Chapter 2: A Little Winged Bird

Goodbyes to Gardens & A Final Word With Josephine

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“I’d like to know who keeps putting these advertisements for governesses in my mailbox,” Violet’s father grumbled as he crumpled a paper in his fist. He shook his head and tossed it in the wastebin on his way out of his study.

Violet stood in her father’s billiard’s room with a handful of darts. She plucked one from her hand and threw it at the wooden board. It stabbed into the wood with a satisfying tunk only a few inches from the centre.

“I’m going out to the town, Violet,” her father called out as he popped his hat on top of his head. “Matilda is around if you need anything, and Aunt Josephine is across the road.” He poked his head into the room. She sensed his scowl. “That’s not a very lady-like hobby, Violet,” he said, crossing the room towards her.

“How about I throw them at your bottles in the wine cellar?” she replied, throwing another dart even harder. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Her father grimaced and grabbed the darts from her and then plucked the other two from the board.

“I’ll be back tonight,” he said. Then he whisked out of the room. She listened to him clod down the hallway and the door open and slam behind him.

“I’d die before I’d go across the road to that witch’s house,” Violet muttered. 

She stood staring at the dart board for a moment, then exhaled. It had been a week since she’d overheard the conversation about boarding school, and tomorrow she left in a carriage. Violet had assumed she’d have two weeks as Josephine had suggested it would take her. Somehow, Josephine brewed the entire plan to fruition in less than a week. Violet would be sent to an obscure boarding school a handful of hours away tomorrow.

Violet turned on her heels and stormed out of the room, her pale blue dress whisking around her knees as she made her way for the door.

“Where are you off to young lady?” Matilda called out from the drawing room.

Violet sighed with her hand on the latch. “Going for a walk around the gardens.” Violet sighed and gave a sideways glance at Matilda. “Might be my last time.”

Matilda harrumphed, but Violet couldn’t miss that sad glimmer in her hard eyes. “Don’t go far, Miss Bennett,” she called. 

Violet rolled her eyes. “I won’t.”

She pulled the door open and darted out. 

The hot summer air hit her like she had run into a clothesline with damp laundry. Violet stepped off the solid stone steps and down into the lush grass. She passed around the corner of the tall house, pausing to smile and wave at the gardener. He was stooped trimming a hedge. He stood and waved back at her—she tried to not notice the gloomy smile on his face. 

Every member of the staff seemed to give her that same look whenever they saw her. She often heard them whispering before or after she passed by. “That poor girl,” one would say, perhaps while dusting a mantelpiece. The other would shake her head and tsk. “Such a shame.” Then, in even lower whispers, “what do you suppose that Mrs. Josephine Bennett wants? What could she be after, trying to rid the estate of that sweet girl?”

Violet shook her head and continued around to the back of the house. She opened the short wooden gate to the garden and stepped inside. It was her mother’s garden, and her father had thankfully tasked the gardener with keeping it just as pristine as she had before she died. A stone pathway snaked and weaved with irregular and odd flat stones through the whole flower garden. Little islands of colour popped throughout with bricks laid high around them. Each island housed two or three different colours of flowers—the first orange and yellows, the next reds and pinks, the following purples and blues. 

A wooden bench stood at the back next to a small pond with a man-made waterfall. The whole garden was gated with a wooden fence, now grey and weathered. At the centre, a tall, thick tree stood with green vines winding up it. A wooden swing hung from its branches and wobbled in the wind.

Violet latched the gate behind herself and slowed her pace as she walked. If only she could lock herself in here with a mysterious force that would keep all others out. As a little girl, she liked to imagine a magical wall grew from the fence whenever she entered it to protect her from anything outside. Like she always had since being a little girl, she was careful to step on each stone, never the grass. She went down each section, stopping to gaze at the flowers and crouch to smell them. She watched the fuzzy bees dance from flower to flower, their little black legs weighed down with golden pollen. 

Finally, she made her way to the tree. She stood and watched her old friend shake his leaves and listened to him groan in the wind. She used to imagine the tree spoke with her, and she told her secrets to him—like how the boy down the road made her blush or how angry Josephine had made her one day by reprimanding her for playing in the mud. She looked up and saw a bird leap among the branches and a tiny brown squirrel scurry up the trunk towards the dark hole in the centre. His cheeks were puffed out with nuts and his tail bushed up behind himself. He stopped and peered down at her, frozen at the sight of her. Violet smiled and he took off again, disappearing down the hole.

Violet turned and sat down on the swing. Her dark hair wisped in her face and her bare toes kissed the dirt below—the ground was worn into a little divot where she swung regularly.

One more day. One more day here. The more she thought about it, it wasn’t the big house looming behind her that she’d miss—the only person in there she knew and loved was fired. Perhaps maybe Matilda too, now that she knew where Matilda’s heart was in all the discipline and perceived tattling she’d received over the years. But other than them, she didn’t care about that big house. What she really wished to do was gather this entire garden in a blanket, tie it up inside, hide it away in her bag, and lay it out again wherever it was she was headed. 

“There you are, Violet.”

Violet froze. That wicked voice. Violet brought her feet down and let them drag on the ground, slowing the swing to a stop. But she kept her back to Josephine.

“That stuffy old maid said you weren’t home, but then I figured I ought to check back here. I guess I was right.” Josephine cleared her throat. “Violet, where are your shoes? You’ll blacken your feet. This is hardly how a lady of such high degree carries herself.”

“What do you want?” Violet said, her voice monotone. She gritted her teeth together to keep from commenting on the footwear part.

“I’m just stopping by for a visit before you head off tomorrow. I won’t be around tomorrow—I have an appointment in town—but I wanted to say goodbye.” 

