Six Weeks Earlier
She had arrived at a gate with no walls attached— just two, tall stone posts and a little rubble— nothing to prevent the impressively designed wrought-iron from being by-passed on either side. Despite this strangely detached state, however, it felt impolite not to use the gate, especially since such trouble and craftsmanship had gone into the making of it.
When she tugged on the bell-pull that hung from the gate post, a small bell, designed to look like a drooping flower, rang atop the gate. But the sound was so light that it might have been mistaken for drops falling into a rain-catcher. Surely it would not reach the ears of anybody inside the house, the chimneys of which could only just be seen through the trees.
"Here we are then, Coquin," she muttered to the hessian bag that hung from her wrist. "Now behave yourself, or else."
Although a churlish protest of French curses and a flurry of bag shaking greeted this remark, at least the whistling of "Frere Jacques", over and over again from inside the sack, had finally ceased.
Looking around to be sure they were alone, she whispered, "If you embarrass me before my new mistress, I shall bury you in this good earth, where you should have been put to rest long, long ago. Then you will have to wait for somebody to dig you up by chance. If they ever do."
One last bounce for the sake of it and then the noise died away.
"Aha, better! Silence is golden, Coquin. Remember? Le silence est d'or."
This was what her long-suffering mother used to whisper. In the evenings, as she strained her eyes over the sewing she took in, and while her daughter toddled around the room in naughty circles, disturbing the peace, unwilling to sleep, that poor woman would beg for respite. Her pleas were rarely heeded and she was too genteel to raise her voice, even if circumstances required the raucous tones of a fishwife. She was too soft-natured to scold, too loyal and accepting to find fault even in those who disappointed. Or perhaps she was simply too tired.
Oh, how cruel that such a saintly, selfless woman had been burdened with such a wretched imp of a child.
Now, with the troublesome "Coquin" in her custody, bound to her against both their wills, Amalie McKenna understood something of her mother's trials, but she did not possess that good woman's patient temperament when dealing with them. Alas.
Above her head a sly zephyr moved among the clawing branches, causing a discontented rattle. It was as if something in the air, suffering a fit of jealousy, tried to loosen that glorious cladding of leaves and steal it away. All in vain, of course, for the verdigris coat was too strong with youthful vigor. The trees proudly fluttered and fluffed their festive plumage just to annoy the breeze even further.
"Hello?" she called out.
Finally, movement among the darker shadows. The bent figure of a man formed out of the woodland and slowly hobbled into her view between the bars of the gate. He was a short, twisted old fellow, dressed in the drab colors of a tree trunk. The large bundle of fallen branches he carried on his back completed his arboreal disguise.
"Pardon, sir," she called out.
Rather than turn his head, he stopped and then shuffled his entire crooked body around to look over at her, huffing and puffing loudly at the inconvenience as he did so. The shoulders of his shabby leather jerkin were darkened with rain, and a single crystal drop hung suspended from the end of his beaked nose. A few grey sprigs escaped from under his cap, stuck to his wet forehead, as if painted there. His eyebrows, lushly overgrown so that they were almost joined into one, and curling against his damp, wrinkled skin with the liveliness of summer foliage, rose and fell in mute question.
"I am the new lady's maid sent to Mrs. Wilding," she explained. "Would you be so kind as to take me to the house, please?"
His mouth moved before he spoke, as if he had to get his words aligned first. Or his few remaining teeth in likewise order. "Not another one," he croaked dourly. Then he raised his voice to a scratchy complaint, "Got two legs, two 'ands and one 'ole 'ead, en't ye?"
"Yes."
"Gate en't locked." With a sniff and a moist, gargling sound that she supposed was laughter at her expense, he added, "Or thee can go 'round, thee knows."
"Well, I didn't like to assume. Surely the gate is here for a reason."
Slowly he shook his head. "Bloody daft wenchy. Now you've just warned them you're comin'."
