The thought of getting lost among the trees was almost more than she could bear, though. She could make a trail of white pebbles, like the children in a tale that their long-gone nanny had once told them. So she wrapped herself up warmly and set about hunting pebbles to show her the way home. After an hour, she threw aside the small handful in disgust. She would never be able to gather enough. White stones were very hard to find, which, after all, was what made them useful as trail markers.
Maude had watched her with interest, even finding an occasional pale rock after Jane explained what she was doing. When Jane tossed away the few she had found, Maude went back in the house, to warm up, Jane supposed. But she reappeared a few minutes later, dragging one of the red velvet drapes that hung around the doorway to the ballroom. The fabric was so rotten that the girls had given up trying to use the cloth for warmth, even as a wrap.
“What are you doing?” Jane asked, too tired and dispirited really to care.
“Look!” Maude seized one of the golden tassels that formed a fringe along the edge of the drape. She gave it a swift yank, and it came off easily. She showed it to Jane triumphantly. “We can tie them to branches to mark a trail.”
A little while later, Jane set off toward the hunting lodge, clutching a makeshift pouch of red velvet that held dozens of brightly colored tassels. In her pocket were two precious needles—her last—and a ball of brown thread. Maude had wanted to accompany her, but Jane convinced her that there was no point in both of them exhausting themselves. “If I find food, I’ll come back and get you,” she promised. Maude agreed with a scowl, and Jane left alone. At least if I get lost only one of us will die out here, she thought as she passed the hunting lodge.
She tied the first tassel to a branch at her eye level, just barely in sight of the hunting lodge. She stepped back to look at it and felt a surge of fear. What if mischievous fairy people untied the tassels so that she couldn’t find them? Or worse, what if they took them down and then retied them to the wrong branches, leading her farther and farther into the dark woods until she was lost so deep among the trees that nobody would ever find her, not even her bones?
She had no choice but to keep going. Here, alone in the forest, she allowed herself to think the thoughts that she kept hidden even from herself when she was with the others. What if Mamma wearied of their hard life and drudgery and went on a walk and never returned? Mamma would never do that, Jane thought. But Papa had done it. What made her so certain that Mamma would not? She stopped and realized that, lost in thought, she had not tied a tassel in a long time. She carefully retraced her steps and found the last one. I mustn’t do that again, she thought.
And then she heard it again—the singing, sweet yet sad, that had so often floated into her window late at night. Only this time it was closer, and she could make out individual voices. Not the words—she was still too far away for that—but a sense of the melody and the meaning. These were fairies; she knew they were.
Then she heard a distinctly human sound: a baby wailed, and a woman’s voice broke off from her singing to murmur something soothing. Someone else—a man this time—sang a few more notes. Where was it coming from? She stood on tiptoe, although she knew that wouldn’t help, and strained her ears. The voices were distant, but she thought she could tell where they originated. She started off in that direction, remembering to tie her tassels every time she was almost out of sight of the last one. The voices suddenly hushed. She started toward them but stopped. She would never find them.
“Help me!” she finally called, and her voice broke into a harsh sob. She swallowed hard and then went on, “I’m Jane Halsey from up at the hall. We’re starving.” Nothing. She lingered another minute. Her exhaustion told her to lie down and go to sleep, and never return to the dank, crumbling house. She resisted with an effort, turned around, and was starting back on the path home when she heard something moving swiftly toward her. She stood frozen to the spot until a figure became visible, coming quickly up the hill.
It was that girl, that same girl with the large dark eyes, and she was running up the slope toward Jane. The girl stopped short, but without any apparent fear, when she saw Jane looking at her. Her face was more serious than it had been before, and this time, instead of disappearing, she beckoned. Jane took a step in the girl’s direction, and at her encouraging nod, she took another step and then another. They walked for only a few minutes, the girl slowing whenever Jane fell behind.
