The Stepsister's Tale

Mamma called, “Girls, come here.” Maude looked at Jane, who could read her own reluctance mirrored in her sister’s eyes. They didn’t dare disobey, and after another moment’s hesitation, Jane walked to the carriage. Maude followed a step behind.

“Harry,” Mamma said, “these are your new daughters. This is Jane, the elder, and behind her is Maude.”

“I am happy to meet you,” the man said. He didn’t sound happy.

“Where are your curtseys, girls?” Mamma asked sharply. Startled, Jane tucked one foot behind the other and made an awkward bob. Maude did the same. It had been so long since either of them had had to perform a curtsey—Jane couldn’t remember, in fact, the last time they had met someone new—that she knew they looked ridiculous. Especially with dirty, bare feet and knots in their hair. Especially in front of that fairy princess.

The fairy princess burst out laughing, and Jane felt herself flush. “What was that?” the girl asked. “Is that how people curtsey in the country?” Maude looked as though the child had slapped her.

“Perhaps you could help them learn to do it better,” Mamma suggested. “Would you like to show them how a curtsey is done in town?”

I don’t want her to show me anything, Jane thought.

The girl picked up her skirt in the tips of her fingers, and placing her right foot behind her left, she sank down nearly to the ground, then rose smoothly, lining her two tiny feet up next to each other again. Jane suddenly felt too tall, and lumpy. Her dress had grown so tight over her chest that her breasts were flattened against her ribs, and she’d had to let out the skirt of her dress to accommodate suddenly round hips. This girl was so slender that even her small curves were graceful.

Maude reached out and touched a tawny curl that dangled past the girl’s shoulder. “You’re beautiful,” she breathed.

The girl didn’t answer, and Maude, looking embarrassed, dropped her hand.

“Take the horses into the barn and wipe them down well,” the man said to the coachman. “When I am satisfied that you have done your work properly, I will pay you.” The man, who had unharnessed the horses, made a quick bow and led them around in a tight circle and down to the barn.

Mamma held out her hand to the girl. “Come, Isabella. Have some supper and then go to bed. You’ll feel happier after you sleep. In the morning, Jane and Maude will show you all around. There might be some new puppies in the barn—are there, girls?”

“Yes, Mamma.” Maude was eager to catch Mamma up on everything that had happened in her absence. “She had eight right after you left, and only one died. There are three boys and four girls, two brown, three brown and white, two—”

“Father,” Isabella said.

“Yes, darling,” he said promptly.

“I don’t want to see puppies in the barn.”

“Then you won’t have to. There are rats in barns, anyway. Come in and have some supper now, and then I’ll put you to bed.”

“I can put her to bed,” Mamma said. “I’m her mother now.”

“Stepmother,” Isabella said. “And I want my father to put me to bed.” She clung to the man’s hand.

He looked down at her. “Of course, sweetheart. Of course.” He picked her up and carried her over the broken front steps. He stumbled over a crack and muttered something, and then set the child down at the door, which he pushed open. They followed him as his booted footsteps rang in the front hall. The sound, so familiar yet almost forgotten, made Jane’s stomach lurch.

The man came to an abrupt halt as two mice scurried into their hole in a door frame, disgust clear on his face. “My God, Margaret,” he said. His daughter pressed against his side, and he put his arm around her.

Jane knew the front hall was big—Hannah Herb-Woman’s entire hut could fit in it with room to spare—but to her it had always been just the place you had to go through to get to the living quarters. Its marble floor gleamed only when one of the girls polished an area to play a game on it, and now that these strangers were staring, she realized how dingy the stone was. The velvet drapes framing the tall doorways were tattered, and the gold tassels that fringed their edges were faded and dull. The decaying staircase loomed above them, the flaking gilt of the scrolls and curlicues along its sides glinting even in the dim light that came through the open door. The light also caught the strands of a spider web that stretched from a banister to the remains of the chandelier high on the ceiling. When Jane saw the girl wrinkling her nose, she, too, caught the odor of mold and rot.

The man glanced at Mamma. “I told you it was in need of some repair,” she said. Jane detected an uneasy note in her voice.

“I know, but I had no idea....” He shook his head. “It hasn’t been that long—only a few years.”

“The decay had started even when I was a child. My parents managed to hide the extent of it.”

“Father!” burst out the girl. “You said we were going to have supper!”

