Struck by a thought, Jane ran to the dairy and picked out a large round cheese that had been curing. It wasn’t quite ready, but it would do. She rinsed off some big leaves and wrapped them securely around the cheese. Glancing at the house, she ran back into the field. It was almost full dark now, and the trees somehow looked larger and closer than they had before. She placed the cheese on the stump and straightened. “This is for you,” she called as loudly as she dared. “It’s cheese.” No answer. She felt foolish, talking to nobody.
As she let herself in the front door, still puzzling about what to say to Mamma, she realized what had been bothering her about those last minutes in the forest.
The branch she had pushed aside off the path just before hearing the fairy singers had not shed raindrops on her. That could mean only one thing. Someone had been there just before her and had shaken off the water in passing.
Someone in the woods had been watching her.
* * *
“And you traded a cheese for them?”
Jane couldn’t decide whether Mamma sounded disbelieving or merely confused. She nodded. “You said that ladies could exchange what they had too much of with other ladies.”
“True.” Mamma looked at the basket. “What lady was this? Why was she out so late, and how did she come to have mushrooms and apples with her?”
“I...I don’t know. She didn’t say.” Jane was so unaccustomed to lying to Mamma that her mind was empty.
Help came from an unexpected source. “She must have been going to a harvest ball,” Isabella said from the big chair, where she sat with her legs tucked up under her. “In my country, ladies bring food to share, to celebrate the harvest. Perhaps she thought that cheese would be more welcome than mushrooms and apples.”
Jane turned to stare at Isabella in astonishment. Was she trying to be an ally? The girl returned her look calmly.
“Well— But surely— Certainly if there were a ball in the neighborhood, I would have been invited,” Mamma said.
Jane bit her tongue. Mamma was never invited to people’s houses, not anymore. The last time Mamma had gone to a party, a year after baby Robert had died, she had returned early with red eyes and a shiny nose, and had burst into sobs as soon as she closed the door behind her. Maude had been so frightened that Jane had taken her sister to their room and then tried to soothe Mamma. Mamma had tried and failed to control herself, and through her sobs Jane could make out only enough to understand that the other ladies had snubbed her, and had said unkind things about her dress that was out of style and about her suntanned face and work-roughened hands. Mamma had never before acknowledged that she was no longer the equal of the people she had grown up with, and her anguish had so frightened Jane that she gave up trying to calm her and crept into bed with Maude, holding her until the crying from the parlor ceased and they heard Mamma enter her own room. The next day, Jane had seen that the rag bag was filled with scraps of peach-colored silk that had been torn into shreds.
“What did this lady look like?” Mamma asked now.
“Oh...” Jane tried to imagine a lady going to a ball. “It was dark, so I didn’t see her well. She was going by in a...in a carriage, and when she saw me she called me over and said she’d heard about our cheese, and asked for one. I ran to the dairy to get it and when I came back she filled my basket with these things.”
“Whose carriage was it?” Mamma asked. Jane looked at her blankly. “What coat of arms was painted on the door?”
“I didn’t see.”
“What does it matter?” Harry broke in, much to Jane’s relief. “Just cook them and be done with it.”
Mamma’s face got that closed look it always had when someone acknowledged openly that they didn’t have servants to do the cooking, but she didn’t object when Jane took the basket and went outside to wash the mushrooms and apples while Maude rummaged in her pouch for herbs.
Despite her full belly, Jane spent a restless night. She woke over and over from dreams of creatures reaching out branchlike arms to grab her and drag her into the forest, of mushrooms that turned into cheeses and back again, of fairy choruses enticing her deeper and deeper into the woods until she joined them, singing wordless tunes while Maude and Mamma wandered lost among the trees, sobbing and calling her name, and not hearing her answer them.
