January 15th, 1890 — Solicitor's Office, London
This was not how she'd imagined spending the first month of the new year. The accident and her father's subsequent injury had left Charity with the expectation that her father would not live; it had only been a matter of when he would succumb to his injuries. All tears had been shed by the time his black coffin was lowered into his grave, and all Charity could do from that point was move on.
She expected to be doing that at the neighbor's house. They had five children all around her age, and all had been quick to show her to her bed and include her in their games. She so fancied the idea of being a sister—even if only in spirit!—that she buried her pain deep in her chest and redirected her attention to fitting into the family as smoothly as possible.
But things that seemed too good to be true usually were. She'd awoken that morning to the sight of packed suitcases and one of the maids eager to dress her and get her down the stairs. There were murmurs of a solicitor and the Darrows, none of which made any sense out of context. She initially assumed her extended family was here to visit her, or maybe that she'd been left something by her father that had been overlooked, but all became apparent once she'd reached the bottom step.
She was being sent away—and to live with someone who was practically a stranger, at that!
Confused but too numb to show any emotions, Charity had silently climbed into the carriage, only bidding her neighbors farewell for politeness sake, and left.
"And that is how I got here," she finally said, after spending nearly half an hour recounting her life story to the old and tired-looking solicitor who sat across from her. There was no one to talk to here; everyone was either old or gloomy-looking (or, like the solicitor had proven was possible, both).
She was just about to start her monologue on the possible paths of her future when the solicitor suddenly stood up, his eyes caught on someone behind her.
Or someones.
Chairty whipped her head around, only to be met with the sight of two older, two very different-looking men. Neither of them stood out in her mind as someone she remembered, and for a moment she considered they were here for a different reason. That was, until the solicitor greeted them by name. Charity rose to her feet, smoothing the creases out of her blue skirt, and took a deep breath.