“Yes, darling.” He instantly turned to her. “Yes, of course. Where...?” He looked around.

“Oh, we don’t use much of the house,” Mamma answered vaguely. She gestured at the South Parlor. “This is where we spend most of our time. I’m afraid it’s not very presentable.” Not presentable? But they had been so proud of how they had cleaned it.

They all followed her in. Harry wrinkled his nose as he looked around. “The first thing we’ll do is get the kitchen back in working order. I won’t be comfortable in a room with the smell of cooking in it.”

“We haven’t cooked a thing all day,” Jane said indignantly. They had eaten nothing but cheese and some nuts that Maude had found.

“Girls—” Mamma began, and hearing the exhaustion in her voice, Jane leaped forward.

“Sit down, Mamma,” she said. “I’ll find something.” Maude was already heading out to the dairy, so Jane went to the pantry. She glanced at the bare shelves, hoping against all logic that somehow more food would have appeared there. Of course it hadn’t. The shelves were waiting for whatever Mamma had brought home from the market; that’s why she had gone to town. Or was it? Jane wondered, suddenly suspicious. Had Mamma really gone to meet that man?

Nonsense. They were almost out of everything. Jane poked around in one nearly empty bin and then another. Turnips, onions—no, she didn’t think Mamma wanted her to take the time to cook anything. Apples—yes, that would do for a quick supper. She filled her apron, choosing the reddest ones. Into her pocket pouch she put almost the last of the biscuits, the twice-cooked bread that lasted a long time in the cool pantry. She sat on the floor and rubbed the apples to wipe off the dust and to bring out their shine. When they were as rosy as Isabella’s lips, she gathered them up and went back to the South Parlor, passing through the long-unused dining hall, where marks on the floor showed where the long table had once stood.

Isabella was sitting on her father’s lap on the big chair, her feet on the armrest. She squirmed, and her shoes made streaks on the cloth. Jane looked at Mamma, but Mamma appeared not to notice, and Jane put the food down and went to join Maude outside.

The sun was low, and the evening noises were starting. Crickets and tree frogs screeched out their songs, and a light breeze rustled through the trees beyond the henhouse, lifting a little of the heat from the late-summer day.

Maude showed Jane six new-laid eggs in her basket. “One for each of us and two for the man. He’s big and probably eats a lot,” Maude explained. She had placed them carefully in the basket, nestled in straw to keep them from breaking.

Jane picked the few remaining berries from a bush near the kitchen door. Walking carefully, she entered the South Parlor just as Maude was placing the egg basket on the scarred wooden table they used for everything from sewing to cooking to eating. Mamma had lit the lantern.

“Look what I have, Mamma,” Jane said. “We can eat these after the eggs.” She carefully pulled the berries out of her pockets, heaping them on the table.

“Lovely, dear,” Mamma said. “Where—”

But Isabella interrupted her. “I can’t eat those,” she said to her father. “She touched them with her dirty hands!”

“So wash them,” Jane said, as she would to Maude. Her fingers were a little grimy, she supposed, but none of it was nasty—just good, clean dirt from pushing branches aside and picking fallen berries up off the ground.

“There appears to be no water,” Mamma said as though to no one.

Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jane thought. Of course there isn’t. There are no servants to fetch it.

The man spoke to Isabella. “Don’t worry, darling. We’ll wash the berries, won’t we, Margaret?”

Mamma’s lips were pressed together. Jane looked at the man. Didn’t he know that this meant he should stop now, before Mamma got angry? But Mamma just said, “There is nothing wrong with the berries. Isabella may wash them if she really wants to, or she can have apples and a boiled egg. That should be sufficient. A light supper is all a lady requires.”

“I want berries,” Isabella said. Mamma pressed her lips together even tighter, and Jane waited for the storm. But it didn’t come. Instead, Mamma reached into the back of the cupboard and pulled out a small white bowl painted with tiny flowers, one of the few pieces that had been saved from her beautiful china. They had not been able to sell this one because of a tiny crack.

They needed water to cook the eggs, anyway, so Jane went outside to the pump. They had used up the rainwater stored in the cisterns weeks before. While she was working the pump handle she thought how ridiculous it was to pretend they were still the Halseys of long ago, with servants to fetch heavy pails of water and to wash things that didn’t need it. When she came back, the man took the jug and hastily poured a little water into the bowl holding the berries, splashing some on the table. “She really isn’t used to country ways, Margaret,” he said apologetically. “In the city—”

“I understand, Harry,” Mamma said.

