“The course has altered,” I replied, more sharply than I meant to. But I myself was learning to draw and carry my own water, to clean silverware, to scrub floors. That very morning, I had dirtied my arms up to the elbows securing a side of pork to be smoked in the chimney. Trying to soften the blow, I explained: “Every one of us will have to keep up appearances. But what happens here, behind the walls of our home, must change.”
Her eyes fluttered. I wondered, briefly, if one could faint if they were already supine. I reminded myself: She had lost her mother, her father, her entire life. Even, in some sense, her home, which now belonged to me: the woman who was not her mother. And there was no malice in her reluctance. Not, even, an insistence on being coddled. Elin believed, truly, in the necessity of her own gentility. It was all she had left.
So, I allowed her to fall back into her pillows, to remain under the sheets, to let my statements go unanswered. I even went so far as to bring her some breakfast that day. Whatever empathy I had had for Elin made it hard, in those initial months, to enforce any kind of change. And soon our habits and patterns were established.
Rosie and Mathilde were quickly required to scrub their own dirty linens, to chop firewood, to make soap. They carded wool and darned stockings and kneaded dough into bread, all the while keeping up with their reading and writing and the outward appearance of being little ladies. They watched Elin—practicing her instruments, copying her verses, reading her book—from the corners of their eyes. Any wish for friendship was soon abandoned, then sneered at.
Elin was not always treated kindly by my daughters. My daughters, who, because of my insistence on their adjustment to our new circumstances, soon lost some of their youth and beauty. I could not fault them for lacking grace during the transition. Could not fault them for voicing some of the thoughts that were in my own head.
You can sniff at someone for being resentful, but I challenge you to take an icy bath in the depths of winter when, for all the years before, someone else has heated the water. Did you know that lye, when not handled properly, burns your hands? That thrice-used tea leaves could still be stored and sold for money? That it takes a near hour of continuous, relentless churning to make butter? That the act will give untested palms blisters, which will swell and tear and bleed? We did not, but we learned, quickly.
All of us but Elin.
Moussa first appeared during these weeks. Jongleurs travel around, looking for larger households to pay them to stay and entertain. He sang and played instruments, but—he made it explicitly clear—he did not juggle. The size of Bramley Hall made it seem that we would have work, but, I told him, standing on our massive doorstep, we had nothing for him. The truth of the statement must have shown on my face, for he believed me.
From his place a few steps below in the gravel, he observed: “You have met misfortune.”
“My husband has passed.” I didn’t say more. We still had Bramley Hall and we still had our titles. No one knew what happened inside of our gates. Even with an itinerant, it was necessary to keep up appearances. “I assure you, there is nothing for you here.”
“If you are hungry, I shall share my food, though there isn’t much. And I can offer song. There is no better music than the sound of a cittern. Do not misunderstand me—I do not require payment. The city is so full of pipers, there is no room left for myself. I’ll sleep in an outbuilding. And if you have a pint of ale to warm my belly, I would only be grateful.”
I looked him over. The punishment for a vagabond was to burn a person through the gristle of their right ear with a hot iron the compass of an inch. The man needed somewhere to sleep. I didn’t needhis food—we still had plenty in our stores—but I wondered if a bit of his song might cheer up what remained of our household. I soon found myself showing the jongleur a place to make a bed and pouring him something to drink without fully realizing I had given him what he’d asked for in the first place.
That night, Elin, Rosie, Mathilde, and I were serenaded as we ate in the great room. Moussa’s songs covered wide territory. They were ranging, in scale and in subject, flipping from quick and merry to the slow notes of mourning. Fingers moved across strings and breath blew into hollows and came out fresh and woody, reborn as sound. When the notes became too sad, he made them happy. And when the music was happy for too long, it ended. After Moussa finished, he looked around at our applauding hands. As if registering, for the first time, the size, or lack thereof, of his audience, he asked: “Is it just the four of you?”
I didn’t perceive any threat in the question, so I nodded. “For now.”
He glanced over at Wenthelen and Alice, who had been listening to the music from the doorway. Their hands were clasped between them. “And them?”
“And them.” I nodded.
“Such a small group. They don’t dine with you?”
I glanced at the servants’ faces, which remained blank. Their fingers, so carefully interwoven, remained entwined. “Staff does not traditionally dine with the household.”
“We also have a bird,” Rosie volunteered, hoping to increase our measly head count. “Lucy.”
“A falcon,” I corrected.
“A bird?” Moussa said, with delight. “Is it tamed?”
“It’s trained,” I corrected, once more.
“May I see it?”
“She’s in the mews,” Mathilde interjected. “Outside.”
“Does she not come into the house?”
“One cannot bring a bird in the house,” Elin replied in surprise.
“She’s right,” I acknowledged.
“My lady, if it is your home”—Moussa glanced back to the doorway, the carefully blank faces—“is it not yours to handle as you see fit?”
It had not, until that moment, occurred to me.
“Yes.” I looked at him. I looked around. “Yes, I suppose you may be right.” I turned to Wenthelen and Alice and bid them to our table.
