Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [94]
Abi was awake; Mary could tell by the quietness of her breathing. The maid-of-all-work shifted now, and her hand lay across the blanket, its old scar catching the faint starlight. Abi,' whispered Mary, 'what happened to your hand?'
The silence was so long, she'd almost given up on getting an answer. She didn't know why she persisted in trying to coax conversation out of this woman, but it wasn't as if she had a choice of company. Besides, she liked the challenge.
'Got a knife stuck through,' said Abi at last.
'Really?' said Mary encouragingly. Another interminable pause. 'How did it happen?' she whispered.
A slow shrug from the body in the bed beside her, then Abi muttered something Mary didn't catch.
'Beg pardon?'
'Was on my arm,' said Abi, with a little sound that might have been a chuckle or a cough. Then with a heave of blankets she turned her back, but not in a particularly unfriendly way. They lay back to hot back, waiting out the long night.
CHAPTER FIVE
Thaw
FEBRUARY CAME in as bright as an apple. The snow shrank back; the Wye and the Monnow ran full. Everywhere Mary turned her eyes was wet green. She'd never known the ground to look like velvet.
Mrs. Ash said it would take more than a week's sunshine to fool her. She quoted darkly:
If Candlemas be fair and clear,
There'll be two winters in the year.
But in spite of her prognostications, the air stayed soft as a feather. Every day there was a little more light for a few minutes longer. Mary hadn't realised how much the darkness had been weighing on her spirits till it began to lift.
'My family,' Mary caught herself saying, as she chatted to a scullerymaid at the pump on Monnow Street, 'my family are the Joneses of Inch Lane.'
'The Roberts sisters were the first in these parts to keep a carriage,' Mrs. Jones murmured, so the driver wouldn't hear. 'They've never asked for me before. How good of them to send the driver!'
Mary was rummaging distractedly through the trunk on the floor of the carriage. 'Shall we show them the burgundy grosgrain?'
'And the pink. They like a bit of brightness.'
The thick mud of Monnow Street slowed the carriage wheels. The bridge at this end of town was an ancient stone enclosure, grey tinged with pink. The traffic slowed to a crawl through the narrow passage; packhorses jostled cornbarrows in the gap. Mary caught a glimpse of a tiny door; clearly someone lived in the stonework over their heads. Once on the other side of the gate, something unlocked in her chest, and there seemed more air. This, she realised, was the first time she'd left the town limits.
'Are they handsome ladies, these sisters?' she asked as the carriage jolted up the drive, and the thick shrubs closed around the muddy windows. She stared up at Drybridge House's painted shutters and the crumbling carvings above the door. She pictured a pair of heroines from a genteel comedy, one fair, one dark.
'Once, perhaps,' said Mrs. Jones, amused by the question.
Mary had never seen such antiquities close up. Miss Maria Roberts was stringy as a bean, with a face like a pickled walnut. She wore a wrapping gown in orange lace. Her sister, Miss Elizabeth, shuffled out to receive them in a pair of stained French mules. A green silk sack gown drooped from her shoulders. It was old, but finely made; Mary stared at it and thought, I'd turn heads in that.
A pleading look from her mistress reminded her to curtsy; she made it a deep one. All she had to do was hold things, tie things, unfold and fold, while looking profoundly respectful. It was up to Mrs. Jones to provide the reassurance. Flattery rose up and filled the air like incense. 'For a winter ball? How delightful. Not at all unsuited to a lady of your years, Miss Maria, how could you think so?'
A vast confection in rose taffeta. 'See how it brings out the pink in Miss Elizabeth's complexion!'
Mary knelt on the thick Oriental carpet to fasten the gold-braid