But what was even deeper than Emily’s anger was her despair at losing this one sudden bright hope for a trusted friend. Kipper had joined the ranks of all the other “eyes and ears” of Sugar Hill Hall. Emily was all alone and on her own again, and she felt as if her heart had turned to lead as she trailed after Tilly.
SIX
A Sad Arrival
“You starts with Mrs. Poovey’s room, ’cause that’s how far I done,” Tilly said, stumping into the parlor. “After you sweeps, you makes up a bed, ’cause there’s another old one coming in. When you finishes Mrs. Poovey, you moves along to Mr. Bottle and Mr. Dobbs. After that …”
As Tilly droned on, Emily’s thoughts wandered to the cobwebs and cracked cupids on the ceiling, the tarnished gilt and decaying plaster, the fog creeping past the windows, and the shadows creeping in the parlor. A few of the old people were already stationed in their chairs, staring vacantly ahead and occupied only in waiting for their day to end. Would the time ever come when she would be used to the grim sight of what this room had become? Emily wondered.
Tilly stopped suddenly at the foot of the stairs by the bowl of glistening peppermints. “Well, you already knows what you ain’t ’lowed to touch, so now you learns where you ain’t ’lowed to go, and that’s one place.” She pointed a threatening finger toward a closed door at the far end of the parlor. “It’s Mrs. M.’s and Mrs. P.’s dining room, which you was so rudely gawping into after dinner last night. ’Cross from it’s Mrs. M.’s room. You ’specially ain’t ’lowed in that one. You gets that?”
“Yes, Tilly,” replied Emily, who had as much desire to walk into Mrs. Meeching’s room as to enter a pit of snakes. “Am I allowed to go into the ballroom?”
“Ballroom?” said Tilly suspiciously. “What ballroom? Ain’t no ballroom in this house.” Then she snickered. “You thinks you come to a castle?”
“There was one when I was here long ago,” Emily said, remembering the beautiful ball Aunt and Uncle Twice had held for Mama and Papa in the grand room across from the dining room. “It was right—it was right —but the doors aren’t there any more!” Instead of two elegant, gilded doors, Emily had found herself pointing at a blank wall with two dreary pictures hanging from it.
“ ’Course not, stoopid! Ain’t no ballroom and ain’t never been no doors. Y’r brains must be melting ’way from no eating. Anyone what’s so picky-picky ’bout the food—” Glaring at Emily, Tilly started up the stairs.
A whole ballroom had disappeared! Stunned by still another question, another mystery, Emily skirted the dangerous peppermint bowl and scurried after Tilly.
“That’s Mrs. P.’s room,” said Tilly shortly, pointing to another closed door at the head of the stairs. “Them other doors goes to rooms what ain’t occupied. Howsumever, they has to be done up ’cause Mrs. M. shows ’em to perspective customers. Most times y’r aunt ’lows me to take care o’ them!” Tilly added proudly as she turned to start up another stairway.
This one was enclosed and led to an ordinary hallway also lined with doors. “These ain’t yours neither,” said Tilly, and started up still another set of stairs. These were very narrow and steep, and Emily’s legs ached by the time they arrived at their final destination, a narrow, dark hallway pungent with the smell of dust and old wood peculiar to attics. Outside a half-open door, a broom and mop leaned wearily against a bucket filled with sponges, soap, and rags. A feather duster poked from the bucket like a rooster’s tail.
Without knocking, Tilly stumped through the doorway into a room as sparsely furnished and almost as uninviting as Emily’s underground cell. Tilly began at once to instruct her on how to clean the room, completely ignoring a little woman in a frayed black wool shawl sitting beside her cot with tiny, bird-sized hands folded quietly in her lap.
Tilly directed a finger at an unmade cot beneath the curtainless window. “First you makes this up f’r the new party coming. Then you sloshes out the wash basin and empties it into the slop jar. When y’r done with that, and done proper, you sweeps and dusts.” As she spoke, Tilly pulled from a narrow wardrobe two sheets, a worn blanket, and a lumpy pillow and dumped them unceremoniously on the bare mattress.
Emily tried to keep her mind on Tilly’s lecture, but it kept wandering to the little old woman, who sat staring out the bare window with empty eyes, as if Emily and Tilly were not even there. This was the tiny, helpless creature who had dared to take the peppermints and been locked in the Remembrance Room. This was Mrs. Poovey!
“Emily, ain’t you paying no ’tention?” Tilly said crossly.
“Oh yes, Tilly!” Emily quickly picked up a sheet and began clumsily to spread it over the thin hair mattress.
“Hmmmph!” snorted Tilly. “Well, minds you doesn’t dawdle.” She stumped fiercely from the room, marching back down the stairs with heavy, accusing footsteps.
Emily went on wrestling with the difficult problem of getting the sheet straight on the cot. From time to time she looked shyly over her shoulder at Mrs. Poovey. For all the attention she paid her new young housekeeper, however, Mrs. Poovey might well have been made of wax.
The sheets and blanket finally conquered, Emily went to work trying to put life into the hopeless pillow. Thump! Thump! Thump! The sound echoed hollowly against the bare walls and floor. Then the room fell dismally still and silent again. Suppose, Emily wondered, someone spoke directly to Mrs. Poovey. Wouldn’t she have to reply? Emily tightened her arms around the pillow and drew a deep breath.
“It—it’s a dreadfully
