“Thank you for answering. I imagine it is not pleasant to talk about.”
She shook her head. “It is not, but I rather people ask than stare.”
Charlotte gave her a curt nod and continued putting up the rest of her items. When she was finished, she pushed the leather bag under the bed and curtsied.
“Do call for me should you need anything, my lady,” she said and excused herself.
She stepped toward the door connecting her chamber to her sister’s and poked her head in. The other maid was just leaving, and her sister was lying fully clothed on her bed, fast asleep. She smiled and returned to her chamber when suddenly –
“Charlotte?” She called out. Ever since the fire, Ruth found herself growing exceedingly cold in the night and always liked an extra cover to keep from shivering. She’d neglected to request this of Charlotte. Rushing through the room she hoped to reach the maid before she returned to the servant quarters.
However, when Ruth reached the doorway she was taken aback by voices in the hall.
One voice belonged to Charlotte, the other to Molly, the woman assigned to Sophia.
She could not make out what Charlotte said, but she heard the reply loud and clear.
“A fire? I thought as much. How horrible to spend one’s life looking like that! Frightful.”
“Do not be so harsh, Molly. She cannot help it. Besides, she seems a very sweet character, that Lady Ruth.”
Ruth wanted to feel glad at Charlotte’s kind words, but she found herself focused only on the negativity from Molly. She chided herself for paying any attention to them at all, as she knew better not to eavesdrop on people who were sure to be discussing her condition. The comments were almost always either pitying or downright nasty. Today, as it turned out, was no exception.
“It’ll do her no good to be pleasant. Not in this world we live in.” Molly said with a certainty in her voice. “People judge you by the way you look and she, I’m afraid, looks like a monster. A monster, I declare! I’m only glad her sister claimed me right quick, for I would surely have shuddered every day having to be near her.”
“Do not be so unkind.”
“I am not unkind. I am just saying what everyone is thinking. To be walking the world with a face like that. I’d rather be dead, Lotte. ‘Pon my word, I’d rather be dead than look like her.”
Ruth gasped and stumbled backward as if slapped. Her foot caught on the carpet and she found herself flying backward through the air, landing on the floor with a bang. A searing pain rushed up to her back and she cried out. The moment the sound left her mouth she slapped her hand in front of it, not wanting to draw more attention to herself. Instead, she pressed her lips together in an effort not to cry. However, the words had made their way into her mind and she could not stop repeating them.
A monster…
She is right. I am a monster. No matter how nice I am, no matter how kind I am, no matter how much empathy I show people - they never repay it. They look at me and all they see is the scar. I am my scar, and my scar is me. I will never be anything else but the girl who was trapped in a fire.
She sat on the floor, tears spilling out of her eyes and down her cheeks.
“Ruthie!” Her sister’s voice sounded out. She rushed to her side and knelt beside her, one hand on her back.
“I woke when I heard you cry out. What has happened? Who upset you?” Her tone was full of determination and Ruth knew if she repeated Molly’s words, Sophia would find her, confront her, and then demand she be let go on the spot. It was Sophia’s nature. Ever since Ruthie stepped out of the wine cellar that afternoon, it had forever changed Sophia. She had taken it upon herself to protect Ruth whenever their father was not around.
However, Ruth was not interested in causing Molly harm. What difference would it make? It would only reaffirm in the woman’s mind that she was indeed a monster. Not because of the scar, but because she’d be the cause for the woman’s unemployment.
She shook her head. “It does not matter. It is always the same. Whenever we venture away from home. No matter where we go people look at me the same and say the same. They never see me for me.”
“Who was it?” Sophia demanded.
“It will do no good. It will not change how they see me, whatever you say to them. I am what I am. You saw the way he looked at me, the Marquess, did you not? He was so horrified by my appearance that he dropped his cane.”
Sophia looked at her sister with a helplessness that hurt Ruth all the more. Both her sister and her father wanted nothing more than to protect her, but they could not. The world was what it was. Especially for a woman. If you had a flaw, any kind of flaw, you were looked down upon and singled out.
She was resigned to the fact that the world would never accept her because of how she looked. She could accept the heartache this fact brought, but that it would also continue to break the hearts of her father and sister was difficult to accept. They would always suffer because of her.
Suddenly, Ruth found herself consumed by a self-loathing she could not fight. She got up and walked over to the dreaded mirror and picked it up. Bracing herself she held it in such a way as to see her entire left side. It had been a long time since she had a clear look at herself. The reflection that looked back at her was worse than she’d imagined. She gasped but could not look away.
“They are right. I am grotesque, I am ugly.”
Sophia jumped up. “No, you are not. You radiate beauty from within your heart. You are a beauty!”