Chapter 7
Jane wrung out a bed sheet with aching fingers. Clothing and dishcloths weren’t so bad, but her hands cramped with the effort of squeezing out water from the big linens. If she didn’t wring them out well, they would take forever to dry. The autumn continued cold and damp, and although this meant that now they were finding mushrooms every day, it also meant that mud was everywhere, both inside and out, and laundry took on a musty smell from being wet too long. It also meant that the few vegetables that Maude had managed to grow in a patch hidden from Mamma rotted before they were ripe, save for a few pumpkins and some hard beans that Jane cooked in a stew.
Maybe now that the roof was fixed and the kitchen chimney was usable again, they could hang the linens in here and dry them by the fire. She considered. No, it would be easier to use the lines that were already strung behind the house, as long as the rain held off for a while. Besides, the kitchen was so huge that it would take all their store of firewood to make it warm and dry enough to be worth the trouble.
She wrung out the last sheet as well as she could and dropped it into the basket with the others. She pushed a lock of hair off her forehead with the back of her hand, which was wrinkled and white. She shoved the basket over to the huge wringer and fed a sheet into it with one hand, turning the crank with the other. The machine squeezed out more cold water as Jane poked the sheet through with a stick. She leaned into the crank, and it groaned and squeaked as it turned the big wooden rollers.
It would have been easier with one person to feed in the sheet and another to work the crank, but Maude was tending to the chickens, and Ella, of course, was absent. The man wouldn’t risk Ella’s fingers in the wringer. The two of them were in the South Parlor, reading, eating candied fruit that Harry had bought in the village—Jane hadn’t even remembered that such luxuries existed—and complaining if they stirred to put a log on the fire that was keeping them warm. The logs that I cut, Jane thought, and that Maude stacked.
Harry still hadn’t hired any house servants, three months after his arrival there. He wouldn’t come into the kitchen to help with the laundry, either. He had been complaining of a headache and fever for a few days. He always has something wrong with him when there’s work to be done, Jane thought, dropping the nearly dry sheet into the second basket and starting to feed another one between the rollers.
“Jane!” Mamma’s urgent voice interrupted her thoughts.
“I’ll be done in a minute,” Jane said.
“No, that’s not what I meant. Run to Hannah and tell her that Harry is ill. Give me one of the wet linens. I need to try to bring his fever down.”
“What’s the matter with him?” Jane handed her a sodden dishcloth.
“I don’t know. He’s feverish and says his head hurts so that he can’t sit up. Hurry, child.”
Jane ran to the front hall to get a shawl to protect herself from the coming rain. Maude was waiting for her there, clutching the egg basket. “What if it’s measles?” she whispered. “Or smallpox?”
“I don’t know.” Jane tied the ends of the shawl under her chin. “If it is, I suppose he’ll get very sick. He might even—”
She stopped, not wanting to frighten her sister, but Maude finished the sentence for her. “He might even die.” Jane nodded. “Like Robert,” Maude said, and Jane nodded again.
She let herself out the kitchen door and took off at a trot toward Hannah’s cottage. She wasn’t sure if Maude really remembered Robert, born too soon, right after Papa had left for the last time, and dead a f
ew weeks later. They had lost first Jane’s twin, Rose, who had gone to sleep one night in the cradle they shared and never woken up, and then Robert. Jane barely remembered little Robert, with his tiny hands and solemn face.
She ducked under a branch so its wet leaves wouldn’t slap her in the face. Hannah’s baby, little Clare with her red-gold curls and ready smile, had died, too. Hannah’s own son, Hugh, had only been three, like Maude, and when it became clear that both of them were stricken with the illness, they had been put in the same bed so that the herb-woman and Mamma could take care of them more easily. The two little ones had almost died, as well. Jane had been sick, but not so sick that she didn’t know it when baby Robert was taken away.
Jane shuddered as she pushed through the damp underbrush that had grown high since their visits to Hannah’s house had dwindled with Harry’s arrival. It wasn’t only the cold water that chilled her, but the memory of the priest’s man carrying away the baby, a tiny package wrapped in a white cloth. She had crept out of her sickbed and watched him hurriedly place the bundle into a little grave on the hillside, next to where Rose already lay under her gray headstone. Jane shivered again and made the sign of the cross on her chest as she broke into the small clearing where Hannah and her family’s hut stood.
