Amy Snow (5 page)

“Not the thing at all,” he frets. “The railway is a wonderful thing, but there is every sort of a person in a station, Miss Snow. And I believe you have never taken a train before? Do you know the protocol?”

I have not and I do not. Mr. Carlton describes to me the quirks of buying a ticket from the house adjoining the station and what must be done if the owner is not home, the importance of choosing the right carriage and the optimum seat, how to address fellow passengers, and where to stow my ticket for safekeeping.

“For ladies, I always recommend the left glove, Miss Snow. The left glove cannot be bettered for this purpose. Tickets seem to have a great propensity towards escaping, you know, and that is a very great inconvenience indeed, for the inspectors simply will not believe that you have purchased your ticket and lost it. They
will
insist or imply that you are trying to defraud the railway company, and that is an insult not to be borne, Miss Snow . . . hence, the left glove.”

“The left glove,” I murmur, head spinning. “Thank you so much, Mr. Carlton, I don't know what I would do without your invaluable advice. Who would ever have thought there could be so much to think about?”

“Indeed, indeed. 'Tis not like the old days. So many of my customers are uncomfortable with the changes that I have taken it upon myself to be as informative as possible to ease the path of progress. I have been pondering the idea of writing a book:
Hints and Advice for the Inexperienced Traveler
. Do you think such a project would find favor with the public?”

“I should think it invaluable, Mr. Carlton. Do write it!”

“Thank you, Miss Snow. I think I shall. Disseminating knowledge is the human duty, sharing it about so that all can benefit.”

“Why, that is exactly what Miss Vennaway used to say!” I smile, then fall quiet.

Mr. Carlton nods. “I have heard that she was a remarkable young lady. My very sincerest condolences, Miss Snow.”

When I was six years old, and Aurelia fourteen, a queen came to the throne. I remember Aurelia beaming, her hair flying as she spun me around and around in the kitchen garden, her dress a rainbow. It was summer, and I swear the air was full of butterflies.

“When you were born, our ruler was a king,” she told me breathlessly as we tumbled to the ground, “but now a woman heads our nation—a
young
woman, only four years older than I! Oh, Amy, it makes me feel as though anything is possible. They say she stepped into her new responsibility with as much equanimity as if she were stepping into a parlor for crumpets. If she is too young and foolish and
feminine
to be equal to the task, clearly
she
is unaware of it!”

I remember the sense of optimism that infected the world, but I was too young to understand the implications of a dawning age. To me the queen seemed imaginary, like the princess who kissed a frog or the young woman who cast her hair from a tower in the storybooks. Aurelia, however, fancied a real sense of connection between herself and the monarch. They were both only children. They were both in possession of more ideas than rightly belonged in a pretty bonneted head. They had both sworn they would marry only for love. The imagined Victoria, proprietorially discussed by Aurelia and me, came to seem like a third, absentee member of our happy little club. We often planned what we would ask her if she came for tea.

It was as I grew a little older that my troubles began, or at least that they came to the surface, as they were always bound to do. By seven I was of an age where, had my circumstances been different, I might have been plucked from a workhouse to go into service. I would have been chosen for a particular purpose and trained to meet it.

As it was, no requirement brought me to Hatville; I was simply there. Thus, the selection of a line of work for me was somewhat arbitrary. Just as well my preferences were not considered, for girls could not work in the stables or grounds. Given Lady Vennaway's strictures that I should stay out of sight, the kitchen was the obvious choice, but Cook and Rosy and Dora were already there, so unless the family was entertaining I only got under everyone's feet. The housemaids resented me for having such a light workload. I was happy to do more but Cook would not risk me encountering Lady Vennaway, an event she feared on her own account as much as on mine. I was often puzzled as to what I was about, and a frown became my habitual expression.

So whenever Aurelia appeared, bored and lonely as she so often was, Cook was all too happy to have me taken off her hands. It solved the problem at first. But that I was neither fish nor fowl became increasingly apparent to all.

The difficulty was I was at home at Hatville. Just as Aurelia took for granted her large house with its spare Regency trappings and her role as the first young lady of the neighborhood, visiting the farm workers once a week, dispensing food and a few coins when a new baby was born, so I took for granted my bed in the scullery, the kitchen's crowded warmth, my free roaming rights. When I learned that Hatville contained areas as yet unknown to me, bedrooms and a ballroom and a library, I naturally wanted to explore them. Cook and I were making cherry pies together when she tried to explain that they were not mine to explore, that it was not my home.

I was dumbfounded. “Of course it is my home. I've lived here always, with everyone I know!”

“But Hatville
belongs
to other people. It is
their
home and you are their servant.”

“But . . . who
are
they?” I wanted to know.

“Lord and Lady Vennaway are master and mistress here. You've to work hard for them, Amy, same as me and everyone else.”

I wondered why I'd never seen this master and mistress.

“Because they're very grand and very busy. Why, Hatville is so large that your paths need never cross.”

“But have
you
seen them, Cookie?”

“Yes.”

“And Robin?”

“Yes, Robin too.”

“And Marcus and Benjamin and Jesketh?”

“Why
yes
, Amy. Now mind what you're doing.”

Cook was puffing as she kneaded the huge mound of dough. I huffed through my heavy fringe with equal concentration as I removed the stones from the cherries. I was skeptical. Two people whose existence meant my home was not my home . . . and everyone had seen them except me? It hardly seemed likely.

“Cookie . . .
how
then has everyone seen them, if the house is so large and they are so busy?”

