VI

      Milicent felt sorry for Emily when she first got the invitation. Emily had been away for a long while and obviously did not know how things had changed. Milicent looked into the back of her mind at Emily. She would be sitting on a window ledge, wearing a top hat and reading a book. Real life hadn't gotten to her yet.
      Emily was reading a Henry James. She thought it was a tedious book. The apparent heroin was so dull, the way she couldn't or wouldn't do anything to help herself. She just let her husband treat her so badly while being a 'good woman'. Emily couldn't really see anything good about it. Still, she supposed that was the point.
      Emily's eyes slipped from the open pages to rest on her thumbs which held the pages apart. They protruded from black velvet cuffs and were framed with edging of her man's white shirt which showed just over the top, as it should.
      Emily remembered at this moment that she was wearing a top hat and that, if anyone had seen her reading outside in this garb they must have thought her a peculiar sight. But to Emily it seemed quite natural, her self blending pleasantly with the world of which she read and complimenting well the delightful chatter of the piano, which her brother played in the living room.
      She listened closer to appreciate blending of music and ideas but as she did so her thoughts were interrupted. The interruption came from a steady drum beat emanating from a window nearby. It seemed an infringement upon her reality. So unromantic.
      At this snobbish putting of her own artistic preference before another's, for she never made a judgement without first quizzing herself thoroughly on the matter, she revolted.
      She acknowledged with a sigh, that it was she that was an anachronism, existing forcefully out of place. Nevertheless, it had interrupted the fluidity of her enjoyment. Shortly after, Emily came back to reading her book, feeling as ever, that her smallest and most innocent pleasures were always, somehow, a great defiance of that esteemed cult of 'the Norm.' She did badly need to be with like-minded souls.
      Milicent contemplated the papers in her hand. The invitations were pretty: handwritten on homeade paper in pink ink, petals inside the envelopes. They were like love letters, which made her smile.

      Emily wrote,

      Dearest Milicent,

      I cannot believe that it has been so long. I have an offer to make which I hope shall tempt you to come and spend a few days with me. The offer is of a cottage on the English coast, in Norfolk, if you know the place. It is a quiet and very pretty area with lots of shops and good food as well as sand, oceans and samphire.
      I do hope that you will come and join the party for I have asked several other favourites if they can come with!
      Love, love and blessings,
      Emily.