Page 5 of Twelve Drummers Drumming

There was always somewhere to storm off to when you lived in London. Unfortunately, what Jemima could not find at this present moment was peace of mind.

All she wanted to do was walk without giving any thought as to where she was going, fury and embarrassment burning through her lungs.

She would have to go back at some point. Have to face them.

“Jemima!” A voice cried out behind her, and Jemima closed her eyes in frustration.

Was she ever to be left alone? Was the hunt for a husband never to end, were the comments on her ability to “catch” a man never to cease? When would someone take her interests seriously?

She turned and looked into her sister Arabella’s serious eyes. “You were truly going to leave without even a pelisse?”

Arabella appeared to have grabbed one at random, a long luxurious pelisse lined with fur. One glance told Jemima it was Esther’s, but that seemed rather beside the point.

“I am not cold, you may take the pelisse back with you.”

All she could hear in her head were the words of her stepmother:now this day has come for our eldest child.

Tears threatened to escape from her eyes, but she dashed them away. She would not cry on Selina’s account. She refused to.

Arabella looked at her suspiciously as Jemima shivered, her crimson gown whipped by the chilling wind. “Jemima. You must not mind Mama. You know she does not speak out of malice.”

“Then she does not think, so injures me doubly,” Jemima could not help but let the sarcasm flow from her mind to her tongue. She reached out her hand to pull her gown in from the teasing wind. “The very fact this is a common occurrence merely proves her inability to consider my feelings, time after time after—”

“It is difficult for her,” Arabella interrupted. They were almost separated as two street urchins ran between them. “You know that she has tried to keep you at the center of our family.”

“Well then, she has failed. I cannot help but say it, and it brings me no pleasure I assure you. The last thing I feel is the center of this family. Any family.”

Before Arabella could reply, Jemima turned on her heels and strode off in the opposite direction.

It was not, Jemima reminded herself, that Selina was an unfair person in general. She did like her stepmother.

Selina was caring, thoughtful, and had always encouraged her daughters Caroline and Esther to befriend Jemima.

But Jemima was old enough now to understand the real problem. Selina found it difficult to love Jemima. The only child out of six who was not hers, Selina had tried desperately to treat them all the same but invariably failed.

“Steady on there, steady on!” A portly gentleman with a stick raised it at her angrily.

Jemima realized, lost in her thoughts as she was, that she had just walked straight into him.

“My apologies, sir,” she said stiffly and walked away before she had to listen to his angry words.

Jemima reached the end of the street and paused.

Where was she? Gazing up at the street names, she saw she had been walking almost in a complete circle. She was very nearly home.

Jemima gazed out across the London street. There was never anywhere as busy as London, and she reveled in the hustle and bustle of it all.

Even here in the street there was just so much happening.

As they were now approaching December, the signs of the festive Christmas season were beginning to spring up everywhere she looked. Many of the shop fronts had ribbons of red and gold around their doors, and most had special notices of Christmas treats were available inside.

Across the way from her was a man standing on a box, shouting news from France.

“And the glorious war is almost over!” He shouted in a shrill voice, his suit and jacket splattered with mud as though he had stood there for hours. “Our brave men have fought valiantly, and as we welcome them home…”

Jemima turned to look further down the street where a small market had been erected and fruit and vegetables were being hawked.

“Get your potatoes here!” squawked a woman in a rather shabby overcoat. It had once been blue, Jemima could see, but it had been many years since it had been washed out to a dull grey. “Get your parsnips and radishes, keep the winter cold at bay!”

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