Priory of Death: 10

Everyone looked fine - I thought the Society types were probably saving themselves for a huge amount of dissipation on Sunday night to see in the new year. Our clerical friend was absent, but the rest of us were still there, and still alive. Had any of them been getting into bad habits, I wondered.
"Where's your husband?" I asked Victoria. She smiled.
"He's still at the station. In Ayr. The train hasn't got in yet..."
"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. Then food was brought in. I hoped Emily wasn't around, as she wasn't going to get any.
"Bacon and eggs!" Scruff exclaimed delightedly. She has no sense of decorum at all, and I heard Amelia titter. That annoyed me. Partly because I don't like the idea of someone being cattier than me, but don't tell Lynette that.

"Doesn't Jane feed you enough at home? she said archly.
"Jane's really nice to me!" Scruff shot back. "She's all the family I've got now!"
"You poor girl. Jane, how do you cope with her?"
"We're the best of friends," I answered defiantly. We are, really, but I came off as rather defensive.
"Wasn't it a shame your stepmother died like that?"
Since Scruff and I were personally involved in her death, our thoughts were rather different.
"No," Scruff was the first to speak, relieving me of the responsibility to speak only well of the dead. Although come to think of it, that was why I didn't say anything. "She stole my inheritance and tried to make me marry a boy I hated."
"Poor old Scruff..."
Before I could show Amelia what catty REALLY means, Victoria broke in and tried to change the subject. It needed changing too. A few more minutes of that and I'd be ready for a cat-fight, and I don't mean perhaps!

"Let's go outside after breakfast. We can look at the Priory ruins. Gosh! wasn't it thrilling, hearing about all those terrible things that happened here all those centuries ago?"
"Wonderful," I answered sarcastically.
"You don't beleve in the stories, do you?" Victoria pouted. I shook my head.
"No, I don't. It all sounds like a lot of Victorian melodrama..."
"Aha!" Victoria replied. "But we found the Pit!"
That did surprise me.