She never would have seen the hut if the girl hadn’t stopped in front of it. Fashioned out of logs and what looked like dried mud, it blended in perfectly with the woods. Vines grew up its walls. It was tiny but looked stout and well built. The girl ducked and went inside, and as Jane neared the hut, she heard the murmur of voices and the fretful whimpers of a baby fighting sleep.
Jane tried to follow her, but the earth tipped under her feet and a cloudy blackness spangled with silver whirled before her eyes, and she felt the cold ground strike her cheek, and then she knew no more.
Chapter 15
Jane found herself half sitting, half lying, propped up in a pair of strong arms while someone spooned hot herbal tea into her mouth. Her vision cleared, and she saw that the cup was held by a woman with stern but gentle eyes. By the light of two windows and the embers in the nearby fireplace, Jane could see that they were in a hut very much like the one that Hugh shared with his parents. It was small but neat and tidy, and Jane’s empty stomach gave a wrench as a savory smell reached her from the iron pot nestled in the coals.
She tried to sit upright, but the woman pushed her back gently into the arms that were holding her.
“You’re the girl from up at the Hall?” the woman asked abruptly. Jane nodded. “Why don’t you leave milk and cheese anymore?”
“The cow and goats went dry.” Jane cleared her throat as her voice squeaked. “They’re starving. We’re all starving.”
The woman looked her up and down, and then spoke to the person behind Jane. “Find a basket and put some food in it, Annie.” The arms holding her loosened their grip, and Jane, glancing down, recognized the clumsily mended tear in the sleeve.
Jane caught the girl’s—Annie’s—wrist and said, “First, let me fix that.” She sat up, reached into the pocket tied around her waist, and pulled out the thread and needles. No charity, she told herself. This time it wasn’t the ancestors talking; it was her own pride. She wouldn’t take food from these people who clearly needed what they had unless she gave them something, no matter how small, in return.
Annie glanced at her mother, who nodded, and then she held out her arm while Jane sewed a seam. The girl watched with interest, and when Jane was through, she could hardly see that there had once been a rip there. Annie extended her sleeve to her mother, who inspected the work. The woman looked at Jane with real warmth this time, and said, “While my daughter finds you some—” she hesitated, and then went on “—some refreshment, perhaps you would like to occupy your time?” Jane nodded, and suppressed a smile. The woman might not have the fine manners that Mamma had tried to teach her and Maude, but she had the delicacy not to remind Jane that it wasn’t refreshment that Annie was bringing; it was life-saving provisions.
She wouldn’t be occupying her time doing fancy needlework, she saw, as the woman placed a pair of heavy woolen work trousers in her lap. The large tear that split the knee ran all the way across from side to side. She stitched a smooth seam and shook out the trousers, then held them up and surveyed her work with satisfaction. She took another sip of the now-cool tea and looked around her. A baby, wrapped in what Jane recognized as her own father’s shawl, the one that she had left on the path, lay asleep on a pallet near the fire. A wooden screen stood between the child and the hearth. There was also a large table with four stools set around it and two small beds. A ladder led to what must be a loft, where the adults slept, she guessed.
The woman, who had been stirring whatever was in the pot on the hearth, handed Jane a shirt and said, “Is it possible to make this bigger? My son is growing so fast,” and at those words the door burst open and two men—no, a man and a boy—came in.
The boy was saying, “Mother, is something wrong? I called you—why didn’t you answer? And where’s Annie?” Jane half rose, holding the shirt in one hand and the threaded needle in the other.
“Hush, Will,” the woman said. “We have company.”
They turned, and Jane felt ill as she recognized the boy. Why did she keep seeing him? The boy was taller now. Even broader in the shoulder, too. She could tell by the way he looked back at her that he recognized her, too. She dropped her gaze at the hostility in his.
“Why, it’s the girl from up at the Hall,” the man said in a tone of friendly inquiry.
Should she curtsey? No, perhaps not. “I’m Jane Montjoy.”
“Jeffrey Forester,” the man said. “Will, make your bow.”
