"You're really bad at that."

"It's harder than it looks!" William exclaimed, somehow sending a piece of carrot across the table. I watched it roll to the edge and almost fall onto the floor but somehow it just managed to teeter on the edge.

"It's not," I said.

"The girls right, Master William. I thought you'd be good at this," Mrs Langdon said, laughing a little.

"Baking doesn't involve chopping. This is new territory."

After taking the cakes out of the oven and leaving them to cool, William and I went in search of something else to do. With nothing appealing to us, we returned to the kitchen in hopes the cakes had cooled enough for us to eat them. They had not. Instead, Mrs Langdon informed us that there would be guests joining us for luncheon and that her plans had to change.

Since we had nothing else to do, I offered our services to make sure everything got done in time and William seemed more than happy to agree. The only issue being that he was not all that good at chopping things and kept sending vegetables flying across the table. I had swapped with him several times and he still could not manage to do it right. I refused to give him my potatoes and instead made him chop the carrots. That proved to be a disaster.

From across the table, Shelia watched us. She caught the carrots when the rolled across the table and rolled them back so William could have another good. When she found out we would be helping prepare luncheon, she did not seem all that pleased but. After a while, she warmed up to the idea when she found out how much needed to be done in a very short space of time. That, and watching William chop vegetables was quite funny. I had never seen anyone mess up so many times.

"How are you so good at this?" William asked, watching me peel a potato and not slice it, not sending it rolling across the table.

"You're too heavy-handed with it."

"I don't know what that means."

"You're being too aggressive when you cut into the carrot, don't push too hard and keep your other hand on the carrot so it doesn't roll."

William looked at me and then back down to his carrot, squinting and rolling his head to the side. He grabbed the knife off the table and one of the freshly peeled carrots that he had yet to attempt to chop. I watched him put the knife onto the carrot, keeping his other hand on both edges just like I said. This time, he used a lot less force and manage to split the carrot in half without sending it flying across the table. He looked at me and grinned, clearly pleased with himself.

I had spent almost the entire morning in William's company, no doubt part of Mr Atkinson's plan, and it certainly appeared to be working. He did not seem like the type of person I had created in my mind, someone who would do what my foster family did. In fact, he came across as a bit of a simpleton at times and often appeared to be amused by the smallest of things. He seemed harmless, far harmless then I first thought. If he could not cut a carrot without doing it wrong, I doubted he could do anything else.

Despite that, I was still in two minds about the whole adoption thing and whether or not it would be a good idea. William seemed nice and the Atkinson's had been welcoming, even their staff did not seem all that bad, but none of that could stop the small voice at the back of my head. It may not have been as loud as it once was, but it was still there, and I had a feeling that making this decision would be a lot harder than I first thought.

Had the Atkinson's been the villains I thought them to be, deciding whether or not to be adopted would have been easy. Them being nice just made it a whole lot worse since I still did not feel like I could trust them entirely even if their persona said otherwise. Everything would be a lot easier if people were black or white and not a mixture of either. It would certainly make decisions easier if that were the case.

"Who do we have for luncheon anyway? We never have guests for luncheon," William said, pushing his stack of cut carrots towards Mrs Langdon to drop into a pot of boiling water.

"Mrs Oliver, I believe. Her and her daughter will be joining you," Mrs Langdon said.

"That will be fun, she doesn't like me."

"You've already met her?" William asked.

"The other week, when your parents took me out of the orphanage for the day. She did not seem all that impressed with me."

"She's never impressed with anyone."

Although I knew that to be true, I still did not like the idea of spending an entire luncheon with her. She had not been all that impressed with simply seeing me on the street and definitely did not agree with their idea of adopting me. That, and she specifically said she did not want me anywhere near her daughter and having luncheon with them would put me in close proximity whether she wanted me to be or not.

I wanted to avoid it. I hoped that maybe I could hide in the kitchen, so Mrs Olivier did not know I was at the house at all. That would never happen. Mrs Atkinson had not been very pleased after Mrs Oliver's comments the last time I had seen them and she probably saw this luncheon as a way of annoying her and seeing whether or not she would have the same attitude with her daughter around or if she would be a little more pleasant.

Somehow, I doubted being pleasant was one of her strong suits and I did not like the idea of being used as a pawn against her. Almost like they were still looking into a possible adoption just to annoy her and I would just be an after-thought to the entire thing. Someone they can easily throw away once I have served my purpose.

"They won't stay for long, they never do. Remember, never make eye-contact with her and you'll be fine," William said.

"Or, I can hide down here."

"That won't happen."

"I know. I can dream."

We turned back to the vegetables with William stealing some of my potatoes and peeling them before he handed them back for me to cut up. Once we were done, Mrs Langdon scraped them into a pot of boiling water before sending us on our way. William went up to his room to change into something worthy of a luncheon meeting. I returned to the living room to try and brush off the remainder of the flour that still clung to my dress and hair.