"Is that not the purpose of a bell? To rouse the residents of the house?"
"T'aint them what put the bell there."
"I beg your pardon?"
But he was already on his way again with that lurching gait, the sticks and branches on his back clattering together with every sway of his hunched spine. She could have sworn he muttered something about having dragons to feed and witches to bind.
Again, she heard her mother implore with a rapid, breathless whisper, "Regarde, Amalie! Regarde ce que tu fais!"
Look what you do.
A warning not to let that vivid imagination distract her. Not to get caught up in her daydreams and the fanciful beings that lived in her head. Her mother, of course, had thought that other world existed only in the girl's head; like most folk, she did not see and hear the things her daughter witnessed. Her advice, however, was still sound. No matter what happened, whatever strange creature tried to distract her, Amalie— the girl once so naughty and careless— had learned to keep her focus and concentrate on the work at hand. To do everything the right way and with caution was most important to her now.
Since the old man had pointed out that the gate was not locked, she lifted the iron latch and passed through. That was at least preferable to going around it; less ill-mannered, she thought. One ought to retain some decorum, whatever the circumstance, no matter how far she was from the civilized routine of a well-run house and polite society.
The gate hinges creaked louder than the bell had rung, and the wet latch slipped from her gloved fingers to fall with a clatter that echoed through the woods. A great shadow suddenly rose up from the tree tops, before shattering like a ceiling of black glass, the shards spinning off and taking flight with an angry cawing.
Crows. She had not even noticed them there, until now. Huddled and concealed among the thick blanket of leaves, they must have been watching her.
What was the collective term? Oh, yes. A murder. A murder of crows. She'd learned that from Arjun Das, who knew almost everything worth knowing about birds. If he didn't know it, he would, most convincingly, make it up. Arjun, in fact, was a fount of information on many subjects, but one could never be sure if he teased, for he told his often outrageous tales very solemnly and in such a grand way that nobody dared question. When he and his gentleman, Mr. Volkov, first took up residency at number seventeen on Hanover Square, Arjun had pretended he was mute and could not understand a word of English. The other servants around the square had given the valet a wide, distrusting berth. But Amalie had felt a camaraderie with the fellow at once, even before he first decided to speak in her presence. Almost as if she could hear all his stories even without his voice to tell them, merely by looking into his eyes, which saw and understood her better than anybody ever did. At last she had met somebody like herself, another soul aware of that shadowy "other" world.
Before she left Hanover Square to take up her new post here, Arjun had emerged from number seventeen, despite the rain, to stand under a colorful, tasseled umbrella and advise her,
"Do not look down, little one. Always look to see which way the bubbles rise. They will show you the way to the surface, bravest of tiny, tiny woman creatures. If you look up, you will see and remember that there are no limits. Nothing is beyond you."
Amalie took Arjun's advice and used it whenever she felt overwhelmed or uncertain, looking up toward light, air and space, to find her path again.
Just as she did now.
Rain drops, nestled among the curled green leaves and now loosened by the agitation of bird flight, tumbled like pearls from a broken necklace, speckling her upturned face and hanging in her lashes. Ah, the kiss of warm rain. There was nothing like it. No wonder the trees tried to hold its power longer in their grasp, in the same way that people clung to memories, desperate to keep themselves from fading and their leaves from the inevitable passing of seasons.
She hoped there was rain in heaven.
Momentarily transfixed by the clamor of those birds flying off into a curdled milk sky, when she looked for the old man again he was gone, merging with the grizzled trunks and tree stumps, offering no further guidance. No matter. He was not particularly helpful in any case, and she could see the house clearer now, a scattered drift of stepping stones leading her toward it through the woods.
The gate's clanging echo faded, but the crows and that slumbering peaceful nonchalance with which the woods had previously greeted her arrival did not return. Something new was in the atmosphere now, awoken and unfurling. No, not new; perhaps that was the wrong word.
It was Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, a time of magic. As some called it.
