by Richard Peck
A door to the dining room, half hidden by a screen, opened silently, and a maid in a white cap bore in a tray of water ices in stemmed silver. As she passed the tray to the butler, Gregory noticed her. Only a glimpse and she was gone. For an instant it might have been Amanda herself. The same violet eyes in the serene, pale face. He wouldn’t put it past Amanda to playact a servant’s role at a dinner she’d refused to share with him.
Mary had seen him. He was as handsome as Miss Amanda had said: faraway eyes in a firmly set face. A god among barons and earls. The vision of him, and the sumptuous dining table, blinded her so that she nearly missed her footing. Midnight came before she could be alone with her thoughts, and then she was too tired to think. Though she was no stranger to hard work, Mary could barely stagger up all the flights to her little cell under the slope of the roof.
She fell on the narrow iron bed and was asleep at once, dreaming that she served the young American gentleman dining all alone at a great, glittering table.
Suddenly she sat bolt upright. She recognized none of the dark shapes in the room, and the dream had confused her. Thinking that she was dreaming still, she rose and moved to the door. Her dark hair hung loose, and her old nightgown billowed in the drafts. She moved along the passageway outside as if summoned by a distant voice, sleepwalking, if that was what it was. Her feet found the treacherous stairs, and she walked down them until she stepped into the deep luxury of a carpet.
She stood, coming to herself now, not a yard from Miss Amanda’s door. Frightened, she was turning back toward the attic stairwell when a hand fell roughly on her shoulder.
I shall be murdered, Mary thought as the hand tightened. She was spun around and violently embraced. A man’s hand caught both of hers in a vise behind her. His mouth sought hers, forcing her head back, roughly yet easily. She writhed against him, but one hard hand closed behind her neck, beneath her flowing hair.
Mary knew the clenching hand could kill her in a simple gesture. Instead, it found its way across her shoulders beneath the flimsy nightgown. A calloused hand, moving as confidently as if it had caressed her before.
The seam of Mary’s gown tore from neck to shoulder. She blinked back tears, too stunned for prayer, too frightened to call for help. “Please,” she whispered. “I beg of you—don’t.”
“My God,” he said. “Who are you?”
His hands fell away, and she was free now. In the darkness his head of pale, thick hair glowed dimly.
“I said, who are you?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“M-Miranda, sir—if you please.”
“I know of no Miranda. Account for yourself before I—”
“I’ve only just come, sir. To be in service.”
The man groaned. “Don’t call me sir. I’m lower than you. Be off. Why in the devil are you roaming the halls at this hour? Did she ring for you?”
“No one sent for me. I—I—”
“Then forget this,” he said, turning aside. Mary could almost make out his profile.
Her shaking hand found the stair rail. In the next second she’d vanished up to her attic. But John Thorne stood staring in the dark, stunned by what he’d done. Then he moved heavily along the hall, turned the noiseless knob he’d oiled himself, and strode into Amanda Whitwell’s bedroom.
In the glow of the embers in the hearth he saw Amanda stir and stretch toward the lamp beside her bed. “Leave it dark, Amanda,” he whispered, and reached out for her.
* * *
“My kidneys!” Mrs. Creeth whooped at Mr. Finley. “Treat yourself to a whiff of the aroma!”
Mr. Finley obliged by hovering over the steaming pan. “I have said it before and I repeat it now. There is no one your equal in the matter of kidneys, Mrs. Creeth.”
She glowed in triumph at the compliment she’d wrung out of the butler. It was only half past six, but Mrs. Creeth’s kitchen was already halfway to breakfast. Porridge bubbled beside the matchless kidneys; bacon strips hung on hooks above the drip pan, ready to be thrust nearer the fire. Hilda and Hannah were giving the meager sum of their concentration to making toast.
Abel, the footman, was late as usual, for he walked over every morning from Bierley, taking his sweet time. “That Abel,” Mrs. Creeth said, “will find no breakfast awaiting him in these kitchens.” But Hilda, who would have thrown herself into the fire for one loving glance from Abel, slipped a slice of toast for him into her pocket.
