She embraced her back, happy for the first time in days.
“You came!” Victoria cried as she walked over to her hugging sisters. She was clutching a book to her chest.
Elizabeth suspected that Victoria would soon prove to be the smartest among her sisters. She had always been a little more shrewd, but she had also been feeding that cleverness with reading material.
Good for her.
She held Daphne close to her, burying her nose into her hair. Her little sister smelled of jam, fresh linen, and flowers. She would love to be innocent like them once more, but looking back, she and Marianne were never really given much of a chance.
“Do you have any sweets for us?” Daphne asked breathlessly, looking up at her with wide eyes.
“I am so sorry, darling. It’s just me today. Perhaps we can go shopping tomorrow, or the day after,” she suggested.
The truth was that she never thought of bringing them anything because she was not even sure she would have been able to rise from bed this morning. Just being here took a lot of effort.
“Ah. It’s just fine,” Victoria remarked. “We missed you. We can worry about shopping later.”
Elizabeth’s heart was full. One thing was sure now. She made the right choice to come here.
Soon, she was subjected to chatter from the twins. Some of the stories overlapped as each battled for a chance to be heard. They sat on the floor, cross-legged, just as they always did when they were all younger.
“I wish you were here when I was working on a piece of embroidery. Wilhelmina was no help!” Daphne complained. “I ended up making a mess of it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, darling,” Elizabeth soothed her.
“Oh, it’s a good thing you stopped doing embroidery, Daphne. You were ignoring me the whole time!”
“Our new governess wants us to learn all manner of skills!”
“Are you going to embroider and sew for your husband?” Victoria asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Are you required to do so for your husband, Lizzie?” Daphne asked innocently.
“Uh, no, love, but I imagine it’s a good skill to learn,” Elizabeth replied diplomatically.
“What you should know, Lizzie, is that Mother hired a tutor who didn’t last for long because she smelled of onions!” Victoria exclaimed.
“She did,” confirmed Daphne. “At first, Mother thought we were lying to escape some lessons, but she realized it when one day, we had our tutorial in the drawing room. It took a long time to scrub away the smell.”
“Of all the things!” Elizabeth laughed, covering her mouth with a hand.
“You have been gone so long that we have so many stories for you!” Daphne sounded like she was complaining.
“We tried to pet a squirrel,” Victoria added.
“No. That’s not it, Vicky. We tried to make it our pet. There’s a huge difference!”
“I’m guessing the poor squirrel didn’t like it?” Elizabeth asked, trying to imagine the twins running after a squirrel.
“She put a ribbon on it,” Victoria confided, pointing at her twin.
“The squirrel looked beautiful with a pink ribbon!” Daphne insisted.
“Animals do not like that, Daphne,” Elizabeth gently chided her sister.
Time with her sisters was the real cure. Marianne took care of her, but she also needed to take care of others.
The trio continued to chat about mundane things that made Elizabeth laugh.