She quickened her pace until the last quivering emerald shade was left behind and then she faced a grassy slope with stepping stones wending an unhurried, nonchalant— even accidental— path upward to the old house itself. She lifted her face again to admire the medieval gables and leaded windows, and found the house staring back with equal curiosity. And considerable menace.
Warned in advance that Slowly Rising was a very old house with a tragic history, she already assumed that its walls would hold memories, the vibrations of whispers, gasps and sobs breathed long ago. Some folk didn't— or wouldn't— believe in ghosts, but for her they were a part of nature; one around every corner, nothing to be afraid of. She'd encountered them in various states since she was a babe and felt quite at home among them now. Other folk might balk at the unknown, but all they need do was be ready to make its acquaintance, for once a subject was studied and understood, then it could no longer be cause for dread. It was all very straightforward in her mind. Apparently, it was not so uncomplicated for most people, who preferred to remain cocooned in their state of naiveté, their eyes and minds asleep, forever blind rather than adapting to the dark and other worlds beyond their own.
Not so this young girl. She was well prepared for the supernatural and this particular set of mischievous "revenants", as Arjun Das would call them, needn't think to cause her any trouble.
The only sound now was of the air pumping in and out of her lungs and the sharp click of her boot heels as she leapt the ever-widening distance between wet stepping stones— the awkward placement of which suggested, at best, extreme reluctance to encourage guests, and at worst a cruel desire to injure.
But mysterious gates in the midst of nowhere, unanswered bells, unwelcoming old gnomes and treacherously-laid stepping stones would not cause this new arrival the slightest hesitation.
Left short of breath by her excited pace, she took another deep gulp of the damp afternoon atmosphere and felt it melting into the heat of her skin, cooling it. It might rain again soon— indeed the drops had hardly stopped falling for more than a few minutes throughout the day, but at present the air was soggy without actually forming liquid drops. Puddles winked amid the rough grass between stones, temporary mirrors turning the world upside down, bringing the sky and the clouds to the ground at her feet.
When she looked up at the house again there was not much that could be described as welcoming about its appearance on that overcast day. If it had a mouth and teeth it would have snarled; instead it could only open its door part way, then let it creak back and forth in the cold draft of a groaning sigh. Trying to scare her away.
She, however, remained undaunted, unhesitating, resolute. Amalie had a job to do. Regarde, Amalie! Regarde ce que tu fais!
Indeed, as she approached the sixteenth century manor house with its glowering beams and darkly doubting windows, she had the sudden idea that everything in her life up until now had prepared her for this.
Fingertips and pale faces flickered like candle flames against the crooked old glass in the upper floor windows. They were not quite formed enough to show complete features— their eyes were merely hollows— and when they caught her looking up at them they blew away, ethereal as smoke trails in a gust of wind, the shape distorted for the fraction of a second and then extinguished, leaving naught but a smudge of breath upon the leaded panes.
They were inquisitive about the intruder. Of course, why would they not be?
And they wanted to know what she brought with her.
They'd soon find out.
First she approached the servants' entrance, down some steps at the side of the house, but the door was bolted, the bell pull broken, and nobody answered her knock. With no other choice and no soul in sight, she was obliged to try the main entrance instead.
Above the door a date was carved, or burned into the thick lintel: Yere of Oure Lorde 1567. At some point in the house's history, another hand— this one rather childlike— had chiseled words, one below the other, reaching from the top of the entrance to the step at her feet.
Beware
ye.
The
wattle
hath
eyen
and
the
daub
hath
earen.
What
ere
ye
do
herein
be
remembereth.
Since the door was already ajar, she called out politely, but again there was no response.
Stepping over the threshold, she glanced down at that grimy hessian sack she kept strapped to her wrist. Its tattered, swung-about, goat-chewed appearance had always deceived hopeful robbers and opportunists into moving on to more promising prey, but inside it she kept her most prized possession, a very old, silver, chocolate pot, wrapped carefully in silk stockings to keep it from dents.