Jane could tell by the way Maude was looking at her that her sister shared her shock. Mamma would never have allowed one of them to tell an adult what to do, and she would have sent her to bed without any supper if she wasn’t satisfied with what there was to eat.

When the water in the pot hanging over the fire steamed, Jane placed the eggs in it. They knocked about pleasantly. When they were done, Maude scooped them out. Jane cracked her egg quickly, blowing on her fingers after each touch. Soon the soft white and golden yolk were spreading on her plate, to be eaten while hot and delicious.

Isabella made no attempt to peel hers. Instead, her father did it, his big hands clumsy. He sucked on a reddened forefinger while his daughter daintily spooned up her egg. Jane watched, fascinated, as the girl wiped her mouth after each bite. Isabella caught Jane staring at her and glowered. Jane dropped her gaze and crumbled some biscuit into the smear of yellow that remained on her plate, and then spooned it up.

“Father, look what she’s doing,” Isabella said with a giggle.

“Hush, darling,” he said. “That’s how they eat in the country.”

“In the country?” Jane asked. “Don’t they eat eggs where you come from?” The girl and the man exchanged a glance, but neither answered. Jane felt she was doing something wrong, but what?

They ate the apples, Harry peeling and slicing Isabella’s and his own, and then Mamma took Harry to see the gardens. Isabella perched on the edge of the big chair, whose brown velvet was almost rubbed away. Her toes barely reached the floor as she sat silently, her hands crossed in her lap, her eyes fixed on a spot a few feet ahead of her. Maude asked her abruptly, “How old are you?”

“Thirteen.” Isabella didn’t look up.

“What?” Maude asked. “That’s older than I am! You can’t be thirteen.”

Isabella raised those extraordinary eyes to her. They glittered like the green ice on top of the pond in the winter. “Why can’t I?”

“Because...” Maude gestured at her. “Because you’re so small!”

“I’m not small,” Isabella said. “You’re big.”

“But...” Maude started, and then fell silent. She looked at Jane, indignation plain on her face.

“Maude is tall.” Jane came to her sister’s defense. “Tall like Mamma. So am I. And you’re short. Your hands and feet look like they belong to a baby.” Their mother said that their long fingers and toes were an aristocratic trait, and besides, they would grow into them, but Jane didn’t believe her. Secretly, Jane admired the girl’s small feet and hands and her slender limbs, unlike her own arms and legs, which were unladylike and muscular. The girl crossed her arms over her chest, tucking her hands into her armpits, and looked away. Jane shrugged.

They heard footsteps, and then outside the parlor, the man laughed and Mamma said, “Oh, of course I remember that party, Harry! That was the one where that fat girl—what was her name?” They came in together, still laughing.

“Alexandra,” Harry said. “She fell in the pond—”

“And when she came out she said she had seen a water-sprite—”

“And nobody could stop Daniel from jumping in and looking for it—”

They broke off when they saw the girls staring at them. “Serve the berries, Maude,” Mamma instructed. Maude spooned some into each bowl. Jane could tell that she was counting them and stifled a smile. Maude loved anything sweet and would make sure that no one got more than she did. Maude passed the painted bowl to Isabella, who daintily dug in her spoon and lifted it to her lips. She swallowed a mouthful and then took another. Jane relaxed enough to take a bite.

A high-pitched scream made everyone jump. Isabella was on her feet, her face purple-red and distorted.

“What is it? What happened?” Harry shouted, kneeling in front of his daughter. Isabella either could not or would not talk, but kept screaming, and then spat something on the floor. A dead bee.

“Oh, my Lord!” Harry gasped. Isabella’s lower lip was already starting to swell.

“Is the stinger out?” Maude asked.

Harry repeated, “Oh, my Lord—my little sweetheart—Ella, Ella, my poor darling.”

Maude pushed herself between them. “Let me make sure the stinger is out.” She lifted Isabella’s chin, but the girl’s hand flew out and slapped Maude’s away. Jane stood stunned as Isabella buried her face in her father’s shirtfront, and his arms wrapped tightly around her. Harry gathered up his screaming child and sat down on the big chair, rocking and soothing her. The screams turned to sobs, and the sobs went on and on.

When the fox cub had bitten Maude’s thumb almost through, she had not made nearly as much noise as this. When Jane had broken her collarbone, she had allowed Hannah Herb-Woman to set it without a single cry.

