July 9th, 1895 — Emsworth Estate, Oxfordshire

Traveling all over Britain to collect their monthly donations–which they conveniently forgot to send–was her second least favorite part of her job. The first being having to host the events to get the wealthy to agree to the charity donations in the first place. She'd much rather just sit at her desk and run things behind the scenes, but alas, the midwives were busy with patients (as they should), and it was her own responsibility.

It was fine. Everyone had to do things they didn't like for the good of society. The Abbey needed funding, so Melinda zipped around every month to the less reliable donors.

Though today's visit was one that she actually looked forward to.

After being let in by the butler and settled in the sitting room, she crossed her ankles and clasped her hands together around her knee, patiently waiting for Cordelia to arrive.

Daffodil Grimstone Cordelia Emsworth

  

Between her own crowd sourcing and being so close to securing the funds they needed to make sure she could get back to India to get Cindy fixed. Of course in that narrow focus, she neglected some of her other responsibilities and so she had tried to reign it in. It hadn't been soon enough though, and her mother had neglected their regular donation to Melinda's abbey. Delia would have to make up for it.

"Melinda, I apologize," she said as she came sweeping into the room. Dee had been scatterbrained at the best points in her life, but lately it seemed worse without much to anchor her whims. "I've been so preoccupied I forgot to remind mother of her donations." In truth she shouldn't have to, but Delia had come by her forgetfulness honestly. "I can send it with you today." She added as she flopped rather ungracefully into the armchair nearest Melinda, smiling wryly.

---

  

---

Melinda looked up as her friend stepped into the room, a rare grin spreading its way across her face. Her eyes crinkled, "That would be wonderful, thank you for your generosity." Which was what she was supposed to say–the Abbey and its needs came first, always. But now that that was out of the way, she leaned back against the settee and settled into a more comfortable position, "I know I could have owled, but I couldn't resist dropping in to check on you." (Although some of the patrons were eager to ignore her owls, which was why she made house visits in the first place. Delia's family, thankfully, wasn't one of them.) She tried not to let the concern be too obvious. Delia had been dealing with one tragic setback after another, and Melinda often wondered how she handled them all so gracefully.

  

"Honestly this was safer, it may have gotten lost in the fold." She passed Melinda a wry sort of self-depreciating smile. Though Delia checked the post often, she was mostly looking for anything regarding her next expedition, it would be easy for anything else to get overlooked.

Reaching over to fix her tea, Delia straightened up. "But as always, we're happy to see you." After her messy split from Hadrian, she knew some of his family did not take her side of the story very seriously and so it was nice that Melinda was still amicable. "Mothing is finagling the finances as we speak, so we will get you sorted with some extra funds." Being late with their donation was not the image she wanted to project, no matter how scatterbrained she was known to be. They were in a place of privilege, they shouldn't waste it.

---

  

---

"It's very much appreciated," Melinda told her with a grateful smile, reaching for her own teacup. Once she'd fixed it to her liking and taken a sip, she returned her attention to Cordelia, "How are you faring? It has been sometime since we last owled." To be fair, Melinda was very inconsistent with her personal correspondance. She was much too busy managing all the owls that came to her office on the daily. The Abbey didn't have an owlery, so there were a lot of inconveniently sat owls and far too many unfortunate moments of cleanup. She'd learned to get them in and out of her office as quickly as possible.

  

"Oh just busy," Delia waved off the concern with a smile and a gentle flap of her hand. It was a silly sort of busy, trying to get money out of people, but it was slowly working. Her next mission was to secure an assistant for herself and then schedule passage for herself (and the assistant) back to India to get Cindy turned human again. She had already spoken with family back in India to stay with them while she furthered her research down there. It was all coming together, just slower than she would have liked.

"Should be traveling again soon, so I will have to set up some sort of reminder system for mother with her donations." It would be more difficult than the rest, it felt like.

---

  

---