In the apron room off the kitchen Betty Prowse, her mouth full of pins, was gathering the folds of a black uniform around Mary’s form. If the previous night’s terrifying encounter showed on Mary’s face, Betty was too busy to notice. She took a tuck here and there until Mary’s slim figure began to emerge.
Patches of dark showed beneath Betty’s button eyes, and Mary wondered if her new friend was quite well. “Whose uniform was it?” Mary asked.
“Oh, this was Lottie’s, the head parlormaid’s. Left behind in her haste when she flounced orf to London to marry the landlord of a public house—”
“Betty! Get the new one into her uniform and report to me this instant!” Mrs. Creeth bellowed.
“Anyhow,” Betty said, “whether you’re Mary or Miranda, you’re a welcome change from that Lottie.” She gave Mary a quick shy smile before rushing to do the cook’s bidding.
The servants’ breakfast at Whitwell Hall was the finest meal Mary had ever known. Porridge, lumpless, with thick cream and a dusting of sugar. Toast with both marmalade and butter. And a platter of bacon and sausages. Mary wondered how the breakfast to be laid in the dining room above could surpass this feast.
Over the clinking of cutlery, Mr. Finley called out, “I trust you passed a comfortable night, Mrs. Buckle?”
“Fitful,” Mrs. Buckle snapped from a chair by the hearth. She ate from a tray in icy solitude, for she wouldn’t put her feet under a table where Mrs. Creeth presided. “And I must say,” Mrs. Buckle went on, “this bacon is quite inedible.”
“Throw it on the fire, then,” Mrs. Creeth barked.
It required all hands to convey the family breakfast up to the sideboards of the great dining room, a palace of mirrors in the morning light. The board groaned with Mrs. Creeth’s famous kidneys, an entire school of kippers, ranks of crisp sausages, pink beef awash in cream. And hanging in the room the scent of fresh coffee. Bustling with the rest of them, Mary wondered if coffee tasted as marvelous as its scent promised.
By half past eight Mr. Finley stood ready to serve. Beside him was Abel, arrived at last. When the great double doors opened, the female servants were sent scurrying to the serving pantry. But not before Mary saw that the first down to breakfast was the American gentleman. She had only a glimpse of the coat of muted tweeds pulled taut over his broad shoulders, and the blue-blackness of his hair.
“Oooo, they are such slugabeds!” said Betty. “And the ladies will be ringin’ for breakfast up in their rooms. Orl except for Lady Eleanor. She’s always down for breakfast. So we might as well pull down the trays from the shelf now, Mary.”
A curious device hung on the wall of the servants’ hall. It was a board with numbered squares matching all the rooms of the house. Whenever a button was touched in a chamber above, a bell chimed on the board, and a black card dropped into the square, summoning a servant. The contraption was Mr. Finley’s greatest earthly joy. Betty referred to the board as Old Buzz-and-Jump.
The board chimed, announcing that Mrs. Glaslough had rung for her breakfast. “You, Mary—Miranda!” Mr. Finley called. “Take up Mrs. Glaslough’s tray. And mind you knock and wait to be summoned. There’s to be no bursting in on Mrs. Glaslough.”
As Mary passed the foot of the attic stairs, she grew cold, remembering the night before. The odd confidences of the impulsive Miss Amanda, hinting of a man she could be flogged for loving. Then later, the dark encounter in the dead of night, the grip of the stranger’s hands. Her heart pounded as she knocked at Mrs. Glaslough’s door.
It was answered, and
she entered with downcast eyes. She thought it was perhaps only her imagination that the door to Mrs. Glaslough’s dressing room seemed to be just closing, as if someone had lingered until the last moment before leaving.
“Good morning, madam,” Mary said quietly. “I hope you rested.”
Mrs. Glaslough swept a fiery strand of hair from her brow and looked intently at Mary. “As it happens, I had a somewhat tempestuous night, and I’m pining for my tea. Pour it out, won’t you? No sugar.”
When she had done so, Mary stooped to retrieve a pair of silk slippers from beneath the bed, and her eye was drawn to an empty champagne bottle lolling there.
“In the names of all the saints, don’t open the curtains,” Mrs. Glaslough said. “I abhor daylight—what I’ve seen of it.” She divided a peach with a small silver knife. “This peach is just the least bit overripe—not unlike myself.”