Now she gave the hidden treasure a quick, comforting pat. A girl should never go anywhere without her chocolate pot, she thought, even when it annoyed her by singing never-ending songs. Theirs was a bittersweet bond, to be sure. They needed each other, at least for now. Every woman with abilities like her own needed an intermediary and every lost spirit needed a home. Contrary to expectations even the liveliest of troublemakers needed a resting retreat from their mischief and time to recoup their energies. Especially after they'd been bad one time too many, like her own pet demon.
"Ouch. Sacre bleu! J'ai mai a la tete a cause de toi!" exclaimed a petulant voice, echoing slightly within the curve of the pot's belly.
"Tais-toi!" Amalie whispered back. The last thing she needed was anybody in the house hearing a voice coming from the hessian sack. Coquin could be very loud when excited, not to mention wickedly mischievous if bored, feeling hard-done-by, or angry
As the damp walls of Slowly Rising closed in around them, shutting out all but a few thin shafts of watery light, she held her breath for a moment. The cacophony made by spirits in an old house could sometimes be intense and painful. Here, however, something different waited. It was not loud and impatient, clamoring for attention and ready to throw furniture about. Instead it was curious and mischievous like a child still, but with the cunning and foresight of an adult.
Even though it should have been drier indoors than out, it felt as if she sank into the sea when she walked through that reluctantly yielding door. All sound was muffled; time slowed to a soft, sultry drip. There was a strange, dream-like peace, but it was not genuine. Nothing slept here. They were all wide awake and watching. Measuring their opponent.
As if they, like her, had been warned in advance.
So that is what the old man meant about the elegant, snow-drop bell placed atop the gate in the woods. That music was not for the ears of Slowly Rising's living residents at all, but for someone else. Something much older.
* * * *
"My given name is Amalie, madam, but Lady Bramley says it is not suitable for a servant, so when I started with her she called me Emily. Now that I am to be a lady's maid, I should be called by my last name, which is McKenna."
She'd rehearsed her introduction many times, hoping for a dignified arrival to impress her new employer. But now she forgot her curtsey and the words tumbled out, some falling and tripping over the others, as if they'd been waiting in a queue until her nerves came up behind and gave them an impatient shove. This was her big chance, and she felt the importance of the moment as if nothing before had ever mattered quite this much.
"I can mend gowns with a neat stitch that is almost invisible and remove the worst stains from any garment. I can dress hair in the latest style, madam, for I study all the ladies' magazines, and I know how to pick the right jewelry for a pretty frock. I've learned every cure for a pimple or a sore head. I'm very quick, clean, honest, tidy and discreet. But I suppose I should warn you that I have a temper. Lady Bramley said I must practice patience and forbearance." She paused to gather a breath. "But I do try, madam. To be better."
"I see. Well, I'm sure—"
"And you needn't worry about the distraction of gentleman callers. Most men are rotten, lazy articles if you ask me, madam, and I've no time for them." Finally she recalled the curtsey, performing a belated and rushed attempt that quite lacked the grace she'd practiced. "Lady Bramley says that I have a quick mind, resourceful hands and an imaginative soul. Although the less said about that last part the better. Sometimes my imagination gets me into trouble and I must learn to concentrate and not daydream. She says I have potential, madam. I just need the opportunity. Oh, what's that?"
A bulky, dark, wooden cupboard hunched against the wall, waiting to stub toes. Covered in intricate carvings and with lattice holes cut into the sides, it was an impressive piece of furniture, drawing her gaze to it.
The lady to whom she'd addressed all this had changed through varying expressions of surprise, vexation and bemusement. Now, apparently setting aside any attempt to absorb all this information, she turned to see where Amalie pointed. "That's an almery, Miss McKenna. Also known as a dole cupboard. A chest in which alms for the poor were once collected."
"It has not been here in this house for long," she muttered.