The boy didn’t bend or even look at Jane. “Why’s she here? Haven’t the nobles done enough—”
“Hush,” the woman said, more sharply this time. “This girl never did you any harm.” The boy turned abruptly and stomped outside, slamming the door. His father made an exasperated sound and followed him.
“I’m not a noble,” Jane said awkwardly. “And I didn’t mean to harm anyone—”
“I know.” The woman laid a work-roughened hand on hers. “He has some mistaken ideas about those who live with plenty and those who don’t have enough.”
“I don’t live with plenty. Truly, we don’t have any food or firewood or—”
“I can see that,” the woman said. “We didn’t know you were in such need, or we would have helped earlier. And now, please share our meal before you go home.” She took the iron pot, which turned out to contain stewed root vegetables—turnips, parsnips, and carrots—off the fire and placed it on a thick pad on the table.
Will and his father came back in, and Will set out five bowls and plates. His mother ladled thick porridge onto the plates and passed them around. The father served himself out of the pot and passed the ladle to Annie, who helped herself and passed it on to Jane.
Jane thought she would faint at the sight of the food but shyly spooned out only a small portion for herself. Will was about to take the ladle from her when his mother said sharply, “Here, child, take more than that,” and scooped out a large dollop and plopped it onto her porridge.
Will made a grunt that sounded impatient as he looked at the dish and then up at his mother. “I had mine before you came home,” she said. “You take what’s left.” She watched as he emptied the vegetables from the bowl onto his porridge.
The baby made a fussy waking-up sound, and the mother went to tend to it. While her back was turned, Will scraped the remaining vegetables from his plate onto his mother’s. He glanced up before Jane could look away from him, and he glared at her with such ferocity that she felt herself grow red and lowered her head to her food so that no one would notice. I didn’t ask her to feed me, she thought. It’s not my fault there’s not enough.
Will and his father stood. “Time to get back to work,” the man said, and told Jane she was welcome to visit whenever she liked. Jane appreciated his delicacy in not saying what his son was so obviously thinking, that if she visited at mealtime, there would be less food for the rest of them. Will didn’t say goodbye, despite his mother’s command. Instead, he slammed the door without a word as he followed his father outside.
Meager though their meal had been, it was still more than Jane had eaten in the past several days put together, and she felt stronger and more clearheaded than she had in quite a while. She stood when the others did and started to help clean up, but the mother stopped her. “I can do this quicker by myself,” she said, laying the baby in a cradle near the fire. “If you wouldn’t mind showing Annie how you sewed that seam...”
For the rest of the afternoon, Jane tutored Annie in the art of mending, showing her how to take tiny, almost invisible stitches, how to catch the last sound threads together, how to follow the curve of an edge so that the join of two pieces would lie smooth rather than pucker. She even embroidered a decorative flower over a hole in a shirt.
Annie laughed, a deep chuckle, as she shook out the shirt. “I doubt Will would like a flower right on his shoulder!” She had a pleasantly husky voice.
“I didn’t know that was his.” Jane tried to take the shirt back to cut out the flower and put something less delicate in its place, but Annie held it out of her reach.
“No, now that I think of it, he’ll be pleased with it. He likes everything that grows.” Annie laughed as Jane tried again to grab it, and to her own surprise, Jane laughed, too.
Soon Annie managed to sew a seam with reasonably straight stitches, and she beamed when Jane praised it. She bent her head to her work with renewed enthusiasm, and Jane glowed inwardly that someone cared for her opinion. “You mustn’t let Will bother you,” Annie said after they had worked a while in companionable silence. She was squinting cross-eyed at a needle as she tried to poke a thread through its tiny eye.
To cover her confusion, Jane took the thread from her, clipped off its ragged edge to make a sharp point, and handed it back. When she had regained her composure, she asked cautiously, “What do you mean?”
“Got it!” Annie’s tongue poked out of her mouth as she carefully drew the thread through the needle.
“What do you mean, I shouldn’t let him bother me?” Jane asked.
