Was Lucy really, truly worried that Hester could peek inside without permission, if she learnt about it? Or that she might betray her to someone else who would – as the parlourmaid had done?
As so many must have done.
But then, perhaps it was one of those cautious habits that grew on Lady Lucy’s heart over the years, like moss grows on a stone.
She emerged several minutes later, her cheeks flushed. She pressed a bundle of pages to her chest. Hester glimpsed the endless lines of tight, somewhat frantic handwriting.
‘Here it is,’ the young woman proclaimed, setting the precious package on the sofa. ‘At least now you’ll have something to do in the evening.’
Lady Lucy clearly had a somewhat distorted view of a servant’s free time, Hester couldn’t help but think.
But then, in some respects she was right. Hester did like to have something new to read. The problem was to find enough hours for it.
‘Thank you, my lady.’ She took the bundle, holding it as carefully as if it contained the family jewels.
There was a faint spectre of warmth on the pages – the warmth of Lucy’s fingertips.
‘Tell me the truth, Hester.’ Lady Lucy looked her in the eye. The earnestness of her tone was somewhat undermined by the fact that she was so much visibly smaller than her stout maid. ‘Tell me if you like it. Tell me if you don’t. I don’t appreciate being lied to, and I can recognize when I am. Believe me, I have quite a substantial experience in this field.’
***
The iron was a dead weight in her arms, and Hester sighed with relief when the last piece of clothing was finally folded and put away. Relishing the moment, she stretched her fingers. The tension of long work in them felt almost sweet now that the work in question was over.
Propping her head against the pillow and stretching her legs luxuriously, Hester took up the stack of papers. She only hoped the handwriting wouldn’t prove too much of a barrier.
The Last Spring of Granada, the title page proclaimed in florid letters. Beneath, it was signed just as elaborately: Lucy Elaine Fitzmartin.
It started, when the gardens were already breathing with unspeakable sweetness …
The first sentences were written in the same perfect calligraphic script. Hester could see that when the author got carried away, the handwriting became hastier, more haphazard, the lines colliding and running wildly away from each other’s path. Sometimes Hester had to squint to make out a word; sometimes she had to reread the whole sentence several times to understanding its meaning.
Not that she minded it.
The tale caught her in its grip, like a pot of honey could catch a careless fly. The longer she read, the more she was beguiled by the sweetness of the passages, the lushness of the sentences, the tribulations of the plot. It was as if the mere lines in front of her eyes, black ink on white paper, were transfiguring into something else. They became windows, opening onto the green shadow of gardens and the yellow hue of walls, the red glimmer of blood and the golden glow of skin.
Hester could feel the melting heat of the Southern afternoon and the choking dust of the Southern road. And she could almost swear that she could scent the fragrance of the blooming orange trees.
The damp English spring, the dark Northern evening outside her window were forgotten; so were her sensible intentions to go to bed on time.
The night had almost passed its darkest hour when she finally swathed herself in the duvet.
To Hester’s own surprise, she didn’t fall asleep immediately. Her head was still swarming with thoughts, her heart still beating furiously with other people’s passions. Through her closed eyes, she saw flares of green, and red, and gold.
Gold. The heroine’s golden skin. The proud Moorish woman, who was forced to abandoned her beloved Granada.
It wasn’t difficult to guess where precisely imaginative Lady Lucy got her inspiration.
It felt vaguely uncomfortable. It also felt strangely flattering.
Of course, Hester understood that there were no proud Moors to be found in her family tree (if someone eccentric enough even took the pains to compose it). There were no memories of fragrant lands, no gleaming jewels sewn into the clothes of a refugee. No flaming speeches denouncing Spanish invaders, no swashbuckling flights through the night.
More likely than not, there was a simple story lost in the last century, a story too ordinary to be remembered. A brief, uninteresting story about a black sailor on his leave in the Victorian port and a white seamstress dying of boredom and drudgery.
Hester knew it. Hester understood it.
Hester didn’t want to believe it.
The pearls slid between her fingers, catching the flare of light. Polished and white to the point of translucency, but slightly uneven, just like real pearls should be.
Lucy never failed to be mesmerized by their beauty, the smoothness, the delicacy. And, of course, by the stories behind them.
They used to embody her dreams of adulthood. She had seen them for the first time (or, to be precise, she was shown them for the first time) that memorable evening years ago. She managed to get the rules right then; to guess and perform everything that was expected of her, to smile at the right moments and say something that would please everyone. For that, she had been rewarded.
You are such a sweet child, they said; you can behave so well, when you only try!
Oh, she tried. Being quiet, decorous, and speaking only when spoken to; Lucy tried her best to remake this burden into a weapon. People conversing around her forgot quickly about a ghostly child lingering nearby. But the ghostly child never forgot; the ghostly child was catching every word. She learnt quickly enough to discern the resentments and desires, and then to avoid the former and cater to the latter. She had to.
You will wear this necklace when you grow older, they said; it’s a family heirloom. You will wear it at your first Season, when you will be presented at Court and stand before Their Majesties. You will have grown into a beautiful young woman by then! And, if you continue behaving well, everything will be splendid. You will have a golden life ahead of you.
She smiled at these predictions, knowing that it would make her cheeks glow with a maidenly blush, and that the adults would find it to be heart-meltingly touching.
The idyll of that evening didn’t last, of course. Soon, the rules of the game changed once more, and again Lucy found herself at a loss, unaware, what might provoke the next scandal. These rules changed quite often, actually. She felt herself like a wanderer lost in the marshes, unsure which path to take, and whether there was a safe path at all.
Several more years passed before Lucy grew exhausted, before she understood that she would never win this game. She was never meant to win it; it wasn’t constructed that way.
The dreams acquired a desperate edge, now mixed with the yearnings for escape. But the pearls – the pearls remained.
Oh, she wore them on her neck later. She wore them during her presentation at Court, when she stood in the queue with the other anxious debutantes.
Lucy looked well enough that night, as she reflected afterwards; but the moment passed, and she curtseyed with her eyes downcast, and Her Majesty nodded, and life went on.
She wore the necklace later, during the stifling debutante balls. She sat on her gilded chair, upright and nervous, her mother standing behind and watching her closely.