Mistaking this as a question, the lady replied, "No. It's very old and belonged once to the church in the village, but it was given to me by the vicar and his wife as a wedding gift. When I worked for them, you see, I became fond of the ugly old thing, so they thought I would like to keep it." She walked over and patted the lid. "The church has another now, a newer almery of lighter wood. Very smart," she added, as if she did not entirely approve of "smart" in this instance. She smiled distantly. "One with the Bramley crest carved upon it. This one was commissioned for the church long, long ago, by the man who built this house— back when the Wildings were the most important family in the area, before the Bramleys came along. So I suppose this is a good place for it now. It belongs with us."
The almery purred as she ran a hand along its lid. If the lady heard that, or felt the arch of its back under her palm, she showed no sign.
A dark shadow suddenly passed across the semicircular fanlight above the front door. It was joined by another and then another— a trio of dark, hunched figures perched there on the other side of the grimy glass. In her mind, Amalie named them, Hear No Evil, See No Evil and Speak No Evil.
"There are a lot of crows here, madam, are there not? I saw many in the woods."
"Oh...oh, yes." Mrs. Wilding looked up and the separate blots briefly merged into one larger shadow before taking flight. "A lot of crows about."
Standing in the hall with a headscarf wrapped around her hair, and a stained pinafore over her gown, the lady of the house had been in the midst of washing the floor herself and with no other help in sight. It was clear she had not expected a visitor of any sort that morning.
Finally, her thoughts must have had time to catch up with the situation and she recovered from the shock of finding Amalie in her front hall, for she set aside her mop, wiped her hands on her pinafore and made a hasty, ineffectual effort at tidying her hair.
"I cannot think why her ladyship sent me a lady's maid," she exclaimed in that hurried, breathless way people used when they felt put upon, but knew the soul standing before them was not at fault. "I'm hardly one to be pampered and cosseted. As for jewels to be matched with my dresses, I haven't any. Jewels, that is."
Amalie's shoulders sank an inch or two. Her grand opportunity could be snatched from her hands. "Have there not been other lady's maids, madam? A wood-cutter I met on the path here said 'not another one', as if there had been more before me."
"I can assure you, Amalie, you are the first. I fear your skills would be quite wasted on me."
Well, she would not give up without a fight. "Her ladyship said that because I am youthful and still training, I would be perfectly suited for you, madam, with your new place in life. She said we could learn from each other as we go along." She felt her cheeks warmed by the sudden appearance of watery, green-tinted sunlight through the leaded-glass window beside her.
Perhaps it gave the mistress of the house a clearer view of her keen and hopeful expression, for she relented a little, rubbed the frown from her brow with one hand and muttered softly, "Lady Bramley did send a letter suggesting she might arrange some temporary help, but I thought she meant to have staff brought over from the country estate which is only ten miles away. I did not expect anybody to arrive all the way from London. She must be exceedingly concerned about us to send you so far on your own."
"Her ladyship said there was not a moment to lose, madam. She felt certain you would make good use of me."
"It was very kind of her to think of us." Finally a tentative smile. "I suppose it would be pleasant to have a young, agreeable, female companion here." She paused, her eyes thoughtful. "Amalie? That is not an English name, I think?"
"No, madam. It is French. My mother came to England with her mistress, the most beautiful and elegant comtesse de Chambrun. My mother was the comtesse's most devoted servant and stayed by her side through thick and thin."
Much better to end the story there, rather than mention the cruel and powerful comte de Chambrun, from whom that fine lady had fled with the assistance of her lady's maid, both of them slightly heavier than usual thanks to several valuable trinkets sewn into their petticoats and corsets. As for the anonymous, unprincipled rake, who paid amorous and impatient court to both the comtesse and her loyal servant after their arrival in London, subsequently leaving one of them with child and obliging the lady's maid to enter into a hasty marriage with an east-end dock worker, just to save the situation— well, the least said about all that the better. Even Amalie never knew which of the women gave birth to her. But she had always called the lady's maid "maman" and strove to be as dedicated a servant to her own mistress as that lady was to hers. It gave her direction and purpose in life.
