“I am not being selfish. I wouldn’t mind if you ever bothered to ask me or you were not so careless, forever losing things or soiling them. I still haven’t been able to get the stain out of my muslin shawl.”
“It’s an ugly shawl and doesn’t become you at all,” Amy muttered as she plucked the emeralds from her ears. “And it is not as if you ever wear these earrings anyway. They just sit there in your little treasure chest, gathering dust. But if we were to sell them, I bet—”
“No! Never,” I said, snatching the earrings from her grasp. “These emeralds belonged to my mother and are all I have to remember her by.”
“That isn’t true. You have that flowered handkerchief with her initials. And if it meant you could go to the ball, I am sure your mother would want you to sell the earrings.”
“I can hardly ask her, can I? Because she is dead and has been for the past eighteen years!”
In my agitation at Amy’s callous suggestion, I realized I was close to shouting. When I saw Netta flinch, I took a deep breath. Shoving the emeralds into my apron pocket, I endeavored to stem my anger. But when Amy opened her mouth to continue the argument, I snapped, “Enough. I have already made it clear we cannot afford to go to the ball and that is the end of the matter. I don’t want to hear any more about it.”
Amy flushed, her blue eyes taking on a stormy hue, but worse than that, Netta began to cry.
“Oh, Netta, please don’t,” I begged, my frustration with this whole situation dissolving at the sight of the large silent tears trickling down her thin cheeks. My normal instinct would have been to comfort her with a hug, but if I soiled her dress that would only make everything that much worse.
“Listen, my dears. What about this idea?” I said. “The night of the ball we can have a party in the garden like you have always wanted to do. We’ll string up paper lanterns and move the tea table out there, drape it with our finest cloth. I will get my friend Mal to procure some inexpensive champagne from the smugglers market and I am sure he would bring his fiddle and play for us. We can dance in the moonlight and we will still be able to see the fireworks from the palace and you can invite all your friends.”
My hopeful suggestion only produced a dolorous sniff from Netta and a stony glare from Amy.
“All of our friends will be up at the palace attending the ball,” she said.
“If they want to waste money they don’t have on such nonsense, the more fool they.”
“You are the only one who thinks it is nonsense. For Netta and me, that ball is our only chance at happiness.”
I managed not to roll my eyes. “Don’t be so melodramatic, Amy.”
She flushed, her eyes glinting with angry tears. “I would not expect you to understand. You are so mean, Ella. You used to be so kind and sympathetic and sweet. Well, you were never exactly sweet, but you were a great deal more fun. But you have turned bitter and nasty and—and old! You don’t have any dreams about romance or finding your one true love and living happily ever after. All you want to do is shut yourself up in your musty library with your stupid books and you don’t care what becomes of Netta or me. I am sure if I do not get to attend that ball, I shall simply die! I know I shall.”
“I do hope not. We cannot afford to give you a decent burial.”
I immediately regretted the retort when Amy burst into a flood of tears.
“I am sorry, Amy. I—”
She shoved past me, storming toward the parlor door. I turned to my other stepsister, holding out my hand.
“Netta, please, I—”
She shied away from me, averting her tearstained face. She hurried after her sister.
Amy paused on the threshold long enough to hurl a parting shot, but she was sobbing so hard, I could barely make out the words. “N-not the end of the matter. When Mama gets home, just see what she has to say.”
The girls fled the parlor, but not before Amy slammed the door hard enough to make me wince.
I heaved a deep sigh, realizing my stepmother would have plenty to say on the subject of the ball and I dreaded the thought of another tempestuous encounter. No matter how she would scold or plead, I could not yield. Not this time.
My father had set up his will so that all control of the trust money rested with me. I hardly knew whether to applaud the wisdom of my father’s foresight or curse him for it. I had just turned eighteen when Papa died, and his decision to leave me in charge of the family coffers had placed a crushing burden on my youthful shoulders. My stepmother had no more notion of economy than my stepsisters did. The knowledge that it was entirely up to me to ensure we did not end up facing utter ruin was terrifying and kept me awake many a night, worrying.
