The next afternoon was cloudy and chilly but fortunately not rainy. As a result, Lord Lowfield’s family took their guests fox hunting. I’d hoped that would ease our workloads, but Mrs. Banks ordered Miranda and the rest of us to clean.
I was near the mansion’s entrance, wiping the windows of the Long Gallery from the outside, when Mary—another maid, still only thirteen—made a surprised noise nearby.
“What?” I asked.
“Look at this! They’re falling around here again.” Mary spoke with a strong local accent. Her family were farmers near Wald village.
“What’s falling?”
Since she was so much younger, I kept thinking Mary was a new maid. But she’d worked here since she was eight, so she’d been in service as long as I had.
Mary put down the supply box she was holding and pointed to something on the ground. A number of acorns lay on one side of the Long Gallery windows.
“What are those?” I said, dropping my rag in the bucket and moving closer. I knelt down; they were clearly just acorns—but where had they come from?
“They’re from the oak trees, I think,” Mary said.
I agreed, but there were no oak trees anywhere near here. No one would ever ruin the view from Wald Abbey by planting trees next to the entrance, yet there were a ton of acorns about.
“You said again. Have you found them before?” I asked.
Mary nodded. Her baby face sported a ton of freckles.
“Last week. Same place, about the same number. Every three days, once a week. Sometimes it changes, but it’s been like this around here for about a month now.”
Well, that was very strange. If there were no trees nearby, then someone was bringing the acorns here. I glanced up at the forest on the nearby hill; they were all hunting foxes out there. This morning I’d been able to hear the dogs howling and chasing the foxes around, but now the place had gone eerily silent. It would be easy enough to collect acorns in that forest. But what use was it bringing them here?
“Maybe they’re a gift from the faeries,” I joked.
But Mary had had the same idea. “Yes, that’s what Mrs. Banks said.”
“She did?”
“She said if they’re a gift from the faeries, we mustn’t throw them out or tell anyone, or they’ll never bring them again.” At this, Mary clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes going wide. “Oh! Does this count as telling someone?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep it secret,” I said, giving her a reassuring smile. “But what should we do with them?”
“Bring them to Mrs. Banks. She’ll keep them safe in the housekeeper’s room. She keeps a treasure chest full of them.”
Mrs. Banks, the housekeeper, had been working at this mansion longer than anyone. She’d been born in the area. Very superstitious, she believed in the faerie legends with as much fervor as the earl’s own family.
“Come to think of it,” I said, suddenly remembering, “I found something strange lying around a few days ago.”
“Strange how?” Mary asked.
“I think it was a can. A little empty one.”
“A can?”
“It was on the ground near here. I thought someone must’ve tossed it out a window.”
It had clearly been rubbish, so I’d thrown it out. As I spoke, I looked up at the walls and windows above us.
Right above, a woman’s face looked down at me through an open window. Startled, I almost screamed.
“What is it?” she asked.
The woman in the window was a beautiful young lady, watching us maids with her sleepy, blue eyes. Looking closely, I realized she was the earl’s eldest daughter, Lady Lavinia. Feeling like my heart had almost stopped, I forced my brain to begin thinking. Someone upstairs could see us cleaning!
It was one thing for the higher ranked servants to be visible, but maids like us were supposed to be as silent as the shadows, quietly curtsey, then remove ourselves from sight. But Lady Lavinia had spoken to us. I’d never had a noblewoman speak to me before, and I was beginning to panic.
“Oh, there were some acorns lying here, my lady,” Mary said, before I could recover. She raised her voice to be heard, not at all rattled. “Do you know where they may have come from?”
Lady Lavinia shook her head.
“My lady, are you not feeling well? I thought you’d be joining the fox hunt.”
The lady didn’t seem put out by Mary’s question at all.
“I wasn’t feeling up to it,” she said. “Riding is one thing, but I just feel sorry for the poor animals.”
Speaking from the second story window, her voice sounded a little far away, yet I believe she was raising her voice a little for our benefit.
“I’m going back to sleep,” she said and closed the window.
I put my hand over my beating heart and looked at Mary.
“Golly,” I said. “You’re amazing, Mary. You can just talk to the mistress like that!”
“That only goes for Lady Lavinia.” Mary laughed. “You see, I was only eight when I came here, and back then Lady Lavinia and her little sister Lady Alicia used to come downstairs all the time and play pranks on us. But, since I was so little, they often used to stop and talk to me.”
“Oh.” I’d certainly heard many stories about children from upstairs playing tricks on servants. “Is Lady Lavinia good with horses?”
Fox hunts required chasing the hounds on horseback. It was a good chance to show off your skill with a horse, and it was quite common for ladies to ride out with the gentlemen.
“She is. She might be the best in His Lordship’s family.”
“Really? Even better than Master James?” James was the eldest son.
“Ever since she was little she’s been riding with Mr. Gerald. Mr. Gerald’s an expert horseman, so she learned from him.”
“Mr. Gerald?”
“The vicar’s second son. You know, the doctor.”
“Oh, Mr. Gerald Neville.”
If you went through the beech grove, you could just make out the tiny vicarage. I remembered seeing it before.
“The Nevilles haven’t been invited round lately,” Mary said.
They used to visit Wald Abbey all the time, but I hadn’t heard their names in a while and only saw the vicar at church.
“About that,” Mary said, stepping closer to me. Gossip among servants was always delivered in a whisper. “It sounds like the master and Mr. Neville had some fearsome row.”
Mary confessed she’d only heard about it secondhand.
As if to put a stop to our gossiping, Miranda, our direct superior, appeared.
“Why are you just standing there? Are you finished?” she demanded.
We brought ourselves to attention and threw ourselves back dutifully into our work.