The incident occurred a few days later.
We assembled in the servants’ hall for the morning meeting. Mrs. Banks appeared to be in quite a state. She was always standing bolt upright, no matter the hour, but this morning she was slumped in a chair and muttering to herself.
“Oh, dearie me. How can this have happened?” she whispered.
We all glanced at one another, bewildered. Come to think of it, late last night Mrs. Banks had entered my bedroom, taken one look at my face, turned pale, and left. It had been so odd I’d assumed I was dreaming.
Mr. Lawrence was holding Mrs. Banks’s hand with great concern. The cook, Mrs. Oliver, snorted, and took the kitchen maids with her to start their work for the day. Clearly, they were much too busy to fuss over Mrs. Banks’s condition. But the earl and his wife were absent, visiting another manor, so the kitchen workload should have decreased significantly…
“What on earth happened?” Miranda asked.
Mrs. Banks took several sips of laudanum before she was restored enough to answer.
“Diana… Diana is gone! She’s left the mansion!”
We all exchanged glances again.
The gist of Mrs. Banks’s tale was as follows: The other day, she’d been straightening up her room when she came across the uniform her late daughter had worn in her daughter’s serving days. It was old, but if washed and repaired could certainly still be used, or so Mrs. Banks had thought. Despite the lavishness of Wald Abbey, Mrs. Banks herself was quite frugal-minded.
She considered asking the laundry staff to take care of it, but the day’s laundry was already done. Never one to dither around, Mrs. Banks resolved to wash the uniform herself. The weather that day was temperamental, and the wind quite strong. Hoping to let it dry before the rains fell, she hung the black servant’s dress not in the usual place for laundry, but in the central garden, out in plain sight where she could quickly retrieve it if it began raining.
But when she finished her next task and looked out at the garden, the uniform had vanished. She assumed the wind had snatched it away and went to look but found no trace of it. She had far too much work to do and was forced to abandon her search…until that evening.
When it came time for curfew, Mrs. Banks and Mr. Lawrence made the rounds to check the locks. Mr. Lawrence was responsible for the main doors, and Mrs. Banks handled the unused rooms and servant quarters. Afterward, they patrolled the servants’ rooms, making sure we were all abed. Mr. Lawrence retired for the night after that, but Mrs. Banks still had work to do and retired to her room next to the servants’ hall. She normally handled her work there, leaving the door wide open. Any servants trying to sneak out at night would have to pass her, and if one of the bells in the hall rang she could quickly answer it.
She’d been working on the ledgers for a while when a bell rang. She hastily stood and checked which bell was ringing. Someone of Mrs. Banks’s experience could tell which room was calling based on the sound of the bell alone, but lately she’d felt both her vision and hearing were in decline. She held the lamp high, checking the row of bells near the ceiling. To her surprise, the call came from a guest room on the second floor, one that wasn’t generally used and that she had personally locked earlier that same evening. It was very strange, seeing as Mrs. Banks had the only key that could open that room.
This was clearly some mistake, yet the bell kept ringing. Mrs. Banks took a bundle of keys from its hook on the wall, the same bundle that normally jangled ominously at her hip. There were two such bundles, with one for rooms in the servants’ quarters, and one for rooms in the main house.
Lamp in hand, Mrs. Banks climbed the servants’ stairs, heading for the second story guest room. By this time, the bell had stopped ringing. She used her key to open the door and checked the interior thoroughly by lamplight. Of course, no one was there. Even the windows were locked. There must be something wrong with the bell, she thought. Or perhaps this was a trick of the faeries. Something similar had happened a number of years ago.
Mrs. Banks locked the guest room, returned to the housekeeper’s room, and resumed her work. But even she wasn’t immune to the sandman’s call and found herself nodding off. The sound of footsteps woke her, and she quickly turned toward the hall and saw someone pass by the door. It was a young maid holding a lamp. Mrs. Banks was so shocked her heart nearly stopped.
She didn’t recognize the young maid.
There were thirty female servants working at Wald Abbey, but Mrs. Banks knew every name and face, even the kitchen staff not under her direct command. If she saw their face, she could recollect their name. However, she had absolutely no memory of the girl who’d just passed by.
Could she have been a faerie?
A thought struck her, and Mrs. Banks hastily ran after the woman. The hall through the servants’ quarters was pitch black, and there was no sign of the maid. Assuming the stranger must have gone out the back entrance, Mrs. Banks tried to open the door, but she had locked it herself; it wouldn’t budge. The woman had vanished without a trace. Mrs. Banks was sure there was only one explanation for this and became very upset. Trying to prove herself wrong, she ran to the servants’ quarters and went room to room, knocking and checking the faces of every female servant. This caused a bit of a commotion. After checking every room, every female servant was accounted for. The woman she’d seen was definitely not anyone she knew.
Which meant it must have been Diana.
Her utter faith in the faerie legends, and her devotion to Lord Lowfield’s family and Wald Abbey, left her despondent. It was her fault Diana had left the manor. You see, part of the faerie legend went as follows:
Never give clothing to a faerie that helps with the housework.
If the faerie puts that clothing on, whether angered or delighted, they will leave the house and never return.
In other words, Diana had found clothing hung out to dry in an unusual place and considered it a gift for her. And then she had left the manor.