The comtesse, on the other hand, had seemed to possess no control over her own fate, but spun about aimlessly like a child, sometimes forgetting she still had her curling papers in all day or wearing shoes from two different pairs. She had a joyful sense of mischief, but also an unpredictable temperament that could rain fire if she felt herself ill-used, so Amalie, who recalled cowering under tables during these tempests, felt safer modeling herself after the steadier and most reliable of the two women.
The rake, incidentally, was neither seen nor heard from again, and the dock worker often abandoned both wife and child for "The Drink". Amalie tried not to mention a father at all unless there was no way around it. And it was surprising how many ways around it she'd found.
Really with a history that bordered on tawdry farce, she much preferred to say as little about the men involved as possible, so she was grateful when Mrs. Wilding altered course.
"Have you been in service very long?"
"I began as a laundry maid when I was thirteen, madam. I worked my way up the ranks, hoping one day to be a lady's maid, like my mother. Lady Bramley said I have the skill and ambition for the post, and she believes that a woman should be encouraged to go as far in life as her abilities and dreams will take her."
"You're very young."
"I am twenty, madam. Just turned this past December. But I've always wanted to get on. I don't believe age matters that much. It's the state of a person's mind and their willingness to learn that makes a difference, is it not? I never object to house cleaning— even though it is no longer among my official duties. I am most adaptable and I cannot sit about idle."
"As you can see, there is much to do here." Mrs. Wilding glanced upward and Amalie followed suit, both women assessing the ancient wood beams and the yellowed, sagging ceiling plaster that seemed poised to crumble onto their heads at any minute. "This house requires a great deal of work—considerable restoration and refurbishment."
"Yes, madam." Slowly Rising was definitely a house in need of loving care.
"Every spare, willing pair of hands can be put to use," said her new mistress. "Although I have few tasks fit for a lady's maid just yet, you are welcome to join us here, Amalie. But please...there is no need to curtsey for I am far from nobility, and you need not call me Madam, for I started in service just as you did. Sarah will do for me."
Amalie replied earnestly, "If 'tis all the same to you, madam, I should prefer to maintain standards and call you, Madam or Mrs. Wilding, and— begging your pardon, madam—but you ought to call me McKenna. To be proper." Very proud of becoming a lady's maid at such a young age, she wanted all the accompanying rules and reverence applied. It was important that people knew her status, for she'd worked hard to get this far.
Her new mistress looked amused, but nodded. "Very well. As you wish, McKenna. I would not want to break Lady Bramley's rules or lower standards."
She suspected the mistress meant to be wry, but Amalie took such matters seriously. One must have rules and order, or else where would they all be? Running around in their curling papers all day and losing their shoes. "Thank you, madam."
Her shoulders lifted back to where they should be, along with her spirits. She never took long to decide whether she liked a person or not, and she already knew that she liked Mrs. Wilding. The lady was younger than she'd expected— only five or six years older than Amalie— and dressed very plainly, even dowdily. But there was a no-nonsense, open honesty to the lady's face and her manner, which made up for the off-hand way she dressed and the near sacrilege of a tattered, stained, old headscarf used to bind and flatten thick, lush waves of hair. Amalie already saw ways to help her mistress and reveal the beauty from within. Hopefully the lady would be less reluctant than her groaning, creaking house.
"Surely that is not your only luggage, McKenna." Mrs. Wilding pointed at the old hessian sack.
"I do not know what became of my trunk, madam." She shot a quick glance at the almery by the wall, certain it had just moved an inch forward and grumbled. "It is nowhere to be found."
"Disgraceful! The state of travel these days is quite atrocious! The stage halts at The Lion in Shrewsbury, does it not? If we had known to expect you, my husband would have gone to meet you there."
