wealth. Now it struck Lila that maybe she had been right all along, that the girl was shy underneath her seeming brashness. People often mistook Lila’s own shyness for snobbery. And perhaps she wasn’t friendly because she’d always had her outgoing brother to lead the way. But now she was on her own.
“I know how you feel,” Lila sympathized. “Ever since Maggie returned from her year abroad she’s completely wrapped up in herself. It’s as though she thinks she’s grown and I’m only an insignificant child.”
“Well, you don’t look like a child right now,” Jessica said.
“Here are the dresses I told you about,” Nora said, entering the room with two dresses, one gray, the other a navy blue. “Try these.” Nora stopped short when she noticed Jessica sitting there. “Hello, Miss Jessica.”
Jessica stood up from the bed and approached Nora. “Let me see those dresses, Nora,” she said, taking them from Nora and spreading them on the bed. “Dreadful,” she pronounced.
“That’s what Miss Maggie says, but I thought they were rather fetching,” Nora disagreed.
“They were fetching two years ago,” Jessica insisted. “Look at the length of them. They’re to the floor! Everything is well above the ankle this year.”
Jessica snapped up her red notebook with one hand and grabbed Lila by the wrist with the other. “Come to my room. I have some dresses I can lend you. We’re about the same size.”
Lila pulled back. “I can’t go into the hallway. I’m not dressed.”
Jessica yanked the pink satin cover from the bed and wrapped it around Lila’s shoulders. “There! Good enough.”
Lila felt wild and rebellious as she trailed Jessica down the hall in her bare feet covered only in the blanket. Once in the room, Jessica tossed her notebook down on her bed and flung open the door to her wardrobe. Extracting a silk dress of deep cobalt blue with a dropped waist and ruffled bottom, she held it up to Lila. “This would be divine on you and you wouldn’t even need a corset.”
Lila held the corset protectively. “No, I want the corset.” She looked at herself in the mirror, dazzled at the prospect of wearing the gorgeous, stylish dress.
“Try it on,” Jessica urged her.
When Lila had slipped the dress over her head, she spun in front of Jessica’s gilded mirror, feeling unbelievably glamorous.
“You could wear it to dinner tonight,” Jessica suggested.
“I could never,” Lila protested, suddenly worried. “What if I got a food stain on it?”
Jessica laughed. “I’ve dropped food on it plenty of times. That’s what servants are for.”
“I suppose,” Lila said, beaming at Jessica. It occurred to her that the two of them had a lot in common. They weren’t far apart in age and they had both been recently abandoned by their closest sibling. Jessica could be a lot of fun. “I think we could become good friends, Jessica,” Lila took the bold step of saying.
The expression of withdrawal in Jessica’s eyes instantly made Lila wish she hadn’t spoken. What had gone wrong?
“Yes, I hope we will be,” Jessica agreed without an ounce of sincerity.
Why was she suddenly so against the idea of their friendship when she had been exuding camaraderie only moments ago? Was the term “friends” too much of a commitment? Had it reminded Jessica that she’d dropped her guard?
Lila glanced at the red notebook flung on the bed and, for a moment, thought she’d ask Jessica what she was always writing in it, but quickly reconsidered. It was probably too personal. Lila certainly wouldn’t want anyone reading her diary.
“If you’ll excuse me now, I need to go back to my journal writing,” Jessica said with the faintest cold breeze in her voice.
Lila caught herself up, trying to return Jessica’s sudden reserve with a distance of her own. She did not want to appear overeager. Still, maybe Jessica was simply fatigued and it was nothing personal.
“You write in your journal a good deal,” Lila observed as she headed for the door.
“Hmm, I do,” Jessica said, picking up the notebook.
“Yes, well… thanks for the loan of the dress. I’ll have it washed, pressed, and back to you in no time.”
“Keep it,” Jessica said. “I’m done with it.”
“I couldn’t. I’ll have it back to you,” Lila insisted. At the door, she flashed a smile. A friendship with Jessica would be nice and it was too soon to give up on it altogether. “Enjoy your journal writing.”
“Thank you,” Jessica said politely. “I do find solace in my notebook.”
“What a comfort it must be to you,” Lila said.
Perhaps someday soon, when they knew each other better, Jessica would share its contents with her.
Chapter Eight
That evening Nora lay on her narrow bed in the servants’ quarters, dressed in her maid’s outfit, rubbing her bare feet. Was it possible that, at seventeen, her feet continued to grow? It certainly seemed that her shoes were pinching lately. Maybe they were simply swollen from being on them all day.
Helen came down the hall dressed in her plain white cotton nightgown, her orangey hair in a single braid down her back. She stopped by Nora’s door, hovering outside. “Feet hurt?” she inquired.
“They’re all swelled up,” Nora reported, lifting them to show Helen.
Helen held her hands up, spreading her fingers. “With me it’s my hands. Having them in water so much of the day makes my cuticles crack. Hurts like crazy.”
“My feet have only just started giving me trouble this month, since I have to tend to Jessica Fitzhugh in addition to my regular duties.”
Helen leaned against the doorjamb casually. “Why don’t they get her a maid of her own?”
“In this place? Cheapskate manor?” Nora asked with a laugh. “There’s no money for that.”
“Do you honestly believe there’s no money, or is Lord Darlington just the tightest man who ever lived?”
Nora considered the question and decided that the money really wasn’t there. The once brilliant colors of the Moorish style ballroom were faded and chipped. The leather couch in the upstairs smoking room had sustained a tear that was getting bigger by the day, yet the couch remained. Fixtures were broken, in places ceilings were coming down, tiles were chipped: The list went on and on. Surely those things would have been repaired if the Darlingtons had the money to do so. “They don’t have it,” Nora told Helen. “Just look around.”
“Then why don’t they move to a smaller place?” Helen questioned.
“Wentworth Hall has been in the Darlington family since the seventeen hundreds. They would never give it,” Nora explained. “They’re not like me and you, Helen. They’re rich and they’ve always been rich. They can’t stop being rich just because the money has run out.”
“I don’t understand,” Helen admitted. “How can they be rich if they have no money?”
“It’s breeding, Helen. Rich people have been marrying other rich people for so many generations that by now it’s in their blood. They wouldn’t know how to stop being rich.”
Helen shook her head wearily. “I wish I knew how to stop being poor,” she said. “It’s never going to happen if I keep working here. A person can never get ahead when she earns only her room and board, medical expenses, and such a small amount of pay it’s all gone by the middle of the week.”
“I know,” Nora commiserated. “By the time you post a letter and buy yourself a cup of tea, it’s gone.”
Helen yawned broadly as she stretched. “Well, better turn in. Another thrilling day of laundry awaits me in the morning.”
“Sleep tight,” Nora called after Helen as she disappeared down the hall.
A pang of hunger hit Nora, and the mention of tea made Nora crave a cup. The idea of getting back into her boots was unappealing, so she put on her woolen slippers and made her way down the servant’s staircase to the kitchen.
The gas lamp glowed softly, and in its light Nora saw Michael hunched over a cup at the table. “Can’t sleep?” she inquired, coming into the room and turning up the light.
“Naw. Can’t,” he admitted. “You?”
“I’m so tired I could sleep where I’m standing. Just a little hungry is all,” Nora said as she lit a match to the
