Chapter 1

 

'Jess surely you do not mean what you are saying? I know that Mama can be over bearing at times, but you will get used to her ways. But to say that you are unhappy in your new life, surely you cannot mean that? After all, you are a Lady now and not some lowly maid like before,' Marion my twin sister spoke to me in her surprise and frustration in response to me telling her honestly about what I thought of my new living arrangements and general day to day existence.

'No Marion you're right, I am not completely dissatisfied, I am glad of course that I met you...my dear sister. And even getting to know Mama too has been a high point for me despite her constant nagging. I am indeed happy to have met my natural family with you both been so welcoming,' I spoke with a small smile not wanting to upset Marion any further. I knew she meant well by me. So I made sure that I only focused on the positives of my situation and no longer on any of the negatives.

It was by now clear to me that although Marion and I were almost identical on the outside, her thought processes were far different from my own on this particular matter of the new life I was now living.

But was my sister right? That I had little reason for any grievances, I could imagine the majority of people agreeing with her on seeing the significant improvement in my status. And perhaps you would even come to that conclusion too?

Wait first before you make your judgement, it would be better for you to hear of my extraordinary story first. A story that has seen me removed from a life where I was scrubbing floors to now being the one to be waited upon. To now be sitting here on a grand chair in an elegant room, within a beautiful manor house which I learned just some months ago was my ancestral home.

Sorry, I digress! Back to my story. A story which starts twenty years ago when I was just a babe, whom fortunately or unfortunately, I have not decided yet, found herself separated from her family.

My Mama tells me that she had innocently stopped the carriage as we travelled through a busy marketplace to buy some beautiful flowers that she had spotted at a stall. She has sworn to me that she had left me with a maid and had only taken her eyes off or me for several minutes as she walked out to make the purchase of the sunflowers she had felt compelled to buy. But these minutes would prove crucial, minutes that she would regret for the rest of her life as it would be in these moments that I would be snatched from my cradle while the careless maid held Marion in her arms, and turning her back on me to flirt with a local trader that had caught her eye.

I cannot still believe it even now that the kind, warm farming couple who claimed they had found me abandoned on a quiet field had actually kidnapped me.

And I would have gone on to be none the wiser had I not had a chance encounter with my sister Marion. It was dramatic to say the least, can you imagine seeing someone wearing your own face and figure and staring straight at you. Needless to say, I was completely dumbfounded when our two worlds collided. Even more so to find that she was the beautiful and elegant lady who was to wed the Master of the fortress where I did my daily toil.

But Marion seemed just as surprised as I was to see me in turn; I think we both immediately knew that our resemblance could not just be coincident. I had at first been hesitant to explore our connection, perhaps with good reason, but Marion had been insistent that I meet her mother. And when I did eventually meet her seeing again another version of myself, but this time much older and with tears forming at the corners of her eyes I knew instinctively before she even dared to open her lips, as she walked up to touch my cheek in wonder then hug me tightly to her that the woman in front of me was my mother.