I could just hear him coming down the stairs when a knock at the door echoed through the hall. He snuck into the living room, crossed the floor and peered out of the window whilst I sat there and watched. Shelia's footsteps echoed in the hallway outside the room and I heard the squeak of the door hinges when she opened.

"What took you so long?" Mrs Oliver's voice carried from the hall and I did not hear Sheila say anything in response.

"Ah, Jane! How lovely to see you," Mrs Atkinson said. William looked at me from the window and rolled his eyes. I had the feeling that their friendship was nothing more than a front.

Their voices turned into mutters. William crept back across the room and dropped down on the sofa beside me, sighing loudly. He played with the cuff on his shirt, making sure it sat right although it looked a little too long for his arms. I watched him tug at his collar to try and loosen it and fight a losing battle to keep his hair flat and tidy. At least I wouldn't be the only one who looked out of place during luncheon.

With no idea what was happening out in the hallway, I continued to pull flour from my hair and try to scrub it from my dress. If I did not get the flour out of my dress, Matron would kill me. Mrs Oliver, I could probably handle, Matron would always be a whole other story.

"Shall we go into the living room? I believe William is in there," Mrs Atkinson said.

"Very well." Almost immediately, William straightened up and stopped playing with his collar and hair.

The creak of a floorboard broke the silence and Mrs Atkinson and Mrs Oliver appeared in the doorway. Her eyes roamed the room looking at William and pulling a face before she noticed me sitting on the sofa across from him.

"I see you have a visitor," Mrs Oliver said stiffly.

"Yes, we invited Lizzie to spend the night with us so she and William could get to know one another a little better."

"I still believe you should have taken my advice with this one, she is hardly daughter material. She makes your living room look rather untidy, as though you have chosen the wrong set of drapes and they do not match the paint."

"I'll thank you to not refer to Lizzie as drapes."

Mrs Oliver sniffed and stuck her nose in the air. She shuffled into the room, still looking annoyed that I had been there without her knowledge. I watched her sit down on the edge of the sofa beside William. Behind her, came a girl no older than me with blonde hair hanging loose around her shoulder and a pale blue dress. She walked with her head down and her hands clasped in front of her.

She did not even look up when she sat down and instead just knotted her hands together in front of her with her eyes staring at the carpet. Her mother had no doubt taught her the correct way to carry herself in public, but she just appeared uncomfortable. I did not understand how Mrs Oliver could lecture her daughter about the correct way to behave after everything she had said to me when we first met.

I glanced over to William who had pulled a small thread out of one of the cushions and had started to wrap it around his finger. No one appeared all that comfortable with the arrangement and no one said anything after Mrs Atkinson's warning. Mr Atkinson appeared to have disappeared and I wished he would make an appearance to try and break the silence, or for Mrs Langdon to call us for luncheon so we had something else to do rather than stare at each other.

"How are you, Sophie?" Mrs Atkinson asked after a little while.

"Fine, thank you. Yourself?" Sophie asked, lifting her head a little. Freckles covered her cheeks and nose, Mrs Oliver looked less than impressed that she had looked up and probably thought her freckles made Sophie appear out of place or unladylike.

"Very well, thank you. I hear you have been having violin lessons, are they going well?"

"Yes, Ma'am. I am much better on the violin then I am on the piano." Her eyes seemed to light up.

"That is good to hear." Mrs Atkinson paused. "Did you know that Lizzie made the dress she's wearing?"

"Really?"

I nodded. Sophie looked at me, a little awe-struck and I could see Mrs Oliver staring at me and the state of my dress. The dress had been with me for years now and no longer looked the same as it had when I first made it, but it had been the first thing I had made and I would always be proud of it no matter what she said or thought about. Sophie's dress appeared to have been made by a professional, judging by the lack of floors in the stitching.

"I've never been all that good at sewing. How did you make it?" Sophie asked, tilting her head towards me.

"Oh, I just copied the size of my work dress. It's been repaired and altered so many times it's not really the same dress anymore."

"Maybe you could teach me, I've always wanted to be better at sewing and to make my own clothing, it sounds far easier than going to a dressmaker."

"Sophie! Hush. Your clothing is always tailored to fit you and make you stand out and look pretty. You do not want to be walking around in something that looks like it may fall apart."

Sophie dropped her head to stare at the floor, knowing she had said something out of line, but I could not help but notice the small smile that played on her lips. She seemed different from her mother, more willing to accept someone else even if they looked different or even go as far as to befriend them. If it were not for her mother, perhaps the two of us stood some chance of a friendship but we both knew that would never happen.

Still, I did not hate the idea of having a friend. Especially if they did not care where I came from.

~~~

First Published - December 16th, 2020