* * *
Hannah dropped her pouch on the floor near Harry’s bed and leaned closer, examining him. The man’s face was red, and Jane could feel the heat rising from his skin when she put a damp cloth on his forehead, as Hannah instructed. She drew back, frightened, when he mumbled something she couldn’t make out. “Maude,” Hannah said, and Maude took her sister’s place, wiping the sweat off Harry’s face, holding a cup of water to his unresponsive lips.
“Shall I brew some catnip tea?” Maude asked. Hannah grunted a distracted affirmative, and Maude rooted in the herb-woman’s pouch and pulled out a bunch of dried leaves. She smelled them and then dropped them in the water that had been heating on the hearth.
“Take the child away, Jane,” Hannah said. “Maude, you stay here and help.” Isabella, frozen, kept her eyes on her father.
“Jane,” Mamma said sharply, “take Isabella outside.”
“Come with me.” Jane took the younger girl’s hand.
“I want to stay here,” Isabella said, but Jane pulled her out the door.
The barn was warm with the animals’ heat and blessedly sweet-smelling after the stench of the sickroom. A farmer had left them a big load of hay in exchange for his pick of Betsy’s puppies when they were weaned, and Jane tossed some straw to each of the animals, who were soon munching contentedly. “You can look for eggs in here, and Maude will hunt them in the coop later,” Jane offered. Isabella didn’t answer. She leaned over the box that held the remaining puppies. Betsy watched the girl closely. “Be careful,” Jane said. “She doesn’t like people to touch them.”
“They look like rats.” Isabella poked a fat belly. She seemed to have recovered, but then Jane saw that her lips were pressed tightly together, and her eyes, when she glanced over her shoulder to address Jane, looked hard and bright.
“They do not!” Jane was stung. “They’re beautiful puppies. Everyone always wants one of Betsy’s litter. They’re the best hunters in the county.”
Isabella picked up a puppy. It squealed, and Betsy rose to her feet, her eyes glued on the girl, her upper lip curling. “Isabella.” Jane tried to imitate Mamma’s stern tone. “Put him down. Betsy doesn’t like what you’re doing.”
Isabella started to lower the puppy into the box, but it wiggled to get free and let out a piercing yelp. Jane saw a brown flash and a snarl, and Isabella dropped the puppy and leaped back. “She bit me!” she cried. Clutching her wrist, she ran from the barn. Betsy settled down and licked her puppy, knocking it over with her tongue. Jane wanted to run after Isabella, but Baby’s milk finally started coming down and she couldn’t leave. She worked quickly, stripping each teat, and then dealt with the goats and left the pails in the dairy. She hurried back to the house and let herself into the parlor.
Isabella stood motionless by the bed, her face ashen. Hannah was gently closing the man’s eyes as Maude wiped a trace of foam from his mouth. Still Isabella did not move, but when Hannah started winding a long strip of cloth under his chin and over the top of his head, the girl seized her arm. “No!” she howled, trying to yank the cloth out of the woman’s hand. “No! He can’t eat if you close his mouth! He can’t talk if you tie that thing on him!”
“Child, child.” Hannah unclenched Isabella’s small fist from the bandage. “Your father can’t talk anymore, he’s—”
“He is not,” Isabella said. Mamma came up behind her and held the girl’s shoulders, trying to turn her around. Isabella twisted free and lunged toward the still figure.
Mamma grabbed her. “Isabella, we don’t know what illness he had.” Her voice caught a little. “We can’t risk your catching it. Think how much more he would suffer if he knew he had given it to you.”
“Father!” called Isabella. “Father! Father!”
But there was no answer, save the distant howl of a dog and Saladin’s answering whinny.
Chapter 8
Hannah said she would remain with them for a few days, helping to take care of the house and of Isabella, who seemed to have forgotten how to eat, dress herself, even sleep. The herb-woman also had to stay long enough to be sure that she herself had not been infected before she returned to her own home. Her husband and son were accustomed to her remaining several days at a sickbed and wouldn’t worry at her absence.