She paused, probably waiting for Violet to turn around. But Violet remained on the swing back-to. Josephine cleared her throat and waited a few more moments, then sighed and continued. “You will be greatly missed Violet, but I can’t help but also be excited for you. What an opportunity you have before you—to go to a boarding school that’s named one of the greatest educational institutions around.”

Another pause. Violet rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. 

Josephine coughed and sniffed, then continued. “You will be prepared to become a lovely, well-educated, young woman. Perhaps you’ll finally make some friends—I feel like you’ve become quite secluded here on this estate.”

Violet stiffened as something twinged in her heart. Josephine had tried to introduce Violet to some other wealthy girls down the road, but Violet couldn’t stand to breathe the same air as them (they were like miniature Josephines). Violet had tried to make friends with another girl once that she met in town… until she kept making excuses every time Violet invited her for walks. Then one day, after receiving one of those excuses by means of a note, she discovered the girl in town with those miniature Josephines.

Friends were just another nuisance in Violet’s opinion. Another person to disappoint you, another person to disappear. 

Josephine continued. “And, you may even find your future husband there, who can be the heir to your father’s estate. What an opportunity for you! You never would have found such an opportunity here. Truly, all the worthy boys around here have been sent to boarding school as well.”

Rage built in Violet’s chest. Miss Taylor and Matilda had tried for years to teach Violet some self-control and politeness. “Miss Bennett, if you don’t learn to hold that tongue of yours,” Matilda had fumed, dragging twelve-year-old Violet out of the dining room. Violet had just said one of her father’s businessmen (who was sitting in the dining room) had a face like the knot of a tree and smelled like rotten eggs. Matilda nearly ran right into Miss Taylor.

“Ah, there you are Miss Taylor,” Matilda had muttered, giving Violet an extra pull. “You won’t believe what this child has just said.” After hearing the story, Miss Taylor covered her mouth and shook her head. “Smart, brilliant girl—manners seemed to be the only thing you can’t seem to catch onto,” Miss Taylor let out her laugh and ruffled Violet’s hair. Violet took it as a compliment that day forward.

Violet returned to the present. She saw movement in the corner of her eye. She glanced up at the window on the house—Matilda watched her. Their eyes met through the misty panes. Matilda’s face was turned down in a scowl unlike any Violet had ever seen cross her face—not since the rat incident in the dining room (someone—Violet never did confess, and no one could truly prove it was in fact her—let a rat in the dining room when Josephine was visiting three summers ago). Now, Matilda stared at Violet and only nodded. Violet beamed back at her.

“Aunt Josephine,” she said, staring straight ahead of herself into the trees. “You do not care an ounce about me. I don’t know what you’re after, but I suppose you’ve finally won by convincing my father to send me to boarding school. You can stop with the act.”

“Violet!” she exclaimed, “I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about! I’m merely looking out for you like your mother would have wanted. I meant no harm—” 

“Is that why you had Miss Taylor fired for no good reason? To look out for me?” Violet sneered. She finally jumped down from the swing and spun around to face her wretched aunt.

She stood before Violet with her jaw hanging open and her hand clutching her mint green shawl. “I, I, I…” she stammered, staring at Violet. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at. I spoke with your father to share my concerns. I was merely looking out for your education and upbringing, Violet. I don’t see how someone so common and without respectable relations—”

“Goodbye, Aunt Josephine,” Violet said, brushing past her. “I hope to never see you again.”

Without looking back, Violet slammed the wooden gate and went across the lawn. 

Perhaps there was one good thing to come of this whole, stupid boarding school business: She may never have to see that silly woman again.

Violet pushed the doors open and nearly collided with a young maid. The woman shrieked and jumped back, but Violet continued unhindered. She stomped down the hallway to the drawing room, to the only thing that could quell her rage: the grand piano. 

She plunked herself down on the slick stool and shoved the fallboard up with a resounding clunk. Then she set her fingers to work from pure memory; they glided across the keys with passion, hitting every key with might and precision. Under her breath, she sang the lyrics she had made up to the wordless piece many years ago:

The little winged bird spread her wings to fly.
She wanted to see the world, fly through the cloud
Despite the facts, the fears, she was ready to try.
Her toes left the nest,
Despite the wind’s blows, she soars to her best.

She stretched her thumb under her curved hand as it danced up the keys and then back down to Middle C. 

But she loses control, doesn’t know how,
Flying was harder than her confidence told.
She flutters her wings, but she’s on her way down,
So she lays on the ground on her own.
The little winged bird who believed she could
Lay alone with only a broken bone to show.

She pressed down on the pedal and let it rise, huffing air as she did. She raised her fingers as she pressed down another chord.

The wind picks up, tosses her to the grass,
Where she now sits and waits, perhaps even thinks.
She must wait for her time, even if it’s not today.
She waits in the rain, in the heat,
As she heals she takes this time to sing.

Tears pricked her eyes and a lump in her throat fought to constrict her voice, but she pressed on with the last lines.

She grows, she mends, she watches the wind,
How it rages and curls, it goes where it likes.
Not jumping too fast, but when her heart told,
She spread her wings.
Watch her fly, her glide, 
Hear her song of sweet.

She huffed as she pressed down on the pedals. She ended with the final chords and notes and lifted her hands from the ivories. 

“Beautiful, Violet.”

She didn’t turn. She knew Matilda’s croaky voice.

“You know,” she continued, “that was your mother’s favourite song. She played it whenever she got another bad report from the doctor.” She paused. “She would be proud, Violet. Even of your blackened feet.”

Violet’s lip trembled. She nodded. Then her whole body shuddered, and she bent over the keys and simply sobbed—for the love she would never know.