The View from a Victorian Window

Little clear beads on the window pane reflect my own face as an upside-down distored image. Their feet dance across the window, almost making a melody with the wind that determines their course. His voice rises and falls with such a fierceness, I'm not shure what caused him such pain.

My finger tips touch the cold glass, recieving crowns of steam as I strain my eyes to see what is outside. At first I think it's a man, hunched over with age, straining against the wind, trying to find his way home. His back is knotty and thin, his arms wrapped around himself for comfort and warmth, bracing himself for the last leg of his journy. The wind shifts and his arms fly back. It's then I realize it's just an old tree.

A creaking on the stairs makes me whip my head around, so fast that I get a crick in my neck. As I rub the hurt I see Bitsy, the house maid. She looks in my room and grumbles. Her affection for me is that of a horse with an inremoveable fly on his back. I always got in the way of her cleaning, wanting to play with my dolls and my imaginary friends. I glance at her turning the corner in the hallway, her backside blocking more of my view than it used to. She seems to have been taken with our new cook.

As she dissapears from my sight I find myself alone again. My room is too big for my own good. I would have been content with just a bed and a window. All of the free space makes me feel more isolated than I actually am. The velvet drapes cover the bed I neglected to make this morning. Dresses and peticoats poke out of my closet, begging to be placed back on the hanger properly. Maybe in a few minutes. Maybe in a while. Maybe tomorrow.

I lay back on the chez chair that is the only piece of furniture I like in my room. Its soft and right infront of my window. The white fabric with lace stichings allows me to get lost in it's designs as long as it takes me to feel numb again. My ceiling is too barel to stare at for a long time, so I move my eyes to the blue pictures on my wallpaper.

The maid is forever stuck feeding the ducks as the handsome and rich young boy rests in anticipation behind a tree. Always he will be on the brink of confessing his true love and continuing his family line. And she will be working in a grace of true womanhood, only to be accomplished by the precfect girls in the half penny stories the lower class girls live for, until the glue weakens and the paper peels off my walls. But I've looked at their story so many times I've come to realise that the boy isn't in love with the poor beauty, he only came outside to observe and mock those lower than him.

The chimes of the grandfather clock downstairs let me know that I have a hour until studies. Another 60 minutes, 3600 seconds, what would seem a lifetime to a girl who is denied any fun. Who is supposed to be the prefect picture of her mother, and pride and joy of her father. To the outside world I'm the luckiest girl about to have a season to die for. To anyone inside the walls of this house, I'm the only child that was supposed to be a boy, the one who was far too adventurous and had to be confined to her room. She was too dangerous.

I fondel a loose button on my glove. If I pull hard enough it would snap right off. Oh how that would make Mother mad. Brand new gloves from London already needing to be fixed. I throw the freshly ripped button across the room were it might never be found and gaze at the exposed flesh of my hand. Too scandalous. Too raunchy. A hand.

A loud creek comes from the otherside of the window pane. I stip up blot right, only to discover that the old man's back finally broke against the wind.