A Pearl for My Mistress. Annabel Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ Lucy probably blushed very easily, Hester reflected. After all, her skin was so fair; her veins could have been painted in vivid blue upon the ivory surface of her wrists. Her fingers were so thin that Hester found herself catching her breath in fear.

      What if she had an accident? They would be so easy, so painfully easy to break …

      Some ladies, Hester had heard, enjoyed the daily ritual of having their hair brushed and arranged. However, her new mistress clearly wasn’t counted among them. She frowned into the mirror, turned her head in discontent, and drummed her fingers on the table tirelessly, as if performing some unnerving melody.

      ‘Have you arrived from far away?’ she finally asked, clearly aiming to fill some time.

      ‘No, my lady.’

      The name of her hometown was unlikely to tell Lady Lucy anything; however, she made a courteous nod of recognition upon hearing it.

      ‘To be honest, I imagined you to have come from some distant clime,’ she noted. ‘You have such lovely olive skin, after all. Most local girls look as if they’ve spent their youth and childhood in Château d’If.’

      ‘Well, some of my ancestors might have come from those distant climes,’ Hester replied, her tone tinted by pleasure at the compliment. ‘There is even one family story … Although, strictly speaking, it’s more of a family legend.’

      She stopped, as if her speech had been cut away with a knife.

      You are not bantering with your friends now. She isn’t interested in your family legends. Or stories, for that matter.

      She must remember; she must mould herself into this new role.

      ‘Do tell!’ Lady Lucy’s blue eyes, lucid and unnervingly clear, now shone with curiosity. She looked at Hester, unaware of her painful thoughts. ‘I love legends.’

      As she moved her hands, Hester couldn’t help but notice a scar cutting across the lady’s right palm. It resembled an ugly stitch, made by an indifferent apprentice upon transparent white satin.

      ‘Well …’ Hester lowered her eyes, continuing to brush her mistress’s fine hair. The strands flew between her fingers, like water. ‘It says that my family actually came here from Spain many centuries ago, fleeing the wrath of Queen Isabella. They were Moors, I mean. From Granada,’ she hurried to explain, belatedly. ‘Isabella captured it …’

      ‘I am familiar with the events of the Reconquista, thank you.’ Lady Lucy’s voice grew harsher for a second, before melting into genteel neutrality once again. ‘It is quite fascinating. Do you believe it, Blake?’

      Hester paused. Was she supposed to tell the truth or to play along with her lady’s evident wanderlust?

      Of course, she must nod and agree; it would have been obvious for any servant, Mrs Mullet wouldn’t even think …

      ‘To be honest, my lady, I don’t. I am not sure how these things work; but, I think, if my ancestors came here in the fifteenth century and married the locals ever since, there wouldn’t be any traces left by now. Not even the olive skin.’

      It was still only a half-truth. Hester didn’t trust the exact facts of the story, of course; she wasn’t that fanciful, whatever her mother might say. However, the lure and enigma of the legend never failed to capture her imagination. Ever since she had heard it for the first time, she was entranced by these visions of the sun-soaked lands. She closed her eyes, daydreaming in the warmer afternoons, and saw the bright shawls of dark-eyed beauties, the orange trees blooming in March.

      Hester was still unsure about this latter image, though. She suspected it to be at least an embellishment. How could anything bloom in March, let alone oranges?

      Her hometown was a practical place, built around shipyards and factories. Lady Lucy’s Victorian grandmother must have seen it rising. It was sturdy; it was sensible; it was part of the backbone of the industrial empire. It wasn’t a gloomy place, either; there were teashops, and Saturday dances, and even a park. But no oranges or lemons bloomed there in March. Or in any other months, for that matter.

      ‘Still, it’s a splendid story,’ Lady Lucy concluded, as if answering her thoughts. ‘And, as I’ve said, I love legends. Speaking of which, we have quite a good selection in the library. Have you already been there?’

      ‘I can use the library?’ Hester blinked.

      ‘Of course you can.’ The young woman turned and stared at her, slightly frowning. ‘All upper servants can. Didn’t Mrs Mullet tell you?’

      ‘I didn’t ask,’ Hester confessed.

      She said it as quietly as she could, as if trying to drown the evidence that it was her first time in service, and she only knew the barest of rules.

      ‘Well, then I am telling you. You can read however much you want there.’

      A weight seemed to lift from Hester’s shoulders. She had already imagined the trouble of carving out time for trips to the nearest town’s library; or, even worse, the nightmare of living without any new books at all.

      ‘Thank you, my lady,’ was all she could say. ‘Thank you so much.’

      ‘You are welcome. Now …’ Lady Lucy touched her newly arranged curls ‘… I think that’s quite sufficient. I wouldn’t dare keep you here for too long; I imagine you have plenty of duties to attend to.’ Her tone and smile were as courteous as they could be; however, from her eyes’ expression, she could just as well have been a military officer saying Dismissed. ‘As do I.’

      ***

      Lucy was a child of winter.

      She was born in the crispy frost of January, in the deafening silence of snow-covered countryside.

      She was born in the early years of the war, which later passed into the realm of legends. On the Continent, emperors fought with kings, and the fields were soaked with blood. Here, the lights went out, and the country stood in the hushed silence of terror.

      Lucy was the first child of a young, sweet, impossibly proper couple – as proper as they came in those turbulent days. She was really supposed to be a boy: a sunny heir, the first of more to come, the harbinger of hope. There would have been joyful celebrations; there would have been tables laid out for tenants. Maids in pristine aprons would have patiently queued to receive a golden sovereign each from their benevolent master.

      As it was, there were only veiled consolations.

      ‘Don’t worry,’ the well-wishers must have said. ‘It will all turn out properly next time.’

      No one recounted such words to Lucy, of course, but it was easy enough to imagine them. They appeared in her mind so readily, as if they were lines in an already written novel, just waiting to be called to light. Ordering life in the format of a novel made it so much easier for her to understand.

      Lucy was also, at least, supposed to be cheerful and hearty, never bothering anyone with fevers or complaints. She was supposed to be stout and perfectly healthy, a lover of horses and hunting, her cheeks bright as apples. Instead, she turned out to be weak and pale, rarely getting through spring without a flu. Later, she learnt to apologize СКАЧАТЬ