Mamma said quietly, “Eat, girls.”

It was hard to swallow even the sweet berries with all that crying filling the room. But when Jane tried to put down her spoon, Mamma looked at her the way a herd dog looks at a sheep that is moving away from the flock, and she forced herself to finish.

The sobs finally dwindled into whimpers, and Harry stood up, cradling his daughter. “Margaret,” he said, “where does Ella sleep?”

“The girls’ room is through there.” Mamma moved toward the door to the hallway. “Jane has a big bed and Isabella can share it with her.”

“No, that’s all right,” Jane said hastily. “Isabella can have her own bed. Maude will share with me. Won’t you, Maude?”

“Oh, yes,” Maude said.

“No,” Isabella said. They all looked at her.

“What is it, darling?” her father asked.

“I won’t share a room.” Her words were thick. “I have never shared a room, and I won’t share one now with someone who deliberately—” and her voice became ragged “—who deliberately put a bee in my berries.”

“What?” Maude said. “You think that I—”

“I saw you.” Isabella started to cry again, sobs shaking her thin chest. “I saw you poking in the berries. You put that bee in there so it would sting me.”

Jane half rose from her seat as Maude’s mouth gaped open. “She didn’t!” Jane almost shouted. “She wouldn’t! You know she wouldn’t, Mamma!”

“Of course she didn’t,” Mamma said. “Isabella is tired, and her mouth hurts. She doesn’t mean it, do you, Isabella?” The girl didn’t answer. Mamma squatted next to her. “Look at me,” she instructed. Isabella didn’t move.

“Young lady,” Mamma said in the tone that neither Jane nor Maude had ever ignored, “in this house the children do as the adults say. And I am telling you to look at me.”

“Margaret—” Harry started, but Mamma must have turned that herd-dog look on him, too, because he settled back. After a moment, Isabella raised her eyes to Mamma’s.

“You will answer politely when you are spoken to,” Mamma said. “We are making allowances tonight because you are tired and your mouth hurts. In the future, I expect you to behave like a young lady.” She stood up. “Now, Harry, Isabella has the choice of sleeping in the girls’ room with them, or in here by herself. She will tell us her decision when supper has been tidied up.”

Maude and Jane put the dishes in water to soak, and then Jane went out to coax the goats and Baby back into the barn. When she returned, Maude made tea and served it to Mamma and the man. Isabella didn’t even look up when Maude offered her a cup, so Maude shrugged and drank it herself. When Jane hung the dishcloths near the fire she sneaked a peek at the big chair, where the man was still soothing the girl. She heard a murmur from Harry and a word or two from Isabella in a quavering voice, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Mamma wiped her hands on her apron and turned to Harry. “Well?”

“Isabella will sleep in here.”

“Good,” Jane said to Maude, and hoped that Mamma hadn’t heard.

“Very well,” Mamma answered. “Girls, take Isabella to the necessary room.”

In silence, Jane and Maude left for the privy in the yard behind the kitchen. Isabella followed, keeping several paces behind. They went and returned without exchanging a word.

In their absence, the pillows from the big chair had been put on the floor and a cloth had been smoothed over them. “This is your bed,” Mamma said.

Jane and Maude stood awkwardly. The last thing every day, they sat and talked, and Mamma told them tales of parties and young men, of hunts and horses, of balls at the palace in the days when the old king was a prince, of fairies and sprites and the people of the woods. Obviously that could not happen tonight. They kissed Mamma, then stood in front of Harry and hesitated. Did one kiss stepfathers? Fortunately he made no move to kiss them, merely saying, “Good night, girls. We’ll get better acquainted tomorrow.” They murmured “Good night” and escaped to their room, closing the door behind them. They undressed in the dark, said hasty prayers, and slid into bed.

A half-moon shone through their window. Jane heard Maude moving restlessly. Finally, Maude whispered, “Jane?”

“What?”

“Can I come into bed with you?”

The bedclothes rustled as Jane made room, and Maude slid next to her sister. As she drifted into sleep, Jane heard singing in the distance. She listened as a new voice joined in and another fell silent.

“The fairy singers are back,” she whispered to Maude, but her sister grunted without replying, so Jane lay still while the sounds faded, as they always did. She didn’t believe what Mamma told her—that it was just the wind. She wished the haunting melody would continue all night, reassuring her that she was not the only thing awake in the world.

