time for change

A Chapter by zoerunning

With their father ill, the three sisters know that there is a big possibility they wont have much longer in the house they love but who to turn to ?

This is a story of three sisters trying to find their way in life through its twists and turns, good times and the bad times. As children they had every advantage, loving parents and a beautiful home. The eldest sister Rebecca was 19 years old she is one of those who loved nothing more than to just get lost in a good book she was intelligent yet in her youth was innocent to the nastiness that was in the world but she would learn about that as everyone eventually does some way or another. Harriett was the middle child 2 years younger than Rebecca. She loved nothing more than to paint, to put on canvas what she believed to be god’s gift to the world which was the land in which she lives and all the creatures in it. The youngest of them all Juliet who is 16 a year younger than Harriett, although she is the youngest, and the most childish and innocent of all of the three sisters she was determined to do something with her life, to help her family in whatever way she possibly could. She wanted to be a writer she knew it wasn’t glamorous and was looked down upon somewhat by polite society but she didn’t care she was always in a corner writing whatever stories came into her mind. The sisters lives however were not always going to be this easy and carefree, the beautiful home in which they live was not always to be theirs. As they have no brother when the sister’s father died their beautiful home of Northfeld Park was to be entailed to some distant relation that none of them had ever met. They had never heard anything bad about him but they knew after the death of their father that no matter how nice or caring that he is they would not be able to go on living there as they had. They knew that this perfect life was fragile and wouldn’t last for eternity. This fact was made ever more present in the minds of the family than that summer in 1800. With Mr Marchbanks ill they were all worried. The summer was most defiantly dampened by the prospect that this would be there last summer in their happy home, which they all loved so much. At breakfast you could feel the tension and concern of them all at almost a whisper Rebecca askes.

“How is father doing?” their mother replied with.

“He does not change.” The sense of relief that he is no worse was immediate. Almost cheerfully Juliet says

“At least he is no worse.” Everyone at the table admired her enthusiasm. For the rest of breakfast no one said a word, the house was almost too quite. The silence was penetrating they all knew that this could be it, that their beloved father might not recover from this most recent illness. He wasn’t a sickly man but, within the last few years his illnesses had become slightly more frequent than they had been previously. Their father’s illness was the talk of the town everyone wanted to see what would happen to the remaining members of the Marchbanks family when their father and protector died. It was cruel of the town’s folk to talk of them like this, but this is the type of place in which they lived. Everyone knew everyone, and it wasn’t out of amusement that they were talking of the Marchbanks family’s misfortune, it was out of compassion. The town’s folk didn’t want to the Marchbanks family to suffer more than would be expected. Everyone at breakfast Knew that the man who was inheriting their beautiful home should be informed of their fathers illness. However to them to do so would be admitting to the world just how ill their beloved father and husband were and none of them could muster up the courage to do it. Despite the fact that unless their father made a drastic full recovery within the next day or so they all knew that it was something that would have to be done. Rebecca thought about it picturing Mr Fairway swanning over to Northfeld just waiting for her father to expire and throw them out onto the street. Even though their father said that he was a nice man, and she was probably overreacting and just thinking of the worse but she couldn’t help it. These thoughts made it even harder for the family to write to their distant relation that they had never even met before. Rebecca needed her friend Mr Lawsdon to talk to he would know what to do if only he wasn’t away in London on business he wouldn’t be back at least until Monday. She resolved to write to him instead. She would have asked her sisters or mother but she knew that was a bad idea and the only other person in the world she thought could help was Lawsdon. The Lawsdon family live next door and the sisters and the two Lawsdon brothers were bought up together. That was another reason the Marchbanks didn’t want to leave they knew they would never get as good a friend as the Lawsdons. Rebecca sat at her writing desk that overlooked the grounds of the home she loved so much. She sat there for a moment thinking of what exactly to write. As her friend James Lawsdon the eldest of the Lawsdon brother’s father died when he was eleven, after that Lawsdon saw Mr Marchbanks as a second father. The news of his illness would undoubtedly affect him. She eventually decided what she was going to say and wrote her letter. She suddenly wondered if she had done the right thing, but then the rational side to her realised that she was not writing to Mr Fairway, and she was safe from the scrutiny of her family. Before she talked herself out of it she ran as fast as she could through the grounds of Northfeld park to the nearest post box, were it would be too late to change her mind. Walking back and looking up at her magnificent home she knew she had done the right thing Lawsdon was a friend and not to inform him would be unkind. Despite knowing this she decided to delay going home as long as possible luckily she was holding a book, she found a nice spot in their grounds where she liked most. By the lake and willow tree just on the edge of the grounds of Northfeld park, found a nice spot and read her book, she couldn’t imagine not being able to read there or live in Northfeld, despite the fact she knew one day soon she would have to leave.