive my brother he is not very good with people. Sometimes he gets socially awkward" Celeste says trying to end the silence and make the atmosphere less awkward but still we do not care. Lord knows how long we stared at each other before I stormed out of the place trying to make sense of everything.
Cecelia followed me asking tons of questions and my only response was that I don't feel well. She stopped pushing after a few minutes and we rode the carriage home. My mind has never been this chaotic in my whole life.
As we arrive home I lock myself in my room. Not knowing what to do or what to make of anything. Who was he? Lord Vulcan or..... No the idea is insane. It is not possible. Maybe he just looks like him.
Maybe I saw him in passing somewhere and my subconscious caught on to his appearance and created him in my dreams. Yes that makes sense. That has to be it. But then why did he look at me like that? Like he was afraid? Like he recognised me and not just from that ball? The questions are endless and I do not where to get the answers. I could go to sleep and ask him or I could just ask Lord Vulcan but I'm afraid of the answers. My mind is in turmoil.
Writing.
That is the only thing I can do now. Write. I pick up my novel and start writing. I emerge myself in the story. Anything to distract me from reality. I write and write and write. I don't know of it's any good but I'll see it later with a clearer mind.
Right now I just need to do anything but think of this morning. I don't know how long I spent writing but it seems it's been a few hours and my hands have started hurting. I suppose it's around 7 in the evening now. Ellie visted my room a few times but I didn't respond so she left.
My head is still not clear enough. I need to get out. Take a stroll and clear my mind but of course Mother won't let me so I tell Ellie to cover for me and inform Father that I am writing and do not wish to be disturbed so he won't let anyone inside my room for a while. I escape through window while wearing a cloak.
It was not easy of course but if I can climb a tree I can surely escape from my window. I have done this multiple times before.
As I finally find myself on the street, I start walking and I do not know or care where my feet takes me until I almost get hit by someone's carriage. I didn't actually get hit but I fell down because of the shock. The carriage comes to a halt and the person driving the carriage screams at me for not watching where I'm going. I am about to apologize until I see someone get out of the carriage. It's a Man followed by a Woman.
They hurry towards me and ask me if I'm fine. "Sweetheart are you hurt anywhere?" The woman asks very nicely and I say no I'm fine. But to them it must've seemed like I'm still in shock when in reality I was troubled about a different matter entirely.
"Miss you seem to have injured yourself" The Man says while looking at my bleeding elbow. Lord heavens I didn't even notice. "Young lady we must apologize for this, would you mind coming with us to our home so we can have you nursed by our maids? Our home is right at the corner. We can not leave an injured person in the middle of street and especially when it was our fault." The woman says sweetly and I can not refuse.
Although I shouldn't be going to a stranger's house like this but I seem to have lost the ability to reason since this morning.
We arrive at their place and it's a cozy sweet house that they have. Now that we're in better lighting I see their faces more clearly. I feel like I have seen these people before and they also have this expression on their face like they recognize me. "Miss forgive me but I think that I recognize you" The Man says and the woman seems to agree with him. "Yes Darling have we met before?" The woman asks and I frankly feel the same but I just can not remember where or when I met them.
"Oh you're Mr. Gideon's daughter" The Man says and I find myself intrigued. They know my Father? "You're right Brother, I remember now" The woman says and I also seem to recall something from my memory.
"We met at the new year's party and your father introduced us briefly. We even talked for a while" The Woman says and I recall it quite clearly now. Yes. They're the ones my Dad introduced me to hoping I would make some new friends.
"I'm Mira Rai and this is my brother Arjun Rai" She introduces herself and her brother. "I'm Vera Rose Frost. You can call me Vera" I say politely and they seem pleased with our meeting.
"Now let's get you treated first" Mira says and orders one of her maids to bring supplies and once they do Mira herself starts tending to my wounds. To not to make things awkward I continue the conversation. "So from what I remember from our brief encounter during the new year's party, both you and your brother moved to London last year around December and have been here ever since. If you don't mind answering How do you like London so far?"