Making no sense of that observation, Mary started to withdraw, but Mrs. Glaslough said, “What is your name?”
“I’m called—Miranda, madam.”
“I suppose you are quite used to hearing you are very like young Amanda—in appearance.”
“Oh no, madam,” Mary said. “I only began yesterday. But perhaps Miss Amanda did notice a similarity. She told me to take off my cap, and she looked at me.”
“Yes, Miss Amanda would be attracted to any reflection of herself. I am one of Lady Eleanor’s oldest friends, though rather earthy for her taste. You’ll find her quite human beneath the grandeur. It’s Amanda who wants watching. Do keep your guard up, Miranda. And now you may go.”
When Old Buzz-and-Jump announced Amanda’s desire for breakfast, Betty was sent up with her tray. But she was soon back, eyes brimming. “She sent me packin’, she did,” Betty announced to the kitchen. “Sez it’s Miranda who’s to fetch and carry for her from henceforth—her very words! Oooo, she’s ever so high-handed this mornin’, is Miss Amanda.”
Miranda’s eyes remained on the snowy linen of the tea towels she was folding. Mr. Finley, beside her, asserted his command. “We’ll have to put up with Miss Amanda’s anger, at least until the guests are gone and I can take up the matter with Lady Eleanor. Until then, Miranda will be occupied with tasks elsewhere in the house. Mrs. Buckle, I’m sure you can find a way to reassert your former authority over Miss Amanda.”
Mrs. Buckle’s face showed cautious satisfaction at this decision. And Miranda spent the rest of the day in duties that kept her well away from Amanda Whitwell’s door. She was equal to the work, fitting neatly into the routine of the domestic staff. Even Mrs. Creeth could find little to complain of in her.
It was only when night drew on and Abel and Mr. Finley were laying the fires that Miranda felt a foreboding. With only twelve at dinner the house seemed nearly empty. That emptiness and the slow settling of darkness nagged at Miranda’s heart. And she felt no better when she learned that the rooms where Betty and Mrs. Creeth and Mrs. Buckle slept were all in the attics of other wings of the house.
It was nearly bedtime before Betty and Hilda and Hannah returned from turning out the bedrooms of the departed guests. Betty bore aloft the champagne bottle from under Mrs. Glaslough’s bed. “Oooo! That Mrs. Glaslough, she didn’t polish orf orl that champagne by her lonesome.”
From her place by the fire, Mrs. Creeth told Betty to mind her tongue.
But Betty flowed on. “And that American gent, Mr. Forrest, he’s orf in the mornin’ by the looks of things. But I suppose he’ll catch up wiv Miss Amanda again in November, when the family’s in London.”
“He’s well out of it,” Mrs. Creeth muttered.
“Here, stuff this in your pocket,” Betty murmured, brushing past Miranda to slip an envelope into her hand.
Later, in the apron room with Betty peering over her shoulder, Miranda opened the envelope, and a pound note dropped out. “A pound?” She stared. “Twenty shillings?”
“Well, it’s addressed to you, and I found it on Mrs. Glaslough’s night table, so it’s your tip. She must have taken a likin’ to you,” Betty mused.
And so Miranda entered finally into the ranks of the serving class, having received her first largesse from the casual and capricious hand of the mighty.
* * *
By the light of a flickering candle, Miranda found her attic room and shot a flimsy bolt behind her. The new electrical wiring didn’t reach as high as the servants’ quarters, and the candle’s pale glow made hardly a dent in the darkness. But then the moon came out from a cloud and looked in at her through the slanting window. And some strange spell came over her.
It was partly the moonlight, and something more. A longing, perhaps, for the sea. Even as a child she’d yearned to stand and watch the waves break on the rocks. But there’d been no time for that luxury. She crept under the thin blanket, and her mind drifted in the moonlight. But then she was aware of someone she couldn’t see.
Throwing back the blanket, she rose to her knees to the open window above her. When she stood on the bed, she was more than head and shoulders above the sill, and she lifted herself over it and onto the roof.