After what seemed like hours, Jane was sleeping as soundly as her sister.

Chapter 3

Jane woke to the sound of someone moving in the South Parlor and stretched happily. Mamma was home—but then she bumped into the sleeping Maude, and the memories of last night flooded back.

Jane’s dress lay crumpled on the floor. She pulled it on and stared down at herself. The dress was stained and wrinkled and a rip was starting under one armpit. She hadn’t noticed before how grimy it was. She tried to comb her hair with her fingers, but they stuck in a knot, so she gave up.

In the South Parlor, Mamma was drinking a cup of tea. “Good morning,” Jane said, and stepped around the sleeping Isabella, who looked even more angelic than when she was awake. Rummaging in the chest, Jane found her best dress, the blue one with dingy lace around the neck and cuffs. Normally, she wore it only when the priest came to St. Cuthbert’s, the village church, on his irregular rounds. It was getting small, but at least it was clean and not too much mended.

“What are you doing with your Sunday dress?” Mamma asked. Wordlessly, Jane pointed at the worn elbows on the one she was wearing. She poked her finger through a hole near the hem and waggled it at Mamma. “A true lady always looks well, no matter what she wears,” Mamma said, as Jane had been afraid she would.

Jane sighed and put the blue dress back. It didn’t really matter, she supposed. Her best dress would still look like rags next to Isabella’s clothes. Even the girl’s nightgown was fastened at the neck with a shiny pink ribbon. “In any case,” Mamma went on, “we won’t be going to church again until next spring. Father Albert is getting too old to come all the way out here in bad weather, and autumn storms will be starting before long.” After the hot and dry summer, when the crops withered in the fields and rabbits and deer left their forest homes and appeared in the drive in search of water, the thought of a cool rain shower didn’t seem like bad weather.

Jane picked up a basket of grain in the pantry and stepped outside. She strolled through the bare patch between the house and the barn, tossing the feed by handfuls to the chickens. The early-morning dust was cool and dry under her toes. She threw some grain in front of the hen with the sore foot, who pecked it up quickly before her swifter sisters could steal it. Mamma appeared in the doorway, looking off to the horizon—to prevent herself, Jane thought, from seeing her daughter working like a farm girl.

“Mamma?”

“What is it?”

“Who is that man?” She didn’t know if Mamma would answer; Mamma so rarely talked about anything personal.

“Your stepfather, dear.”

You know that’s not what I’m asking, Jane thought, but what she said was, “I mean, how do you know him?”

“Harry was a friend of Papa’s. His father was a wealthy trader. When Harry was a young man, he met Isabella’s mother on a journey across the border. He married her and stayed in her country for several years. I met her once, when they came to the city for Harry’s mother’s funeral,” she said in a low tone, as though talking to herself. Jane moved closer to hear. “She was a lovely thing. I never saw a man so besotted.” She shook her head and paused. “Isabella was very young at that time, but already she resembled her mother greatly. Harry moved back here with Isabella after his wife died, and I’ve seen him several times in the city since then.”

The hens scratched in the dirt, seeking the last kernels.

“Why did you marry him?” Tears stung Jane’s eyes. “Things were fine until now, with just you and me and Maude.”

“Jane! How dare you question me—how dare you?”

“Sorry,” Jane muttered. She kicked at the dirt, revealing a bug that a chicken instantly pounced on. She knew she should stop, but she couldn’t help herself. “Do you love him, Mamma? Do you love him the way you...” The way you loved Papa, she wanted to say, but she didn’t dare.

Mamma didn’t answer. She looked at Jane with an expression that was hard to read. Sorrow? Irritation? Finally, she said, “There are many ways to love, and no way to explain them to someone who hasn’t felt them. There’s one’s first love, and there’s the love you feel for your children. Wait until you have your own children, Jane, and you’ll know why I would do anything—anything to keep you girls safe and happy.”

“But—”

“No, let me finish. I will say this once, and then you will never ask me again. Harry loves his daughter as I love you, and we love each other the way old friends do. He has no more family. He wants his daughter to have a respected name, and I want you girls to be out in society. He has...” She hesitated. Say it, Mamma, Jane thought. Say he has money. But money was one of the subjects that Mamma considered indelicate. They watched the hens gather the chicks under their wings as a hawk flew overhead. “We should have more help in the house—”