The morning after Harry died was cold and windy. Hannah and Jane went out to the small graveyard down the hill behind the house to bury Harry as decently as they could manage. Maude trailed behind. Mamma stayed indoors with Isabella, who had not said a syllable since her outburst at her father’s deathbed and had hardly even moved from where she now sat motionless on the big chair, wrapped in shawls and shivering.
Hannah’s gray-streaked red hair whipped around her face in the fierce gusts that drove Maude and Jane into each other’s arms for warmth as they waited for the herb-woman to tire so they could take their turn. Hannah finally stepped out of the shallow trench, breathing hard and sweating from the exertion, even in the chill. Maude picked up the shovel, but it became clear that she wasn’t strong enough to do much good. Jane took her place. Despite the autumn rains the ground was so hard that she quickly wore a blister even on her work-roughened hands.
“I’ll get some rags,” Hannah said. “Perhaps if we pad the handle you’ll be able to work a little longer.” Jane nodded her thanks as Hannah left. She leaned on the shovel handle and then resumed chipping away at the hard earth. Halseys have high standards. Mamma’s words, so frequently repeated, echoed in her mind. Ladies may take care of the household and tend to the sick, and they may do fine sewing, even make butter and cheese, but heavy work is for others.
Taking care of the household no longer meant supervising a staff, as it had when Mamma was a young woman, and when Mamma talked about tending to the sick, she didn’t mean boiling sheets that a dying man had been lying in. To Mamma, sewing meant embroidering tiny patterns on a dainty nightgown, not patching worn-out linens. Making butter and cheese so that young gentlemen might admire your arms while your sleeves were rolled back was different from working in the dairy every day so that you and your sister don’t starve. And now Jane was digging a grave. Do ladies dig graves, Mamma? she wanted to ask. She set her lips grimly, determined not to cry in front of Maude, and she tossed the small bit of dirt in her shovel as far away as she could manage.
It landed with a dry thud on the toe of a boot. A man’s heavy leather boot.
A squeal of terror rose in her throat. Someone had found out that they were here, alone, defenseless, with no man to guard them, and was coming to rob them of what little they had, and then kill them. She stood frozen
, unable even to lift her head. Where was Hannah? Why hadn’t she come back?
“Janie?” Maude sounded peevish. “What are you—” Then she fell silent as she, too, saw the dark form at the edge of the clearing.
Maude’s voice woke something in Jane. Here, next to the graves of the brother and sister who’d lain in this spot for years, she would not lose her last sister. She held the shovel like a weapon and forced herself to look up. The outline of a man’s shape was silhouetted against the pale sky.
“Who are you?” She tried to sound as cold as Isabella. “Who are you and what do you want?”
The man took a step forward. He was tall and broad-shouldered, and his dark curly hair was long and unkempt. Jane recognized him; he was the man she had spoken to when she had passed out tea to the roofers. “You’re the one who’s been leaving us whey and milk, aren’t you?” His voice was rough but kind.
Surprised, Jane let her shovel droop, and nodded.
“We’re grateful that you remember us,” he went on. “Your milk has saved many of us in these times of want, including my own sister’s child.” Jane’s knees weakened as relief flooded her. He seemed to mean them no harm, even though he was a man of the woods. The man nodded at the bundle of linens. One of Harry’s hands had fallen out of the sheet and was curled, yellow and rigid, in the dirty snow. “You’ve had a death here, I see. I’m sorry for your loss, Miss, but you can’t dig that grave. Go on back to the house.” Jane looked at Maude, who nodded eagerly, evidently thinking of the warm fire that awaited them in the parlor.
“I’ll do it, Miss. I’m more used to handling a wood ax than that shovel there, but I can do better than a girl. The ground isn’t hard if you’re used to working it. Once I break through to the soft under-soil I’ll make short work of it. It will be a way of thanking you for saving me from having to dig one of these for my nephew. When I’m through, I’ll send my son up to the house with the shovel.”
The Stepsister's Tale Page 7
