She didn’t even pause at the steps,
slanted unevenly with age and neglect, leading towards the front door, not even
at the huge wooden door that already greeted her into the darkness beyond it.
She just kept striding down the hall until she reached the heart of the huge
mansion, on the ground floor by the huge ornate mahogany staircase that slowly
wound around the wall, leading up towards all four floors. There, she stopped.
There, she looked around.
She saw its fallen rafters, its
dust, its darkness, she saw its misery and loss. She saw its death.
And then she saw a large wooden desk
which must’ve been the reception desk, and laid upon it, perched precariously
on a stack of papers, was a leather bound book, its cover piled with dust. She
walked towards it, dust billowing around her, disturbed, and as she picked it
up and shook its grey parasites from on top of it, the sound of her one action
echoed enormously, making obvious the mansion’s vast size. For a second she
believed she could hear faint footsteps coming from upstairs but desperately
tried to ignore it, swallowing hard and wishing she had never entered at all.
But she opened the book, unlacing the tie on the front, the first page was a
sepia photograph, one of a young woman of perhaps Emilia’s age, with
shoulder-length auburn hair, a navy dress delicately flowed down beyond her
knees, a man beside her had his arm around her small shoulders, they were both
surrounded by two organised lines of beautiful cherry blossoms and behind them
was… it was the house. It was Black Manor. But in the corner of the photograph,
the words it read were not Black Manor, but: Rose Manor, 18.06.1905, Father and I in front of the House. The
elegant writing was small and in ink, as was the writing throughout the book as
Emilia read on:
18.06.1905- Dear Diary, today Father took me
out to show me what was soon to become mine, Rose Manor! How can I possibly
wait! Having already planned how it would be run as an inn, oh a poor girl’s
dreams of her soon inheritance of a 500 acre manor and four-story mansion!
Victoria Rose
23.04.1906- Dear Diary, it has been
almost a year since I last wrote in you, positively scalding, oh well! The
house is amazing! Hundreds of people have visited the inn now! Rose Manor is a
name known all around Yorkshire! Father would be so proud, God rest his soul,
for he died not eight months ago… But having prayed to my Lord, he hath given
me strength enough to continue on and look at me now! I love what Father has
left me with, and now he has been left to see Mother again, God rest both of
them.
Victoria Rose
06.07.1906- Dear Diary, never have I
been in such joy in my life, for I have a wonderful job, a beauteous Manor, a
splendid home and so many friends throughout the town. The cherry blossoms have
been out again since May! They’re so beautiful I wish they would stay through the
winter also, that would be such a cherish! But I’ve heard that people are
beginning to talk about my absence of husband, but I don’t want to be wed, I
don’t wish for such tradition. Mother and Father understood, yet I fear others
do not…
Besides
such stress, I wish upon every first star I see each night for the rest of my
life that life does not have to change past this.
Victoria Rose
14.11.1906- Dear Diary, there is a
man I have housed for some months now, Charles Black, rumours have approached
me that he has taken a fancy to not just the manor… I don’t quite know what to
do, for he, however handsome and wealthy, appeals none to me. Such debate,
about whether to refuse him or continue oblivious, has troubled my sleep many
nights now. But what could I do, the rumours that burn my ears may even just be
trouble stirring lies. I wish you could help me,
Victoria Rose
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