An arm’s length in front of her was a parapet. She reached for it and anchored herself there to look down to a garden terraced and scalloped in degrees of darkness. She saw a lawn, flat as a ballroom floor, and before it a terrace balanced at intervals by empty stone urns.
In a scene as still as a painting, one of the urns changed its shape. Someone had been standing beside it and was moving on now—a shrouded figure, deeply bent, with black skirts fanning out behind and a shawl pulled over hunched shoulders. Only a white hand thrust from the shroud to grasp a cane. It was of some polished wood, like a crystal wand in the moonlight. Minutes passed as the figure crept slowly on in silence. Then the apparition was lost to view.
Miranda slid silently back through the window and shut it tight. In her bed she sought the escape of sleep. As her mind withdrew from the vision in the haunted garden, she sobbed once, giving way to fear of all the horrors that lay about her in the world.
3
A bit of peace and quiet won’t be unwelcome,” Mrs. Creeth said to Miranda, almost friendly. The house party had continued to disband. “You’re settling in, then, are you, my girl?”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Creeth.”
Miranda longed to confide in her—or in some older woman—about the mysteries of Whitwell Hall. But Mrs. Creeth would bridle at even a cautious question. Miranda went on her way to tidy the morning room.
Betty had shown her the underground passage running from the kitchens to the front of the house. A flight at the far end rose to a nearly invisible door set in the paneling of the front hall. From there Miranda had only to cross the hall to reach the morning room.
She was through the invisible door before she saw the American gentleman there, with his back to her. His luggage was heaped beside the table. Miranda stopped dead, thinking of retreat. But she seemed rooted to the spot, her eyes following the line of his shoulders, then dropping to the heavy square hands clasped behind him. They were smooth and white. She’d never seen such hands, clasped easily, with strength held lightly in reserve. Not the work-hardened hands that had torn at her in the darkness. Not her assailant’s.
Shivering, she ran a hand over her arm. The starchy sleeve rustled. Gregory Forrest turned, and their eyes met before she could look away. He smiled, and his smile was just the least bit crooked. Miranda smiled back, forgetting all her training.
“I think we’ve met before,” he said, “or almost. In the dining room. You were working, and I was eating. That almost amounts to an introduction, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think so, sir,” she said, finally lowering her eyes. She stood there until it dawned on her that he was waiting for her to introduce herself. A strange request.
“They call me Miranda, sir,” she whispered, deeply embarrassed.
“How do you do, Miranda. I’m Gregory Forrest. And your last name?”
“Cooke, sir
—but they don’t call me that here.” The outlandish idea that Mr. Forrest might call her Miss Cooke in the presence of others stunned her. Perhaps this was what Miss Amanda had against this otherwise perfect man. Not that he didn’t know his place, but that he didn’t know the place of others.
“You gave me quite a surprise the other night,” he said. “I had the idea you were Amanda disguised as an honest working girl.” Miranda wondered how often this supposed resemblance was to be remarked upon. “And in the cold light of day the resemblance is just as striking.”
He seemed to know he was making matters awkward for her and changed his tack. “It’s a very beautiful house. Especially Lady Eleanor’s own sitting room, which I was honored to visit exactly once. Then I knew I was being taken seriously by at least one of the Whitwell ladies.”
“I haven’t seen Lady Eleanor’s sitting room, sir.”
“Well, you should,” Mr. Forrest said. “I’ll ask her to show it to you sometime. In fact, I could ask her now.”
A soft footstep sounded on the grand staircase. It could only be Lady Eleanor. If she didn’t move now, Miranda would be discovered chatting with Miss Amanda’s fiancé. Gregory Forrest glanced toward the staircase, and when he turned back, expecting to see the beautiful hired girl so like a demure twin of Amanda, she was gone. The strangely supernatural effect of her vanishing act would baffle him for days.
With pounding heart, Miranda stood behind the invisible door, waiting there until Lady Eleanor and Mr. Forrest said their good-byes. Through the thin door she heard Lady Eleanor’s voice, as sultry as its cultured rhythms allowed. “My dear Mr. Forrest—Gregory—we’ve let you down on this visit. Something is clearly troubling Amanda, and I’m afraid it’s entirely like her to trouble others at such times. In another girl, it might be shyness, but in Amanda’s case we both know better.”
