Re: London, Murray House, Mina & Vanessa
Mina had learned that such a word did not exist. Youthful, and she'd believed life would be made of days filled with such brightness that such a word would be needed. That week, the one leading to the wedding that never came to fruition, she'd thought many such things. She envisioned a life filled with unmarred windows, the sunlight streaming into her married life and leaving no place untouched. There would be no shadows upon her wedding bed, and no sadness at her table. She envisioned a life filled with dancing, smiles, love and friendship. She had loved her Captain very much in that way of first loves, and there was room for nothing beneath her ribcage then but him.
Then it ended, and she no longer needed a brighter word than bright. Words such as that, she'd learned, were not needed in life. Those were thoughts made for children, and they did not live beyond the nursery and governess.
Vanessa smelled of dark things, and Mina thought that appropriate. She could, herself, bathe in dark things, and yet she would never be like the dearest friend of her youth. She had never wanted to swim out until her legs no longer had the strength to kick beneath the waves. She'd never dreamed of the things Vanessa dreamed.
"I have longed for home," Mina admitted when Vanessa claimed the home had missed her presence. It was a genuine enough; she had always loved London. The season, it's finery, it's balls. She was made for London; she was not made for seasides, and if she felt the tightening of Vanessa's hands, she gave no indication.
She shook her head when Vanessa mentioned her mother's funeral. "Pardon?" she asked, and the confusion in the blue depths of her eyes was genuine. She'd not seen Vanessa since the day before the wedding, save for that day── "You are mistaken."
She stepped away, to the window once more, and she looked out on the broad street that served as a pedestal for the broad width of her family home. "We should have a gathering," she suggested. "As I have come home, and we are together once more," she mused, watching the foot traffic beyond the glass.