"It's quite alright, madam. I met a brewer delivering barrels of ale to the inn. He did not object to me riding on his dray-cart the rest of the way here, although he would not come up to the house and left me at the edge of the woods. Indeed, he barely slowed the horses long enough to let me down and was off again at speed before my feet met the ground, almost as if he had forgotten I was there." It would not be the first time she was forgotten or overlooked. She often felt as if she talked very loudly, and yet nobody heard what she had to say.
Mrs. Wilding exhaled a deep sigh. "We must blame superstition and Belle Arden's curse, of course, for his hasty retreat. You may as well know about that from the start. If Lady Bramley has not already told you, it won't be long before somebody does."
"The curse, madam?"
"A long time ago, a family of sisters, while being tried for witchcraft, drowned in a ducking stool in the pond out there. One of them— Belle Arden— is said to have returned, walking back out of the water to curse the magistrate, the villagers and all their male descendents."
Amalie put her head on one side, listening intently to more than Mrs. Wilding's words. Something in the house whispered, I be not gone, over and over, like a willful child refusing to go to bed, demanding to be heard. She looked up again at the fanlight above the door, almost expecting those three crows to be watching her still.
"Do not let it frighten you," the lady continued briskly. "Such ghoulish tales have been embellished over the years to scare children, the idea being that it will keep them away from playing near that deep water."
"Then you do not believe there were witches here, madam?"
"I do not. The plain truth is that, two hundred years ago, the Arden sisters were unjustly accused and tried by Amos Wilding, the local magistrate who built this house. He wanted to get his hands on their land and decided that the best way to acquire it— at least expense and effort to himself— was to find them guilty of witchcraft. The villagers at the time did nothing to stop him and so future generations living here have inherited a heavy sense of guilt regarding the Arden sisters and their fate. But as far as anybody coming back from the dead, I'm sure those poor souls would have better things to do than mope about here. They were women, after all." She blew out a gusty breath that was almost a laugh and then briskly, irritably, shoved several escaping fronds of hair back under that frayed and most unflattering headscarf. "Ghost stories and witches’ curses, indeed! You would think the people here could find something else to talk about after two hundred years."
Looking about the hall, clutching her sack with the hidden chocolate pot, Amalie asked politely, "There are no other servants, madam?" None that liked to sing? Because something in the house did.
"Just a cook, Biddy, who continually assures me that she means to leave at the first opportunity, yet she remains to plague us. And a gardener, Diggory, who seldom comes into the house or talks to anybody unless he must." She added with a smile, "If we wanted to dismiss him we'd have to find him first."
"Diggory must be the fellow I met in the woods then, madam. He called me a daft wenchy."
"Oh, dear. Yes, that would be Diggory. I must apologize for his manner."
"It did not put me off, madam. I've met worse, and I daresay he'll warm to me in time."
Her new mistress chuckled. "Well, aren't you an optimistic young lady!"
"What else is there for a person to be? No good ever came of being down and glum. Can't get out of a hole by going deeper into the dark. We must look to the surface and rise to the light, madam. With the bubbles."
Mrs. Wilding smiled again, but quizzically this time. "I quite agree."
"This is a big house, madam, for so few staff."
"Yes, eventually, we shall have to hire more hands, although the idea gives me little pleasure and an exceedingly sore head." The lady gave a hearty groan as she looked at her mop and the pail of dirty water. "If we can find any capable young hands so willing and sanguine as yours, McKenna, we shall be fortunate to say the least. I very much doubt they will be local, in light of our wretchedly inconvenient curse. Now...let me see...where shall I put you?"
Her new mistress led her across the hall, and Amalie carefully gave the crouching almery a wide berth as it growled hot breath at her ankles.
Thus her time at Slowly Rising had begun and with it the strangest, most extraordinary and momentous period of her life. Of all their lives. But for many reasons that even she— a woman accustomed to the peculiar— could not, at present, imagine.