“He doesn’t mean anything by being rude,” Annie explained, knotting the end of her thread. She let her hands rest on her lap, as though glad of a chance to stop the finicky work. “We know everyone so well. Everyone we usually see, I mean. He’s not used to being around grand people like you.”
“Grand? Me?” Jane could hardly speak for astonishment.
Annie didn’t seem to hear her. “That’s why he acts so stiff with you. He’s shy. When it’s just us or people he knows, he’s different.”
Jane didn’t believe it, and she didn’t know why Annie felt the need to explain her brother to her, so she didn’t reply. Instead, she picked up the gown she had been shortening and said, “Look, when you sew a hem, you don’t want the stitches to show through on the other side. So pick up a few of the threads with the point of the needle—”
Annie hemmed most of the skirt under Jane’s direction, and when the baby woke again, Jane picked the child up. “Boy or girl?” she asked as the baby’s big eyes stared at this unfamiliar face.
“Girl. Frances.” Annie surveyed her work and then held it up so that Jane could see a pucker.
“Take out those last three stitches,” Jane instructed. “You pulled too tight. Leave the thread looser.” Annie sighed and did so, grumbling about how long it was going to take to work her way all around the skirt.
“Was that you, that day in the forest?” Jane asked.
“What day?” Annie didn’t take her eyes off her sewing.
“When I was walking in the forest—were you looking at me from behind a tree? And did you leave a basket of mushrooms and apples in our field, and then find some cheese on it?”
Annie shook her head. “No, that was Will. He told us about it after he came home.”
Will? It didn’t seem like something he would do, given how he felt about “nobles.” Jane looked down at the tiny face again as the baby put two fingers into her mouth and sucked them hard, her eyelids drooping. She brushed her lips against the soft hair and inhaled warm baby scent. Just like Robert, she thought.
Annie’s mother came to take the baby from Jane. “She’s a love, this one,” she said as she gazed at the little face. “But I fear her teeth are going to cause her trouble. Hannah Herb-Woman left me some of her remedy, but I doubt there’s enou
gh.”
“My sister has been helping Hannah,” Jane said timidly, not knowing how much actual use Maude could be. “She might know which herbs to use and how to prepare them.”
“I’ll remember that when the time comes, and thank you.” The woman laid the baby down just as the door banged open, and the man and the boy came in again.
“She’s still here?” the boy asked, not looking at Jane.
Huh! she thought. Annie calls it being stiff and shy. It’s just plain old rudeness. He’s not uncomfortable—he’s proud. Proud and conceited.
“Hush, Will,” his mother said sharply. “You’ll wake the baby. Jane has been teaching your sister how to sew a straight seam.”
Annie muttered something unintelligible that nevertheless managed to express her feelings about sewing a straight seam, and her brother grinned. It was astonishing how different it made him look, but as soon as he caught Jane’s eye on him, the smile vanished and his scowl reappeared.
“He’s right, though,” the man said. “It’s getting late, and it’s no short walk back to the big house. William will go with you. Will, take the young lady as far as the hunting lodge.”
“Me?” Will exclaimed at exactly the moment that Jane said, “Him?” She lowered her head and hoped they hadn’t heard her. Just because the boy was rude didn’t mean that she had to stoop to his level.
“Yes, you,” his mother said sharply. “Annie’s finishing up her seam, and I doubt that you and your father found much dry wood to cut, so you should be fresh and ready for a walk. No argument now,” she added, as Will opened his mouth.
So, after thanking her hosts and packing up a small bundle of clothing to repair, Jane left, accompanied by a silent Will, who was carrying the basket of “refreshments” that his mother had given them. Jane had seen the woman put in dried beans, a cabbage, and smoked fish, along with a little pot of what Jane hoped was lard or goose fat for cooking with, a sack containing grain or flour, and even a few lumps of precious charcoal, wrapped in leaves to prevent their dust from soiling the food, nestled in the bottom of the basket.
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