style="font-size:15px;"> “I will,” promised Melody and made her brother leave.
After he had left, she sat on her bed and bit her lower lip. Who knew her thoughts at that moment, but judging by her expression she liked what she was thinking about. Before she went to bed, Melody took her diary from a drawer and took a photograph out of it. It was made five years ago by daguerreotypes. It was a photograph of her as a twelve-year-old girl with her father. Then she wrote down in her diary about what happened to her during the day and pulled the bell to call Megan.
Chapter IV
At breakfast, Ralph caught his sister’s eye, who winked at him furtively.
“My dear, I was going to pay a visit to Countess Melshem,” said Mrs. Fellows to her husband. “Shall we go together?”
“I am afraid I have business, Rebecca. But you can take Melody with you.”
“No, I cannot go,” said his daughter.
“Why not?”
“Because there has to pass sometime after the incident with Ralph and Georgia before I can meet with her.”
“But it was in no way your fault, dear!”
“I know, Mother, but I will feel awkward anyway.”
“I think it is a reasonable decision, Rebecca,” Mr. Fellows agreed with his daughter. “And you will take notice of the situation there and of our neighbors’ mood.”
“Well, you leave me no choice. Megan, ask the coachman to prepare the carriage.”
“Yes, milady.”
During the rush about their mother’s departure the brother and sister managed to discuss the nuances of the latter’s bath procedures. She promised to be prepared at half past ten and leave the windows curtains open. The barn above the stables was opposite the bathroom on the first floor of the house, so one could look through a crack in the wooden wall of the stable and see a large bath bowl and the one who was taking a bath.
At the appointed time, Megan prepared a bath and asked Miss Fellows to come in. Melody tried not to look in the window, but she did glance a couple of times toward the barn. Her heart was pounding, and she was blushing. According to the legend, she was not aware that Ralph allowed his friend to watch her, so she was supposed to behave naturally. However, she had difficulty doing that, she dropped the soap now and again, so she had to bend over the rim of the bowl. “I suppose he is happy,” she muttered to herself. “I suppose he is sitting and smiling there.”
When Melody had stepped out of the bowl and was looking for a towel to wrap herself in, her father came into the room, wearing an unbuttoned white shirt and rolled up trousers. He froze up in shock, seeing his daughter naked, and she gasped and covered her breasts and crotch with her hands.
“Graham, do not enter!” shouted Mr. Fellows to his valet, who was about to bring in clean underwear and a towel.
The father immediately turned away and muttered crossly as he was leaving, “Tuesday is my day for bath procedures. Was it so hard to discuss the time with me or Graham?”
George Melshem, who was watching the scene, laughed heartily, though he did not hear Henry Fellows’s words.
“I can’t believe you did not want to show her to me undressed!” he said to Ralph. “Unlike you, your father has seen Melody naked, as it turns out.”
Ralph dropped his head dejectedly.
“You could at least show some tact, George,” he replied to his friend grumpily. “I hope that we are even now, and you will continue being friends with my family and me.”
“Of course, I will!” promised the viscount and patted his neighbor’s shoulder.
“Will you keep what happened secret from your sister or anybody else?” asked Ralph, walking with George to the gate.
The earl’s son slyly looked at his friend and slipped through the gate, making no answer.
Returning to the house, Ralph first went see his sister. She was writing something in her diary.
“I thought that you had told Father that you were going to do it in his time!” he said as soon as he entered. “He always takes a bath at eleven o’clock on Tuesdays with a rare exception.”
“I forgot,” said Melody. “You had confused me with your George and his whim!”
“Well, he was pleased.”
“Pleased with this escapade”
“With the escapade and with your body.”
“So, did you make friends?”
“He said so.”
“And what do you think?” insisted his sister.
“I think he does not care for my friendship. It is more likely that we shall stay mere acquaintances.”
“All the better. At least he will not roam around here with no call.”
Ralph sat next to Melody and picked her diary from the bed.
“Give it back!” she told him instantly.
The brother handed her the thing that was so important to her, and the photo of her and her father fell out of it.
“Oh dear! I had forgotten about our trip to Paris.”
“And I remember everything,” said Mary with nostalgia.
“Our mother’s and my daguerreotype did not come out well. I could not stay long in one position,” Ralph laughed.
“You never listened to our parents at all,” his sister said in reproach.
“You almost have not changed, Melody.”
“Just my appearance.”
“You are strange. We used to be close, we used to play and walk together. And now you sit at home like an old maid. Always clinging to your mother’s skirt.”
Melody looked at her brother, as if she wanted to retort, but thought better of it and said nothing.
“So are you going to tell me who he is?” Ralph persisted.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know it.”
“I will not,” answered his sister.
He went down to the sitting room and found his mother and Countess Melshem there.
“Son, you come just in time!” exclaimed Mrs. Fellows. “Be so kind as to go to the kitchen and ask them to bring us tea and cucumber sandwiches.”
“But they have just cleared up after our brunch.”
“That is why we keep servants, my dear, to serve and clean when we demand,” the guest retorted.
The