I ask politely trying not to sound too rude like I'm prying or anything. I simply want to make a conversation. "Well, we actually quite like it here except we miss our home sometimes" I smile and nod because I can not say I understand the feeling.
I once visited my Uncle for a week and kept missing my own home and parents but these two have left their country behind for months. I can't even begin to imagine how much they must be missing their home. "You know I have many friends back in India but I have yet to make any here. It seems quite hard to do so" Mira says and that's disheartening because she seems to be one the sweetest people ever. I can not remember why I didn't get to talk to her more during the new year's party.
"I can be your friend Mira, if you don't mind ofcourse" I say and she smiles and hugs me and I return it.
"There, all done" Mira says after finally finishing to tend to my wound. "You did it rather well" I say and she smiles. "Well I've been studying medicine and nursing back in India" She says and I can not hide my surprise. "People tend to have that reaction" She says not finding my reaction rude.
"What brings you to London if you don't mind me asking. You two seem like you miss your home so it made me curious about what could be so important that you both decided to move here" I ask trying not to seem like I'm prying too much.
"There has been some cases of mysterious deaths in London" Mira's brother Arjun says and that immediately got all of my attention. "What kind of deaths?" I ask pretending like I don't know anything. Technically I don't know much.
"I can not reveal too much but it's just some unsolved cases and the deaths have been more frequent in the last 1 year, it's not a disease not a murder so the detectives are having hard time figuring it out" He says and it's nothing that I don't already know.
"I was originally called here to solve another case but I solved it within a month and got intrigued by these mysterious cases. I have been trying to get a lead but nothing" Hold on Arjun's voice it feels like I have heard it somewhere.
I suddenly get flashbacks of the ball where I first heard about that case in the forest. There were three people talking about the case but after that I only ever saw the two other detectives working on it. I never saw the third one again.
Perhaps Arjun is the third person who was discussing the case with those people that night. I can tell by the voice and the accent. "What happened? are you still working on those cases?" I ask and he looks at me like he is suspicious for a moment but then let's it go. "Not really, the higher ups decided the cases are a waste of time since there are no leads so I was assigned other cases" He says with disappointment evident in his tone.
"I heard they even called a psychologist to help with the case which seems absurd to me. Because he can't figure out a dead person's mind now can he?" Arjun says and I'm alerted yet again. Right. The psychologist. Lord Vulcan. Now that he says that it does sound even more absurd that they called him for help but I suppose the last two detectives on the case were desperate.
"Despite everything I personally quite like London" Mira says trying to lighten the mood and divert the conversation towards lighter topics. "Ms. Vera forgive me if it sounds like I'm prying but would you mind telling us what were you doing alone on a street this late? It's quite dangerous you know" Arjun says and I'm suddenly worried that what if he tells my father about this. They're acquainted afterall.
"I'm going to be honest. I was going through a hard time and I wanted to take a stroll to clear my mind but of course my parents wouldn't allow so late at night so I came without telling them."
I say and both siblings look at each other and start laughing. "Remember how we used to do that back in India" Mira says and Arjun laughs in agreement. "It's fine we totally understand but you should be careful Miss Vera" Arjun says and with a polite smile and I nod in agreement.
"Miss Vera if you don't mind we would like to drop you home as you can see it's gotten even more late. and don't worry your parents won't see you" Arjun offers and I can not help but feel grateful. I accept the offer and bid a goodbye to Mira who looks pleased to have met me. The feeling is incredibly mutual.
Arjun dropped me off near my home and helped me reach my room's window so I don't fall or break any bones. It was hard but we managed. It was kind of him to do so much for me. Once I was safely back in my room he left. It looks like my casual stroll around the street to clear my head made me new friends.
I am exhausted from everything so as soon as I lie on my bed I fall asleep and find myself in my dream again. thankfully alone. I don't even know what I would do or say to him when I see him again. Is there even an explaination? I wouldn't know.