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“I am happy to make your acquaintance, Lady Maxine.”
Maxine made a curtsy before jumping up on the bed. “I am happy to make yours as well. Are you really our neighbor?”
Rose smiled softly. That ache in her chest, would it ever leave? “I was. I do not live there anymore.”
“Because you are going to live here?”
The hope in the child’s eyes made her shake her head. “I am just visiting.”
“We never get visits from interesting people. You will be the first.”
“I am sure your aunts and uncles would not like to hear that.”
“Oh, I have known them all my life,” she said, fingering the pattern on the counterpane. “So, they don’t count.”
“Tell me, Lady Maxine, what do you find interesting?”
“Hmm,” she said, putting her finger to her lips. “Lots of things, but I especially like to find things, like bugs. Not the ugly ones, the pretty ones like beetles and butterflies. Ladybugs are my favorite.”
“They are pretty bugs indeed.”
“My Uncle Charles told me that even though they are called ladybugs, they are not all ladies.”
“I wonder why they were called that then?”
“He, that is Uncle Charles, told me they are really called Our Lady’s Beetles, named after the Virgin Mary because the people prayed and the beetles ate pests and saved the crops.”
“Uncle Charles is very knowledgeable.”
“He knows a lot about nature. What do you like to do?”
“I like to draw flowers…” Before Rose could elaborate, Max nodded excitedly.
“Oh, yes, me too. My grandmother says that flowers that do not have pleasant perfume are not worth picking. I like wildflowers the best, and they do not always smell like anything. I press them into a book sometimes.”
“I used to press flowers when I was young too.”
Elsie appeared out of the dressing room and stopped short. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No, Elsie, come in. Lady Maxine and I were just talking.”
“You do not have to call me Lady Maxine, you know. No one does. They all call me Max. Unless I am in trouble and then it is Maxine Victoria!” she said in a dramatic tone and then giggled.
“Very well, Max. You must call me Rose.”
“Thank you, I have been desperate for a new friend. We could be kindred spirits.”
Rose smiled. She could see a lot of herself in this child. She had been a lonely child too, if not for Marianne befriending her and teaching her that a friend listens and then offers hugs. That a friend keeps their promise to write and then actually does, and a friend opens their home to a grieving friend and embraces her.
After Elsie shooed Max back to her room to dress, they met again in the breakfast room.
“Come sit by me,” she said, offering her hand to guide her to a seat.
Marianne watched with a twitch at the side of her lips. “Max, please let Lady Rose pick her own seat.”
Max looked up at Rose. “I’m sorry. I am just so excited to have you here.”
“Well, how am I to choose from all these chairs?” She indicated the dozen or so chairs around the table. “I will need some guidance, it seems, after all.”
