“I return to London this evening, but I should be back in the village at the end of the month to judge your progress. I will use Lord Dewhurst’s list to make an educated decision about the work you’ve done.” Beckett continued, “We can reassess the situation at that time. I will leave your uncle’s instructions here for you to consult.”
“Very well.” She stood, depositing her teacup and saucer next to the paperwork. “By then, I’m sure I’ll have the project well in hand.”
Mouse held her hand out to Beckett, willing it not to tremble. Instead, he bowed slightly, not touching it.
“As you wish, your ladyship.” Beckett hurriedly packed his bag and left.
Mouse sagged back into the chair when the door clicked behind him. A series of cracks in the ceiling above formed a map of another world, with dark stains marking the seas.
“Well, it’s clear why Bertie hated Beckett. He’s terribly unsympathetic,” John said, looking over the papers. “This list of repairs is extensive, Mouse. Are you sure you want to take this on? It might be better to leave it.”
“Not to Carlyle,” she said. “Never to Carlyle. Besides, I’d be a coward if I ran out now. Father would have been ashamed of that.”
“I don’t think your father could be ashamed of you if he tried.” John laid the paper down and nudged the hem of her dress with his foot. “How about I go back to the cottage to start supper? You get settled here in your attic and come see me when the coast is clear.”
“You are always so sensible. Why can’t you let me be miserable for five minutes?” Mouse huffed, but she took his hand when he held it out to her.
3
Dust coated everything in the Matchbox, from the doorknob to the windowsill. The housekeeper and Dawson worked together to move the boxes that were crammed into the space to make room for Mouse’s trunk. Mouse offered to help Dawson change the linen, but he staunchly shooed her away to wait in the hall.
When they finally fled down the servant stairs, Mouse shut the creaking door. It hung unevenly in the doorway, catching on the casing in a way that felt like home. She threw the window open and sank to her elbows in the frame. Then, pressing her hand to her eyes, she took a moment to breathe in the fresh afternoon.
She had not originally intended to stay at Thistlemarsh for more than a week, but there was no way she could do the work she needed to while staying anywhere else for the month. Even if she could afford it, the Tithe Inn would be busy because of the Spring Festival. Although she knew John would put her up, she could not ask that of him for an entire month, especially during the busy Easter season. Still, it was hard to ignore the heaviness building in her chest. Could she survive staying in a place with so many conflicting memories and emotions?
The grand lawn spread outside the window, dotted with the smaller gardens like an uneven quilt. When she first arrived at Thistlemarsh with her father, Mouse took to hiding in the gardens. It was not hard. She was small, malnourished from years of struggling in the city, so she could crawl under bushes easily. From beneath her fortress of vines, she would watch Bertie and Roger playing.
Roger was the first to notice her, of course. He was an observant boy, a trait required when one was a guest in their own home. When his eyes met Mouse’s, a silent understanding flowed between them. She did not want to be seen, and he would not reveal her. They were allies behind enemy lines.
That did not stop Bertie from noticing her. If Roger was stillness and caution, Bertie was movement and exuberance. He had scooped Mouse out from beneath the bush, dragging her into the game before she could even think to object. When he learned of her interest in Faerie lore, Bertie took her through the house and pointed out all the details he knew related to Thistlemarsh’s Faerie-blessed history. Roger held Mouse’s hand the entire time and was able to give it two squeezes in warning before Lord Dewhurst appeared to sneer at her and send her back to the Matchbox.
She could recall running through the halls with the boys as clearly as if it was yesterday.
“You can do this,” she whispered, pushing away from the window. She moved to her trunk and started the grueling work of coaxing her life back into the confines of the room from where it had escaped.
Staying in the Matchbox instead of one of the grander rooms was not just to spite Dawson. She could not help the feeling that the other bedrooms were not for her. Even as a child, she feared that if she stepped into one, it might reject her like her mother said churchyards would reject Faeries.
If there was one thing that her mother loved above all else, it wasstories of Faeries. If a story had a Faerie, you could rest assured that Mrs.Evelyn Dunne, née Dewhurst, knew it.
Even the smoggy city became a tapestry of magic when painted with her mother’s words. When the other women gathered to wash their clothes and linen in the basement of the tenement building, her mother would recount the tale of the Faerie of Gold Bottom Lake, who, if caught in the form of a fish, would grant wishes. When they would walk through the busy streets to the market, she would tell of Tom Bluebell, who connected the top of London Bridge to Faerie Land with the touch of his finger.
Mouse hung on her every word. Her mother had a way of telling a story so that the bones remained but the material connecting them changed with each retelling.
Mouse wondered what story her mother would tell her now, if she was still alive.
Books took up most of the space in Mouse’s trunk. Bertie’s journal stood out on top, heavily worn by war and love. She treasured it, carefully tying the loose pages together.
She had one crumpled evening gown, field boots, and day wear. Despite her new taste for comforting, pretty clothes, they were more fit for a nurse or an adventuress than a lady. Her nursing uniform was folded tight and tied with string.
Now, her belongings felt childish in her hands, like stones she’d thrown at the mountain of her uncle’s authority.
Her mother’s book of Faerie stories,Lady Blakeney’s Tales of Faerie, still lay at the bottom, carefully wrapped in newspaper. Lady Blakeney was a Faerie anthropologist in the late eighteenth century, just before Faeries left the mortal world. There were many books of Faerie lore, but Lady Blakeney’s was the only one to consult with an actual Faerie, making it one of the most interesting sources of Faerie stories of the time. Of course, after the Faeries left, Blakeney’s work fell out offashion, most likely in part because of Blakeney’s gender. Faerie anthropology was still a male-dominated field, even a hundred years later.
Letters and photographs littered the floor of her trunk. Her father had not left much when he died, but everything he had had ended up either there or in Roger’s belongings, now lost forever somewhere in France.
She filled the shelves quickly, puttingBlakeney’s Talesand Bertie’s journal in a place of honor beside Shakespeare and Keats. Her other belongings took less time to unpack.
Mouse was left empty-handed, not ready to go, but with no real need to remain. She fell back on the bed. The linen was crisp beneath her palms, and when she moved, it let off the bright smell of lemon.