Life before Idaria

Anais was woken up from her night's sleep. She went to bed quite exhausted and looked forward to a long night of shut eyes. She looked around to see the heavy wind coming from her window. The bolt was unhinged and a heavy breeze poured into her room.

She found herself staring out into the deep dark night. It was just really foggy. After a moment of staring out, she felt like someone was watching her. Stalking. It won't be the first time after all.

She was sure she saw someone move into the thick of the trees. But she couldn't tell for sure. The next best thing for her was to close out the dark night and put a bolt on it.

But it was sure to come unhinged again sometime during the night. So, to err on the safer side, she decided to tie up the bolt with lace that was sitting lonely in the dresser.

T'was but a night. Her best guess was 4 o'clock. She didn't have the energy to fetch a string from the kitchen backdoor. All things necessary and extra, the butler piled there. Besides Froote slept light. A few light footsteps and he would be up and running ready to serve the dwellers of the household and anyone attached he could find.

The butlers liked their job and made sure to do it well. They had served the household for a long time. But Anais didn't want to wake up the poor butler and deal with him at this time of the night.

She hated the room she got. As the eldest daughter of the household, she had the best room in the house after her parents but she had fallen out of favour with her mother and was shipped shortly after to this room with all her belongings packed.

The nice room was given to her half-sister. Not that she minded the sister but it was a punishment for her to be cheated out of her right as the eldest daughter of the household.

A show her mother madcap put on to shame her. Father just went ahead with whatever her mother said. He wasn't a man to interfere in the women's business until things got out of hand. Her life was a shame.

The reason she didn't like it was because it was beside the servant's quarter and the nursery. The servants always tiptoed around her and were always on edge even after she had reassured them time and again. The nursery though, she couldn't really hate it, she established. She got to be near her baby brother after all. But it was a damn chore to be wakened up in the middle of the night every fall.

Her brother, the little devil that he was, chose that exact moment to make his presence known as she was palming through books to read. It wasn't the cry of trouble. It was a cry of hunger, she thought. By this time, she was accustomed to his different moods of crying.

She forgot all about reading books and rushed to the room her baby brother was kept in the nursery. As she opened the door, it startled the young maid who was actually a nanny and a milk mother to her younger brother. It seems Carolina had just woken up.

"Young miss, I was just about to feed the baby" Carolina nodded in the baby's direction as she put up her hair in a hairdo.

"It's alright. I'll entertain the baby. Take your time" She carefully lifted the baby out of his little bed and cuddled it close to her heart while Carolina was getting decent. It didn't stop the little guy from crying. He was awfully hungry, she presumed.

There was not anything she could really do about that. She didn't milk after all. She was not a mother.

So, she did the next best thing and continued to rock the baby. After a few moments of holding the warm bundle in her arms, Carolina was soon taking the warm bundle out from her. Anais felt a sharp pang. How she wanted to mother a baby.

She watched as the milk mother lifted her clothes and bared her naked breast. The baby who was suddenly too quiet with anticipation soon latched onto her breast and took great pulls. The baby was hungry for sure.

Carolina assuming that it would be a long while before the baby was done, sat down on the mattress. She watched Engel feed for a while. Her own baby sleeping peacefully beside her. She wondered how the women felt. Her husband had run away with another female two weeks after she birthed the child.

The woman was off duty for being with a child. She was counting on her husband of 3 years to provide for the family solely during this time and after childbirth, she was supposed to come back to her maid duties with a whole family to care for.

Carolina was blooming with happiness when she became aware that she was in fact with a child. She had rushed to Anais's room and hugged her tight informing her of the baby. She reluctantly separated herself from Anais due to the baby's welfare.

"It ain't right for you to squeeze people when you are with a child" Anais had playfully reminded her back then.

Now Carolina had no home to return to. Her husband had the mind to sell the house before running off with the pretty young lass

from two villages over. It was news all over the Garyols.

Carolina after her baby brother's birth was one of the first ladies to come forward to become a milk mother. Carolina had worked the household since she was only a young lass of ten and six. It was her loyalty to the family that got her the job.

Things turned out okay for the mother and son after the husband's departure. Carolina wasn't too worked up about her husband running off with a lass half his age. Their marriage was one of convince. Or if she was, she hid it well, giving nothing to gossip about to the other maid and butlers alike.

The two women found themselves lost in their own thoughts but the concentration was broken by a cry of shrill. The breast had popped out of the baby's mouth and he wanted it back. Babies were a vocal lot for they couldn't form a coherent thought. Soon he continued sucking closing his eyes and fisting his little hands. The sound of great pulls cut the air.

Anais decided she wasn't required here anymore and decided to go to her room to sleep it off. She told Carolina to get as much sleep as she could get. Raising a baby was a task too hard.