34 - GIRLS

“Take our bride-to-be to her room,” Freya was on her feet. Dinner was over. “But don’t forget to take her to the girls’ room for a little gossip and a little music.”

Peniel took Lola’s right hand and Morgan took the left. They were young ladies like Lola, but they were more girly than a lady should be. that could be because they were too rich, they barely had anyone to play silly with them, maybe from childhood till the moment.

“This is the most interesting part of it, but trust Peniel, she did something you won’t believe,” Morgan said as they led Lola out of the big hall.

“Don’t get loud,” Peniel snapped. “Mother shouldn’t hear of them.”

Lola thought she should ask them who they called ‘them’, but she chose to bow low and let the fun hit her if it would ever be fun to meet the ‘they’ they spoke of.

They hastened up and forced Lola to do the same, and in just a couple of minutes, they had climbed the stairs. From what Lola could see, they shouldn’t have climbed the stairs because there was a lift in the house, but maybe Morgan and Peniel chose the stairs for fun’s sake.

“Have you ever climbed stairs this crooked and beautiful?” they stopped by the railings of the stairs and leaned to the railings. Lola joined them. the height between the peak of the stairs where the railings were balanced like that of the palace of Camelot was quite long and one would crush if one dropped from the railings to the floor down the hall, but it was fun to stand by the railings and look down to the floor.

Everyone looked small in the hall. The eateries had been taken off from the table by the maids, and some of the guards had retired from the hall, but Grey and Freya remained there, and from the railings, they looked small at the table.

“This is one good thing about mansions,” Peniel whispered. “One good reason why I will live and die in this same mansion where I was brought up.”

Morgan laughed.

“Lola, what about you, will you stay here with us after the wedding, or will you stroll off to the noisy neighborhoods out there to do business with Tobi?” Peniel asked.

“My man will decide that,” Lola answered. “Why not come show me my room before the rest of your surprises, Peniel?’’

Peniel nodded. “Indeed.”

They led her deep into the mansion. The walkways were long and they had channels which led to several chambers of the mansion. The mansion’s architecture looked like that of the centuries before the twentieth century. it was classic.

“Our mansion looks like a maze with all these confusing channels.” Peniel stopped by the door of one of the rooms. “In total, we have thirty rooms, five halls and a lot of chambers in the basement.”

Weird! The mansion isn’t from the twenty-first century, Lola could already tell that. Peniel opened the door with a card, and they walked into the room.

Luxury! That’s the one word that could best describe the room. The bed was the sort she hadn’t seen even in movies, and the walls were such wonder. Lola walked to the window and looked out to the compound which had a couple of luxurious cars packed. Some had just pulled in with a few persons still nestled beside them.

“The view from the railings to the hall is such a magnificent one, but from this room to the open space downstairs is a glorious sight,” Lola said and turned to them. “What year was this mansion built?”

“Does it look old?” Peniel asked.

“Classic, that’s the right word for it,” Lola said.

Morgan folded her arms. “That’s a relic of the past, isn’t that what the mainstream media treat as classic?” Morgan posed. Her eyes were bright with her query.

Lola smirked. “As long as this mansion’s not trapped in a glass casing in a museum, you shouldn’t call it a relic,” said Lola. “You should call it classic because it’s the work of the best moments of mankind.”

“Mom only had this mansion built five years ago, because she wanted something that looks exactly like her childhood home in England.” Peniel shipped in.

“Because her childhood home was snatched by the state from her uncle for reasons we shouldn’t share with you because she wouldn’t have stories to tell if we told you everything,” Morgan added.

They laughed.

“I can’t wait to hear her tell me about her past,” Lola said and made it to the bed.

“We invited some of our cousins and friends,” said Morgan, “you might have seen some of them from the window, but trust me, Mother wouldn’t see them because they will use the east gate.”

“You mean?” Lola asked.

“You will understand when you spend a little more time with us.” Said Peniel.

“You can grab some rest, sweetheart,” Morgan crept in. “We will come for you when the time is due.”

“Bye.”

***

Lola started with her hair. The stylist was such a wonderful one to have packed her hair in such a beautiful manner that was most suitable for a bride of maybe, seventeenth-century royals, not for a lady who was raised in the roughest neighbourhoods of a modern-day American city.

Free from the hair bound and everything, she descended on the gown. It was such a nice one, but it was a little too heavy and not free for her likeness.

She isn’t from the Elizabethan era. She took it off even before she made for the stilettos. She let out a gasp and made for the wardrobe. The clothes in it were a lot better.

She chose one, a skimpy bed-time gown suitable for ladies who would have a man sleep by their side at nightfall. She shut the wardrobe and wore the gown, and as she had long missed the fun of sleep, she pushed the gown she laid on the bed to the floor and threw herself on the bed.

The dinner was fun, but it only opened new pages of questions she ought to ask about the man she had just signed to marry.

“Who is Mary?”