I knew this next month until the cursed ball was over was going to be a nightmare. A veritable siege of tears and tantrums, frozen silences and verbal assaults designed to weaken my resolve. For all our sakes, I could not, would not let that happen, but the mere thought of it left me feeling drained and exhausted. I retreated to the library, resisting the urge to nail the door shut behind me.
I tried to return to what I had been doing before I had been interrupted, but I knew it was hopeless. I lacked both the proper tools and the expertise to unstop the chimney. I sank down on the stool by the hearth, trying not to think of my stepsisters upstairs weeping into their pillows. Didn’t they understand that I would happily have sent them to a hundred balls if I could afford to do it?
I dug my hand into my apron pocket and drew forth my mother’s emeralds. I wondered if I was being selfish to cling to these relics of the past. It was true that I never wore them and would never have any occasion to do so. But the thought of parting with my mother’s earrings made my heart ache.
I had been fascinated by those emeralds as a child, calling them Mama’s “twinkles.” Whenever she dressed to go out to some dinner or party with Papa, I liked to brush back her soft blond hair just to look at them.
The twinkles make your eyes sparkle, Mama. Like stars, I would say.
She would laugh and lean down to rub her nose against mine. These earrings were a special gift from your papa when you were born, my Ella. And that is what puts the sparkle in my eyes, not the twinkles.
My eyes welled at the memory and I hastily shoved the earrings back in my pocket. Leaning back against the brick frame of the hearth, I gazed around the room at the sheets I had draped over the furniture to protect it from the soot. White cotton shrouded the bookcases, the desk where Mama had taught me my numbers and letters, the large wingback chair that had been my father’s domain. I felt surrounded by ghosts of happier times.
I was a very restless child and the library had been of little importance to me in those days. I much preferred tearing out of the house to play with my best friend, Mal, who lived next door to me. This was long before the Hawkridge family had moved to the Misty Bottoms. Mal and I had had glorious adventures, climbing trees to rescue imaginary royals from towers, dueling with stick swords upon boards we cobbled together to make pirate ships or grubbing in the dirt in a quest to find fairy gold.
No matter how inclement the weather, I chafed to be outside with Mal. During a particularly harsh winter, I had contracted a bad case of the influenza that had obliged me to spend weeks indoors. I would have been utterly miserable but for my mother’s ingenuity in devising entertainments, wonderful picnics on the library floor, treasure hunts for colored rocks and treats she hid among the bookshelves. She even draped a blanket over the desk, turning it into a cave where the dread ogre Dirty Burt lived, emerging whenever I poked at him to chase me around the room, squealing with delight.
The part of the ogre was always played by my petite fair-haired mama because my father was not the sort of man to crawl about on the floor and play. But as the evening shadows lengthened, he would light the candles and draw me onto his lap to read to me from what would become my favorite book, The Life and Exploits of Queen Anthea, the Magnificently Wise.
My mother would sit nearby quietly sti
tching and smiling over some passage she particularly liked, often asking Papa to read it again. No matter how hard the wind howled or how high the snow drifted outside the library windows, I remembered feeling safe, warm and loved. How could any of us guess that enchanted winter would end in tragedy? The same influenza that had made me so ill would eventually claim my mother’s life.
My father was a quiet man, never as demonstrative with his affection as my mother. I tended to think of him as being like the moon, reflecting my mother’s light and warmth. When she died, it was as though the moon fell into a state of permanent eclipse, stealing the stars from my sky as well.
Lost in his grief, my father spent much of his time shut away in the library. This state of affairs did not improve when he married my stepmother a year later. If anything, he became even more withdrawn. The library became his fortress and the rest of us were forbidden to enter there.