“Because Master and Mistress need to meet their servants, to give them instructions and so forth.”

“Well then, why have they never given instructions to
me
?”

“
Amy!
Stop asking questions and
stop
eating those cherries!”

Poor Cook. My precarious position would have been difficult to explain to anyone, let alone a curious child.

Later, while the pies turned gold and fragrant and we were clearing up, it arose that Aurelia was the daughter of these Other People. Hatville Court was
her
home too, where it was not mine!

I laughed in disbelief. Aurelia and I saw each other every day. She told me stories and had me ride in her arms on Lucky. She taught me to play cards and race twigs on the stream and never gave me any instructions at all!

“How can her parents be my master and mistress when Aurelia is my friend?” I asked in a small voice.

“Because,” explained Cook, perspiring, “she's not your friend. She is the young mistress. You must never forget that.”

“But . . .” I began, then seeing Cook's expression, fell silent.

I understand better now the invidious position Cook was in. Aurelia's treatment of me set me apart, suggested a status and favor that could not be sustained, and was directly at odds with her ladyship's wishes. Yet what could Cook do? It wasn't a servant's prerogative to lecture the young lady of the house. She did try to explain, but Aurelia would have none of it. She enjoyed playing with me, she had no one else, and besides, she had found me.

At the time it all seemed fantastical nonsense to me. I remember puzzling over it for three or four days that summer, then deciding to worry about it no longer.

•  •  •

Then one day, for the first time in living memory, Lady Vennaway appeared in the kitchen. Usually, her bell would summon Cook or Dora. One or the other would jump, untie her apron, dust herself down, and run from the room even if a broth was just coming to the boil or a roast was halfway out of the oven. I was sitting under the table, taking the heads off strawberries when she came. I only became aware that something had changed because the chatter suddenly stopped and even the bubbling pots hushed down to a simmer. I saw skirts crumple in curtsies.

A crystal-clear voice, like and yet unlike Aurelia's, said, “Where is the child?”

“Here, m'lady.”

Cook sounded subdued. Her red hand flapped in front of my face, beckoning me from under the table. I scrambled out, deeply curious to meet this fabled mistress, owner of Hatville, ringer of bells, in whose existence (like God's and Samuel Pickwick's) I had hitherto believed only tentatively.

I stood before her and stared. She looked like the ice queen depicted in one of Aurelia's books, unbearably haughty and painfully beautiful, with a flowing gown and loose auburn hair. She was so fierce and radiant she made me want to hide my face.

It is strange to remember, now, that my very first instinct was that I wanted to please her. This is what hurts the most—for it was immediately clear that I did not. She looked down on me from her great height and I saw from her face that the sight of me made her sick.

I still clutched a knife in one hand and a strawberry in the other so I dropped them, in case it was they that offended. It was not.

“What is the matter with her?”

“Sorry, ma'am, I believe she be nervous,” muttered Cook, pushing me out of the way so that she could pick up the things I'd dropped. She had never handled me so roughly and I felt wounded.

“Curtsy, child,” she ordered, and I bobbed, and wondered.

“I will see her alone. Have her follow me.” The mistress turned and left the room.

I felt the kitchen sag with relief, but Cook grabbed me by both arms and stared into my face. “Oh dear,” she muttered, “oh dear, dear, dear.”

She pulled my hands out to examine them and she didn't seem to like those either. They were stained with pink juice and their usual coating of black grime. She spat into her own palm and started rubbing at them roughly.

“No time, Cookie, no time,” whispered Dora.

Sure enough a furious voice came from the passage: “Well, is she coming or
not
?”

“Go!” Cook was tugging at my apron ties and shoving me out into the passage all at the same time. “Be respectful. Be good!” And I ran after the lady of the house.

I chased her down a long corridor with a high ceiling. I could not help but marvel as I ran, for I had not been there before. Its wooden-paneled walls bore dark portraits of pale-faced men in high collars and a good deal of lace. Some had horses, some had small children and wives, some had brown and white dogs of all shapes, sizes, and arrangements of hair.

Unfortunately, as I ran and twisted and stared and ran, my apron ties, half freed by Cook, came loose altogether. The apron slid off my small frame, tangled up my feet, and I fell—
smack!
—on my face.

My cheek and hands stung and my head rang. Lady Vennaway turned and glanced at me contemptuously.

“Oafish child.”

Then she resumed walking and I resumed scurrying, looking where I was going this time and clutching my apron in both hands.

In a cold study with an empty mantelpiece and a bare desk, she closed the door behind us. She sat on a spindle-legged chair, stood me before her, and looked at me.

Set out in words, it might seem that worse fates could befall a child. But when the looker was Lady Vennaway and the looked-at was me, it was a dreadful experience.

Like her daughter, she had the most expressive face, with large eyes and delicate bones that conveyed every thought and feeling. But whereas Aurelia's feelings were always frank and warm, her ladyship's were altogether different.

In that gaze my innocence shattered. Her blue eyes bored into mine, and I watched shadows I could not name scudding across them like clouds. Her exquisite upper lip curled, though otherwise the lovely face was still and impassive. You might have thought her impervious to me, but for those eyes and that lip.

Then she spat into my face.

It was so sudden, so shocking, that I stumbled backwards. Her spittle hit me hard in the eye and ran down my face. I wiped it away at once, then dragged my hand down my dress. I did not understand, yet I felt humiliated in a way that was all new to me. I wanted to wash my eye out, not only because it smarted but because I could not bear the thought of this woman's venom somehow finding its way into my eye socket and seeping down into my soul.