It probably speaks volumes about the sort of little girl I was. Tell me something was forbidden and it was the very thing I desired. I had showed little interest in reading books heretofore, but my father’s edict made me stubbornly determined to breach the library walls.
I would wait until late at night when my stepsisters and stepmother were fast asleep and creep downstairs. Tiptoeing to the library door, I would inch it open and peek inside. My father always sat up until all hours reading. Ensconced in his wingback chair, he would be absorbed by some heavy tome.
By dropping to my stomach and snaking across the carpet, I could creep across the room undetected. I would hold my breath as I inched past my father’s chair, keeping a wary eye on him. But when my father was lost in a book, he was oblivious to the world. My stepmother often complained that the entire roof could cave in on all of us and he would never notice.
Stretching my arm out, I was able to snag the volume of Queen Anthea from the bottom shelf. I would scoot back carefully until I was hiding behind my father’s chair, all smug and triumphant, the book clutched in my arms.
I settled against the back of the chair, positioning myself so a flicker of light from the candle fell across the pages, just enough for me to read. It was difficult at first, but I was familiar enough with the story, I could figure out the harder words. But the more passages that I mastered, a strange thing began to happen. What had begun as an act of defiance became a labor of love as I learned the true magic of words and claimed them for my own.
Night after night I would return to the library and sneak down another book to read behind the chair. I had soon devoured all the volumes that I could reach without drawing my father’s notice. I would have been obliged to start reading the same books over again but for my father’s habit of constantly rearranging his shelves. Just as I would finish the last story on the lowest shelf, a new collection would appear within my grasp.
I enjoyed my career as a nocturnal book brigand for a long time. But eventually the day came when I grew older and more rebellious. Then I would simply march into the library and pluck a volume from the shelf. My father would glance up from his book but I would just glare at him in defiance, challenging him to say something.
He never did. He would just give me an odd, sad kind of look and return to his reading.
I have often suspected since then my father had been perfectly aware of my stealthy nighttime raids on his library and did not mind. But if that was true, why had he never acknowledged my presence or invited me to come out from behind the chair? I wished I had asked him, but it was far too late for that now. It was also too late to tell him I was sorry that the last words I ever spoke to him were angry ones.
When I was seventeen, I had begun stealing away for trysts with a young man my stepmother had deemed highly unsuitable. She had complained to my father, who had roused himself from his books enough to summon me to the library. Imelda had been concerned for my reputation. My father, forbidding me to see the boy again, warned me about ending up with a broken heart.
What would you know about my heart? I had shouted at him. All that matters to you are your library and your books!
That was so like the accusation that Amy had hurled at me, it gave me a twinge and I was quick to thrust the painful memory aside. I could not afford to spend the rest of the afternoon indulging in maudlin recollections. Marketing needed to be done, if our supper tonight was to consist of anything besides turnip stew.
I levered myself off the stool and headed up to my bedchamber. All was mercifully quiet on the second floor. I surmised that my stepsisters were either napping or had retreated to the garden to await their mother’s return. Imelda was off visiting her good friend Madam Dearling, the wife of a prosperous silk merchant. I did not particularly like the Dearling woman. I thought she was a simpering creature who enjoyed nothing more than crowing about her neighbors’ misfortunes, but I was glad that Imelda had finally found a friend of sorts.
After her husband’s fall from grace, all of Imelda’s former acquaintances from the Heights had deserted her. Imelda’s patronizing airs had not found favor among the simpler ladies of Midtown. Even as a child, I had been able to perceive that Imelda’s pride concealed a deep unhappiness and loneliness. So I certainly did not begrudge her friendship with the unpleasant Madam Dearling. In fact, I hoped Imelda had a good long visit. It would give me more time to muster my defenses before she returned to harangue me about the ball.
I quickly stripped out of my sooty clothes and bathed in the cool water at the washstand. Rummaging in my wardrobe, I selected a clean chemise, petticoat and simple gown and shrugged into them.
My bedchamber had changed little from the days of my childhood. The same silk hangings embroidered with unicorns draped in tent-like fashion over my four-poster bed. Once a vivid sky blue, the silk had faded to a shade of mist, but even when these draperies became tattered shreds, I did not know if I could bear to take them down because my mother had fashioned them for me.
My old dollhouse still stood in the corner by the window. It was once an impressive two-story structure, four feet high. But the paint was chipped and shingles knocked off the roof from the time Mal besieged it with his toy cannon during the Battle of Upton Castle. Whatever miniature furniture and dolls had survived the siege, I gave to Netta and Amy long ago. For many years, I had used the dollhouse as a bookshelf, my much-worn biography of Queen Anthea having pride of place in the upper bedchamber.
The hinged roof opened to reveal the attic and that was where I stored my treasure box. I kept the key to it hidden beneath a segment of loose carpet in the miniature parlor. Not the best hiding place, considering how easily Amy was able to find it. Even if I had kept the key on a chain around my neck, it would not have mattered because my stepsister was adept at picking locks with a hairpin, a circumstance that was entirely my own fault. Mal taught me this skill when we were children and I passed this knowledge along to both Netta and Amy. I was not always the best influence on my little stepsisters.
Fetching the key, I unlocked the treasure box to restore my mother’s emeralds to their velvet pouch. I had always called this small chest my treasure box although the earrings were the only thing of monetary value. Everything else stored there was baubles and keepsakes such as the fake gold bracelet Mal won for me at a traveling fair.
Nor was it a repository of secrets…except for one. Delving down into the bottom of the box, I unearthed my mother’s handkerchief. As I unwrapped the folds of linen, I was relieved to discover what I had left tucked inside undisturbed, although even if Amy had come across this object, she would never have understood the significance of it. It was a pick that minstrels used to strum their lutes. Made of ivory, the pick was shaped like a teardrop, which, considering the pain its owner had inflicted upon me, was rather appropriate.
As I cradled the ivory pick in the palm of my hand, I was flooded with bittersweet memories of my seventeen-year-old folly, of a youth with golden hair and a golden voice, with eyes of a deep cerulean blue capable of both tenderness and treachery. He called himself H
arper and that was the only name I ever knew him by—this young man my stepmother and father had warned me about and were right to do so.
I folded the ivory pick carefully back inside the handkerchief and returned it to the bottom of the box. I no longer kept the pick for any sentimental reasons or as a memento, only as a grim reminder of a lesson harshly learned. Never give your heart to a strolling minstrel, for inevitably he will wander off and leave it discarded along the wayside.
Chapter 3
It was deep in the afternoon when I finally left the house, my marketing basket hooked over my arm. The rhododendron bushes had started to overtake the path and brushed up against my skirts, dislodging a snow of soft pink petals in my wake.
Our house was very like most homes in Midtown; two stories adorned with a bay front window, a pitched shingle roof and gables adorned with icing latticework (although ours needed a fresh coat of paint). While most of the other houses in the neighborhood were fronted by tidy gardens, ours had become more of a wilderness since I seldom had time to attend to the weeding.
Besides the rhododendrons’ encroachment upon the walkway, the daylilies had also run riot, the ivy had commenced a tender assault upon the picket fence and the roses had gone completely insane, threatening to crowd out the meek little violets. This abundance of roses was a source of great vexation to our nearest neighbor, Mrs. Biddlesworth. She prided herself on being the best gardener in Midtown, but no matter how carefully she nursed her rosebushes, she had difficulty getting them to thrive.
I told her it was because she fussed with them too much. Roses do not like to be touched. That is why they have thorns. I felt a peculiar kinship with these flowers so perhaps that was the reason my roses grew in such abundance. Mrs. Biddlesworth suspected that I had bewitched them. I was surprised she had never tried to lodge a complaint with the authorities, accusing me of practicing magic without a license.